Evelyn Everett-Green - Fallen Fortunes

A numb feeling began to creep over Grey. He felt like one walking in a bad dream. The blow of hearing of his father's death was a heavy one. It seemed to shake the foundations of his life to their very base. And now his home was lost to him! Little as he understood the machinations of his kinsman, he grasped that he had come into nothing but a barren title and nominal possession of a ruinous and dilapidated old house, the revenues of which were in some way alienated to another. He had heard such tales before. He did not discredit old Jock's recital. It fitted in only too well with what he knew of his father's recklessness and selfish expenditure, and his kinsman's artful grasping policy. So, after all, he had come to a home that was not his; and he would have to face the world again as something very like a beggar.

Old Jock's hand upon his arm aroused him to a sense of outward things. Dicon had come up, and was listening with wide eyes and falling jaw to the recital of the same story as had been told in outline to Grey. The fuller details only made it sound more true and lifelike.

"Come in, Sir Grey, come in. There's bite and sup for you in the cupboard. The old master didn't forget me, and I can make shift to earn my bread by hook or by crook even without regular wage. Come in, come in, and I'll give ye what I've got for ye. 'Twas all the old master had left from his hoard; but he said it would give you a start in life, and that your wits must do the rest. He gave it me private like, when Mr. Barty was off the place, and I buried it beneath the hearthstone that same day. 'Tis all safe for you, Sir Grey; and you won't go penniless into the world, for all that this villain of a kinsman reigns at Hartsbourne, where you should be."

They sat face to face in a room which Grey well remembered. It had been lined with folios in those days – great tomes in which he had dug with breathless delight, for the treasures of wood-cuts and the strange stories they possessed – and illuminated missals, where, amid a mass of gilding and wonderful colours, the story of saint or martyr could be traced. Other and more modern works had been also there, specimens of the art of printing as carried on through the days of the Stuarts. But where were all these tomes and scrolls and books now? Grey swept the empty shelves with quick, indignant glances. A motion of his hands seemed to ask the question his lips were too proud to speak.

A small and wizened man sat before him, his eyes furtively scanning the young man's face with an unwinking attention. He could not have been old, this parchment-faced kinsman – not more than five-and-forty at the most – and yet he wore the look of an old man, and was fond of speaking of himself as such. The unhealthy pallor of his face bespoke a life of inaction, and the lines and wrinkles on the puffy skin, and the emaciation of the frame and claw-like hands, seemed either to indicate some wasting disease, or else a miser-like habit of life which denied its owner the common necessaries of existence. Grey fancied that perhaps this latter surmise might be the right one; for he himself would have fared ill at breakfast that morning, had it not been for the fish which Dicon had caught and cooked for the pair, ere he presented himself at the meal to which his kinsman invited him on hearing of his advent to the old house. That meal had been so frugal that Grey almost disdained to partake of it. And now he and Mr. Dumaresq sat facing each other in the green light which fell through the big north window, against which the trees almost brushed, rather like combatants in a duel, each of which measures the strength and skill of the other before attempting to strike.

The wizened man made a deprecating gesture with his hand, and answered the unspoken question.

"Sold, sold – every one of them! I did my best to keep them in the family, but it was of no avail. Your father would have money – no matter at what cost. I was toiling all I knew for him, as it was. Everything that could be got out of the estate I squeezed out for him. Never man had so faithful a steward as I was to my poor cousin. But it was like pouring water through a sieve. Nay, you need not look so fiercely at me. I am not traducing the dead. Ask those with whom he consorted. Ask the boon companions he made in gay London town. Ask his very servants, an you will. You will hear the same tale from all. He spent money like water. Never did he trouble his head where it was to come from. I have papers; I can show them if you have knowledge of the law enough to understand. I advanced him sum after sum, on such poor security as this tumble-down house and impoverished estate has to offer. I beggared myself for his sake. He was the only kinsman left me. I could deny him nothing. And when my funds were gone, I must needs squeeze all that could be squeezed out of the house and land. The books went; the timber was felled; the pictures were taken away; the best of the furniture went to adorn the houses of merchants and parvenus. I argued and entreated in vain. When the wild fit was upon him, Hugh would listen to nothing. I had to content myself with serving him, by seeing that he was not cheated beyond bearing by the crew of harpies he had around him. At least I secured him equitable prices for family heirlooms; but it went to my heart to see them vanish one by one. And now, what is left save the shell of the old house, and an estate burdened and impoverished well-nigh beyond the power of redemption?"

He heaved a great sigh, looking cunningly at the young man out of the corners of his ferret-like eyes. Grey's glance was stern and direct. His words were quietly and coldly spoken.

"We will see about that. I am here to take up my burden. I will learn whether or not Hartsbourne be past redemption."

"You!" cried 'Mr. Dumaresq quickly; "and pray what can you do?"

"I can live here quietly, and see what can be done towards retrieving the past. Even if I toil with my own hands, I shall think it no shame, if it be for the home of my forefathers."

"You live here!" sneered the other, seeking to mask the sneer by a smile; "and by what right will you do that, pray?"

"I am the owner," answered Grey proudly. "I presume that I have the right to live in my own house, and to administer such revenues as may be left to the estate?"

"Oh yes, fair kinsman, so soon as the mortgages be paid. I will get them out for your high mightiness to examine. Pay them off, and house and manor are yours to do with as you will. But till that time come, I, and not you, am master here. The revenues are mine; the house I have the right to occupy, to the exclusion of any other. It is all writ fair to see – signed and sealed. Will you see the papers for yourself? They will make pleasant study for a summer morning."

"I will look at the papers anon," answered Grey quietly; "but first I would know from you what it all means. It is you, not I, to whom Hartsbourne belongs, then? You are the master, and I am the guest?"

"For the present, yes; but a welcome guest, none the less," spoke the older man with a repulsive leer. "The situation, my bold young cousin, is easily understood. Your father loved not the old family house. I did love it. Could he have sold it, it would have been mine long since; but he had not the power to alienate it from the title. But he did all else that was possible. He raised mortgage upon mortgage upon it – first on the house, then on the land. I came to live in the house, and paid him rent for it once. Then I supplied him with money and took up the mortgages. He and I had been boys together. The tie between us was strong. I verily believe he was glad to have me here, and when he was sick and smitten with mortal disease he came hither to die, and I was with him to the last. He was grateful for my devoted service. He was glad to think that I should live on here afterwards. 'It is no life for a young man,' he said almost at the last. 'Grey will carve out a career for himself. Here he could only rot and starve like a rat in a hole.' And I pointed out that you were my natural heir, and that you might not have very long to wait before coming a second time into your inheritance."