With the double window a man may calmly sit down amid even the roar of Cheapside, or the never-ending cascade of noise at Charing Cross.
The room was furnished with taste; the books on the shelves were well bound, as if the owner took a proper pride in them, as indeed was the case. There were two or three good pictures; there was a girl's head in marble; there were cards and invitations lying on the mantel-shelf and in a rack beside the clock. Everybody could tell at the first look of the room that it was a bachelor's den. Also because nothing was new, and because there were none of the peacockeries, whims and fancies, absurdities, fads and fashions, gimcrackeries, the presence of which does always and infallibly proclaim the chamber of a young man; this room manifestly belonged to a bachelor who was old in the profession. In fact, the owner of the chambers, of which this was the breakfast, morning, and dining-room, whenever he dined at home, was seated in an armchair beside a breakfast-table, looking straight before him, with a face filled with anxiety. An honest, ugly, pleasing, rugged, attractive face, whose features were carved one day when Dame Nature was benevolently disposed, but had a blunt chisel.
"I always told him," he muttered, "that he should learn the whole of his family history as soon as he was three-and-twenty years of age. One must keep such promises. Yet it would have been better that he should never know. But then it might have been found out, and that would have been far worse. Yet, how could it have been found out? No: that is ridiculous."
He mused in silence. In his fingers he held a cigar which he had lit, but allowed to go out again. The morning paper was lying on the table, unopened.
"How will the boy take it?" he asked; "will he take it crying? Or will he take it laughing?"
He smiled, picturing to himself the "boy's" astonishment.
Looking at the man more closely, one became aware that he was really a very pleasant-looking person. He was about five-and-forty years of age, and he wore a full beard and mustache, after the manner of his contemporaries, with whom a beard is still considered a manly ornament to the face. The beard was brown, but it began to show, as wine-merchants say of port, the "appearance of age." In some light, there was more gray than brown. His dark-brown hair, however, retained its original thickness of thatch, and was as yet untouched by any streak of gray. Seeing that he belonged to one of the oldest and best of English families, one might have expected something of that delicacy of feature which some of us associate with birth. But, as has already been said, his face was rudely chiselled, his complexion was ruddy, and he looked as robust as a plough-boy; yet he had the air of an English gentleman, and that ought to satisfy anybody. And he was the younger son of a duke, being by courtesy Lord Jocelyn Le Breton.
While he was thus meditating, there was a quick step on the stair, and the subject of his thoughts entered the room.
This interesting young man was a much more aristocratic person to look upon than his senior. He paraded, so to speak, at every point, the thoroughbred air. His thin and delicate nose, his clear eye, his high though narrow forehead, his well-cut lip, his firm chin, his pale cheek, his oval face, the slim figure, the thin, long fingers, the spring of his walk, the poise of his head—what more could one expect even from the descendant of all the Howards? But this morning the pallor of his cheek was flushed as if with some disquieting news.
"Good-morning, Harry," said Lord Jocelyn quietly.
Harry returned the greeting. Then he threw upon the table a small packet of papers.
"There, sir, I have read them; thank you for letting me see them."
"Sit down, boy, and let us talk; will you have a cigar? No? A cigarette, then? No? You are probably a little upset by this—new—unexpected revelation?"
"A little upset!" repeated the young man, with a short laugh.
"To be sure—to be sure—one could expect nothing else; now sit down, and let us talk over the matter calmly."
The young man sat down, but he did not present the appearance of one inclined to talk over the matter calmly.
"In novels," said Lord Jocelyn, "it is always the good fortune of young gentlemen brought up in ignorance of their parentage to turn out, when they do discover their origin, the heirs to an illustrious name; I have always admired that in novels. In your case, my poor Harry, the reverse is the case; the distinction ought to console you."
"Why was I not told before?"
"Because the boyish brain is more open to prejudice than that of the adult; because, among your companions, you certainly would have felt at a disadvantage had you known yourself to be the son of a——"
"You always told me," said Harry, "that my father was in the army!"
"What do you call a sergeant in a line regiment, then?"
"Oh! of course, but among gentlemen—I mean—among the set with whom I was brought up, to be in the army means to have a commission."
"Yes: that was my pardonable deception. I thought that you would respect yourself more if you felt that your father, like the fathers of your friends, belonged to the upper class. Now, my dear boy, you will respect yourself just as much, although you know that he was but a sergeant, and a brave fellow who fell at my side in the Indian Mutiny."
"And my mother?"
"I did not know her; she was dead before I found you out, and took you from your Uncle Bunker."
"Uncle Bunker!" Harry laughed, with a little bitterness. "Uncle Bunker! Fancy asking one's Uncle Bunker to dine at the club! What is he by trade?"
"He is something near a big brewery, a brewery boom, as the Americans say. What he actually is, I do not quite know. He lives, if I remember rightly, at a place an immense distance from here, called Stepney."
"Do you know anything more about my father's family?"
"No! The sergeant was a tall, handsome, well set-up man; but I know nothing about his connections. His name, if that is any help to you, was, was—in fact"—here Lord Jocelyn assumed an air of ingratiating sweetness—"was—Goslett—Goslett; not a bad name, I think, pronounced with perhaps a leaning to an accent on the last syllable. Don't you agree with me, Harry?"
"Oh! yes, it will do. Better than Bunker, and not so good as Le Breton. As for my Christian name, now?"
"There I ventured on one small variation."
"Am I not, then, even Harry?"
"Yes, yes, yes, you are—now; formerly you were Harry without the H. It is the custom of the neighborhood in which you were born."
"I see! If I go back among my own people, I shall be, then, once more 'Arry?"
"Yes; and shout on penny steamers, and brandish pint bottles of stout, and sing along the streets, in simple abandonment to Arcadian joy; and trample on flowers; and break pretty things for wantonness; and exercise a rude but effective wit, known among the ancients as Fescennine, upon passing ladies; and get drunk o' nights; and walk the streets with a pipe in your mouth. That is what you would be, if you went back, my dear child."
Harry laughed.
"After all," he said, "this is a very difficult position. I can no longer go about pretending anything; I must tell people."
"Is that absolutely necessary?"
"Quite necessary. It will be a deuce of a business, explaining."
"Shall we tell it to one person, and let him be the town-crier?"
"That, I suppose, would be the best plan; meantime, I could retire, while I made some plans for the future."
"Perhaps, if you really must tell the truth, it would be well to go out of town for a bit."
"As for myself," Harry continued, "I suppose I shall get over the wrench after a bit. Just for the moment I feel knocked out of time."
"Keep the secret, then; let it be one between you and me only, Harry; let no one know."