Read Ebook: The Prodigal Father by Clouston J Storer Joseph Storer

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Ebook has 2412 lines and 58982 words, and 49 pages

He threw the girl a brief nod, and the two resumed their walk. Jean stood for a minute on the steps with a smile half formed upon her lips, as though she were prepared to wave them a farewell; but neither man looked back, and the smile died away, the door closed behind her, and the morning became as raw as ever.

For a few minutes father and son walked together in silence. In Andrew's eye lurked the same suggestion of criticism, and in his parent's some consciousness of this and not a little consequent irritation. They were the same height--just under six feet--and there was a decided resemblance between Mr. Walkingshaw's portly gait and Andrew's dignified carriage, but otherwise they were not much alike. The father had a large and open countenance, very ruddy and fringed with the most respectable white whiskers; and something ample in his voice and eye and manner accorded with it admirably. Andrew's face also was full, but rather in places than comprehensively. The chief places were his cheeks and upper lip. This lip was perhaps his most striking characteristic. It was both full and long, meeting his cheeks at either end in a little dimple, and protruding above the lower lip. Beneath it his chin sloped sharply back and then abruptly shot forward again in the shape of a round aggressive little ball. His eye was cold and gray, his hair dark, his age six-and-thirty, and for the last few years he had been his father's partner. He was the first to break the silence.

"Why you don't see a respectable doctor, I can't imagine," said he.

"I went to Mackenzie. I went to Grant," replied Mr. Walkingshaw shortly. "A lot of good either of them did my gout!"

"Gout!" said Andrew. "And have you exchanged that for anything better? You ought to have stayed in bed to-day. I wonder you ventured out in the state that man's got you into."

The words might conceivably be taken to represent a very natural filial anxiety, but the voice was reminiscent of the consolation of Job. Mr. Walkingshaw had always been able to inspire his children with a respect so profound that it was a little difficult at times to distinguish it from awe. Even Andrew when he became his partner had not lost the attitude. But to-day his father accepted the rebuke without a murmur. In a moment the hard Scotch voice smote again--

"The idea of a man in your position going to an infernal quack like Professor Cyrus! Professor? Humph! The man's killing you."

Mr. Walkingshaw's ruddy face grew redder. The standard of common sense is high in Scotland; the humiliation in being taken in profound; the respect for the professional orthodoxies intense. And he had been the protagonist of everything sensible, orthodox, and prudent! He felt like a constable caught in the pantry.

"Cyrus is a man of remarkable--ah--ideas. He assures me I shall see the beneficial effects soon. Patience--patience; that is what he says. I--ah--have probably only caught a little chill. I believe in Cyrus, Andrew, I believe in him."

Andrew received the explanation with outward respect. His father's eye had become formidable; but in silence his own expressed his opinion of this paltry defense. Presently he inquired--

"Would you like people to know who you're going to?"

Mr. Walkingshaw started.

"I'll trouble other folks to mind their own business," he said sharply; yet he cast an uncomfortable glance at his son.

"Oh, I'm not anxious they should know my family's escapades," said Andrew reassuringly.

But his gray eye had now a triumphant gleam, and his father realized he had no case left to go before the court. If people were to know--well, he would certainly be a less shining example. Mr. Walkingshaw of Walkingshaw and Gilliflower in the hands of a quack doctor! It would sound awful bad--awful bad. Little did he dream what people would be saying of that reputable Writer to the Signet three months later.

Business happened to be slack that afternoon, and at the early hour of four o'clock Mr. Walkingshaw resumed his overcoat and muffler. As Mr. Thomieson, his confidential clerk, decorously tucked the scarf beneath the velvet collar, he offered a word or two of respectful sympathy.

"Far the wisest thing to go home, sir. But will you not take a cab? It's an awful like day to be out with a chill on ye."

Mr. Walkingshaw perceived his junior partner gazing on him in severe silence, and defiantly decided to walk. Yet as he paced homewards he could not but admit, in the unquiet recesses of his own mind, that it certainly was an odd sort of chill. He felt--well, he found it hard to tell exactly how he felt--rather as though he had swallowed some ounces of quicksilver which kept flashing and running about inside him with every step he took. Suppose Cyrus's wonderful new system were actually to prove dangerous to the constitution, possibly even to the life, of his august, confiding patron? You could not always know your luck, however deserving you might be. The tower of Siloam fell both upon the righteous and the unrighteous. What would people say if Professor Cyrus metaphorically fell on him? Heriot Walkingshaw had more at stake than mere existence. He had a character to lose.

The sight of his house, so dignified and so permanent, soothed him a little. As he hung his coat upon the substantial rack in the dark and spacious hall, he was soothed still further. Ascending to his drawing-room, the thick carpet underfoot completed his tranquillity. Surely nothing disconcerting could happen to a man who owned such a house as this. But alas! regrettable episodes have a habit, like migrant birds, of arriving in companies.

Mrs. Walkingshaw had been dead for many years, and in her stead Heriot's maiden sister, a thin, elderly lady of exemplary views and conduct, ruled her household. As her brother ruled her, he found the arrangement worked admirably.

"Are you not coming out with me in the carriage?" said she to her niece that afternoon.

Jean excused herself. She had letters she positively must write; and so the two tall horses pranced off, bearing in the very large and very shiny carriage only the exemplary lady. As she heard them clatter off over the resounding granite, Jean gave a little skip. Her eyes danced too and her lips smiled mysteriously. She ran upstairs like a whirlwind and had the drawing-room door shut behind her before she paused. Only then did she seem to feel safely alone and not in the carriage shopping. The room was very long, and very wide, and immensely high, with three tall windows down one side and substantial furniture purchased in the heyday of the Victorian epoch. The slim, fair-haired figure was quite lost in the space considered suitable by an early nineteenth-century architect for the accommodation of a Scottish lady; and the fire made much more of a display, glowing in the gloom of that raw February afternoon.

Jean sat by a little writing-table and took up a pen. Then she waited, evidently for ideas to come. Ten minutes later they arrived. The door was softly opened, a voice respectably subdued announced the name of "Mr. Vernon," and the duties of the pen were over.

The gentleman who entered made a remarkable contrast to the sedate upholstery. He had a mop of brown hair upon a large and well-shaped head, a broad face with rugged, striking features, very bright blue eyes, a dashing cavalier mustache, and a most engaging smile. His clothes were light of hue and very loose, his figure was of medium height and strongly built, his collar wide open at the neck, and his tie a large silk butterfly of an artistic shade of brown. Altogether he was a most improbable person to find calling upon a daughter of Mr. Heriot Walkingshaw.

He gave Jean's hand the grasp of a friend, but his eyes looked on her with a more than friendly light in them. When he spoke, his voice was as pleasant as his smile, and his accents were those of that portion of Britain not yet entirely occupied by the victors of Bannockburn.

"It's very good of you to stay in," he said.

"Oh, I wasn't going out in any case," said Jean demurely.

She seated herself in one corner of the sofa, and the young man, after hesitating for an instant between a seat by her side and a chair close by, and failing to catch her eye to guide him, chose the chair, and for the moment looked unhappy.

"I've come to say good-by," he began.

She looked up quickly.

"Are you going away?"

He nodded his brown mop.

"Yes, I'm off to London again."

"For good?"

"I hope so; anyhow, it can't be for much worse than I've done here."

"Haven't your pictures been--been appreciated here?" she asked.

"They haven't been sold," he said, with a short laugh.

"What a shame! Oh, Mr. Vernon, I do think people might have had better taste."

"So do I," he smiled, "but they haven't had. I've made nothing here but friends."

He had a musical voice, rather deep, and very readily expressive of what he strongly felt. His last sentence rang in Jean's ears like a declaration of love. Her eyes fell and her color rose.

"We have all been very glad to see you."

He shook his head; his eyes fastened on her all the time.

"No, you haven't."

She looked up, but meeting that devouring gaze, looked down again.

"Not all of you," he added. "Your father disapproves of me, your eldest brother detests me, and your aunt distrusts me. It's only you and Frank who have been my friends."

Frank was her soldier brother, and Jean adored him. She thought she could never care for any one but a soldier, till she encountered art and Lucas Vernon.

"Yes, Frank certainly does like you very much indeed," she said warmly.

"Don't you?"

"Yes," she answered firmly.

He smiled and bent towards her.

"Your hand on it!"

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