Erema; Or, My Father's Sin

“You have wrongs, most bitter wrongs,” I answered, meeting fierce eyes mildly; “but you should remember that I am guiltless of those wrongs, and so was my father. And I think that if you talk of birth so, you must know that gentlemen speak quietly to ladies.”

“What concern is that of mine? A gentleman is some one’s son. I am the son of nobody. But to you I will speak quietly, for the sake of your poor father. And you must listen quietly. I am not famous for sweet temper. Well, this great lord took his toy to Paris, where he had her at his mercy. She could not speak a word of French; she did not know a single soul. In vain she prayed him to take her to his English home; or, if not that, to restore her to her father. Not to be too long about it—any more than he was—a few months were enough for him. He found fault with her manners, with her speech, her dress, her every thing—all which he had right, perhaps, to do, but should have used it earlier. And she, although not born to the noble privilege of weariness, had been an old man’s darling, and could not put up with harshness. From words they came to worse, until he struck her, told her of her shame, or rather his own infamy, and left her among strangers, helpless, penniless, and brokenhearted, to endure the consequence.

“There and thus I saw the light beneath most noble auspices. But I need not go on with all that. As long as human rules remain, this happy tale will always be repeated with immense applause. My mother’s love was turned to bitter hatred of his lordship, and, when her father died from grief, to eager thirst for vengeance. And for this purpose I was born.

“You see that—for a bastard—I have been fairly educated; but not a farthing did his lordship ever pay for that, or even to support his casual. My grandfather Hoyle left his little all to his daughter Winifred; and upon that, and my mother’s toil and mine, we have kept alive. Losing sight of my mother gladly—for she was full of pride, and hoped no more to trouble him, after getting her father’s property—he married again, or rather he married for the first time without perjury, which enables the man to escape from it. She was of his own rank—as you know—the daughter of an earl, and not of a farmer. It would not have been safe to mock her, would it? And there was no temptation.

“The history of my mother and myself does not concern you. Such people are of no account until they grow dangerous to the great. We lived in cheap places and wandered about, caring for no one, and cared for by the same. Mrs. Hoyle and Thomas Hoyle we called ourselves when we wanted names; and I did not even know the story of our wrongs till the heat and fury of youth were past. Both for her own sake and mine my mother concealed it from me. Pride and habit, perhaps, had dulled her just desire for vengeance; and, knowing what I was, she feared—the thing which has befallen me. But when I was close upon thirty years old, and my mother eight-and-forty—for she was betrayed in her teens—a sudden illness seized her. Believing her death to be near, she told me, as calmly as possible, every thing, with all those large, quiet views of the past, which at such a time seem the regular thing, but make the wrong tenfold blacker. She did not die; if she had, it might have been better both for her and me, and many other people. Are you tired of my tale? Or do you want to hear the rest?”

“You can not be asking me in earnest,” I replied, while I watched his wild eyes carefully. “Tell me the rest, if you are not afraid.”

“Afraid, indeed! Then, for want of that proper tendance and comfort which a few pounds would have brought her, although she survived, she survived as a wreck, the mere relic and ruin of her poor unhappy self. I sank my pride for her sake, and even deigned to write to him, in rank and wealth so far above me, in every thing else such a clot below my heel. He did the most arrogant thing a snob can do—he never answered my letter.

“I scraped together a little money, and made my way to England, and came to that house—which you now call yours—and bearded that noble nobleman—that father to be so proud of! He was getting on now in years, and growing, perhaps, a little nervous, and my first appearance scared him. He got no obeisance from me, you may be certain, but still I did not revile him. I told him of my mother’s state of mind, and the great care she required, and demanded that, in common justice, he, having brought her to this, should help her. But nothing would he promise, not a sixpence even, in the way of regular allowance. Any thing of that sort could only be arranged by means of his solicitors. He had so expensive a son, with a very large and growing family, that he could not be pledged to any yearly sum. But if I would take a draft for 100 pounds, and sign an acquittance in full of all claims, I might have it, upon proving my identity.

“What identity had I to prove? He had taken good care of that. I turned my back on him and left the house, without even asking for his curse, though as precious as a good man’s blessing.

“It was a wild and windy night, but with a bright moon rising, and going across this park—or whatever it is called—I met my brother. At a crest of the road we met face to face, with the moon across our foreheads. We had never met till now, nor even heard of one another; at least he had never heard of me. He started back as if at his own ghost; but I had nothing to be startled at, in this world or the other.

“I made his acquaintance, with deference, of course, and we got on very well together. At one time it seemed good luck for him to have illegitimate kindred; for I saved his life when he was tangled in the weeds of this river while bathing. You owe me no thanks. I thought twice about it, and if the name would have ended with him, I would never have used my basket-knife. By trade I am a basket-maker, like many another ‘love-child.’

“However, he was grateful, if ever any body was, for I ran some risk in doing it; and he always did his very best for me, and encouraged me to visit him. Not at his home—of course that would never do—but when he was with his regiment. Short of money as he always was, through his father’s nature and his own, which in some points were the very opposite, he was even desirous to give me some of that; but I never took a farthing from him. If I had it at all, I would have it from the proper one. And from him I resolved to have it.

“How terrified you look! I am coming to it now. Are you sure that you can bear it? It is nothing very harrowing; but still, young ladies—”

“I feel a little faint,” I could not help saying; “but that is nothing. I must hear the whole of it. Please to go on without minding me.”

“For my own sake I will not, as well as for yours. I can not have you fainting, and bringing people here. Go to the house and take food, and recover your strength, and then come here again. I promise to be here, and your father’s daughter will not take advantage of my kindness.”

Though his eyes were fierce (instead of being sad) and full of strange tempestuous light, they bore some likeness to my father’s, and asserted power over me. Reluctant as I was, I obeyed this man, and left him there, and went slowly to the house, walking as if in a troubled dream.

CHAPTER LII

FOR LIFE, DEATH

Upon my return, I saw nothing for a time but fans and feathers of browning fern, dark shags of ling, and podded spurs of broom and furze, and wisps of grass. With great relief (of which I felt ashamed while even breathing it), I thought that the man was afraid to tell the rest of his story, and had fled; but ere my cowardice had much time for self-congratulation a tall figure rose from the ground, and fear compelled me into courage. For throughout this long interview more and more I felt an extremely unpleasant conviction. That stranger might not be a downright madman, nor even what is called a lunatic; but still it was clear that upon certain points—the laws of this country, for instance, and the value of rank and station—his opinions were so outrageous that his reason must be affected. And, even without such proofs as these, his eyes and his manner were quite enough. Therefore I had need of no small caution, not only concerning my words and gestures, but as to my looks and even thoughts, for he seemed to divine these last as quickly as they flashed across me. I never had learned to conceal my thoughts, and this first lesson was an awkward one.

“I hope you are better,” he said, as kindly as it was possible for him to speak. “Now have no fear of me, once more I tell you. I will not sham any admiration, affection, or any thing of that kind; but as for harming you—why, your father was almost the only kind heart I ever met!”

“Then why did you send a most vile man to fetch me, when my father was dead in the desert?”

“I never did any thing of the sort. It was done in my name, but not by me; I never even heard of it until long after, and I have a score to settle with the man who did it.”

“But Mr. Goad told me himself that you came and said you were the true Lord Castlewood, and ordered him at once to America. I never saw truth more plainly stamped on a new situation—the face of a rogue—than I saw it then on the face of Mr. Goad.”

“You are quite right; he spoke the truth—to the utmost of his knowledge. I never saw Goad, and he never saw me. I never even dreamed of pretending to the title. I was personated by a mean, low friend of Sir Montague Hockin; base-born as I am, I would never stoop to such a trick. You will find out the meaning of that by-and-by. I have taken the law into my own hands—it is the only way to work such laws—I have committed what is called a crime. But, compared with Sir Montague Hockin, I am whiter than yonder shearling on his way to the river for his evening drink.”

I gazed at his face, and could well believe it. The setting sun shone upon his chin and forehead—good, resolute, well-marked features; his nose and mouth were keen and clear, his cheeks curt and pale (though they would have been better for being a trifle cleaner). There was nothing suggestive of falsehood or fraud, and but for the wildness of the eyes and flashes of cold ferocity, it might have been called a handsome face.

“Very well,” he began again, with one of those jerks which had frightened me, “your father was kind to me, very kind indeed; but he knew the old lord too well to attempt to interpose on my behalf. On the other hand, he gave no warning of my manifest resolve; perhaps he thought it a woman’s threat, and me no better than a woman! And partly for his sake, no doubt, though mainly for my mother’s, I made the short work which I made; for he was horribly straitened—and in his free, light way he told me so—by his hard curmudgeon of a father.

“To that man, hopeless as he was, I gave fair grace, however, and plenty of openings for repentance. None of them would he embrace, and he thought scorn of my lenity. And I might have gone on with such weakness longer, if I had not heard that his coach-and-four was ordered for the Moonstock Inn.

“That he should dare thus to pollute the spot where he had so forsworn himself! I resolved that there he should pay justice, either with his life or death. And I went to your father’s place to tell him to prepare for disturbances; but he was gone to see his wife, and I simply borrowed a pistol.

“Now you need not be at all afraid nor shrink away from me like that. I was bound upon stricter justice than any judge that sets forth on circuit; and I meant to give, and did give, what no judge affords to the guilty—the chance of leading a better life. I had brought my mother to England, and she was in a poor place in London; her mind was failing more and more, and reverting to her love-time, the one short happiness of her life. ‘If I could but see him, if I could but see him, and show him his tall and clever son, he would forgive me all my sin in thinking ever to be his wife. Oh, Thomas! I was too young to know it. If I could but see him once, just once!’

“How all this drove me no tongue can tell. But I never let her know it; I only said, ‘Mother, he shall come and see you if he ever sees any body more!’ And she trusted me and was satisfied. She only said, ‘Take my picture, Thomas, to remind him of the happy time, and his pledge to me inside of it.’ And she gave me what she had kept for years in a bag of chamois leather, the case of which I spoke before, which even in our hardest times she would never send to the pawn-shop.

“The rest is simple enough. I swore by the God, or the Devil, who made me, that this black-hearted man should yield either his arrogance or his life. I followed him to the Moon valley, and fate ordained that I should meet him where he forswore himself to my mother; on that very plank where he had breathed his deadly lies he breathed his last. Would you like to hear all about it?”

For answer I only bowed my head. His calm, methodical way of telling his tale, like a common adventure with a dog, was more shocking than any fury.

“Then it was this. I watched him from the Moonstock Inn to a house in the village, where he dined with company; and I did not even know that it was the house of his son, your father—so great a gulf is fixed between the legitimate and the bastard! He had crossed the wooden bridge in going, and was sure to cross it in coming back. How he could tread those planks without contrition and horror—but never mind. I resolved to bring him to a quiet parley there, and I waited in the valley.

“The night was soft, and dark in patches where the land or wood closed in; and the stream was brown and threw no light, though the moon was on the uplands. Time and place alike were fit for our little explanation. The path wound down the meadow toward me, and I knew that he must come. My firm intention was to spare him, if he gave me a chance of it; but he never had the manners to do that.

“Here I waited, with the cold leaves fluttering around me, until I heard a firm, slow step coming down the narrow path. Then a figure appeared in a stripe of moonlight, and stopped, and rested on a staff. Perhaps his lordship’s mind went back some five-and-thirty years, to times when he told pretty stories here; and perhaps he laughed to himself to think how well he had got out of it. Whatever his meditations were, I let him have them out, and waited.

“If he had even sighed, I might have felt more kindness toward him; but he only gave something between a cough and a grunt, and I clearly heard him say, ‘Gout to-morrow morning! what the devil did I drink port-wine for!’ He struck the ground with his stick and came onward, thinking far more of his feet than heart.

“Then, as he planted one foot gingerly on the timber and stayed himself, I leaped along the bridge and met him, and without a word looked at him. The moon was topping the crest of the hills and threw my shadow upon him, the last that ever fell upon his body to its knowledge.

“‘Fellow, out of the way!’ he cried, with a most commanding voice and air, though only too well he knew me; and my wrath against him began to rise.

“‘You pass not here, and you never make another live step on this earth,’ I said, as calmly as now I speak, ‘unless you obey my orders.’

“He saw his peril, but he had courage—perhaps his only virtue. ‘Fool! whoever you are,’ he shouted, that his voice might fetch him help; ‘none of these moon-struck ways with me! If you want to rob me, try it!’

“‘You know too well who I am,’ I answered, as he made to push me back. ‘Lord Castlewood, here you have the choice—to lick the dust, or be dust! Here you forswore yourself; here you pay for perjury. On this plank you knelt to poor Winifred Hoyle, whom you ruined and cast by; and now on this plank you shall kneel to her son and swear to obey him—or else you die!’

“In spite of all his pride, he trembled as if I had been Death himself, instead of his own dear eldest son.

“‘What do you want!’ As he asked, he laid one hand on the rickety rail and shook it, and the dark old tree behind him shook. ‘How much will satisfy you?’

“‘Miser, none of your money for us! it is too late for your half crowns! We must have a little of what you have grudged—having none to spare—your honor. My demands are simple, and only two. My mother is fool enough to yearn for one more sight of your false face; you will come with me and see her.’

“‘And if I yield to that, what next?’

“‘The next thing is a trifle to a nobleman like you. Here I have, in this blue trinket (false gems and false gold, of course), your solemn signature to a lie. At the foot of that you will have the truth to write, “I am a perjured liar!” and proudly sign it “Castlewood,” in the presence of two witnesses. This can not hurt your feelings much, and it need not be expensive.’

“Fury flashed in his bright old eyes, but he strove to check its outbreak. The gleaning of life, after threescore years, was better, in such lordly fields, than the whole of the harvest we got. He knew that I had him all to myself, to indulge my filial affection.

“‘You have been misled; you have never heard the truth; you have only heard your mother’s story. Allow me to go back and to sit in a dry place; I am tired, and no longer young; you are bound to hear my tale as well. I passed a dry stump just now; I will go back: there is no fear of interruption.’ My lord was talking against time.

“‘From this bridge you do not budge until you have gone on your knees and sworn what I shall dictate to you; this time it shall be no perjury. Here I hold your cursed pledge—’

“He struck at me, or at the locket—no matter which—but it flew away. My right arm was crippled by his heavy stick; but I am left-handed, as a bastard should be. From my left hand he took his death, and I threw the pistol after him: such love had he earned from his love-child!”

Thomas Castlewood, or Hoyle, or whatever else his name was, here broke off from his miserable words, and, forgetting all about my presence, set his gloomy eyes on the ground. Lightly he might try to speak, but there was no lightness in his mind, and no spark of light in his poor dead soul. Being so young, and unacquainted with the turns of life-worn mind, I was afraid to say a word except to myself, and to myself I only said, “The man is mad, poor fellow; and no wonder!”

The sun was setting, not upon the vast Pacific from desert heights, but over the quiet hills and through the soft valleys of tame England; and, different as the whole scene was, a certain other sad and fearful sunset lay before me: the fall of night upon my dying father and his helpless child, the hour of anguish and despair! Here at last was the cause of all laid horribly before me; and the pity deeply moving me passed into cold abhorrence. But the man was lost in his own visions.

“So in your savage wrath,” I said, “you killed your own father, and in your fright left mine to bear the brunt of it.”

He raised his dark eyes heavily, and his thoughts were far astray from mine. He did not know what I had said, though he knew that I had spoken. The labor of calling to mind and telling his treatment of his father had worked upon him so much that he could not freely shift attention.

“I came for something, something that can be only had from you,” he said, “and only since your cousin’s death, and something most important. But will you believe me? it is wholly gone, gone from mind and memory!”

“I am not surprised at that,” I answered, looking at his large wan face, and while I did so, losing half my horror in strange sadness. “Whatever it is, I will do it for you; only let me know by post.”

“I see what you mean—not to come any more. You are right about that, for certain. But your father was good to me, and I loved him, though I had no right to love any one. My letter will show that I wronged him never. The weight of the world is off my mind since I have told you every thing; you can send me to the gallows, if you think fit, but leave it till my mother dies. Good-by, poor child. I have spoiled your life, but only by chance consequence, not in murder-birth—as I was born.”

Before I could answer or call him back, if I even wished to do so, he was far away, with his long, quiet stride; and, like his life, his shadow fell, chilling, sombre, cast away.

CHAPTER LIII

BRUNTSEA DEFIANT

Thus at last—by no direct exertion of my own, but by turn after turn of things to which I blindly gave my little help—the mystery of my life was solved. Many things yet remained to be fetched up to focus and seen round; but the point of points was settled.

Of all concerned, my father alone stood blameless and heroic. What tears of shame and pride I shed, for ever having doubted him!—not doubting his innocence of the crime itself, but his motives for taking it upon him. I had been mean enough to dream that my dear father outraged justice to conceal his own base birth!

That ever such thought should have entered my mind may not make me charitable to the wicked thoughts of the world at large, but, at any rate, it ought to do so. And the man in question, my own father, who had starved himself to save me! Better had I been the most illegal child ever issued into this cold world, than dare to think so of my father, and then find him the model of every thing.

To hide the perjury, avarice, and cowardice of his father, and to appease the bitter wrong, he had even bowed to take the dark suspicion on himself, until his wronged and half-sane brother (to whom, moreover, he owed his life) should have time to fly from England. No doubt he blamed himself as much as he condemned the wretched criminal, because he had left his father so long unwarned and so unguarded, and had thoughtlessly used light words about him, which fell not lightly on a stern, distempered mind. Hence, perhaps, the exclamation which had told against him so.

And then when he broke jail—which also told against him terribly—to revisit his shattered home, it is likely enough that he meant after that to declare the truth, and stand his trial as a man should do. But his wife, perhaps, in her poor weak state, could not endure the thought of it, knowing how often jury is injury, and seeing all the weight against him. She naturally pledged him to pursue his flight, “for her sake,” until she should be better able to endure his trial, and until he should have more than his own pure word and character to show. And probably if he had then been tried, with so many things against him, and no production of that poor brother, his tale would have seemed but a flimsy invention, and “Guilty” would have been the verdict. And they could not know that, in such case, the guilty man would have come forward, as we shall see that he meant to do.

When my father heard of his dear wife’s death, and believed, no doubt, that I was buried with the rest, the gloom of a broken and fated man, like polar night, settled down on him. What matter to him about public opinion or any thing else in the world just now? The sins of his father were on his head; let them rest there, rather than be trumpeted by him. He had nothing to care for; let him wander about. And so he did for several years, until I became a treasure to him—for parental is not intrinsic value—and then, for my sake, as now appeared, he betook us both to a large kind land.

Revolving these things sadly, and a great many more which need not be told, I thought it my duty to go as soon as possible to Bruntsea, and tell my good and faithful friends what I was loath to write about. There, moreover, I could obtain what I wanted to confirm me—the opinion of an upright, law-abiding, honorable man about the course I proposed to take. And there I might hear something more as to a thing which had troubled me much in the deepest of my own troubles—the melancholy plight of dear Uncle Sam. Wild, and absurd as it may appear to people of no gratitude, my heart was set upon faring forth in search of the noble Sawyer, if only it could be reconciled with my duty here in England. That such a proceeding would avail but little, seemed now, alas! too manifest; but a plea of that kind generally means that we have no mind to do a thing.

Be that as it will, I made what my dear Yankees—to use the Major’s impertinent phrase—call “straight tracks” for that ancient and obsolete town, rejuvenized now by its Signor. The cause of my good friend’s silence—not to use that affected word “reticence”—was quite unknown to me, and disturbed my spirit with futile guesses.