CHAPTER VII.—AN UNLOVED LIFE.
It was a little time before the father spoke again. But without being able to see his face, even without being able to hear him breathe, Philip felt that he was struggling with something in himself. Perhaps it was only a struggle to regain that composure of manner which he had temporarily lost. In this he succeeded. But was that all Mr Hadleigh was struggling with in those few moments of silence? At anyrate, when he spoke, his voice was steadier than before; more like its ordinary tone, but without its hardness.
‘Before I proceed, may I ask what was the purport of the two letters you received?’
‘The one was simply urging me on no account to fail to start in the Hertford Castle as arranged, and assuring me of such welcome as I might desire.’
‘That was not much to write about. And the other?’
‘The other inclosed a note which I am to deliver personally to a firm of solicitors in the City, and requesting that I should bring with me the packet they would intrust to my care.’
‘Is that all?’
‘That is all, sir.’
‘One question more. Are you very anxious to make this journey, which may end in nothing? Is there no one here who could persuade you to give it up altogether?’
Philip was a good deal perplexed as to how he should answer this question. There was Some one who could have persuaded him to stay at home; but the sweet voice of that Some one was again whispering in his ear, ‘It was your mother’s wish that you should go;’ and besides, there was the natural desire of youth to see strange countries and peoples.
‘I thought, sir, that this question of my going out to Uncle Shield had been all settled long ago,’ he replied awkwardly, for he knew that any reference to the command laid upon him by his mother always disturbed his father.
‘That is not an answer to my questions.’
‘Well, I consider it my duty to go.’
‘And you wish to go?’
‘I do—now. Even setting aside the prospects he holds out to me, I feel that I must go.’
The father made a mental note of the fact that his son gave no reply to the second question; but he did not press it farther at this moment. He seemed to draw breath, and then went on in a low voice: ‘I think, Philip, you have not found me an exacting parent. Although I have never failed to point out to you the way in which it would please me most to see you walk, I have never insisted upon it. And I will own that on your part your conduct has been up to a certain point satisfactory.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘That certain point is your procrastination in the choice of your future career. You have shown that you do not care about business—and my own conviction is that you are unfitted for it—and you will not decide upon a profession. Although you have dabbled in medicine and law, you have not entered earnestly upon the study of either. I have been patient with this wavering state of mind which you have displayed ever since you left the university. I do not wish to force you into any occupation which you may dislike, and would, therefore, certainly fail in; for then you would console yourself by blaming me for being the cause of your failure.’
‘Oh, no, no—do not think me so ungrateful.’
‘But I did hope,’ continued the father calmly, without heeding the interruption, ‘that before you came to think of marriage, you would have settled with yourself upon some definite course of action in the future.’
‘Your reproaches are just, sir,’ answered Philip earnestly and with some agitation, ‘and I deserve them. But this journey will decide what I am to be and do.’
‘I did not mean to reproach you,’ said the father, and again there was that distant note of sadness which sounded so strangely in his voice; ‘but it seemed to me right to remind you of these things before telling you the rest. I reproach myself more than you.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘Listen. My young life was passed in a home which had been suddenly stricken down from wealth and ease to poverty. On every hand I heard the one explanation given for my father’s haggard looks, my mother’s wasting illness, for my poor sister’s white face and constant drudgery with her needle, and for my own unsatisfied hunger; and that explanation was—the want of money.... I resolved that I should conquer this demon that was destroying us all—I resolved that I should have money.’
Here he paused, as if the memory of that time of misery proved too painful for him. Philip’s sympathetic nature was drawn closer to his father at that moment than it had ever been before. He rose impulsively and grasped his arm. In the darkness the forms of the two men were indistinguishable to each other; but with that sympathetic touch each saw the other clearly in a new light.
‘My poor father,’ murmured Philip, clenching his teeth to keep down the sob that was in his throat.
There was silence; and at that moment a pale gleam of moonlight stole across the room. But it seemed only to darken the corner in which the two men stood.
By-and-by Mr Hadleigh gently removed his son’s hand.
‘Sit down again, Philip, or go over to the window so that I may see you.’
Philip walked quietly to a place opposite the window, and putting his hands behind him, rested them on the ledge of a bookcase, leaning back so that the light fell full upon his frank, handsome face, making it look very pale in his anxiety. He knew that his father was gazing earnestly at him, and as he could not see him, he was glad to hear his voice again, which in some measure took away the uncomfortable feeling produced by the singular position.
‘You know that I gained my object,’ Mr Hadleigh proceeded, with a mingling of bitterness and regret in his voice; ‘but at what a cost!... All the lightness of heart which makes the lives of even the poorest children happy at times—all the warmth of hope and enthusiasm which brightens the humblest youth, were gone. It was not hope that led me on: it was determination. All emotion was dead within me: at twenty I was an old man; and in the hard grasping struggle with which I fought against the demon Poverty, and won the favour of the greater demon, Wealth—even love itself was sacrificed.’
He paused again; but this time Philip did not speak or move. There was something so pitiful as well as painful in this confession that he was dumb.
‘They—father, mother, sister—all died before I had broken down the first barrier between me and fortune. I shed no tears: each death in poverty hardened me more and more.... It was—your mother who enabled me to break down the first barrier’——
‘Ah, I am glad of that,’ exclaimed the son with a burst of happy relief.
‘Wait. I did not know what love was: I did not love her.’ (Philip started, but remained silent.) ‘She had money: I married her for it. She did not love me; but she had quarrelled with the man she did love, and accepted me in her mad chagrin. We understood each other, and I was content—she was not. From the day of her marriage to the day of her death, her life was one weary lamentation that in her moment of passion I had crossed her path—a life of self-scourging and regret for the man she loved. I saw it, and knew it; but I did not know what love was, and I could not pity it. I did know something of hate; and I believed she hated me.... Had she only cared for me a little, it might have been different,’ he added in a lower voice, and as if speaking to himself.
‘You wrong her, father, you wrong her,’ said Philip in a husky, tremulous voice.
‘It may be; but I did not know then, what I understand too well now. A pity, a pity—for it might have been so different! As it was, her brother turned from her too, and would not forgive her. He hated me—he hates me: because the lover she had deserted was his close friend; and whilst I prospered, his friend failed. In a few years the man had lost everything he possessed, and died—some say by his own hand: killed by me, as your mother seemed to believe, and as Austin Shield does believe. I had ruined his life, he said, and I was as much responsible for his death, as if I had given him poison or shot him. These were the last words Shield ever spoke to me.’
‘It must have been in mere passion. He cannot believe that now, or he would not send for me.’
‘I do not know. I went on my way, unheeding his words, and would have forgotten him, but for your mother’s grief. I had no home-life; but I did my duty, as it seemed to me. The money which had been brought to me was repaid with compound interest: all that money could buy was at your mother’s command: all that she could wish for her children was supplied to them, and you all seemed satisfied. But I was not with you—you were hushed and lifeless in my presence, and seemed only happy in my absence. Sitting in this room, I have heard your voices raised in gladness, and if I passed in amongst you, seeking for that strange something which the Demon Wealth with all his gold could not supply, it seemed as if the Demon sat upon my shoulder, frightening you and rendering you speechless. So I lived alone, although so near you, and my Familiar became kinder and kinder to me, until I wearied of him. I sought I did not know what, and could not find it.’
He stopped, breathing heavily, as if suppressing his emotion.
‘Oh, if you had only spoken to us as you are speaking to me now, father!’ cried Philip, so earnestly that it sounded like a reproach.
‘It would have been better,’ was the sad reply. ‘I tell you these things that you may understand the proposal I am about to make to you. I now know what love is, and as too often happens, the knowledge comes too late. But it will help me in my effort to make two people happy. Can you guess who they are?’
‘I am afraid you must inform me.’
‘Yourself and Ma—Miss Heathcote. I propose that you should stay at home and marry as soon as may be agreeable to the lady. I shall settle upon you a sufficient fortune to enable you to live comfortably; but I shall expect you to enter some profession. Do you consent?’
Here was a proposal at which Philip’s whole nature jumped gleefully. But that voice was in his ears, and he overcame the temptation.
‘It was my mother’s wish that I should go, if my uncle ever summoned me,’ he said in a respectful but decisive voice, ‘and I must go.’
‘So be it,’ rejoined the father, and there was a note of bitterness in his tone; ‘I shall not again attempt to alter your plans.’
There was a peculiar emphasis on the ‘I.’