Chapter VI: An Odd Compact

Age, that forgets its yesterday’s company, often puts one to shame in the memories of long ago. I had pondered the problem, even while proposing it, of Joshua’s introduction to my uncle; and, behold! the dear soul recognized his guest at the first mention. His name was associated indirectly, it is true, with a momentous decision in his own life; yet, even so--well, one was not wont to look upon Uncle Jenico’s memory as the active partner in his constitution. It saved me some perplexity.

I had left Joshua by his own request in the porch while I went to prepare my relative, who I found much refreshed by his sleep, and to whom I briefly recapitulated the tale of my rally with this old client, as I might call him.

“Bring him in, by all means,” he said, adjusting his spectacles, and then beaming at me through them. “Poor soul, poor fellow, to have suffered all these years under the stigma of an unfounded slander!”

He spoke with a new-awakened loudness; the door was close at hand; the visitor heard. In a moment he came striding in, hat in hand, his eyes glittering.

“Mr. Paxton,” he said; “Mr. Paxton! You are worthy to be this dear lad’s guardian! I can say no more.”

The two men shook hands, with a full understanding, it seemed; and a pregnant minute ticked itself out between them.

“You come off a long journey?” asked my uncle, at the end.

“Off a long journey, sir--a journey of six years. I had hardly expected to find this haven by the way. I hardly know now what it means; yet Fate grant it has a meaning!”

“You are making a considerable stay?”

“If I have not lost the faculty to rest. I don’t know. I am all confounded at present.”

“He is seeking for a treasure hidden on these coasts,” I put in, and I could have put in nothing apter. My uncle kindled.

“A treasure!” he cried. “Why, so am I, Mr. Pilbrow. Only, I gather, I have the advantage of you in having already collected a part of mine. And did you read of yours, too, in Morant?”

“Morant, sir!” said the bookseller. “No, his name was Victor--Carolus Victor.”

He checked himself instantly--jealously. He had been carried away emotionally, I think, over his reception. But in the same breath his reserve was gone.

“You shall have the whole story from me,” he said; “but not now. Give me time to order my thoughts, to realize what this encounter means to me.”

“Certainly,” said my uncle, kindly. And being all openness and simplicity himself, he proceeded to relate to our visitor the entire history of our sojourn in Dunberry, and of the events and prospects which had brought us there.

“The result has justified my utmost hopes,” he ended with, enthusiastically; and then cast a sudden wistful look at me. “It is something in an otherwise empty life, Mr. Pilbrow, to have this object in accumulating. Heaven has seen fit, sir, to deny me the blessing of a family, lest by my improvidence I turned it into a curse. But it has compensated with the left hand while it withheld the right. What prouder trust to have committed to one than the welfare of the child of him who died to prove the truth!”

The visitor stepped back, shading his eyes with his hand.

“You rebuke me, sir,” he said in a stifled voice; “you teach me. Is _this_ the meaning, the atonement? If I, too, might so earn quittance of this curse of emptiness! _The child of him who died to prove the truth!_ My God, my God! To bequeath to him the fruits of this so wretched quest! To turn the curse into a blessing!”

He advanced, and seized my uncle’s hand with a strenuous entreaty.

“Let me be joint trustee with you. By that sacred life laid down for mine, I have a right. If I could so convert this evil--to enrich his son--so perhaps to earn rest.”

My uncle was distinctly snuffling. He took off his spectacles and wiped them, and put them on again tremulously.

“So be it, Mr. Pilbrow,” he said. “We have been two selfish souls, perhaps. We will win our redemption through Richard.”

Thus was I made the inheritor of phantom fortunes. I felt quite inclined to put on airs, as the sole legatee to a vast atmospheric estate. Mr. Pilbrow even came to claim me with some show of kind judicial authority, as if the law had appointed him my part guardian. But that was by-and-by.

Now, he uttered a sound, as if his emotions had been too much for him, and stepped back.

“I must go,” he said. “You will excuse me. This wonder--this kindness--I am unused; it overwhelms me. I must rest the body, even if the brain works. You will let me come and see you again?”

“But why not accept a----” began my uncle.

“No, no,” he interrupted him, gasping. “I understand your generosity, sir. I have stood, I can stand the rack. There are limits to my endurance of benignity--such human consideration. I have a good bed at the Flask. I entreat you to let me go--to----”

He left hurriedly. I would have accompanied him; but Uncle Jenico, with a better delicacy, detained me. The moment the door slammed on him he smacked one hand decisively in the palm of the other.

“That man a murderer!” he cried. “Richard, I wish your Mr. Quayle no worser fate than to die in refuting such another calumny!”