CHAPTER LVII.—THE SECRET IN THE OAK PARLOUR.
At Willowmere, the rapidity with which Mr Hadleigh regained strength astounded Dr Joy, and delighted the patient’s nurses, Aunt Hessy and Madge.
‘Wonderful nerve, wonderful physique he must have,’ whispered Dr Joy admiringly on the fifth day; ‘and yet, according to all accounts, he did not study the economy of either in the course of his life. Well, well; we do come across extraordinary constitutions occasionally, and his is one of them.’
The peculiarity of the case was that, after the first shock, the patient was perfectly calm, and showed not the remotest symptom of delirium. He understood everything that passed around him, and when permitted, talked quietly about the fire, and listened attentively to all that was related to him regarding it.
He heard with pleased surprise the account of how Caleb had rescued him, and said to Madge: ‘I must do something for that man; but it will have to be by your hand, for he is evidently resolved to accept nothing from mine.’
‘We will have to find out where he is, before we can do anything for him. He intended to go to Australia; but the day after he regained his freedom, he wrote to Philip saying that he had altered his mind, and was going to the United States.’
‘Why did not Philip keep him here?’
‘He tried to persuade him to remain, but could not. Poor Caleb, he does not know what a sorry heart he has left behind him.’ Here she checked herself, feeling that she was entering upon delicate ground. ‘He sent good wishes to you, and to all of us, and promised to write again to Philip, so that we may have an opportunity of serving him yet.’
‘He is a headstrong fellow,’ said Mr Hadleigh; ‘and I hope he may not ruin his own prospects by his too great eagerness to secure the independence of his neighbours. You see, Miss Heathcote, he is one of those unhappy people who have reached the stage of education in which they discover that they have certain rights, without having got education enough to recognise the responsibilities which these rights entail. Well, we must wait till we have news of him.... Has my safe been dug out of the ruins yet?’
That was a question he had been asking daily from the moment when he comprehended the disaster which had befallen him; and the answer had been hitherto always the same: ‘Not yet.’ At length came the information that the safe had been found, and was apparently little damaged by its ordeal of fire.
Then Mr Hadleigh bade Philip take his keys and bring him from the safe a little deed-box marked ‘L. H. Private.’ When Philip returned with the box, his father had been moved into the Oak Parlour, where he was reclining in a big armchair, supported by down cushions. A cheery fire with one of Madge’s oak-logs was blazing on the hearth, raising the temperature of the apartment to summer heat.
When the box was placed on the table beside him, he desired to be left alone until he should ring a hand-bell which was within his reach. He had caused Philip to place the key in the box, and for a space he remained motionless, staring at it, as if hesitating to touch again the spring of emotions which he had intended should be there shut up from him for ever. His eyelids drooped, and in spite of the bright glow of the fire, a shadow fell on his pale face.
‘Yes, I thank God that I am spared to do this thing,’ he muttered at length. ‘Let the secret die with me—it was a cruel as well as a selfish wish that prompted me to reveal it to them. What matter to me how they may hold me in their memory? They may think of me as that which circumstances made me appear, not as what I wished to be. What matter? The dead are beyond earthly pain and passion. I shall not stretch my hand from the grave to cast the least shade of regret over their lives.’
He slowly took from the box the two packets he had so carefully sealed and put away on the night of the fire. The one was addressed to Madge as Mrs Philip Hadleigh; the other, to his son Philip, with the injunction that he, after reading, was to decide whether or not to show it to his wife. The paper addressed to Madge, he took up and held in the long thin scarred hands as if it were a thing capable of feeling. He broke the seal and took the paper from the envelope, performing the operation mechanically, whilst the far-away look was in his eyes, and the Something he had sought but could not reach was fading from his vision altogether. His was the kind of expression with which one who knows he is doomed watches the last sunset displaying its brief, changing glories on the horizon. The broad streams of gleaming amber and opal are quietly transfused into the pensive gray of twilight, and the darkness follows.
‘They must never know.’
He made a movement as if to drop the paper into the fire, paused, and his eyes rested on the writing, although they did not distinguish the words. And there was no need; for they only represented in a feeble way thoughts which were always present to his mind.
‘I must speak’—such were the written words—‘or I shall lose all self-restraint. You cannot be harmed by what is put down here. Perhaps you will never see it; you certainly shall not until after my funeral, and then you may be able to understand and think none the less kindly of me for this confession.
‘You have seen me in my darkest moods, and you have wondered at my melancholy—wondered why I who had been granted such a large measure of what the world esteems prosperity should find no contentment in it. I have partly explained the cause to Philip: I could not explain it to you.
‘With bitter reason I early learned to believe that money—mere money—was the source of all earthly happiness. I was mistaken, and found out my mistake too late. I should have been content, perhaps happy in a way, if I could have gone on to the end without the knowledge that the want of Love is the only real sorrow which can enter into man or woman’s life. But there was nobody to lead me out of the miserable conviction which took possession of my mind as I watched those dearest to me fall one by one, not with the merciful swiftness of soldiers in battle, but in the lingering torments of soul and body which come to those who are poor.
‘Left alone, I looked around. The whole world was my enemy, to be conquered by force and stratagem. Any man may be rich, I said, who has a clear head and no conscience; who is willing to abandon all sentiment, forego all trivial pleasures, and give himself absolutely to the service of the world’s idol. I gave myself to the idol; and wealth came to me in increasing stores year by year, month by month, day by day.
‘At first, the sense of my victory sufficed; but soon there came the consciousness that this was not happiness; it was the successful working of a machine. I craved for something more, but did not know what it was. My wife’s affection, I knew, belonged to another: I had married her with that knowledge. I tried to win the friendship of my children; but the girls had learned to regard me with a kind of fear, Coutts with indifference, and Philip was the only one who could speak to me with frankness. His generous nature comforted me, but did not fill up the void in my life.
‘I was still seeking the Something which was necessary to me, and at length I found it in You.... Yes, you taught me what love was—I loved you with all the fervour of youth. My years, my experience of the world intensified the love which I had never known before. I was prepared to sacrifice all my possessions, all my hopes, for you.
‘Do not start away and cast the paper from you; I have made the sacrifice.
‘At the same moment in which the treasure that would have made life beautiful was revealed to me, there was also revealed the impossibility of its ever becoming mine. I was like a seaman who is shipwrecked and sinks within sight of land. I will not try to tell you through what pain I passed to the recognition of the duty Love imposed—to help forward your happiness in any direction in which you might think it lay. I will not try to tell you with what agitation I learned for the first time, what must have become known to me long before, had it not been for the morbid isolation in which my days were passed, that you and Philip were betrothed.
‘My first desire then was to bring about your union as speedily as possible, believing that I should find my peace in having the privilege of calling you daughter. Meeting your uncle Crawshay in the market-place, I took him to a private apartment in the inn and endeavoured to explain my wishes. I must have spoken stupidly, for he misunderstood me, and fancied that the proposal was on my own account. His misconception startled and confused me, and he left me in great indignation.
‘I thought of following him to Willowmere and explaining; but the effort already made had tried me so much, that not feeling sure of what awkwardness of speech or what irrepressible sign of emotion might betray my secret, I determined to let matters take their course, whilst my task should be to keep Philip at home and to hasten the marriage. You know how earnestly I strove to carry out that resolution.
‘You and Philip will be happy. You two have found in time the golden key of life, and in your happiness I shall find mine at last. I want to live till then; and, after, I shall pass away content.’
The invalid seemed to arouse from a sad and yet pleasing dream, for there was a faint smile on his worn face, and the eyes seemed to brighten as with the consciousness of victory—that greatest of all victories, the conquest of self.
He rang the hand-bell, and Madge herself promptly answered the summons.
‘It is you I wanted, my child.... How good and patient you have been with me—Madge. Take notice, I am to call you henceforth, Madge, my child.’
‘And I shall call you father,’ she said tenderly, taking one of his hands and stroking it affectionately.
He was silent for a few moments; then lifting his head, he drew her towards him and kissed her with strange solemnity on the brow.
‘Yes, my child,’ he said calmly, ‘that is the name which commands a portion of your love—and you will give me a little of it?’
‘A great deal of it—you may be sure of that,’ she answered, blushing slightly, and thinking how could she do otherwise than give a great deal of love to Philip’s father.
‘You give me more comfort than you know, my dear daughter. Now take this paper and place it on the fire, so that I may see it burn to ashes.’
She obeyed unquestioningly; and he watched the flame stretching its white fingers round the secret which was to die with him; saw the paper curl into black and white films; and then he drew a long breath of relief.
‘They can never know now,’ was his mental exclamation. ‘Thank God it is done, and by her hand.’
There was a little while of dreamy silence, during which Madge stood by his side, holding his hand, and anxiously noting every change on his countenance. The changes were rapid and curious as those of a kaleidoscope: now there was pain; again a stern frown, as if checking some rebellious spirit, and anon a serene smile of resignation and content. With this latter expression he looked up to her.
‘Call Philip.’
The son was immediately in attendance.
‘I hope you are not exerting yourself too much, sir,’ was his anxious observation.
‘O no; I am wonderfully strong this afternoon, and am taking advantage of the renewed strength to put some matters straight, which being done, will relieve my mind, and so give me the better chance of a speedy recovery. But it is as well to be prepared for the worst; and therefore I wish to have the satisfaction of handing you this packet in Madge’s presence. You will learn from it that when I took from you the portion of my fortune which would have been yours in the ordinary course of events, I gave it to your future wife. I did not intend you to know this until after my death; but as your uncle has come to grief, I am desirous of relieving your mind as soon as possible from any fear of the future; and I should have been glad to have helped Austin Shield out of his difficulties, for your mother’s sake—but he would refuse any help that came from me.—What is that?’
The exclamation was caused by one of the oak panels facing him slowly moving aside and revealing the form of a man.