“Claude! you are just as foolish as that woman. Will ranting and raving, and ‘I will not do that,’ and ‘I will not do this,’ pay back the siller? It is not so easy to do always what you wish. In this world we must just do what we can.”
“In another world, at least, there will be neither begging nor borrowing,” he cried.
“There will maybe be some equivalent,” said Mrs. Buchanan, shaking her head. “I would not lippen to anything. It would have been paid long ago if you had but stuck to the point with Morrison, and we would be free.”
“Morrison, Morrison!” he cried again, “nothing but Morrison. I wish he and all his books, and his bonds, and his money, were at the bottom of the sea!”
“Claude, Claude! and you a minister!” cried Mrs. Buchanan, horrified. But she saw that the discussion had gone far enough, and that her husband could bear no more.
As for the unfortunate man himself, he continued, mechanically, to pace about the room, after she left him, muttering “Morrison, Morrison!” between his teeth. He could not himself have explained the rage he felt at the name of Morrison. He could see in his mind’s eye the sleek figure of the man of business coming towards him, rubbing his hands, stopping his confession, “Not another word, sir, not another word; our late esteemed friend gave me my instructions.” And then he could hear himself pretending to insist, putting forward “the fifty:” “The fifty,” with the lie beneath, as if that were all: and again the lawyer’s refusal to hear. Morrison had done him a good office: he had stopped the lie upon his lips, so that, formally speaking, he had never uttered it; he ought to have been grateful to Morrison: yet he was not, but hated him (for the moment) to the bottom of his heart.
Frank Mowbray came to luncheon (which was dinner) with Rodie, as Mrs. Buchanan had foreseen, and when he had got through a large meal, was taken up-stairs to see his mother, who was still lying exhausted in Elsie’s bed, very hysterical, laughing and crying in a manner which was by no means unusual in those days, though we may be thankful it has practically disappeared from our experiences now—unfortunately not without leaving a deeper and more injurious deposit of the hysterical. She hid her face when he came in, with a passion of tears and outcries, and then held out her arms to him, contradictory actions which Frank took with wonderful composure, being not unaccustomed to them.
“Speak to Mr. Buchanan,” she said, “oh, speak to Mr. Buchanan!” whispering these words into his ear as he bent over her, and flinging them at him as he went away. Frank was very reluctant to lose his afternoon’s game, and he was aware, too, of the threatening looks of Elsie, who said, “My father’s morning has been spoiled; he has had no peace all the day. You must see him another time.” “Speak to Mr. Buchanan, oh, speak to Mr. Buchanan,” cried his mother. Frank did not know what to do. Perhaps Mrs. Mowbray in her confused mind expected that the minister would soften the story of her own misdemeanours to Frank. But Frank thought of nothing but the previous disclosure she had made to him. And he would probably have been subdued by Elsie’s threatening looks, as she stood without the door defending the passage to the study, had not Mr. Buchanan himself appeared coming slowly up-stairs. The two young people stood silent before him. Even Elsie, though she held Frank back fiercely with her eyes, could say nothing: and the minister waved his hand, as if inviting him to follow. The youth went after him a little overawed, giving Elsie an apologetic look as he passed. It was not his fault: without that tacit invitation he would certainly not have gone. He felt the situation very alarming. He was a simple young soul, going to struggle with one of the superior classes, in deadly combat, and with nobody to stand by him. Certainly he had lost his afternoon’s game—almost as certainly he had lost, altogether lost, Elsie’s favour. The smiles of the morning had inspired him to various strokes, which even Raaf Beaton could not despise. But that was over, and now he had to go on unaided to his fate.
“Your mother has been ill, Frank.”
“I am very sorry, sir: and she has distressed and disturbed you, I fear. She sometimes has those sort of attacks: they don’t mean much, I think,” Frank said.