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Updated: May 1, 2025
Though I never traced these good acts to Ardworth, from whom else could they come? Ardworth put down the paper without a word; and Lucretia, who had watched him while he read, was struck with the self-control he evinced when he came to the end of the disclosure. She laid her hand on his and said, "Courage! you have lost nothing!" "Nothing!" said Ardworth, with a bitter smile.
Ardworth, in whom I felt much interested years ago, and who, I am recently informed, left an infant, his supposed son, under your care. So long absent from England, how much have I to learn, and how little the mere gravestones tell us of the dead!
The same servant who had opened the gate to Ardworth appeared to his summons, and after eying him for some moments with a listless, stupid stare, said: "You'll be after some mistake!" and turned away. "Stop, stop!" cried Percival, trying to intrude himself through the gate; but the servant blocked up the entrance sturdily. "It is no mistake at all, my good lady.
"And I from a still better authority, from Walter Ardworth himself. He lives; he will restore my child!" She extended a letter while she spoke. He, in return, gave her, not that still crumpled in his hand, but one which he drew from his breast. These letters severally occupied both, begun and finished almost in the same moment. That from Grabman ran thus:
Even if John Ardworth, with his gifts and energies, be denied to me, a son, though in rags, I will give him wealth! a son, though ignorant as the merest boor, I will pour into his brain my dark wisdom! A son! a son! my heart swells at the word. Ah, you sneer! Yes, my heart swells, but not with the mawkish fondness of a feeble mother.
The utter stillness of the figure, so in unison with the stillness of the scene, had upon Percival more effect than would have been produced by the most clamorous crowd. He looked round curiously as he passed, and uttered an exclamation as he recognized John Ardworth. "You, Percival!" said Ardworth. "A strange meeting-place at this hour! What can bring you hither?"
Yet Ardworth had genius, and genius ample and magnificent. There was genius in that industrious energy so patient in the conquest of detail, so triumphant in the perception of results.
Labour, take back your son." An hour afterwards, and his clerk, returning home, found Ardworth employed as calmly as usual on his Law Reports. That day, when he called at Brompton, Percival reported to Madame Dalibard his interview with the eccentric Mr. Tomkins.
Well, to return where was I? Walter Ardworth had the folly to entertain strong notions of politics. He dreamed of being a soldier, and yet persuaded himself to be a republican. His notions, so hateful in his profession, got wind; he disguised nothing, he neglected the portraits of things, appearances.
Downstairs again tottered Grabman, re-opened his letter, and wrote, "P.S. I have wronged you, Jason, by my suspicions; never mind, jubilate! This interloper who made me so jealous, who think you it is? Why, young Ardworth himself, that is, the lad who goes by such name. Now, is it not clear? Of course no one else has such interest in learning his birth as the lost child himself, here he is!
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