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264 THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP
whom I own I have wronged—my all, which once was considerable,
is left to my boy.
"I am now worth less than nothing, and have compromised
Philip's property along with my own. As a man of business,
General Baynes, Colonel Ringwood's old companion in arms, was
culpably careless, and I—alas that I must own it !—deceived him.
Being the only surviving trustee (Mrs. Philip Ringwood's other
trustee was an unprincipled attorney who has been long dead),
General B. signed a paper authorising, as he imagined, my bankers
to receive Philip's dividends, but, in fact, giving me the power to
dispose of the capital sum. On my honour, as a man, as a gentleman,
as a father, Pendennis, I hoped to replace it ! I took it ; I
embarked it in speculations in which it sank down with ten times
the amount of my own private property. Half-year after half-year,
with straitened means and with the greatest difficulty to myself my
poor boy has had his dividend ; and he at least has never known
what was want or anxiety until now. Want ? Anxiety? Pray
Heaven he never may suffer the sleepless anguish, the racking care
which has pursued me! ' Post equitem sedet atra cura,' our
favourite poet says. Ah ! how truly, too, does he remark, ' Patriæ
quis exul se quoque fugit ?' Think you where I go grief and remorse
will not follow me ? They will never leave me until I shall
return to this country—for that I shall return, my heart tells me
—until I can reimburse General Baynes, who stands indebted to
Philip through his incautiousness and my overpowering necessity ;
and my heart—an erring but fond father's heart—tells me that my
boy will not eventually lose a penny by my misfortune.
" I own, between ourselves, that this illness of the Grand Duke
of Groningen was a pretext which I put forward. You will hear
of me ere long from the place whither for some time past I have
determined on bending my steps. I placed £100 on Saturday, to
Philip's credit, at his banker's. I take little more than that sum
with me ; depressed, yet full of hope ; having done wrong, yet
determined to retrieve it, and vowing that ere I die my poor boy
shall not have to blush at bearing the name of
"GEORGE BRAND FIRMIN.
" Good-bye, dear Philip ! Your old friend will tell you of my
misfortunes. When I write again, it will be to tell you where to
address me; and wherever I am, or whatever misfortunes oppress
me, think of me always as your fond FATHER."
I had scarce read this awful letter when Philip Firmin himself
came into our breakfast-room looking very much disturbed.