"When my brother returned from Lausanne," she began again in that colorless, monotonous voice, "he was put into Andrew Merriman's office at the mills. Mamma and I were glad at first. We trusted Andrew Merriman. He had always been tactful and kind about Bibby. But papa decided he—my brother—should live at home so that he might exert a direct personal authority over him. And the two had nothing, nothing in common. You can judge from the contents of this library what papa's tastes and pursuits were. My brother did not care anything about politics, or social reform, or that class of subject. He was pleasure-loving, and I do not think his long stay abroad improved him in that respect. Papa supposed the discipline at M. Leonard's school to be rigid. Among the elder boys I have reason to fear it was decidedly lax."
Adrian made a slight movement of comprehension. He could picture the régime, and could well imagine the nice little games these exiled young gentlemen had been at!
"Papa was stern; Bibby inattentive, sullen, and nervous. At dinner we—mamma and I—used constantly to be in dread of collisions. We were in perpetual anxiety as to what Bibby might inadvertently say, or not say, which might provoke papa's sarcasm. Then mamma's health began to give way. We went to Torquay for the winter, taking the servants, and Highdene was shut up. Bibby went into lodgings near to Andrew Merriman, in the suburb of Leeds, in which the mills are situated. Papa wishing to train him in habits of economy, only allowed him the salary of a junior clerk. But every one there knew we were rich, so the tradespeople were only too ready to give Bibby credit, while unscrupulous persons borrowed of him. He was naturally generous, and easily imposed upon, and he enjoyed the society of those who flattered and made much of him. It was said he frequented low company, that he gambled at cards and got intoxicated. I I do not know how far this was true, but he did get deeply into debt. More than once Andrew Merriman helped him, but he could not afford to be responsible for Bibby's continued extravagance. And then—then—my brother manipulated certain accounts and embezzled a large sum of money. Andrew Merriman discovered this. He tried to shield him, and interceded with papa for him—"
The speaker broke off, pausing for breath, bending down as though crushed by the weight of her recollections.
"It was very, very dreadful," she said. "Papa paid my brother's debts, but he forbade him all intercourse with us. He cut Bibby out of our family life, as a surgeon might cut out some malignant growth. He regarded him thus, I think—indeed, he said so once—as a diseased part the excision of which was imperative if the moral health of the family was to be preserved. He gave Andrew Merriman a capital sum, which was to be remitted to Bibby in small quarterly instalments. When that sum was exhausted he was to receive nothing further. We never saw him again. Papa bought this house, and we moved here. He would not remain at Highdene. The scandal had been too great. He could not forgive, nor could he endure pity. He made the business into a company, and retired. Mamma had become a complete invalid. The doctors thought this climate might benefit her; and then this place is far away from our former friends and associations. We knew no one here."
Joanna raised herself, looking, not at Adrian Savage, but past him, out at the dusky pines. She wiped her lips with her black-bordered handkerchief.
"That is all, Cousin Adrian," she said.
But, when the young man would have spoken she held up one hand restrainingly, and he saw that she shivered.
"Except—except this," she went on. "Papa ordered that Bibby should be considered as dead. Later Andrew ceased to hear from him, and rumors came that he was actually dead—that he had died at Buenos Ayres, where he had gone as a member of some theatrical troupe. But mamma and I never credited those rumors. Nor did Andrew Merriman. He does not credit them now."
She turned her head, looking full at Adrian with that same desperation of appeal.