Маргарет Олифант
Old Mr. Tredgold
CHAPTER XXXVII
When Katherine came into the room again at the call of her father’s solicitor it was with a sense of being unduly disturbed and interfered with at a moment when she had a right to repose. She was perhaps half angry with herself that her thoughts were already turning so warmly to the future, and that Stella’s approaching arrival, and the change in Stella’s fortunes which it would be in her power to make, were more and more occupying the foreground of her mind, and crowding out with bright colours the sombre spectacle which was just over, and all the troublous details of the past. When a portion of one’s life has been brought to an end by the closure of death, something to look forward to is the most natural and best of alleviations. It breaks up the conviction of the irrevocable, and opens to the soul once more the way before it, which, on the other hand, is closed up and ended. Katherine had allowed that thought to steal into her mind, to occupy the entire horizon. Stella was coming home, not merely back, which was all that she had allowed herself to say before, but home to her own house, or rather to that which was something still more hers than her own by being her sister’s. There had been, no doubt, grievances against Stella in Katherine’s mind, in the days when her own life had been entirely overshadowed by her sister’s; but these were long gone, long lost in boundless, remorseful (notwithstanding that she had nothing to blame herself with) affection and longing for Stella, who after all was her only sister, her only near relation in the world. She had begun to permit herself to dwell on that delightful thought. It had been a sort of forbidden pleasure while her father lay dead in the house, and she had felt that every thought was due to him, that she had not given him enough, had not shown that devotion to him of which one reads in books, the triumph of filial love over every circumstance. Katherine had not been to her father all that a daughter might have been, and in these dark days she had much and unjustly reproached herself with it. But now everything had been done for him that he could have wished to be done, and his image had gone aside amid the shadows of the past, and she had permitted herself to look forward, to think of Stella and her return. It was a great disturbance and annoyance to be called again, to be brought back from the contemplation of those happier things to the shadow of the grave once more—or, still worse, the shadow of business, as if she cared how much money had come to her or what was her position. There would be plenty—plenty to make Stella comfortable she knew, and beyond that what did Katherine care?
The men stood up again as she came in with an air of respect which seemed to her exaggerated and absurd—old Mr. Turny, who had known her from a child and had allowed her to open the door for him and run errands for him many a day, and the solicitor, who in his infrequent visits had never paid any attention to her at all. They stood on each side letting her pass as if into some prison of which they were going to defend the doors. Dr. Burnet, who was there too, closely buttoned and looking very grave, gave her a seat; and then she saw her Uncle Robert Tredgold sunk down in a chair, with Mr. Sturgeon’s bag in his arms, staring about him with lack-lustre eyes. She gave him a little nod and encouraging glance. How small a matter it would be to provide for that unfortunate so that he should never need to carry Mr. Sturgeon’s bag again! She sat down and looked round upon them with for the first time a sort of personal satisfaction in the thought that she was so wholly independent of them and all that it was in their power to do—the mistress of her own house, not obliged to think of anyone’s pleasure but her own. It was on her lips to say something hospitable, kind, such as became the mistress of the house; she refrained only from the recollection that, after all, it was her father’s funeral day.
“Miss Tredgold,” said the solicitor, “we have now, I am sorry to say, a very painful duty to perform.”
Katherine looked at him without the faintest notion of his meaning, encouraging him to proceed with a faint smile.
“I have gone through your late lamented father’s papers most carefully. As you yourself said yesterday, I have possessed his confidence for many years, and all his business matters have gone through my hands. I supposed that as I had not been consulted about any change in his will, he must have employed a local solicitor. That, however, does not seem to have been the case, and I am sorry to inform you, Miss Tredgold, that the only will that can be found is that of eighteen hundred and seventy-one.”
“Yes?” said Katherine indifferently interrogative, as something seemed to be expected of her.
“Yes—the will of eighteen hundred and seventy-one—nearly eight years ago—drawn out when your sister was in full possession of her empire over your late father, Miss Tredgold.”
“Yes,” said Katherine, but this time without any interrogation. She had a vague recollection of that will, of Mr. Sturgeon’s visit to the house, and the far-off sound of stormy interviews between her father and his solicitor, of which the girls in their careless fashion, and especially Stella, had made a joke.
“You probably don’t take in the full significance of what I say.”
“No,” said Katherine with a smile, “I don’t think that I do.”
“I protested against it at the time. I simply cannot comprehend it now. It is almost impossible to imagine that in present circumstances he could have intended it to stand; but here it is, and nothing else. Miss Tredgold, by this will the whole of your father’s property is left over your head to your younger sister.”
“To Stella!” she cried, with a sudden glow of pleasure, clapping her hands. The men about sat and stared at her, Mr. Turny in such consternation that his jaw dropped as he gazed. Bob Tredgold was by this time beyond speech, glaring into empty space over the bag in his arms.
Then something, whether in her mind or out of it, suggested by the faces round her struck Katherine with a little chill. She looked round upon them again, and she was dimly aware that someone behind her, who could only be Dr. Burnet, made a step forward and stood behind her chair. Then she drew a long breath. “I am not sure that I understand yet. I am glad Stella has it—oh, very glad! But do you mean that I—am left out? Do you mean– I am afraid,” she said, after a pause, with a little gasp, “that is not quite just. Do you mean really everything—everything, Mr. Sturgeon?”
“Everything. There is, of course, your mother’s money, which no one can touch, and there is a small piece of land—to build yourself a cottage on, which was all you would want, he said.”
Katherine sat silent a little after this. Her first thought was that she was balked then altogether in her first personal wish, the great delight and triumph of setting Stella right and restoring to her her just share in the inheritance. This great disappointment struck her at once, and almost brought the tears to her eyes. Stella would now have it all of her own right, and would never know, or at least believe, what had been Katherine’s loving intention. She felt this blow. In a moment she realised that Stella would not believe it—that she would think any assertion to that effect to be a figment, and remained fully assured that her sister would have kept everything to herself if she had had the power. And this hurt Katherine beyond expression. She would have liked to have had that power! Afterwards there came into her mind a vague sense of old injustice and unkindness to herself, the contemptuous speech about the cottage, and that this was all she would want. Her father thought so; he had thought so always, and so had Stella. It never occurred to Katherine that Stella would be anxious to do her justice, as she would have done to Stella. That was an idea that never entered her mind at all. She was thrown back eight years ago to the time when she lived habitually in the cold shade. After all, was not that the one thing that she had been certain of all her life? Was it not a spell which had never been broken, which never could be broken? She murmured to herself dully: “A cottage—which was all I should want.”
“I said to your father at the time everything that could be said.” Mr. Sturgeon wanted to show his sympathy, but he felt that, thoroughly as everybody present must be persuaded that old Tredgold was an old beast, it would not do to say so in his own house on his funeral day.
The other executor said nothing except “Tchich, tchich!” but he wiped his bald head with his handkerchief and internally thanked everything that he knew in the place of God—that dark power called Providence and other such—that Katherine Tredgold had refused to have anything to say to his Fred. Dr. Burnet was not visible at all to Katherine except in a long mirror opposite, where he appeared like a shadow behind her chair.
“And this poor man,” said Katherine, looking towards poor Bob Tredgold, with his staring eyes; “is there nothing for him?”
“Not a penny. I could have told you that; I have told him that often enough. I’ve known him from a boy. He shall keep his corner in my office all the same. I didn’t put him there, though he thinks so, for his brother’s sake.”
“He shall have a home in the cottage—when it is built,” said Katherine, with a curious smile; and then she became aware that in both these promises, the lawyer’s and her own, there was a bitter tone—an unexpressed contempt for the man who was her father, and who had been laid in his grave that day.
“I hope,” she said, “this is all that is necessary to-day; and may I now, if you will not think it ungracious, bid you good-bye? I shall understand it all better when I have a little time to think.”
She paused, however, again after she had shaken hands with them. “There is still one thing. I am going to meet my sister when she arrives. May I have the—the happiness of telling her? I had meant to give her half, and it is a little disappointment; but I should like at least to carry the news. Thanks; you must address to her here. Of course she will come at once here, to her own home.”
She scarcely knew whose arm it was that was offered to her, but took it mechanically and went out, not quite clear as to where she was going, in the giddiness of the great change.
“This is a strange hearing,” Dr. Burnet said.
“How kind of you to stand by me! Yes, it is strange; and I was pleasing myself with the idea of giving back the house and her share of everything besides to Stella. I should have liked to do that.”
“It is to be hoped,” he said, “that she will do the same by you.”
“Oh, no!” she cried with a half laugh, “that’s impossible.” Then, after a pause, “you know there’s a husband and children to be thought of. And what I will have is really quite enough for me.”
“There is one thing at your disposal as you please,” he said in a low voice. “I have not changed, Katherine, all these years.”
“Dr. Burnet! It makes one’s heart glad that you are so good a man!”
“Make me glad, that will be better,” he said.
Katherine shook her head but said nothing. And human nature is so strange that Dr. Burnet, after making this profession of devotion, which was genuine enough, did not feel so sorry as he ought to have done that she still shook her head as she disappeared up the great stairs.
Katherine went into her room a very different woman from the Katherine who had left it not half-an-hour before. Then she had entertained no doubt that this was her own house in which she was, this her own room, where in all probability she would live all her life. She had intended that Stella should have the house, and yet that there should always be a nook for herself in which the giver of the whole, half by right and wholly by love, should remain, something more than a guest. Would Stella think like that now that the tables were turned, that it was Katherine who had nothing and she all? Katherine did not for a moment imagine that this would be the case. Without questioning herself on the subject, she unconsciously proved how little confidence she had in Stella by putting away from her mind all idea of remaining here. She had no home; she would have no home unless or until the cottage was built for which her father had in mockery, not in kindness, left her the site. She looked round upon all the familiar things which had been about her all her life; already the place had taken another aspect to her. It was not hers any longer, it was a room in her sister’s house. She wondered whether Stella would let her take her favourite things—a certain little cabinet, a writing table, some of the pictures. But she did not feel any confidence that Stella would allow her to do so. Stella liked to have a house nicely furnished, not to see gaps in the furniture. That was a small matter, but it was characteristic of the view which Katherine instinctively took of the whole situation. And it would be vain to say that it did not affect her. It affected her strongly, but not as the sudden deprivation of all things might be supposed to affect a sensitive mind. She had no anticipation of any catastrophe of the kind, and yet now that it had come she did not feel that she was unprepared for it. It was not a thing which her mind rejected as impossible, which her heart struggled against. Now that it had happened, it fitted in well enough to the life that had gone before.
Her father had never cared for her, and he had loved Stella. Stella was the one to whom everything naturally came. Poor Stella had been unnaturally depressed, thrown out of her triumphant place for these six years; but her father, even when he had uttered that calm execration which had so shaken Katherine’s nerves but never his, had not meant any harm to Stella. He had not been able to do anything against her. Katherine remembered to have seen him seated at his bureau with that large blue envelope in his hand. This showed that he had taken the matter into consideration; but it had not proved possible for him to disinherit Stella—a thing which everybody concluded had been done as soon as she left him. Katherine remembered vaguely even that she had seen him chuckling over that document, locking it up in his drawer as if there was some private jest of his own involved. It was the kind of jest to please Mr. Tredgold. The idea of such a discovery, of the one sister who was sure being disappointed, and the other who expected nothing being raised to the heights of triumph, all by nothing more than a scratch of his pen, was sure to please him. She could almost hear him chuckling again at her own sudden and complete overthrow. When she came thus far Katherine stopped herself suddenly with a quick flush and sense of guilt. She would not consciously blame her father, but she retained the impression on her mind of his chuckle over her discomfiture.
Thus it will be seen that Katherine’s pain in the strange change was reduced by the fact that there was no injured love to feel the smart. She recognised that it was quite a thing that had been likely, though she had not thought of it before, that it was a thing that other people would recognise as likely when they heard of it. Nobody, she said to herself, would be very much surprised. It was unnatural, now she came to think of it, that she should have had even for a moment the upper hand and the extreme gratification, not to say superiority, of restoring Stella. Perhaps it was rather a mean thing to have desired it—to have wished to lay Stella under such an obligation, and to secure for herself that blessedness of giving which everybody recognised. Her mind turned with a sudden impulse of shame to this wish, that had been so strong in it. Everybody likes to give; it is a selfish sort of pleasure. You feel yourself for the moment a good genius, a sort of providence, uplifted above the person, whoever it may be, upon whom you bestow your bounty. He or she has the inferior position, and probably does not like it at all. Stella was too careless, too ready to grasp whatever she could get, to feel this very strongly; but even Stella, instead of loving her sister the better for hastening to her with her hands full, might have resented the fact that she owed to Katherine’s gift what ought to have been hers by right. It was perhaps a poor thing after all. Katherine began to convince herself that it was a poor thing—to have wished to do that. Far better that Stella should have what she had a right to by her own right and not through any gift.
Then Katherine began to try to take back the thread of the thoughts which had been in her mind before she was called downstairs to speak to those men. Her first trial resulted merely in a strong sensation of dislike to “those men” and resentment, which was absurd, for, after all, it was not they who had done it. She recalled them to her mind, or rather the image of them came into it, with a feeling of angry displeasure. Mr. Sturgeon, the solicitor, had in no way been offensive to Katherine. He had been indignant, he had been sorry, he had been, in fact, on her side; but she gave him no credit for that. And the bald head of the other seemed to her to have a sort of twinkle as of mockery in it, though, to tell the truth, poor Mr. Turny’s face underneath was much troubled and almost ashamed to look at Katherine after being instrumental in doing her so much harm. She wondered with an intuitive perception whether he were not very glad now that she had refused Fred. And then with a leap her mind went back to other things. Would they all be very glad now? Would the Rector piously thank heaven, which for his good had subjected him to so small a pang, by way of saving him later from so great a disappointment? Would the doctor be glad? Even though he had made that very nice speech to her—that generous and faithful profession of attachment still—must not the doctor, too, be a little glad? And then Katherine’s mind for a moment went circling back into space, as it were—into an unknown world to which she had no clue. He who had disappeared there, leaving no sign, would he ever hear, would he ever think, could it touch him one way or another? Probably it would not touch him in any way. He might be married to some woman; he might have a family of children round him. He might say, “Oh, the Tredgolds! I used to see a good deal of them. And so Lady Somers has the money after all? I always thought that was how it would end.” And perhaps he would be glad, too, that Katherine, who was the unlucky one, the one always left in the cold shade, whatever happened, had never been anything more to him than a passing fancy—a figure flitting by as in a dream.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
A whole week had still to pass before the arrival of the Aurungzebe. After such a revolution and catastrophe as had happened, there is always a feeling in the mind that the stupendous change that is about to ensue should come at once. But it is very rare indeed that it does so. There is an inevitable time of waiting, which to some spirits clinging to the old is a reprieve, but to others an intolerable delay. Katherine was one of those to whom the delay was intolerable. She would have liked to get it all over, to deposit the treasure, as it were, at her sister’s feet, and so to get away, she did not know where, and think of it no more.
She was not herself, as she now assured herself, so very badly off. The amount of her mother’s fortune was about five hundred a year—quite a tolerable income for a woman alone, with nobody to think of but herself. And as Katherine had not wanted the money, or at least more than a part of it (for Mr. Tredgold had considered it right at all times that a girl with an income of her own should pay for her own dress), a considerable sum had accumulated as savings which would have been of great use to her now, and built for her that cottage to which her father had doomed her, had it not been that almost all of it had been taken during those five years past for Stella, who was always in need, and had devoured the greater part of Katherine’s income besides. She had thus no nest egg, nothing to build the cottage, unless Stella paid her back, which was a probability upon which Katherine did not much reckon. It was curious, even to herself, to find that she instinctively did not reckon on Stella at all. She was even angry with herself for this, and felt that she did not do Stella justice, yet always recurred unconsciously to the idea that there was nothing to look for, nothing to be reckoned on, but her five hundred a year, which surely, she said to herself, would be quite enough. She and old Hannah, from whom she did not wish to separate herself, could live upon that, even with a residue for poor Robert Tredgold, who had returned to his desk in the dreariest disappointment and whose living was at Mr. Sturgeon’s mercy. Stella would not wish to hear of that disreputable relation, and yet perhaps she might be got to provide for him if only to secure that he should never cross her path.
Katherine’s thoughts were dreary enough as she lived through these days, in the house that was no longer hers; but she had a still harder discipline to go through in the visits of her neighbours, among whom the wonderful story of Mr. Tredgold’s will began to circulate at once. They had been very kind to her, according to the usual fashion of neighbourly kindness. There had been incessant visits and inquiries ever since the interest of the place had been quickened by the change for the worse in the old man’s state, and on his death Katherine had received many offers of help and companionship, even from people she knew slightly. The ladies about were all anxious to be permitted to come and “sit with her,” to take care of her for a day, or more than a day, to ensure her from being alone. Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay, though neither of these ladies liked to disturb themselves for a common occasion, were ready at an hour’s notice to have gone to her, to have been with her during the trying period of the funeral, and they were naturally among the first to enter the house when its doors were open, its shutters unbarred, and the broad light of the common day streamed once more into the rooms. Everything looked so exactly as it used to do, they remarked to each other as they went in, leaving the Midge considerably the worse for wear, and Mr. Perkins, the driver, none the better at the door. Exactly the same! The gilding of the furniture in the gorgeous drawing-room was not tarnished, nor the satin dimmed of its lustre, by Mr. Tredgold’s death. The servants, perhaps, were a little less confident, shades of anxiety were on the countenance of the butler and the footman; they did not know whether they would be servants good enough for Lady Somers. Even Mrs. Simmons—who did not, of course, appear—was doubtful whether Lady Somers would retain her, notwithstanding all the dainties which Simmons had prepared for her youth; and a general sense of uneasiness was in the house. But the great drawing-room, with all its glow and glitter, did not show any sympathetic shadow. The two fireplaces shone with polished brass and steel, and the reflection of the blazing fires, though the windows were open—which was a very extravagant arrangement the ladies thought, though quite in the Tredgold way. And yet the old gentleman was gone! and Katherine, hitherto the dispenser of many good things and accustomed all her life to costly housekeeping, was left like any poor lady with an income of five hundred a year. Both Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay, who put firebricks in their fireplaces and were very frugal in all their ways, and paid their visits in the Midge, had as much as that. No one could be expected to keep up a house of her own and a couple of servants on that. But Stella surely would do something for her sister, Mrs. Shanks said. Miss Mildmay was still shaking her head in reply to this when they entered the drawing-room, where Katherine advanced to meet them in her black dress. She had ceased to sit behind the screens in that part of the room which she had arranged for herself. The screens were folded back, the room was again one large room all shining with its gilded chairs and cabinets, its Florentine tables, its miles of glowing Aubusson carpet. She was the only blot upon its brightness, with her heavy crape and her pale face.
“My dear Katherine, my dearest Katherine,” the old ladies said, enfolding her one after the other in the emphatic silence of a long embrace. This was meant to express something more than words could say—and, indeed, there were few words which could have adequately expressed the feelings of the spectators. “So your old brute of a father has gone at last, and a good riddance, and has cheated you out of every penny he could take away from you, after making a slave of you all these years!” Such words as these would have given but a feeble idea of the feelings of these ladies, but it is needless to say that it would have been impossible to say them except in some as yet undiscovered Palace of Truth. But each old lady held the young one fast, and pressed a long kiss upon her cheek, which answered the same purpose. When she emerged from these embraces Katherine looked a little relieved, but still more pale.
“Katherine, my dear, it is impossible not to speak of it,” said Mrs. Shanks; “you know it must be in our minds all the while. Are you going to do anything, my dear child, to dispute this dreadful will?”
“Jane Shanks and I,” said Miss Mildmay, “have talked of nothing else since we heard of it; not that I believe you will do anything against it, but I wish you had a near friend who would, Katherine. A near friend is the thing. I have never been very much in favour of marrying, but I should like you to marry for that.”
“In order to dispute my father’s will?” said Katherine. “Dear Miss Mildmay, you know I don’t want to be rude, but I will not even hear it discussed.”
“But Katherine, Katherine–”
“Please not a word! I am quite satisfied with papa’s will. I had intended to do—something of the sort myself, if I had ever had the power. You know, which is something pleasanter to talk of, that the Aurungzebe has been signalled, and I am going to meet Stella to-morrow.”
The two old ladies looked at each other. “And I suppose,” said Mrs. Shanks, “you will bring her home here.”
“Stella has seen a great deal since she was here,” said Miss Mildmay, “I should not think she would come, Katherine, if that is what you wish. She will like something more in the fashion—or perhaps more out of the fashion—in the grand style, don’t you know, like her husband’s old house. She will turn up her nose at all this, and at all of us, and perhaps at you too. Stella was never like you, Katherine. If she falls into a great fortune all at once there will be no bounds to her. She’ll probably sell this place, and turn you out.”
“She may not like the place, and neither do I,” said Katherine like a flash; “if she wishes to part with it I shall certainly not oppose her. You must not speak so of my sister.”
“And what shall you do, Katherine, my dear?”
“I am going away,” cried Katherine; “I have always intended to go away. I have a piece of land to build a cottage on.” She made a pause, for she had never in words stated her intentions before. “Papa knew what I should like,” she said, with the rising of a sob in her throat. The sense of injury now and then overcame even her self-control. “In the meantime perhaps we may go abroad, Hannah and I; isn’t it always the right thing when you are in mourning and trouble to go abroad?”
“My dear girl,” said Miss Mildmay solemnly, “how far do you think you can go abroad you and your maid—upon five hundred a year?”
“Can’t we?” said Katherine, confused; “oh, yes, we have very quiet ways. I am not extravagant, I shall want no carriage or anything.”
“Do you know how much a hotel costs, Katherine? You and your maid couldn’t possibly live for less than a pound a day—a pound a day means three hundred and sixty-five pounds a year—and that without a pin, without a shoe, without a bit of ribbon or a button for your clothes, still less with anything new to put on. How could you go abroad on that? It is impossible—and with the ideas you have been brought up on, everything so extravagant and ample—I can’t imagine what you can be thinking of, a practical girl like you.”
“She might go to a pension, Ruth Mildmay. Pensions are much cheaper than hotels.”
“I think I see Katherine in a pension! With a napkin done up in a ring to last a week, and tablecloths to match!”
“Well then,” said Katherine, with a feeble laugh, “if that is so I must stay at home. Hannah and I will find a little house somewhere while my cottage is building.”
“Hannah can never do all the work of a house,” said Miss Mildmay, “Hannah has been accustomed to her ease as well as you. You would need at least a good maid of all work who could cook, besides Hannah; and then there are rent and taxes, and hundreds of things that you never calculate upon. You could not live, my dear, even in a cottage with two maids, on five hundred a year.”
“I think I had better not live at all!” cried Katherine, “if that is how it is; and yet there must be a great many people who manage very well on less than I have. Why, there are families who live on a pound a week!”
“But not, my dear, with a lady’s maid and another,” Miss Mildmay said.
Katherine was very glad when her friends went away. They would either of them have received her into their own little houses with delight, for a long visit—even with her maid, who, as everybody knows, upsets a little house much more than the mistress. She might have sat for a month at a time in either of the drawing-rooms under the green verandah, and looked out upon the terrace gardens with the sea beyond, and thus have been spared so much expense, a consideration which would have been fully in the minds of her entertainers; but their conversation gave her an entirely new view of the subject. Her little income had seemed to her to mean plenty, even luxury. She had thought of travelling. She had thought (with a little bitterness, yet amusement) of the cottage she would build, a dainty little nest full of pretty things. It had never occurred to her that she would not have money enough for all that, or that poor old Hannah if she accompanied her mistress would have to descend from the pleasant leisure to which she was accustomed. This new idea was not a pleasant one. She tried to cast it away and to think that she would not care, but the suggestion that even such a thing as the little drawing-room, shadowed by the verandah, was above her reach gave her undeniably a shock. It was not a pretty room; in the winter it was dark and damp, the shabby carpet on a level with the leaf-strewn flags of the verandah and the flower borders beyond. She had thought with compassion of the inhabitants trying to be cheerful on a dull wintry day in the corner between the window and the fire. And yet that was too fine—too expensive for her now. Mrs. Shanks had two maids and a boy! and could have the Midge when she liked in partnership with her friend. These glories could not be for Katherine. Then she burst into a laugh of ridicule at herself. Other women of her years in all the villages about were working cheerfully for their husbands and babies, washing the clothes and cooking the meals, busy and happy all day long. Katherine could have done that she felt—but she did not know how she was to vegetate cheerfully upon her five hundred a year. To be sure, as the reader will perceive, who may here be indignant with Katherine, she knew nothing about it, and was not so grateful as she ought to be for what she had in comparison with what she had not.
