Stella Fregelius by H. Rider Haggard (books to read now TXT) 📖

thousand pounds, while all the time the interest had to be paid and the place kept up in a humble fashion.”

“I thought that my uncle Porson took over the mortgage after my mother’s death,” interrupted Morris.

“That is so,” answered his father, wincing a little; “but a creditor remains a creditor, even if he happens to be a relative by marriage. I have nothing to say against your uncle John, who is an excellent person in his way, and well-meaning. Of course, he has been justified, perfectly justified, in using his business abilities—or perhaps I should say instincts, for they are hereditary—to his own advantage. In fact, however, directly or indirectly, he has done well out of this property and his connection with our family—exceedingly well, both financially and socially. In a time of stress I was forced to sell him the two miles of sea-frontage building-land between here and Northwold for a mere song. During the last ten years, as you know, he has cut this up into over five hundred villa sites, which he has sold upon long lease at ground-rents that to-day bring in annually as much as he paid for the whole property.”

“Yes, father; but you might have done the same. He advised you to before he bought the land.”

“Perhaps I might, but I am not a tradesman; I do not understand these affairs. And, Morris, I must remind you that in such matters I have had no assistance. I do not blame you any more than I blame myself—it is not in your line either—but I repeat that I have had no assistance.”

Morris did not argue the point. “Well, father,” he asked, “what is the upshot? Are we ruined?”

“Ruined? That is a large word, and an ugly one. No, we are no more ruined than we have been for the last half-dozen years, for, thank Heaven, I still have resources and—friends. But, of course, this place is in a way expensive, and you yourself would be the last to pretend that our burdens have been lessened by—your having abandoned the very strange profession which you selected, and devoted yourself to researches which, if interesting, must be called abstract——”

“Forgive me, father,” interrupted Morris with a ring of indignation in his voice; “but you must remember that I put you to no expense. In addition to what I inherited from my mother, which, of course, under the circumstances I do not ask for, I have my fellowship, out of which I contribute something towards the cost of my living and experiments, that, by the way, I keep as low as possible.”

“Of course, of course,” said the Colonel, who did not wish to pursue this branch of the subject, but his son went on:

“You know also that it was at your express wish that I came to live here at Monksland, as for the purposes of my work it would have suited me much better to take rooms in London or some other scientific centre.”

“Really, my dear boy, you should control yourself,” broke in his father. “That is always the way with recluses; they cannot bear the slightest criticism. Of course, as you were going to devote yourself to this line of research it was right and proper that we should live together. Surely you would not wish at my age that I should be deprived of the comfort of the society of an only child, especially now that your mother has left us?”

“Certainly not, father,” answered Morris, softening, as was his fashion at the thought of his dead mother.

Then came a pause, and he hoped that the conversation was at end; a vain hope, as it proved.

“My real object in troubling you, Morris,” continued his father, presently, “was very different to the unnecessary discussions into which we have drifted.”

His son looked up, but said nothing. Again he knew what was coming, and it was worse than anything that had gone before.

“This place seems very solitary with the two of us living in its great rooms. I, who am getting an old fellow, and you a student and a recluse—no, don’t deny it, for nowadays I can barely persuade you to attend even the Bench or a lawn-tennis party. Well, fortunately, we have power to add to our numbers; or at least you have. I wish you would marry, Morris.”

His son turned sharply, and answered:

“Thank you, father, but I have no fancy that way.”

“Now, there’s Jane Rose, or that handsome Eliza Layard,” went on the Colonel, taking no notice. “I have reason to know that you might have either of them for the asking, and they are both good women without a breath against them, and, what in the state of this property is not without importance, very well to do. Jane gets fifty thousand pounds down on the day of her marriage, and as much more, together with the place, upon old Lady Rose’s death; while Miss Layard—if she is not quite to the manner born—has the interest in that great colliery and a rather sickly brother. Lastly—and this is strange enough, considering how you treat them—they admire you, or at least Eliza does, for she told me she thought you the most interesting man she had ever met.”

“Did she indeed!” ejaculated Morris. “Why, I have only spoken three times to her during the last year.”

“No doubt, my dear boy, that is why she thinks you interesting. To her you are a mine of splendid possibilities. But I understand that you don’t like either of them.”

“No, not particularly—especially Eliza Layard, who isn’t a lady, and has a vicious temper—nor any young woman whom I have ever met.”

“Do you mean to tell me candidly, Morris, that at your age you detest women?”

“I don’t say that; I only say that I never met one to whom I felt much attracted, and that I have met a great many by whom I was repelled.”

“Decidedly, Morris, in you the strain of the ancestral fish is too predominant. It isn’t natural; it really isn’t. You ought to have been born three centuries ago, when the old monks lived here. You would have made a first-class abbot, and might have been canonised by now. Am I to understand, then, that you absolutely decline to marry?”

“No, father; I don’t want you to understand anything of the sort. If I could meet a lady whom I liked, and who wouldn’t expect too much, and who was foolish enough to wish to take me, of course I should marry her, as you are so bent upon it.”

“Well, Morris, and what sort of a woman would fulfil the conditions, to your notion?”

His son looked about him vaguely, as though he expected to find his ideal in some nook of the dim garden.

“What sort of a woman? Well, somebody like my cousin Mary, I suppose—an easy-going person of that kind, who always looks pleasant and cool.”

Morris did not see him, for he had turned his head away; but at the mention of Mary Porson’s name his father started, as though someone had pricked him with a pin. But Colonel Monk had not commanded a regiment with some success and been a military attache for nothing; having filled diplomatic positions, public and private, in his time, he could keep his countenance, and play his part when he chose. Indeed, did his simpler-minded son but know it, all that evening he had been playing a part.

“Oh! that’s your style, is it?” he said. “Well, at your age I should have preferred something a little different. But there is no accounting for tastes; and after all, Mary is a beautiful woman, and clever in her own way. By Jove! there’s one o’clock striking, and I promised old Charters that I would always be in bed by half-past eleven. Good night, my boy. By the way, you remember that your uncle Porson is coming to Seaview to-morrow from London, and that we are engaged to dine with him at eight. Fancy a man who could build that pretentious monstrosity and call it Seaview! Well, it will condemn him to the seventh generation; but in this world one must take people as one finds them, and their houses, too. Mind you lock the garden door when you come in. Good night.”

“Really,” thought Colonel Monk to himself as he took off his dress-shoes and, with military precision, set them side by side beneath a chair, “it does seem a little hard on me that I should be responsible for a son who is in love with a damned, unworkable electrical machine. And with his chances—with his chances! Why he might have been a second secretary in the Diplomatic Service by now, or anything else to which interest could help him. And there he sits hour after hour gabbling down a little trumpet and listening for an answer which never comes—hour after hour, and month after month, and year after year. Is he a genius, or is he an idiot, or a moral curiosity, or simply useless? I’m hanged if I know, but that’s a good idea about Mary; though, of course, there are things against it. Curious that I should never have considered the matter seriously before—because of the cousinship, I suppose. Would she have him? It doesn’t seem likely, but you can never know what a woman will or will not do, and as a child she was very fond of Morris. At any rate the situation is desperate, and if I can, I mean to save the old place, for his sake and our family’s, as well as my own.”

He went to the window, and, lifting a corner of the blind, looked out. “There he is, still staring at the sea and the sky, and there I daresay he will be till dawn. I bet he has forgotten all about Mary now, and is thinking of his electrical machine. What a curiosity! Good heavens; what a curiosity! Ah, I wonder what they would have made of him in my old mess five and thirty years ago?” And quite overcome by this reflection, the Colonel shook his grizzled head, put out the candle, and retired to rest.

His father was right. The beautiful September dawn was breaking over the placid sea before Morris brushed the night dew from his hair and cloak, and went in by the abbot’s door.

What was he thinking of all the time? He scarcely knew. One by one, like little clouds in the summer sky, fancies arose in his mind to sail slowly across its depth and vanish upon an inconclusive and shadowy horizon. Of course, he thought about his instruments; these were never absent from his heart. His instinct flew back to them as an oasis, as an island of rest in the wilderness of this father’s thorny and depressing conversation. The instruments were disappointing, it is true, at present; but, at any rate, they did not dwell gloomily upon impending ruin or suggest that it was his duty to get married. They remained silent, distressingly silent indeed.

Well, as the question of marriage had been started, he might as well face it out; that is, argue it in his mind, reduce it to its principles, follow it to its issues in a reasonable and scientific manner. What were the facts? His family, which, by tradition, was reported to be Danish in its origin, had owned this property for several hundred years, though how they came to own it remained a matter of dispute. Some said the Abbey and its lands were granted to a man of the name of Monk by Henry VIII., of course for a consideration. Others held, and evidence existed in favour of this view, that on the dissolution of the monastery the abbot of the day, a shrewd man of easy principles, managed to possess himself of the Chapter House and further extensive hereditaments, of course with the connivance of the Commissioners, and, providing himself with a wife, to exchange a spiritual for a temporal dignity.