Маргарет Олифант
Old Mr. Tredgold
CHAPTER XXXIV
The regiment had been six years in India and was ordered home before that lingering and perpetually-recurring malady of Mr. Tredgold’s came to an end. It had come and gone so often—each seizure passing off in indeed a reduced condition of temporary relief and comfort, but still always in a sort of recovery—that the household had ceased to be alarmed by them as at first. He was a most troublesome patient, and all had to be on the alert when he was ill, from his personal attendant down to the grooms, who might at a moment’s notice be sent scouring over the country after the doctor, without whom the old man did not think he could breathe when his attacks came on, and this notwithstanding the constant presence of the professional nurse, who was now a regular inmate; but the certainty that he would “come round” had by this time got finally established in the house. This gave a sense of security, but it dispelled the not altogether unpleasant solemnity of excitement with which a household of servants await the end of an illness which may terminate in death. There was nothing solemn about it at all—only another of master’s attacks!—and even Katherine was now quite accustomed to be called up in the middle of the night, or sent for to her father’s room at any moment, as the legitimate authority, without any thrill of alarm as to how things might end. Nobody was afraid of his life, until suddenly the moment came when the wheel was broken at the cistern and the much frayed thread of life snapped at last.
These had been strange years. Fortunately the dark times that pass over us come only one day at a time, and we are not aware that they are to last for years, or enabled to grasp them and consent that so much of life should be spent in that way. It would no doubt have appalled Katherine, or any other young woman, to face steadily so long a period of trouble and give herself up to live it through, consenting that all the brightness and almost all the interest of existence should drop from her at the moment when life is usually at its fairest. She would have done it all the same, for what else could she do? She could not leave her father to go through all these agonies of ending life by himself, even though she was of so little use to him and he had apparently such small need of natural affection or support. Her place was there under all circumstances, and no inducement would have made her leave it; but when Katherine looked back upon that course of years it appalled her as it had not done when it was in course of passing day by day. She was twenty-three when it began and she was twenty-nine when it came to an end. She had been old for her age at the first, and she was still older for her age in outward appearance, though younger in heart, at the last—younger in heart, for there had been no wear and tear of actual life any more than if she had spent these years in a convent, and older because of the seclusion from society and even the severe self-restraint in the matter of dress, which, however, was not self-restraint so much as submission to necessity, for you cannot do two things with one sum of money, as many a poor housekeeper has to ascertain daily. Dressmakers’ bills for Katherine were not consistent with remittances to Stella, and it was naturally the least important thing that was sacrificed. She had accordingly lost a great deal of her bloom and presented an appearance less fair, less graceful—perhaps less loveable—to the eyes of Dr. Burnet as she rose from the lonely fireside in her black dress, slim and straight, slimmer perhaps and straighter than of old—pale, without either reflection or ornament about her, looking, he thought, five-and-thirty, without any elasticity, prematurely settled down into the rigid outlines of an old maid, when he went into the well-known drawing-room in an October evening to tell her that at last the dread visitor, anticipated yet not believed in for so long, was now certainly at hand.
Dr. Burnet had behaved extremely well during all these years. He had not been like the rector. He had borne no malice, though he had greater reason to do so had he chosen. He never now made use of her Christian name and never allowed himself to be betrayed into any sign of intimacy, never lingered in her presence, never even looked at the tea on the little tea-table over which he had so often spent pleasant moments. He was now severely professional, giving her his account of his patient in the most succinct phrases and using medical terms, which in the long course of her father’s illness Katherine had become acquainted with. But he had been as attentive to Mr. Tredgold as ever, people said; he had never neglected him, never hesitated to come at his call night or day, though he was aware that he could do little or nothing, and that the excellent nurse in whose hands the patient was was fully capable of caring for him; yet he always came, putting a point of honour in his sedulous attendance, that it never might be said of him that he had neglected the father on account of the daughter’s caprice and failure. It might be added that Mr. Tredgold was a little revenue to the doctor—a sort of landed estate producing so much income yearly and without fail—but this was a mean way of accounting for his perfect devotion to his duty. He had never failed, however other persons might fail.
He came into the drawing-room very quietly and unannounced. He was not himself quite so gallant a figure as he had been when Katherine had left him planté là; he was a little stouter, not so perfect in his outline. They had both suffered more or less from the progress of years. She was thinner, paler, and he fuller, rougher—almost, it might be said, coarser—from five years more of exposure to all-weathers and constant occupation, without any restraining influence at home to make him think of his dress, of the training of his beard, and other small matters. It had been a great loss to him, even in his profession, that he had not married. With a wife, and such a wife as Katherine Tredgold, he would have been avowedly the only doctor, the first in the island, in a position of absolute supremacy. As it was a quite inferior person, who was a married man, ran him hard, although not fit to hold a candle to Dr. Burnet. And this, too, he set down more or less to Katherine’s account. It is to be hoped that he did not think of all this on the particular evening the events of which I take so long to come to. And yet I am afraid he did think of it, or at least was conscious of it all in the midst of the deeper consciousness of his mission to-night. He could scarcely tell whether it was relief or pain he was bringing to her—a simpler or a more complex existence—and the sense of that enigma mingled with all his other feelings. She rose up to meet him as he came in. The room was dimly lighted; the fire was not bright. There was no chill in the air to make it necessary. And I don’t know what it was which made Katherine divine the moment she saw the doctor approaching through the comparative gloom of the outer room that he was bringing her news of something important. Mr. Tredgold had not been worse than usual in the beginning of this attack; the nurse had treated it just as usual, not more seriously than before. But she knew at once by the sound of the doctor’s step, by something in the atmosphere about him, that the usual had departed for ever and that what he came to tell her of was nothing less than death. She rose up to meet him with a sort of awe, her lips apart, her breath coming quick.
“I see,” he said, “that you anticipate what I am going to say.”
“No,” she said with a gasp, “I know of nothing—nothing more than usual.”
“That is all over,” he answered with a little solemnity. “I am sorry I can give you so little hope—this time I fear it is the end.”
“The end!” she cried, “the end!” She had known it from the first moment of his approach, but this did not lessen the shock. She dropped again upon her seat, and sat silent contemplating that fact—which no reasoning, no explanation, could get over. The end—this morning everything as usual, all the little cares, the hundred things he wanted, the constant service—and afterwards nothing, silence, stillness, every familiar necessity gone. Katherine’s heart seemed to stand still, the wonder of it, the terror of it, the awe—it was too deep and too appalling for tears.
After awhile she inquired, in a voice that did not seem her own, “Is he very ill? May I go to him now?”
“He is not more ill than you have seen him before. You can go to him, certainly, but there are some things that you must take into consideration, Miss Tredgold. He is not aware of any change—he is not at all anxious about himself. He thinks this is just the same as the other attacks. If you think it necessary that he should be made aware of his condition, either because of his worldly affairs, or—any other–” Dr. Burnet was accustomed to death-beds. He was not overawed like Katherine, and there seemed something ludicrous to him in the thought of old Tredgold, an old man of the earth, earthly, having—other affairs.
Katherine looked up at him, her eyes looking twice as large as usual in the solemnity of their trouble and awe. There seemed nothing else in the room but her eyes looking at him with an appeal, to which he had no answer to give. “Would it make any difference—now?” she said.
“I cannot tell what your views may be on that subject. Some are very eager that the dying should know—some think it better not to disturb them. It will do him no harm physically to be told; but you must be the judge.”
“I have not thought of it—as I ought,” she said. “Oh, Dr. Burnet, give me your opinion, give me your own opinion! I do not seem able to think.”
“It might give him a chance,” said the doctor, “to put right some wrong he might otherwise leave behind him. If what you are thinking of is that, he might put himself right in any spiritual point of view—at this last moment.”
Katherine rose up as if she were blind, feeling before her with her hands. Her father, with all his imperfections—with nothing that was not imperfection or worse than imperfection—with a mind that had room for nothing but the lowest elements, who had never thought of anything higher, never asked himself whither he was going– She walked straight forward, not saying anything, not able to bear another word. To put himself right—at the last moment. She felt that she must hasten to him, fly to him, though she did not know, being there, what she should do.
The room was so entirely in its usual condition—the nurse settling for the night, the medicines arranged in order, the fire made up, and the nightlight ready to be lighted—that it seemed more and more impossible to realise that this night there was likely to occur something different, something that was not on the invalid’s programme. The only thing that betrayed a consciousness of any such possibility was the look which the nurse rapidly gave Katherine as she came in. “I am putting everything as usual,” she said in a whisper, “but I think you should not go to bed.” That was all—and yet out of everything thus settled and habitual around him, he was going away, going absolutely away to no one could tell where, perhaps this very night. Katherine felt herself stupefied, confounded, and helpless. He was going away all alone, with no directions, no preparations for the journey. What could she tell him of the way? Could any guide be sent with him? Could any instinct lead him? A man accustomed only to business, to the state of the stocks and the money market. Her heart began to beat so fast that it sickened her, and she was conscious of scarcely anything but its sound and the heaving of her breast.
The invalid, however, was not composed as usual. He was very restless, his eyes shining from his emaciated face. “Ah, that’s you, Katie,” he said; “it’s too late for you to be up—and the doctor back again. What brings the doctor back again? Have you any more to do to me, eh, to-night?”
“Only to make sure that you’re comfortable,” Dr. Burnet said.
“Oh, comfortable enough—but restless. I don’t seem as if I could lie still. Here, Katie, as you’re here, change me a little—that’s better—a hold of your shoulder—now I can push myself about. Never been restless like this before, doctor. Nervous, I suppose you think?”
“No, you’ve never been like this before,” the doctor said, with an unconsciously solemn voice.
“Oh, papa,” cried Katherine, “you are very ill; I fear you are very ill.”
“Nothing of the sort,” he cried, pushing her away by the shoulder he had grasped; “nothing the matter with me—that is, nothing out of the ordinary. Come here, you nurse. I want to lie on the other side. Nothing like a woman that knows what she is about and has her living to make by it. Dear they are—cost a lot of money—but I never begrudged money for comfort.”
“Papa,” said Katherine. What could she say? What words were possible to break this spell, this unconsciousness and ignorance? It seemed to her that he was about to fall over some dreadful precipice without knowing it, without fearing it; was it better that he should know it, that he should fear, when he was incapable of anything else? Should the acute pang of mortal alarm before be added to—whatever there might be afterwards? Wild words whirled through her head—about the great judgment seat, about the reckoning with men for what they had done, and the cry of the Prophet, “Prepare to meet thy God.” But how could this restless old man prepare for anything, turning and returning upon his bed. “Papa,” she repeated, “have you anything to say to me—nothing about—about Stella?”
He turned his face to her for a moment with the old familiar chuckle in his throat. “About Stella—oh, you will hear plenty about Stella—in time,” he said.
“Not only about Stella, papa! Oh, about other things, about—about—” she cried in a kind of despair, “about God.”
“Oh,” he said, “you think I’m going to die.” The chuckle came again, an awful sound. “I’m not; you were always a little fool. Tell her, doctor, I’m going to sleep—tuck in the clothes, nurse, and put—out—the light.”
The last words fell from him drowsily, and calm succeeded to the endless motion. There was another little murmur as of a laugh. Then the nurse nodded her head from the other side of the bed, to show that he was really going to sleep. Dr. Burnet put his hand on Katherine’s arm and drew her into the dressing-room, leaving the door open between. “It may last only a few minutes,” he said, “or it may last for ever; but we can do nothing, neither you nor I. Sit down and wait here.”
It did last for ever. The sleep at first was interrupted with little wakings, and that chuckle which had been the accompaniment of his life broke in two or three times, ghastly, with a sort of sound of triumph. And then all sound died away.
Katherine was awakened—she did not know if it was from a doze or a dream—by a touch upon her arm. The doctor stood there in his large and heavy vitality like an embodiment of life, and a faint blueness of dawn was coming in at the window. “There was no pain,” he said, “no sort of suffering or struggle. Half-past four exactly,” he had his watch in his hand. “And now, Miss Tredgold, take this and go to bed.”
“Do you mean?” Katherine cried, rising hastily, then falling back again in extreme agitation, trembling from head to foot.
“Yes, I mean it is all over, it is all well over. Everything has been done that could be done for him. And here is your maid to take care of you; you must go to bed.”
But Katherine did not go to bed. She went downstairs to the drawing-room, her usual place, and sat by the dead fire, watching the blue light coming in at the crevices of the shutters, and listening to the steps of the doctor, quick and firm, going away upon the gravel outside. And then she went and wandered all over the house from one room to another, she could not tell why. It seemed to her that everything must have changed in that wonderful change that had come to pass without anyone being able to intervene, so noiselessly, so suddenly. She never seemed to have expected that. Anything else, it seemed to her now, might have happened but not that. Why, all the house had been full of him, all life had been full of him yesterday; there had been nothing to do but contrive what he should eat, how the temperature in the room should be kept up, how everything should be arranged for his comfort. And now he wanted nothing, nothing, nor was anything wanted for him. It did not seem to be grief that moved her so much as wonder, an intolerable pressure of surprise and perplexity that such a thing could have happened with so many about to prevent anything from happening, and that he should have been removed to some other place whom nobody could imagine to be capable of other conditions than he had here. What had he to do with the unseen, with sacred things, with heaven, with a spiritual life? Nothing, nothing, she said to herself. It was not natural, it was not possible. And yet it was true. When she at last lay down at the persuasion of Mrs. Simmons and the weeping Hannah, in the face of the new full shining day which had not risen for him, which cared for none of these things, Katherine still got no relief of sleep. She lay on her bed and stared at the light with no relief of tears either, with no sense of grief—only wondering, wondering. She had not thought of this change, although she knew that in all reason it must be coming. Still less did she think of the new world which already began to turn its dewy side to the light.
CHAPTER XXXV
Mr. Tredgold had no relations to speak of, and not very many old friends. Mr. Turny the elder, who was one of Mr. Tredgold’s executors, came down for the funeral, and so did the solicitor, Mr. Sturgeon, who was the head of a great city firm, and would certainly not have spared the time had the fortune that was now to become a subject of so much interest been less great. He brought with him a shabby man, who was in his office and carried a black bag with papers, and also turned out to be Mr. Tredgold’s brother, the only other member of the family who was known. His appearance was a surprise to Katherine, who had not heard of his existence. She was aware there had been aunts, married and bearing different names, and that it was possible perhaps to find cousins with those designations, which, however, she was not acquainted with; but an uncle was a complete surprise to her. And indeed, to tell the truth, to say “uncle” to this shambling individual in the long old great-coat, which she recognised as a very ancient garment of her father’s, was not a pleasant sensation. She shrank from the lean, grey, hungry, yet humble being who evidently was very little at his ease sitting at the same table with his master, though he attempted, from time to time, to produce himself with a hesitating speech. “He was my brother, you know—I was his brother, his only brother,” which he said several times in the course of the long dreadful evening which preceded the funeral day. Katherine in compassion carried off this new and terrible relative into the drawing-room while the two men of business discoursed together. Mr. Robert Tredgold did not like to be carried off from the wine. He saw in this step precautionary measures to which he was accustomed, though Katharine did not even know of any occasion for precaution—and followed her sulkily, not to the drawing-room, but to that once gay little room which had been the young ladies’ room in former days. Katherine had gone back to it with a sentiment which she herself did not question or trace to its origin, but which no doubt sprang from the consciousness in her mind that Stella was on her way home, and that there was no obstacle now in the way of her return. She would have been horrified to say in words that her father was the obstacle who had been removed, and the shock and awe of death were still upon her. But secretly her heart had begun to rise at the thought of Stella, and that it would be her happy office to bring Stella home.
“It ain’t often I have the chance of a good glass of wine,” Robert Tredgold said; “your poor father was a rare judge of wine, and then you see he had always the money to spend on it. My poor brother would have given me a chance of a glass of good wine if he’d brought me here.”
“Would you like the wine brought here? I thought you would be happier,” said Katherine, “with me than with those gentlemen.”
“I don’t see,” he said, somewhat sullenly, “why I ain’t as good as they are. Turny’s made a devil o’ money, just like my poor brother, but he’s no better than us, all the same; and as for old Sturgeon, I know him well enough, I hope. My poor brother would never have let that man have all his business if it hadn’t been for me. I heard him say it myself. ‘You provide for Bob, and you shall have all as I can give you.’ Oh, he knows which side his bread’s buttered on, does Sturgeon. Many a time he’s said to me, ‘A little more o’ this, Bob Tredgold, and you shall go,’ but I knew my brother was be’ind me, bless you. I just laughed in his face. ‘Not while my brother’s to the fore,’ I’ve always said.”
“But,” said Katherine, “poor papa is not, as you say, to the fore now.”
“No; but he’s provided for me all right; he always said as he would provide for me. I haven’t, perhaps, been as steady as I ought. He never wanted me to show along of his fine friends. But for a couple of fellows like that, that know all about me, I don’t see as I need have been stopped of a good glass of my brother’s port wine.”
“You shall not, indeed,” said Katherine, ringing the bell.
“And I say,” said this uncomfortable uncle, “you can tell them to bring the spirit case as well. I saw as there was a spirit case, with five nice bottles, and lemons and sugar, and a kettle, you know, though there ain’t nothing to set it upon as I can see in that bit of a fireplace—uncomfortable thing, all shine and glitter and no use. I daresay my poor brother had some sort of a ’ob for the hot water in any room as he sat in—I say, old gentleman, bring us–”
Katherine interposed with her orders, in haste, and turned the butler hastily away. “You must remember,” she said, “that to-night is a very sad and terrible night in this house.”
“Ah! Were they all as fond of him as that?” the brother said.
“Oh,” said Katherine, “if you are my uncle, as they say, you should stand by me and help me; for there is sure to be a great deal of trouble, however things turn out.”
“I’ll stand by you! Don’t you be afraid, you can calculate on me. I don’t mind a bit what I say to old Sturgeon nor Turny neither, specially as I know he’s provided for me, my poor brother ’as, he always said as he would. I don’t consider myself in old Sturgeon’s office not from this day. My poor brother ’as provided for me, he always said he would; and I’ll stand by you, my dear, don’t you be afraid. Hullo! here’s nothing but the port wine—and not too much of that neither. I say, you fellow, tell the old man to bring the spirits; and he can sit down himself and ’ave a glass; it’s a poor ’eart as never rejoices, and once in a way it’ll do him no harm.”
“The other gentlemen—have got the spirits,” the footman said, retiring, very red in the face with laughter suppressed.
“And what a poor house,” said Bob Tredgold, contemptuously, “to have but one case of spirits! I’ve always noticed as your grand houses that are all gilt and grandeur are the poorest—as concern the necessaries of life.”
Katherine left her uncle in despair with his half-filled bottle of port. He was not a very creditable relation. She went to her own room and shut herself in to think over her position. In the fulness of her thoughts she forgot the dead master of the house, who lay there all silent, having nothing now to do with all that was going on in it, he who a little while ago had been supreme master of all. She did not know or ask what he had done with his wealth, no question about it entered her mind. She took it for granted that, Stella being cut off, it would come to herself as the only other child—which was just the same as if it had been left to Stella in their due and natural shares. All that was so simple, there was no need to think of it. Even this dreadful uncle—if her father had not provided for him Katherine would, there was no difficulty about all that. If the money was hers, it would be hers only for the purpose of doing everything with it which her father ought—which if he had been in his right condition, unbiassed by anger or offence, he would have done. He had always loved Stella best, and Stella should have the best—the house, every advantage, more than her share.
Katherine sat down and began to think over the work she would have to do in the ensuing week or so, till the Aurungzebe arrived with Lady Somers on board. The ship was due within a few days, and Katherine intended to go to meet her sister, to carry her, before she landed even, the news which, alas! she feared would only be good news to Stella. Alas! was it not good news to Katherine too? She stopped and wept a few bitter tears, but more for the pity of it, the horror of it, than for grief. Stella had been his favourite, his darling, and yet it would be good news to Stella. Her sister hoped that she would cry a little, that her heart would ache a little with the thought of never more seeing her father, never getting his forgiveness, nor any kind message or word from him. But at the utmost that would be all, a few tears, a regret, an exclamation of “poor papa!” and then joy at the good news, joy to be delivered from poverty and anxiety, to be able to surround herself again with all the beautiful things she loved, to provide for her children (she had two by this time), and to replace her husband in his position. Was it possible that she could weep long, that she could mourn much for the father who had cast her off and whom she had not seen for six years, with all this happiness behind? Katherine herself had but few tears to shed. She was sad because she was not sufficiently sad, because it was terrible that a human soul should go away out of the world and leave so few regrets, so little sorrow behind. Even the old servants, the housekeeper who had been with him for so many years, his personal attendant, who had been very kind, who had taken great care of him, were scarcely sorry. “I suppose, Miss, as you’ll be having Miss Stella home now,” Mrs. Simmons said, though she had a white handkerchief in her hand for appearance sake. And the man was chiefly anxious about his character and the testimonials to be given him. “I hope as I never neglected my duty. And master was an ’eavy ’andful, Miss,” he said, with relief, too, in his countenance. Katherine thought she would be willing to give half of all she had in the world to secure one genuine mourner, one who was truly sorry for her father’s death. Was she herself sorry? Her heart ached with the pity and the horror of it, but sorrow is a different sentiment from that.
In the meantime the solicitor and executor were in Mr. Tredgold’s sitting-room which he had occupied so long. A fire had been lighted in haste, to make the cold uninhabited place a little more cheerful. It was lighted by a lamp which hung over the table, shaded so as to concentrate its light on that spot, leaving all the rest of the room in the dark. And the two forms on either side of it were not of a character to be ennobled by the searching light. The solicitor was a snuffy man, with a long lean throat and a narrow head, with tufts of thin, grey hair. He had a ragged grey beard of the same description, long and ill grown, and he wore spectacles pushed out from his eyes and projecting as if they might fall off altogether. Mr. Turny had a shining bald head, which reflected the light, bent, as it was, over the papers on the table. They had been examining these papers, searching for the will which they expected to find there, but had come as yet upon no trace of it.
“I should have thought,” said Mr. Turny, “that he’d have had another will drawn out as soon as that girl ran away—indeed I was in a great mind to take steps–” He stopped here, reflecting that it was as well perhaps to say nothing of Fred and what those steps were. But Mr. Sturgeon had heard of the repeated visits of the family, and knew that young Fred was “on the outlook,” as they said, and knew.
“Ah, here it is at last,” Mr. Sturgeon said. He added, after a few minutes, in a tone of disappointment: “No, it’s the old will of ten years ago, the one I sent him down at his own request after the young lady ran away. I kept expecting for a long time to have his instructions about another, and even wrote to him on the subject. I suppose he must have employed some man here. This, of course, must be mere waste paper now.”
“What was the purport of it?” Mr. Turny asked.
“You must have heard at the time. It was not a will I approved—nothing unnatural ever gets any support from me. They say lawyers are full of dodges; it would have been better for me if I had put my principles in my pocket many a time. Men have come to me with the most ridiculous instructions, what I call wicked—they take a spite at some one, or some boy behaves foolishly (to be sure, it’s a girl in this case, which is more uncommon), and out he goes out of the will. I don’t approve of such pranks for my part.”
“You would like the good to share with the bad, and the guilty with the innocent,” said Turny, not without a reflection of his own.
“Not so much as that; but it doesn’t follow—always—that a boy is bad because he has kicked over the traces in his youth—and if he is bad, then he is the one above all that wants some provision made for him to keep him from getting badder. There’s that poor wretch, Bob Tredgold; I’ve kept him in my office, he thinks, because his brother always stood up for him. Nothing of the kind; Tredgold would have been delighted to hear he had tripped into the mire or gone down under an underground railway train on his way home. And the poor beggar believes now that his brother has provided for him—not a penny will he have, or I am mistaken. I must try to get something for him out of the girls.”
