Far-away Stories

"What the devil's the meaning of it?" said Godfrey.

Sybil, kind-hearted, began to cry. Something strange and piteous, something elusive had happened. The awful, poverty-stricken room chilled her blood, and the sight of the venomous scourge froze it. She caught and held Godfrey's hand. Had their father gone over to Rome and turned ascetic? They looked bewildered around the room. But no other sign, crucifix, rosary, sacred picture, betokened the pious convert. They scanned the rough deal bookshelf. A few dull volumes of English classics, a few works on sociology in French and Italian, a flagrantly staring red Burke's Landed Gentry, and that was practically all the library. Not one book of devotion was visible, save the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and a little vellum-covered Elzevir edition of Saint Augustine's Flammulæ Amoris, which Godfrey remembered from childhood on account of its quaint wood-cuts. They could see nothing indicative of religious life but the flagellum over the bed – and that seemed curiously new and unused. Again they looked around the bare characterless room, characteristic only of its occupant by its scrupulous tidiness; yet one object at last attracted their attention. On a deal writing-table by the window lay a thick pile of manuscript. Godfrey turned the brown paper covering. Standing together, brother and sister read the astounding title-page:

"An enquiry into my wife's justification for the following terms of her will: —

"'I will and bequeath to my husband, Sir Hildebrand Oates, Knight, the sum of fifteen shillings to buy himself a scourge to do penance for the arrogance, uncharitableness and cruelty with which he has treated myself and my beloved children for the last thirty years.'

"This dispassionate enquiry I dedicate to my son Godfrey and my daughter Sybil."

Brother and sister regarded each other with drawn faces and mutually questioning eyes.

"We can't leave this lying about," said Godfrey. And he tucked the manuscript under his arm.

The gondola took them through the narrow waterways to the Grand Canal of the Giudecca, where, on the Zattere side, all the wave-worn merchant shipping of Venice and Trieste and Fiume and Genoa finds momentary rest, and across to the low bridge-archway of the canal cutting through the island, on the side of which is Lady Layard's modest English hospital. Yes, said the matron, Sir Hildebrand was there. Pneumonia. Getting on as well as could be expected; but impossible to see him. She would telephone to their hotel in the morning.

That night, until dawn, Godfrey read the manuscript, a document of soul-gripping interest. It was neither an apologia pro vita sua, nor a breast-beating peccavi cry of confession; but a minute analysis of every remembered incident in the relations between his family and himself from the first pragmatical days of his wedding journey. And judicially he delivered judgments in the terse, lucid French form. "Whereas I, etc., etc…" and "whereas my wife, etc., etc…" – setting forth and balancing the facts – "it is my opinion that I acted arrogantly," or "uncharitably," or "cruelly." Now and again, though rarely, the judgments went in his favour. But invariably the words were added: "I am willing, however, in this case, to submit to the decision of any arbitrator or court of appeal my children may think it worth while to appoint."

The last words, scrawled shakily in pencil, were:

"I have not, to my great regret, been able to bring this record up-to-date; but as I am very ill and, at my age, may not recover, I feel it my duty to say that, as far as my two years' painful examination into my past life warrants my judgment, I am of the opinion that my wife had ample justification for the terms she employed regarding me in her will. Furthermore, if, as is probable, I should die of my illness, I should like my children to know that long ere this I have deeply desired in my loneliness to stretch out my arms to them in affection and beg their forgiveness, but that I have been prevented from so doing by the appalling fear that, I being now very poor and they being very rich, my overtures, considering the lack of affection I have exhibited to them in the past might be misinterpreted. The British Consul here, who has kindly consented to be my executor, will…"

And then strength had evidently failed him and he could write no more.

The next morning Godfrey related to his sister what he had read and gave her the manuscript to read at her convenience; and together they went to the hospital and obtained from the doctor his somewhat pessimistic report; and then again they visited the Albergo Tonelli and learned more of the strange, stiff and benevolent life of Sir Hildebrand Oates. Once more they mounted to the cold cheerless room where their father had spent the past two years. Godfrey unhooked the scourge from the nail.

"What are you going to do?" Sybil asked, her eyes full of tears.

"I'm going to burn the damned thing. Whether he lives or dies, the poor old chap's penance is at an end. By God! he has done enough." He turned upon her swiftly. "You don't feel any resentment against him now, do you?"

"Resentment?" Her voice broke on the word and she cast herself on the hard little bed and sobbed.

And so it came to pass that a new Sir Hildebrand Oates, with a humble and a contrite heart, which we are told the Lord doth not despise, came into residence once more at Eresby Manor, agent for his son and guardian of his daughter's children. Godfrey transferred his legal business from Haversham to a younger practitioner in the neighbourhood to whom Sir Hildebrand showed a stately deference. And every day, being a man of habit – instinctive habit which no revolution of the soul can alter – he visited his wife's grave in the little churchyard, a stone's throw from the manor house, and in his fancy a cloud of pigeons came iridescent, darkening the air…

The County called, but he held himself aloof. He was no longer the all-important unassailable man. He had come through many fires to a wisdom undreamed of by the County. Human love had touched him with its simple angel wing – the love of son and daughter, the love of the rude souls in the squalid Venetian Campiello; and the patter of children's feet, the soft and trusting touch of children's hands, the glad welcome of children's voices, had brought him back to the elemental wells of happiness.

One afternoon, the butler entering the dining-room with the announcement "His Grace, the Duke of – " gasped, unable to finish the title. For there was Sir Hildebrand Oates – younger at fifty-nine than he was at thirty – lying prone on the hearthrug, with a pair of flushed infants astride on the softer portions of his back, using the once almighty man as a being of little account. Sir Hildebrand turned his long chin and long nose up towards his visitor, and there was a new smile in his eyes.

"Sorry, Duke," said he, "but you see, I can't get up."