CHAPTER IX.
Next day Gervase received a communication from his bankers which filled him with the wildest amazement. This letter alarmed him when he saw it first. He thought that something had gone wrong—something new and unforeseen. When troubles come unexpectedly, overwhelming a man, his imagination gets demoralised, and expects nothing but further trouble—every footstep heard on the road seems to be that of a bearer of ill news. And when Gervase saw the well-known initials of this firm upon the envelope, his heart failed him. There must be some new call, he thought—some unthought-of creditor must have turned up. Or he must have miscalculated his little balance. Something must be wrong. He opened the letter slowly, with fear and trembling. And the first reading of it conveyed no meaning to his confused mind. Ten thousand pounds! What was this about ten thousand pounds? A faint but incredible ray of light came into his mind at the second reading. He did not believe it. It was some trick of fancy, some delusion of his perturbed spirit, some practical joke at the best. Again: he rubbed his eyes, which smarted with want of sleep. Ten thousand pounds! It had got upon his brain, he thought; it was the scornful alternative Mr Thursley had flung at him, the concession that was an impossibility. Ten thousand pounds to settle upon Madeline. Ten thousand—angels to deliver him from a life he hated. Was he going mad? Had it all at last been too much for his brain?
He took up Messrs Liphook, Liss, & Co.’s letter, and read it over aloud:—
“Dear Sir,—We have the pleasure to inform you that a sum of ten thousand pounds has this day been paid into your account.”
The words spoken audibly, though it was only by his own voice, aroused Gervase at last from his dazed and stupefied state. Was it true? It must be true! He rose up to his feet, to his full height, stretching his throat, throwing back his head to get breath, stifled by the wonder, the almost terror, the shock of this new thing. The very sum that had been named—the money that was to deliver him, to give him the desire of his eyes, to free him, to be his salvation. He had been sitting in the library in the deserted house, very gloomy, looking about the bookcases, thinking of the advertisements that would describe this “library of a gentleman,” about to be given to the auctioneer’s hammer. Some of the books were dear to him; the whole place had upon him that strong hold of the familiar, the always known, which it is so difficult to divest of its power. There was not much to admire in the heavy bookcases, the solid furniture, nor even in the bulk of the somewhat commonplace collection of books no gentleman’s library could be without. But he had known it all his life; and the thought of the auctioneer, and all the vulgar tumult of the sale, was painful to him. He had been wondering if the money it would bring would be worth thinking of in the collapse of everything. But these thoughts all disappeared from his mind in a moment. For a little while after the extraordinary truth was fully apprehended he felt capable of thinking of nothing else. Ten thousand pounds! It is a sensation which comes to but few people in the world to receive such a sum unexpectedly, and at a moment when it is like life to the dead. Most people who get those windfalls have plenty of money already, and know all about them and are not excited. Ten thousand is not much when you have hundreds of thousands, and are (naturally, having so much to begin with) in the way of legacies and happy accidents of all kinds. But when you have nothing, that which in other circumstances would be but a pleasing surprise is apt to shake you to the depths of your being, and feel like a visible interposition from above. Gervase was so stunned, so overwhelmed, so uplifted, that for a time the mere fact was as much as he could grasp. And he had seized his hat and rushed out to tell Madeline of his wonderful miraculous good fortune, before it occurred to him to ask himself from whom could this windfall come?
The thought came upon him when he was half-way down the street on his way to his love. Who in all the world could have sent him ten thousand pounds? Few people are able to bestow such a present, still fewer have the least inclination to do so. The wonder in Gervase’s mind was but momentary. It was answered as by a flash of lightning, by an instinctive unquestioning certainty of reply. And suddenly, instead of walking on as he had been doing, his rapid steps grew slow, his countenance flushed with sudden enlightenment, and then grew pale. “My father!”—he almost stopped short altogether, almost turned back. Who but his father could send him such a present? Who but he had interest enough in Gervase to come to his aid anonymously, silently? “My father:” he repeated it to himself. The first time it had been the cry of a sudden discovery, full of pleasure, an impulse too quick for thought. But the second had a tone in it of despair. A discovery of another kind came with the second thought. Nothing kept back! that had been his father’s glory and distinction. Was it thus for ever proved to be untrue?
He went into Madeline’s presence with almost reluctant steps, his joy over. He did not perceive what eyes less preoccupied must have done, that she was full of expectation, waiting for him with a visible anxiety and suspense, eager to hear something. He never even remarked this curious expectation in her, he was altogether absorbed in his own sensations. “What is it, Gervase?” she said, her breath coming quick, two spots of red upon her cheeks; but why she should show any excitement he did not even ask himself. “The most extraordinary thing has happened,” he said.
“What has happened? I saw at once in your face there was something. What is it? your father——”
“I suppose it must be my father,” he said, with a heavy long breath. “Madeline, ten thousand pounds—the very sum your father said—has been paid into the bank for me. I was wild with delight for a moment.”
“Ten thousand pounds, Gervase! Then you are freed!—it is not a question any longer between me and the life you hate. Thank heaven, you are free!”