Basil

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"My illness has spared me the hardest part of a hard trial, Sir, if it
has prepared you for what I have to confess; if you suspect--"

"I do not _suspect_--I feel but too _sure,_ that you, my second son,
from whom I had expected far better things, have imitated in secret--I
am afraid, outstripped--the worst vices of your elder brother."

"My brother!--my brother's faults mine! Ralph!"

"Yes, Ralph. It is my last hope that you will now imitate Ralph's
candour. Take example from that best part of him, as you have already
taken example from the worst."

My heart grew faint and cold as he spoke. Ralph's example! Ralph's
vices!--vices of the reckless hour, or the idle day!--vices whose
stain, in the world's eye, was not a stain for life!--convenient,
reclaimable vices, that men were mercifully unwilling to associate
with grinning infamy and irreparable disgrace! How far--how fearfully
far, my father was from the remotest suspicion of what had really
happened! I tried to answer his last words, but the apprehension of
the life-long humiliation and grief which my confession might inflict
on him--absolutely incapable, as he appeared to be, of foreboding even
the least degrading part of it--kept me speechless. When he resumed,
after a momentary silence, his tones were stern, his looks
searching--pitilessly searching, and bent full upon my face.

"A person has been calling, named Sherwin," he said, "and inquiring
about you every day. What intimate connection between you authorises
this perfect stranger to me to come to the house as frequently as he
does, and to make his inquiries with a familiarity of tone and manner
which has struck every one of the servants who have, on different
occasions, opened the door to him? Who is this Mr. Sherwin?"

"It is not with him, Sir, that I can well begin. I must go back--"

"You must go back farther, I am afraid, than you will be able to
return. You must go back to the time when you had nothing to conceal
from me, and when you could speak to me with the frankness and
directness of a gentleman."

"Pray be patient with me, Sir; give me a few minutes to collect
myself. I have much need for a little self-possession before I tell
you all."

"All? your tones mean more than your words--_they_ are candid, at
least! Have I feared the worst, and yet not feared as I ought?
Basil!--do you hear me, Basil? You are trembling very strangely; you
are growing pale!"

"I shall be better directly, Sir. I am afraid I am not quite so strong
yet as I thought myself. Father! I am heart-broken and spirit-broken:
be patient and kind to me, or I cannot speak to you."

I thought I saw his eyes moisten. He shaded them a moment with his
hand, and sighed again--the same long, trembling sigh that I had heard
before. I tried to rise from my chair, and throw myself on my knees at
his feet. He mistook the action, and caught me by the arm, believing
that I was fainting.

"No more to-night, Basil," he said, hurriedly, but very gently; "no
more on this subject till to-morrow."

"I can speak now, Sir; it is better to speak at once."

"No: you are too much agitated; you are weaker than I thought.
To-morrow, in the morning, when you are stronger after a night's rest.
No! I will hear nothing more. Go to bed now; I will tell your sister
not to disturb you to-night. To-morrow, you shall speak to me; and
speak in your own way, without interruption. Good-night, Basil,
good-night."

Without waiting to shake hands with me, he hastened to the door, as if
anxious to hide from my observation the grief and apprehension which
had evidently overcome him. But, just at the moment when he was
leaving the room, he hesitated, turned round, looked sorrowfully at me
for an instant, and then, retracing his steps, gave me his hand,
pressed mine for a moment in silence, and left me.

After the morrow was over, would he ever give me that hand again?

III.

The morning which was to decide all between my father and me, the
morning on whose event hung the future of my home life, was the
brightest and loveliest that my eyes ever looked on. A cloudless sky,
a soft air, sunshine so joyous and dazzling that the commonest objects
looked beautiful in its light, seemed to be mocking at me for my heavy
heart, as I stood at my window, and thought of the hard duty to be
fulfilled, on the harder judgment that might be pronounced, before the
dawning of another day.

During the night, I had arranged no plan on which to conduct the
terrible disclosure which I was now bound to make--the greatness of
the emergency deprived me of all power of preparing myself for it. I
thought on my father's character, on the inbred principles of honour
which ruled him with the stern influence of a fanaticism: I thought on
his pride of caste, so unobtrusive, so rarely hinted at in words, and
yet so firmly rooted in his nature, so intricately entwined with every
one of his emotions, his aspirations, his simplest feelings and ideas:
I thought on his almost feminine delicacy in shrinking from the barest
mention of impurities which other men could carelessly discuss, or
could laugh over as good material for an after-dinner jest. I thought
over all this, and when I remembered that it was to such a man that I
must confess the infamous marriage which I had contracted in secret,
all hope from his fatherly affection deserted me; all idea of
appealing to his chivalrous generosity became a delusion in which it
was madness to put a moment's trust.

The faculties of observation are generally sharpened, in proportion as
the faculties of reflection are dulled, under the influence of an
absorbing suspense. While I now waited alone in my room, the most
ordinary sounds and events in the house, which I never remembered
noticing before, absolutely enthralled me. It seemed as if the noise
of a footstep, the echo of a voice, the shutting or opening of doors
down stairs, must, on this momentous day, presage some mysterious
calamity, some strange discovery, some secret project formed against
me, I knew not how, or by whom. Two or three times I found myself
listening intently on the staircase, with what object I could hardly
tell. It was always, however, on those occasions, that a dread,
significant quiet appeared to have fallen suddenly on the house. Clara
never came to me, no message arrived from my father; the door-bell
seemed strangely silent, the servants strangely neglectful of their
duties above stairs. I caught myself returning to my own room softly,
as if I expected that some hidden catastrophe might break forth, if
sound of my footsteps were heard.

Would my father seek me again in my own room, or would he send for me
down stairs? It was not long before the doubt was decided. One of the
servants knocked at my door--the servant whose special duty it had
been to wait on me in my illness. I longed to take the man's hand, and
implore his sympathy and encouragement while he addressed me.

"My master, Sir, desires me to say that, if you feel well enough, he
wishes to see you in his own room."

I rose, and immediately followed the servant. On our way, we passed
the door of Clara's private sitting-room--it opened, and my sister
came out and laid her hand on my arm. She smiled as I looked at her;
but the tears stood thick in her eyes, and her face was deadly pale.

"Think of what I said last night, Basil," she whispered, "and, if hard
words are spoken to you, think of _me._ All that our mother would have
done for you, if she had been still among us, _I_ will do. Remember
that, and keep heart and hope to the very last."

She hastily returned to her room, and I went on down stairs. In the
hall, the servant was waiting for me, with a letter in his hand.

"This was left for you, Sir, a little while ago. The messenger who
brought it said he was not to wait for an answer."

It was no time for reading letters--the interview with my father was
too close at hand. I hastily put the letter into my pocket, barely
noticing, as I did so, that the handwriting on the address was very
irregular, and quite unknown to me.

I went at once into my father's room.

He was sitting at his table, cutting the leaves of some new books that
lay on it. Pointing to a chair placed opposite to him, he briefly
inquired after my health; and then added, in a lower tone--

"Take any time you like, Basil, to compose and collect yourself. This
morning my time is yours."

He turned a little away from me, and went on cutting the leaves of the
books placed before him. Still utterly incapable of preparing myself
in any way for the disclosure expected from me; without thought or
hope, or feeling of any kind, except a vague sense of thankfulness for
the reprieve granted me before I was called on to speak--I
mechanically looked round and round the room, as if I expected to see
the sentence to be pronounced against me, already written on the
walls, or grimly foreshadowed in the faces of the old family portraits
which hung above the fireplace.

What man has ever felt that all his thinking powers were absorbed,
even by the most poignant mental misery that could occupy them? In
moments of imminent danger, the mind can still travel of its own
accord over the past, in spite of the present--in moments of bitter
affliction, it can still recur to every-day trifles, in spite of
ourselves. While I now sat silent in my father's room, long-forgotten
associations of childhood connected with different parts of it, began
to rise on my memory in the strangest and most startling independence
of any influence or control, which my present agitation and suspense
might be supposed to exercise over them. The remembrances that should
have been the last to be awakened at this time of heavy trial, were
the very remembrances which now moved within me.

With burdened heart and aching eyes I looked over the walls around me.
There, in that corner, was the red cloth door which led to the
library. As children, how often Ralph and I had peeped curiously
through that very door, to see what my father was about in his study,
to wonder why he had so many letters to write, and so many books to
read. How frightened we both were, when he discovered us one day, and
reproved us severely! How happy the moment afterwards, when we had
begged him to pardon us, and were sent back to the library again with
a great picture-book to look at, as a token that we were both
forgiven! Then, again, there was the high, old-fashioned, mahogany
press before the window, with the same large illustrated folio about
Jewish antiquities lying on it, which, years and years ago, Clara and
I were sometimes allowed to look at, as a special treat, on Sunday
afternoons; and which we always examined and re-examined with
never-ending delight--standing together on two chairs to reach up to
the thick, yellow-looking leaves, and turn them over with our own
hands. And there, in the recess between two bookcases, still stood the
ancient desk-table, with its rows of little inlaid drawers; and on the
bracket above it the old French clock, which had once belonged to my
mother, and which always chimed the hours so sweetly and merrily. It
was at that table that Ralph and I always bade my father farewell,
when we were going back to school after the holidays, and were
receiving our allowance of pocket-money, given to us out of one of the
tiny inlaid drawers, just before we started. Near that spot, too,
Clara--then a little rosy child--used to wait gravely and anxiously,
with her doll in her arms, to say good-bye for the last time, and to
bid us come back soon, and then never go away again. I turned, and
looked abruptly towards the window; for such memories as the room
suggested were more than I could bear.

Outside, in the dreary strip of garden, the few stunted, dusky trees
were now rustling as pleasantly in the air, as if the breeze that
stirred them came serenely over an open meadow, or swept freshly under
their branches from the rippling surface of a brook. Distant, but yet
well within hearing, the mighty murmur from a large thoroughfare--the
great mid-day voice of London--swelled grandly and joyously on the
ear. While, nearer still, in a street that ran past the side of the
house, the notes of an organ rang out shrill and fast; the instrument
was playing its liveliest waltz tune--a tune which I had danced to in
the ball-room over and over again. What mocking memories within, what
mocking sounds without, to herald and accompany such a confession as I
had now to make!

Minute after minute glided on, inexorably fast; and yet I never broke
silence. My eyes turned anxiously and slowly on my father.

He was still looking away from me, still cutting the leaves of the
books before him. Even in that trifling action, the strong emotions
which he was trying to conceal, were plainly and terribly betrayed.
His hand, usually so steady and careful, trembled perceptibly; and the
paper-knife tore through the leaves faster and faster--cutting them
awry, rending them one from another, so as to spoil the appearance of
every page. I believe he _felt_ that I was looking at him; for he
suddenly discontinued his employment, turned round towards me, and
spoke--

"I have resolved to give you your own time," he said, "and from that
resolve I have no wish to depart--I only ask you to remember that
every minute of delay adds to the suffering and suspense which I am
enduring on your account." He opened the books before him again,
adding in lower and colder tones, as he did so--"In _your_ place,
Ralph would have spoken before this."

Ralph, and Ralph's example quoted to me again!--I could remain silent
no longer.

"My brother's faults towards you, and towards his family, are not such
faults as mine, Sir," I began. "I have _not_ imitated his vices; I
have acted as he would _not_ have acted. And yet, the result of my
error will appear far more humiliating, and even disgraceful, in your
eyes, than the results of any errors of Ralph's."

As I pronounced the word "disgraceful," he suddenly looked me full in
the face. His eyes lightened up sternly, and the warning red spot rose
on his pale cheeks.

"What do you mean by 'disgraceful?'" he asked abruptly; "what do you
mean by associating such a word as _disgrace_ with your conduct--with
the conduct of a son of mine?"

"I must reply to your question indirectly, Sir," I continued. "You
asked me last night who the Mr. Sherwin was who has called here so
often--"

"And this morning I ask it again. I have other questions to put to
you, besides--you called constantly on a woman's name in your
delirium. But I will repeat last night's question first--who _is_ Mr.
Sherwin?"

"He lives--"

"I don't ask where he lives. Who is he? What is he?"

"Mr. Sherwin is a linen-draper--"

"You owe him money?--you have borrowed money of him? Why did you not
tell me this before? You have degraded my house by letting a man call
at the door--I know it!--in the character of a dun. He has inquired
about you as his 'friend,'--the servants told me of it. This
money-lending tradesman, your _'friend!'_ If I had heard that the
poorest labourer on my land called you 'friend,' I should have held
you honoured by the attachment and gratitude of an honest man. When I
hear that name given to you by a tradesman and money-lender, I hold
you contaminated by connection with a cheat. You were right,
Sir!--this _is_ disgrace; how much do you owe? Where are your
dishonoured acceptances? Where have you used _my_ name and _my_
credit? Tell me at once--I insist on it!"

He spoke rapidly and contemptuously, and rising from his chair as he
ended, walked impatiently up and down the room.

"I owe no money to Mr. Sherwin, Sir--no money to any one."

He stopped suddenly:

"No money to any one?" he repeated very slowly, and in very altered
tones. "You spoke of disgrace just now. There is a worse disgrace then
that you have hidden from me, than debts dishonourably contracted?"

At this moment, a step passed across the hall. He instantly turned
round, and locked the door on that side of the room--then continued:

"Speak! and speak honestly if you can. How have you been deceiving me?
A woman's name escaped you constantly, when your delirium was at its
worst. You used some very strange expressions about her, which it was
impossible altogether to comprehend; but you said enough to show that
her character was one of the most abandoned; that her
licentiousness--it is too revolting to speak of _her_-- I return to
_you._ I insist on knowing how far your vices have compromised you
with that vicious woman."

"She has wronged me--cruelly, horribly, wronged me--" I could say no
more. My head drooped on my breast; my shame overpowered me.

"Who is she? You called her Margaret, in your illness--who is she?"

"She is Mr. Sherwin's daughter--" The words that I would fain have
spoken next, seemed to suffocate me. I was silent again.

I heard him mutter to himself:

_"That_ man's daughter!--a worse bait than the bait of money!"

He bent forward, and looked at me searchingly. A frightful paleness
flew over his face in an instant.

"Basil!" he cried, "in God's name, answer me at once! What is Mr.
Sherwin's daughter to _you?_"

"She is my wife!"

I heard no answer--not a word, not even a sigh. My eyes were blinded
with tears, my face was bent down; I saw nothing at first. When I
raised my head, and dashed away the blinding tears, and looked up, the
blood chilled at my heart.

My father was leaning against one of the bookcases, with his hands
clasped over his breast. His head was drawn back; his white lips
moved, but no sound came from them. Over his upturned face there had
passed a ghastly change, as indescribable in its awfulness as the
change of death.

I ran horror-stricken to his side, and attempted to take his hand. He
started instantly into an erect position, and thrust me from him
furiously, without uttering a word. At that fearful moment, in that
fearful silence, the sounds out of doors penetrated with harrowing
distinctness and merriment into the room. The pleasant rustling of the
trees mingled musically with the softened, monotonous rolling of
carriages in the distant street, while the organ-tune, now changed to
the lively measure of a song, rang out clear and cheerful above both,
and poured into the room as lightly and happily as the very sunshine
itself.

For a few minutes we stood apart, and neither of us moved or spoke. I
saw him take out his handkerchief, and pass it over his face,
breathing heavily and thickly, and leaning against the bookcase once
more. When he withdrew the handkerchief and looked at me again, I knew
that the sharp pang of agony had passed away, that the last hard
struggle between his parental affection and his family pride was over,
and that the great gulph which was hence-forth to separate father and
son, had now opened between us for ever.

He pointed peremptorily to me to go back to my former place, but did
not return to his own chair. As I obeyed, I saw him unlock the door of
the bookcase against which he had been leaning, and place his hand on
one of the books inside. Without withdrawing it from its place,
without turning or looking towards me, he asked if I had anything more
to say to him.

The chilling calmness of his tones, the question itself, and the time
at which he put it, the unnatural repression of a single word of
rebuke, of passion, or of sorrow, after such a confession as I had
just made, struck me speechless. He turned a little away from the
bookcase--still keeping his hand on the book inside--and repeated the
question. His eyes, when they met mine, had a pining, weary look, as
if they had been long condemned to rest on woeful and revolting
objects; his expression had lost its natural refinement, its
gentleness of repose, and had assumed a hard, lowering calmness, under
which his whole countenance appeared to have shrunk and changed--years
of old age seemed to have fallen on it, since I had spoken the last
fatal words!

"Have you anything more to say to me?"

On the repetition of that terrible question, I sank down in the chair
at my side, and hid my face in my hands. Unconscious how I spoke, or
why I spoke; with no hope in myself, or in him; with no motive but to
invite and bear the whole penalty of my disgrace, I now disclosed the
miserable story of my marriage, and of all that followed it. I
remember nothing of the words I used---nothing of what I urged in my
own defence. The sense of bewilderment and oppression grew heavier and
heavier on my brain; I spoke more and more rapidly, confusedly,
unconsciously, until I was again silenced and recalled to myself by
the sound of my father's voice. I believe I had arrived at the last,
worst part of my confession, when he interrupted me.

"Spare me any more details," he said, bitterly, "you have humiliated
me sufficiently--you have spoken enough."

He removed the book on which his hand had hitherto rested from the
case behind him, and advanced with it to the table--paused for a
moment, pale and silent--then slowly opened it at the first page, and
resumed his chair.

I recognised the book instantly. It was a biographical history of his
family, from the time of his earliest ancestors down to the date of
the births of his own children. The thick quarto pages were
beautifully illuminated in the manner of the ancient manuscripts; and
the narrative, in written characters, had been produced under his own
inspection. This book had cost him years of research and perseverance.
The births and deaths, the marriages and possessions, the battle
achievements and private feuds of the old Norman barons from whom he
traced his descent, were all enrolled in regular order on every
leaf--headed, sometimes merely by representations of the Knight's
favourite weapon; sometimes by copies of the Baron's effigy on his
tombstone in a foreign land. As the history advanced to later dates,
beautiful miniature portraits were inlaid at the top of each leaf; and
the illuminations were so managed as to symbolize the remarkable
merits or the peculiar tastes of the subject of each biography. Thus,
the page devoted to my mother was surrounded by her favourite violets,
clustering thickest round the last melancholy lines of writing which
told the story of her death.

Slowly and in silence, my father turned over the leaves of the book
which, next to the Bible, I believe he most reverenced in the world,
until he came to the last-written page but one--the page which I knew,
from its position, to be occupied by my name. At the top, a miniature
portrait of me, when a child, was let into the leaf. Under it, was the
record of my birth and names, of the School and College at which I had
been taught, and of the profession that I had adopted. Below, a large
blank space was left for the entry of future particulars. On this page
my father now looked, still not uttering a word, still with the same
ghastly calmness on his face. The organ-notes sounded no more; but the
trees rustled as pleasantly, and the roar of the distant carriages
swelled as joyously as ever on the ear. Some children had come out to
play in the garden of a neighbouring house. As their voices reached
us, so fresh, and clear, and happy--but another modulation of the
thanksgiving song to God which the trees were singing in the summer
air--I saw my father, while he still looked on the page before him,
clasp his trembling hands over my portrait so as to hide it from
sight.

Then he spoke; but without looking up, and more as if he were speaking
to himself than to me. His voice, at other times clear and gentle in
its tones, was now so hard and harsh in its forced calmness and
deliberation of utterance, that it sounded like a stranger's.

"I came here, this morning," he began, "prepared to hear of faults and
misfortunes which should pain me to the heart; which I might never,
perhaps, be able to forget, however willing and even predetermined to
forgive. But I did _not_ come prepared to hear, that unutterable
disgrace had been cast on me and mine, by my own child. I have no
words of rebuke or of condemnation for this: the reproach and the
punishment have fallen already where the guilt was--and not there
only. My son's infamy defiles his brother's birthright, and puts his
father to shame. Even his sister's name--"

He stopped, shuddering. When he proceeded, his voice faltered, and his
head drooped low.

"I say it again:--you are below all reproach and all condemnation; but
I have a duty to perform towards my two who are absent, and I have a
last word to say to _you_ when that duty is done. On this page--" (as
he pointed to the family history, his tones strengthened again)--"on
this page there is a blank space left, after the last entry, for
writing the future events of your life. Here, then, if I still
acknowledge you to be my son; if I think your presence and the
presence of my daughter possible in the same house, must be written
such a record of dishonour and degradation as has never yet defiled a
single page of this book--here, the foul stain of your marriage, and
its consequences, must be admitted to spread over all that is pure
before it, and to taint to the last whatever comes after. This shall
not be. I have no faith or hope in you more. I know you now, only as
an enemy to me and to my house--it is mockery and hypocrisy to call
you son; it is an insult to Clara, and even to Ralph, to think of you
as my child. In this record your place is destroyed--and destroyed for
ever. Would to God I could tear the past from my memory, as I tear the
leaf from this book!"

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