That Boy Of Norcott's

I cannot say with what delight I heard of her disfigurement. It was a malice that warmed my heart like some good news.

“It was Sir Roger, sir, that made the match.”

“How could that be? What could he care about it?”

“Well, sir, he certainly gave Nixon five hundred pounds to go and propose for her, and promise old Pierre his patronage, if he agreed to it.”

“Are you sure of this?” asked I, eagerly.

“Nixon himself told me, sir. I remember he said, ‘I haven’t much time to lose about it, for the tutor, Mr. Eccles, is quite ready to take her, on the same terms, and Sir Roger doesn’t care which of us it is.”

“Nor the lady either, apparently,” said I, half angrily.

“Of course not. Pauline was too well brought up for that.”

I was not going to discuss this point of ethics with Mr. La Grange, and soon fell off into a vein of reflection over early loves, and what they led to, which took me at last miles away from Pauline Delorme, and her fascinations.

I would have liked much to learn what sort of a life my father had led of late: whether he had plunged into habits of dissipation and excess; or whether any feeling of remorse had weighed with him, and that he sorrowed over the misery and the sorrow he had so recklessly shed around him; but I shrunk from questioning a servant on such matters, and merely asked as to his habitual spirits and temper.

“Sir Roger was unlike every other gentleman I ever lived with, sir,” said he. “He was never in high spirits except when he was hard up for money. Put him down in a little country inn to wait for his remittances, and live on a few francs a day till they arrived, and I never saw his equal for good humor. He ‘d play with the children; he ‘d work in the garden. I ‘ve seen him harness the donkey, and go off for a load of firewood. There’s nothing he would not do to oblige, and with a kind word and a smile for every one all the while; but if some morning he ‘d get up with a dark frown on his face, and say, ‘La Grange, get in your bills here, and pay them; we must get away from this dog-hole,’ I knew well the banker’s letter had come, and that whatever he might want, it would not be money.”

“And had my Lady – Madame, I mean – no influence over him?”

“None, sir, or next to none; he was all ceremony with her; took her in to dinner every day with great state, showed her every attention at table, left her at liberty to spend what money she liked. If she fancied an equipage, it was ordered at once. If she liked a bracelet, it was sent home. As to toilette, I believe there are queens have not as many dresses to change. We had two fourgons of her luggage alone, when we came to the Schloss, and she was always saying there was something she was longing for.”

“Did not this irritate my father?”

“No, sir; he would simply say, ‘Don’t wish, but write for it.’ And I verily believe this indifference piqued her, – she saw that no sacrifice of money cost him anything, and this thought wounded her pride.”

“So that there was not much happiness between them?”

“There was none, sir! Something there was that Sir Roger would never consent to, but which she never ceased to insist on, and I often wondered how she could go on, to press a man of his dangerous temper, as she did, and at times she would do so to the very verge of a provocation. Do you know, sir,” said he, after a short silence, – “if I was to be on my oath to-morrow, I ‘d not say that he was not seeking his death when he met it? I never saw a man so sick of life, – he was only puzzled how to lay it down without dishonor.”

I motioned him to leave me as he said this, and of my father I never spoke to him more.

CHAPTER XXXII. THE END

Two telegrams came from my mother. They were little other than repetitions. She had been ill, and was impatient to see me. In the last, she added that she would shorten the distance between us by coming to Dublin to meet me. I was to inquire for her at “Elridge’s Hotel.”

I was no less eager to be with her; but there were many matters of detail which still delayed me. First of all, all my father’s papers and effects were at Schloss Hunyadi, and some of these were all-essential to me. On arriving at the Castle, a sealed packet addressed Sir Digby Norcott, Bart., in Madame Cleremont’s hand, was given me. On opening, I found it contained a bunch of keys, without one word of any kind. It was an unspeakable relief to me to discover that she had not sent me either her condolences or her threats, and I could scarcely reassure myself that we had parted thus easily.

My father’s personal luggage might have sufficed for half-a-dozen people. Not only did he carry about a quantity of clothes that no ordinary life could have required, but that he journeyed with every imaginable kind of weapon, together with saddlery and horse-gear of all fashions and shapes. Fishing-tackle and hunting-spears abounded; and lassos of Mexican make seemed to show that he had intended to have carried his experiences to the great Savannahs of the West.

From what I had seen of him, I was in no way prepared for the order and regularity in which I found his papers. All that regarded his money matters was contained in one small oak desk, in which I found a will, a copy of which, it was stated, was deposited with Norton and Temple, Solicitors, Furnival’s Inn. The document ran thus: —

“I leave whatever I may die possessed of in personal or real property to the wife I have long neglected, in trust for the boy I have done much to corrupt. With time, and in the enjoyment of better fortune, they may learn to forgive me; but even if they should not, it will little trouble the rest of – Roger Norcott.

“I desire that each of my servants in my service at the time of my death should receive a quarter’s wages; but no present or gratuity of any kind. It is a class that always served me with fear and dislike, and whose services I ever accepted with distrust and repugnance.

“I also desire that my retriever, ‘Spy,’ be shot as soon after my death as may be, and that my other dogs be given away to persons who have never known me, and that my heirs will be particular on this head, so that none shall pretend that they inherit this or that of mine in token of friendship or affectionate remembrance.

“There are a few objects of furniture in the care of Salter, the house-agent at Brussels, of which I beg my wife’s acceptance; they are intrinsically of little value, but she will know how dearly we have both paid for them. This is all.

(Signed) “Roger Norcott, Bart

“Witnesses, Joseph Granes, head groom.

“Paul Lanton, house-steward.”

This will, which bore for date only four months prior to his death, did not contain any, the slightest, allusion to Madame Cleremont. Was it that by some antecedent arrangement he had taken care to provide for her, omitting, through a sense of delicacy to my mother, all mention of her name? This I could not guess at the time, nor did I ever discover afterwards.

In a larger desk I found a mass of letters; they were tied in packets, each with a ribbon of a different color; they were all in women’s handwriting. There were several miniatures on ivory, one of which was of my mother, when a girl of about eighteen. It was exceedingly beautiful, and wore an expression of girlish innocence and frankness positively charming. On the back, in my father’s hand, there was, – “Why won’t they keep this look? Is the fault theirs or ours?”

Of the contents of that box, I committed all to the flames except that picture. A third desk, the key of which was appended to his watch, contained a manuscript in his writing, headed “My Cleremont Episode, how it began, and how it cannot but end.” I own it pushed my curiosity sorely to throw this into the fire without reading it; but I felt it would have been a disloyalty which, had he lived, he never would have pardoned, and so I restrained myself, and burned it.

One box, strongly strapped with bands of brass, and opening by a lock of most complicated mechanism, was filled with articles of jewelry, not only such trinkets as men affect to wear in shirt-studs and watch-pendants, but the costlier objects of women’s wear; there were rings and charms, bracelets of massive make, and necklaces of great value. There was a diamond cross, too, at back of which was a locket, with a braid of very beautiful fair hair. This looked as though it had been worn, and if so, how had it come back to him again? by what story of sorrow, perhaps of death?

If a sentiment of horror and loyalty had made me burn all the letters, I had found there was no restraining the exercise of my imagination as to these relics, every one of which I invested with some story. In a secret drawer of this box, was a considerable sum in gold, and a letter of credit for a large amount on Escheles, of Vienna, by which it appeared that he had won the chief prize of the Frankfort lottery, in the spring drawing; a piece of fortune, which, by a line in his handwriting, I saw he believed was to cost him dearly: “What is to be counterpoise to this luck? An infidelity, or a sudden death? I can’t say that either affright me, but I think the last would be less of an insult.”

In every relic of him, the same tone of mockery prevailed, an insolent contempt for the world, a disdain from which he did not exempt himself, went through all he said or did; and it was plain to see that, no matter how events went with him, he always sufficed for his own un happiness.

What a relief it was to me to turn from this perpetual scorn to some two or three letters of my dear mother’s, written after their separation indeed, but in a spirit of such thorough forgiveness, and with such an honest desire for his welfare, that I only wondered how any heart could have resisted such loving generosity. I really believe nothing so jarred upon him as her humility. Every reference to their inequality of condition seemed to affect him like an insult; and on the back of one of her letters there was written in pencil, “Does she imagine I ever forget from what I took her; or that the memory is a pleasant one?”

Mr. La Grange’s curiosity to learn what amount of money my father had left behind him, and what were the dispositions of his will, pushed my patience very hard indeed. I could not, however, exactly afford to get rid of him, as he had long been intrusted with the payment of tradesmen’s bills, and he was in a position to involve me in great difficulty, if so disposed.

At last we set out for England; and never shall I forget the strange effect produced upon me by the deference my new station attracted towards me. It seemed to me but yesterday that I was the companion of poor Hanserl, of the “yard;” and now I had become, as if by magic, one of the favored of the earth. The fame of being rich spreads rapidly, and my reputation on that head lost nothing through any reserve or forbearance of my valet I was an object of interest, too, as the son of that daring Englishman who had lost his life so heroically. Heaven knows how La Grange had related the tragic incident, or with what embellishment he had been pleased to adorn it. I can onsay that half my days were passed in assuring eager inquirers that I was neither present at the adventure, nor wounded in the affray; and all my efforts were directed to proving that I was a most insignificant person, and without the smallest claim to interest on my side.

Arrived in London, I was once more a “personage;” at least, to my family solicitors. My father’s will had been already proved, and I was recognized in all form as the heir to his title and fortune. They were eager to know would I restore the family seat at Hexham. The Abbey was an architectural gem that all England was proud of, and I was eagerly entreated not to suffer it to drop into decay and ruin. The representation of the borough – long neglected by my family – only needed an effort to secure; and would I not like the ambition of a parliamentary life?

What glimpses of future greatness were shown me! what possible chances of this or that attained that would link me with real rank forever! And all this time I was pining to clasp my mother to my arms; to pour out my whole heart before her, and tell her that I loved a pale Jewish girl, silent and half sad-looking, but whose low soft voice still echoed within my heart, and whose cold hand had left a thrill after its touch that had never ceased to move me.

“Oh, Digby, my own, own darling,” cried she, as she hugged me in her arms, “what a great tall fellow you have grown, and how like – how like him!” and she burst into a torrent of tears, renewed every time that she raised her eyes to my face, and saw how I resembled my father. There seemed an ecstasy in this grief of which she never wearied, and day after day she would sit holding my hand, gazing wistfully at me, and only turning away as her tearful eyes grew dim with weeping. I will not dwell on the days we passed together; full of sorrow they were, but a sorrow so hallowed by affection that we felt an unspeakable calm shed over us.

My great likeness to my father, as she first saw him, made her mind revert to that period, and she never ceased to talk of that time of hope and happiness. Ever ready to ascribe anything unfavorable in his character to the evil influences of others, she maintained that though occasionally carried away by hot temper and passion, he was not only the soul of honor but had a heart of tenderness and gentleness. Curious to find out what sudden change of mind had led him after years of neglect and forgetfulness to renew his relations with her, by remitting money to her banker, we examined all that we could of his letters and papers to discover a clew to this mystery. Baffled in all our endeavors, we were driven at length to write to the Frankfort banker through whom the letter of credit had come. As we assumed to say that the money should be repaid by us, in this way hoping to trace the history of the incident, we received for answer, that, though bound strictly to secrecy at the time, events had since occurred which in a measure removed that obligation. The advance, he declared, came from the house of Hodnig and Oppovich, Fiume, who having failed since that time, there was no longer the same necessity for reserve. “It is only this morning,” he added, “that we have received news of the death of Herr Ignaz Oppovich, the last of this once opulent firm, now reduced to utter ruin.”

My mother and I gazed on each other in silence as we read these words, when at length she threw her arms around me and said, “Let us go to her, Digby; let us set out this very day.”

Two days after we were on the Rhine. I was seated with my mother on the deck of a river steamer, when I was startled to hear a voice utter my name. The speaker was a burly stout man of middle age, who walked the deck with a companion to whom he talked in a loud tone.

“I tell you, sir,” said he, “that boy of Norcott’s, what between those new coal-fields and the Hexham property, can’t have less than ten thousand a year.”

“And he’s going to marry a rich Austrian Jewess, they say,” replied the other, “as if his own fortune was not enough for him.”

“He’ll marry her, and desert her just as his father did.”

I have but to say that I accomplished one part of this prediction, and hope never to fulfil the other.

THE END