Mayne Reid - The Finger of Fate - A Romance

“Of what, dear father?” asked the obsequious Nigel. “You have received some unpleasant news?”

“News! news! worse than news!”

“From whom, may I ask?”

“From Henry – the scamp – the ungrateful – Here, read this!”

Nigel took the note and read. “It is indeed an unpleasant communication; unfeeling of Henry – insulting, I should say. But what does it all mean?”

“No matter what it means. Enough for me to know that. Enough to think that he is gone. I know the boy well. He will keep his word. He’s too like myself about that. Gone! O God – gone!”

The General groaned as he traversed the Turkey carpet. The maiden aunt said nothing, but sat by the table, quietly sipping port wine and munching walnuts. The storm raged on.

“After all,” put in Nigel, with the pretence of tranquillising it, “he means nothing with this strange talk. He’s young – foolish – ”

“Means nothing!” roared the General in a fresh burst of excitement. “Does it mean nothing to write such a letter as this – in which every word is a slight to my authority – a defiance?”

“True enough,” said Nigel, “I know not what can have possessed him to speak as he has done. He’s evidently angry about something – something I don’t understand. But he’ll get over it in time, though one cannot forgive him so easily.”

“Never! I will never forgive him. He has tried my temper too often; but this will be the last time. Disobedience such as his shall be overlooked no longer – to say nothing of the levity, the positive defiance, that accompanies it. By my faith, he shall be punished for it!”

“In that regard,” interposed the unctuous elder son, “since he has spoken of my giving you advice, it would be to leave him to himself – at least for a time. Perhaps after he has passed some months without the extravagant support you have hitherto so generously afforded him, he may feel less independent, and more prone to penitence. I think the thousand pounds he speaks of your having promised him, and which I know nothing about, should be kept back.”

“He shan’t have a shilling of it – not till my death.”

“For your sake, dear father, a long time, I hope; and for his, perhaps, it may be all the better so.”

“Better or worse, he shan’t have a shilling of it – not a shilling. Let him starve till he comes to his senses.”

“The best thing to bring him to his senses,” chimed in Nigel; “and take my word for it, father, it will do that before long – you’ll see.”

This counsel seemed to tranquillise the perturbed spirit of the irate General, at least for a time. He returned to the table and to his port; over which he sat alone, and to a much later hour than was his usual custom. The mellow wine may have made him more merciful; but whether it was this or not, before going to bed he returned to his studio, and wrote, in a somewhat unsteady hand, a letter to his London lawyer – directing the latter to pay to his son Henry, on demand, a cheque for the sum of 1,000 pounds.

He despatched the letter by a groom, to be in time for the morning post; and all this he did with an air of caution, as if he intended to do good by stealth. But what appears caution to the mind of a man obfuscated with over a bottle of port, may seem carelessness to those who are around him. There was one who looked upon it in this light. Nigel knew all about the writing of the letter, guessed its contents, and was privy to its despatch for the post. Outside the hall-door it was taken from the hands of the groom to whom it had been intrusted, and transferred to the charge of another individual, who was said to be going past the village post-office. It was Master Nigel who caused the transference to be made. And from him the new messenger received certain instructions, in consequence of which the letter never reached its destination.

On arriving in London, Henry Harding put up at a West-end hotel, which he had allowed his cabman to select, for he knew very little of London or its life. He had only paid two or three transient visits to it, and but few of his father’s acquaintances resided in the metropolis. Upon these he did not think of calling. He supposed that the affair with his father might have become known to them – perhaps his rejection by Belle Mainwaring – and he had resolved upon keeping out of sight, to avoid the necessity of concealing his chagrin. Henry Harding had a proud spirit, and could neither have brooked ridicule nor accepted sympathy. For this reason, instead of hunting out any old college acquaintances he might have found in London, he rather avoided the chances of meeting them.

Besides the note written to his father, he had addressed one to the footman, simply directing this individual to pack up his clothes, guns, canes, and other impedimenta, and send them on to Paddington station, “till called for.” This was done; and the luggage, in due time, arrived at the hotel where he was staying. Some eight or ten pounds of loose money, that chanced to be in his pocket on leaving home, was all the cash he commanded; and this was out of his pocket before he had been half that number of days in London.

For the first time in his life he began to find what an inconvenient thing it is to be without cash, especially in the streets of a large city – though he yet only knew it as an inconvenience. He expected his father would accede to the request he had made, and send an order for the payment of the thousand pounds. To allow time for the transaction, he kept away from the solicitor’s office for nearly a week. He then called to make the inquiry. It was simply whether any communication relating to him had been received from his father. In case there had been none, he did not wish the lawyer to be any wiser about the affair. None had been – not any. This was the answer given him.

In three days he called again, and reiterated his former inquiry almost word for word. Almost word for word was the answer he had – not from the solicitor himself, but the head clerk of his office. General Harding had written no letter lately to Messrs Lawson and Son (the name of the firm), either in reference to him or any other matter. “He’s not going, to send it,” bitterly soliloquised Henry as he left the solicitor’s office. “I suppose I’m not punished enough – so he thinks, with my precious brother to back him. Well, he can keep it. I shall never ask another shilling from him, if I have to starve.”

There is a sort of pleasure in this self-abnegation – at least, during the incipient stages of it. But it is a pleasure traceable rather to revenge than virtue, and often dies out before the passion that has given it birth.

With Henry Harding it was not so short-lived. His spirit had been sorely chafed by the treatment he had received both from his sweetheart and his father. He could not separate them in his mind; and his resentment, directed against both, was strong enough to lead him to almost any resolution. He formed that of not going back to the office of the solicitor, and he kept it. It cost him a struggle, to which, perhaps, a less proud spirit would have yielded, for he was soon suffering from want of cash. His spendthrift life had suddenly come to an end, since he had no means of continuing it; and he was forced to the reflection how he could find the means of a mere living. He had changed his quarters to a cheaper hotel, but even this would require cash to pay for it, so that his circumstances were approaching desperation. What was he to do? Enlist in the army? Offer himself on board a merchant ship? Drive a cab? Carry a sandwich? Or sweep a crossing? None of these occupations were exactly suited to his taste. Better than any or all of them – go abroad. There, if it come to the worst, he could try one or the other.