Tom had risen to a sitting posture. Jabez flung a loose shawl—it was Dorothy’s—over his shoulders.
“You mustn’t risk taking cold,” he said, very gently. “Are you quite sure you feel strong enough to hear a rather long story, Tom, or would you rather wait?”
“I would rather hear it now, sir.”
“Then hear me to the finish and don’t judge me too harshly. God knows I’ve suffered enough without your condemnation. But it might have been worse, it might have been worse.”
Mr. Tinker was silent for a time, as if to arrange his thoughts or choose his words. Then very gravely he spoke:
“My father, Tom, was a very strict, stern man” (“I’m not surprised to hear that,” thought his listener) “and with an overweening sense of family pride. He was very proud that he was a Tinker, and, indeed, Tom, we are as old a family as there is in the valley. Never forget that. And we have an unsullied name. My father had another failing, if failing it be called. He was inordinately fond of money. He expected, he took it for granted, that both Dick and myself would marry not for money, of course, but where money was.
“But both his sons disregarded their father’s wishes. I, secretly, while he yet lived; Richard, as you know, after his death. It was my fate, at the house of a customer in Liverpool, to meet sweet Annie Lisle, the family governess. She was an orphan, alone and unfriended, in the world. What else she was, how sweet, how winsome, how patient, how true and how trustful I cannot bear to think of, still less speak. I won her love. I dared not speak of my passionate devotion at home. My father with the burden of age had become each year more exacting, less tolerant of opposition to his will. I feared to anger him. It was in his power to disinherit me by his will. I was absolutely dependent on him. The homestead was his, the mill, the business, were his. I was not man enough to face poverty, expulsion from my home, loss of social status—not even for my loved one’s sake. Call me a poltroon, Tom, a coward, a cur, if you like. I have used bitterer words than those to myself. I knew it would be hopeless to ask my father’s consent. He would have had one word—‘Go!’ Then I began, with a satisfaction I strove in vain to banish, to observe, nay, to gauge, the sign of my father’s failing health. I persuaded myself he was not long for this world, and in my heart of hearts I was glad. But my passion ill brooked delay. I urged Annie to a secret wedding. Reluctantly she consented. She procured a week’s holiday from her employer, and we were married by special license at the parish church of Seaford, on the south coast, a small fishing hamlet little frequented by the tourist or holiday-maker. It was a week of Paradise. Then my wife returned to her employment, I was to find a favourable opportunity of breaking the news to my father. Meantime anything might happen. I conjured my wife to keep our secret. I kept the certificate of our marriage, so afraid was I lest it should fall into another’s hand. My wife was not even to write to me lest my father’s suspicions should be aroused. I continued to call on my Liverpool customer as usual, and when he asked me as usual to dine or sup at his house, I treated my own wife with the distant courtesy one shows to a governess. One day, early in the winter of 1830, I called at the house of Mr.——, I was determined to take my wife away. My father had softened much during the past few months. He had agreed to pay me a fixed salary, instead of doling out a pound or two for pocket money. I had resolved to place Annie in some small cottage not far from Holmfirth I had thought of Greenfield. I could see her there each week. And there was another reason why another home should be found for her. Judge of my consternation when Mrs.—, in answer to the inquiry which I made with assumed indifference as to the health of the children and their governess, told me that Miss Lisle had been dismissed her service, dismissed ignominiously, without a character. I controlled myself as well as I could. Mrs. —— said enough to convince me that my darling had been dismissed under the darkest suspicion that can rest upon a pure, unsullied woman. But even then I did not disclose the truth. My wife had vanished and left no trace behind her. She had been true to her promise to me, even when a word would have cleared her name and confounded the angry jealous woman who spurned her from her home. Almost penniless she turned into the world. She never wrote to me or sent me word. Judge how I searched in all places likely and unlikely for her. Secretly, with what scant means I could procure. I instituted inquiries on every side; but my wife had disappeared as effectively as though she had never been. She had never worn her wedding ring; she had borne my name only during all that too brief week of wedded bliss at Seaford. Time went by; I knew my wife, if she still lived, must be a mother. I feared, then at last I persuaded myself, that in her shame and grief she had destroyed herself. I called upon my head the curse of the Almighty, but God seemed heedless of my blasphemous ravings. From that time life for me had lost its savour. I lived only for work, for business success. They were my distraction. Then, as you know, I married. But of that I need not speak. My wife bore me no children, and when I took Dorothy as my ward I almost hated the child because I could not love her as my own.”
There was a long silence. Tom feared to speak. He guessed the rest too surely.
“One present only had I given to my sweetheart. It was a locket with our initials intertwined, and a love-knot of our hair inside. It was a whim of Annie’s. Tom, my boy, my son, you have worn that locket about your neck. Can you forget the wrong I did your mother, and forgive the father who can never forgive himself?”
“Nay, Mr. Tinker, nay, father, if indeed I am your son,” faltered Tom.