Domestic fiction; Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Hertfordshire (England) -- Fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction
As to what took place at that interview between the father and the son
very much was said among the clubs, and in societies to which Captain
Mountjoy Scarborough was well known; but very little of absolute truth
was ever revealed. It was known that Captain Scarborough left the room
under the combined authority of apothecaries and servants, and that the
old man had fainted from the effects of the interview. He had
undoubtedly told the son of the simple facts as he had declared them to
Mr. Grey, but had thought it to be unnecessary to confirm his statement
by any proof. Indeed, the proofs, such as they were,--the written
testimony, that is,--were at that moment in the hands of Mr. Grey, and to
Mr. Grey the father had at last referred the son. But the son had
absolutely refused to believe for a moment in the story, and had
declared that his father and Mr. Grey had conspired together to rob him
of his inheritance and good name. The interview was at last over, and
Mr. Scarborough, at one moment fainting, and in the next suffering the
extremest agony, was left alone with his thoughts.
Captain Scarborough, when he left his father's rooms, and found himself
going out from the Albany into Piccadilly, was an infuriated but at the
same time a most wretched man. He did believe that a conspiracy had been
hatched, and he was resolved to do his best to defeat it, let the effect
be what it might on the property; but yet there was a strong feeling in
his breast that the fraud would be successful. No man could possibly be
environed by worse circumstances as to his own condition. He owed he
knew not what amount of money to several creditors; but then he owed,
which troubled him more, gambling debts, which he could only pay by his
brother's assistance. And now, as he thought of it, he felt convinced
that his brother must be joined with his father and the lawyer in this
conspiracy. He felt, also, that he could meet neither Mr. Grey nor his
brother without personally attacking them. All the world might perish,
but he, with his last breath, would declare himself to be Captain
Mountjoy Scarborough, of Tretton Park; and though he knew at the moment
that he must perish,--as regarded social life among his comrades,--unless
he could raise five hundred pounds from his brother, yet he felt that,
were he to meet his brother, he could not but fly at his throat and
accuse him of the basest villany.
At that moment, at the corner of Bond Street, he did meet his brother.
"What is this?" said he, fiercely.
"What is what?" said Augustus, without any fierceness. "What is up now?"
"I have just come from my father."
"And how is the governor? If I were he I should be in a most awful funk.
I should hardly be able to think of anything but that man who is to come
to-morrow with his knives. But he takes it all as cool as a cucumber."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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