Chapter LVII: The Secret in the Oak Parlour

At Willowmere, the rapidity with which Mr Hadleigh regained strength astounded Dr Joy, and delighted the patient’s nurses, Aunt Hessy and Madge.

‘Wonderful nerve, wonderful physique he must have,’ whispered Dr Joy admiringly on the fifth day; ‘and yet, according to all accounts, he did not study the economy of either in the course of his life. Well, well; we do come across extraordinary constitutions occasionally, and his is one of them.’

The peculiarity of the case was that, after the first shock, the patient was perfectly calm, and showed not the remotest symptom of delirium. He understood everything that passed around him, and when permitted, talked quietly about the fire, and listened attentively to all that was related to him regarding it.

He heard with pleased surprise the account of how Caleb had rescued him, and said to Madge: ‘I must do something for that man; but it will have to be by your hand, for he is evidently resolved to accept nothing from mine.’

‘We will have to find out where he is, before we can do anything for him. He intended to go to Australia; but the day after he regained his freedom, he wrote to Philip saying that he had altered his mind, and was going to the United States.’

‘Why did not Philip keep him here?’

‘He tried to persuade him to remain, but could not. Poor Caleb, he does not know what a sorry heart he has left behind him.’ Here she checked herself, feeling that she was entering upon delicate ground. ‘He sent good wishes to you, and to all of us, and promised to write again to Philip, so that we may have an opportunity of serving him yet.’

‘He is a headstrong fellow,’ said Mr Hadleigh; ‘and I hope he may not ruin his own prospects by his too great eagerness to secure the independence of his neighbours. You see, Miss Heathcote, he is one of those unhappy people who have reached the stage of education in which they discover that they have certain rights, without having got education enough to recognise the responsibilities which these rights entail. Well, we must wait till we have news of him.... Has my safe been dug out of the ruins yet?’

That was a question he had been asking daily from the moment when he comprehended the disaster which had befallen him; and the answer had been hitherto always the same: ‘Not yet.’ At length came the information that the safe had been found, and was apparently little damaged by its ordeal of fire.

Then Mr Hadleigh bade Philip take his keys and bring him from the safe a little deed-box marked ‘_L. H. Private_.’ When Philip returned with the box, his father had been moved into the Oak Parlour, where he was reclining in a big armchair, supported by down cushions. A cheery fire with one of Madge’s oak-logs was blazing on the hearth, raising the temperature of the apartment to summer heat.

When the box was placed on the table beside him, he desired to be left alone until he should ring a hand-bell which was within his reach. He had caused Philip to place the key in the box, and for a space he remained motionless, staring at it, as if hesitating to touch again the spring of emotions which he had intended should be there shut up from him for ever. His eyelids drooped, and in spite of the bright glow of the fire, a shadow fell on his pale face.

‘Yes, I thank God that I am spared to do this thing,’ he muttered at length. ‘Let the secret die with me—it was a cruel as well as a selfish wish that prompted me to reveal it to them. What matter to me how they may hold me in their memory? They may think of me as that which circumstances made me appear, not as what I wished to be. What matter? The dead are beyond earthly pain and passion. I shall not stretch my hand from the grave to cast the least shade of regret over their lives.’

He slowly took from the box the two packets he had so carefully sealed and put away on the night of the fire. The one was addressed to Madge as Mrs Philip Hadleigh; the other, to his son Philip, with the injunction that he, after reading, was to decide whether or not to show it to his wife. The paper addressed to Madge, he took up and held in the long thin scarred hands as if it were a thing capable of feeling. He broke the seal and took the paper from the envelope, performing the operation mechanically, whilst the far-away look was in his eyes, and the Something he had sought but could not reach was fading from his vision altogether. His was the kind of expression with which one who knows he is doomed watches the last sunset displaying its brief, changing glories on the horizon. The broad streams of gleaming amber and opal are quietly transfused into the pensive gray of twilight, and the darkness follows.

‘They must never know.’

He made a movement as if to drop the paper into the fire, paused, and his eyes rested on the writing, although they did not distinguish the words. And there was no need; for they only represented in a feeble way thoughts which were always present to his mind.

‘I must speak’—such were the written words—‘or I shall lose all self-restraint. You cannot be harmed by what is put down here. Perhaps you will never see it; you certainly shall not until after my funeral, and then you may be able to understand and think none the less kindly of me for this confession.

‘You have seen me in my darkest moods, and you have wondered at my melancholy—wondered why I who had been granted such a large measure of what the world esteems prosperity should find no contentment in it. I have partly explained the cause to Philip: I could not explain it to you.

‘With bitter reason I early learned to believe that money—mere money—was the source of all earthly happiness. I was mistaken, and found out my mistake too late. I should have been content, perhaps happy in a way, if I could have gone on to the end without the knowledge that the want of Love is the only real sorrow which can enter into man or woman’s life. But there was nobody to lead me out of the miserable conviction which took possession of my mind as I watched those dearest to me fall one by one, not with the merciful swiftness of soldiers in battle, but in the lingering torments of soul and body which come to those who are poor.

‘Left alone, I looked around. The whole world was my enemy, to be conquered by force and stratagem. Any man may be rich, I said, who has a clear head and no conscience; who is willing to abandon all sentiment, forego all trivial pleasures, and give himself absolutely to the service of the world’s idol. I gave myself to the idol; and wealth came to me in increasing stores year by year, month by month, day by day.

‘At first, the sense of my victory sufficed; but soon there came the consciousness that this was not happiness; it was the successful working of a machine. I craved for something more, but did not know what it was. My wife’s affection, I knew, belonged to another: I had married her with that knowledge. I tried to win the friendship of my children; but the girls had learned to regard me with a kind of fear, Coutts with indifference, and Philip was the only one who could speak to me with frankness. His generous nature comforted me, but did not fill up the void in my life.

‘I was still seeking the Something which was necessary to me, and at length I found it in YOU.... Yes, you taught me what love was—I loved you with all the fervour of youth. My years, my experience of the world intensified the love which I had never known before. I was prepared to sacrifice all my possessions, all my hopes, for you.

‘Do not start away and cast the paper from you; I have made the sacrifice.

‘At the same moment in which the treasure that would have made life beautiful was revealed to me, there was also revealed the impossibility of its ever becoming mine. I was like a seaman who is shipwrecked and sinks within sight of land. I will not try to tell you through what pain I passed to the recognition of the duty Love imposed—to help forward your happiness in any direction in which you might think it lay. I will not try to tell you with what agitation I learned for the first time, what must have become known to me long before, had it not been for the morbid isolation in which my days were passed, that you and Philip were betrothed.

‘My first desire then was to bring about your union as speedily as possible, believing that I should find my peace in having the privilege of calling you daughter. Meeting your uncle Crawshay in the market-place, I took him to a private apartment in the inn and endeavoured to explain my wishes. I must have spoken stupidly, for he misunderstood me, and fancied that the proposal was on my own account. His misconception startled and confused me, and he left me in great indignation.

‘I thought of following him to Willowmere and explaining; but the effort already made had tried me so much, that not feeling sure of what awkwardness of speech or what irrepressible sign of emotion might betray my secret, I determined to let matters take their course, whilst my task should be to keep Philip at home and to hasten the marriage. You know how earnestly I strove to carry out that resolution.

‘You and Philip will be happy. You two have found in time the golden key of life, and in your happiness I shall find mine at last. I want to live till then; and, after, I shall pass away content.’

* * * * *

The invalid seemed to arouse from a sad and yet pleasing dream, for there was a faint smile on his worn face, and the eyes seemed to brighten as with the consciousness of victory—that greatest of all victories, the conquest of self.

He rang the hand-bell, and Madge herself promptly answered the summons.

‘It is you I wanted, my child.... How good and patient you have been with me—Madge. Take notice, I am to call you henceforth, Madge, my child.’

‘And I shall call you father,’ she said tenderly, taking one of his hands and stroking it affectionately.

He was silent for a few moments; then lifting his head, he drew her towards him and kissed her with strange solemnity on the brow.

‘Yes, my child,’ he said calmly, ‘that is the name which commands a portion of your love—and you will give me a little of it?’

‘A great deal of it—you may be sure of that,’ she answered, blushing slightly, and thinking how could she do otherwise than give a great deal of love to Philip’s father.

‘You give me more comfort than you know, my dear daughter. Now take this paper and place it on the fire, so that I may see it burn to ashes.’

She obeyed unquestioningly; and he watched the flame stretching its white fingers round the secret which was to die with him; saw the paper curl into black and white films; and then he drew a long breath of relief.

‘They can never know now,’ was his mental exclamation. ‘Thank God it is done, and by her hand.’

There was a little while of dreamy silence, during which Madge stood by his side, holding his hand, and anxiously noting every change on his countenance. The changes were rapid and curious as those of a kaleidoscope: now there was pain; again a stern frown, as if checking some rebellious spirit, and anon a serene smile of resignation and content. With this latter expression he looked up to her.

‘Call Philip.’

The son was immediately in attendance.

‘I hope you are not exerting yourself too much, sir,’ was his anxious observation.

‘O no; I am wonderfully strong this afternoon, and am taking advantage of the renewed strength to put some matters straight, which being done, will relieve my mind, and so give me the better chance of a speedy recovery. But it is as well to be prepared for the worst; and therefore I wish to have the satisfaction of handing you this packet in Madge’s presence. You will learn from it that when I took from you the portion of my fortune which would have been yours in the ordinary course of events, I gave it to your future wife. I did not intend you to know this until after my death; but as your uncle has come to grief, I am desirous of relieving your mind as soon as possible from any fear of the future; and I should have been glad to have helped Austin Shield out of his difficulties, for your mother’s sake—but he would refuse any help that came from me.—What is that?’

The exclamation was caused by one of the oak panels facing him slowly moving aside and revealing the form of a man.

MORE USES OF PAPER.

The place of timber in construction bids fair to be taken by papier-mâché, and it may claim to rival iron itself in the multiplicity of its industrial applications. Besides the advantage of its cheap construction, papier-mâché is not affected by changes of temperature, does not crack, like wood or plaster, and is never discoloured by rust. It can be bronzed, painted, polished, or gilded, made heavy or light as required, and possesses greater adaptability for quick removal or adjustment than most other materials. Its uses in architecture seem to have no limit, as has been shown by building and completely furnishing a dwelling-house entirely of this material. According to report, a huge hotel is about to be constructed in America in which paper will take the place of stone and brick. The fourth paper dome in the United States and, it is thought, in the world, will crown the new Observatory at Columbia College, in New York. A trade journal remarks that besides the paper dome at the Troy Polytechnic, there is a second at West Point, and a third at Beloit College. That at West Point is said to be the largest, but that at Columbia College the best in construction and arrangement. The method used in the manufacture of the paper is kept a secret, the makers using a patented process. The dome is made in sections—twenty-four in number. They are bent over towards the inside at the edges and bolted to ribs of wood. The shell, though very thin, is as stiff as sheet-iron. On one side of the dome is the oblong opening for the telescope, and over this a shutter, also of paper, but stiffened with wood-lining, which slides around on the outside of the dome. The whole dome is so light that the hand can turn it.

As regards the uses of papier-mâché in Europe, we hear of a complete church being built in Bavaria, having columns, walls, altar, roof, and spire all of this material. Some of the most tasteful halls on the continent and in this country are finished in it in preference to wood. Mantels, mirrors, frames, and gilded chandeliers are of its composition. Pedestals, newels, vases, furniture, and ornaments of all kinds, no less than floors and staircases, gas-pipes, and even chimney-shafts, can be made of it. In Breslau, a chimney-shaft fifty feet high is said to have been made of paper-pulp chemically impregnated so as to resist combustion.

Incombustible as well as water-proof paper is now no novelty, and has before been alluded to in this _Journal_; but an account of some further experiments in this line has since reached us. M. G. Meyer of Paris recently exhibited to the ‘Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie nationale’ specimens of an incombustible paper capable of taking on inks of various shades, and also paintings, and preserving them even in the fire of a gas-flame. It was stated by him that the papers and documents shown had been for four hours in a pottery furnace, and had displayed undoubted fire-resisting properties. Paper of this indestructible nature should be in good demand for wills, deeds, and account-books, &c. It is also suitable for wall-covering, and ought, we should think, to be of great value for theatrical decorations and scenery. The latter can be rendered uninflammable by using this inventor’s material as well as his incombustible colours. While on the subject of decoration may be mentioned the new kind of satin paper recently brought out for this purpose. It is made by covering common paper with adhesive size, and sprinkling dyed asbestos powder on its moist surface. Asbestos readily takes up all colours, especially those of aniline, so that some very rich effects can be produced.

Paper curtains, counterpanes, sheets, and so forth, are said to have been among the objects of interest at the Sydney Exhibition; and so there is no reason to doubt the report that table-napkins of the same adaptable substance are regularly supplied at the cheap dining-rooms of Berlin. The napkins are of tissue-paper with a coloured ornamental border—not only because paper is cheaper than diaper, but as a protection against pilfering. Indeed, so common are paper table-napkins said to be at Berlin, that the manufacturers advertise them regularly in the newspapers at the rate of about nine or ten a penny.

When we think of the extraordinary uses to which paper is applied, it is not so startling to learn that this material may even enter into the composition of our post-prandial cigar. If we are to believe the newspapers, millions of cigars are annually manufactured in Havana without so much as a single fibre of tobacco-leaf being utilised in the process of their fabrication. The great straw-paper factory in New York State has for some time been making a peculiar sort of extremely thin fine paper, which it has been discovered is used for making cigars. This we are told is thoroughly soaked in a solution composed of tobacco refuse boiled in water, then dried and pressed between stamps, which impart to it the appearance of the finest leaf so exactly as to defy detection even on the part of the experienced in such matters. Of these paper-leaves are fabricated the spurious cigars alluded to, which are exported from Cuba to all parts of the world as genuine tobacco. The cost of their production is nothing in comparison with the prices at which they are disposed of. A slight difference in weight between the genuine and the spurious cigar of identical brand and size, affords, it is stated, the only certain means of detecting this fraud, so alike in appearance are the weeds of real tobacco and their counterfeit presentments in straw-paper.

As delicate sheets of paper can be made to serve for steel or iron, it is easily understood that school-slates can be manufactured from similar apparently unpromising beginnings. They are made of white cardboard, covered with a film formed by the action of sulphuric acid on tissue-paper. This covering, according to an American journal, is probably a modification of celluloid. The slates can be used with a lead-pencil or with ink; and to remove the marks, the slate is washed with cold water. A special ink is also prepared for use with these white slates. Another form of slate is made by coating the white cardboard with water-glass. It may be used with lead-pencils or coloured crayons. When the surface becomes soiled, the water-glass may be rubbed off with sand-paper, and a new film may be put on with a sponge or brush dipped in water-glass.

To the number of paper-making materials now in use must be added an old weed of the nettle species, not of the stinging kind. From the bark of certain shrubs, also, several kinds of Japanese paper are made. The strongest and commonest is made from the bark of the mitsuma. A paper of superior quality is likewise made from the kozu, a small tree of the mulberry family, imported from China. The inner bark of both shrubs is washed and dried, softened in steam and boiling water, and afterwards beaten with staves until a fine paste is formed. This paste mixed with water is then made into paper in the ordinary way.

A new use of cedar-bark has been undertaken at New Bedford, Massachusetts. The Acushnet paper-mill at that point is, it appears, nearly completed, and was built for the express purpose of manufacturing pulp and paper from cedar-bark. This, we are told, is the first enterprise of the kind ever undertaken. The bark is taken from shingle butts that are sixteen inches long, and are bundled for shipment like laths. The new mill will work up three cords of bark a day. The first product will be for carpet linings; but the paper is said to be equally adapted to other purposes.

A new method of preparing soluble wool from tissues in which wool and cotton are combined has been discovered. When subjected to a current of superheated steam under a pressure of five atmospheres, the wool melts and falls to the bottom of the pan, leaving the cotton, linen, and other vegetable fibres clean and in a condition suitable for paper-making. The melted wool is afterwards evaporated to dryness, when it becomes completely soluble in water. The increased value of the rags is said to be sufficient to cover the whole cost of the operation.

With the use of the papyrus, as is well known, the Egyptians were early acquainted, and its manufacture was a government monopoly, as paper-making is to this day at Boulak, the river-port of Cairo. The remarkable aptitude for paper-making displayed by the Boulak Arabs is an hereditary accomplishment. The Daira paper manufactory in the suburb of Boulak regularly employed, we are told, more than two hundred hands before the late war, almost all natives. Most of the paper turned out is for packing purposes; but thousands of reams of good writing and printing paper are also manufactured. The writing-paper is made specially for Arabic writing; and what is produced in excess of the requirements of the country is exported eastward, partly to Arabia, and a small portion even to India. Though linen and cotton rags are used in this factory, the interior of the stalk of the sugar-cane furnishes an endless supply of paper-making material. In the production of what is called ‘straw’ paper in Europe, the _hilfa_ grass plays a very important part. The Daira factory at Boulak enjoys a monopoly of this industry in Egypt; and in connection with it is the National Printing Office, also under the control of the same administration.

In conclusion, some reference may be made to a published work entitled _The Paper Mill Directory of the World_, which will appear annually. It contains a complete catalogue of all the paper and pulp mills on the globe. The total number of mills existing is four thousand four hundred and sixty-three. The German Empire, with over eleven hundred, heads the list in point of numbers, the United States following very closely. Then we have France with considerably more than five hundred, Austro-Hungary, England, Italy, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Canada and Norway, the remainder being scattered over various parts of the world. It appears that the mills in the United States are capable of turning out seven million some odd hundred thousand pounds-weight, in round numbers, of pulp and paper daily. Over a million pounds is produced in Massachusetts alone.

ONE WOMAN’S HISTORY.