Erewhon Revisited Twenty Years Later Part 28

I say nothing about our enjoyment of the luncheon with which Yram had provided us, and if I were to detail all that I told George about my father, and all the additional information that I got from him--(many a point did he clear up for me that I had not fully understood)--I should fill several chapters, whereas I have left myself only one. Luncheon being over I said--

"And are you married?"

"Yes" (with a blush), "and are you?"

I could not blush. Why should I? And yet young people--especially the most ingenuous among them--are apt to flush up on being asked if they are, or are going, to be married. If I could have blushed, I would. As it was I could only say that I was engaged and should marry as soon as I got back.

"Then you have come all this way for me, when you were wanting to get married?"

"Of course I have. My father on his death-bed told me to do so, and to bring you something that I have brought you."

"What trouble I have given! How can I thank you?"

"Shake hands with me."

Whereon he gave my hand a stronger grip than I had quite bargained for.

"And now," said I, "before I tell you what I have brought, you must promise me to accept it. Your father said I was not to leave you till you had done so, and I was to say that he sent it with his dying blessing."

After due demur George gave his promise, and I took him to the place where I had hidden my knapsack.

"I brought it up yesterday," said I.

"Yesterday? but why?"

"Because yesterday--was it not?--was the first of the two days agreed upon between you and our father?"

"No--surely to-day is the first day--I was to come XXI. i. 3, which would be your December 9."

"But yesterday was December 9 with us--to-day is December 10."

"Strange! What day of the week do you make it?"

"To-day is Thursday, December 10."

"This is still stranger--we make it Wednesday; yesterday was Tuesday."

Then I saw it. The year XX. had been a leap year with the Erewhonians, and 1891 in England had not. This, then, was what had crossed my father's brain in his dying hours, and what he had vainly tried to tell me. It was also what my unconscious self had been struggling to tell my conscious one, during the past night, but which my conscious self had been too stupid to understand. And yet my conscious self had caught it in an imperfect sort of a way after all, for from the moment that my dream had left me I had been composed, and easy in my mind that all would be well. I wish some one would write a book about dreams and parthenogenesis--for that the two are part and parcel of the same story--a brood of folly without father bred--I cannot doubt.

I did not trouble George with any of this rubbish, but only shewed him how the mistake had arisen. When we had laughed sufficiently over my mistake--for it was I who had come up on the wrong day, not he--I fished my knapsack out of its hiding-place.

"Do not unpack it," said I, "beyond taking out the brooches, or you will not be able to pack it so well; but you can see the ends of the bars of gold, and you can feel the weight; my father sent them for you. The pearl brooch is for your mother, the smaller brooches are for your sisters, and your wife."

I then told him how much gold there was, and from my pockets brought out the watches and the English knife.

"This last," I said, "is the only thing that I am giving you; the rest is all from our father. I have many many times as much gold myself, and this is legally your property as much as mine is mine."

George was aghast, but he was powerless alike to express his feelings, or to refuse the gold.

"Do you mean to say that my father left me this by his will?"

"Certainly he did," said I, inventing a pious fraud.

"It is all against my oath," said he, looking grave.

"Your oath be hanged," said I. "You must give the gold to the Mayor, who knows that it was coming, and it will appear to the world, as though he were giving it you now instead of leaving you anything."

"But it is ever so much too much!"

"It is not half enough. You and the Mayor must settle all that between you. He and our father talked it all over, and this was what they settled."

"And our father planned all this, without saying a word to me about it while we were on our way up here?"

"Yes. There might have been some hitch in the gold's coming. Besides the Mayor told him not to tell you."

"And he never said anything about the other money he left for me--which enabled me to marry at once? Why was this?"

"Your mother said he was not to do so."

"Bless my heart, how they have duped me all round. But why would not my mother let your father tell me? Oh yes--she was afraid I should tell the King about it, as I certainly should, when I told him all the rest."

"Tell the King?" said I, "what have you been telling the King?"

"Everything; except about the nuggets and the sovereigns, of which I knew nothing; and I have felt myself a blackguard ever since for not telling him about these when he came up here last autumn--but I let the Mayor and my mother talk me over, as I am afraid they will do again."

"When did you tell the King?"

Then followed all the details that I have told in the latter part of Chapter XXI. When I asked how the King took the confession, George said--

"He was so much flattered at being treated like a reasonable being, and Dr. Downie, who was chief spokesman, played his part so discreetly, without attempting to obscure even the most compromising issues, that though his Majesty made some show of displeasure at first, it was plain that he was heartily enjoying the whole story.

"Dr. Downie shewed very well. He took on himself the onus of having advised our action, and he gave me all the credit of having proposed that we should make a clean breast of everything.

"The King, too, behaved with truly royal politeness; he was on the point of asking why I had not taken our father to the Blue Pool at once, and flung him into it on the Sunday afternoon, when something seemed to strike him: he gave me a searching look, on which he said in an undertone, 'Oh yes,' and did not go on with his question. He never blamed me for anything, and when I begged him to accept my resignation of the Rangership, he said--

"'No. Stay where you are till I lose confidence in you, which will not, I think, be very soon. I will come and have a few days' shooting about the middle of March, and if I have good sport I shall order your salary to be increased. If any more foreign devils come over, do not Blue-Pool them; send them down to me, and I will see what I think of them; I am much disposed to encourage a few of them to settle here."

"I am sure," continued George, "that he said this because he knew I was half a foreign devil myself. Indeed he won my heart not only by the delicacy of his consideration, but by the obvious good will he bore me. I do not know what he did with the nuggets, but he gave orders that the blanket and the rest of my father's kit should be put in the great Erewhonian Museum. As regards my father's receipt, and the Professors'

two depositions, he said he would have them carefully preserved in his secret archives. 'A doc.u.ment,' he said somewhat enigmatically, 'is a doc.u.ment--but, Professor Hanky, you can have this'--and as he spoke he handed him back his pocket-handkerchief.

"Hanky during the whole interview was furious, at having to play so undignified a part, but even more so, because the King while he paid marked attention to Dr. Downie, and even to myself, treated him with amused disdain. Nevertheless, angry though he was, he was impenitent, unabashed, and brazened it out at Bridgeford, that the King had received him with open arms, and had snubbed Dr. Downie and myself. But for his (Hanky's) intercession, I should have been dismissed then and there from the Rangership. And so forth. Panky never opened his mouth.

"Returning to the King, his Majesty said to Dr. Downie, 'I am afraid I shall not be able to canonize any of you gentlemen just yet. We must let this affair blow over. Indeed I am in half a mind to have this Sunchild bubble p.r.i.c.ked; I never liked it, and am getting tired of it; you Musical Bank gentlemen are overdoing it. I will talk it over with her Majesty.

As for Professor Hanky, I do not see how I can keep one who has been so successfully hoodwinked, as my Professor of Worldly Wisdom; but I will consult her Majesty about this point also. Perhaps I can find another post for him. If I decide on having Sunchildism p.r.i.c.ked, he shall apply the pin. You may go.'

"And glad enough," said George, "we all of us were to do so."

"But did he," I asked, "try to p.r.i.c.k the bubble of Sunchildism?"