“I don’t like to hear you take that tone. I fear your view of the relation between father and son cannot be borne out. The Fifth Commandment is explicit on the point. But there, this isn’t the time for sermonising, you’ll say,” he added with a grave, kind smile. “Only, the idea of a breach of this relationship is, to my mind, one of the most painful things in the world.”
Roland looked unconvinced. He conjectured rightly that the good priest’s early youth had been fortunate in its natural guardians, and now his own children adored him, which made all the difference.
“You will think me bold in stating that the religious side of the question does not weigh with me in the least—circumstances alter cases,” was his reply. “And at any rate, Dr Ingelow, you will allow that I have never tried to win your favour by feigning a religion which I did not feel. However, to confine ourselves to the matter in hand. I have tried my utmost to satisfy you in what you asked, and have failed. But as I am perfectly in a position to marry independently of my father’s consent, I trust your answer will be favourable.”
Outwardly calmness itself, the rector was in reality much perplexed. A terrible family quarrel had taken place, indirectly owing to him and his—a reflection sufficiently distressing to one of his refinement of feeling. Then, again, this young man must not be allowed to throw up his prospects for life in a fit of rash impulse and hot temper. No—at all costs this must be prevented.
“We will waive the question of duty,” he said. “But is there no chance of a reconciliation? Surely there is. When you get to my age you will realise that life is too short for these prolonged feuds; quarrels between blood relations are of all things the most heart-rending, and the day may come when you will bitterly regret this one. And then, to take a lower ground. How can you, in a moment of anger, and all for the sake of a few hasty words, throw up your really splendid prospects? And how can I be a party to your doing so. Surely you must see that it is impossible.”
“There is no chance of any reconciliation,” answered Roland deliberately. “I would hardly forgive one or two of the things he dared to say, even if he were to go down on his knees and beg me to—and I think even you would hardly expect him to do that. As for what you are good enough to call ‘a few hasty words,’ I tell you we exchanged opinions of each other that would have made your hair stand on end could you have heard us; nor was that all. In the matter of prospects, I have always considered my chances of ever possessing Cranston to be so very vague and shadowy as not seriously worth reckoning in the light of prospects. And then, look what such ‘prospects’ would involve. Perhaps twenty years of absolute slavery to the whims and caprices of the hardest and most unloving of masters. Only think of that! And at fifty I might find myself in possession, and Heaven knows I should deserve to. So, in renouncing these most shadowy prospects, this morning, I could not feel that I was actually undergoing any real loss. But I thought I had made all this clear to you yesterday—I mean as regarded the uncertainty of any prospects beyond the actual means in my possession,” he added in an anxious tone.
“I don’t think you understand me, Mr Dorrien,” said the rector, rather stiffly. “I might have hoped you would have known me better than to suppose that I was reasoning otherwise than disinterestedly in this matter of your eventually possessing Cranston or not; or that the latter contingency would detract in my eyes from your eligibility to become my daughter’s husband, you being otherwise in a satisfactory position. What I did mean to convey was this. You are young now; all your feelings and aspirations are strong, and warm, and healthful, and you are capable of self-sacrifice; you dearly love my child. I can see that readily enough, although you are not one of the effusive order of lovers,” he went on, his tone softening, and a quiet, kindly smile gleaming in his eyes. “You would make any sacrifice for her—and for all this I honour you. But, as I said before, you are young. Well. You give up this inheritance, and you do so cheerfully. Middle age comes on, and you see what should have been yours in other hands. You are a stranger in the home of your ancestors—you have the cares and vexations—ay, and the disappointments of life crowding upon you, while another enjoys in ease and luxury your noble birthright, which has then passed away from you for ever. How will you feel then? Will you have the strength resolutely to bear up against this most mortifying contrast, to banish the thought of it far from you—or will it embitter—eventually perhaps crush the remainder of your existence? This is what I have been thinking of while we have been sitting here. Now have you thought of it?”
He laid his hand on the other’s arm with an affectionate gesture, and his dark eyes were full of sympathy as he bent his glance upon the young man’s face, awaiting the answer.
“I have thought of it, Dr Ingelow,” was the quiet reply. “I had already done so—had weighed the pros and cons most carefully before I spoke to you yesterday. And—”
He stopped short. He was nearly giving the rector an inkling of the other insurmountable obstacle which stood in the way of reconciliation, and any material advantage it might bring with it, but with a natural distaste for discussing family matters with an outsider—however sympathetic—he forebore. Had he not done so, it is possible that the answer to his wishes might have been different; as it was, Dr Ingelow would not give up the notion that the quarrel between Roland and his father, however grave, was yet capable of being healed, and it was not for him, a Christian priest, irrespective of other considerations, to be the means of widening the breach.