Chapter IX: A Rift in the Cloud

ON the day after his return to Oxford, John Tincroft entered upon his temporary lodgings at Jericho—an outlying district of the university city. I need not stop to explain how it came to bear this Oriental name.

On taking possession of the little sitting-room, John made a great show of literary industry. He covered the round table with papers, and all the minuter paraphernalia of a diligent student. He piled up his books of reference and instruction within reach of his hand, when seated at the aforesaid table, in the arm-chair placed at his disposal. He hung upon the walls his store of maps and diagrams of the Indian dependencies and their cities; and he rather ostentatiously displayed, spread open on a second chair, his bulky dictionary of some unknown tongue, perhaps (for who is without some weakness?) to strike with astonishment the brisk college scout, should he happen to enter the room in his absence, or the equally brisk little wife who undertook to take care of the lodger's apartments, also of his outer and his inner man.

For Barry was a married man, without encumbrances however; much to the comfort of the student, to whom a squalling infant would at that time have been, as he said, an unbearable nuisance.

The little wife, though she kept no servant girl, was not the only female in the establishment, as Tincroft soon learned. There was upstairs, in a back apartment, a mysterious old lady, the mother of the Oxford scout. I say mysterious, simply because John Tincroft chose to make a mystery of her, on the ground that he had been in the enjoyment of his lodgings some days before he heard of her existence, and because he was then told that she very rarely left her room. Once, indeed, as he was ascending from his room below to his chamber above, he caught a glimpse on the landing-place of a very broad back and shoulders in feminine gear, and a high white muslin cap above the shoulders; but these disappeared within the doorway of the back apartment before he arrived at the top stairs, and for that time, and during the whole time of his sojourn in Jericho, he beheld the vision no more. It did not matter to him, John thought, and as he dismissed the mystery from his mind as soon as formed, we also may dismiss it too for the present.

Great as was the show our friend Tincroft made of his studious inclinations and intentions, he was never less inclined to set to work than at this present time; and when he forced himself to begin, his vagrant thoughts perpetually forced him to lay down his books or his pen (whichever might be in his hand) in despair.

"For which I ought to be whipped if there were anybody to take me in hand," quoth John to himself, in a scold.

But there was not anybody to do it, so the experiment was not tried. Perhaps it would have failed if it had been, for John's wandering ideas were very stubborn, though they were limited to two or three separate topics.

First of all, his failure at Saddlebrook dwelt on his mind. Up to the time of that excursion into Sussex, Tincroft had thought but lightly of his chances of success in the Chancery suit. Possibly he might win, and then so much the better. But the greater probability was that he would lose, so his guardian had always averred; for what chance had he against his prosperous rival and competitor? True, he had occasionally boasted, as to Mark Wilson, for instance, of his great prospects; but this was with the natural desire, and yielding to the natural temptation, to stand at as high a figure as he could in the eyes of that besotted lump of humanity, as the guest of his friend and Mark's landlord, Grigson; and not himself believing in his own "tall talk."

The truth is, John would have abandoned the suit on his first coming of age, or would have sold his pretensions for a very inconsiderable sum of money down, if he could have thus got rid of any future demands on his purse. But he was told then that neither of these courses could be thought of, and that the suit must be carried on. Now, however, a little clearer light had broken in upon his dull comprehension. Mr. Roundhand's explanations had done something in this direction. There wanted only one link, it seemed, in the chain of evidence, and this had been almost in his grasp, but not quite. His expectations had been raised, but only to be disappointed. No doubt the lawyer had, since his return, endeavoured to raise his hope that something might be made of the Saddlebrook notes of his clerk. But Tincroft saw, or thought he saw, that this was to let him down gently. At any rate, he did not implicitly believe in Mr. Roundhand's representations.

But, notwithstanding this, since the vision of property, if not, of great wealth, had loomed with more distinctness on his mind, he could not help thinking what a very pleasant thing it would be, could these expectations be realised. The ideal of a leisurely life of ease had grown upon him more distinctly during his visit to the Manor House in—no, I shall not write the name—in that distant county.

His destination to India had never been very much to John's taste. There was too much work in it, both present and in prospect, to suit his inherent love of inertness and ease—an inclination probably inherited from his father, the literary busy idler. It was not then, as it once had been, or was supposed to have been, that a man had only to get to India and shake the pagoda tree, and then come home with a disordered liver and a fabulous fortune. John, dull as he was, knew better than this; and only for the necessity laid upon him by circumstances, he would willingly long ago have abandoned his Oriental studies and prospects.

And during his sojourn in the Manor House, John had seen so much that was inviting in a life of moneyed ease, that he had thought how cruel it was to be shut out from it. Not that he would ever have emulated or imitated Mr. Richard Grigson in his preposterous activity, with his hunting, and shooting, and cricketing, and other unnecessary occupations, which his (John's) soul abhorred. But to have a quiet home, a sufficient income, a tolerable library, gardens and greenhouses, a corresponding establishment of servants, and—to crown all—a wife!

Poor John Tincroft! Take which way he would to it, there was the ultimatum of bliss—those pretty curls, those bright and beaming eyes, those soft cheeks and pouting lips, that alabaster neck, those gentle hands!

And so, travelling from Tincroft house and estate to Saddlebrook, and from Saddlebrook to Oxford, and from Oxford to Calcutta, or elsewhere in India, and then back again in a trice to Blankshire in England, John Tincroft's vagabond imagination never halted till it rested on that ark of no promise to him, the shabby parlour of High Beech farmhouse, with its knobby-seated chair.

IL was to no purpose that John argued within himself, as he sometimes did, that all this was vain and even sinful.

"I verily believe," said he to himself on one occasion, "that I am led captive of the devil at his will," and he dashed the book he was trying to read on to the floor with such violence that little Mrs. Barry rushed from the kitchen below in alarm to ask if anything was the matter, which for the time brought John to his senses.

But again and again, day after day, the image of the enchantress rose before his thoughts; and not the less so that he well knew, as a man and a gentleman, that Sarah Wilson could be no more to him than a bewitching and distracting though delightful memory of the past.

Thus three or four weeks passed away, with little addition to John Tincroft's stores of Oriental erudition; and the time came when he must quit the retirement of Jericho for the more classic shades of Queen's College, with his two solitary rooms therein. Meanwhile, as he was contemplating this flight, the following epistle reached him:

"DEAR TINCROFT,—This has been a horrid bad season for birds (videlicet, partridges). The wet weeks at hatching time, and the rats and weasels, have brought down our bags to a minimum. I was out all day, the 25th inst., and only bagged a brace and a half. Luckily, there is a good promise of pheasants; and pheasant-shooting, you know, begins to-morrow. And then there's a splendid lot of hares, to say nothing of foxes, on Dick's happy hunting-ground. So I don't mean to see Oxford till Lent term begins. I shan't lose much by dropping Michaelmas term, I reckon; and I shall manage to get an excuse."

"Please make all needful arrangements about my rooms and books, and so forth, and call on Dry, my tailor, in the High Street, and one or two others that you know of, to set their minds at rest that I haven't run away."

"There is not much going on down here. Rubric isn't come back yet from the Continent, and we have got a Cambridge man to do duty for him—a good sort of fellow enough, but he can't shoot."

"The harvest is all got in now, though a late one, and the wheat has turned out an average crop, Dick says. Ditto the barley; and turnips are splendid. But I forget, you are no Agricola. I wish I was going to be one, that's all."

"By the way, I have been over to the Mumbles a few times since you ran away from us. I wish you had gone; I should like to have your opinion of Kate Elliston."

"Dick sends his messages, and says when you like to have another turn out, you know the way to, and the ways of, Liberty Hall. So says also—"

"TOM GRIGSON."

Matters were not much improved with Tincroft when he got, back to his old rooms at Queen's—not at first, that is; but gradually, he slid back into his old habits, and, partially at least, forgot the disturbances of the last three months of his existence. In other words, there was a lull in the visible current of the maelstrom, that was all.

One day came the scout Barry to his room, with a face full of importance.

"Very busy, Mr. Tincroft?"

"Not very—not more than usual. What is it, Barry?"

"I wouldn't trouble you, sir; but my mother is in such a way."

"Your mother?"

"She keeps going on at me for not telling her before. You know my mother, sir?"

"I can't say that I do," said John, wondering whether the scout had lost his senses. "I know you have a mother—that is, I heard as much from your wife while I was staying at Jericho. But I never had the pleasure of seeing her, except, to be sure, her back once," added John, with a strict regard to veracity.

"That's very true, sir. You see she doesn't like to be stared at, mother doesn't; that's why, Mr. Tincroft."

"Was she afraid that your lodger would stare at her?" asked John, without much apparent curiosity.

"Well, partly, sir; otherwise, she is afraid of being stared at when she goes out, which she never does if she can help it, letting alone the getting up and down stairs."

"Ah! How so?" asked John, crossing his legs, and biting the feather end of his pen.

"The truth is, she is so uncommon stout, and she doesn't like it to be seen or known. It isn't her fault, sir; she starves herself to keep it down: that's what mother does. But the more she starves, the fatter she gets, poor thing," said Barry, pathetically.

"Oh," said John, "then I think I should leave off starving myself if I were in her place."

"That's what I tell her, but what's the use? None at all," remarked the affectionate son, in a tone of pathetic remonstrance. "But that's neither here nor there," added he, reverting to his primary topic. "Mother's uncommon sorry she didn't know about who it was had our rooms till you was gone, not till a week ago: and ever since she has been going on in a way, sir; ever since she knowed you was a Tincroft."

"And why—why?" asked John, with a new interest awakened. "I mean, what reason has she to care about my being a Tincroft?"

"Well," said Scout, "that's what I wanted to know of mother."

"Yes; well?"

"Oh!" says mother. "I have known Tincrofts before in my time. You see, sir, before mother got so overgrowed with starving, she was out and about a good deal, here and there as a monthly—" and here Mr. Barry jerked his head once or twice knowingly—

("Monthly! What's that?" John put to himself, mentally, for the term was lost upon him. Not to appear ignorant, however, he nodded his head, too; and Barry went on.)

"And so got acquainted with a many high families. And by reason of this," continued the dutiful, "she laid up a good bit of money against the rainy day; so now she lives comfortable if it wasn't for her fatness, which is none of her choosing, if you'll believe me, sir."

John Tincroft showed no signs of disbelief, so Mr. Barry still proceeded.

"The house we live in is mother's, sir; she bought it and paid for it, and set me up with furniture, wife and all, fifteen years ago, bless her; and I'm down in her will for everything when she dies, which," added the son, "won't be for many years to come, if God pleases. Only as she is five-and-seventy, if ever a day, and with her fat, too, much isn't to be expected."

"I dare say not," said John, dreamily, for he was wondering what would come next. Then he added, "And your good mother, did you say she wishes to see me?"

"Ever since she heard of your being a Tincroft, sir; and more particularly when I happened to mention your having come up from Sussex, where you had been on some law business, as you told me, sir. I hope there was no harm in mentioning that?" said Barry, solicitously.

"None at all."

"Thank ye, sir."

"But why should the old lady be concerned about my having been down to Sussex?" John wanted to be told.

"Why, sir, she says of course then you must be one of the Sussex Tincrofts, begging your pardon for using mother's words."

"Oh! No harm in that; and as to that, I am one of the Sussex Tincrofts, the only one left," said John. "Did she say any more?" he asked, his interest growing stronger.

"Yes, sir. She asked your given name; and when I said it was John, she was rather put out, and said it ought to have been Josiah, or else Makepeace."

John Tincroft started from his chair, and then took what Barry afterwards described as "three skips and a jump to the window just like a flea." And as that useful personage was bedmaker by profession, there was less that was startling and odd in his simile. After looking out of the window, and making sure that the dome of the Radcliffe Library was in its proper place, he turned again to the half-alarmed scout, with a—

"Dear me, Barry! Why, my father's name was Josiah, and my grandfather's was Makepeace. And what came next?" he demanded, wildly.

"Why, sir, she said she nursed a little Josiah Tincroft when he was brought into the world, and Makepeace Tincroft was his father."

"Come with me, Barry; come with me this instant," shouted John, as, rushing to the scout and clutching his arm, he dragged him to the door. "You must go with me to my lawyer, Roundhand, you know, in St. Aldates."

"Yes, sir, yes, certainly, Mr. Tincroft; but won't you put on your cap and gown, sir?"

"Ah! Yes, yes," and John relinquished his hold.

"And excuse me, sir, you have only got your slippers on. Here are your boots, Mr. Tincroft."

"Thank you, Barry. Ah! I forget myself sometimes," said John, as he properly equipped himself. "And now I am ready," he added.

"But, Barry," said he, as they, having taken a short cut, were crossing the Peckwater Quadrangle of Christ Church, "there must be some mistake, I think. For I happen to know that the nurse's name on that occasion was Elizabeth Foold; and your mother's is Barry."

"That's just it, sir," replied the scout, without showing any symptoms of surprise, happening to be tolerably well acquainted with John's absence of mind. "You see most girls or women take another name when they get married; and that's how mother's name is Barry now. Otherwise for five-and-thirty years or more, before she fell in with my father (and lost him ten years after), her name was Elizabeth Foold; and so it stands in her old Bible and her Rippon's hymn-book, that she used to take to chapel with her. For mother's a Baptist, sir; but a good woman for all that, and one that would not deceive you for anything you could name, Mr. Tincroft—not if she knew it."

The information conveyed to Mr. Roundhand by his client and the unexpected witness was too important, as well as welcome, not to be immediately turned to account. Proceeding at once to Jericho, and the old lady having forgotten or overcome her aversion to being made a sight of in her eagerness to behold the grandson of the "dear good gentleman, Makepeace Tincroft, and his lovely, patient Susannah," the two visitors were at once admitted to an audience.

"To think—" exclaimed the amiable obesity, as she filled up the whole space of a ponderous and well-seasoned and doubly-strengthened easy-chair, large enough to accommodate a pair of ordinary-sized mortals with comfort, "To think," said she, as tears of gladness rolled down her plump cheeks, "that I should ever be permitted to set eyes on the only son of that dear little infant that I fed with pap, yes I did, more than fifty years ago! And he is gone, the poor dear! Ah, well, we must all go, my dear," she added, addressing John; "some sooner, some later—"

"Like crowded forest trees we stand
And some are marked to fall."

"It is a blessed thing to be prepared, my dear."

It was a little while before the old lady could be made fully to comprehend what was wanted of her. But as soon as the matter was explained by the lawyer, she entered into it with great heartiness. Even the terrors of having to take a journey to London, and give evidence before the Lord Chancellor or his Vice, were counterbalanced by the ardent desire to see dear little Josiah's son righted. Meanwhile she recognised, and was ready to swear before the Mayor of Oxford to her signature on the certificate. And in confirmation of truthfulness, in respect of that handwriting, she produced her old pocket Bible and her Rippon's hymn-book, in which her name was written in full. Manifestly the writing tallied.

The reader will be mistaken, however, if he thinks that the way was even yet clear for the ending of the Chancery suit. Like a wounded snake, it dragged its slow length along more than two years before it was finally settled.

And we must refer the curious inquirer to the law reports of that time for further particulars. We also must leave John Tincroft to his interrupted Oriental studies—if he still pursued them—for a space of three months or thereabouts, while we take up another of the threads of our story.