CHAPTER 36.

 

            AFTER Maynard’s departure, Lord Littmass continued to lie back motionless in his chair, until partially recovered from his exhaustion. His first conscious impulse was to curse the weakness that compelled him to leave the contest to be decided another day; but presently he reflected that, after all, the attack had occurred at a fortunate crisis, as it had obtained for him a respite which he could employ in re-forming his plans.

 

            Then, remembering the directions he had given to Margaret, he rang for the servant to tell her that he had no need to see her that evening, and that she might retire to her room.

 

            ‘I shall not require anything more to-night,’ he added; and shortly the whole house was asleep, save only its master, who sat alone in his study, leaning back in his writing-chair, the chair in which he had written the works which had gained his fame; and with the last pages before him of his new book, the book upon which he relied to eclipse all that even he had as yet achieved.

 

            As he sat musing, the sentences which he had last written caught his eye and riveted his attention. And he thought, –

 

            ‘If these natures, so noble and so pure, are yet doomed to such extremity of woe, wherefore should I expect a happier fate for myself?’

 

            Here his fingers mechanically closed upon his pen, and the habit being strong, while he thought, he unconsciously wrote, –

 

            ‘How will it end? how will it end? Death, death, art thou then indeed sole solver of life’s problems? Methinks I can baffle thee yet.’

 

            And suddenly remembering the cordial which his doctor had bidden him keep ever at hand, and which, on the last occasion of his using it, he had placed in the drawer of his writing-table, sought for it, and placing the vial to his lips, swallowed a dose so powerful as at first to take away his breath, and alarm

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him lest he had poisoned himself. Presently the dram took the expected effect, and sent a glow through his whole system, causing his heart to beat with renewed vigour, and his brain to throb with creative energy. He seized his pen, and his fingers could scarcely go fast enough to keep pace with the ideas that thronged upon him. He exercised no control over their direction, but was surprised to find that instead of working in the course of his book, or inciting him to antagonistic feelings towards the agents of his embarrassments, they crowded upon him in the form of a rapid vision of quite another kind of life than that which he had lived, yet one that it now seemed to him the easiest possible life for him to have lived, – one that, had he only been upright and true, would have brought him happiness and contentment. There rose before him, as in a vision, a loving wife, a bright home, glad noble children, in whose growing characters and abilities he could have taken a pride, and a consciousness of the highest and sweetest aims in a far healthier and higher class of writings.

 

            ‘My wife,’ – his pen ran on, he unknowing what it wrote, or even that it was writing, – ‘yes, she was good and true, until her moral being was destroyed by me. I must not lay the failure of my life to her charge. Ah! had I but to live my years over again! but now it is too late to redeem the past. I am well nigh worn out. The task, nay the joy, of leading a better life must be left to others. I can only conceive it. Its execution is beyond me. I have wasted my opportunity, little dreaming of a time when I should call upon my heart and brain to continue their functions, if only for the purpose of affording me space to work out a higher ideal of life, and should call upon them in vain! And so, and so, it comes at last. The summer is past. The harvest is ended; and I – I am not –– Oh, James! James! my son! my son!’

 

            And his head drooped forward upon his left arm as it rested on his paper; and for a time he had neither the heart nor the will to raise it again. When at length he lifted it, it was with a wild eager look, showing that in the hallucination of the moment he thought that James was still there.

 

            ‘You will forgive me, will you not? No longer will I be absorbed in myself. Acknowledge me to be your father, as I at last acknowledge you to be my son. Pity me, James. The world thinks me rich. I am a pauper. Worse. I am in debt. The world honours me. Yet I am a villain. The world

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believes me childless. You are my son. While to the world I was rich, honoured, but childless, I was miserable. I knew not how miserable until now. Now, poor, dishonoured, but with you, I shall learn happiness. Old age has come upon me in a moment. I can stand alone no longer. Pity your old father. I swore you should never bear my name or rank, for I believed you to be not mine. But now I see differently. I see myself in you. Not my bad, old self; but the better self I had in me – and kept there.

 

            ‘Silent still? You renounce me as a father? Oh, I hear your voice, so low, yet so hard to me. Or are they your thoughts which I hear? Yes, yes, I will write them all down.’

 

            ‘ “Peer, peerless in dishonour. Artist of an ideal which your real life laughs to scorn. Childless you have chosen to live. Childless you will die. Never will I bear your name or rank. Never with your fame adore my career. Never yours with mine. Renounced all these years as your son; acknowledged only to be deprived of my dearest hopes, I refuse to accept you now, or own you as my father.”

 

            ‘Yes, James, you are right, quite right to be proud and hard. I was proud and hard once, and you have it from me. It would be a condescension, a great condescension in you, to own me now. And we don’t condescend in our family, until we are old and broken, – as I am now, James. Yet I thought you better than I ever was. I hope, James, I shall not live to disgrace you long. It was only pride that kept me from owning you. You understand that now. It was no fault of yours. I was too proud to let myself be put right. My pride made me refuse to let you marry Margaret. I was too proud to acknowledge myself wrong by owning you; and too proud to let my son marry under a false name. I did not mean to rob Margaret of her fortune. I thought she would soon die, and it would be mine by right. I thought then that I might replace it. Remember how proud I was, and think how impossible it was for me, being so proud, to tell the world I was a pauper. This is not all, James. I have deceived everybody; and tomorrow everybody will know it. For I cannot conceal the truth longer. But you will not be hard on me. You will hide me from them, so that I may not see their scornful triumph. But for a little while, James, a little while.’

 

            And ceasing for a moment to write, he glared round the room. Presently his pen dashed on again.

 

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            ‘Gone! gone! without one word, without staying till I had finished speaking to him! Perhaps he is still within hearing, and will return at my call. James! James! I feel that this is killing me. Go, then, and tell your Margaret that my death is your marriage licence.’

 

            And once more his head fell upon his arm; and there it remained. For the stimulant that sustained him had evaporated, and his delirium had given place the numbness. The neglected fire had gone out, and the bitter November night had entered the room; and there was no latent heat to promote vital re-action. So there Lord Littmass remained, still grasping the pen with which he had learnt to feel for his thoughts; – the pen that had recorded his last agonising vision on the sheets of paper which lay strewn around; – until the morning came, when the servants entered the room, and found him dead!

 

 

 

 

END OF PART I

 

 

 

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