For as soon as Granville Kelmscott received that strangely-worded note from Gwendoline Gildersleeve, he proceeded, as was natural, straight down, in his doubt, to his father’s library. There, bursting into the room, with Gwendoline’s letter still crushed in his hand in the side pocket of his coat, and a face like thunder, he stood in the attitude of avenging10 fate before his father’s chair, and gazed down upon him angrily.
“What does THIS mean?” he asked, in a low but fuming11 voice, brandishing12 the note before his eyes as he spoke13. “Is every one in the county to be told it but I? Is everybody else to hear my business before you tell me a word of it? A letter comes to me this morning—no matter from whom—and here’s what it says: ‘I know you’re not the eldest14 son, and that somebody else is the heir of Tilgate.’ Surely, if anybody was to know, I should have known it first. Surely, if I’m to be turned adrift on the world, after being brought up to think myself a man of means so long, I should, at least, be turned adrift with my eyes open.”
Colonel Kelmscott gazed at him open-mouthed with horror.
“Did Gwendoline Gildersleeve write that to you?” he cried, overpowered at once by remorse15 and awe16. “Did Gwendoline Gildersleeve write that to you? Well, if Gwendoline Gildersleeve knows it, it’s all up with the scheme! That rascally17 lawyer, her father, has found out everything. These two young men must have put their case in the fellow’s hands. He must be hunting up the facts. He must be preparing to contest it. My boy, my boy, we’re ruined! we’re ruined!”
“These two young men,” Granville repeated, with a puzzled air of surprise. “WHAT two young men? I don’t know them. I never heard of them.” Then suddenly one of those flashes of intuition burst in upon him that burst in upon us all at moments of critical importance to our lives. “Father, father,” he cried, loaning forward in his anguish18 and clutching the oak chair, “you don’t mean to tell me those fellows, the Warings, that we met at Chetwood Court, are your lawful19 sons—and that THAT was why you bought the landscape with the snake in it?”
Kelmscott, of Tilgate, bent21 his proud head down to the table unchecked. “My son, my son,” he cried, in his despair, “you have said it yourself. Your own mouth has suggested it. What use my trying to keep it from you any longer? These lads—are Kelmscotts.”
“And—my mother?” Granville Kelmscott burst out, in a very tremulous voice. The question was almost more than a man dare ask. But he asked it in the first bitterness of a terrible awakening22.
“Your mother,” Colonel Kelmscott answered, lifting his head once more, with a terrible effort, and looking his son point-blank in the face—“your mother is just what I have always called her—my lawful wife—Lady Emily Kelmscott. The mother of these lads, to whom I was also once duly married, died before my marriage with my present wife—thank God I can say so. I may have acted foolishly, cruelly, criminally; but at least I never acted quite so basely and so ill as you impute23 to me, Granville.”
“Thank Heaven for that,” his son answered fervently24, with one hand on his breast, drawing a deep sigh as he spoke. “You’re my father, sir, and it isn’t for me to reproach you; but if you had only done THAT—oh, my mother! my mother! I don’t know, sir, I’m sure, how I could ever have forgiven you; I don’t know how I could ever have kept my hands off you.”
Colonel Kelmscott straightened himself up, and looked hard at his son. A terrible pathos25 gleamed in his proud brown eyes. His white moustache had more dignity than ever.
“Granville,” he said slowly, like a broken man, “I don’t ask you to forgive me; you can never forgive me; I don’t ask you to sympathise with me; a father knows better than to accept sympathy from a son; but I do ask you to bear with me while I try to explain myself.”
He braced26 himself up, and with many long pauses, and many inarticulate attempts to set forth27 the facts in the least unfavourable aspect, told his story all through, in minute detail, to that hardest of all critics, his own dispossessed and disinherited boy.
“If you’re hard upon me, Granville,” he cried at last as he finished, looking wistfully for pity into his son’s face, “you should remember, at least, it was for your sake I did it, my boy; it was for your sake I did it—yours, yours, and your mother’s.”
Granville let him relate his whole story in full to the bitter end, though it was with difficulty at times that that proud and grey-haired man nerved himself up to tell it. Then, as soon as all was told, he looked in his father’s face once more, and said slowly, with the pitilessness of sons in general towards the faults and failings of their erring28 parents—
“It’s not my place to blame you, I know. You did it, I suppose, as you say so, for me and my mother. But it IS my place to tell you plainly, father, that I, for one, will have nothing at all to do with the fruits of your deception29. I was no party to the fraud; I will be no party either to its results or its clearing up. I, too, have to think, as you say, of my mother. For her sake, I won’t urge you to break her heart at once by disinheriting her son, now and here, too openly. You can make what arrangements you like with these blood-sucking Warings. You can do as you will in providing them with hush-money. Let them take their black-mail! You’ve handed them over half the sum you got for Dowlands already, I suppose. You can buy them off for awhile by handing them over the remainder. Twelve thousand will do. Leeches30 as they are, that will surely content them, at least for the present.”
Colonel Kelmscott raised one hand and tried hard to interrupt him; but Granville would not be interrupted.
“No, no,” he went on sternly, shaking his head and frowning. “I’ll have my say for once, and then for ever keep silence. This is the first and last time as long as we both live I will speak with you on the subject. So we may as well understand one another, once and for ever. For my mother’s sake, as I said, there need be just at present no open disclosure. You have years to live yet; and as long as you live, these Waring people have no claim upon the estate in any way. You’ve given them as much as they’ve any right to expect. Let them wait for the rest till, in the course of nature, they come into possession. As for me, I will go to carve out for myself a place in the world elsewhere by my own exertions31. Perhaps, before my mother need know her son was left a beggar by the father who brought him up like the heir to a large estate, I may have been able to carve out that place for myself so well that she need never really feel the difference. I’m a Kelmscott, and can fight the world on my own account. But, in any case, I must go. Tilgate’s no longer a fit home for me. I leave it to those who have a better right to it.”
He rose as if to depart, with the air of a man who sets forth upon the world to seek his fortune. Colonel Kelmscott rose too, and faced him, all broken.
“Granville,” he said, in a voice scarcely audible through the stifled32 sobs33 he was too proud to give vent6 to, “you’re not going like this. You’re not going without at least shaking hands with your father! You’re not going without saying good-bye to your mother!”
Granville turned, with hot tears standing34 dim in his eyes—like his father, he was too proud to let them trickle35 down his cheek—and taking the Colonel’s weather-beaten hand in his, wrung36 it silently for some minutes with profound emotion.
Then he looked at the white moustache, the grizzled hair, the bright brown eyes suffused37 with answering dimness, and said, almost remorsefully38, “Father, good-bye. You meant me well, no doubt. You thought you were befriending me. But I wish to Heaven in my soul you had meant me worse. It would have been easier for me to bear in the end. If you’d brought me up as a nobody—as a younger son’s accustomed—” He paused and drew back, for he could see his words were too cruel for that proud man’s heart. Then he broke off suddenly.
“But I CAN’T say good-bye to my mother,” he went on, with a piteous look. “If I tried to say good-bye to her, I must tell her all. I’d break down in the attempt. I’ll write to her from the Cape20. It’ll be easier so. She won’t feel it so much then.”
“From the Cape!” Colonel Kelmscott exclaimed, drawing back in horror. “Oh, Granville, don’t tell me you’re going away from us to Africa!”
“Where else?” his son asked, looking him back in the face steadily39. “Africa it is! That’s the only opening left nowadays for a man of spirit. There, I may be able to hew40 out a place for myself at last, worthy41 of Lady Emily Kelmscott’s son. I won’t come back till I come back able to hold my own in the world with the best of them. These Warings shan’t crow over the younger son. Good-bye, once more, father.” He wrung his hand hard. “Think kindly42 of me when I’m gone; and don’t forget altogether I once loved Tilgate.”
He opened the door and went up to his own room again. His mind was resolved. He wouldn’t even say good-bye to Gwendoline Gildersleeve. He’d pack a few belongings43 in a portmanteau in haste, and go forth upon the world to seek his fortune in the South African diamond fields.
But Colonel Kelmscott sat still in the library, bowed down in his chair, with his head between his hands, in abject44 misery45. A strange feeling seemed to throb46 through his weary brain; he had a sensation as though his skull47 were opening and shutting. Great veins48 on his forehead beat black and swollen49. The pressure was almost more than the vessels50 would stand. He held his temples between his two palms as if to keep them from bursting. All ahead looked dark as night; the ground was cut from under him. The punishment of his sin was too heavy for him to bear. How could he ever tell Emily now that Granville was gone? A horrible numbness51 oppressed his brain. Oh, mercy! mercy! his head was flooded.
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1
coup
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| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
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deficit
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| n.亏空，亏损；赤字，逆差 | |
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pro
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| n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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forgery
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| n.伪造的文件等，赝品，伪造（行为） | |
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vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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7
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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9
converging
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| adj.收敛[缩]的，会聚的，趋同的v.（线条、运动的物体等）会于一点( converge的现在分词 )；（趋于）相似或相同；人或车辆汇集；聚集 | |
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10
avenging
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| adj.报仇的，复仇的v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的现在分词 )；为…报复 | |
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11
fuming
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| 愤怒( fume的现在分词 )； 大怒； 发怒； 冒烟 | |
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12
brandishing
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| v.挥舞( brandish的现在分词 )；炫耀 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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14
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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rascally
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| adj. 无赖的，恶棍的 adv. 无赖地，卑鄙地 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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lawful
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| adj.法律许可的，守法的，合法的 | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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23
impute
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| v.归咎于 | |
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fervently
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| adv.热烈地，热情地，强烈地 | |
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pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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26
braced
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| adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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erring
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| 做错事的，错误的 | |
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deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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30
leeches
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| n.水蛭( leech的名词复数 )；蚂蟥；榨取他人脂膏者；医生 | |
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31
exertions
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| n.努力( exertion的名词复数 )；费力；（能力、权力等的）运用；行使 | |
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32
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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33
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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35
trickle
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| vi.淌，滴，流出，慢慢移动，逐渐消散 | |
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36
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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37
suffused
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| v.（指颜色、水气等）弥漫于，布满( suffuse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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38
remorsefully
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| adv.极为懊悔地 | |
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39
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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40
hew
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| v.砍；伐；削 | |
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41
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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42
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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43
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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44
abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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45
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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46
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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47
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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48
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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49
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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50
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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51
numbness
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| n.无感觉，麻木，惊呆 | |
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