Chapter XVII: The Beginning of the End

Once again the summer sun was shining over Kincorth—brightly as on the day this story opened—and under the shadow of the overarching trees Maxwell Drewitt stood gazing up at the house just as he had done twenty-five years previously.

He was then three-and-twenty; he was now eight-and-forty: he was then full of youth and health and strength; he was now older than his age, a man stricken and feeble, who might never have a vigorous body or a sound constitution again. That fall, though it had failed to kill, had yet injured him permanently. He could know no more what it was to be free from ache and pain, to care nothing about the weather, to be insensible to fatigue, to have an iron frame, an indomitable spirit.

A minute—less than a minute—had sufficed to make him a perfect wreck; a worn, sickly man, who, having formed no sweet home-ties for himself in the days of his strength, was now, in the time of his weakness, lonely and desolate.

Upon him the sunlight that streamed through the branches of the trees fell brightly, as they had fallen brightly, if you remember, five-and-twenty years before. He was starting on life’s journey then; that journey was nearly over now.

He had planned then, he had hoped. The plans were now realities, the hopes certainties. He had longed to possess, and Kincorth was his. He had determined to be wealthy, and behold he had gold at his command. He had resolved to make the name of Drewitt notable, and the name of Drewitt had become remarkable. He had declared he would make the estate valuable, the property something to talk about, and in the length and breadth of Connemara there were not two lovelier places than Kincorth and Headlands. He had made up his mind to have his revenge, and uncle and aunt and youngest-born were all gone to their graves, poor, and stricken, and sorrowful, while Brian was a clerk in London—Brian, who ought to have had Kincorth.

If success be happiness, Maxwell Drewitt should have been a man without a care; but the best-mounted horseman has as often that imp sitting behind him on the crupper as the poorest man riding on the shaggiest pony. Care, as a rule, indeed, loves high places, and care never left Maxwell Drewitt’s side now by day or night.

Care for his own life; care for the man who was to come after him; care lest the winds of heaven might blow upon his own cheek too roughly; lest Arthur, the only thing he had on earth belonging to him, should go hopelessly astray.

He was doing no good at college; he was spending money as though he had an income of a thousand pounds a week; he was wild, he was reckless, he was intractable; and yet Maxwell, in his own fashion, loved him, perhaps on the same principle that a prisoner loves a rat; namely, because he had nothing else to care for.

And the youth knew this, and traded on it; winding the man who had never been weak before round his finger as easily as Maxwell had wound others in the days gone by.

Of his son and of his health, Maxwell Drewitt was thinking while he stood under the trees, looking up at Kincorth. He felt that for him, life was over—life with its purposes, its hopes, its successes; and occasionally he could not help asking himself how it would be when not only the life of work was over, but the bare life—the living and breathing that would, he knew, continue after every capacity for exertion, every power of action had been taken from him.

House to house, acre to acre, property to property! for this end—to be standing with the best part of his existence—health—taken away from him; thinking in solitude of that unknown world concerning which the clergy preached continually; the secrets of which not one of the departed had ever returned to reveal.

The next world! There is a something very terrible to a man like Maxwell Drewitt in the idea of leaving all he has most enjoyed, most coveted, most valued, and going away to the cold and silent grave. He could not bear it; he shrank from the reality of death; he turned away from the grim spectre; he fled from the unwelcome thoughts that would intrude themselves upon him. He could not bear to be alone; he would have anybody to sit with him rather than remain in solitude. He wished he had not quarrelled with his wife, and made overtures of reconciliation to her; but Lady Emmeline, now resident in London, refused his offers, and treated his advances with indifference and coldness.

He could not get Ryan to come and chat with him, and the evenings were frightful. He had no strength to endure the racket of company, and it was not likely that the men he knew would take pity on an invalid, and bear with his temper in sickness as they had borne with it in health.

The rector would have come; but Maxwell, after one or two trials, abandoned that experiment.

He thought of going away, but he did not know where to go, and, besides, it was in his nature to cling to his home and his country—to remain in the midst of the scenery he knew so well rather than take up his abode in the midst of a great city. He wished he had some one to stay always with him, always to speak to, always to have at his elbow, whom he could tell to drive away that demon who always would persist in reminding him that the days were passing—passing; that there must come an hour when soul and body would have to be parted—when time would be the shadow, and eternity the substance.

If he had even Wilhelmina; but Wilhelmina and her husband and her children had sailed a year before for America. Susan was in the country—that is, in England; but then he had always hated Susan, and he had quarrelled fearfully with Captain, now Colonel, Ellenham about her fortune. When that individual, who had long been a widower, discovered that under Mr. Drewitt’s will Susan was entitled to a small fortune, he married her forthwith; and over the matter of that fortune he and Maxwell had exchanged such letters as few people have inclination to send, or leisure to pen.

No, he had not a soul excepting his son; and his son would not consent to take up his abode permanently in Connemara—not, at any rate, until he had seen the world. He wanted to be an officer—he would be an officer; his father must purchase him a commission.

In his very last letter he repeated this statement, and expressed a wish that a remittance might be forwarded to him immediately.

“I must stop the supplies,” Mr. Drewitt decided, as he walked away from under the trees, and retraced his steps towards the house slowly and painfully. “Yes, I must stop the supplies; that will bring him to his senses.”

The next letter from his son announced that he had gone to London, and begged again for money. In reply, Maxwell referred him to his former letter, and desired him to return home.

During the week, Arthur wrote once more, and intimated that if “the needful,” as he called it, were not forthcoming from Connemara, he must get it elsewhere, and in some mode which might be disagreeable to his father.

The tone of the correspondence was, by this time, waxing warm, and accordingly Mr. Drewitt answered—

“That for Arthur’s own sake, he hoped he would get it honestly.”

After that there came a lull; for a month there was not a line from this unrepentant prodigal, and Maxwell was getting most seriously anxious about his black sheep, when one morning the post brought two pleasant pieces of intelligence to him at the same time: news that his son had enlisted and that the mutiny in India had broken out.

Arthur was very penitent, very submissive; he had seen quite enough of soldiering to satisfy him. He wanted to be bought off. If his father would but buy him off, he would do everything he required. He would settle in Connemara, and never ask to stir outside the gates of Kincorth, unless his father permitted him to do so. He would make it the study of his life to obey and please his parent; he would thankfully accept any conditions his father chose to impose. He confessed he had been a bad son; that considering his birth, he had not estimated Mr. Drewitt’s kindness at its proper value, and he wound up by imploring his father to get him out of the service somehow.

“I have got into, perhaps, the very worst regiment I could have done,” he finished, “and our colonel is one of the most detestable men, they tell me, in the whole of the British army. His name is Ellenham.

“Your affectionate son.”

Maxwell dropped the letter on the carpet. Were his troubles to have no end? Had he been prosperous for so long only that the tide might turn at last, and bring nothing but sorrow to him on its waves?

What had he done, that in middle life he should be stricken down in the pride of his health and strength?

Wherein did he now differ from the Maxwell of former years—that everything he touched in those days should have gone well with him—while nothing that he now desired would come to pass—nothing?

In a moment he had grasped all the facts of the case—in a moment he realized the complicated difficulties of his position. He knew, if Colonel Ellenham guessed Arthur to be his son, that he would throw such obstacles in the way of purchasing his discharge as might make that discharge impossible to obtain. He was well aware how much the war in India would increase his embarrassment; and he sat on, pondering and pondering what he should do—how it would be best for him to proceed, while his son’s letter lay on the carpet and the newspaper was spread out before him.

Look at him now, reader. Would you know him? Remembering what he was when this story opened, would you have imagined it within the bounds of probability that—long before old age had laid its hand upon him—long before winter’s withering frosts had come to pick the green leaves off the goodly tree—to dry up its sap, to strip it of its beauty, and to leave it bare and destitute of foliage, almost in the summer of his life—he could have changed to this?

Sitting alone there, the terrible ravages sickness and pain had made were plainly to be traced; and, with Maxwell Drewitt, when once his physical beauty was destroyed, everything was destroyed; and he who had once been so haughty—so insolent—so handsome—was now but as any other bowed and beaten man.

And in that hour he was humbling himself mentally—he was bending his proud spirit to ask a favour from a man whom he detested. He only knew one person in London who would, he felt sure, work for his son’s release heart and soul—and that person was Geoffry Pryor.

Yet Geoffry Pryor had read him through in the days gone by; and, reading him, had refused his proffered hand, and never grasped it since.

Nevertheless, it was to him Maxwell Drewitt made up his mind to apply.

“I will send Ryan to Dublin by this night’s mail,” he decided; “and he can cross to Holyhead to-morrow morning.”

Sickness had not dulled the keen brain, though it had wasted and worn his body. He could think rapidly, though it was pain and misery to him to move swiftly. He could still chalk out a plan, and make others act upon it, though the days were gone for ever when he could execute his designs himself and be dependent on no other man living to see that they were carried out to his satisfaction.

“Do you think I had better follow you?” he inquired; but Ryan answered, “No. I am certain, if any person can get him off, Mr. Pryor will find that man; and you will only knock yourself up by going travelling in such hot weather as this. No; you keep yourself quiet, and rely on us. I will do my best—if only for _her_ sake—be sure of that.”

Yes, they were all rowing in the same boat now. Ryan could never disassociate his interests from Maxwell, nor Maxwell his from Ryan in the future for ever.

The comparison may not seem complimentary to the married state; but in one respect guilt is very like matrimony. Whether people like or hate, they must endure each his fellow’s company when once they have bound themselves together in the bonds of sin.

It is as difficult for rogues to get a divorce as for husband and wife; and accordingly what Maxwell and Ryan had been in the beginning, so they continued to the end.

“I had better ride to Galway, I suppose,” Ryan observed; “there is no dependence to be placed on those post-horses.”

“Nonsense,” answered his employer. “The mail-car can take you as safely as the letters, I should imagine.”

“I won’t risk it,” returned Ryan; “there might not he a vacant seat.”

“And how about your luggage?”

“The car can bring a carpet-bag after me; there is sure to be room for that.”

“One word more, Ryan. Don’t let him out of your sight; bring him straight back with you here, till we try if we cannot make something of him. I wish to heaven he was as wise as he is handsome!”

“He’ll never be wise, I’m right sure of that,” was the reply; “but I will do what you tell me. I will bring him back to you.” And with that Ryan left the room, while Maxwell remained fuming over his last words.

“What right had any man to say his son would never be wise? Was not he clever enough? was not he young? If he had gone wrong once, what of that? He should be a credit and a comfort to him yet. Once let him (Maxwell) have him back again in Connemara, and he would look him out a wife who should keep him in order, and give him an interest in the county.

“Many a girl would snap at such a chance, and he, Maxwell, could take the opportunity of making a proviso that his heir should assume the name of Drewitt.

“It would be pleasant for him to have his son and his son’s wife living in the house, and the chatter of children’s tongues and the patter of children’s feet might yet break the funeral silence of the empty rooms, by the doors of which he dreaded to pass.”

Always this man had longed for children, and now, with a more terrible longing than ever, he desired to hear young voices ringing in his ears—to have something lively and bright to chase away the gloom that was enveloping him.

With all his heart and with all his soul he wished he had brought Arthur home sooner; that he had insisted years and years before on having him at the Headlands, instead of leaving him among strangers.

He recollected why he had not done so. How he had calculated on Lady Emmeline’s death, and on his second marriage, and on the chances of legitimate issue.

The scroll of his life could not have been pleasant reading in the days of which I am now writing, and it was little marvel that Maxwell Drewitt opened that manuscript as seldom as possible.

Rather he preferred to dream dreams, and see visions; to picture to himself the young wife who would make the old house seem home-like and cheerful, the children who might gambol on the lawn.

Dreams—dreams—sad and pitiful to think that they could never be realized! visions so bright that when the disillusion came the man whose life was almost over could not bear the blow!

It was on himself he had built before; it was on another he was building now: that made all the difference. He had been always able to tell what course he should pursue; but the course his son might adopt was darkness to him.

One of the children of this world, he had been wise in his generation; one of the fools of this world, there was no counting upon what Arthur might do from day to day.

And what he finally did was this:—

While Mr. Pryor, after vainly trying to come to some arrangement with Colonel Ellenham, was running after one great man after another, to try to procure Arthur’s discharge, that young gentleman, wearied of the ill-success attendant on his friend’s efforts, coolly did the most foolish thing possible under the circumstances, namely, took the matter into his own hands and deserted.

“That I ever should have been father to such an idiot!” exclaimed Maxwell Drewitt when the news reached him. “There is no hope for him now, unless we can discover where he is and get him out of the country.”

And even, in fancy, he never again heard the chatter of children’s tongues or the patter of children’s feet; the lonely rooms he could fill no more, even in dreams, with light and life and merriment.

Deeper and darker grew the night, lonelier and more desolate grew the man—sad and pitiful! sinner that he had been—for the days were come at last when he said he had no pleasure in them. He had thought to live long, and to have much enjoyment, and behold he found out in a moment that what Solomon said was true: “Man knoweth not his time: as the fishes are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time when it falleth suddenly upon them.”