“Every body will soon be at liberty to say what they please about it,” said Jack. “Where is he? I had better go and talk to him, I suppose?”
“Papa is in the library,” said Sara. “Jack, he wants our support. He wants us to stand by him—or, I mean, he wants you; as for me,” she continued, with a flash of mingled softness and defiance, “he knows I would not forsake him; he wants you.”
“Why shouldn’t you forsake him?” said Jack, with a momentary growl; “and why should he be doubtful of me?”
But he did not wait for any answer. He took the decanter of sherry from the sideboard, and swallowed he did not know how much; and then he went off to the library to seek out his father. There was a certain stealthiness about the house—a feeling that the people belonging to it were having interviews in corners, that they were consulting each other, making solemn decisions, and that their guests were much in the way. Though Sara rushed away immediately to the room where her friends were, after waylaying her brother, her appearance did not alter the strong sense every body had of the state of affairs. The very servants slunk out of Jack’s way, and stood aside in corners to watch him going into the library. He called the footman out of his hiding-place as he passed, and swore at him for an impertinent fool. The man had been doing nothing that was impertinent, and yet he did not feel that there was injustice in the accusation. Something very serious had happened, and the consciousness of it had gone all through the house.
Mr. Brownlow was sitting in the library doing nothing. That, at least, was his visible aspect. Within himself he had been calculating and reckoning up till his wearied brain whirled with the effort. He sat leaning his arms on the table and his head in his hands. By this time his powers of thought had failed him. He sat looking on, as it were, and saw the castle of his prosperity crumbling down into dust before him. Every thing he had ever aimed at seemed to drop from him. He had no longer any thing to conceal; but he knew that he had stood at the bar before his children, and had been pardoned but not justified. They would stand by him, but they did not approve him; and they had seen the veil of his heart lifted, and had looked in and found darker things there than he himself had ever been conscious of. He was so absorbed in this painful maze of thought that he did not even look up when Jack came in. Of course Jack would come; he knew that. Jack was ruined; they were all ruined. All for the advantage of a miserable woman who would get no comfort out of her inheritance, whose very life was hanging on a thread. It seemed hard to him that Providence, which had always been so kind to him, should permit it. When his son came in and drew a chair to the other side of the table he roused himself. “Is it you, Jack?” he said; “I am so tired that I fear I am stupid. I was very hard driven last night.”
“Yes,” said Jack, with a little shudder; and Mr. Brownlow looked at him, and their eyes met, and they knew what each had meant. It was a hard moment for the father who had been mad, and had come to his senses again, but yet did not know what horrible suspicion it was under which for a moment he had lain.
“I was hard driven,” he repeated, pathetically—“very hard put to it. I had been standing out for a long time, and then in a moment I broke down—that is how it was. But I shall be able to talk it all over with you—by and by.”
“That was what I came for, sir,” said Jack. “We must know what we are to do.”
And then Mr. Brownlow put down his supporting hands from his head, and steadied himself in a wearied wondering way. Jack for the moment had the authority on his side.