The sudden pause in the conversation appeared to startle Mr.
Bashwood. He comforted himself with another little sip of wine, and, leaving the letter untouched, burst irrepressibly into words, as if the silence was quite unendurable to him.
"I am ready to answer any question, sir," he began. "Mr. Pedgift told me that I must answer questions, because I was applying for a place of trust. Mr. Pedgift said neither you nor Mr. Armadale was likely to think the testimonial sufficient of itself. Sir John doesn't say--he might have put it more kindly, but I don't complain--Sir John doesn't say what the troubles were that lost me my place. Perhaps you might wish to know--" He stopped confusedly, looked at the testimonial, and said no more.
"If no interests but mine were concerned in the matter," rejoined Midwinter, "the testimonial would, I assure you, be quite enough to satisfy me. But while I am learning my new duties, the person who teaches me will be really and truly the steward of my friend's estate. I am very unwilling to ask you to speak on what may be a painful subject, and I am sadly inexperienced in putting such questions as I ought to put; but, perhaps, in Mr. Armadale's interests, I ought to know something more, either from yourself, or from Mr. Pedgift, if you prefer it--" He, too, stopped confusedly, looked at the testimonial, and said no more.
There was another moment of silence. The night was warm, and Mr.
Bashwood, among his other misfortunes, had the deplorable infirmity of perspiring in the palms of the hands. He took out a miserable little cotton pocket-handkerchief, rolled it up into a ball, and softly dabbed it to and fro, from one hand to the other, with the regularity of a pendulum. Performed by other men, under other circumstances, the action might have been ridiculous.
Performed by this man, at the crisis of the interview, the action was horrible.
"Mr. Pedgift's time is too valuable, sir, to be wasted on me," he said. "I will mention what ought to be mentioned myself--if you will please to allow me. I have been unfortunate in my family. It is very hard to bear, though it seems not much to tell. My wife--" One of his hands closed fast on the pocket-handkerchief;he moistened his dry lips, struggled with himself, and went on.
"My wife, sir," he resumed, "stood a little in my way; she did me (I am afraid I must confess) some injury with Sir John. Soon after I got the steward's situation, she contracted--she took--she fell into habits (I hardly know how to say it) of drinking. I couldn't break her of it, and I couldn't always conceal it from Sir John's knowledge. She broke out, and--and tried his patience once or twice, when he came to my office on business. Sir John excused it, not very kindly; but still he excused it. I don't complain of Sir John! I don't complain now of my wife." He pointed a trembling finger at his miserable crape-covered beaver hat on the floor. "I'm in mourning for her,"he said, faintly. "She died nearly a year ago, in the county asylum here."His mouth began to work convulsively. He took up the glass of wine at his side, and, instead of sipping it this time, drained it to the bottom. "I'm not much used to wine, sir," he said, conscious, apparently, of the flush that flew into his face as he drank, and still observant of the obligations of politeness amid all the misery of the recollections that he was calling up.
"I beg, Mr. Bashwood, you will not distress yourself by telling me any more," said Midwinter, recoiling from any further sanction on his part of a disclosure which had already bared the sorrows of the unhappy man before him to the quick.
"I'm much obliged to you, sir," replied Mr. Bashwood. "But if Idon't detain you too long, and if you will please to remember that Mr. Pedgift's directions to me were very particular--and, besides, I only mentioned my late wife because if she hadn't tried Sir John's patience to begin with, things might have turned out differently--" He paused, gave up the disjointed sentence in which he had involved himself, and tried another. "I had only two children, sir," he went on, advancing to a new point in his narrative, "a boy and a girl. The girl died when she was a baby.
My son lived to grow up; and it was my son who lost me my place.
I did my best for him; I got him into a respectable office in London. They wouldn't take him without security. I'm afraid it was imprudent; but I had no rich friends to help me, and I became security. My boy turned out badly, sir. He --perhaps you will kindly understand what I mean, if I say he behaved dishonestly.
His employers consented, at my entreaty, to let him off without prosecuting. I begged very hard--I was fond of my son James--and I took him home, and did my best to reform him. He wouldn't stay with me; he went away again to London; he--I beg your pardon, sir! I'm afraid I'm confusing things; I'm afraid I'm wandering from the point.""No, no," said Midwinter, kindly. "If you think it right to tell me this sad story, tell it in your own way. Have you seen your son since he left you to go to London?""No, sir. He's in London still, for all I know. When I last heard of him, he was getting his bread--not very creditably. He was employed, under the inspector, at the Private Inquiry Office in Shadyside Place."He spoke those words--apparently (as events then stood) the most irrelevant to the matter in hand that had yet escaped him;actually (as events were soon to be) the most vitally important that he had uttered yet--he spoke those words absently, looking about him in confusion, and trying vainly to recover the lost thread of his narrative.