A Secret Inheritance. Volume 1 of 3. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold

looking at me admiringly from her crouching position; the twitch in her leg had caused her but momentary suffering, "I can't stand without my crutch, and it's broke."

      "But you tried to stand when I called to you."

      "Oh, yes; you said you'd give me a shilling, and I didn't think of my leg."

      Much virtue in a shilling, thought I, to cause one to forget such an affliction.

      "I wouldn't mind buying you a crutch," I said, "if I knew where they were sold."

      "There's a shop in the next street," said the girl, "where the master's got the feller one to this. It's a rag and bone shop, and he'll sell it cheap."

      "I'll show you the shop, young sir, if you like," said a voice at my elbow.

      The tone and the manner of speech were refined, and it surprised me, therefore, when I turned, to behold a figure strangely at variance with this refinement. The man was in rags, and the drunkard's stamp was on his features, but in his kind eyes shone a sadly humorous light. Moreover, he spoke as a gentleman would have spoken.

      I accepted his offer to show me the rag and bone shop, and we walked side by side, conversing. To be exact, I should say that he talked and I listened, for he used twenty words to one of mine. This kind of social intercourse was rare in my experiences, and it proved interesting, by reason of my chance companion being an exception to the people who lived in the neighbourhood. Few as were the words I uttered, they, and the books I carried under my arm, served to unlock his tongue, and he regaled me with snatches of personal history. He was familiar with the books I had purchased, and expressed approval of my selection. He had, indeed, been born a gentleman, and had received a liberal education.

      "Which has served to convince me," he observed, "that if it is in the nature of a man to swim with the current into which he has drifted or been driven, swim with it he must, wheresoever it may lead him."

      "There is the power of resistance," I said.

      "There is nothing of the sort," was his comment, "unless it is agreeable to the man to exercise it. We are but straws. It is fortunate that life is short, and that happiness does not consist in wearing a jewelled crown. Young sir, how came you to live in these parts?"

      "I do not know," I replied. "My parents live here."

      "But you are not poor."

      By this time I had bought the odd crutch, and my companion had seen the gold in my purse when I paid for it.

      "We have been," I said, "but are so no longer."

      "Shade of Pluto!" he cried. "If I could but say as much! So, being suddenly made rich, you open your heart to pity's call?" I shook my head in doubt, and he touched the crutch. "Don't you think this a fine thing to do?"

      "I am not sure," I said.

      "Excellent!" he exclaimed. "Praise me not for my virtues; blame me not for my vices. That morality, in respect to the average man, is a knife that cuts both ways. To sinners like myself it is more comforting than otherwise."

      He puzzled me, and I told him so, but he made a pretence of disbelieving me, and said,

      "There are depths in you, young sir. You may live to discover that you are in the wrong century."

      That I did not clearly understand him did not render his conversation less interesting. I gave the girl the crutch and a shilling, and left her and the man together.

      I record this incident because it is the only one I remember during the time we lived in that poor neighbourhood in which strangers played a part. So far as my outer life was concerned, it was utterly devoid of colour.

      CHAPTER II

      There was but little difference in this respect when we removed to Rosemullion, an old-fashioned, straggling mansion on the outskirts of Rochester, surrounded by stone walls, and secluded from public view by thick clusters of trees. We made no friends, we kept no company. Within half a hundred yards of the great house was a cottage of six rooms, very pretty, embosomed in shrubs and flowers. After a time this cottage became my real home. I was allowed to do pretty much as I liked, within certain unexpressed limitations through which, it appears, I did not break. Before I inhabited this cottage, I spoke, of course, to my father on the subject.

      "You have taken a fancy to it, Gabriel?" he said.

      "A great fancy," I said; "I wish it were mine."

      "You may consider it yours," he said.

      I thanked him, and immediately removed my books and papers into it. In a very short time it was ready for occupation, and I took possession of it. I wrote and studied in it, mused in it, slept in it, and lived therein a life of much seclusion. It suited my humour; I was fond of privacy, and I could enjoy it there to my heart's content.

      Heaven knows there was no inducement in the great house to render it attractive to me. It was invariably quiet and sad. Whatever else our coming into possession of wealth did for us, it did not improve my mother's health. She became more than ever a confirmed invalid, and frequently kept her chamber for weeks together, during which times I was not permitted to see her. Mrs. Fortress remained with us in attendance on my mother, and exercised absolute control not only over her, but over the whole establishment. My father did not trouble himself in domestic matters; he left everything to Mrs. Fortress. Our only regular visitor was a doctor, who occasionally, after seeing my mother, would come and chat with me a while. He was a practitioner of fair ability, but apart from his profession, had little in him to attract me to him. I had the knack of gauging men, though I mixed but little with them; I had also the gift of drawing them out, as it were, and of extracting any special knowledge in which they were proficient. Using the doctor in this way, quite unsuspiciously, I am sure, to himself, I gained something from conversing with him; but had his visits to me not been few and far between, I should have found a means of avoiding them. I had already developed a certain masterfulness of spirit, and judged and decided matters for myself. There was, however, one exception, the intercourse between my mother and myself. In this I did not guide, but was guided. When the periods of seclusion of which I have spoken were over, Mrs. Fortress would come to me and say, "Your mother will see you now," and would conduct me to her presence. Only the slightest references to her illness were permitted. There were in our small family unwritten laws which were never transgressed. I have no remembrance of the manner in which they were made known to me, but known they were, and obeyed as though they had been writ in letters of steel, and no thought of rebelling against them entered my mind. The utmost I was allowed to say was,

      "You have been ill, mother?"

      "Yes, Gabriel," she would reply, "I have been ill."

      "You are better now, mother?"

      "Yes, I am better now."

      That was all.

      Mrs. Fortress would stand in silence by the bedside. She ruled chiefly by looks. What peculiar duties were attached to her service I know not, but there cannot be a doubt that she performed them faithfully. I neither liked nor disliked her, but she compelled me to respect her. In her outward bearing she was more like a machine than a human being. Sometimes in thinking of her I recalled words which had been applied to me by the man who had accompanied me to purchase the crutch for the lame girl. "There are depths in you, young sir." There must be depths in every human creature-a hidden life pulsing beneath the one revealed to the world. What depths were hidden in Mrs. Fortress's' nature? Had she relatives in some faraway corner, of whom she thought with affection? Had she an ambition, an aspiration? Was she working to some coveted end? Had she an idea which was not bounded by the walls of my mother's sick room? Did she love anything in all the wide world? Did she fear anything? Was she capable of an act of devotion and self-sacrifice? Impossible to discover in one so stolid and impassive.

      I saw her one day during a great storm standing in the porch of the principal entrance, watching with calm eyes the lightning playing among the trees. She gazed straight and clear before her; there was not a sign of blenching. Loud peals of thunder broke over the district; she made no movement. I could not but admire her, for I myself loved to watch a great storm, and took delight in witnessing a conflict of the elements.

      "You enjoy it," I said, going to