‘Now, my very good sir,’ interrupted the attorney, ‘don’t, I beg you, don’t fall into the common error of fathers, and imagine that your own particular son is either a miracle of ingenuous candour or a prodigal worse than his neighbours. You think that you’ve paid all his liabilities, Sir Sykes, and no doubt you have paid all you knew of. But as a man of the world, if not as a parent, you ought to be aware that nobody ever did tell all that he owed—excess of modesty, perhaps! They always leave a margin, these interesting penitents; and in this case, as you will see by these documents’ (and Mr Wilkins produced several pieces of stamped paper), ‘the margin is tolerably ample.’
The baronet was now thoroughly roused to wrath. He strode to and fro with frowning brow and hands that were fast clenched together, then walked to the window and stood still, idly tapping the panes with one white finger, on which there glistened a great diamond that had been an heirloom at Carbery Chase before ever a Denzil crossed its threshold.
‘I’ll not give him a shilling or leave him a shilling!’ he said in a voice that quivered with anger. ‘Carbery Chase is my very own, and I can deal with it as I please. My daughters at anyrate have deserved better of me than that thankless graceless boy.’
Sir Sykes, under the influence of this new emotion, seemed to have forgotten the lawyer’s presence, or merely to regard Mr Wilkins in the light of the impartial Chorus in a Greek tragedy; but the attorney, who was by no means pleased by the turn which the affair seemed to be taking, intervened.
‘Come, come, Sir Sykes. It’s natural that you should be annoyed at having such a heavy bill presented, when you thought it settled. But between ourselves, boys will be boys. The captain has turned over a new leaf, and rely on it he will be a credit to you yet. I’ve a pretty wide acquaintance amongst wild young gentlemen of his kind, and I give you my word I don’t know one who is more wide-awake. He had paid his ’prentice fees, and that smartly; but I expect before I die to hear of him as an ornament to the bench of magistrates and perhaps a county member. As for these bills and notes of hand’——
‘I’m not liable for a sixpence!’ exclaimed Sir Sykes petulantly. ‘My son may go through the Court if he chooses, and perhaps will learn a wholesome lesson from the exposure, which’——
‘Fie, fie, Sir Sykes!’ broke in the lawyer. ‘A coat of whitewash, believe me, sticks to a youngster’s back to that extent that no amount of scrubbing can get rid of it. Fume and fret as you please, you know, and I know, that you mean Captain Jasper to have Carbery after you, and to keep the place in the Denzil line. Better so, than to have so fine an estate sold or cut in two for division between your daughters’ husbands. And the captain won’t bear the ‘bloody hand’ in his escutcheon the better because he has been made an insolvent in his youth. As for these claims, I don’t press for an immediate settlement; not I; I don’t exact my pound of flesh down on the nail, Sir Sykes.’
There was a hard struggle in the baronet’s breast. Time had been given him for reflection, and he had used it. To hear of his son’s extravagance, of his son’s deceit, and from such lips, was bad enough. To be compelled to endure the familiarity of the lawyer’s manner was to have to swallow a still more bitter pill. He could remember Mr Wilkins of old, blunt and jocose certainly, but by no means so jaunty in his bearing as he now was, although Sir Sykes had not then been the rich county magnate he had blossomed. He felt, and writhed as he felt, that it was the attorney’s sense of his hold upon him by reason of his knowledge of his past life, which had emboldened Mr Wilkins to deal with him as he had done. But the most provoking feature of the affair was that Sir Sykes felt that this man’s advice, coarsely and offensively administered as it was, yet contained a solid kernel of truth. Jasper was by no means a model son. He had committed fearful follies, and incurred debts which even the Master of Carbery had thought twice before discharging. His profligacy was redeemed by no brilliant talents, softened by no affectionate qualities. There are spendthrifts who remain lovable to the last, as there are others who dazzle the world by the glitter of their wit or valour. To neither category did the graceless offspring of Sir Sykes belong. And yet, in spite of his occasional menaces on the subject of his will, the baronet felt that national manners and family pride combined to constitute a sort of moral entail, of which Jasper was to reap the benefit.
‘I must see my son,’ said Sir Sykes smoothly, after a pause; ‘and when I have time to think over the matter, Mr Wilkins, I will write to you appointing as early an interview as possible. In the meantime I feel assured that you will see the propriety of not urging personally your claims on Captain Denzil in his present condition.’
Mr Wilkins was amenity itself. He would but eat a morsel in the coffee-room, he said, and would then go back to London by the next train, confident that he could not leave his interests in better hands than those of Sir Sykes.