Adam Johnstone's Son Part 27

"Only--I'll tell you one thing, Brook," said the voice at the window, speaking into s.p.a.ce. "If you do marry her--and if you treat her as I treated her mother--" he turned sharply on both heels and waited a minute--"I'll be d.a.m.ned if I don't believe I'd shoot you!"

"I'd spare you the trouble, and do it myself," said Brook, roughly.

They were men, at all events, whatever their faults had been and might be, and they looked at the main things of life in very much the same way, like father like son. Another silence followed Brook's last speech.

"It's settled now, at all events," he said in a decided way, after a long time. "What's the use of talking about it? I don't know whether you mean to stay here. I shall go away this afternoon."

Sir Adam sat down again in his low easy chair, and leaned forward, looking at the pattern of the tiles in the floor, his wrists resting on his knees, and his hands hanging down.

"I don't know," he said slowly. "Let us try and look at it quietly, boy.

Don't do anything in a hurry. You're in love with the girl, are you? It isn't a mere flirtation? How the deuce do you know the difference, at your age?"

"Gad!" exclaimed Brook, half angrily. "I know it! that's all. I can't live without her. That is--it's all bosh to talk in that way, you know.

One goes on living, I suppose--one doesn't die. You know what I mean.

I'd rather lose an arm than lose her--that sort of thing. How am I to explain it to you? I'm in earnest about it. I never asked any girl to marry me till now. I should think that ought to prove it. You can't say that I don't know what married life means."

"Other people's married life," observed Sir Adam, grimly. "You know something about that, I'm afraid."

"What difference does it make?" asked Brook. "I can't marry the daughter of my father's divorced wife."

"I never heard of a case, simply because such cases don't arise often.

But there's no earthly reason why you shouldn't. There is no relationship whatever between you. There's no mention of it in the table of kindred and affinity, I know, simply because it isn't kindred or affinity in any way. The world may make its observations. But you may do much more surprising things than marry the daughter of your father's divorced wife when you are to have forty thousand pounds a year, Brook.

I've found it out in my time. You'll find it out in yours. And it isn't as though there were the least thing about it that wasn't all fair and square and straight and honourable and legal--and everything else, including the clergy. I supposed that the Archbishop of Canterbury wouldn't have married me the second time, because the Church isn't supposed to approve of divorces. But I was married in church all right, by a very good man. And Church disapproval can't possibly extend to the second generation, you know. Oh no! So far as its being possible goes, there's nothing to prevent your marrying her."

"Except Mrs. Crosby," said Brook. "You'll prove that she doesn't exist either, if you go on. But all that doesn't put things straight. It's a horrible situation, no matter how you look at it. What would my mother say if she knew? You haven't told her about the Bowrings, have you?"

"No," answered Sir Adam, thoughtfully. "I haven't told her anything. Of course she knows the story, but--I'm not sure. Do you think I'm bound to tell her that--who Mrs. Bowring is? Do you think it's anything like not fair to her, just to leave her in ignorance of it? If you think so, I'll tell her at once. That is, I should have to ask Mrs. Bowring first, of course."

"Of course," a.s.sented Brook. "You can't do that, unless we go away.

Besides, as things are now, what's the use?"

"She'll have to know, if you are engaged to the daughter."

"I'm not engaged to Miss Bowring," said Brook, disconsolately. "She won't look at me. What an infernal mess I've made of my life!"

"Don't be an a.s.s, Brook!" exclaimed Sir Adam, for the third time that morning.

"It's all very well to tell me not to be an a.s.s," answered the young man gravely. "I can't mend matters now, and I don't blame her for refusing me. It isn't much more than two weeks since that night. I can't tell her the truth--I wouldn't tell it to you, though I can't prevent your telling it to me, since you've guessed it. She thinks I betrayed Mrs. Crosby, and left her--like the merest cad, you know. What am I to do? I won't say anything against Mrs. Crosby for anything--and if I were low enough to do that I couldn't say it to Miss Bowring. I told her that I'd marry her in spite of herself--carry her off--anything! But of course I couldn't. I lost my head, and talked like a fool."

"She won't think the worse of you for that," observed the old man. "But you can't tell her--the rest. Of course not! I'll see what I can do, Brook. I don't believe it's hopeless at all. I've watched Miss Bowring, ever since we first met you two, coming up the hill. I'll try something--"

"Don't speak to her about Mrs. Crosby, at all events!"

"I don't think I should do anything you wouldn't do yourself, boy," said Sir Adam, with a shade of reproval in his tone. "All I say is that the case isn't so hopeless as you seem to think. Of course you are heavily handicapped, and you are a dog with a bad name, and all the rest of it.

The young lady won't change her mind to-day, nor to-morrow either, perhaps. But she wouldn't be a human woman if she never changed it at all."

"You don't know her!" Brook shook his head and began to refill his refractory pipe. "And I don't believe you know her mother either, though you were married to her once. If she is at all what I think she is, she won't let her daughter marry your son. It's not as though anything could happen now to change the situation. It's an old one--it's old, and set, and hard, like a cast. You can't run it into a new mould and make anything else of it. Not even you, Governor--and you are as clever as anybody I know. It's a sheer question of humanity, without any possible outside incident. I've got two things against me which are about as serious as anything can be--the mother's prejudice against you, and the daughter's prejudice against me--both deuced well founded, it seems to me."

"You forget one thing, Brook," said Sir Adam, thoughtfully.

"What's that?"

"Women forgive."

Neither spoke for some time.

"You ought to know," said Brook in a low tone, at last. "They forgive when they love--or have loved. That's the right way to put it, I think."

"Well--put it in that way, if you like. It will just cover the ground.

Whatever that young lady may say, she likes you very much. I've seen her watch you, and I'm sure of it."

"How can a woman love a man and hate him at the same time?"

"Why do jealous women sometimes kill their husbands? If they didn't love them they wouldn't care; and if they didn't hate them, they wouldn't kill them. You can't explain it, perhaps, but you can't deny it either.

She'll never forgive Mrs. Crosby--perhaps--but she'll forgive you, when she finds out that she can't be happy without you. Stay here quietly, and let me see what I can do."

"You can't do anything, Governor. But I'm grateful to you all the same.

And--you know--if there's anything I can do on my side to help you, just now, I'll do it!"

"Thank you, Brook," said the old man, leaning back, and putting up his feet again.

Brook rose and left the room, slowly shutting the door behind him. Then he got his hat and went off for a solitary walk to think matters over.

They were grave enough, and all that his father had said could not persuade him that there was any chance of happiness in his future. There was a sort of horror in the situation, too, and he could not remember ever to have heard of anything like it. He walked slowly, and with bent head.

CHAPTER XIII

Sir Adam sat still in his place and smoked another thick cigarette before he moved. Then he roused himself, got up, sat down at his table, and took a large sheet of paper from a big leather writing-case.

He had no hesitation about what he meant to put down. In a quarter of an hour he had written out a new will, in which he left his whole fortune to his only son Brook, on condition that Brook did not marry Mrs.

Crosby. But if he married her before his father's death he was to have nothing, and if he married her afterwards he was to forfeit the whole, to the uttermost farthing. In either of these cases the property was to go to a third person. Sir Adam hesitated a moment, and then wrote the name of one of his sisters as the conditional legatee. His wife had plenty of money of her own, and besides, the will was a mere formality, drawn up and to be executed solely with a view to checking Lady Fan's enthusiasm. He did not sign it, but folded it smoothly and put it into his pocket. He also took his own pen, for he was particular in matters appertaining to the mechanics of writing, and very neat in all he did.

He went out and wandered up and down the terrace in the heat, but no one was there. Then he knocked at his wife's door, and found her absorbed in an interesting conversation with her maid in regard to matters of dress, as connected with climate. Lady Johnstone at once appealed to him, and the maid eyed him with suspicion, fearing his suggestions. He satisfied her, however, by immediately suggesting that she should go away, whereat she smiled and departed.

Lady Johnstone at once understood that something very serious was in the air. A wonderful good fellowship existed between husband and wife; but they very rarely talked of anything which could not have been discussed, figuratively, on the housetops.

"Brook has got himself into a sc.r.a.pe with that Mrs. Crosby, my dear,"

said Sir Adam. "What you heard is all more or less true. She has really been to a solicitor, and means to take steps to get a divorce. Of course she could get it easily enough. If she did, people would say that Brook had let her go that far, telling her that he would marry her, and then had changed his mind and left her to her fate. We can't let that happen, you know."

Lady Johnstone looked at her husband with anxiety while he was speaking, and then was silent for a few seconds.

"Oh, you Johnstones! You Johnstones!" she cried at last, shaking her head. "You're perfectly incorrigible!"

"Oh no, my dear," answered Sir Adam; "don't forget me, you know."