EDWARD came out to meet her, and took her hand and drew it through his arm. He led her in tenderly, holding that hand in his, without a vestige of the reserve and restraint in which they had been living of late. Winifred was greatly surprised. She drew away her hand, half-angry, half-astonished. “Why is this?” she said. “Is it because it is so early that you forget”—
“It is because there is no longer any need of precaution,” he said very gravely, pressing her arm close to his side.
She gazed at him with an incapacity to understand, which would have been incredible did it not happen so often at the great crises of life. “I don’t know what you mean; nothing is changed,” she said. “But you have not come to talk of you and me. Edward, how is my father?” She asked the question with scarcely a fear. Then suddenly looked in his face, flung his support from her, and flew upstairs without a word.
The door of her father’s room was closed; she rushed at it breathless. It was half-opened after a little interval by old Hopkins, who barred the entrance.
“You can’t come in yet, Miss Winifred, not yet,” he said, shaking his head. Hopkins was full of the solemn importance and excitement of one who has suddenly become an actor in a great event. He closed the door upon her as he spoke, and there she stood, gazing at it blankly, her brain swimming, her heart beating. That door had closed not only upon her father dead, but upon a completed chapter of her own life.
Edward had hurried upstairs after her, and was now close by to console her. But she would not give him her hand, which he sought. She walked before him to the door of her own sitting-room, which stood wide open, with an early glow of the newly-risen sun showing from the open windows. Then she sat down and motioned him to a chair, but not beside her. A more woeful countenance never lamented the most beloved of fathers. Her dark outer garment was wet with dew, and clung closely about her; her hair had a few drops of the same dew glimmering upon it; her face was entirely destitute of colour.
“Tell me how it was,” she said.
“It was as I told you it would be. We must be thankful that no act of ours, no contention of ours, quickened the catastrophe. He was in perfectly good spirits last night, I hear. By the time I arrived, all was over. Winifred”—
“Oh, do not touch me!” she said. “We deceived him, we lied to him! if not in words, yet in deeds. And now you are glad that he is dead.”
“Not glad,” said the young man.
“Not glad! and I?” she cried, with an exclamation of despair.
“Winnie, do not make yourself more miserable than you need be; you are not glad. And you will reproach yourself and be wretched for many a day, without reason. I declare before Heaven without reason, Winnie! All that you have done has been for his sake. And there is nothing for which you can justly blame yourself. All that has been done has been sacrifice on your part.” He came to her side and put his arm round her to console her. But his touch was more than she could bear. She put out her hand and put his away. He looked at her for a moment without saying anything, and then asked, with a little bitterness, “Do you mean to cast me off then, Winnie, because I denied myself for his sake?”
“Oh, Edward!” she said, giving him her hand; “don’t say a word of you and me. I cannot tell you what I mean, or what I feel, not now. To be as strangers while he lived, and the moment—the very moment he is gone”—
She rose up and began to walk about the room in a feverish misery which was more like personal despair than the grief of a child for a father; angry, miserable even because of the very sense of deliverance which mingled with the anguish. The painful interview was broken by the rush into the room of Miss Farrell, her white locks all disordered about her pretty old head, stumbling over her long dressing-gown, and throwing herself with tears and caresses upon Winifred’s shoulder.
“Oh, my darling, your dear father! Oh, my child, come to me and let me comfort you!” she said.
Edward Langton withdrew without a word. There were a thousand ways in which he could serve Winifred without insisting upon the office of consoler, which indeed he gave up with a pang, yet heroically. A man, when he makes a sacrifice, perhaps does it more entirely, more silently than a woman. He made no stand for his rights, but gave up without a word, and went forth to the external matters which there was no one but he to manage. Mr. Chester had died as his young physician had known he would do. He had forgotten the rules of life which had been prescribed to him in his triumph and satisfaction on the previous night. He had said to himself, “Soul, take thine ease,” and the catastrophe had been as prompt as that of the parable. The alarmed and startled household was all up and about by this time, the maids huddled in a corner discussing the dreadful event, and comparing notes, now all was over, as to their respective apprehensions and judgment of master’s looks. The men wandered about, sometimes paying a fitful attention to their ordinary work, but most frequently going up and downstairs to see if Mr. Hopkins wanted anything, or if something new to report could be gleaned anywhere. Dr. Langton took command of the household with instant authority, awakening at once a new interest in the bosoms of the little eager crowd. He was the new master, they all felt, some with a desire to oppose, and some to conciliate. He sent off telegrams with a sort of savage pleasure to the Dowager Countess and the other expected guests, and he summoned Mr. Babington, who was the official authority, under whose directions all immediate steps had to be taken. But Langton had no idea of abnegation in respect to his own rights, any more than he had any sense of guilt in respect to the dead man, out of consideration for whom he had temporarily ignored them. He had made a great sacrifice to preserve Mr. Chester’s health and life, but now that this life was over, without any blame to any one, he did not deny that the relief was great. Alas! even to Winifred, whose sensations of self-reproach were so poignant, the smart was intensified while it was relieved, by a sense of deliverance too.
When she came a little to herself, she insisted that her brothers should be telegraphed for instantly. This was before Mr. Babington’s arrival, and it is possible that Edward would have objected had he been able to do so. He was not entirely above consideration of his own interests, and he had believed that Mr. Chester from his point of view had not behaved unwisely, nor even perhaps unkindly, in sending his sons away. That Winifred should relinquish all the advantages which her father’s will had secured cost him perhaps a pang. It would not have been unpleasant to Edward Langton to find himself master of Bedloe. He knew he would have filled the post better than either of the two thoughtless and unintelligent young men whom their father himself had sent off, and who probably would have sold it before the year was out. For his own part, he should have liked to compromise, to give to each of them a sufficient compensation and keep the estate, and replace in Bedloe the old name that had been associated with it so long. That he should have had this dazzling possibility before him, and yet have obeyed her wishes and sent off these telegrams, said much for Edward’s self-denial. He knew that Mr. Babington when he came would probably have objected strongly to such a proceeding, and with reason. The doctor saw all the danger of it as he rode into the little town to carry out Winifred’s instructions. The two brothers would hurry home, each with the conviction that he was the heir, and rage and disappointment would follow. Nevertheless, it seemed to him that the very objections that rose in his own mind pledged him all the more to carry out Winifred’s wishes. He was not disinterested as she was. He did not feel any tie of affection to her brothers. He thought them much more supportable at the other side of the world than he had ever found them near. And there were few things he would not have done, in honour, to secure Bedloe. All these arguments, however, made it more necessary that he should do without hesitation or delay what she wished. This was his part in the meantime, whether he entirely approved or not. Afterwards, when they were man and wife, he might have a more authoritative word to say. He telegraphed not only to George and Tom, but through the banker, that money should be provided for their return; and having done so, went back again with a mind full of anxiety, the sense of deliverance of which his heart had been full clouding over with this sudden return of the complications and embarrassments of life.
Mr. Babington did not arrive till next day. And he looked very grave when he heard what had been done.
“Of what use is it?” he said; “the poor young fellows will find themselves out of it altogether. They will come thinking that the inheritance is theirs, and there is not a penny for them. Why did not you wait till I came?”
“I should have preferred to do so,” said Langton; “but at such a moment Miss Chester’s wish was above all.”
“Miss Chester’s wish?” said the lawyer, with a doubtful glance. “Perhaps you think Miss Chester can do what she pleases? Poor thing, it is very natural she should wish to do something for her brothers. But what if she were making a mistake?”
“If you mean that after all the money is not to be hers”—said Langton, with a slight change of colour.
“Before we go farther I ought to know—perhaps her father’s death has brought about some change—between her and you?”
“No change at all. We were pledged to each other two years ago without any opposition from him. I cannot say that he ever gave his formal consent.”
“But it was all broken off—I heard as much from him—by mutual consent.”
“It was never broken off. I saw what was coming, and I remained perfectly quiet on the subject, and advised Miss Chester to do the same.”
“Ah! and he was taken in!” the lawyer said.
This brought the colour to Langton’s face.
“I am not aware that there was any taking in in the case. I knew that agitation was dangerous for him. It was better for us to wait, at our age, than to have the self-reproach afterwards.” This was all true, yet it was embarrassing to say.
“I see,” said Mr. Babington; “a waiting game doesn’t always recommend itself to the lookers-on, Dr. Langton. It might have lasted for years.”
“I did not think,” said Langton hastily, “that it could have lasted for weeks. He has lived longer than I expected.”
“And you were there at one side of him, and his daughter at the other, waiting. I think I’d rather not have my daughter engaged to a doctor, meaning no disrespect to you.”
“It sounds like something more than disrespect,” said Langton, with offence. “If you think I did not do my duty by my patient”—
“Oh no, I don’t think that; but I think you will be disappointed, Dr. Langton. I don’t quite see why you have sent for the boys. If the one was for your interest, the other was dead against it. It is a disagreeable business altogether. If they were to set up a plea against you of undue influence”—
“I think,” said Langton, “that this is not a subject to be discussed between us. You know very well that my influence with Mr. Chester was”—
“About the same as every other man’s, and that was nothing at all,” said the lawyer, with a laugh. It is unseemly to laugh in a house all draped and shrouded in mourning, and the sound seemed to produce a little stir of horror in the silent place, all the more that Winifred came in at the moment, as white as a spectre, in her black dress. Her look of astonished reproach made the lawyer in his turn change countenance.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Winifred, I beg you a thousand pardons. It was not any jest, I assure you, it was in very sober earnest. My dear young lady, I need not say how shocked I was and distressed”—
The sudden change of aspect, the gloom which came over Mr. Babington’s cheerful countenance, would have been more comical than melancholy to an unconcerned spectator; but Winifred accepted it without criticism. She said, “Did you know how ill he was?” with tears in her eyes.
“I—well, I cannot say that I thought he was strong; but a stroke like this is always unexpected. In the midst of life”—said Mr. Babington solemnly. But here he caught Langton’s eye and was silenced. “I hear you have sent for your brothers.”
“Oh, at once! What could I do else? I am sure now that he would have wished me to do it.”
Mr. Babington shook his head. “I don’t think he would have wished it, Miss Winifred. I don’t think they would care to come if they knew the property is all left away from them.”
“He said it was left to me. But what could that be for? only to be given back to them,” said Winifred, with a faint smile. “My father knew very well what I should do. He will know now, and I know that he will approve,” she said, with that exaltation which the wearied body and excited soul attain to by times, a kind of ecstasy. “Even,” she cried, “if he did not see what was best in this life, he will see it now.”
Mr. Babington looked on with a blank countenance. He did not realise easily this instant conversion of the man he knew so well to higher views. He could not indeed conceive of Mr. Chester at all except in the most ordinary human conditions; but he knew that it was right to speak and think in an exalted manner of those whom death had removed.
“We will hope so,” he said; “but in the meantime, my dear young lady, you will find he has made it very difficult for you, as he had not then attained to these enlightened views. Couldn’t you send another telegram? They’re expensive, but in the circumstances”—
“We have made up our minds,” said Winifred, with a certain solemnity; “do you know what we had to do, Mr. Babington? We had to deceive him, to pretend that I would do as he wished. Oh, Edward, I cannot bear to think of it. I never said it in so many words. I did not exactly tell a lie, but I let him suppose—I wonder—do you think he hears what I say? surely he knows;” and here, worn out as she was, the tears which had been so near her eyes burst forth.
Langton brought her a chair, and made her sit down and soothed her; but his face was blank like that of the lawyer, who was altogether taken aback by this sudden spiritualising of his old friend.