“WHAT does the doctor say?”
“Oh, Mr. Fairfax! worse, far worse than nothing! He looks at us as if his heart would break. He has known us all our lives. He steals out through the garden not to see me. But I know what he means, I know very well what he means,” Alice said with irrestrainable tears.
“But the other one from London—Sir Thomas: he is coming?”
“This afternoon: but it will not do any good. Mr. Fairfax, will you telegraph once more to Paul? I don’t think he believes us. Tell him that papa——”
“Don’t say any more, Miss Markham; I understand. But one moment,” said Fairfax; “Paul will not like to find me here. No, there is no reason why—we have never quarrelled. But he will not like to find me here.”
“You have been very kind, very good to us, Mr. Fairfax; you have stayed and helped us when there was no one else; you have always been a—comfort. But then it must have been very, very dismal and gloomy for you to be in a house where there was nothing but trouble,” Alice said.
Her pretty eyes were swimming in tears. It gave her a little pang to think that perhaps this visitor, though he had been so kind, had been staying out of mere civility, and thinking it hard. It was not out of any other feeling in her mind that she was aware of; but to think that Fairfax had been longing to get away perhaps, feeling the tedium of his stay, gave her a sharp little shock of pain.
“Do not speak so—pray do not speak so,” said Fairfax, distressed. “That is not the reason. But I think I will go to the village. There I can be at hand whatever is wanted. You will know that I am ready by night or day—but I have no right to be here.”
Alice looked at him, scarcely seeing him through the great tears with which her eyes were brimming over. She put out her hand with a tremulous gesture of appeal.
“Then you think,” she said, in a voice which was scarcely louder than a whisper, “you think—it is very near?”
Fairfax felt that he could not explain himself. In the very presence of death could any one pause to think that Paul might find a visitor intrusive, or that the visitor himself might be conscious of a false position?
“No,” he said, “no: how can I tell? I have not seen him. I could not be a judge. It is on Paul’s account; but I shall be at the village—always at hand whatever you may want.”
This reassured her a little, and the glimmer of a feeble smile came on her face. She gave him her trembling hand for a moment. He had been very “kind.” It was not a word that expressed his devotion, but Alice did not know what other to use: very—very kind.
“The house will seem more empty still if you go. It looks so lonely,” said Alice; “like what it used to be when they were away in town and we left behind. Oh, if that were all! Paul ought to have been here all the time, and you have taken his place. It is unjust that you should go when he comes.”
“I shall not go,” said Fairfax softly. He had held her hand in his for a moment—only for a moment. Alice, in her grief, was soothed by his sympathy; but Fairfax, on the other hand, was very well aware that he must take no advantage of that sympathy. He would have liked to kiss the trembling hand in an effusion of tender pity, and if it had been Lady Markham he might have done so; but it was Alice, and he dared not. He held himself aloof by main strength, keeping himself from even a word more. There was almost a little chill in it to the girl, whose heart was full of trouble and pain, and whose tearful eyes appealed unconsciously to that “kindness” in which she had such confidence. To be deserted by any one at such a moment would have seemed hard to her. The house was oppressed by the slow rolling-up of this cloud, which was about to overcloud all their life.
Lady Markham now scarcely left the sick-room at all. When they warned her that she would exhaust herself, that she would not be able to bear the strain, she would shake her head with a woeful sort of smile. She was not of the kind that breaks down. She was sure of herself so long as she should be wanted, and afterwards, what did it matter? Now and then she would come out and take a turn or two along the corridor, rather because of the restlessness of anguish that would take possession of her than from any desire to “change the air,” as the nurse said. And when she was out of the room Sir William’s worn eyes would watch the door. “Don’t leave me alone,” he said to her in his feeble voice. He had grown very feeble now. For by far the greater part of the time he was occupied entirely with his bodily sufferings; but now and then it would occur to him that there was something in his pocket-book, something that would give a great deal of trouble—and that there was somebody who wanted to see him and to force an explanation. How was he able in his weak state, to give any explanation? He had entreated his wife at first not to allow him to be disturbed, and now as everything grew dimmer, he could not bear that she should leave him. There was protection in her presence. At times it occurred to him that his enemy was lurking outside, and that all his attendants could do was to keep the intruder at bay. Now and then he would hear a step in the corridor, which no doubt was his; but the nurses were all faithful, and the dangerous visitor was never let in. At these moments Sir William turned his feeble head to look for his wife. She would protect him. As he went further and further, deeper and deeper, into the valley of the shadow, he forgot even what the danger was; but the idea haunted him still. All this time he had never asked for Paul. He had not wished to see any one, only to have his room well watched and guarded, and nobody allowed to disturb him. When the doctors came there was always a thrill of alarm in his mind—not for his own condition, as might have been supposed, but lest in their train or under some disguise the man who was his enemy might get admission. And thus, without any alarm in respect to himself, without any personal uneasiness about what was coming, he descended gradually the fatal slope. The thought of death never occurred to him at all. No solemn alarm was his, not even any consciousness of what might be coming. He never breathed a word as to what he wished to be done, or gave any directions. In short, he did not apparently think much of his illness. The idea of a dangerous and disagreeable visitor who would go away again if no notice was taken of him, and of whom it was expedient to take no notice, was the master idea in his mind, and with all the strength he had he kept this danger secret—it was all the exertion of which he was now capable.
And to be a visitor in the house at such a melancholy moment was most embarrassing. There are some people who have a special knack of mixing themselves up in the affairs of others, and Fairfax was one of these. He was himself strangely isolated and alone in the world, and it seemed to him that he had never found so much interest in anything as in this family story into the midst of which he had been so suddenly thrown. Almost before he had become acquainted with them, circumstances had made him useful, and for the moment necessary, to them. He was an intruder, yet he was doing the work of a son. And then in those long summer evenings which Lady Markham spent in her husband’s sick-room, what a strange charmed life the young man had drifted into! When the children went to bed, Alice would leave the great drawing-room blazing with lights, for that smaller room at the end which was Lady Markham’s sanctuary, and which was scarcely lighted at all, and there the two young people would sit alone, waiting for Lady Markham’s appearance or for news from the sick-room, with only one dim lamp burning, and the summer moonlight coming in through the little golden-tinted panes of the great Elizabethan window. Sometimes they scarcely said anything to each other, the anxiety which was the very atmosphere of the house hushing them into watchfulness and listening which forbade speech; but sometimes, on the other hand, they would talk in half-whispers, making to each other without knowing it, many disclosures both of their young lives and characters, which advanced them altogether beyond that knowledge of each other which ordinary acquaintances possess.
Nothing like love, it need not be said, was in those bits of intercourse, broken sometimes by a hasty summons from the sick-room to Alice, or a hurried commission to Fairfax—a telegram that had to be answered, or something that it was necessary to explain to the doctor. In the intervals of these duties, which seemed as natural to the one as to the other, the girl and the young man would talk or would be silent, somehow pleased and soothed mutually by each other’s presence, though neither was conscious of thinking of the other. Alice at least was not conscious. She felt that it was “a comfort” that he should be there, so sympathetic, so kind, ready to go anywhere at a moment’s notice; and she had come to be able to say to him “Go” or “Come” without hesitation, and to take for granted his willing service. But it was scarcely to be expected that Fairfax should be unconscious of the strangeness of the union which was invisibly forming itself between them. At first a certain amusement had mixed with the natural surprise of suddenly finding himself in circumstances so strange; but it must be allowed that by degrees Fairfax came to think Sir William’s illness a fortunate chance, and so long as imminent danger was not thought of, had no objection to its continuance.
But things had become more grave from day to day. Sir William, without doubt, seemed going to die, and Paul did not come, and the stranger’s services became more and more necessary, yet more and more incongruous with the circumstances of the house. The whole came to a climax when Gus whispered that revelation across the table in the inn parlour. The excitement and distress with which Fairfax received it is not to be described. Could it be true? Certainly Gus was absolutely convinced of its truth, and unaware of any possibility of denial. Fairfax asked himself, with a perplexity more serious than he had ever known in his life before, what he ought to do. Was it his duty to say something or to say nothing? to warn them of the extraordinary blow that was coming, or to hold his peace and merely look on? When he went back up the peaceful avenue into the house which he was beginning to call home—the house over which one dread cloud was hanging, but which had no prevision of the other calamity—he felt as if he himself were a traitor conniving at its destruction. But to whom could he speak? Not to Lady Markham who had so much to bear—and Alice—to tell such a tale to Alice was impossible. It was then that he determined at any cost that Paul must come, and he himself go away. That Paul would not tolerate his presence in the house he was aware, instinctively feeling that neither could he, in Paul’s place, have borne it. And to go away was not so easy as it once might have been; but there seemed no longer any question what his duty was. He put up some of his things in a bag, and himself carried them with him down the avenue, not able to feel otherwise than sadly heavy and sore about the heart. He could not abandon the ladies; but he could not stay there any longer with that secret in his possession. His telegram to Paul was in a different tone from those which the ladies sent.
“The doctors give scarcely any hope,” he said. “Come instantly. I cannot but feel myself an intruder at such a moment; but I will not leave till you come.”
Then he went sadly with his bag to the Markham Arms. Was it right? Was it wrong? It even glanced across his mind that to establish himself there by the side of Gus might seem to the Markhams like taking their enemy’s side against them. But what else could he do? He would neither intrude upon them nor abandon them.
Fairfax calculated justly. Paul, who had resisted his mother’s appeals and his sister’s entreaties, obeyed at once the imperative message of the man who threw the light of outside opinion and common necessity upon the situation. He arrived that night, just after the great London physician, who had come down to pronounce upon Sir William’s condition, had been driven to the railway. Paul had no carriage sent for him, and had said to himself that it was all an exaggeration and piece of folly, since some one from Markham was evidently dining out. There were, however, all the signs of melancholy excitement which usually follow such a visit visible in the hall and about the house when he reached it. Brown and one of his subordinates were standing talking in low tones on the great steps, shaking their heads as they conversed. Mr. Brown himself had managed to change his usually cheerful countenance into the semblance of that which is characteristic of an undertaker’s mute.
“I knew how it would be the moment I set eyes upon him,” Mr. Brown was saying. “Death was in his face, if it ever was in a man’s.”
Paul sprang from the lumbering old fly which he had found at the station with a mixture of eagerness and incredulity.
“How is my father?” he said.
“Oh, sir, you’re come none too soon,” said Brown, “Sir William is as bad as bad can be.” And then Alice, hearing something, she did not know what, rushed out. Every sound was full of terror in the oppressed house. She flung herself upon her brother and wept. There was no need to say anything; and Paul who had been lingering, thinking they did not mean what they said, believing it to be a device to get him seduced into that dangerous stronghold of his enemy’s house, was overcome too.
“Why did not I hear before?” he said. But nobody bid him remember that he had been told a dozen times before.
Sir William was very ill that night. He began to wander, and said things in his confused and broken utterance which were very mysterious to the listeners. But as none of them had any clue to what these wanderings meant, they did not add, as they might have done, to the misery of the night. There was no rest for any one during those tedious hours. The children and the inferior servants went to bed as usual, but the elder ones, and those domestics who had been long in the family, could not rest any more than could those individually concerned; the excitement of that gloomy expectation got into their veins. Mrs. Fry was up and down all night, and Brown lay on a sofa in the housekeeper’s room, from which he appeared at intervals looking very wretched and troubled, with that air of half-fearing half hoping the worst, which gets into the faces of those who stand about the outer chamber where death has shown his face. Nothing however “happened” that night. The day began again, and life, galvanised into a haggard copy of itself, with all the meals put upon the table as usual. The chief figure in this new day, in this renewed vigil, was Paul, who, always important in the house, was now doubly important as so soon to be master of all. The servants were all very careful of him that he should not be troubled; messages and commissions which the day before would have been handed unceremoniously to Fairfax, were now managed by Brown himself as best he could rather than trouble Mr. Paul; and even Mrs. Fry was more anxious that he should lie down and rest, than even that Alice, her favourite, should be spared.
“It will all come upon him after,” the housekeeper said.
As for Paul himself, the effect upon him was very great. Perhaps it was because of the profound dissatisfaction in his mind with all his own plans, that he had so long resisted the call to come home. Since his father had left Oxford, Paul had gone through many chapters of experience. Every day had made him more discontented with his future associates, more secretly appalled by the idea that the rest of his life was to be spent entirely among them. He had left his rooms in college, and gone into some very homely ones not far from Spears’s, by way of accustoming himself to his new life. This was a thing he had long intended to do, and he had been angry with himself for his weak-minded regard for personal comfort, but unfortunately his enthusiasm had begun to sink into disgust before he took this step, and his loathing for the little mean rooms, the narrow street full of crowding children and evil odours was intense. That he had forced himself to remain, notwithstanding this loathing, was perhaps all the worse for his plans. He would not yield to his own disgust, but it inspired him with a secret horror and opposition far more important than this mere dislike of his surroundings. He saw that none of the others minded those things, which made his existence miserable. Even Spears, whose perceptions in some respects were delicate, did not smell the smell, nor perceive the squalor. He thought Paul’s new lodgings very handsome; he called him Paul, without any longer even the apologetic smile which at first accompanied that familiarity, as a matter of course. And Janet gave him no peace. She called him out with little beckonings and signs. She was always in the way when he came or went. She took the charge of him, telling him what he ought to do and what not to do, with an attempt at that petty tyranny which a woman who is loved may exercise with impunity, but which becomes intolerable in any other.
It was thus with a kind of fierce determination to remain faithful to his convictions that Paul had set himself like a rock against all the appeals from home. His convictions! These convictions gradually resolved themselves into a conviction of the utter unendurableness of life, under the conditions which he had chosen, as day by day went on. Nothing, he had resolved, should make him yield, or own himself mistaken—nothing would induce him to give up the cause to which he had pledged himself. But now that at last he had been driven out of that stronghold, and forced to leave the surroundings he hated, and come back to those that were natural to him, Paul’s mind was in a chaos indescribable. After the first burst of penitence and remorse, there had stolen on him a sense of well-being, a charm of association which he strove to struggle against, but in vain. He was grieved, deeply grieved for his father; but is it possible that in the mind of a young heir, aware of all the incalculable differences in his own life which the end of his father’s must make, there should not be a quivering excitement of the future mingling with the sorrow of the present, however sincere? When he went out in the morning, after the feverishness of that agitated night, to feel the fresh air in his face, and saw around him all the spreading woods, all the wealthy and noble grace of the old house which an hour or moment, might make his own, a strange convulsion shook his being. Was not he pledged to give all up, to relinquish everything—to share whatever he had with his brother, and, leave all belonging to him? The question brought a deadly faintness over him. While he stood under the trees looking at his home, he seemed to see the keen eyes of the Scotsman, Fraser, inspecting the place, and Short jotting down calculations on a bit of paper as to what would be the value of the materials, and how many villas semi-detached might be built on the site—while Spears, perhaps, patted him on the shoulder, and bid him remember that even if he had not given it up, this could not have lasted,—“the country would not stand it long.” He seemed to see and hear them discussing his fate; and Janet, standing at the door, making signs to him with her hand. What had he to do here? It was to that society he belonged. Nevertheless, Paul’s heart quivered with a strange excitement when he thought that to-morrow—perhaps this very night!—And then he bethought himself of the darkened room upstairs, and his mother’s lingering watch; and his heart contracted with a sudden pang.
Next evening it was apparent that the end was at hand. Just as the sun went down, when the soft greyness of the summer twilight began to steal into the air, the children were sent for into Sir William’s room. They thronged in with pale faces and wide open eyes, having been bidden not to cry—not to disturb the quiet of the death chamber. The windows were all open, the sky appearing in wistful stretches of clearness; but near the bed, in the shadow, a shaded lamp burned solemnly, and the window beyond showed gleams of lurid colour in the western sky, barred by strong black lines of cloud. These black lines of cloud, and the mysterious shining of the lamp, gave a strange air of solemnity to the room, all filled already by the awe and wonder of death. A sob of mingled grief and terror burst from little Marie, as grasping her sister’s hand convulsively, she followed Alice to her father’s bedside. Was it he that lay there, propped up with cushions, breathing so hard and painfully? The boys stood at the foot of the bed. Their hearts were full of that dreary anguish of the unaccustomed and unknown, which gives additional depth to every sorrow of early youth. Alice, who had taken her place close to the head of the bed had lost this. She knew all about it, poor child—what to do for him; what was coming; all that should be administered to him. She was as pale as those pale stretches of sky, and like them in the clear pathetic wistfulness of her face; but she had something to do, and she was not afraid.
“William—are you able to say anything to the children?” said Lady Markham. “They have all come—to see you—to ask how you are——” She could not say, “to bid you farewell;” that was not possible. Her voice was quite steady and calm. The time was coming when she would be able to weep, but not now.
He opened his eyes and looked at them with a faint smile. He had always been good to the children. At his most busy moment they had never been afraid of him. Little Bell held her breath, opening her eyes wider and wider to keep down that passion of tears which was coming, while Marie clung to her, trying to imitate her, but with the tears already come, and making blinding reflections of the solemn lamp and the evening light.
“Ah, yes, the children,” Sir William said. “I have not seen them since Sunday. They have been very good—and kind; they have not—made any noise. Who is that? I thought—I heard—some one—”
“Nobody, papa,” said Alice—“nobody—except all of us.”
“Ah! all of you,” he said, and gave one of those panting, hard-drawn breaths which were so terrible to hear.
The door was open, like the windows, to give all the air possible. The servants were standing about the stairs and in the passages. Everybody knew that the last act was about to be performed solemnly, and the master of the house on the eve of his going away. Most of the women were crying. Even when it is nothing to you, what event is there that can be so much as this final going—this departure into the unseen? There was a general hush of awe and excitement. And how it was that amidst them all that stranger managed to get entrance, to walk up stairs, to thread through the mournful group, no one ever knew. His step was audible, even among that agitated company, as he came along the corridor. They all heard it, with a certain sense of alarm. Was it the doctor coming back again with something new he had thought of, or was it——
“Ah, all of you,” Sir William said; and as he spoke the words the new-comer came in at the door. He walked up to the foot of the bed, no one molesting him. They were all struck dumb with surprise; and what could they have done, when a momentary tumult or scuffle would have killed the sufferer at once? For the moment every eye was turned from Sir William, and directed to Mr. Gus in his light clothes, with his little brown face, so distinct from all the others. He came up close to the foot of the bed.
“Yes, all of us, now I am here,” he said. “I am sorry to disturb you at such a time; but, Sir William Markham, you’ll have to own me before you die.”
Paul made a hasty step towards him, and put a hand upon his shoulder.
“Don’t you see,” he said. “Go away, for God’s sake. Whatever you want I’ll attend to you after.”
“I’ll not go away,” said Gus. “I must stand for my rights, even if he is dying. Sir William Markham, it’s your own doing. I have given you warning. You’ll have to own me before you die.”
Paul, beside himself, seized the stranger by the shoulders; but Gus, though he was small, was strong.
“Don’t make a scuffle,” he said in a low tone; “I won’t go, but I’ll make no disturbance. He’s going to speak. Be still, you, and listen to what he says.”
Sir William signed impatiently to his attendants on each side—Alice and her mother—to raise him. He looked round him, feebly peering into the waning light.
“They are beginning to fight—over my bed,” he said, with a quiver in his voice.
“No,” said Gus, getting free from Paul’s restraining grasp. He made no noise, but he was supple and strong, and slid out of the other’s hands. “No, there shall be no fighting; I have more respect—but own me, father, before you die. I’ll take care of them. I’ll do no one any harm, I swear before God; but own me before you die.”
They all stood and listened, gazing, forgetting even the man who was dying. The very children forgot him, and turned to the well-known countenance of the little gentleman. Then there came a gasp, a sob, a great quiver in the bed. Sir William flung out his emaciated arms with a gesture of despair.
“I said I was not to be disturbed,” he said, and fell back, never to be disturbed any more.