Sawn Off: A Tale of a Family Tree

“And your master – does he ever give you the stirrup-leather now?” said Max, laughing.

“Give me the sterrup-leather!” said the boy, looking pugnacious; “no, he jest don’t. I should like to ketch him at it. Sterrup-leather! why, he treats me just like a son.”

“But of course you are not his son?” said Max, with a peculiar smile.

“There’s impudence!” muttered Dick, from behind a great camellia. “Nice brotherly attack on me. Why, the young ruffian’s going to say he is, just out of pride and vanity!”

“No, sir; I was a workusser.”

“A what?”

“A workusser, and was sent out to one o’ the whitewashy schools. That’s where master got me. I’ll go and see if he’s ready.”

“Wait a moment, my lad,” said Max; “there’s another shilling, for being such a good boy and stopping in your place.”

“Stop, sir!” said John, grinning, as he bit the edge of the coin and then slipped it in his pocket – “I should think I do stop: master couldn’t afford to part with me.”

“If that boy tells all he knows, I’ll about half kill him,” muttered Dick, who, playing the eavesdropper, stood a fair chance of suffering the listener’s fate.

“I suppose not; you’re so useful to him in his business, I suppose?”

“Pooty well, sir.”

Max tried another tack.

“Master look well, John?”

“Lovely, sir!” cried the boy. “He’s a regular swell now.”

“Is he, though?”

“Tip-top, sir; never puts on a shirt twice, and wears three pairs o’ boots every day – shiny leather ones.”

“Does he, though?” said Max, drawing nearer to the boy. “And so he wouldn’t like to part with you?”

“Oh no, sir. I goes to the City with him every day – on the broom sometimes.”

“He keeps a brougham, then?”

“My master could keep anything he liked,” said the boy proudly; and Dick took a two-shilling piece out of his trousers pocket and placed it handy in his vest. “He’s going to have a yatched.”

“A what?”

“A little ship of his own, to go sailing about in.”

“Then he must be very rich?”

“Rich?” said the boy. “I should think he is.”

“And what did you say his business was, my lad?”

“Master’s business is master’s business, and nobody else’s,” said the boy sharply. “Here he is, sir.”

For just then Dick’s cough was heard, and his step in the conservatory. And then, in the whitest of vests and the glossiest of frock-coats, he came into the room as the boy backed out.

“My dear Richard!” cried Max, with effusion – and the tears stood in his eyes as he stretched out his hands – “I am delighted to see you again.”

“Are you?” said Dick coolly, and without taking any notice of the suggested embrace.

“So glad, I cannot tell you,” cried Max, taking out and unfolding a cambric handkerchief, which he held to one eye, looked at it afterwards to see if there was a moist spot for result, and, as there was not, tried the other eye with rather better success. “You’ll shake hands?”

“Oh yes,” said Dick. “How are you, Max?”

“Quite well, my dear brother: but why haven’t you been to see me all these long months?”

“Long months, eh? I never found ’em long. I began to think I was being took advantage of now that I was well off, and getting short measure.”

“Then you are very well off?”

“Tol-lol, tol-lol; nothing much to grumble about. But sit down.”

He placed an easy chair for his brother, seating himself afterwards on the edge of the table and watching his visitor sharply.

“I’m very glad of it, Richard,” cried Max, after a glance round. “You know, I always thought that a man with your brains was throwing himself away on trade, and wasting his energies.”

“Oh! you did, did you?”

“Always, my dear brother; and that’s why I used to speak so sharply to you – to rouse you – to awaken you.”

“Well, you did that, and no mistake!” said Dick, laughing.

“And look at the result. You set-to and hit up some bright idea; and now, before two years have elapsed, I come and find you a millionaire.”

“Well, not quite that, Max: a million’s a stiff sum, Max – a very stiff sum.”

“Hah! it’s refreshing to come and hear you call me again by that familiar name, Richard: it reminds me of when we were boys.” And Max again raised his handkerchief to his eyes.

“Well, old fellow, I wouldn’t cry about it if I was you. It’s all right now. You always was pretty well down upon me when I was a poor man; but as you’ve come and showed, as I said to Polly, that blood’s thicker than water, why, we’ll forget all about the past.”

“We will,” cried Max, taking his brother’s hand and beginning to pump it up and down, clinging to it the while as if he were afraid of being parted, and ending by trying to embrace him.

“I say, don’t do that!” cried Dick sharply. “I’m pretty well off, but I can only afford one clean shirt a day.”

“Jocular as ever,” said Max, holding his head on one side, and looking at him admiringly. “Humour flourishes in a golden soil. And so, my dear Richard, you make your twenty per cent, out of your profession?”

“Twenty per cent!” said Dick contemptuously. “Why, you don’t think this sort of thing’s done on twenty per cent, do you?”

“How much, then?”

“Well, I don’t know. I’m not particular. I take a hundred per cent, when I can’t get a hundred and fifty.”

“A hundred and fifty per cent! My dear Richard, you must put me on to this. We must be partners, Dick – Shingle Brothers, eh? But, my dear boy, what business are you in?”

“Oh, yes – that’s it!” said Dick, closing one eye slowly, and keeping it shut while he fixed the other on the ceiling. “But here are the ladies.”

As he spoke, Mrs Shingle and Jessie entered the room.

“Never!” exclaimed Max, with an air of wonderment. “My dear sister, my dear niece – years younger on the one side, years more beautiful on the other. What a change since I saw you last!”

“There’s better light in this room than in the old one, Max; and it flatters, perhaps,” said Dick.

“Yes, so there is, Richard. That was a cruel cold place. But why speak of the past? My dear niece, you have really grown beautiful. Fred would be charmed to see you.”

Jessie’s eyes contracted as she gazed full at him, and then, bending her head slightly, turned away.

“Haven’t you married him to a lady of fortune yet?” said Dick.

“Oh no!” cried Max hastily. “He is not engaged. Tom is – to my ward, Violante – a charming girl.”

Jessie stood as if turned to stone, but no sound escaped her. Dick, however, saw that she was suffering, and he said, sharply —

“Ah! fine young fellow, Tom; but deuced low in his tastes. Wanted to marry a poor shoemaker’s gal – girl, I mean. But there, come into my study, and I’ll give you a glass of genuine port. Mother, tell them to bring in the comic port.”

“Comet port,” she whispered. “I told you before.”

“All right – only meant to get him away. Look at Jessie.”

“I shall be delighted,” said Max. “Ladies, good-bye for the present.”

His bow was perfection; and then Dick led the way through the well-filled conservatory, while Mrs Shingle caught her child’s clammy hand in her own, for Jessie seemed about to faint.

Volume Two – Chapter Ten.

A Lunatic

“Jessie, are you ill?” cried Mrs Shingle.

“No, mother, no,” said Jessie, making a brave effort to recover herself. “It is all past now.”

“It was them talking in that heartless manner about those two fellows,” cried Mrs Shingle indignantly. “What is it, John?”

“Here’s another gentleman to see you, mum,” said the boy.

As he spoke, Mr Fred Fraser, elaborately dressed, walked into the room, a pull at the bell sounding through the house as he made his salutations, and, in a light and airy way, began to converse as if they had been the greatest intimates all along.

“Mr Thomas Fraser,” said John, in a loud voice. And, in a hasty, excited manner, Mrs Max Shingle’s elder son entered the room, to look angrily at his brother, as he saw him seated there.

“You here?” he cried sharply.

“Ya-as, I’m here, Tom,” was the cool reply.

“Aunt – Jessie!” exclaimed Tom, advancing. “I by chance heard that my step-father had come here; and, taking this as an augury that we were to be friends once more, I followed him; but I did not expect to find my brother here, and that I should be – ”

“De trop,” said Fred, with an irritating smile; “but you are.”

Tom turned upon him sharply, but, mastering his passion, he crossed to where Jessie was seated, and held out his hand.

“Jessie,” he said, in a low, earnest voice, “you will shake hands with me? I forgive all the past now, and wish you every happiness.”

At his first words a glad light had leaped into the poor girl’s eyes, and she half raised her hand to take his; but, as he finished his sentence, a stony rigidity stole over her, and she shrank back, letting her hand fall upon her lap.

It was too hard to bear, and she would have given worlds to have been able to rush from the room – anywhere, so as to be alone – and sob and wail aloud, to relieve her bursting heart. But it was impossible. She could not stir – only look up at Tom, as with knitted brows he stood there, resenting her coldness.

Never once had her thoughts strayed from him; and yet he had misjudged her so cruelly, believing that she trifled with him, that she played with his heart, while she coquetted – behaved lightly – with his brother. And now, after these long, weary months – after what would soon be two years of misery – now that he had come, her heart had whispered, to tell her that he had been wrong, and misjudged her, while he asked her pardon for the past – a pardon that she would joy in according – she had to hear, first that he was engaged to another, and then read in his face that his doubts and misgivings were stronger than ever.

Jessie’s heart, that had been expanding fast, like the petals of a flower, to drink in the sunshine of hope and love and joy, seemed to contract and shrivel up, blighted and seared, as, cold and trembling, she sat there, while, with a look of contempt, Tom turned away.

“As you will, my fair cousin,” he said, in a low, bitter voice. “I suppose I am to call you sister some day. How the world changes? Better poverty and truth than this.” When a word would have set all right.

He turned abruptly, and began speaking to Mrs Shingle; while Fred, seizing the opportunity, took a seat beside Jessie on the couch, and began to talk to her rapidly about the various trifles of the day – chattering on, while she seemed to be listening to him, for she replied in monosyllables, though she was striving, with every nerve strained, to hear what was said by his brother.

Before many words had passed, though, voices were heard from without, increasing in loudness; and Mrs Shingle started up, for it was plain that her husband was in a towering rage.

In fact, as he came through the conservatory, he struck a handsome jardinière a heavy blow with his open hand, shivering it upon the tesselated tiles of the floor.

“Hallo!” cried Dick angrily, as he entered, followed by Max, “you are all here, are you! Why didn’t you bring the wife and the servants, and take possession? It’s all right – there’s plenty of room. Here, you sir, get off that sofa!” The young men rose as he entered – Fred very slowly, and evidently amused; while Tom’s face flushed with rage.

“Oh, father!” cried Jessie, whose face had become suffused from shame and annoyance.

“There, I know what I’m doing,” he said. “Hold your tongue. You and your mother had better be off. You’ll stop? Well, then, stay.”

“Is your husband subject to a little – er – er – ? You know, Mrs Richard,” said Max, tapping his forehead.

“No,” said Dick sharply, “he isn’t. And now, may I ask, young fellows, how it is you condescend to be here? If it’s to order boots and chuck ’em on my hands for misfits, you’ve not come to the right shop.”

“They came unknown to me,” said Max hotly.

“I dessay they did,” cried Dick; “but whether they did or not, they’ve come to the wrong place, and, once for all, I forbid them my house.”

“Come, father,” said Tom sternly; while Fred took a step to Jessie’s side, and whispered —

“Dear Jessie, for heaven’s sake let this make no difference to us.”

She turned her eyes upon him for a moment, and Tom saw the glance; and then, as she gazed at him, directed a look upon her of withering contempt, beneath which she shivered.

“Don’t be in too great a hurry,” said Dick. “As you are here, we may as well have it out. We don’t often meet. Now, Max, my most affectionate brother, have the goodness to say that again, and let your wife’s sons hear what sort of a man you are.”

“No,” said Max, “I leave now. I shall take my own steps about it.”

“You will?” said Dick, looking startled.

“I shall, sir – I shall. I don’t consider you are fit to be trusted. There are such cases as inquiries in lunacy.”

“Bah!” said Dick, who looked startled all the same. “Well, if you don’t say what you said to me, here out loud before them all, I shall say it myself.”

“Then I will say it!” cried Max desperately. “What I said was this: As your uncle has hit upon some scheme for making a fortune, I have a right, as his own brother – ”

“Very own, indeed,” said Dick quietly.

“To share with him in the secret.”

“And what I say to it is,” cried Dick – “and you can all hear me – that what I invented with my own brains is my own property, and I won’t be bullied out of it by all the brothers in Christendom.”

“Then I shall follow out my own course.”

“Follow it, then,” said Dick scornfully, “and let your boys come after you.”

Tom turned upon him resentfully, but merely ground his teeth; while Fred winked, and tapped his teeth with his cane.

“I have not been idle during my interview with my poor afflicted brother,” continued Max; “and I have seen enough from his wild behaviour and language to know that the mental disease that has been threatening for years has now obtained such a hold that he is no longer fit to manage his own affairs.”

“I say, hold hard there!” cried Dick, looking at him in a puzzled way.

“I shall, of course, make due arrangements for the proper carrying out of his business, and for protecting the interests of his wife and child.”

“Mr Shingle!” cried Tom, stepping forward, “this is atrocious: there are no grounds for what you say.”

“Silence, sir!” roared Max; while Dick’s countenance underwent a complete change.

“There!” cried Dick angrily, as he appealed in turn to all present; “what did I always say? Max, you always were, and always will be, a ’umbug!”

“What?” cried Max.

“A ’umbug, sir. U-m, um – b-u-double-g, bug, ’umbug! That for you!” cried Dick, snapping his fingers in his brother’s face.

“Ah!” said Max, with a heavy sigh – “all proof of what I say – the violence, the excitement, these strange outbursts. My poor brother!”

He took out his handkerchief, and applied it to his eyes.

Dick looked at him for a moment, then at his wife and child, and then his face grew longer and his hand played nervously about his face.

“But, I say, Max,” he cried, “you don’t mean this. I’m as right in the upper story as you are.”

Max shook his head.

“My dear Richard,” he said, “I’d give my right hand to know you were. This is dreadful.”

“Dreadful? It’s worse than dreadful,” cried Mrs Shingle, catching her husband’s arm. “Dick, make him leave the house.”

“My dear Mrs Shingle,” said Max deprecatingly, “this is folly. You only excite him terribly.”

“Excite him?”

“Yes, my dear,” said Dick, wiping the perspiration from his face, “it do excite me a deal. I don’t know that Max ain’t right; but he won’t be hard on me – Max won’t. I have felt a little – little confused and upset, you know, about my business sometimes.”

“Father, it is not true,” cried Jessie, running to his side, “your mind is perfectly clear.”

“I’m afraid it ain’t, my dear,” he said. “But your Uncle Max won’t be hard on me. No sending to asylums or that sort of thing. Just a friendly visit from a doctor or two, and I should be soon put right.”

“Whatever the cleverest medical man I could procure – a specialist on your particular ailment – said, I should go by,” replied Max sadly.

“There, mother – there, Jessie, what did I tell you?” cried Dick, brightening up. “Blood is thicker than water. I always said it was. He’ll do what’s right.”

“With Heaven’s help I will,” said Max solemnly; while, unable to contain his disgust, Tom walked to the window.

“Of course he will,” cried Dick; “it’ll be all made up now, and we shall be the best of friends – eh?”

“Yes, dear Richard – the best of friends,” said Max, glancing at Mrs Shingle, and then shrugging his shoulders and raising his eyes.

“But about my business,” said Dick uneasily. And he began to bite the bits of tough skin at the sides of his fingers.

“Richard, are you mad?” cried Mrs Shingle excitedly. “You shall not talk about it. You have kept it secret so long, even from your own wife and child, and you shall not talk about it to him.”

Dick smiled at her rather vacantly.

“Well, it do seem hard, mother, certainly; but it was sure to come out some day, and it’s best for one’s own brother to know of it – better than anybody else, because he’ll do what’s right and best for every one – you and Jessie too, of course; for if I get worse (as I may, you know) it would be sad, of course, for it all to go to ruin for want of a master-mind, and no one left to take care of you – and – you come to ruin, and not even your poor husband to make boots and shoes for you again.”

He laughed hysterically, and Mrs Shingle threw her arms round his neck.

“Oh, Dick! dear Dick! what has come to you?” she cried. Then, rousing herself, she turned angrily upon Max. “This is your doing,” she cried. “He was quite well till you came.”

Max shook his head sadly, and wiped his eyes, while Fred tried to take Jessie’s hand; but she motioned him away, and stood by her father, keenly watching all present.

“Don’t talk like that, my dear,” said Dick, patting his wife’s shoulder; “it hurts me, and makes me worse. Max means well, and he’ll see to things being carried out right for all of us, won’t you, Max?”

“Indeed I will,” said Max piously; and Tom still gazed from the window.

“But – but – but do you think, Max,” said Dick, drawing his hands from his wife and child, and speaking in a desultory, wandering way, as if trying to collect his thoughts, “do you think that if you came in with me as you proposed, and saw to the management of the business, so as to relieve me and let me rest, it would be necessary for me to go anywhere away from home?”

“We would take advice over that,” said Max; “the best to be had – medical.”

“N-no,” said Dick shrewdly, “I shouldn’t quite like that, Max; those very clever doctors are too clever sometimes, and they might want to lock me up. I should be better at home with mother here and Jessie. It would make me worse to go away.”

“Oh, that could be managed, perhaps,” said Max; “but you must have your business arrangements seen to – they are so important.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Dick, who shuddered and looked horrified at the thought of having to go away; “but you’d make time for that. You could go halves, Max, and manage for me; and the business is growing fast – and you’d see, even if I got worse, that Jessie and mother here always had enough.”

“I cannot bear this any longer!” cried Mrs Shingle; while Jessie stood aghast.

“It’s all right, mother – it’s all right, mother. Max is a good fellow. When he used to row me it was to do me good. And you’ll take all in hand, won’t you, Max?”

“Dick, you shall not make any such arrangements,” cried Mrs Shingle. “Will no one take our side?”

“I will, aunt,” cried Tom fiercely; “for I will never stand by and see such a blackguardly wrong committed. Jessie,” he cried, “you have treated me badly, and behaved with cruel treachery to the man who loved you very dearly; but that’s all past now – and while I’ve hand to lift or voice to raise, I’ll never see you or yours wronged by father – or brother,” he added, fiercely turning on Fred, while Jessie uttered a sigh of relief, and buried her face on her mother’s shoulder.

“Tom,” whispered Max, catching him by the shoulder, “if you are not silent, I’ll strike you down.”

“Look here, if you dare to touch me,” roared Tom, “I shall forget that you are my poor weak mother’s husband. I will not stand by and see my uncle wronged. If he is unfit to attend to his affairs, aunt, see some trustworthy lawyer; but you shall not be, imposed upon like this.”

“Fred, stop him,” cried Max furiously. “Turn him out of the room. He’s as mad as his uncle.”

Fred hesitated for a moment, and then, stepping forward, he caught Tom by the arm.

“Here, come out!” he cried.

“Stand back!” cried Tom huskily.

“No – out you go,” cried Fred, who gathered courage on finding his brother did not resent his attack.

“Stand back, I say!”

“Out you go,” repeated Fred – “you fool!”

Tom drew back for a moment; and, as Jessie looked up, roused by a movement on her father’s, part and a cry from her mother, she saw Tom’s fist dart out from his shoulder, and then there was a dull sound, and Fred staggered back, tripped over a mat by the open window, and fell with a crash amongst the plants in the conservatory, bringing down an avalanche in his fall.

As Tom turned, it was to see that a complete change had come over Dick, who had leaped at his brother’s throat, catching him by shirt front and white cravat, bringing him upon his knees, and shaking him with all his might.

“You cursed scoundrel – you sanctified, hypocritical cheat!” shouted Dick, as he shook Max till he began to turn purple, and something white fell on the floor between his knees. “Mad, am I? Send me to an asylum, would you? Let me off if I give you half my income?”

“Help, help!” moaned Max, whose dark, smooth hair glided from his head on to the floor as Dick shook away.

“Didn’t I – say – you were – a ’umbug?” cried Dick, panting, and throwing all his energies into a kick. “Yes, and a fool. This is my clever brother, who let himself be taken in by the weakest, transparentest do that ever a man tried to invent. Softening of the brain, have I! That was a pretty hard kick for a man with that complaint!” he roared, as he stood over his brother, threatening with his foot as if about to punish him again. “There! Get up, and out of my house, and never darken the doors again. You ain’t a brother to me, and never were. Being born of the same mother only half makes brothers. I’ll never own you as mine. Eh? Oh, I’ve done, Tom, now.”

Dick made no resistance as Tom dragged him away from his brother; and Max got up, looking very strange about the head, as he hastily picked up and dragged on his wig.

“You – you – shall smart for this,” he mumbled. “As for you, sir, never enter my house – ”

“Be off!” roared Dick; and he made at his brother again. “Be off, you artificial sham!”

But Tom, with a look of bitter mortification in his face, restrained him; and Max, clinging to Fred, hurried out of the door, leaving Mrs Shingle trembling in a chair, where she had sunk; while Jessie knelt beside her, white as ashes, and holding her hand.

It was an ignoble plight, made more absurd by Dick, who suddenly ran to the fireplace and took the tongs, with which he picked up a handkerchief, and ran to the door.

“Here, Saint Maximilian!” he shouted, “you’ve left your weeper;” and he threw the tongs out with a crash into the hall.

“Take care!” cried a familiar voice; “I haven’t done anything.”

“What, Hopper, old man!” cried Dick, “you there?”

“Yes, I am, and heard it all – all I could,” he added, stumping into the room.

Dick threw himself laughing into an easy chair, as he heard the door bang; but started up directly, as he saw Tom standing silent and mortified in the middle of the room.

“Thankye, Tom,” he cried, as he held out his hand, which the young man took for a moment and then dropped. “Ah! you’re put out, of course; and I don’t wonder. It’s enough to rile any young fellow with stuff in him; and you’ve got that, and acted like a man.”

Tom gazed at him in silence, but did not try to speak.

“He’s ordered you out of his house, my lad,” continued Dick. “Not pleasant between father and son. There, I ain’t going to abuse him,” he hastened to add, as Tom made a deprecating gesture; “but don’t you mind that, – you acted like a man, and your conscience will set you right. Now, good-bye, my lad; and mind this: if you ever want a hundred pounds, or two hundred, or five hundred pounds, you’ve only got to say so to your uncle, Richard Shingle, and there it is.”