London's Heart. B. L. Farjeon
forget us, please! We belong to the firm.'"
Hard lines come about the thin-lipped mouth of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, and he says, with deepening frowns,
"The light manner in which you speak of these things is especially displeasing to me, and is entirely out of place in my presence and in this house."
"I almost seem to be out of place myself here," says Felix, with the slightest trace of vexation in his manner.
"Perhaps so; we will discuss that presently. Whoever lives here must conform to my rules. You were smoking in your bedroom last night."
"True, sir."
"I do not allow smoking."
"I will not smoke here again. I'll smoke my cigar in the open air for the future."
"I should prefer your not smoking at all; I don't smoke."
"Why, sir, you wouldn't keep everybody from smoking because you don't smoke? If it were not for tobacco, the revenue of nations would go to—"
"Blazes," he is about to say, but he checks himself in time. There is so little in unison between these two natures, that when they meet it seems to be almost a necessity that they should clash. One is harsh and sour; the other is tolerant and sweet. Felix was more the son of his mother than the son of his father; the sweetness of her nature had come to him with the milk he had drawn from her breast. Father and son had not been brought together for very many years until now, and the experience they have gained of each other is not agreeable to either of them.
"You scarcely need me to tell you," says the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, as his son stopped at the dangerous word, "that your remarks do continual violence to my feelings."
"We certainly don't seem to pull nicely together, father. You have some business matters to speak to me about. Perhaps it will be as well to proceed to them."
The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell looks among the papers on the table, and says,
"Your uncle, as you know, died six weeks ago."
"So your letter informed me. Did you see him before he died?"
"I have not seen him for years. I did not approve of him; and but for its being understood that he intended to leave you as his heir, I should have declined to be upon friendly terms with him."
"He was my mother's brother, and he has been kind to me."
"So far as defraying the expenses of your education—"
"All my expenses, father," interrupts Felix. "Please to remember that he made me a regular allowance."
"By which you intend me to remember also," says the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell with a frown, "that you have been no expense to me."
"If you please to put it that way, you can. But I should prefer your thinking that I reminded you of the circumstance in order that you might do justice to the memory of my uncle."
"I do not need you to remind me of my duty; I need no reminding of that. It is always before me. The tone of your remarks, and your general bearing towards me, proceed from the stipulation made by your uncle that you should be educated away from me and from this house."
"I mean no disrespect to you, father, believe me," exclaims Felix eagerly; "but everything about me here is so--so different from what I have been accustomed to, that I feel myself almost in a strange land." He might have said more, but he restrains himself. He might have said, "Coming home as I have done, ready and wishful to be upon affectionate terms with a father who never showed any love for me--coming home with a studied resolution to try and conform to my father's wishes, and to gain for myself a place in his affections--I find myself baffled at every turn. When my father met me, after years of absence, he met me with no smile upon his face. He might have been a man of stone for all the warmth he showed to me; a stranger could not have exhibited less tenderness in his greeting. And so it has gone on from the moment I set foot in this house, which is cold enough and gloomy enough to chill one's blood." Felix does not say this, but he thinks it, and much more to the same effect, and at the same time wonders a little whether he is in any way to blame for things being so different from what he hoped and expected.
"The stipulation made by your uncle," proceeds the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, "has thrown you into scenes and into a way of living that would certainly not meet with my approval; and if you wish to remain here, you must positively conform to my views. It is for you to change, not for me."
"Before we speak of this," says Felix, in as calm a tone as he can command, for the uncompromising bearing of his father grates strongly upon him, "will you be kind enough to tell me something more of my uncle? I have my future to look to now, and although it does not give me any anxiety, for I am sure to be all right"--with a careless wave of his hand to show that all the world was at his feet--"I would like to know what I have to depend on. My uncle must have died very suddenly."
"Sudden death is what we should all prepare ourselves for. I hope you have reflected seriously upon this and other matters not appertaining to this life."
"I don't know that I have, father," says Felix laughingly; "it's bad enough when it comes."
"I feared it!" exclaims the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell. "Not prepared! not prepared!"
The tone in which his father utters this lamentation is so exactly similar to the other lamentations which he has heard in other places, and which he has been in the habit of looking upon as unworthy of regard, that Felix with difficulty suppresses his disdain; but he is of too frank and open a nature not to make upon the instant a confession of faith--a confession so dreadful that the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell listened in undisguised wrath.
"I don't suppose I am prepared, father, in the way you mean, and I must confess that I don't see what necessity there is for it. I am not sent into the world to mourn; there are things in it that I like to enjoy, and that I think I was sent to enjoy; otherwise, they would not be provided. I sha'n't be the worse for enjoying them, if I live till I am seventy, and I shouldn't be the better for avoiding them, or for looking upon them as sinful."
Felix is aware of the bad impression he is producing upon his father, but he deems it a point of honour not to falter, and he goes on to the end with a certain manliness that would be refreshing in any other place than the cheerless study in which he is sitting.
"May I inquire what you call yourself in the matter of religion?" asks the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell gloomily.
"Well, father," replies Felix, with a certain puzzled hesitation, "I suppose I should call myself a Church-of-England man; but I would much prefer to call myself a Christian."
"It is useless, I expect," observes the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, after a pause, "to enter into a discussion upon these subjects with you?"
"Quite useless, I should say, father."
"Then we will continue about your uncle's affairs," said the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, with the air of one who, encountering a difficulty, finds it insurmountable; and, curiously enough, with the air of one who feels relieved in consequence. "As I was your uncle's nearest relative, and it was understood that you were his heir, I thought it my duty, immediately I heard of his death, to hasten to his house. I then, to my astonishment, discovered that he had expended the whole of his property in the purchase of a life annuity, which, of course, dies with him. After payment of certain claims, which could not be resisted, the estate leaves you, as your uncle's heir, the exact sum of one hundred and ten pounds."
A sour smile plays about the lips of the Rev. Emanuel Creamwell; thankful as he would have been for a more fortunate issue of his brother-in-law's death as relieving him of a responsibility which he is afraid may fall upon him, and which he is wishful to be rid of, he is not displeased at this triumph over his son. But Felix is more surprised than hurt; there is no such feeling in his breast as animosity towards his uncle because a fortune is not left to him. He says in a gentle voice,
"I am not the less grateful to him for what he has done for me; and I cannot