Chapter II

ARRIVAL OF BUT ONE GUEST AT A DINNER FOR THIRTEEN.

Leaving Michael Lee at his post outside the door, Gideon Rowe went to the folding windows, and drew the curtains over them. He lingered at the window to inhale the faint perfume of lavender which the breeze brought into the room.

"Summer is dying," he murmured.

Beautiful as was the evening, there was something inexpressibly sad in the appearance of this room, with its dim light, and the black clothing of the attendants, who moved about like shadows.

"Mr. Steele," said Gideon Rowe, "you understand that the first guest who arrives will preside at the head of the table. I will wait upon him myself."

"As heretofore, sir?"

"As heretofore."

All the arrangements being completed, the attendants stood in silence behind the chairs, forming a black hedge around the table. Gideon Rowe glanced anxiously at the clock. The hands indicated eighteen minutes to seven. That he was singularly and powerfully agitated was evident, but he controlled his excitement by a strong effort. Another minute passed and another. The clock struck three-quarters past six, steps were heard on the veranda, and almost immediately afterwards Michael Lee opened the door by which he was stationed, and advancing a step, called out:

"Mr. Richard Weston."

The sound of Michael Lee's voice afforded relief to every person in the room, for all were beginning to be oppressed by the gloom and silence which prevailed. Mr. Weston, as he entered, glanced before him with a shrinking, air, and, grasping Gideon Rowe's hand firmly, as though he derived comfort from the contact, shaded his eyes with his left hand, and peered timidly at the attendants, whose faces he could not see in the uncertain light.

"Only the servants," observed Mr. Rowe, answering the look; "I am glad to welcome you."

"Thank you, Mr. Rowe, thank you," said Mr. Weston. "I am the first then?"

"You are the first," replied Mr. Rowe gravely.

"I am almost ashamed to confess it," said Mr. Weston, "though I don't know why I _should_ be ashamed to confess it to you, for we are old cronies, eh, Rowe? old cronies--but before I entered the room, and indeed for many days past, I have had a fearful and unreasonable fancy that, that----"

Gideon Rowe, with a serious smile, supplied the words which Mr. Weston was at a lost to utter. "That some one might have been before you, and deprived you of your position at the head of the table."

"It was so, I assure you," assented Mr. Weston; "but I have been much upset lately--crossed and thwarted on all sides, and where I had the best right to expect obedience."

"I have heard something--rumour is many-tongued, you know."

"Yes, yes; and tells lies, and invents, and makes black white. I can speak to you as an old friend. Tell me what you have heard."

"It is an impertinence for people to speak of these things, for they are family matters; and, indeed, it is difficult to bring vague rumours into definite words. Briefly as I understand it, Gerald----"

"My son--yes."

--"Refuses to marry the lady you have chosen for him, loving another lady, and having pledged himself to her. That much has reached my understanding, through the rumours I have heard. Is it true? Has Gerald really pledged himself to a lady of whom you disapprove, and does he really love her?"

"Love her! No. It is a fancy which will be gone in a few weeks. The boy doesn't know his own mind."

"That is not the impression I have formed of Gerald. He is somewhat obstinate in his likes and dislikes. And he really has pledged himself to this lady, and she really is a lady?"

"She is the daughter of an old friend of mine," replied Mr. Weston, with nervous hesitation; "of an old friend who has inflicted great pain upon me. She is a good girl--a good girl, I do believe--but not the wife for Gerald."

"Why not? Because she is poor?"

"Ah! you have heard, then. Can you not see that Gerald has a position to maintain, and there are duties which society exacts from us? Classes must be kept apart. But do not speak any further of this now; it is not the time. On the anniversary of this night my mind is occupied by but one subject." He glanced at the table. "It might be but yesterday! The same old silver--the same old service--and some of the same old wine, eh, Mr. Rowe? the same old wine."

"The same, Mr. Weston: there is but little of it left. But it will last our time, and then will come new wine, new fashions, new men and women, new everything, to grow old as we have grown old, and to make way for other fashions and other men and women, as our fashions and ourselves are making way for them."

"There are some things that do not seem to change," said Mr. Weston, looking towards the clock, and feeling in his pockets. "The same old clock, too. But I cannot see the hands. Ah, here they are!" He had been searching his pockets for his spectacles, and he now produced the case. "Looking at my eyes now, you wouldn't think that I am growing more short-sighted every day, eh, Mr. Rowe?"

"Your eyes are as bright as they were thirty years ago."

"So they may appear, but they deceive me--as everything else does. Bless my soul! they are gone!"

He referred to his spectacles; his spectacle-case was empty.

"Shall I send for them?" asked Gideon Rowe.

"No, no; they would not be found, perhaps. I must do without my eyes to-night. The clock is right, eh? What does it mark now?"

"Thirteen minutes to seven."

"Thank you. As I was saying, there are some things that do not change. The Silver Flagon, for instance--there is no change in that."

"There is no change in it from my first remembrance of it. I should like it never to change. I used to wish that it might be carried on in exactly the same way, and in the same old fashion, as it has been carried on during this last hundred years. But it is in the nature of things to change, and my wish will not be fulfilled. Had other things turned out as I hoped, my desire would almost certainly have been frustrated by the new scheme for the branch railway that is being talked about. I am told that its course is designed immediately in the rear of the garden." He looked regretfully towards the folding windows, through the transparent curtains of which the western sky could be seen reddening in the light of the declining sun. "One might fancy one's self almost out of the world here; but if the railway scheme be carried out, good-bye to the charm of perfect peacefulness which rests upon the Silver Flagon. Good-bye, perhaps, to the Silver Flagon itself. The thought hurts me, but not as much as it would have done had my dear boy been alive."

"Rowe!" exclaimed Mr. Weston, in a sympathising, wondering tone, "you have had news of Philip, then?"

"He is dead, poor lad! You know how I loved the boy, and how my heart was bound up in him. I cherished the hope that, when his wild fit was over, he would come and take my place here. The dear lad was working to bring home a hatful of money to repay me for what I had done for him. As though I needed repaying! Shame drove him away, and kept him away while he was poor. He did not know his father's heart."

"How did the news come?" asked Mr. Weston softly.

"His wife brought it--a dear good girl. She is in the house now, and will remain here as my daughter. You shall see her in good time, and hear the sad story from her own lips. I think the news would have killed me but for her."

"My Gerald and your Philip were good friends," murmured Mr. Weston. "Gerald will grieve, indeed, when he hears the news."

"Life is full of disappointment, full of changes. Man proposes, God disposes. I hope that I should die with my Philip by my bedside in this peaceful spot, and he dies at the other end of the world, sixteen thousand miles away, while I am still a hale old man. I have the comfort of knowing that his heart was beating with love for me--the dear lad!" He paused for a moment. "Notwithstanding this grief, I still have something to be grateful for, and I bow with submission to the Divine will. I have a new daughter, such a girl as I would have chosen for him, and mayhap a great blessing will be bestowed upon me in the course of a couple of months, and my Philip may live again in his son. And have I not still the dear old Silver Flagon? I look upon it almost as part of my own flesh and blood. My life is wedded to it by sweet and solemn memories. Why, I remember these old flagons when I could scarcely toddle! I used to look at my face in them when I was a boy; there was one with a long dent in it--here it is now on the sideboard--which seemed to split my face in two." He gazed wistfully into its polished surface. "It isn't the same face as it was then."

"What does the clock mark now?"

"Eight minutes to seven."

"How slowly the time passes! The moments are clogged with lead."

"It is only the years that fly," said Gideon Rowe. "We watch the minutes and the days, and the years slip by without our heeding them. But all at once we wake to the fact, and a sudden shock comes upon us. Truly 'we are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.'"

There was nothing singular in the perfect familiarity that existed between the speakers. Gideon Rowe came of an old family (though if he had come from a new family--a phrase I cannot quite understand--it would have been all the same) who had acquired their money honestly, and he had lived a blameless life. Such a man is the equal of a king. It was to be especially noted that the present conversation was carried on with a careful avoidance--by Mr. Weston most certainly--of a subject which must have been uppermost in their minds, and that directly one paused, the other took up the cue, as though they were desirous that not a moment should pass in silence. Another thing to be noted was, that frequently in the middle of a sentence, Mr. Weston--whether he or his companion was speaking--turned his head over his shoulder toward the door by which Michael Lee was stationed, with a timid, nervous, frightened look, as if expecting to see an apparition there. Still more conspicuous was his studied avoidance of the pictures that were hanging on the walls. If in an unwitting moment he happened to raise his eyes towards the portraits, he turned them away again with visible agitation. The attendants in the room preserved silence while their superiors were conversing. They stood in their places like statues.

"And we fret ourselves so unwisely," continued Mr. Rowe, with something of a wary look towards Mr. Weston. "We torture ourselves so unnecessarily. Instead of enjoying the opportunities which good fortune has placed in our hands, we bring unhappiness upon ourselves by setting our minds upon the accomplishment of certain wishes which we deem to be good, notwithstanding that they distinctly clash with the hopes of those who are dearest to us. We forget that life is short. Let me give you a bit of my philosophy, and apply it to ourselves. Here we stand, having grown from youth to manhood, from manhood to old age, marching from our very cradles into our graves. The changes that come naturally upon us we bear, if we are wise, with patience and resignation; with hope, also, that carries us in our lives to the contemplation of other spheres beyond the grave. There is a wonderful amount of goodness and sweetness in life, with all its sad changes. What best rewards us--what brings us the most pleasure and satisfaction--is to enjoy this good, in so far as it affects ourselves and others, and to make the very best use of it which lies in our power. You cannot deny that this is a sensible philosophy."

"It sounds so."

"It is not only a sensible, it is a wise philosophy. Let me apply it. Say that I have a child whom I love"--the memory of his Philip brought a touching sadness into his tone--"say that this blessing, which I have unhappily lost, is mine. If by any action of mine I can make that child happy, it is surely good and wise in me to do so, and adds to my enjoyment of life. Say that this child, having grown to manhood, with a man's intelligence and a man's hopes, has set his heart upon a certain thing--say, plainly, that he loves a girl who is both virtuous and good, whom he wishes to make his wife, and that I constitute it my business to thwart him--it is surely unwise in itself, if only in the fact that it brings discomfort to me, that it fills my days with uneasiness, and makes my home unhappy. Now, this is a selfish view, but it is one which occurs to me by way of illustration."

"But say, for the sake of argument," said Mr. Weston, somewhat uneasily, "only for the sake of argument, mind----"

"Very well, for the sake of argument."

"That this child's fancy was a foolish one, and unwise in every sense."

"I don't admit that; but we are only arguing. Pray proceed."

"And that you, his father, saw another and a better way of bringing happiness into his life."

"Who judges that my way is the better way?" demanded Mr. Rowe.

"Yourself."

Mr. Rowe shook his head, and taking a pair of spectacles from his pocket, asked Mr. Weston to use them. Mr. Weston put them on gladly, but they did not suit his sight; all was dim before him. He returned the spectacles to Mr. Rowe.

"I cannot see through them," he said.

"Nonsense, nonsense," replied Mr. Rowe; "you are mistaken. You can."

"I tell you I cannot."

"Yet that is just what you insist others can do. You insist that they can see through _your_ spectacles."

"I say nonsense, nonsense to you! I understand your trick, but it does not apply in this case. I say that in the difference of opinion between you and your son which you have spoken of you are the better judge. You are the older of the two by forty years. You know the world; you have experienced its trials, its temptations, its disappointments; you have seen its follies, its delusions. Therefore you have a perfect right to say to your son, 'My boy, you are wrong! you must conquer your idea--your fancy. Be patient, and time will show you its folly; and one day you will thank me for opposing your wishes.' Why," exclaimed Mr. Weston, raising his voice slightly in his excitement, "do you not love your son?"

"That it is not to be doubted."

"And what you do in this matter, is it not for his good?"

"Ah, my friend, my friend! I may think so, in my obstinacy, but it is I who am wrong. Let us speak plainly. You know it is of your Gerald we are speaking----"

"Of course I know it."

"What more can you desire than his happiness? The girl he loves, and has pledged himself to, is poor, it is true; but she is a lady, and is in every way worthy of him. Why embitter your life and his by standing in his way?"

"One moment, Mr. Rowe," interrupted Mr. Weston; "how do you know all this? Have you seen the girl?"

"I have."

"And her father, have you seen him?"

"No, but I hope soon to do so. From what I have heard, he is a man whom it would be a proud privilege to call friend."

Mr. Weston made a movement of uneasiness.

"The subject annoys me," he said, "let us cease discussing it."

"We have no time to continue it," said Gideon Rowe, glancing at the clock, "or, despite your wish, I should not allow it to drop. We ourselves were young once, and looked at things with different eyes from those with which we view them now."

"How near to the time is it?"

"But one minute."

During this minute there was silence in the room. Michael Lee's voice was not heard. Mr. Weston moved slowly to the head of the table. The attendants stood in silence behind the empty chairs. Presently the clock struck the hour of seven. As the sound of the last stroke was dying away, Gideon Rowe said to Mr. Steele:

"Serve the dinner."

Mr. Richard Weston was the only guest.