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Chapter XV.

‘Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you,
For herein fortune shows herself more kind
Than is her custom.’

Merchant of Venice.

Palmer met the unprepossessing stranger at the door. ‘I thought I knew you half a mile away,’ he said. ‘There are not many who step out as you do. Come here into the light and let me look at you.’

‘Am I such a gladdening sight then? Really, when I look at myself in these shreds and patches—I won't call them clothes—I can hardly believe that I was once considered quite a handsome fellow.’

‘You haven't changed your nature, I see,’ said Palmer, ‘though you've changed in appearance a good deal. You are growing old before your time, Godfrey.’

‘I suppose the life I lead isn't good for the looks. You gentlemen who live at home at ease have the advantage of us poor knights of the road. Who is that man I passed in the yard? He stared at me as if I were from the dog-star, instead of being an unworthy fellow-citizen of earth.’

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‘A man I've engaged to help me to manage.’

‘I've seen him before. I wonder where. Never mind; it tires one to remember. What's his name?’

‘What does it matter to you?’ replied Palmer, almost dragging him into the passage. ‘There's my room, go in and put on what you like of mine. Make yourself more human like, and then we'll sit down to dinner together, as we used to do years ago.’

‘Very well; but don't alter your household arrangements for me. I feel like a returned prodigal, but I wouldn't have you go to the trouble of making ready a fatted calf.’

‘Don't expect it,’ said Palmer. ‘The prodigal came home but once. Had he been continually turning up, the supply of fatted calves might have found its limit.’

‘Poor prodigals! One soon tires of receiving and forgiving them, and so at last they don't come home at all. If they've any regard for the feelings of their respectable relatives, they quietly shuffle off the mortal coil in some obscure corner, and cumber this earth no more.’

He laughed at the conclusion of this speech.

‘Have I ever tired of you?’ said Palmer, looking at him with a melancholy smile.

‘You, John? If I were ten times the renegade that I am, you'd make me welcome to your house. You'd share your last crust with me,— page 203 and, faith, that reminds me I'm desperately hungry now.’

‘And you'll get nothing till you're clothed and in your right mind. Come, don't talk any more stuff, but go into that room and do as I told you.’

Palmer left him, and going into his sitting-room, cleared a larger space than usual for the tray, piling up everything that came in his way in a great heap at one end of the table.

‘Oh, you're there, Randall, are you?’ he said, when, glancing round, he saw that he was not alone. ‘There will be three of us to-night. It's my brother. I may as well say so at once; you'd find it out if I didn't. One ought not to be ashamed of a brother either, though this one has not given us much reason to be proud of him, poor fellow. If you should have known him anywhere’—he looked keenly at Randall—‘it would be best not to show him that you remember him.’

In a few minutes Mr. Godfrey Palmer entered, wonderfully improved in appearance.

‘How thin you've got, John! I could hardly squeeze into this waistcoat; your clothes used to fit me to a nicety, but if you mean to continue this wasting process I shall soon have to go elsewhere for a rig-out.’

‘I can't help that,’ said Palmer. ‘You look better in my clothes, nevertheless, than I do.’

‘Thanks. Have you a pair of easy old slippers? I have been wearing detestable old boots till I am page 204 footsore. Ah, I see a pair delightfully roomy and downtrodden at the heels. How comfortable!’

He took a seat at the table, but left it abruptly the next moment. ‘That portrait! I can't sit opposite to those eyes. Be so good as to change places with me,’ he said, looking at Randall.

‘So you cannot look your mother's picture in the face, Godfrey,’ said Palmer. ‘I like to fancy her eyes are always on me.’

‘Very likely. You were her favourite son, which makes a difference—the only sensible and useful member of the family. Oh, I forgot Everard; there wasn't much amiss with him except incapability. How is he now?’

‘Well enough,’ said Palmer; ‘with a houseful of children around him.’

‘That's what people call a happy lot, isn't it? And Charlotte and Edith, do they write to you yet?’

‘No; but they are well too,’ said Palmer, looking down. ‘Better off than any they have left behind them.’

‘Poor Lottie!’ said the prodigal, turning his face away as if to hide the changed expression,—or was it a tear?

‘So we three are left, out of a family of eight,’ he resumed. ‘Perhaps we shan't be left long. Take care of yourself, John; but you don't believe in that kind of thing. Everard now, who was always the delicate one, is likely to outlive us all, with coddling and nursing himself. I was the only one page 205 among you who had a constitution worth speaking of; but I've played too many tricks with it to keep it for long. I was really the only one who had strength enough to be wicked. Don't take credit to yourself for having kept in the right path; weak people can't go far astray. It's those who have iron nerves and a splendid digestion—who've a keen relish for all things of this life, and to whom any other seems a very doubtful, shadowy thing—who run riot amongst all that is forbidden and unlawful.’

‘I wonder you have a constitution at all,’ said Palmer. ‘We are to believe, then, that if your health hadn't been so good your habits would have been better. It's the first time I've heard that weakness was a preservative against wickedness. I suppose when your constitution is worn out you'll settle down into sobriety.’

This strange conversation was carried on by the two brothers before Randall with as little restraint as if they had been alone. Occasionally, when Godfrey Palmer was not talking, or when he was not too much occupied with the food set before him, he furtively examined Randall's countenance. This attention was not repaid by the object of his scrutiny. Randall knew the face before him well enough already.

It was a handsome face, and it was an evil-looking face. Plenty of intellect behind the massive forehead; plenty of animation in the large black page 206 eyes, and on the thin curling lips always a sinister expression—cold and cruel-looking even when they smiled good-humouredly, hatefully ugly when they were curved in a sneer. He might have been young or middle-aged—which, it was difficult to say. In the life he had led youth and health had been squandered as recklessly as everything else. There was gray amongst his black hair and there were deep lines on his face. Not the lines slowly traced from year to year by a kindly old age, nor those which may early mark the brow with ineffaceable records of thoughtful study or wearying anxious labour. These told a different tale.

He could never have worked. No lady's hand could be softer or whiter than that slim and taperfingered member he was so fond of displaying in impressive gesticulations. He had a most disagreeable habit, moreover, of laying his long clammy and cold fingers upon the person he might be conversing with. It was a hateful touch; and in spite of an undeniable beauty of countenance and a voice that was singularly musical in its tones his whole presence was repulsive.

‘You seem to be pretty comfortable here,’ he said, after a while. ‘Quiet old house; dingy and dusty, but roomy enough for both you and the spiders. I suppose you're not much troubled with cleaning, or any of that sloppy work.’

‘Not since the departure of my housekeeper. There weren't many spiders about then.’

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‘But you prefer their company to a housekeeper's? You haven't half a bad time, John. Enough to live on, no need to work unless you like, and a house all to yourself.’

‘Much you know about it. How in the world do you suppose I'm to get my time over if I don't work? There is no rest except in work, though you may think that a paradox. I was drilled into it from an early age.’

‘True. I haven't forgotten. What would have become of us but for you? Don't you remember when we went to those wretched lodgings? The girls could do nothing but cry. Everard gave up entirely—he was always ill when there was a probability that he would have to exert himself. Our respected parents spent most of their time in wailing over him, and wishing this hadn't happened and that had. You, a little fellow in a schoolboy's short jacket and cap—you went out, without saying a word to any one, and found a place as errand-boy.’

‘Do I remember! I think I see myself going up to that tall big man in the shop—I suppose, though, he was no bigger than most men; but he seemed a giant to me, as I stood before him and looked up into his face. “Please, sir,” I said, feeling as valiant as if my life were staked upon the question, “don't you want a boy?” “Want a boy?” he cried, and he burst out laughing, “why you're a manikin, what can you do?” “I mayn't be very tall,” I said—and I tried to stretch myself upwards— page 208 “but I can do as much as any boy of my age, and I'll run errands with any one.”’

‘Well done, John,’ said Godfrey Palmer, laying a snaky white finger on his brother's arm. ‘He took you for that speech.’

‘He didn't laugh at me any more, for he saw I was hurt. He whispered to his partner, and I heard one or the other say “poor Palmer's boy.” Yes; they took me, and, as I found out afterwards, gave me more than was usual. But I worked hard for them, child though I was. I was on my feet from morning to night. I got into the way of sleeping standing, whenever I had a minute to spare. Anywhere, in a corner, propped against a wall, or leaning on a pile of cases, I could sleep, and sleep as I never do now. And I was cold or hungry most of the time. I think what keeps up such hard-worked little fellows as I was is sleep. Oh, how I slept at night when I crawled into my small den, where the moon shone in upon me, and draughts were so plentiful that on windy nights it was very much like being outside!’

‘Poor little wretch! You must have been miserable.’

‘No, I was happy. I never cared for cold or hunger. My life was illuminated by glorious dreams of what I should do when I grew to be a man. There are some lines which reminded me so strongly of that time when first I read them that I've never been able to forget them:—

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‘“When I was a beggarly boy,
And lived in a cellar damp,
I had not a friend or a toy,
But I had Aladdin's lamp.
When I could not sleep for the cold,
I had fire enough in my brain,
And builded with roofs of gold
My beautiful castles in Spain.”’

‘Preserve me from the man who quotes poetry! You don't mean to say you've taken to that sort of thing. It was Everard who used to droop and languish over poetry.’

‘His wife and children have driven all the poetry out of him years ago.’

‘Then his wife and children have greatly benefited him. Since we are talking of old times, do you remember getting Everard his situation? He had always the most excellent intentions, but, like my own, they never came to much. If you hadn't spoken for him I don't think he could have worked himself up to the pitch of applying for a situation.’

‘I wonder at my own audacity,’ said Palmer. ‘Old Mr. Wallford was perfectly astounded when the little urchin he had taken as errand-boy came before him just three weeks after to beg that his brother might have the vacant clerkship. But I believe children know no fear, unless it's some rubbish and nonsense inculcated by their elders. I never thought for a moment I was doing anything unusual, and I never doubted that my recommendation would be of service to Everard. As it hap- page 210 pened, it answered the purpose Mr. Wallford said he wished he'd had a brother to recommend him in the same manner when he went to his first place. “You'll get on in life,” he told me; “at least you won't lose anything for want of asking.”’

‘Wise old gentleman! Now, I've lost a great deal for want of asking. I've always been hampered by an uncontrollable diffidence in the matter of applying for situations.’

‘You've lost a great deal for want of working, you mean,’ said Palmer.

‘Which way you like. You can't live without work; I can't live with it. There's so much said in praise of work by persons who can't do anything else, that the beauty and utility of idleness is overlooked. Now it takes a very clever man to succeed in living a thoroughly idle life. He must have plenty of ideas to occupy himself with, or time will hang heavy on his hands when they are doing nothing. People don't think much when they work. I don't suppose a ploughman thinks deeply. He may reflect a little on the merits of his horses, or he may wish to turn a furrow as straight as a ruler, but he won't exercise himself much in intellectual gymnastics. I don't believe the unfortunate men who have to do such work as coal-heaving, stonebreaking, quarrying, or mining think at all. I don't see how they can. While you industrious people, John, are wearing away your muscles and priding yourselves on your diligence, we, the despised sluggards page 211 and slothful ones, are revelling in mental visions and intellectual creations which you can neither understand nor appreciate. I've no doubt at all that the sluggard to whom Solomon refers in such a waspish manner was something of a genius, who would rather spend his time in philosophical contemplation, even though thistles surrounded him and tares choked his wheat, than in hoarding up gold and spices or gossiping with the Queen of Sheba. Perhaps, after all, he was the person whom the Queen came to see, though Solomon in his vanity took all the attention to himself.’

‘You are getting extravagant,’ said Palmer. ‘Smoke and be silent. Look, I've pipe and tobacco ready. I've kept them for you. I never touch the weed.’

‘Thank you, but I can't say much for your choice in tobacco. What's become of that solemn young man who sat opposite to me at dinner? Does he go to bed at the early hour of eight?’

‘Not since I've known him. He went into the other room that we might not be deterred by his presence from unbosoming ourselves to each other.’

‘How considerate! But I don't know that we've anything to unbosom. I don't know why I spoke of old times to-night. I never asked you about them before. That old Mr. Wallford who took you into his favour, is he or Mrs. Wallford living yet?’

‘No; dead years since.’

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‘What became of the family? I remember—don't you remember Julia?’

‘I should say you do remember her,’ said Palmer quickly. ‘Why do you want to talk about her?’

‘I don't. I don't want to revive that affair. You got your way—you and my mother, and her prudent relatives. I suppose she's married some one else these ten years since.’

‘No, she died unmarried.’

‘Dead! Then I don't want to hear anything more about old times. Every one's dead. Don't tell me any more. I want to know no more.’

There was silence for a long time. One brother smoked; the other with a penknife notched and renotched the edge of the mantelpiece, a thoughtful habit he was so much addicted to that he had almost whittled the board away at one side. Then the sound of music broke in upon their thoughts.

‘Who is that?’ asked Godfrey Palmer.

‘My bookkeeper, playing in the next room.’

‘Your bookkeeper is a genius. Keep him playing like that, and let me stay here to listen, and that horrible nightmare we call life would be endurable.’

‘There is rest in music,’ said Palmer.

‘There is everything in it: everything that the heart of man can conceive. I will go to sleep with that music in my ears. I can still command sleep, if I'm lord of nothing else, and I'm glad to say I never dream.’

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He threw himself down on the sofa, and in a few minutes appeared to sleep. His brother sat opposite, watching the face, calmed and beautified by sleep, till it was late in the night.

When Randall passed the open door on the way to his own room Palmer beckoned him in.

‘Look here. It is only when he is like this that I can fully believe he was ever the beautiful innocent child that I remember. I told you he was my brother, did I not?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you recognised him—you knew him once?’

‘Once we were friends.’

‘I heard a story once,’ said Palmer, looking away from Randall,—‘of two friends. One was guilty, and, like a coward, he allowed the other to suffer for his fault. The one who was falsely accused had gone wrong before, so of course people were disposed to suspect him, and to believe that he might go wrong again. But since his first fault he had tried hard to work his way back to the position he had lost, and this cruel injury from a false friend thrust him down again. You can understand, perhaps you know, how it blackened his character and ruined his prospects. Would you not think that the family of the guilty man owed this poor fellow something? If there were a brother, for instance, who knew of this, and if he were ever to meet with the one his nearest relative had injured, wouldn't it be his duty page 214 to help him up again out of the mire? I needn't say any more, except that your name, when first I heard it in the harvest-field, brought this old story into my mind; and then I knew I owed you a debt all the more binding on me because my brother, who had incurred it, would never pay it.’

He looked Randall full in the face, and their hands met in a warm grasp.

‘No, no,’ cried Randall; ‘you owe me nothing now. It is I who am in your debt. It was not alone your brother that ruined me; it was my own folly; and you have saved me from worse than he ever brought upon me—from an idle and selfish life.’

‘Don't speak loud; he will wake,’ said Palmer. ‘After all,’ he continued, smiling, and with his usual manner, ‘I believe I picked you up to gratify my own selfishness. I was lonely, and loneliness is terrible when one is growing old. I wanted a friend.’

‘And so you made yourself my friend.’

‘Well, to gain friends one must be friendly, you know. As for this poor brother of mine, he was left in my keeping, and so I have to make up for his deficiencies, and lay all his debts on my shoulders. When he is in want he comes to me, and I give him as much as he can be trusted with. I've no children to save for, so I can afford to support him. I've tried to keep him with me, but he likes his own way too well. And he was so clever too—such page 215 splendid abilities! Ah, if he would only have worked, what might he not have done!’

Palmer walked to the sofa and threw a rug over the soundly sleeping Godfrey.

‘There, I shall leave him; it is time we both followed his example.’