Bred in the Bone; Or, Like Father, Like Son: A Novel

by James Payn

Trevethick reached forth his huge hand, and seized the other's shoulder with a gripe of steel. It seemed to compress bone and sinew as in a vice; the arm between them was as a bar of iron. Richard felt powerless as a child, and could have cried like a child—not from pain, though he was in great pain, but from vexation and rage. It was maddening to find himself thus physically subjugated by one whom he so utterly despised.

"Keep a civil tongue in your head, cock-sparrow," growled the giant, "lest I wring your neck. You're a nice one to talk of lying; you, with your tales of son and heirship to the Squire, and your offers of copper-mines for the asking! Who told me how I had been fooled? Why, Carew himself! You thought I should write to the parson, eh?"

Richard certainly had thought that he would have written to the parson, but he strove to look as calm and free from disappointment as he could, as he replied: "It was quite indifferent to me to whom you wrote, Mr. Trevethick. There was only one account to give of my affairs; and it was the same I had already given to you. I told you that my father did not choose to acknowledge me for the present, and I have no doubt that your questioning him upon the matter has made him very bitter against me; the more so because he is well aware that he is fighting against the truth; he knows that he was married to my mother in a lawful way, and that I am the issue of that marriage. It is true that technical objections have been raised against it, but his own conscience warns him that they are worthless. Mr. Whymper will tell you the same."

"Never you mind Mr. Whymper," said the landlord, gruffly, but at the same time relaxing his grasp upon the young man's shoulder; "the parson needs all his cleverness to take care of himself in this matter, and will have no helping hand to spare for you. The Squire is in a pretty temper with you both, I promise you. Here's his letter, if you'd like to see what he says of you in black and white; not that there's much white in it, egad!"

It was a custom of the Squire of Crompton, unconsciously plagiarized from the Great Napoleon, to let all letters addressed to him in an unfamiliar hand answer themselves. They were not destroyed, but lay for weeks or months unopened, until the fancy seized him to examine their contents. He made, it was true, a gallant exception in the case of those whose superscription seemed to promise a lady correspondent; but that had not been the case with the communication from Trevethick, and hence the long interval that had elapsed before it was attended to. Trevethick's business letters had hitherto, as was the case with all tenants of Crompton estate, been addressed to the chaplain only, so that he was unaware of this peculiarity of Carew, and had naturally construed his silence into a tacit admission of the truth of Richard's statement.

If force of language and bitterness of tone could have made up for his previous neglect, the Squire's letter was an apology in itself. It was short, but sharp and decisive. "The grain of truth," he wrote, "among the bushel of lies that this young gentleman has told you is, that he was once a guest under my roof—I forget whether for two nights or three. He will never be there again—neither now nor after I am in my box" (this was the Squire's playful way of alluding to the rites of sepulture). "He has no more claim upon me than any other of my bastards—of whom I have more than I know of—and in fact less, for I may have deceived their mothers, whereas his played a trick on me. As to his expectations from me, I can only tell you this much, that I expect he will come to be hanged; as for interest, whatever he may have with my son of a she-dog of a chaplain, he has none with me; and as for money, so far as I know, he is a pauper, and likely to remain so as long as he lives." There were other sentences spurted from the volcano of the Squire's wrath, but to the same effect.

"A nice letter of recommendation, truly, and from his own father, of the young gentleman who asked me for my daughter's hand!" growled Trevethick. "You ought to be thankful to get out of Gethin with whole bones. If 'Sol' was to come to know of what you asked of me, I would not answer for even so much as that, I promise you."

"'Sol' might have known of it had you not chosen to keep it from him, for reasons best known to yourself," said Richard, quietly. "You have taken some time to make up your mind between us."

Trevethick winced; for the promise of the young man's interest with respect to Wheal Danes had, in fact, been the bait which had tempted him to temporize so long. He had never meant to give his daughter to Richard; but he had hoped to reap an advantage, present or future, out of the implied intention; nor did he know even yet in what relation Richard stood with Parson Whymper.

"At all events, it's made up now," answered the landlord, curtly.