Delphi collected works o.., p.344
Delphi Collected Works of Grant Allen, page 344
Paul flushed fiery hot at that way of putting it. He saw now quite clearly what Thistleton was driving at, though he didn’t know, of course, what measure of encouragement Faith might already have accorded her wealthy suitor. Oh, those hateful, hateful claims of Mr. Solomons’! If it hadn’t been for those, he might have answered proudly, “I will take care myself of my sister’s future.” But how could he now — he who was mortgaged, twenty years deep, for all his possible earnings to that close-fisted taskmaster! The very thought of it make him hot and cold alternately with deep humiliation.
All he could do was to murmur, half aloud, “Faith can almost support herself, even as it is, by her salary as a schoolmistress.”
Thistleton answered him very decisively this time. “Not as she ought to be supported, my dear fellow,” he said in a firm tone of voice. “Gascoyne, you and I have always been friends, and at a time like this we may surely speak our minds out to one another. You’ll have enough to do to keep yourself and mother, let alone the claims; and I know how they weigh upon you. But Faith mustn’t dream of trying to live upon what she earns herself. I could never stand that. It would drive me wild to think she should even attempt it. This has made a great change in the position of all of you. I think when I talk it all over with Faith she’ll see the subject in the same light as I do.”
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE BUBBLE BURSTS.
THE morning after the funeral Paul went down, by Mr. Solomons’ special desire, to the office in the High Street for a solemn consultation. Mr. Solomons wished to see him “on important business,” he said; and Paul, though weary and sick at heart, had been too long accustomed to accept Mr. Solomons’ commands as law to think of demurring to a request so worded.
As he entered Mr. Solomons rose to greet him with stately politeness, and handed him solemnly a little oblong packet, which felt like a box done up in paper. Paul opened it vaguely, seeing so much was expected of him, and found inside, to his immense surprise, a hundred visiting-cards, inscribed in copperplate “Sir Paul Gascoyne,” in neat small letters.
“What are these, Mr. Solomons?” he asked, taken aback for the moment. —
Mr. Solomons, rubbing his hands with unction, was evidently very well pleased at his own cleverness and forethought. “They’re a little present I wished to make you, Sir Paul,” he answered, laying great stress upon that emphatic prefix of honor. “You see, I think it necessary, as part of my scheme for our joint benefit, that you should at once assume your proper place in the world and receive recognition at the hands of society. I desire that you should make a feature of your title at once; that you should be known to all England from the very outset as Sir Paul Gascoyne, Baronet.” He spoke it pompously, like one who basked in the reflected glory of that high-sounding social designation.
“I hate it,” Paul blurted out, unable to restrain his emotion any longer. “Mr. Solomons, I can’t bear the horrid business. It’s a hollow mockery for a man like me. What’s the use of a title to a fellow without a penny, who’s burdened with more debt than he can ever pay, to start with?”
Mr. Solomons drew back as if he had been stung. He could hardly believe his ears. That a man should wish deliberately to shuffle off the honor of a baronetcy was to him, in his simplicity, well nigh inconceivable. Not that, for the moment, he took in to the full Paul’s actual meaning. That his pet design, the cherished scheme of years, could be upset offhand by the recalcitrant obstinacy of a hot-headed youth just fresh from college, lay hardly within the sphere of his comprehension. He contented himself for the time with thrusting his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, protruding his already too obvious watch-pocket, and observing jauntily, “That’s exactly why you’ve got to make the most of the title, Sir Paul. You must use it as your capital — your stock-in-trade. So long as your father lived, of course, we could do very little; we could only point to you as a prospective baronet. Now that Sir Emery’s dead and gone, poor gentleman, the case is altered; we can put you forward as the actual possessor of the Gascoyne title. It’s extremely fortunate this should have happened (as it had got to happen) so early in the year, before the Peerages are out — they don’t publish them till March — and I telegraphed off full details yesterday to the different editors, so that your name may appear in its proper place in due course in the new issues. There’s nothing like taking time by the forelock, you know, Sir Paul; there’s nothing on earth like taking time by the forelock.” And Mr. Solomons, standing with his back to the fire and his thumbs in his armholes like a British churchwarden, raised himself gently on the tips of his toes, and let his Heels go down again with an emphatic snap, as he pursed up his lips into a most determined attitude.
Paul saw the time for temporizing had passed. While his father lived, he hadn’t dared to explain to Mr. Solomons the simple fact that he couldn’t and wouldn’t sell himself for money to any woman living, lest he should break his father’s heart by that plain avowal. But now it would be flat cowardice to delay the confession one day longer. For Mr. Solomons’ sake he must take the bull by the horns. Already Mr. Solomons had put himself to needless expense in having those cards printed and in telegraphing to the editors of the various Peerages, on the strength of an understanding which ought long ago to have been broken. There was no help for it now. He must prick the bubble.
So he seated himself nervously in the office chair, and with hesitating speech, amid awkward pauses, began to break the news as gently as he could to poor startled Mr. Solomons. He told him how, as long as his father lived, he had felt it his duty to keep silence on the matter. He explained to him in plain and straightforward terms how the plan had been devised, and broached, and furthered when he himself was too young to understand and enter into its sinister significance; and how, as soon as he had attained to years of discretion, and comprehended the plot in its true colors, a revulsion of feeling had set in which made it impossible for him now to carry out in full the implied engagement. He begged Mr. Solomons to observe that as soon as he had clearly realized this change of front he had ceased to accept a single penny of his task-master’s money, but had worked his own way by unheard-of effort through his last two terms for his degree at Oxford. Finally, he assured Mr. Solomons, with many piteous assurances, that he would never be forgetful of the claims upon his purse, his time, and his labor, but would toil like a slave, month after month, and year after year, till he had repaid him in full to the uttermost farthing.
How much it cost Paul to make this bold avowal nobody but himself could ever have realized. He felt at the moment as though he was shirking the dearest obligations in life and turning his back most ungratefully upon his friend and benefactor. As he went on and on, floundering deeper and deeper in despondency each moment, while Mr. Solomons stood there silent and grim by the fireplace, with his jaw now dropping loose and his thumbs relaxing their hold upon the armholes — his voice faltered with the profundity of his regret, and big beads of nervous dew gathered thick upon his forehead. He knew he was disappointing the hopes of a lifetime, and shaking his own credit at every word he spoke with his powerful creditor.
As for Mr. Solomons, the startled old man heard him out to the bitter end without once interposing a single word of remark — without so much as a nod or a shake of disapprobation. He heard him out in the grimmest of grim silences, letting Paul flounder on, unchecked and unaided, through his long rambling explanation of his conduct and motives. Once or twice, indeed, Paul paused in his speech and glanced up at him appealingly; but Mr. Solomons, staring at him still with a fixed hard stare, vouchsafed not even to relax his stern face, and gazed on in blank astonishment at this strange case of mental aberration gradually unfolding itself in the flesh before him. At last, when Paul had exhausted all his stock of arguments, excuses, and reasons, Mr. Solomons moved forward three deliberate paces, and, gazing straight down into the young man’s eyes, said slowly and solemnly in the scriptural phrase, “Paul, Paul, thou art beside thyself.”
“Mr. Solomons,” Paul answered with a cold shudder down his back, “I mean what I say. You shall never lose a penny of all you’ve advanced me. You meant it well. You meant it for my advantage. I know all that. But I can never consent to marry an heiress, whoever she may be. I’ll work my fingers to the bone, day and night, the year round, to pay you back; but I’ll never, never, never consent to pay you back the way you intended.”
“You mean it?” Mr. Solomons asked, sitting down in another chair by his side and regarding him closely with curious attention. “Sir Paul Gascoyne, you really mean it?”
“Yes, I really mean it, Mr. Solomons,” Paul answered remorsefully.
To his immense astonishment, Mr. Solomons buried his face in his arms on the office table and sobbed inarticulately, through floods of tears, in dead silence, for some minutes together.
This strange proceeding, so utterly unexpected, broke down for the moment Paul’s courage altogether. “Oh, Mr. Solomons,” he cried, in a frenzy of regret, “I knew I should be disappointing you very much indeed — I knew that, of course; but I never imagined you’d feel like this about it.”
Mr. Solomons rocked himself up and down in his chair solemnly for a considerable time without making any answer. Then he rose slowly, unlocked his safe, and took out the well-thumbed bundle of notes and acceptances. One’ by one he counted them all over, as if to make sure they were really there, with a regretful touch; after which, regarding them tenderly, as a mother regards her favorite child, he locked them all up once more, and flung himself back in the office chair with an air of utter and abject despondency. “As long as you live, Sir Paul,” he said slowly, “handicapped as you are, unless you do as we mean you to do, you can never, never, never repay them.”
“I’ll try my hardest, at least,” Paul answered sturdily.
“There’s the horses and cabs,” Mr. Solomons went on, as if musing to himself; “but they won’t fetch much. As for the furniture in the house, it wouldn’t pay the quarter’s rent, I expect; and to that extent, the landlord, of course, has a prior claim upon it. In fact, it’s an insolvent estate — that’s the long and the short of it.”
“My father’s life was insured,” Paul ventured to suggest. Mr. Solomons hesitated with natural delicacy. “Well, to tell you the truth, Sir Paul,” he answered after a long pause, “the premium was due the day before your father’s unfortunate death; and I neglected to pay it. I meant to do so the very next morning; but was too late. But I didn’t like to mention the fact to you before in the midst of so much other personal trouble.”
“That was very kind of you, Mr. Solomons,” Paul put in, in a very low voice.
Mr. Solomons ran his fat hand through his curly black hair, now deeply grizzled.
“Not at all, Sir Paul,” he answered, “not at all. Of course, I couldn’t dream of obtruding it on you at such a time. But what I was thinking’s this: that the failure of the policy largely increases the amount of your indebtedness. It was jointly and severally’ from the beginning, you remember; and when you came of age you took the entire responsibility upon yourself in this very room here.” And Mr. Solomons walked once more toward the safe in the corner, as if to assure himself again of the safety at least of those precious papers.
“I admit it to the full,” Paul answered frankly.
Mr. Solomons turned upon him with unexpected gentleness.
“Sir Paul,” he said seriously, “my dear Sir Paul, it isn’t so much that: that’s not the worst of it. It’s the other disappointment I mind the most — the strictly personal and private disappointment. The money I’ll get paid back in the end; or if I don’t live to see it paid back, why, Leo will, and I always regarded it as a long investment for Leo. A man sinks his money in land for the rise as long as that, every bit, and is satisfied if his children come in for the benefit of it. But, Sir Paul, I thought of you always as a success in life — as great and rich — as married to a lady you ought to marry — as holding your own in the county and the country. I thought of you as sitting in Parliament for a division of Surrey. I thought I’d have helped to make you all that; and I thought you’d feel I’d had a hand in doing it. Instead of that, I’ve only hung a weight like a millstone round your neck that I never intended — a weight that you’ll never be able to get rid of. Sir Paul, Sir Paul, it’s a terrible disappointment.”
Paul sat there long, talking the matter over from every possible point of view, now perfectly friendly, but never getting any nearer to a reconciliation of their conflicting ideas. Indeed, how could he? When he rose to go, Mr. Solomons grasped his hand hard.
“Sir Paul,” he said with emotion, “this is a hard day’s work. You’ve undone the task I’ve been toiling at for years. But, perhaps, in time you’ll change your mind. Perhaps some day you’ll see some lady—”
Paul cut him short at once. “No, never,” he said. “Never.”
Mr. Solomons shook his hand hard once more.
“Well, never mind,” he said; “remember, I don’t want in any way to press you. Repay me whenever and however you can: it’s all running on at interest meanwhile, renewable annually. Work hard and pay me, but not too hard. I trust you still, Sir Paul, and I know I can trust you.”
As soon as Paul was gone, Mr. Solomons could only relieve his mind by taking the first train up to town, and pouring the whole strange, incredible story into the sympathetic ears of his nephew, Mr. Lionel.
Lionel Solomons listened to his uncle’s narrative with supercilious disdain; then he rose, with his sleek thumbs stuck into his waistcoat pockets and his fat fingers lolling over his well-covered hips, in an attitude expressive of capitalist indifference to such mere sentimentalism as Paul Gascoyne had been guilty of.
“The fellow’s of age, and he’s signed for the lot; that’s one comfort,” he observed complacently. “But I’ve got no patience with such pig-headed nonsense myself. What’s the good of being born to a baronetcy, I should like to know, if you aint going to make any social use of it?”
“It’s chucking it away — just chucking it away, that’s true,” his uncle assented.
Mr. Lionel paused, and ran one plump hand easily through his well-oiled curls. “For my part,” he said, “if ever those papers come to me—”
“They’ll all come to you, Leo — they’ll all come to you,” his uncle put in affectionately. “What else do I toil and moil, and slave and save for?”
Mr. Lionel faintly bowed a gracious acquiescence. “If ever those papers come to me,” he continued, unheeding the interruption, “I’ll not let him off one farthing of the lot, now he’s signed for ’em all after coming of age, not if he works his lifelong to pay me off the whole — principal and interest. He shall suffer for his confounded nonsense, he shall. If he won’t pay up, as he ought to pay up, in a lump at once, and if he won’t go to work the right way to make himself solvent, I’ll grind him and dun him and make his life a burden to him, till he’s paid it all to the uttermost farthing. He’s a fool of a sentimentalist, that’s just what he is — with an American girl ready to pay him a good round sum for the title, as I’ve reason to believe, if he’ll only marry her.”
“Leo!” his uncle exclaimed disapprovingly.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” the nephew continued, tilting himself on tiptoe, and shutting his mouth hard till the lips pursed up to express decision of character; “the fellow’s in love with some penniless girl or other. I’ve known that a long time; he was always getting letters from some place in Cornwall, in a woman’s hand, that he put away unopened and read in his bedroom; and he’s going to throw overboard your interest and his own, just to satisfy his own foolish sentimental fancy. I could forgive him for throwing yours overboard for a pretty face, that’s only human; but to throw over his own, why, it’s simply inexcusable. He shall pay for this, though. If ever I come in to those papers, he shall pay for it.”
“Leo,” the elder man said, leaning back in his chair and fixing his eye full upon his uncompromising nephew.
“Well, sir,” Mr. Lionel answered, replacing his thumbs in his waistcoat pocket.
“Leo,” Mr. Solomons repeated slowly, “I often wish you were a little more like Paul. I often wish I’d sent you instead of him to Oxford to college.”
“Well, I don’t, then,” Mr. Lionel responded, with a short toss of his head. “I’m precious glad you put me where I am, in the proper place for a man to make money in — in the City.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE.
THE air of Surrey suited the blond young man’s complaint to a T. Thistleton spent some two or three weeks at Hillborough, and seemed in no very great hurry to return to the bleak north from his comfortable quarters at the Red Lion. Meanwhile, Paul was busy clearing up his father’s affairs, selling what few effects there remained to sell, and handing over the proceeds, after small debts were paid, as remnant of the insolvent estate, to Mr. Solomons. Mr. Solomons received the sum with grim satisfaction; it was a first instalment of those terrible claims of his, and better than nothing; so he proceeded to release a single small note accordingly, which he burned in the office fire before Paul’s very face with due solemnity. Then, as if to impress on his young friend’s mind the magnitude of the amount that still remained unpaid, he counted over the rest of the bills in long array, jointly and severally, and locked them up once more with his burglar-proof key — Chubb’s best design — in that capacious safe of his.
Much yet remained for Paul to arrange. The family had now to be organized on a fresh basis; for it was clear that in future the new baronet must support his mother and, to some extent, apparently, his sister also. His own wish, indeed, was that they should both accompany him to London; but to that revolutionary proposal his mother would never for a moment accede. She had lived all her life long at Hillborough, she said, among her own people, and she couldn’t be dragged away now in her old age from her husband’s grave and her accustomed surroundings. Paul thought it best, therefore, to arrange for a couple of rooms in a cottage in Plowden’s Court, hard by, where Faith and she might take up their abode for the present.
