At last everybody was gone, even the musicians, the negroes—everybody. Skelton stood in the porch watching the rosy dawn over the delicious landscape, his face sombre, his whole air one of tension. His fury against Bulstrode had partly abated. On the contrary, a feeling of cynical pleasure at the way he would confute him took its place. So, the heedless old vagabond had gone over to Newington with that cock-and-bull story of a fortune whenever he, Skelton, was married or buried; and Mrs. Blair and her husband had been foolish enough to believe him. Well, they would find out their mistake in short order.
Skelton went straight to the library. Bulstrode was still there, sitting in a great chair leaning heavily forward. The daylight had begun to penetrate through the heavy curtains, and the candles were spluttering in their sockets. The first shock over, Bulstrode had got back some of his courage. Skelton, with an inscrutable smile on his face, walked up to him. Never was there a greater contrast between two men—one, a thoroughbred from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, accustomed to the habit of command; the other, bourgeois all over, and only asserting himself by an effort. Bulstrode, meaning to show that he was not cowed, began, like a vulgarian, to be violent.
“Look here, Skelton,� he began aggressively, “it’s done, and there’s no use talking. But recollect that I’m Lewis Pryor’s guardian—recollect—I—er—� Here Bulstrode began to flounder.
“I recollect it all,� answered Skelton contemptuously; “and I recollect, too, that you are still half drunk. When you are sober—�
“Sober,� said poor Bulstrode with something like a groan of despair. “When I’m sober I’m the most miserable, contemptible man on God’s earth. When I’m sober you can do anything with me. I’m sober now, I’m afraid.�
He was grotesque even in his deepest emotions. Skelton’s quick eye had caught sight of Lewis Pryor lying asleep on the sofa. He went towards him and drew back tenderly the curtains that half enveloped him. The boy was sleeping the sleep of youth and health, a slight flush upon his dark cheek, his hair tumbled over his handsome head, one arm thrown off; there was something wonderfully attractive in his boyish beauty.
“Look at him well,� said Skelton, with a new, strange pride in his voice. “See how manly, how well formed he is—slight, but a powerful fellow—worth two of that hulking Blair boy. See his forehead; did you ever see a fool with a forehead like that? and the cut of the mouth and chin! Think you, Bulstrode, that with this boy I will ever let the Blairs get any of that money that you foolishly told them they would? Could not any father be proud of such a boy? I tell you there are times when I yearn over him womanishly—when I cannot trust myself near him for fear I will clasp him in my arms. I envy Blair but one thing, and that is, that he can show the fondness for his son that I feel for mine but cannot show. Did you think, did you dream for a moment, that I would not see this boy righted?� He said “this boy� with an accent of such devoted pride that Bulstrode could only gaze astounded, well as he knew Skelton’s secret devotion to the boy. He had never in all his life seen Skelton so moved by anything. Skelton bent down and kissed Lewis on the forehead. If the portrait of Skelton’s great-grandfather that hung over the mantelpiece had stepped down from its frame and kissed the boy, Bulstrode could scarcely have been more surprised. No mother over her first-born could have shown more fondness than Skelton.
“Go, now,� presently cried Skelton. His anger had quite vanished. It seemed as if in that one burst of paternal feeling all pride and anger had melted away. He could defy the Blairs now. Bulstrode might have retaliated on him what he had said to Mrs. Blair about it. He might have said: “How can you prove it? So anxious you were to give this child a respectable parentage, that you cannot now undo, if you will, your own work. And who could not see an object in it that would make people believe you seized upon this boy merely as an instrument against the Blairs?� But he said not a word. He got up and went out, and, as he passed, he laid his hand upon the boy’s head.
“I, too, have loved him well,� he said.
“Yes,� said Skelton, “and that may help you yet. No man that loves that boy can my anger hold against.�