When Family Wealth Becomes a Prison

There are some persons, living in agreeable town or country localities, who contend that “place” has nought to do with happiness, just as others who have never felt the want of money, gravely assert that gold is the “least good, and the greatest care in life.” To disprove, however, the truth of both these ingenious theories, I apprehend it would be merely necessary to strip the one class of persons of a little superfluous gilding, and to transplant the other to a less agreeable habitation, when, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, their views, feelings, and expressions would undergo a wonderful, and not altogether desirable, alteration. It is a something really beautiful and cheering and strengthening to hear how people preach; that is, it would be so if one were not occasionally treated to a sight of how they practise. It is one of the easiest and 179commonest thing in life to tell your neighbour to carry his heavy burden in silence, but one of the most difficult to bear a much lighter load without grumbling considerably yourself.

All think their own sorrows the greatest; and, considering that the music of their lament must be, or at least ought to be, quite as acceptable to others as it proves to themselves, go through the world humming it complacently; and, when another person sets up an opposition murmur, indignantly endeavour to silence him by exclaiming “Pray cease your pitiful song, listen to mine,”—never thinking he may deem his melody far more full of pathos than theirs, and that, at all events, he has quite as good a right as they to annoy every mortal in creation with the melancholy dirge which he has composed in honour of his wrongs and trials and misfortunes.

Which brings me to what I intended to advance at starting, namely, that although it is edifying to hear people talk about the duty of being contented, and saying how resignedly they could live anywhere—on anything; still, those who feel what others have never more than imagined, may surely be forgiven if they strive to revenge themselves on fate by repining a little at her decrees.

It were better and nobler policy, I admit, either 180to bend patiently, or to rebel valiantly; but there are some who cannot exactly shape their destinies as they would, and yet who find it impossible not to fret and murmur occasionally: and it is no small aggravation of their grief to be perpetually told “you should” by those, who, were they in a similar situation, would lose no opportunity of informing the world “We are suffering saints and long-enduring martyrs;” “See ye not the terrible disasters which have befallen the ‘salt of the earth;’” “Behold our misfortunes, and how we bear them.” “Solely because,” they might generally add, “we are compelled to do so, whether we like it or not.”

There never was man of mortal mould who bore his griefs more uncomplainingly than Ernest Ivraine, or who looked more miserable upon them; there never existed any one who asked less sympathy, or received a smaller portion of it; there never was a human being who walked more silently and mournfully through life; nor in the length and breadth of England could there have been discovered an individual, who, having an equally heavy burden to bear, not for days merely, but for years, did bear it externally with such exemplary patience, and made so little noise about its weight.

“Constant dropping wears the stone,” however; 181and, though the hourly fall of vexatious tormenting pebbles produced apparently no ill effects on the temper of the miser’s eldest born, there was—furrowed by the weary untiring stream of annoying events—a deep channel in his heart, through which sullen angry feelings and evil thoughts and many disappointments flowed always and ever ceaselessly.

Hatred and ignoble wishes are the darkest demons which can dwell in the heart of man. Affection and generous purposes are the guardian angels of the soul. And it was these most antagonistic principles that made and marred, and threatened and preserved, the peace and the well-being of Ernest Ivraine.

Hatred to his father, love to his brother; hatred to the man who blighted his life, and doled out with scanty hand the barest necessaries of existence; who, denying himself and family all those comforts and luxuries so usual in, and essential for, respectability in their station, shut the high wooden gates of “Paradise” on the world at large, and lived within the enclosure of brick walls—bounding to the east, south, north, and west, his swampy domain—a miser amongst his money bags, most utterly alone. Hatred to the man who would not die, who starved on and maintained, by some inexplicable 182process, the mysterious connection between soul and body; whilst better and stronger and healthier and more useful men sickened, day by day, sunk—some slowly, some rapidly—and expired. Everywhere death journeyed; at every door he occasionally knocked, save through the morasses and at the gate of “Paradise.” The old miser kept every other creditor at bay, why not the universal one? he never paid a debt he could avoid; and, when payment was inevitable, he delayed the act of justice as long as possible. Why should he, therefore, not contrive to evade for years the liquidation of that debt which compassionate nature exacts at length from every one of her weary, or grateful, or haughty, or disobedient children?

It was with a species of mute despair that Ernest Ivraine beheld how resolutely the old baronet stuck to his money chests; how each new mortgage deed, which he locked up in his escritoire, seemed to remove a wrinkle from his furrowed brow; how every shilling of interest he received infused a drop of warm fresh blood into his veins; how every guinea he could wring from any one, by law, or fraud, or intimidation, brought strength into his gaunt spare frame, new lustre to his hollow gleaming eye, additional force and harshness to his voice, and a greater 183thirst for gold, and a firmer purpose to live for its possession.

Day by day Ernest Ivraine saw that which, as Henry once had said, must come to him, decrease in value. Every hour his father’s speedy death or his father’s favourable will became of more importance to the impatient watcher for death’s tardy approach: the gloom on the young man’s brow grew deeper, and the anxiety of his soul more intense, as he beheld fresh mortgages piled on the entailed estate, and the money thus raised, either lent out at higher rates of interest, or else invested in houses and lands and properties, in which, unless he could induce his parent to bequeath them to him, he had no interest or claim, direct or indirect.

Some said he was resigned, others that he was mercenary; his relatives, that he was only constitutionally melancholy, habitually discontented: Ernest Ivraine himself knew what a dark vampire-like thought was tearing his heart to pieces, whilst he was merely dimly conscious that affection for Henry was the bright star that shone on steadily amidst all the gloom of surrounding objects; that it was the soft spot of his soul, the green oasis in the wilderness, which prevented the whole of his present and future becoming a dreary unprofitable waste.

184Love for the brother who had gone forth so nobly and bravely to battle with and in the world; who had done what he could not do,—cast the accursed thing far from him and fled, as a good man may flee from the temptation he feels he would be impotent to withstand, came it but near enough him. Love for the youth who, when a child, had been dear unto the heart of her who was now an angel in heaven; for him who had been his companion as a boy, his friend as a man: who was so full of courage and gentleness, of soldier-like bravery and womanly tenderness: who had despised and spurned the vague promise of future wealth: who had urged, in accents which rung through life in Ernest’s ears, his brother to choose the nobler and the better part: who had suffered, because of his parent’s cruel partiality for the metal that lures men on to perdition, equally with Ernest, and yet who had prayed him not to hope for their parent’s death: who could not go without bidding that parent farewell: who had wept to leave, not Paradise and its riches, but home and his stern dark brother behind him.

There was good in both,—there must have been, else Ernest had never been loved by Henry; good to be preserved or eradicated; good to be developed 185or to be crushed; good that had come to both, not from father or grandfather, not from any Ivraine, Baronet or Mister, who ever walked over the earth and darkened it with his shadow,—but from a gentle woman, who, in default of houses and lands, great wealth and noble lineage, left to those two—her only children—something of her own tender, honest nature, which sent the younger out a resolute wanderer into the world, and preserved the elder from utter ruin during years haunted by dark thoughts and dark wishes and dark everything, save deeds.

Often in the winter evenings, when the white wood ashes strewed the hearth, and an almost extinguished log smouldered dimly away to powder, Ernest sat with his face buried in his hands, pondering on that last interview with his brother, thinking and considering and pondering, till at length, forgetful of all save the dreary present and the bright free world beyond, he started up to go forth, then and there, an humble follower in Henry’s footsteps. But the old doubts, the old fears, the old plans, the constant expectations, came sweeping the next moment through his mind; and, sinking down again, he murmured, “Not now, it cannot be,” and surrendered himself captive once more to the demon 186who kept him chained for ever in that house, listening with intense longing and gloomy impatience for the solemn measured footfalls of him who came so tardily—Death.

That numerous class of would-be consolers and real afflicters, whom we briefly term “Job’s comforters,” have a custom of telling those whose griefs are so severe and self-evident as to preclude the present possibility of doubt or mitigation, that, if they will only have patience, time must soothe their sorrows or perhaps remove them altogether; and it was a firm idea of this kind which enabled Ernest Ivraine to bend, with an outward semblance of melancholy resignation to his—fate, for so he was pleased to term that weary servitude which he could have left any day, as Henry had done, proud and strong in noble self-reliance.

But, feeling thoroughly satisfied that the lapse of time would ultimately end all by removing his father to eternity, he waited and endured for years, and never made an effort to follow his brother, who had just written him one brief line before leaving England.

“Nothing else presenting itself,” he said, “I have fairly enlisted; before this reaches you, I shall be on my way to Portsmouth, thence to India. 187Dear Ernest, my brother, will you not come and do likewise?”

No, Ernest would not. When he refused to listen to Henry’s entreaties, whilst his feelings were excited and his mind irritated, it was scarcely probable he would take what he considered a step bordering almost on insanity, when cold prudence had resumed her dominion over the impulses of his soul, and stood pointing for ever with one chill hand towards the desolate struggling world, and with the other fixedly at his father’s money chests.

He remained, therefore, a dark, solitary, almost sordid misanthrope amongst the dreary swamps of Paradise, striving to humour the miser’s temper in all things, agreeing without question to his slightest wish, and yielding to his lightest fancy with the weakness of a woman,—but still, after the sulky manner of an obstinate child: bearing all taunts with the meekness of a saint; maintaining that profound silence which had come to be one of his distinguishing characteristics; lounging listlessly about the grounds; eternally pondering on when this would end, and striving with all his soul to advance not merely himself in the old man’s good graces, but also his foolish brother Henry, who, being the miser’s favourite son, and having almost a hand 188certain on the golden coffer, had chosen to fling the key from him in disgust, because he lacked the patience and the calculating nature necessary to enable him to wait till death, entering the mansion, should give him leave to turn the same in the wards and take possession of the guineas and title-deeds and mortgages of Sir Ernest Claude Ivraine, Baronet, deceased.

There were many men (even amongst those who termed the elder son mercenary) who would have seized the opportunity afforded by Henry’s rashness, to insinuate themselves into the old miser’s good graces by speaking harshly and unjustly of the absent one; but Ernest was not such as these. It might have won esteem from any one whose esteem was worth possessing to see how carefully Ernest, for months after his brother’s departure, strove to conceal from the baronet knowledge of the step he had so decidedly taken: but the young man had no confidant; he never spoke of his thoughts or actions to human being: the wrong he did all men were at liberty to note if they would, for the wrong is frequently far too apparent, and is generally seized and remarked upon with avidity; but his virtues and his good deeds were fully revealed unto the eye of Him alone, Who seeth all things, and Who 189knew the deep disinterested love Ernest Ivraine bore towards his absent brother, whom never, even in thought, did he dream of striving to supplant in the affections, or rather in the will, of his parent. No; if Henry were left well off, he knew wealth abundant would come to him; if, on the contrary, fortune smiled for once on his own dark gloomy brow, he would share all equally with the fair-haired youth who so resembled his mother. He remained at Paradise to keep his other relatives at bay, to detect their schemes, defeat their plans, guard the castle of the old man’s understanding from being undermined by their ingenious stratagems and devices; but rivalry of Henry, his own brother! Ernest, though he had confessed so openly to desiring his father’s death, would have hated himself had such an idea ever entered into his brain; nay more, had any one presented it to him, he would have loathed the heart that suggested, and the tongue that spoke, the insinuation which mind and feeling and affection all alike indignantly rejected.

For weeks and weeks the miser never inquired about Henry; but, at last, whatever of love dwelt in his soul for mortal being, yearning towards his younger born, he became vaguely uneasy at his protracted absence, and accordingly 190asked Ernest casually “when his brother would be home?”

“Not for a long time I fear, sir,” he answered.

“Why, what is he doing? where has he gone?” demanded the baronet, a touch of anxiety softening his usually harsh tone.

“He has gone to India,” was Ernest’s reply; and, as the answer grated on his ear, the old man walked towards a window like one struck with some sudden pain. He gazed with vacant wandering eye over swamps and fields and trees, but his mental vision took no cognizance of these things; at the moment he forgot even his hoards of useless treasure, for Henry, his youngest son, the only being on earth for whom he had, since boyhood, entertained a shadow of unselfish affection, it seemed had uttered that night no idle threat when he said he “was going away for years, perhaps for ever.”

Now he had actually departed; deserts and oceans, forests, mountains, plains, waters, stretched between the baronet and the ever murmuring, ever repenting, always noble, high spirited youth. Henry had passed forth from the home of his childhood; his father’s hand had securely closed the gates behind him, and the old familiar places (desolate and forlorn 191though they might be,—still once familiar) knew him “no more.”

And, as Longfellow says that the sound of those two words resembles the moaning of winter winds through ancient pine forests, so the rapid reflection that on earth they might never meet again, sent a chill cold feeling to the miser’s soul.

“I thought nothing, save the loss of a sovereign, could have so moved him,” reflected Ernest; but Ernest was wrong. God is good and great; there is no land, however barren, that hath not some verdant spot, some oasis shining in the midst of the desert; and, even in this most sordid, selfish world there never yet existed any mortal being who did not love something—child, father, brother, wife—well, after his fashion.

Now that knowledge of Henry’s being more dear than aught save gold could be to the baronet’s heart entered into the comprehension of Ernest Ivraine, he strove more sedulously than ever to keep the old man in darkness concerning how his son had gone forth to breast the storms of fate; to prevent his learning that an Ivraine, one of his mean, proud, haughty, contemptible race, was serving his God, his king, his country, and himself in the ranks,—a common soldier; that Henry had chosen to bind the 192long chain of scarlet slavery round his neck, sooner than submit to the more unendurable, inactive slavery of home; that, amongst those whom Sir Ernest had always considered the lowest of the low—the sons of the tillers of the earth, the paid defenders of their native land, the poor, the uneducated, the strong-handed, the bone and sinew of Britain—one of his blood was living. The elder son endeavoured, with paternal zeal and tenderness, to keep such dreadful knowledge from his father. But the winds of heaven bear secrets to the minds of those from whom mortals vainly hope to bar them out; and thus at length, somehow, through the officiousness of some meddling friend or evil-disposed relative, the baronet at length heard truth which, if disagreeable, is always sure to rise out of the bottom of her well and to float conspicuous on every surface bubble.

“How has your brother gone out to India, sir?” broke forth Sir Ernest one day, immediately on his return from the nearest large town.

“He really did not precisely inform me,” said the elder son, fervently trusting that that and many another equivocation he had uttered on the same topic would be forgiven him.

“Don’t tell me falsehoods,” thundered out his 193father, “I know perfectly well how he has gone, and what he has done: disgraced his name and his house, himself and myself, his connections in every part of the kingdom. Heavens! grant me patience to think of it! Henry Ivraine, my son—yes, my son, a common private—a vagabond soldier!”

“That he has entered the army, I believe,” said Ernest, the blood rushing for once up into his sallow cheek; “but how, in what rank, whether as officer or as private, no person save some one in his fullest confidence can exactly tell; nor has any one a right to surmise without accurate information on the subject. Thus much I do know, however, sir, positively, no matter who may strive to turn your heart against him, that, let his position in the service be high or low, inferior or exalted, Henry Ivraine, your son, my brother, will never disgrace one of us: he would not be a vagabond, if he were a beggar; I should believe in his truth and integrity and honour if I saw him stand before me an accused felon to-morrow, and I have faith and hope that whatever he may be now, he will rise to name and station and fortune yet.”

“He will,” angrily repeated the baronet, with a horrible distortion of face; then, suddenly checking the remainder of the sentence, he said, sneering bitterly, 194“You grow eloquent,” and abruptly left the apartment.

And Ernest, seeing that their chances were lessened by one half,—that on him alone depended their hopes of wealth, or even a bare competency, braved more resolutely and gloomily than ever the depressing swamps and vapours of Paradise from day to day, week to week, year to year, guarding and striving to advance his brother’s interests and his own, longing, dreading, hoping, fearing for the approach of him who alone could fully reveal and finally decide their destinies—Death.