A Secret Inheritance. B. L. Farjeon
"I would like to take you to such or such a place," my father would say, "but I cannot afford it."
"It does not matter, father," I would answer. "I should be happy if I only had my books about me."
It was the being separated from my little library that made the country so irksome to me. I was passionately fond of reading, and my store of literature consisted of books which had belonged to my father, and had been well thumbed by him. They were mine; he had given them to me on my birthday. Of their nature it is sufficient to say here that they were mostly classics, and that among them were very few of a light character.
One morning a ray of light shone through the dark spaces of our lives.
We were sitting at breakfast in our lodgings in London when Mrs. Fortress brought in a letter for my father. It was an unusual event, and my father turned it over leisurely in his hand, and examined the writing on the envelope before he opened it. But his manner changed when he read the letter; he was greatly agitated, and my mother asked anxiously:
"Have you bad news?"
"No," he replied, "good."
He was silent for a few moments, and his next words were:
"Mildred, can you bear a shock?"
"Yes," said my mother, "as the news is good."
"We are rich once more," my father said, and then exclaimed, as he gazed around upon the mean walls of our apartment, "Thank God!"
A relative of ours had died in a distant land, and had left his fortune to my father. My father had had no expectations from him, and had, indeed, almost forgotten his existence. The greater was our surprise at this sudden change in our circumstances.
Although there were formalities to be gone through before my father came into possession of the large legacy, and although seven or eight weeks elapsed before we removed from our poor lodgings, the change from poverty to riches was almost immediately apparent. My father presented me with a purse containing money. I do not remember how much, but there were sovereigns in it.
I was not proud; I was not elated. The prospect of living in a better place, with better surroundings, was agreeable to me, but it did not excite me. With my purse in my pocket I went to a shop in which second-hand books were sold, and among them some I desired to possess. I bought what I wished, and carried them away with me. On my way home I noticed a little girl sitting on a doorstep, and there was a wan look in her pale face which attracted me. By her side was a crutch. As I stood looking at her for a moment, the string with which my books were tied became undone, the paper in which they were wrapped burst, and the books fell to the ground. I stooped to pick them up, but the books, being loose and of different sizes, were cumbersome to hold, and I called to the girl that I would give her a shilling if she helped me.
"A shilling!" she exclaimed, and rose upon her feet, but immediately sank to the ground, with a cry of pain.
"What is the matter with you?" I asked. "I haven't hurt you, have I?"
She pointed to her crutch. Thinking that she wished me to hand it to her, I lifted it from the ground, and found that it was broken.
"You are lame," I said.
"Yes," she said, looking at me admiringly from her crouching position; the twitch in her leg had caused her but momentary suffering, "I can't stand without my crutch, and it's broke."
"But you tried to stand when I called to you."
"Oh, yes; you said you'd give me a shilling, and I didn't think of my leg."
Much virtue in a shilling, thought I, to cause one to forget such an affliction.
"I wouldn't mind buying you a crutch," I said, "if I knew where they were sold."
"There's a shop in the next street," said the girl, "where the master's got the feller one to this. It's a rag and bone shop, and he'll sell it cheap."
"I'll show you the shop, young sir, if you like," said a voice at my elbow.
The tone and the manner of speech were refined, and it surprised me, therefore, when I turned, to behold a figure strangely at variance with this refinement. The man was in rags, and the drunkard's stamp was on his features, but in his kind eyes shone a sadly humorous light. Moreover, he spoke as a gentleman would have spoken.
I accepted his offer to show me the rag and bone shop, and we walked side by side, conversing. To be exact, I should say that he talked and I listened, for he used twenty words to one of mine. This kind of social intercourse was rare in my experiences, and it proved interesting, by reason of my chance companion being an exception to the people who lived in the neighbourhood. Few as were the words I uttered, they, and the books I carried under my arm, served to unlock his tongue, and he regaled me with snatches of personal history. He was familiar with the books I had purchased, and expressed approval of my selection. He had, indeed, been born a gentleman, and had received a liberal education.
"Which has served to convince me," he observed, "that if it is in the nature of a man to swim with the current into which he has drifted or been driven, swim with it he must, wheresoever it may lead him."
"There is the power of resistance," I said.
"There is nothing of the sort," was his comment, "unless it is agreeable to the man to exercise it. We are but straws. It is fortunate that life is short, and that happiness does not consist in wearing a jewelled crown. Young sir, how came you to live in these parts?"
"I do not know," I replied. "My parents live here."
"But you are not poor."
By this time I had bought the odd crutch, and my companion had seen the gold in my purse when I paid for it.
"We have been," I said, "but are so no longer."
"Shade of Pluto!" he cried. "If I could but say as much! So, being suddenly made rich, you open your heart to pity's call?" I shook my head in doubt, and he touched the crutch. "Don't you think this a fine thing to do?"
"I am not sure," I said.
"Excellent!" he exclaimed. "Praise me not for my virtues; blame me not for my vices. That morality, in respect to the average man, is a knife that cuts both ways. To sinners like myself it is more comforting than otherwise."
He puzzled me, and I told him so, but he made a pretence of disbelieving me, and said,
"There are depths in you, young sir. You may live to discover that you are in the wrong century."
That I did not clearly understand him did not render his conversation less interesting. I gave the girl the crutch and a shilling, and left her and the man together.
I record this incident because it is the only one I remember during the time we lived in that poor neighbourhood in which strangers played a part. So far as my outer life was concerned, it was utterly devoid of colour.
CHAPTER II.
There was but little difference in this respect when we removed to Rosemullion, an old-fashioned, straggling mansion on the outskirts of Rochester, surrounded by stone walls, and secluded from public view by thick clusters of trees. We made no friends, we kept no company. Within half a hundred yards of the great house was a cottage of six rooms, very pretty, embosomed in shrubs and flowers. After a time this cottage became my real home. I was allowed to do pretty much as I liked, within certain unexpressed limitations through which, it appears, I did not break. Before I inhabited this cottage, I spoke, of course, to my father on the subject.
"You have taken a fancy to it, Gabriel?" he said.
"A great fancy," I said; "I wish it were mine."
"You may consider it yours," he said.
I thanked him, and immediately removed my books and papers