CHAPTER V
THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN
By a little after noon on the eve of Christmas, John had left hisportmanteau in the cloak-room, and stepped forth into Princes Streetwith a wonderful expansion of the soul, such as men enjoy on thecompletion of long-nourished schemes. He was at home again, incognitoand rich; presently he could enter his father's house by means of thepass-key, which he had piously preserved through all his wanderings; hewould throw down the borrowed money; there would be a reconciliation,the details of which he frequently arranged; and he saw himself, duringthe next month, made welcome in many stately houses at many frigiddinner-parties, taking his share in the conversation with the freedom ofthe man and the traveller, and laying down the law upon finance with theauthority of the successful investor. But this programme was not to bebegun before evening--not till just before dinner, indeed, at which mealthe re-assembled family were to sit roseate, and the best wine, themodern fatted calf, should flow for the prodigal's return.
Meanwhile he walked familiar streets, merry reminiscences crowding roundhim, sad ones also, both with the same surprising pathos. The keenfrosty air; the low, rosy, wintry sun; the Castle, hailing him like anold acquaintance; the names of friends on door-plates; the sight offriends whom he seemed to recognise, and whom he eagerly avoided, in thestreets; the pleasant chant of the north-country accent; the dome of St.George's reminding him of his last penitential moments in the lane, andof that King of Glory whose name had echoed ever since in the saddestcorner of his memory; and the gutters where he had learned to slide,and the shop where he had bought his skates, and the stones on which hehad trod, and the railings in which he had rattled his clacken as hewent to school; and all those thousand and one nameless particularswhich the eye sees without noting, which the memory keeps indeed yetwithout knowing, and which, taken one with another, build up for us theaspect of the place that we call home: all these besieged him, as hewent, with both delight and sadness.
His first visit was for Houston, who had a house on Regent Terrace, keptfor him in old days by an aunt. The door was opened (to his surprise)upon the chain, and a voice asked him from within what he wanted.
"I want Mr. Houston--Mr. Alan Houston," said he.
"And who are you?" said the voice.
"This is most extraordinary," thought John; and then aloud he told hisname.
"No' young Mr. John?" cried the voice, with a sudden increase ofScottish accent, testifying to a friendlier feeling.
"The very same," said John.
And the old butler removed his defences, remarking only, "I thocht yewere that man." But his master was not there; he was staying, itappeared, at the house in Murrayfield; and though the butler would havebeen glad enough to have taken his place and given all the news of thefamily, John, struck with a little chill, was eager to be gone. Only,the door was scarce closed again, before he regretted that he had notasked about "that man."
He was to pay no more visits till he had seen his father and made allwell at home; Alan had been the only possible exception, and John hadnot time to go as far as Murrayfield. But here he was on Regent Terrace;there was nothing to prevent him going round the end of the hill, andlooking from without on the Mackenzies' house. As he went he reflectedthat Flora must now be a woman of near his own age, and it was withinthe bounds of possibility that she was married; but this dishonourabledoubt he dammed down.
There was the house, sure enough; but the door was of another colour,and what was this--two door-plates? He drew nearer; the top one bore,with dignified simplicity, the words, "Mr. Proudfoot"; the lower one wasmore explicit, and informed the passer-by that here was likewise theabode of "Mr. J. A. Dunlop Proudfoot, Advocate." The Proudfoots must berich, for no advocate could look to have much business in so remote aquarter; and John hated them for their wealth and for their name, andfor the sake of the house they desecrated with their presence. Heremembered a Proudfoot he had seen at school, not known: a little,whey-faced urchin, the despicable member of some lower class. Could itbe this abortion that had climbed to be an advocate, and now lived inthe birthplace of Flora and the home of John's tenderest memories? Thechill that had first seized upon him when he heard of Houston's absencedeepened and struck inward. For a moment, as he stood under the doors ofthat estranged house, and looked east and west along the solitarypavement of the Royal Terrace, where not a cat was stirring, the senseof solitude and desolation took him by the throat, and he wished himselfin San Francisco.
And then the figure he made, with his decent portliness, his whiskers,the money in his purse, the excellent cigar that he now lit, recurred tohis mind in consolatory comparison with that of a certain maddened ladwho, on a certain spring Sunday ten years before, and in the hour ofchurch-time silence, had stolen from that city by the Glasgow road. Inthe face of these changes it were impious to doubt fortune's kindness.All would be well yet; the Mackenzies would be found, Flora, younger andlovelier and kinder than before; Alan would be found, and would have sonicely discriminated his behaviour as to have grown, on the one hand,into a valued friend of Mr. Nicholson's, and to have remained, upon theother, of that exact shade of joviality which John desired in hiscompanions. And so, once more, John fell to work discounting thedelightful future: his first appearance in the family pew; his firstvisit to his uncle Greig, who thought himself so great a financier, andon whose purblind Edinburgh eyes John was to let in the dazzlingdaylight of the West; and the details in general of that unrivalledtransformation scene, in which he was to display to all Edinburgh aportly and successful gentleman in the shoes of the derided fugitive.
The time began to draw near when his father would have returned from theoffice, and it would be the prodigal's cue to enter. He strolledwestward by Albany Street, facing the sunset embers, pleased, he knewnot why, to move in that cold air and indigo twilight, starred withstreet-lamps. But there was one more disenchantment waiting him by theway.
At the corner of Pitt Street he paused to light a fresh cigar; the vestathrew, as he did so, a strong light upon his features, and a man ofabout his own age stopped at sight of it.
"I think your name must be Nicholson," said the stranger.
It was too late to avoid recognition; and besides, as John was nowactually on the way home, it hardly mattered, and he gave way to theimpulse of his nature.
"Great Scott!" he cried, "Beatson!" and shook hands with warmth. Itscarce seemed he was repaid in kind.
"So you're home again?" said Beatson. "Where have you been all this longtime?"
"In the States," said John--"California. I've made my pile though; andit suddenly struck me it would be a noble scheme to come home forChristmas."
"I see," said Beatson. "Well, I hope we'll see something of you nowyou're here."
"I guess so," said John, a little frozen.
"Well, ta-ta," concluded Beatson, and he shook hands again and went.
This was a cruel first experience. It was idle to blink facts: here wasJohn home again, and Beatson--Old Beatson--did not care a rush. Herecalled Old Beatson in the past--the merry and affectionate lad--andtheir joint adventures and mishaps, the window they had broken with acatapult in India Place, the escalade of the Castle rock, and manyanother inestimable bond of friendship; and his hurt surprise grewdeeper. Well, after all, it was only on a man's own family that he couldcount: blood was thicker than water, he remembered; and the net resultof this encounter was to bring him to the doorstep of his father's housewith tenderer and softer feelings.
The night had come; the fanlight over the door shone bright; the twowindows of the dining-room where the cloth was being laid, and the threewindows of the drawing-room where Maria would be waiting dinner, glowedsofter through yellow blinds. It was like a vision of the past. All thistime of his absence, life had gone forward with an equal foot, and thefires and the gas had been lighted, and the meals spread, at theaccustomed hours. At the accustomed hour, too, the bell had soundedthrice to call the family to worship. And at the thought a pang ofregret fo
r his demerit seized him; he remembered the things that weregood and that he had neglected, and the things that were evil and thathe had loved; and it was with a prayer upon his lips that he mounted thesteps and thrust the key into the keyhole.
He stepped into the lighted hall, shut the door softly behind him, andstood there fixed in wonder. No surprise of strangeness could equal thesurprise of that complete familiarity. There was the bust of Chalmersnear the stair-railings, there was the clothes-brush in the accustomedplace; and there, on the hat-stand, hung hats and coats that must surelybe the same as he remembered. Ten years dropped from his life, as a pinmay slip between the fingers; and the ocean and the mountains, and themines, and the crowded marts and mingled races of San Francisco, and hisown fortune and his own disgrace, became, for that one moment, thefigures of a dream that was over.
He took off his hat, and moved mechanically towards the stand; and therehe found a small change that was a great one to him. The pin that hadbeen his from boyhood, where he had flung his balmoral when he loiteredhome from the Academy, and his first hat when he came briskly back fromcollege or the office--his pin was occupied. "They might have at leastrespected my pin!" he thought, and he was moved as by a slight, andbegan at once to recollect that he was here an interloper, in a strangehouse, which he had entered almost by a burglary, and where at anymoment he might be scandalously challenged.
He moved at once, his hat still in his hand, to the door of his father'sroom, opened it, and entered. Mr. Nicholson sat in the same place andposture as on that last Sunday morning; only he was older, and greyer,and sterner; and as he now glanced up and caught the eye of his son, astrange commotion and a dark flush sprang into his face.
"Father," said John steadily, and even cheerfully, for this was a momentagainst which he was long ago prepared, "Father, here I am, and here isthe money that I took from you. I have come back to ask yourforgiveness, and to stay Christmas with you and the children."
"Keep your money," said the father, "and go!"
"Father!" cried John; "for God's sake don't receive me this way. I'vecome for----"
"Understand me," interrupted Mr. Nicholson; "you are no son of mine; andin the sight of God, I wash my hands of you. One last thing I will tellyou; one warning I will give you: all is discovered, and you are beinghunted for your crimes; if you are still at large it is thanks to me;but I have done all that I mean to do; and from this time forth I wouldnot raise one finger--not one finger--to save you from the gallows! Andnow," with a low voice of absolute authority, and a single weightygesture of the finger, "and now--go!"