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Chapter Thirty Six

Tom saw very little more of Pete Warboys. He had slipped away to the fir-wood, and escaping all observation, went straight to the cave; but there was neither boy nor dog, and he left disappointed.

Three days passed, and he did not go out, feeling perfectly unfit to be seen.

Then he began to grow uneasy, and wondered whether Pete was ill from the beating he had received, and the dog dead.

But the time went on, and he heard that Pete had gone away. David had told Mrs Fidler, and she bore the news to Tom.

“And it’s a great blessing, my dear,” she said, “for he was a very bad, wicked boy, and I don’t know what he didn’t deserve for beating you so dreadfully.”

“Oh, but he was as bad, or worse,” said Tom.

“He couldn’t have been, my dear. Look at your poor face even now.”

“No. Bother! I don’t want to look at my face for ever so long yet,” replied Tom. “Perhaps it’s a good job though that he has gone.”

Then the winter came, with glorious, clear, starry nights, when the cold was forgotten, and Tom had his share of feasting upon the wonders of the heavens with the small telescope. Now it would be an hour with the great Nebula in Orion, then one with the wondrous Ring Nebula. Another night would be devoted to the double, triple, and quadruple stars, those which, though single to the naked eye, when viewed by the help of the glass showed that they were two, three, or four, perfectly separate. Then the various colours were studied, and diamond-like Sirius was viewed, as well as his ruby, topaz, sapphire, and emerald companions in the great sphere. The moon was journeyed over at every opportunity, with her silvery, pumice-like craters, and greyish-bottomed ring-plains, surrounded by their mighty walls of twelve to seventeen thousand feet in height. Tycho and Copernicus, with their long silvery rays; brilliant Aristarchus; dark, deep Plato; the straight valley, the so-called seas, the smooth, round, smaller craters, isolated Pico, the ridges, and the wildly-rugged battlements upon the terminator – all were scanned in turn, with Tom’s thirst increasing every time he looked.

For there was always something new to see, as well as plenty of surprises, when some meteor suddenly shot across the field of the telescope. But Uncle Richard said —

“Wait till we get the big one done!”

Saturn became a favourite object with Tom, who was never weary of gazing at the bright ring of light spread around the planet, which he could almost fancy he saw spinning as it glided across the field of the glass. Jupiter and his four moons, the former dull and scored with rings, the latter brilliant specks, had their turn; and soon books, which he had before looked upon as tedious and dry, became of intense interest; but Uncle Richard said that they must have a more perfect plane mirror.

Then came a bright wintry day, when Tom was out having a brisk run, and to his surprise he came upon Pete Warboys, who made a rush into the woods and disappeared, leaving his dog behind.

“Then he has come back,” said Tom to himself; and he stared at the dog, which stood looking at him – and the whole scene of the fight, and then the surgical operation upon the dog’s nose, came back.

“Then you did get well again, old chap,” said Tom sharply.

That was enough: the dog rushed forward, barking loudly, danced round him, and then bounded up the bank leading into the wood, where it turned to stand wagging its long thin tail, whisked round again, after giving another bark, and then bounded after its master.

“Come, I’ve made friends with him,” said Tom, “anyhow.” And though disappointed by Pete’s return after a long stay with some gipsy-like relatives of his grandmother, he could not help feeling glad that the dog displayed some gratitude for what had been done.

“Pete Warboys has come back, David,” cried Tom, hurrying down the garden as soon as he had ended his walk.

“Yes, bad luck to him, sir. I was going to tell you. I heared of it ’bout an hour ago. Been a-gipsying, I expect, with some of their people, who’ve got a door-mat van, and goes about with a screwy old horse. We shall be having some nice games again.”

“Not after the fruit, David.”

“Well, no, sir, ’cause there arn’t none. It’ll be eggs and chickens, and the keepers round about ’ll know my gentleman’s here. Say, Master Tom?”

“Yes.”

“Thought you was going to make a noo chap of him?”

“How could I when he wasn’t here?”

“No, course not; but your time’s come now, sir. What you’ve got to do is to sarve him as you do your specklums. You grind him down – there’s plenty on him – and then polish him into a fresh sort of boy.”

The gardener leaned upon his spade and chuckled.

“Ah, you may laugh, David,” said Tom; “but he might have been a decent lad if he had had a chance.”

“Not he, sir. Mr Maxted tried, but it was the wrong stuff. Look here, sir, when you makes a noo specklum, what do you do it of?”

“Glass, of course.”

“Yes, sir, clear glass without any bubbles in it. You don’t take a bit of rough burnt clay; you couldn’t polish that. He’s the wrong stuff, sir. Nobody couldn’t make nothing o’ him but a drill-serjeant, and he won’t try, because Pete’s too ugly and okkard even to be food for powder and shot.”

“I don’t know,” said Tom, as he thought of the scene with the dog.

“And I do, sir. You mark my words – now Pete’s back there’s going to be games.”

But the days glided by; and Tom had so much to think of that he saw nothing of Pete Warboys’ games, and he could hardly believe it possible when summer came again.

Chapter Thirty Seven

“From your cousin,” said Uncle Richard, opening one of his letters, his face gradually growing very stern and troubled as he read; while as he finished and raised his eyes, he found that Tom was watching him intently.

“Sad news, Tom,” said his uncle, in a low, grave voice. “My brother has been better, but he has during the past week had a fresh attack, and is very bad.”

“I am very sorry, uncle,” said Tom frankly.

“Yes, you would be, Tom, as it is serious.”

Uncle Richard paused, looking very hard at his nephew. Then quietly —

“You did not get on very well with your uncle.”

“No; I was too stupid, and it made him angry, uncle.”

“Humph! Well, Tom, by-gones must of course be by-gones. Your cousin has written this letter at his father’s dictation, and here is a postscript.

“‘Father seems to be very dangerously ill, and the doctor says that he must have something upon his mind.’”

“Is it that he thinks he is more ill than he really is?” said Tom quietly; but his uncle looked up from the letter so sharply and sternly that the boy changed countenance.

“The letter does not suggest that, Tom,” said Uncle Richard, frowning. “My poor brother – ” Uncle Richard paused for a moment or two – “wishes to see me once again, he says, and – and you, my boy, on business of great importance to you and your interests. If I cannot go, he requests that you be sent up to him at once.”

“Poor uncle!” said Tom quietly. “But does he think that I ought to go back to the law, uncle?”

“Perhaps.”

“But I couldn’t, Uncle Richard, I am so stupid. I hate it. Pray, pray don’t think of letting me go. I am so happy here.”

Uncle Richard’s face relaxed a little.

“Perhaps he doesn’t mean that. He had to do with your poor father’s affairs. It may be some business connected with them.”

“What could there be, uncle?”

“Ah, that I cannot say. I was abroad at the time of his death.”

“Mother never said anything about them,” said Tom.

“Well, you must go up and see him at once.”

“Of course, uncle.”

“And I shall go with you, my boy. I hope he really is not so bad.”

“I hope he is not,” said Tom. “How soon shall you go, uncle?”

“In half-an-hour. If we sent for a fly we could only catch the one o’clock train; if we walk over to the station we can catch that at eleven. Shall we walk?”

“Yes, uncle. I’ll change my things, and be ready as soon as you.”

That afternoon they reached Mornington Crescent, to find straw laid thickly down in front of the house, and a strange feeling of depression came over Tom as they entered the silent room, to be received by his aunt, who looked white and anxious.

“I am so glad you have come, Richard,” she said eagerly. “James has been asking for you and Tom so many times.”

Just then a bell rang.

“That’s his bell to know if it is you,” said Aunt Fanny; and she hurried up-stairs, to return in a few minutes.

“Come up at once,” she said; “you first, Richard;” and she led the way up-stairs, leaving Tom seated in the drawing-room, looking about at the familiar objects, and growing more and more low-spirited, as they recalled many an unhappy hour, and his troubles at the office, and with his cousin Sam.

But he was not left there long. In a few minutes the door re-opened, and his aunt and uncle came in.

“You are to go up, Tom,” said Uncle Richard. “There is something to be communicated to you.”

“Is – is he so very ill, uncle?” said Tom, with a curious sensation of shrinking troubling him.

“He is very ill, my boy. But don’t keep him waiting.”

“Is he in his own room, aunt?” asked Tom.

“Yes, my dear. Pray go softly, he is so weak.”

Tom drew a deep breath, and went up to the next floor, tapped lightly at the bedroom door, and expecting to see a terrible object stretched upon the bed of sickness in a darkened chamber, he entered, and felt quite a shock.

For the room was bright and sunlit, the window open, and his uncle, looking very white and careworn, seated in an easy-chair, dressed, save that he wore a loose dressing-gown.

“Ah, Tom,” he said, holding out a thin hand, “at last – at last.”

Tom took the hand extended to him, and felt it clutch his tightly.

“I’m so sorry to see you so ill, uncle,” he said.

“Yes, yes, of course, boy; but don’t waste time. Let me get it over – before it is too late.”

“You wanted to see me about business, uncle?”

“Yes,” said Uncle James, with a groan; “terrible business. Ah, Tom, my boy. But stop, go to the door, and see that no one is listening.”

Tom obeyed, opening and closing the door.

“No, uncle, there is no one there.”

“Turn the key, my boy, turn the key.”

Tom obeyed, wondering more and more, as he returned to his uncle’s side.

“Now, quick,” said the sick man; “go to that cupboard, and bring out that tin box.”

He did as he was told, and brought out an ordinary deed-box, which at a sign he placed upon a chair by his uncle’s side.

“Can I do anything else, uncle?”

“Yes, boy,” cried the sick man, “and it is my last request. Tom, I’ve been a wicked wretch to you, and I want you to forgive me before I die.”

Tom smiled.

“Of course, uncle,” he said quietly, as a feeling of pity for the wreck before him filled his breast, “I suppose I was very stupid, and made you cross.”

“He does not know, he does not know,” groaned James Brandon, as he clung to the boy’s hand, “and I must tell him. Tom, my boy, it was a sore temptation, and I did not resist it. I robbed you, my boy, dreadfully. Here, take these, it is to make amends: deeds of some property, my boy, and the mortgage of some money I have lent – nearly five thousand pounds, my boy, and all yours by rights.”

“Mine!” cried Tom, startled out of his calmness by the surprise.

“Yes, all yours, my boy. Your poor mother confided it to my care, Tom, for you, and I was tempted, and kept it all back. It was a fraud, Tom, and I am a criminal. I could not die with that on my conscience. Tell me you forgive me, Tom, before it is too late.”

Tom gazed at the convulsed face before him with a look of anger which changed into pity, and then to disgust.

“Do you hear me, boy? You must, you shall forgive me. Don’t you see I am almost a dying man?”

“My mother trusted that all to you, and you sto – kept it back, uncle,” said Tom sternly.

“Yes, my boy; yes, my boy. You are quite right – stole it all, robbed you – an orphan. But I’m punished, Tom. I haven’t had a happy hour since; and you see these – these deeds in the strong cloth-lined envelope, tied up with green silk – it is all yours, my boy. Take it and keep it till you come of age, and then it is yours to do with as you like. But tell me you forgive me.”

Tom was silent, and his uncle groaned.

“Am I to go down on my knees to you?” he cried.

“No, uncle,” said Tom sadly; “and I forgive you.”

“Ah!” cried the wretched man, “at last – at last!” and he burst out into an hysterical fit of sobbing, which was painful in the extreme to the listener, as he stood gazing down, with the great envelope in his hand, at the broken, wretched man before him, till the invalid looked up sharply.

“Put it away – in your jacket, boy, and never let me see it again. Give it to your uncle to take care of for you till you come of age. I shall be dead and gone then, Tom; but you will have forgiven me, and I shall be at rest.”

Tom said nothing, for his head was in a whirl, but he quietly buttoned up the packet in his breast.

“Have you told Uncle Richard, sir?” he said, at last.

“Told him? No, no one but you, boy.”

“I must tell him, sir.”

“Yes, but not here – not till you get home. Leave me now; I can bear no more. Go down and send up your aunt. I must take something – and sleep. I have had no rest for nights and nights, and I thought I should die before I had time to confess to you, Tom. But you forgive me, my boy – you forgive me?”

“Yes, uncle, once again I forgive you.”

“Now go,” cried the invalid, catching at and kissing the boy’s cold hand. “Don’t stop here; go back home, for fear, Tom.”

“For fear of what, uncle? you are not so bad as that.”

“For fear,” panted the sick man, with a strange cough, “for fear I should try to get them back. Quick! go. – Now I can sleep and rest.”

Tom went down, looking very strange, and found his aunt waiting anxiously.

“He is better, aunt,” said Tom quietly. “You are to go up to him at once.”

Aunt Fanny almost ran out of the room, and as soon as they were alone Tom turned to his uncle.

“We are to go back home directly,” he said.

“What, with him so bad! What about your business?”

“It is all done, uncle; and I am to take you back home, and tell you there.”

“Pish! why so much mystery, Tom?”

“It is Uncle James’s wish, Uncle Richard,” said Tom gravely.

“It was business then?”

“Very important.”

“And we are to go?”

“Yes, at once. I want to go too, uncle, for I feel as if I could not breathe here. Don’t speak to me; don’t ask me anything till we get back, and then I’ll tell you all.”

“This is a strange business, Tom,” said Uncle Richard, “but it is his wish then. Well, we will go.”

That night Tom sat in his uncle’s study, and told of his interview with the sick man, while his hearer slowly turned his head more and more away, till the little narrative was at an end. Once, as he spoke, Tom heard the words muttered —

“A scoundrel! My own brother too.”

Then Uncle Richard was very silent, and his face was pale and strange, as he took the packet from his nephew’s hand.

“He must have been half mad, my boy,” he said huskily, “or he would not have done this thing. This must be our secret, Tom – a family secret, never mentioned for all our sakes. We’ll put the deeds in the old bureau to-morrow, and try and forget it all till the proper time comes. There, I’m better now. Glad too, very glad, Tom. First that he repented of the wrong-doing, and glad that you are so independent, my boy. It was always a puzzle to me that your poor mother should have left you so badly off. I said nothing, for I thought she must have foolishly frittered away what should have been yours.”

“I wish I had never known this, uncle,” said Tom bitterly.

“Why, my boy? it is best you should. I am glad your poor, foolish, weak uncle has tried to make amends. The next thing we shall hear will be that, with a load off his mind, he has grown better. Why, Tom, he must have come down here to be near you, and confess the truth. Well, good-night, boy. It has been a trying day – and night. Sleep on it and forget it; but first – ”

He held the boy’s hand in his for a few moments, and his voice was very husky when he spoke again.

“A family secret, Tom. Your uncle – my own brother. We must not judge the tempted. Good-night; and when alone by your bedside – ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.’ Good-night.”

Uncle Richard led the way to the door, opened it, and half thrust him without.

Tom stood for a few moments in the dark hall, and then went slowly up to his room.

The next minute he had run down again, to silently enter the study, and find Uncle Richard seated with his face buried in his hands, and his breast heaving with the terrible emotion from which he suffered.

“Uncle.”

“Tom.”

The next instant he was clasped to the old man’s breast, and held tightly there.

For some minutes not a word more was said; then both rose, as if a great weight had been lifted away.

“Good-night, Tom.”

“Good-night, uncle.”

And those two were closer together in heart than they had ever before been, since Heatherleigh had become Tom Blount’s home.

Chapter Thirty Eight

Uncle Richard made no further reference to the past day’s business, but Tom noticed that he looked very serious and dejected. He caught him gazing too in a peculiar way, and upon their eyes meeting Tom saw his uncle draw himself up rather stiffly, as if he were saying to himself – “Well, it was not my fault – my honour is not smirched.”

Tom felt that his uncle must have some such thought as this, and exerted himself to make him see that this sad business had only drawn them closer together.

The plan of turning the laboratory into more of a study had been gradually working, and that morning, after their return from town, a couple of book-cases were moved up, with a carpet and chairs, making the circular room look cosy.

“Yes,” said Uncle Richard, as they looked round that evening; “the place looks quite snug, Tom. My old study was just right for one; but when it was invaded by a great rough boy like you there was not room to move. This will do capitally; you can take possession of some of the shelves for your specimens that you collect, and we can make it a museum as well.”

“You won’t mind, uncle, if I do bring things up here?”

“I shall mind if you do not, boy. This is our room, mind, where we can be quite independent, and make it as littery as we like without being called to account by Mrs Fidler every time there is a mess.”

As he spoke Uncle Richard unlocked the old walnut bureau, and took the large envelope from his breast – the document which Tom had handed to him over-night being within.

“Your papers, Tom,” he said, rather huskily. “They will be as safe here as in my room; I will put them with these leases and things. Of course you can have my keys if you wish to see them.”

“I don’t want to see them, uncle,” said Tom quietly.

“Not to-day perhaps, but you will, my boy. Some day we will go over the matter together; we neither of us want to talk about it now.”

“No, uncle, of course not.”

Uncle Richard placed the big envelope in the drawer and locked it up, placing the keys in his pocket; but directly after he took them out again, and opened the drawer in which lay several other legal-looking documents in cartridge envelopes.

“Get me one of those very large cartridge envelopes, Tom, out of the stationery drawer,” he said; and this being fetched from the table-drawer, the important deeds were slipped in, fastened down, and the envelope afterwards tied round in the most business-like way with red tape. After which a wax-match was lit, and the ends of the tape covered with sealing-wax, and stamped with an old signet-ring.

“There, my boy, we’ll leave it for the present. Some day I will go and see my solicitor about the matter.”

Tom uttered a sigh of relief as the documents were locked up, for the sight of them troubled him. He felt in a way that he could not have explained, as if he were in some way answerable for the shame which had come upon their family, and that it was causing something like restraint between him and his uncle, who evidently was cruelly chagrined by his brother’s conduct.

“I shan’t be in any hurry to have them brought out again,” thought Tom; and as Uncle Richard placed the keys in his pocket, Tom began hurriedly to talk about the speculum.

“How long will it be before we are able to – to what you may call it?”

“Mount it?” said Uncle Richard, smiling sadly.

“Yes, uncle,” cried Tom. “You don’t know how I long to get it right, so that we can have a look at the moon.”

“It will be some time yet, my boy,” replied Uncle Richard with a sigh; and Tom felt startled, for it seemed to him as if the stern, decisive-looking countenance before him had grown older, and the lines in it more deeply-marked.

“Some time, uncle? Why, you said it was as good as finished.”

“Yes, my boy, but duty first and pleasure after. While I have been doing this little bit of business other things have crossed my mind. I shall go up to town again to-morrow.”

“To Uncle James’s?” said Tom, after a pause.

“For one thing, yes. It is painful, my boy, but I feel that I ought to go.”

Tom was silent. He stood there feeling that his uncle was behaving differently to him. For his words were cold and measured, and he did not speak in the light, pleasant way of a couple of days back. At the same time, it was not that there was a division between them, but as if Uncle Richard treated him like one who shared with him a sad secret. He was graver, and there was a confidential tone in his voice which made the boy feel that he had grown older all at once.

“Shall you want me to go with you, uncle?” said Tom at last.

Uncle Richard looked at him intently.

“Do you feel as if you could go, Tom?” he asked.

Tom was silent; and then, as the searching eyes would take no denial, and forced him to speak, the boy cleared his throat from something which seemed to choke him, and spoke out hurriedly.

“Don’t think me queer and awkward, or ungrateful, uncle,” he cried. “I’m ready to forgive Uncle James, but I never did, and never can feel, as if I liked him. I would rather not go and see him, but if you say I ought to I will.”

“I do not say you ought to, Tom,” said his uncle gravely; “but as his brother, I feel that I must now he is so bad.”

“You’re not angry with me, uncle?”

“No, boy. I like the way in which you have spoken out. I could not have stood it, Tom, if you had assumed anything and been hypocritical. There, now, we will leave the subject. I shall go up again to-morrow morning. You can spend your time in doing any little thing to make this place more snug and home-like. I dare say I shall be back to-morrow evening.”

Tom uttered a sigh full of relief as they went back to the cottage, and that night slept soundly enough, never once giving a thought to the documents in the old mill, which had suddenly turned him from a penniless lad into one with a few thousands to start in life when he came of age.