Toilers of Babylon: A Novel

by B. L. Farjeon

A sigh of relief escaped Mr. Manners. He was not childless, then. It was still in his power to make reparation, or if not to make, to offer it. The latter alternative trod close upon the heels of the new-born impulse to atone for his harshness; the reflection intruded itself that his overtures towards a reconciliation might be declined. Many years had passed since there was peace between him and his son, and during all those years he had been, figuratively speaking, rolling in gold. So vast was his fortune that, living the life he did, he could not spend one half of it, and every day of his existence its colossal proportions grew. To Mark Inglefield he had made a most liberal allowance, and Inglefield, cunning and careful of the future, had occasionally drawn largely upon the great contractor's generosity. The requests he made were never refused, the reasons for them never inquired into. Mr. Manners had set store upon his wealth before he discarded his son; it meant then distinction, fame, political power, in which he would have a share. Kingsley's sense of right, no less than the ingenuousness and unselfishness of his nature, would have caused him to lay at his father's feet the honor and glory which he would assuredly have won had he been allowed to follow the career which, in his young manhood, had been mapped out for him. The rich man's heart was tortured as the image of Kingsley rose before him: the frank, laughing mouth, the bright eyes, the eager manner, smote him now with more than the force of actual blows. Those he could have parried or returned; not so the accusing voices from the past which proclaimed him tyrannical, ruthless, and unjust. The manner of Kingsley's life, as indicated by Mr. Parkinson's championship of his wife and daughter, was an added sting to the torture he was suffering. Kingsley and those with whom he had, without a murmur, thrown in his lot, had borne privation and poverty cheerfully, and had won a place in the esteem and affections of the poor people around them of which the highest in the land might have been proud. And all this time it had been in his, the father's, power to have lightened and brightened their lot without in the remotest degree feeling the loss; and all this time they had lived and labored without uttering one Word of reproach against him whose unreasoning, dictatorial conduct had made their life one of daily, hourly struggle; and all this time they had made no appeal to him upon whom they had a just claim, but trod, with courage and resignation, the thorny paths into which he had thrust them. Well might he hide his face in his hands with shame. He thought of Nansie, and of the surprise he felt when he first saw her--surprise at her modesty and gentleness of manner, surprise at the soft, pleading voice, surprise that she was a lady, fitted to grace any position to which wealth could raise her; to grace and adorn it, and to bring into it qualities of goodness which would have made her a shining example amid the follies and frivolities of fashionable life. What were the grounds of his anger against her and his son? That Kingsley, meeting her, had fallen in love with her, and had wooed her honorably, and that she, urged in some degree by youth and love, and in some degree by Kingsley's confident view of the future, had accepted him and become his wife. How, then, was Nansie to be blamed? How had she merited the lot to which he had condemned her? And wherein lay Kingsley's misconduct? In that having wooed and won a lady, he had held an opinion of his father which placed Mr. Manners above the sordid considerations of a sordid age. That surely was not a crime; but the father and judge had viewed it as such, and had meted out a cruel punishment. Kingsley might have acted differently; he might have acted towards Nansie as Mark Inglefield had acted towards the working-man, whose visit to Mr. Hollingworth had brought about disclosures which had led--and perhaps happily led--to the contemplations in which Mr. Manners indulged as he stood in the dark night with Mr. Parkinson. The conversation between them had been continued, and Mr. Manners, anxious to obtain as much information as it was in Mr. Parkinson's power to impart, had been told of Kingsley's connection with the Wilberforce Club, and of the project to make him president in the place of Mr. Bartholomew. This project Kingsley himself had relinquished, further experience of the violent views of his partisans having convinced him that their methods were not such as he could approve of. Mr. Parkinson, being led on by Mr. Manners, dilated at some length on working-men's politics in connection with Kingsley.

"Not so easily led as you would imagine, sir," observed Mr. Parkinson, referring to Kingsley's characteristics. "Sympathizing with all who suffer from unjust and unequal laws, but stanch in his belief that those wrongs can only be set right by temperate means. Mr. Kingsley Manners has a will of his own."

The father had already been compelled to acknowledge that. Strikingly different as he and his son were in their dispositions, they resembled each other in one respect; having resolved upon what they deemed right to do, they walked straight forward, regardless of consequences. Kingsley had done this in his relations with Nansie, and Mr. Manners had done this in his relations with his son. But Kingsley had sacrificed everything, his father nothing; and yet, of the two, Mr. Manners could not help confessing that the lot of the man who had cheerfully embraced poverty was the higher and nobler of the two.

"And now," said Mr. Parkinson, after further questions had been asked and answered, "I've told you all I know about Mr. and Mrs. Manners and their daughter, and I should like to know what good it is going to do me."

"I do not follow you," said Mr. Manners.

"You've been so much occupied," explained Mr. Parkinson, "in the object you've been driving at, getting all you can out of me, and telling me precious little to enlighten me, that maybe you've lost sight of my story."

"I acknowledge it," said Mr. Manners.

"I told you," proceeded Mr. Parkinson, "when we were in Mr. Hollingworth's house, that I believed you knew who the man is who has wronged my child. I say so again. You do know him. Come, come, sir, I've played fair with you; play fair with me."

"If the portrait you showed Mr. Hollingworth," said Mr. Manners, "is that of the man who has done you this wrong, I do know him."

"Thank you for that much. I'll trouble you for his name. I don't want any one to take my quarrels on himself; I'm equal to them, and can carry them through. His name, sir, if you please."