CHAPTER XXIII:  MY FATHER IS ESCORTED TO THE MAYOR’S HOUSE, AND IS INTRODUCED TO A FUTURE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW

My father said he was followed to the Mayor’s house by a good many people, whom the Mayor’s sons in vain tried to get rid of.  One or two of these still persisted in saying he was the Sunchild—­whereon another said, “But his hair is black.”

“Yes,” was the answer, “but a man can dye his hair, can he not? look at his blue eyes and his eyelashes?”

My father was doubting whether he ought not to again deny his identity out of loyalty to the Mayor and Yram, when George’s next brother said, “Pay no attention to them, but step out as fast as you can.”  This settled the matter, and in a few minutes they were at the Mayor’s, where the young men took him into the study; the elder said with a smile, “We should like to stay and talk to you, but my mother said we were not to do so.”  Whereon they left him much to his regret, but he gathered rightly that they had not been officially told who he was, and were to be left to think what they liked, at any rate for the present.

In a few minutes the Mayor entered, and going straight up to my father shook him cordially by the hand.

“I have brought you this morning’s paper,” said he.  “You will find a full report of Professor Hanky’s sermon, and of the speeches at last night’s banquet.  You see they pass over your little interruption with hardly a word, but I dare say they will have made up their minds about it all by Thursday’s issue.”

He laughed as he produced the paper—­which my father brought home with him, and without which I should not have been able to report Hanky’s sermon as fully as I have done.  But my father could not let things pass over thus lightly.

“I thank you,” he said, “but I have much more to thank you for, and know not how to do it.”

“Can you not trust me to take everything as said?”

“Yes, but I cannot trust myself not to be haunted if I do not say—­or at any rate try to say—­some part of what I ought to say.”

“Very well; then I will say something myself.  I have a small joke, the only one I ever made, which I inflict periodically upon my wife.  You, and I suppose George, are the only two other people in the world to whom it can ever be told; let me see, then, if I cannot break the ice with it.  It is this.  Some men have twin sons; George in this topsy turvey world of ours has twin fathers—­you by luck, and me by cunning.  I see you smile; give me your hand.”

My father took the Mayor’s hand between both his own.  “Had I been in your place,” he said, “I should be glad to hope that I might have done as you did.”

“And I,” said the Mayor, more readily than might have been expected of him, “fear that if I had been in yours—­I should have made it the proper thing for you to do.  There!  The ice is well broken, and now for business.  You will lunch with us, and dine in the evening.  I have given it out that you are of good family, so there is nothing odd in this.  At lunch you will not be the Sunchild, for my younger children will be there; at dinner all present will know who you are, so we shall be free as soon as the servants are out of the room.

“I am sorry, but I must send you away with George as soon as the streets are empty—­say at midnight—­for the excitement is too great to allow of your staying longer.  We must keep your rug and the things you cook with, but my wife will find you what will serve your turn.  There is no moon, so you and George will camp out as soon as you get well on to the preserves; the weather is hot, and you will neither of you take any harm.  To-morrow by mid-day you will be at the statues, where George must bid you good-bye, for he must be at Sunch’ston to-morrow night.  You will doubtless get safely home; I wish with all my heart that I could hear of your having done so, but this, I fear, may not be.”

“So be it,” replied my father, “but there is something I should yet say.  The Mayoress has no doubt told you of some gold, coined and uncoined, that I am leaving for George.  She will also have told you that I am rich; this being so, I should have brought him much more, if I had known that there was any such person.  You have other children; if you leave him anything, you will be taking it away from your own flesh and blood; if you leave him nothing, it will be a slur upon him.  I must therefore send you enough gold, to provide for George as your other children will be provided for; you can settle it upon him at once, and make it clear that the settlement is instead of provision for him by will.  The difficulty is in the getting the gold into Erewhon, and until it is actually here, he must know nothing about it.”

I have no space for the discussion that followed.  In the end it was settled that George was to have 2000 pounds in gold, which the Mayor declared to be too much, and my father too little.  Both, however, were agreed that Erewhon would before long be compelled to enter into relations with foreign countries, in which case the value of gold would decline so much as to make 2000 pounds worth little more than it would be in England.  The Mayor proposed to buy land with it, which he would hand over to George as a gift from himself, and this my father at once acceded to.  All sorts of questions such as will occur to the reader were raised and settled, but I must beg him to be content with knowing that everything was arranged with the good sense that two such men were sure to bring to bear upon it.

The getting the gold into Erewhon was to be managed thus.  George was to know nothing, but a promise was to be got from him that at noon on the following New Year’s day, or whatever day might be agreed upon, he would be at the statues, where either my father or myself would meet him, spend a couple of hours with him, and then return.  Whoever met George was to bring the gold as though it were for the Mayor, and George could be trusted to be human enough to bring it down, when he saw that it would be left where it was if he did not do so.

“He will kick a good deal,” said the Mayor, “at first, but he will come round in the end.”

Luncheon was now announced.  My father was feeling faint and ill; more than once during the forenoon he had had a return of the strange giddiness and momentary loss of memory which had already twice attacked him, but he had recovered in each case so quickly that no one had seen he was unwell.  He, poor man, did not yet know what serious brain exhaustion these attacks betokened, and finding himself in his usual health as soon as they passed away, set them down as simply effects of fatigue and undue excitement.

George did not lunch with the others.  Yram explained that he had to draw up a report which would occupy him till dinner time.  Her three other sons, and her three lovely daughters, were there.  My father was delighted with all of them, for they made friends with him at once.  He had feared that he would have been disgraced in their eyes, by his having just come from prison, but whatever they may have thought, no trace of anything but a little engaging timidity on the girls’ part was to be seen.  The two elder boys—­or rather young men, for they seemed fully grown, though, like George, not yet bearded—­treated him as already an old acquaintance, while the youngest, a lad of fourteen, walked straight up to him, put out his hand, and said, “How do you do, sir?” with a pretty blush that went straight to my father’s heart.

“These boys,” he said to Yram aside, “who have nothing to blush for—­see how the blood mantles into their young cheeks, while I, who should blush at being spoken to by them, cannot do so.”

“Do not talk nonsense,” said Yram, with mock severity.

But it was no nonsense to my poor father.  He was awed at the goodness and beauty with which he found himself surrounded.  His thoughts were too full of what had been, what was, and what was yet to be, to let him devote himself to these young people as he would dearly have liked to do.  He could only look at them, wonder at them, fall in love with them, and thank heaven that George had been brought up in such a household.

When luncheon was over, Yram said, “I will now send you to a room where you can lie down and go to sleep for a few hours.  You will be out late to-night, and had better rest while you can.  Do you remember the drink you taught us to make of corn parched and ground?  You used to say you liked it.  A cup shall be brought to your room at about five, for you must try and sleep till then.  If you notice a little box on the dressing-table of your room, you will open it or no as you like.  About half-past five there will be a visitor, whose name you can guess, but I shall not let her stay long with you.  Here comes the servant to take you to your room.”  On this she smiled, and turned somewhat hurriedly away.

My father on reaching his room went to the dressing-table, where he saw a small unpretending box, which he immediately opened.  On the top was a paper with the words, “Look—­say nothing—­forget.”  Beneath this was some cotton wool, and then—­the two buttons and the lock of his own hair, that he had given Yram when he said good-bye to her.

The ghost of the lock that Yram had then given him, rose from the dead, and smote him as with a whip across the face.  On what dust-heap had it not been thrown how many long years ago?  Then she had never forgotten him? to have been remembered all these years by such a woman as that, and never to have heeded it—­never to have found out what she was though he had seen her day after day for months.  Ah! but she was then still budding.  That was no excuse.  If a loveable woman—­aye, or any woman—­has loved a man, even though he cannot marry her, or even wish to do so, at any rate let him not forget her—­and he had forgotten Yram as completely until the last few days, as though he had never seen her.  He took her little missive, and under “Look,” he wrote, “I have;” under “Say nothing,” “I will;” under “forget,” “never.”  “And I never shall,” he said to himself, as he replaced the box upon the table.  He then lay down to rest upon the bed, but he could get no sleep.

When the servant brought him his imitation coffee—­an imitation so successful that Yram made him a packet of it to replace the tea that he must leave behind him—­he rose and presently came downstairs into the drawing-room, where he found Yram and Mrs. Humdrum’s grand-daughter, of whom I will say nothing, for I have never seen her, and know nothing about her, except that my father found her a sweet-looking girl, of graceful figure and very attractive expression.  He was quite happy about her, but she was too young and shy to make it possible for him to do more than admire her appearance, and take Yram’s word for it that she was as good as she looked.