"I will walk with you, but I refuse to enter it," rejoined Mr. Parkinson, roughly. "You are, of course, a rich man."
"Yes, I am rich."
"I am poor, and I will keep my place. It would be better for all of us if every man did the same. We can talk in the streets. It will serve some good purpose, you said. I ask nothing for myself, mind, nothing but justice."
"In the sad story you have told," said Mr. Manners, "you spoke of a woman who was kind to your daughter."
"I did, and what I said of her is true. She is an angel of goodness, and she saved my daughter, body and soul. See here, sir. I am not a church-going man, and I hate sanctimonious people, but I am not a heathen either. There's some kind of a power that made the world and sent us into it for some purpose. I often wonder what, when I think of things. And there's a hereafter, and I'm glad to know it. I'll tell you why I'm glad. Because, if that scoundrel who ruined my daughter escapes his punishment here-and I'll do my best that he sha'n't-but if he does escape it here, he'll meet it there! That's a satisfaction to me, and the thought of it will make me religious. I'll go to church next Sunday."
"My object in speaking to you now," said Mr. Manners, "is to obtain information of Mrs. Manners. I gathered from what you said that she is poor."
"Very poor," said Mr. Parkinson, "and that stands to her credit here, and 'll stand to her credit in the next world-if there's any justice there."
"In what way does it stand to her credit?"
Mr. Parkinson stopped suddenly to look at Mr. Manners's face, upon which the light of a street lamp was shining.
"You are asking close questions," he said, "and I'm getting suspicious of people."
"You are suspicious of me?"
"Put it as you like. You don't know me, and never heard of me before to-night, and I don't suppose you care a brass farthing whether you ever hear of me again. I never saw you before to-night, and I don't know your name even; so you have the advantage of me. You're in the light, you see, and I'm in the dark, and here we are talking together confidentially, with the difference that you know what you're talking about, and I don't. Stop a bit. I see you want to speak; but I must work off my reel first. I don't care for interruptions. You've heard me tell my story; you've got in your mind my name, and my girl's name and shame, likewise the name of the man I'd take by the throat if he stood before me now and I knew it. Likewise the name of the angel woman who saved her, and who'd stand by her-I'll take my oath on it-if all the rest of the world was hounding her and throwing mud at her. Likely as not you're a friend of the scoundrel that's brought this upon us. I saw something in your face that makes me sure now he's not a stranger to you. He was a gentleman, so-called; you're another. I've only got your word for it that the talk you're having with me is for a good purpose. It may be for a bad one. I've no call to trust you that I can see. Give me a reason."
"I find no fault with you for your suspicion of me. My name is Manners."
"Oh! And is the woman I'd die to serve a connection of yours?"
"She may be. It is to ascertain whether she is that I am questioning you now."
"For a good purpose, you said?"
"What I said I mean."
"Let me have another look at you."
Again they stopped, and again Mr. Parkinson's eyes fixed themselves on Mr. Manners's face. He was to some extent apparently satisfied.
"Go ahead," he said.
"You said," resumed Mr. Manners, steadily, "that her being poor, very poor, stands to her credit here, and will stand to her credit in another world, and I asked in what way."
"All right. You've got a clear head on you. In this way. She's got nothing to gain by it. What she does is done out of pure goodness-not only what she's done for me and my girl, but what she does for every one who's in trouble. There isn't a face that don't light up when she comes by; there isn't a lodging, the commonest you can think of, that isn't brightened when she opens the door. If she was to die to-morrow-the good Lord forbid that she should! but I'm putting it that way to make it plain to you-if she was to die to-morrow, there'd be hundreds of us, men, women, and children, who'd follow her to the grave, and know that they'd lost a friend that could never be replaced. There would be no money to pay for a stone, but she'd have one in our hearts. God Almighty bless her and hers!"
CHAPTER XXXVI
The earnest sincerity of the grateful man shook Mr. Manners to the soul, and for once in his life his self-control slipped from him. He recovered himself quickly, but the impression produced by Mr. Parkinson's words remained.
"You speak," he said, "of a woman and her daughter who have laid you under an obligation-"
"A moment, if you please," interrupted Mr. Parkinson; "I spoke of a lady and her daughter. Mrs. Manners is a lady; we all know that, every one of us, and we've often wondered how she found her way among us, and how it is she is almost as poor as the poorest of us. I object to your calling her a woman in a tone that means, if it means anything, that she is no better than the rest of us. It's clear enough to me that you look down on us. Well, look down. It doesn't hurt us, any more than it's to your credit."
"You are mistaken," said Mr. Manners, gently; "I do not look down on you. I was once a working-man myself." He sighed as he made the admission, at the thought that in those early days when he was struggling and making his way up the ladder he was a happier man than he had ever been since.
"Were you?" exclaimed Mr. Parkinson, in wonder. "Let me think a bit. I remember when I was a boy hearing of a Mr. Manners, a great contractor, who was once no better than a bricklayer, and who had made himself a millionaire by his cleverness. It may be that you're the gentleman."
"I am he."
"I take off my hat to you. I'm not one of the envious ones. You made your money fairly, I've heard, and though you drove hard bargains, you didn't cut down wages."
"That is true. I shall be pleased if yon will reckon it to my credit now."
"I'll do that-it's no more than fair. And the lady I speak of may be a connection of yours, you say. That's interesting, though I never thought of linking you two together."
"She never gave you cause to suspect it?"
"Never. If she had it would have been known and talked of. These things get about, you see."
"What you say makes me think all the better of her. May I proceed with my questions?"
"You may."
Had Mr. Manners been inclined to reflect, in his usual spirit, under the peculiar nature of this conversation, he would have loftily resented Mr. Parkinson's occupation of the higher ground; but in truth there was that stirring within him which humbled him; and it is good to know that it humbled without mortifying him.
"Are Mrs. Manners and her daughter," he asked, "living alone? Is she a widow?"
"No," replied Mr. Parkinson. "She is married, and lives with her husband."
"Are you acquainted with his Christian name?"
"Yes. It is Kingsley."
A sigh of relief escaped Mr. Manners. He was not childless, then. It was still in his power to make reparation, or if not to make, to offer it. The latter alternative trod close upon the heels of the new-born impulse to atone for his harshness; the reflection intruded itself that his overtures towards a reconciliation might be declined. Many years had passed since there was peace between him and his son, and during all those years he had been, figuratively speaking, rolling in gold. So vast was his fortune that, living the life he did, he could not spend one half of it, and every day of his existence its colossal proportions grew. To Mark Inglefield he had made a most liberal allowance, and Inglefield, cunning and careful of the future, had occasionally drawn largely upon the great contractor's generosity. The requests he made were never refused, the reasons for them never inquired into. Mr. Manners had set store upon his wealth before he discarded his son; it meant then distinction, fame, political power, in which he would have a share. Kingsley's sense of right, no less than the ingenuousness and unselfishness of his nature, would have caused him to lay at his father's feet the honor and glory which he would assuredly have won had he been allowed to follow the career which, in his young manhood, had been mapped out for him. The rich man's heart was tortured as the image of Kingsley rose before him: the frank, laughing mouth, the bright eyes, the eager manner, smote him now with more than the force of actual blows. Those he could have parried or returned; not so the accusing voices from the past which proclaimed him tyrannical, ruthless, and unjust. The manner of Kingsley's life, as indicated by Mr. Parkinson's championship of his wife and daughter, was an added sting to the torture he was suffering. Kingsley and those with whom he had, without a murmur, thrown in his lot, had borne privation and poverty cheerfully, and had won a place in the esteem and affections of the poor people around them of which the highest in the land might have been proud. And all this time it had been in his, the father's, power to have lightened and brightened their lot without in the remotest degree feeling the loss; and all this time they had lived and labored without uttering one Word of reproach against him whose unreasoning, dictatorial conduct had made their life one of daily, hourly struggle; and all this time they had made no appeal to him upon whom they had a just claim, but trod, with courage and resignation, the thorny paths into which he had thrust them. Well might he hide his face in his hands with shame. He thought of Nansie, and of the surprise he felt when he first saw her-surprise at her modesty and gentleness of manner, surprise at the soft, pleading voice, surprise that she was a lady, fitted to grace any position to which wealth could raise her; to grace and adorn it, and to bring into it qualities of goodness which would have made her a shining example amid the follies and frivolities of fashionable life. What were the grounds of his anger against her and his son? That Kingsley, meeting her, had fallen in love with her, and had wooed her honorably, and that she, urged in some degree by youth and love, and in some degree by Kingsley's confident view of the future, had accepted him and become his wife. How, then, was Nansie to be blamed? How had she merited the lot to which he had condemned her? And wherein lay Kingsley's misconduct? In that having wooed and won a lady, he had held an opinion of his father which placed Mr. Manners above the sordid considerations of a sordid age. That surely was not a crime; but the father and judge had viewed it as such, and had meted out a cruel punishment. Kingsley might have acted differently; he might have acted towards Nansie as Mark Inglefield had acted towards the working-man, whose visit to Mr. Hollingworth had brought about disclosures which had led-and perhaps happily led-to the contemplations in which Mr. Manners indulged as he stood in the dark night with Mr. Parkinson. The conversation between them had been continued, and Mr. Manners, anxious to obtain as much information as it was in Mr. Parkinson's power to impart, had been told of Kingsley's connection with the Wilberforce Club, and of the project to make him president in the place of Mr. Bartholomew. This project Kingsley himself had relinquished, further experience of the violent views of his partisans having convinced him that their methods were not such as he could approve of. Mr. Parkinson, being led on by Mr. Manners, dilated at some length on working-men's politics in connection with Kingsley.
"Not so easily led as you would imagine, sir," observed Mr. Parkinson, referring to Kingsley's characteristics. "Sympathizing with all who suffer from unjust and unequal laws, but stanch in his belief that those wrongs can only be set right by temperate means. Mr. Kingsley Manners has a will of his own."
The father had already been compelled to acknowledge that. Strikingly different as he and his son were in their dispositions, they resembled each other in one respect; having resolved upon what they deemed right to do, they walked straight forward, regardless of consequences. Kingsley had done this in his relations with Nansie, and Mr. Manners had done this in his relations with his son. But Kingsley had sacrificed everything, his father nothing; and yet, of the two, Mr. Manners could not help confessing that the lot of the man who had cheerfully embraced poverty was the higher and nobler of the two.
"And now," said Mr. Parkinson, after further questions had been asked and answered, "I've told you all I know about Mr. and Mrs. Manners and their daughter, and I should like to know what good it is going to do me."
"I do not follow you," said Mr. Manners.
"You've been so much occupied," explained Mr. Parkinson, "in the object you've been driving at, getting all you can out of me, and telling me precious little to enlighten me, that maybe you've lost sight of my story."
"I acknowledge it," said Mr. Manners.
"I told you," proceeded Mr. Parkinson, "when we were in Mr. Hollingworth's house, that I believed you knew who the man is who has wronged my child. I say so again. You do know him. Come, come, sir, I've played fair with you; play fair with me."
"If the portrait you showed Mr. Hollingworth," said Mr. Manners, "is that of the man who has done you this wrong, I do know him."
"Thank you for that much. I'll trouble you for his name. I don't want any one to take my quarrels on himself; I'm equal to them, and can carry them through. His name, sir, if you please."
"At present I must decline to give it to you," said Mr. Manners, and would have proceeded had he not been interrupted roughly by Mr. Parkinson, who exclaimed:
"That's the thanks I get! I might have known what to expect! But I'll find out where you live, and I'll dog you like your shadow till I come face to face with him."
"There is no cause for you to speak to me like that. I have told you who I am, and wished you to come with me to my house. Mr. Parkinson, you have done me a great service, and in return I would give you all the assistance in my power. But threats and violence will not help you here. For the present, leave your wrongs to me; it is not unlikely I may be able to render you an infinitely greater service than you dream of. I ask you to trust me."
"For how long?"
"For a few days."
"Have you influence with the scoundrel?"
"I have."
A queer smile played about Mr. Parkinson's lips. "An infinitely greater service than I dream of," he said, repeating Mr. Manners's words. "Of course there's but one way of setting this thing right, and then I should lose my daughter. That's what we have children for-to plague, or torment, or disgrace us."
Mr. Manners laid his hand gently on Mr. Parkinson's arm, and said, "We bring such punishment upon ourselves often. Perhaps it is the parents, not the children, who are chiefly to blame. Good-night, Mr. Parkinson. Here is my card; if you wish to see me you are welcome at any time. If you do not come to me I will come to you. There is one other favor I would ask of you."
"Name it, sir."
"Say nothing to Mr. and Mrs. Manners of what has passed between us to-night; regard our interview as private, for a time at least."
"All right, sir. It shall be so. Good-night."
CHAPTER XXXVII
Mr. Manners had not far to go before he reached his house, but he lingered somewhat on the road, wrapped in thought. Had what was passing within him been revealed to any person long familiar with him, it would have inspired feelings of wonder and surprise. In truth, a great change was taking place in this man's nature; he was no longer stern, self-willed, and arrogant; he was conscious of a certain humbleness of spirit, and he yielded to its influence. His thoughts were chiefly upon Kingsley and Nansie; what he had heard concerning them had touched him nearly; it had, as it were, opened a window in his soul which had been darkened all his life. But now and again his thoughts wandered to Mark Inglefield, and he dwelt upon the contrast between this man and his son. Kingsley so impetuous, open-minded, and frank, Inglefield so cool, methodical, and wary; the one wearing his heart upon his sleeve, the other keeping strict watch upon it, so that he might not be tempted to follow its impulses to his own disadvantage. The links which united Mr. Manners and Mark Inglefield were strong ones, and had been forged by Mr. Manners himself. When he discarded his son, and made up his mind to leave England, perhaps forever, he had made certain propositions to Mark Inglefield which had been eagerly accepted. Inglefield was to be his companion, his second son, and was to devote himself entirely to his patron, to be as it were at his beck and call, and subservient and obedient in all things. That the companionship had been productive of little pleasure was perhaps as much the fault of one as of the other. Disappointed in his dearest wishes, Mr. Manners's principal desire was to be left to himself, and Mark Inglefield humored him; careful ever to be ready when called upon to perform some duty, never contradicting his patron, never arguing with him; a willing, submissive slave, waiting for his reward in the future. This reward had been promised him; he was to be Mr. Manners's heir. The prospect was a glowing one, and he revelled in it, although there were occasions when a great wave of discontent swept over him. He was not a young man; how long would he have to wait? Mr. Manners was his senior by twenty-five years, but his health was perfect. It was his boast that he had never had a day's illness in his life, and his habits were such that there seemed little probability of his breaking down before he was a very old man. Luxuriousness of living had no temptations for him; plain fare sufficed for his needs. Mark Inglefield, on the contrary, was fond of rich food and rich wines, and he indulged in them; his tastes (in which may be included his vices) were the very reverse of Mr. Manners's, and if he chafed under the restraint in which he was held he was careful not to betray himself to his patron. He took his pleasures in secret, and was not sparing of them; and it was a proof that he was an able and astute man, cunning in device and richly capable in deceit, that not a whisper of those doings which would have been reckoned to his disadvantage had ever reached Mr. Manners's ear.
"Is Mr. Inglefield in his room?" asked Mr. Manners of the servant who opened the door.
"No, sir," was the reply.
Mr. Manners passed up to his own, in which the gas was lighted, and paced it slowly in deep thought, with his hands clasped behind him. The house was the same he had built during the time he was resolving upon Kingsley's future and the position he was to occupy in the world. He remembered that then he had in view a lady whom Kingsley was to wed, and through whom he was to obtain immediate entry and recognition into the highest circles of society. All the years that Mr. Manners had been abroad the magnificent house had been left in the charge of care-takers, the owner not caring to let or part with it. There was another motive. Despite the apparent irrevocableness of the break between him and Kingsley, there lurked in Mr. Manners's mind the latent hope that something-he knew not what, and had not the courage to mentally inquire-might occur which might bring them together again. He would do nothing to bring this about, but the possibility existed, and, for a while, was dimly recognized. Gradually it faded into mere nothingness and was lost sight of, but by that time Mr. Manners had become too indifferent to the making of money to turn his investment to account.
He had left this house with his wife and Mark Inglefield. He returned with Mark Inglefield, having buried his wife in a foreign country. Between her and him no mention had been made of their son from the day of the renouncement. On that day he had said to his wife, "I will not allow his name to be uttered in my presence." He was her master as well as her husband, and she had grown to fear him. Whether in the depths of her heart she had preserved some touch of that most sacred of human attributes, a mother's love for her only child, was never known to Mr. Manners. She obeyed him implicitly in this as in all other matters, and even on her deathbed Kingsley's name did not pass her lips. But now, in the solitude of his room, Mr. Manners recalled those last minutes on earth of the woman he had sworn to cherish, and it came to his gentler self to place a new meaning on the wistful look in her eyes as she turned them upon him for the last time. "She was thinking of Kingsley." He did not speak the words, but they could not have been plainer to his sense had he uttered them aloud.
He went up to his wife's room, the room in which he had deposited all the mementoes of her silent life which he had brought home with him. Her jewels were there, her desk, and an old trunk which from sentiment she had preserved from the days of her maidenhood. In her desk he found a bunch of keys, and one of these fitted the trunk, which now lay open before him. He had never before looked into this trunk, and he could not have told what he expected to find there; but what he saw now stood witness against him. From the grave in a foreign land came the accusation.
Nothing of his dead wife's was in the trunk, nothing that she had worn or that he had given her. Everything it contained had belonged to Kingsley. Portraits, school-books, articles of dress, and many items insignificant and worthless in themselves, but deeply precious in their spiritual significance. Here was the mother's heart portrayed, here the record of her inner life and sufferings, to which she had never given utterance. All the more potent now in their silent testimony. The proud man read in these trifles his condemnation. With a little quivering of his mouth, which he made no effort to control, he closed the trunk and locked it, and left the room, treading softly.
In the passage he lingered a few moments, wrestling with an inward urging to visit the room which Kingsley used to occupy, and which was situated on the floor above. With something of his old masterfulness he wheeled suddenly round, and returned to his own apartment. There, however, the desire manifested itself more strongly, and yielding to it he soon found himself in Kingsley's room, which he had not visited since the day on which he had conducted Nansie thither, with the endeavor to impress upon her the great sacrifice which she would force Kingsley to make if she did not herself take steps to separate from him. Here, again, Mr. Manners was confronted with accusing testimony, for, from surrounding evidence, he saw that his wife had been in the habit of sitting in this room, and frequently occupying it after their son's departure. These signs of suppressed suffering, of anguish borne in silence, could not fail to impress him; nor could he fail to be impressed by the once familiar objects in which Kingsley took pride. The books, the bed, the articles of taste and value, the pipes, even some bits of jewelry-it seemed as if nothing had been removed or disturbed. Mr. Manners was both surprised and touched; these things were Kingsley's own, and he might have taken them and converted them into money, which the father knew had been sadly needed. "Kingsley was never mercenary," thought Mr. Manners, with a pitiful smile of mingled pride and humiliation. "The soul of honor and generosity!"
He returned again to his room, and had not been in it a minute before he heard the sound of a step on the stairs. He threw open the door, and Mark Inglefield appeared.
"I hardly knew whether you would be home so early," said the expectant heir. "Did you leave Mr. Hollingworth well?"
The object of Mr. Manners's visit to that gentleman was, of course, known to Mark Inglefield, who looked upon this day as the red-letter day of his life. In the event of Mr. Manners arranging the marriage between him and Mr. Hollingworth's daughter, all anxiety for the future was at an end. Mr. Manners had promised to make at once a settlement upon him which would place him above all the chances and caprices of fickle fortune. For some time past he had found the ties which bound him to his patron irksome and disagreeable; he was hardly his own master; and to all the hints he had thrown out that he might fairly claim to be placed in a more independent position, Mr. Manners had replied:
"Wait till you are settled."
It was, indeed, this consideration that had impelled him to urge on the marriage. He had as little true love for Miss Hollingworth as the young lady had for him. She plays no part in this story, but it is necessary to say that she was a thoroughly worldly young person, with a full appreciation of the worldly advantage of marrying the heir of a millionaire. In their matrimonial views, therefore, she and Mark Inglefield were on an equality; the marriage into which they were willing to enter was a marriage of convenience, and they were content to leave the preliminaries in the hands of their elders.
Mark Inglefield put on an air of anxiety as he asked Mr. Manners if he had left Mr. Hollingworth well. He knew the exact value of his part in the projected alliance, but he had represented to Mr. Manners that his heart was deeply engaged, and he labored under the belief that he had succeeded in throwing dust into his patron's eyes. Mark Inglefield had a remarkable opinion of his own capacity and capabilities, and, during his long relations with Mr. Manners, had grown extremely confident of himself and his powers, and somewhat scornful of Mr. Manners's force of character. The reason for this was that the two men never came into collision; their opinions never clashed. This might have occurred in the early years of their association had not Mark Inglefield tutored himself into complete subservience to a will which he had reason to know was imperious; but as time wore on Mr. Manners's interest in the affairs of life grew weaker, and Mark Inglefield made the mistake of attributing this indifference to failing mental power. Hence the growing scorn of his patron's character, which, once respected and feared, he now held in small esteem.
"Mr. Hollingworth is well in health," said Mr. Manners. Mark Inglefield detected nothing significant in the tone, and was not in the least disturbed.
"I hope the interview was satisfactory," he said.
"Not entirely," replied Mr. Manners.
This did produce some slight discomfiture in the younger man.
"I thought," he remarked, "that everything was understood, and that it was a mere matter of arrangement of practical details."
"I thought so, too," said Mr. Manners. "Something else, however, has cropped up, which needs explanation."
"From me?" inquired Mr. Inglefield.
"From you," said Mr. Manners.
All Mark Inglefield's astuteness came instantly into play; no wariness was expressed in his face, for the reason that he had complete control over himself, and, on his mettle, was seldom, if ever, to be taken at a disadvantage.
"I am ready to give any explanation that may be required," he said, in a tone of modest assurance. "Perhaps it was hardly to be expected that an affair of such importance could be settled without some trifling hitch."
It was in his mind to say that the required explanation was nothing that affected his character, but he was prudent enough to arrest the words. No one knew better than himself that this was dangerous ground to approach. If anything was to be said upon the point, it must not come from him.
"I was not prepared for any hitch," said Mr. Manners. "When I visited Mr. Hollingworth this evening, I believed that everything would be arranged as you wished."
"And as you also wished," said Mark Inglefield, quickly.
"Yes; although my interest in the negotiation was naturally less than yours. Do not stand, Inglefield; what we have to say to each other will occupy a few minutes."
Mark Inglefield, with inward anxiety and a cheerful exterior, drew a chair to the table and sat down.
"Do you love the young lady?" inquired Mr. Manners.
"If I did not," replied Mark Inglefield, wondering at the strangeness of the question, "should I desire to marry her?"
"That is scarcely an answer," observed Mr. Manners.
And now Mark Inglefield suspected that a battle was impending, and that something serious was coming.
"Certainly I love her," he said. "Is there any doubt of it, and is that the difficulty?"
"That is not the difficulty, but it strikes me now as singular that love was never mentioned in the course of the interview."
For the life of him Mark Inglefield could not help remarking:
"I was not aware that you were given to sentiment."
"Nor am I," retorted Mr. Manners. "I have been all my life a practical man, until lately, when life seems to have been valueless to me."
"I am sorry to hear you say that," said Mark Inglefield, with well-simulated sympathy.
"The sentimental view of a question," continued Mr. Manners, "is a view I have always ignored. I set my own course, and, rightly or wrongly, have followed it. Whether it has brought me happiness or not affects myself only."
"Pardon me for venturing to differ from you," said Mark Inglefield, thinking he saw what might be turned to his advantage; "what you decide upon may affect others as well as yourself."
"I am corrected; it may, and has."
Mark Inglefield inwardly congratulated himself. Not a suspicion crossed his mind that he and Mr. Manners, in this contention, were mentally travelling different roads. He was thinking only of his own interests; Mr. Manners was thinking of Kingsley.
"May I ask," said Mark Inglefield, "whether Miss Hollingworth was present during your interview with her father?"
"She was present at no part of it," replied Mr. Manners.