Mr. Scarborough's Family

by Anthony Trollope

"To get it! It was mine. According to what he said it was my own. He had robbed me to give it to Mountjoy. Now he intends to rob me again in order that Mountjoy may have it. He will leave such a kettle of fish behind him, with all his manoeuvring, that neither of us will be the better of Tretton."

Then he went to the squire. In spite of what had passed between him and his aunt, he had thought deeply of his conduct to his father in the past, and of the manner in which he would now carry himself. He was aware that he had behaved,—not badly, for that he esteemed nothing,—but most unwisely. When he had found himself to be the heir to Tretton he had fancied himself to be almost the possessor, and had acted on the instincts which on such a case would have been natural to him. To have pardoned the man because he was his father, and then to have treated him with insolent disdain, as some dying old man, almost entirely beneath his notice, was what he felt the nature of the circumstances demanded. And whether the story was true or false it would have been the same. He had come at last to believe it to be true, and had therefore been the more resolute; but, whether it were true or false, the old man had struck his blow, and he must abide by it. Till the moment came in which he had received that communication from Tretton, the idea had never occurred to him that another disposition of the property might still be within his father's power. But he had little known the old man's power, or the fertility of his resources, or the extent of his malice. "After what you have done you should cease to stay and disturb us," he had once said, when his father had jokingly alluded to his own death. He had at once repented, and had felt that such a speech had been iniquitous as coming from a son. But his father had, at the moment, expressed no deep animosity. Some sarcastic words had fallen from him of which Augustus had not understood the bitterness. But he had remembered it since, and was now not so much surprised at his father's wish to injure him as at his power.

But could he have any such power? Mr. Grey, he knew, was on his side, and Mr. Grey was a thorough lawyer. All the world was on his side,—all the world having been instructed to think and to believe that Mr. Scarborough had not been married till after Mountjoy was born. All the world had been much surprised, and would be unwilling to encounter another blow. Should he go into his father's room altogether penitent, or should he hold up his head and justify himself?

One thing was brought home to him, by thinking, as a matter of which he might be convinced. No penitence could now avail him anything. He had at any rate by this time looked sufficiently into his father's character to be sure that he would not forgive such an offence as had been his. Any vice, any extravagance, almost any personal neglect, would have been pardoned. "I have so brought him up," the father would have said, "and the fault must be counted as my own." But his son had deliberately expressed a wish for his father's death, and had expressed it in his father's presence. He had shown not only neglect, which may arise at a distance, and may not be absolutely intentional; but these words had been said with the purpose of wounding, and were, and would be, unpardonable. Augustus, as he went along the corridor to his father's room, determined that he would at any rate not be penitent.

"Well, sir, how do you find yourself?" he said, walking in briskly and putting out his hand to his father. The old man languidly gave his hand, but only smiled. "I hear of you, though not from you, and they tell me that you have not been quite so strong of late."

"I shall soon cease to stay and trouble you," said the squire, with affected weakness, in a voice hardly above a whisper, using the very words which Augustus had spoken.

"There have been some moments between us, sir, which have been, unfortunately, unpleasant."

"And yet I have done so much to make them pleasant to you! I should have thought that the offer of all Tretton would have gone for much with you."

Augustus was again taken in. There was a piteous whine about his father's voice which once more deceived him. He did not dream of the depth of the old man's anger. He did not imagine that at such a moment it could boil over with such ferocity; nor was he altogether aware of the cat-like quietude with which he could pave the way for his last spring. Mountjoy, by far the least gifted of the two, had gained the truer insight to his father's character.

"You had done much, or rather, as I supposed, circumstances had done much."