THE WILL.
There was great consternation in the family when this sudden misfortune
came upon it. All the bustling household from the Cottage overflowed
into the Manor in the excitement of the unlooked-for event; and the
eldest and the youngest son came as fast as the telegraph could summon
them to their father’s bedside. During the two or three days of his
illness the three young men wandered about the place, as young men do
when there is fatal illness in a house--useless,--not liking to go about
their usual employments, and not knowing what else to do. They took
silent walks up and down to the river, and cast wistful looks at the
boats, and dropped now and then into ordinary conversation, only to
break off and pull themselves up with contrition when they remembered.
They were very good sons, and felt their father’s danger, and would have
done anything for him; but there are no special arts or occupations made
for men in such circumstances. The only alternative the poor boys had
was to resort to their ordinary pleasures, or to do nothing; and they
did nothing, as that was the most respectful thing to do,--and were as
dispirited and miserable as heart could desire.
On the last day of all they were called up together to their father’s
death-bed. He had known from the first that he was going to die; and
Mrs. Westbury, who was his principal nurse, and a very kind and patient
one, had felt that her brother had something on his mind. More than once
she had exhorted him to speak out and relieve himself; but he had always
turned his face to the wall when she made this proposition. It was a
close, warm, silent afternoon when the boys were called up-stairs; a
brooding calm, like that which comes before a thunder-storm; a yellow
light was all over the sky, and the birds were fluttering about with a
frightened, stealthy look. Even the leaves about the open windows shook
with a terrified rustling,--clinging, as it were, to the human walls to
give them support in this crisis of nature. The light was yellow in the
sick-room, for the patient would not have the day excluded, as it is
proper to do. He looked like an old man on his bed, though he was not
old. The reflection of lurid colour tinged the ashen face with yellow.
He called them to him, and looked at them all with keen anxiety in his
eyes.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m going, boys;--it’s unexpected, but one has to give
in. I hope you’ll all do well. If you don’t do well, I’ll get no rest in
my grave.’
‘Don’t you trust us, father?’ cried Ben, who was the eldest, with a
thickness in his voice. ‘We’ll do as you have done. That will be our
guide. But don’t think of us,--think of yourself now.’
‘You can’t do as I have done,’ said the father; ‘I started different.
Perhaps it is too late now. Laurie, you will not blame me? And, Frank,
my boy, it won’t make so much difference to you. Frank’s but a boy, and
Laurie’s very soft-hearted--’ he said, as if to himself.
‘Then it is me you are afraid of, father?’ said Ben, whose face darkened
in spite of himself. ‘If I have done anything to make you distrust me,
God knows I did not mean it. Believe me now.’
‘The boy does not know,’ said Mr. Renton to himself, in a confused way;
and then he added more loudly, ‘I don’t distrust you. You’ve always been
a good lad; but it’s hard on you,--ay, it’s hard on Ben,--very hard;--I
wonder if I should have done it!’ said the dying man. They could get
very little more out of him as they stood round his bed, grave,
sorrowful, and bewildered, looking for other words, for another kind of
leave-taking. He bade them no farewell, but mused and murmured on about
something he had done; and that it would be hard on Ben. It was not the
kind of scene,--of conscious farewell and tender adieu,--the last words
of the dying father, which we are so often told of; but perhaps it was a
more usual state of mind at such a moment. His intelligence was lost in
mists, from the coming end. Energy enough to be coherent had forsaken
him. He could do nothing but go over in his enfeebled mind the last
great idea that had taken possession of him. ‘Your mother had nothing to
do with it,’ he said; ‘she knows no more than you do. And don’t think
badly of me. It has all been so sudden. How was I to know that a week
after,--is it a week?--without any time to think, I should have to die?
It’s very strange,--very strange,’ he added, in a tone of musing, as if
he were himself a spectator; ‘to go right away, you know, from one’s
business, that one understands,--to----’
Then he paused, and they all paused with him, gazing, wondering,
penetrated to the heart by that suggestion. Frank, who was the youngest,
wept aloud. Mary Westbury, behind the curtain at one side of the bed,
busied herself, noiselessly, in smoothing the bed-clothes, and arranging
the drapery, so as to shade the patient’s eyes, with trembling hands,
and trembling lips, and tears that dropped silently down her white
cheeks. These two being the youngest were the most overcome. But there
was no harshness or coldness about the bedside of the prosperous man.
They had all perfect faith in him, and no fear that he was going out of
the world leaving any thorns in their path. His words seemed to them as
dreams. Why should they think badly of him? What could they ever have to
forgive him? There had never been any mystery in the house, and it was
easier to think their father’s mind was affected by the approach of
death than to believe in any mystery now.
Mr. Renton died that night; and it was on a very sad and silent house
that the moon rose--the same moon which he had watched shining on
Laurie’s boat. Mrs. Renton, poor soul, shut herself up in her room,
taking refuge in illness, as had been her habit all her life, with Mary
nursing and weeping over her. Aunt Lydia, worn out with watching, went
to bed as soon as ‘all was over.’ The lads were left alone. They huddled
together in the library where all the shutters had been closed, and one
lamp alone burned dimly on the table. Only last night there had still
been floods of light and great windows open to the sky. They gathered
about the table together, not knowing what to do. Nothing could be done
that night. It was too soon to talk of plans, and of their altered life.
They could not read anything that would have amused their minds; that
would have been a sin against the proprieties of grief; so the poor
fellows gathered round the dim lamp, and tried to talk, with now and
then something that choked them climbing into their throats.
‘Have you any idea what he could mean by that,--about me,--about it
being hard?’ said Ben, resting his head on both his hands, and gazing
steadfastly with two dilated eyes into the light of the lamp.
‘I don’t think he could mean anything,’ said Laurie, ‘unless it was the
responsibility. What else could it be?’
‘There must always have been the responsibility,’ said Ben. ‘He spoke as
if it were something more.’
‘His mind was wandering,’ said Laurie; and then there was a long pause.
It was broken by Frank with a sudden outburst.
‘Ben, you’ll be awfully good to poor mamma,’ cried the boy; ‘she can’t
bear things as we can.’ The two elder ones held their breath tightly
when Frank’s sob disturbed the quiet;--they were too much men to sob
with him,--and yet there came that convulsive contraction of the throat.
The only thing to be done was to grasp each other’s hands silently, not
daring to look into each other’s faces, and to go to bed,--to take
refuge in darkness and solitude, and that soft oblivion of sleep,
universal asylum of humanity, to which one gains access so easily when
one is young! Stealthily, on tiptoe, each one of Mr. Renton’s sons paid
a secret visit to the dimly-lighted room, all shrouded and covered, with
faint puffs of night air stealing in like spirits through the shuttered
windows, where their father lay all quiet and at rest. True
tears,--genuine sorrow was in all their hearts; and yet----
As each went away with a heart strained and exhausted by the outburst of
grief, something of the new life beyond, something that breathed vaguely
across them in the dark, like the air from the window, filled the
impatient human souls within them. The one idea could not retain
undisturbed possession even so long as that. The world itself could no
more stand still, poising itself in its vast orbit, than the spirits of
its inhabitants. It was not that Ben thought of his new wealth, nor
Laurie of his future freedom; but only that a thrill of the future
passed through them, as they stood for this melancholy moment by the
death-bed of their past.
Five days passed thus, each of them as long as a year. Duty and
propriety kept the young men in-doors, in the languid stillness; or if
they went out at all, it was only for a disconsolate stroll through the
grounds, on which, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs, they would set
out, saying little. The funeral relieved them from the painful
artificiality of this seclusion. When they met together after it, it was
with faces in which there was neither fear nor hope, that the sons of
the dead man appeared. Their father had always been just to them and
kind, and they had no reason to expect that he could have been otherwise
in the last act of his life. The persons present were Mrs. Renton, Mrs.
Westbury, her children Mary and Laurence, and the three Renton boys;
with the lawyer, Mr. Pounceby, and his clerk, and a few old friends of
the family, who had just accompanied them from the grave. They all took
their places without excitement. He might have left a few legacies, more
or less, but nobody could doubt what would be the disposal of his
principal property. The ladies sat together, a heap of mournful crape,
at one end of the room. The whole company was quiet, and languid, and
trustful. There was no anxiety in any one’s mind,--unless, indeed, it
was in that of Mr. Pounceby, who did not look to be at his ease. For the
first quarter of an hour he did nothing but clear his throat; then he
had a blind pulled up, that he might have a light to read by; then he
pulled it down, because of a gleam of the sun that stole in and worried
him. His task was such that he did not like to begin it, or to go
through it when begun. But with the obtuseness of people who have not
their attention directed to a subject, nobody noticed his confusion; he
had a cold, no doubt, which made him clear his throat;--he was always
fidgety;--they were not suspicious, and found nothing out.
‘I ought to explain first,’ said Mr. Pounceby, ‘I promised my excellent
friend and client,--my late excellent client,--to make a little
explanation before I read what must be a painful document, in some
points of view. Mr. Ben Renton, I believe your father was particularly
anxious that it should be explained to you. He sent for me suddenly last
week. It was, alas! only on Friday morning that I came here by his
desire. He wanted certain arrangements made. Boys,’ said Mr. Pounceby,
who was an old friend, turning round upon them, ‘I give you my solemn
word, had I known how little time he would have lived to think it over,
or change again, if necessary, I should never have had any hand in
it,--nor would he,--nor would he. Had he thought his time was running so
short, he would have made no change.’
Then there ensued a little movement among the boys, which showed how
correct their father’s opinion of all the three had been. Frank bent
forward with a little wonder in his face, poising in his fingers a
paper-knife he had picked up, and looked calmly on as a spectator;
Laurie only woke up as it were from another train of thought, and turned
his eyes with a certain mild regret towards the lawyer; Ben alone, moved
out of his composure, rose up and faced the man, who held, as it seemed,
their fate in his hands. ‘Whatever my father planned will no doubt be
satisfactory to us,’ he said firmly. ‘You forget that we are ignorant
what change was made.’
He began to read now, but to an audience much more interested than at
first. There was, of course, a long technical preamble, to which Ben
listened breathlessly, his lips slightly moving with impatience, and a
hot colour on his cheeks, and then the real matter in question came.
Mr. Pounceby shook his grizzled head, ‘It was a great change that was
made,’ he said; ‘but I will not waste your time with further
explanation. As you say, what your excellent father arranged, will, I
hope, be satisfactory to you all.
‘“Having been led much to think in recent days of the difference between
my sons’ education and my own, and having in addition a strong sense
that without energy no man ever made any mark in this world, I have made
up my mind, after much reflection, to postpone the distribution of my
property among my children until seven years from the date of my death.
In the meantime I appoint my executors to receive all my income and
revenue from whatsoever sources,--rents, interest on stock, mortgages,
and all other investments, as afterwards described,--and to hold them in
trust, accumulating at interest, until the seventh anniversary of my
death, when my first will and testament, which I have deposited in the
hands of Mr. Pounceby, shall be read, and my property distributed
according to the stipulations therein contained.
‘“It is also my desire, which I hereby request my said executors to
carry out, that my sons should receive respectively a yearly allowance
of two hundred pounds. I do this with the object of affording to my boys
the opportunity of working their own way, and developing their own
characters in a struggle with the world, such as every one of their
kindred from the earliest time has had to do, and has done, with a
success of which their own present position is a proof. If they shrink
from the trial I put upon them, they will be the first of their name who
have ever done so. As to the final distribution of the property, in
order that no untimely revelation may be made, I request my executors
to retain my will in their possession unopened until the day I have
mentioned,--the seventh anniversary of my decease.”’
Up to this moment all the audience had listened breathless, with a
mixture of wonder, dismay, and alarm, to this extraordinary document. It
is a mild statement of the case to say that it took them by surprise.
The boys themselves rose up one after the other to bear the shock which
came upon them so unexpectedly, and bore it like men, holding their
breath, and clenching their hands to give no outward expression. Ben was
the foremost of the three, and it was with him that the struggle was
hardest. His pride was wounded to the quick, and it was strong within
him. He was wounded, too, in his love and respect for his father, of
whose justice and goodness he had never for a moment till now
entertained a doubt. And then he was ruined,--so he thought. For the
first moment he was stunned by the blow. Seven years! Half a man’s
life,--half of the brightest part of his life,--the flower and cream of
his existence. By this time dreams had begun to steal into his heart
unawares,--dreams half inarticulate of the life which his father’s heir,
the reigning Renton of Renton, would naturally lead, tinged with all
tender regrets, and loyal to all memories, but still his own life,
master of himself and his lands and of the position his forefathers had
made for him. It was not possible that he should be unaware that few
young men in England would be better endowed, or have a better start in
the world than he. Everything was open to him,--a political career, if
he chose, the power of wealth, the thrill of independence, and all the
hopes of happiness which move a young man. Even while these visions
formed in his mind, they were struck by this sharp stroke of reality,
and faded away. He grew pale; the muscles tightened round his mouth; a
heavy damp came on his forehead. At one time the room reeled round with
him,--a mist of pale eager faces, through which that monotonous voice
rose. He was the foremost, and he did not see his brothers. He did not
even think of them, it must be confessed. The blow was hardest to him,
and he thought of himself.
When, however, the reading reached the point at which we have stopped,
Mrs. Westbury, forgetting herself, rose up, and rushed to the boys, with
a sudden burst of sobs. ‘Forgive me!’ she cried wildly. ‘Oh, boys,
forgive me! I will never, never forgive myself!’
At this interruption Mr. Pounceby stopped, and all the spectators turned
round surprised. Then nature appeared in the three young men. Ben made a
little imperative gesture with his hand, ‘Aunt Lydia, you can have
nothing to do with it,’ he said; ‘don’t interrupt us. We must not detain
our friends.’ Laurie, for his part, took her hand, and drew it through
his arm. ‘We can have nothing to forgive you,’ he said, compassionately
supporting her, having more insight than the rest. Frank, glad for his
boyish part to be relieved from this tension of interest by any
incident, went and fetched her a chair. ‘Hush!’ he said, as the sound of
her sobbing died into a half-terrified stillness. And thus they heard it
out to the end.
The interruption did them all good. It dispersed the haze of
bewilderment that had gathered round the young men. The dust of the
ruins falling round them might have blinded them but for this sudden
call back to themselves. When all was over, Ben had so far recovered
himself as to speak, though his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.
‘We are much obliged to you all for joining us to-day,’ he said; ‘I am
sure you will excuse my mother, and indeed all of us. She is never very
strong. Mr. Pounceby, I know you are anxious to get back to town.’
‘But, Ben, my dear fellow,’ said one of the party, stepping forward and
grasping his hand, ‘stop a little. It is not any want of respect to your
excellent father,--but it must have been disease, you know. Such things
happen every day. You will not accept this extraordinary rigmarole. He
must have been out of his mind!’
‘We are quite satisfied with my father’s will; thanks,’ said Ben
proudly, though with a quiver of his lip, and he looked round for the
first time at his brothers. ‘Quite satisfied,’ said Laurie once more,
with that look of compassion which seemed uncalled for at the moment,
when he himself was one of the chief persons to be compassionated.
‘Quite satisfied,’ echoed Frank steadily, with wonder in his eyes. Then
Mr. Pounceby interposed.
‘Mr. Renton was of perfectly sound mind when he executed this document,’
he said. ‘I was with him nearly all day, and went through a great deal
of business. I never saw him more clear and business-like. On that point
nothing can be said.’
‘Nothing must be said on any point,’ said Ben quickly. ‘My brothers and
myself are satisfied. My father had a perfect right---- I would rather
not enter into the subject. We are much obliged to our friends all the
same.’
And thus all remark was peremptorily cut short. The neighbours
dispersed, carrying all over the country the news of poor Renton’s
extraordinary will; of how much he must have lost his head; and that Ben
and the other boys were Quixotic enough not to dispute it. It was
monomania, people said; and everybody knew that monomaniacs were sound
on all points but one. Before nightfall there had arisen a body of
evidence to prove that Mr. Renton had long been mad on this subject. One
man remembered something he had said on one occasion, and another man on
a second. He had been mad about his family; and the boys must be mad,
too, to bear it. These reports, however, did not break the stillness
which had fallen on the Manor,--a stillness almost more blank than that
of death. The sobs of two women, one weeping faintly over her boys’
disappointment, the other wildly in self-reproach, were the only sounds
that disturbed the calm of the house. The boys themselves were stunned,
and for that day, at least, had not the heart to say a word.