THE BROTHERS TALK OVER THEIR FATHER’S DEATH.
“Louis,” said George De Marke, “how long was all this after our father’s
death; I have never had a thorough knowledge of that time. Everything
connected with it was too painful for questions.”
“I remember,” answered Louis, “she had driven you from the house before
I was old enough to know that I had a brother. You were happier for it.
Year by year, our home had become more uncomfortable and dreary. As age
crept on our father, some cause of strife, which always existed, seemed
to break out afresh between him and Madame. I never thoroughly
understood it, George; there was something in the past never explained
to us. Quick words and broken sentences, which I remember now, though
scarcely noticed at the time, connect this mystery with your own
mother.”
George De Marke looked up with sudden interest. “It is strange,” he
said, “but I never heard anything about my mother. Madame never
mentioned her!”
“Nor did my father; during his life I was kept so far apart from his
confidence, that I never ventured to question him regarding his or her
family. Indeed, it was years before I knew that Madame was not alike
your mother and mine. It was discovered to me at last by some angry
words with which she was taunting him, as if some disgrace had been
attached to your birth. This made me angry at the time, but I accepted
it as little more than a burst of fiery malice. Forgive me, dear boy,
for saying so of my mother; but she was used to saying what came
uppermost in her mind when he offended her, and I gave it no
importance.”
“I dare say it had no importance,” said George, “she must always have
delighted in tormenting him.”
“That is probably true, dear boy—but as I became a man, the fact that I
knew absolutely nothing of my mother’s family forced itself upon me. If
my father had been living, I would know all about her. Had I been here
when he died, that one subject should not have been left in the dark.”
“You would not have had the heart to question him, George. He was sadly
changed before he died, and so nervous that a word would make him
tremble. Sometimes the very sound of my mother’s voice would set him to
shaking all over.”
“My poor father! Did he suffer so much?” inquired George, shading his
eyes to conceal the tears that sprung into them.
“More than I can remember without pain,” answered Louis. “He took a
terrible dislike to Madame toward the last, and I had great difficulty
in protecting him from her temper and cupidity. You cannot know how
difficult it was, in health, for his iron will to keep down her
parsimony in our household; when he lay sick and helpless, I found it
almost impossible to obtain necessary comforts for him.”
“Poor man! so rich—so proud, and brought to that! He must indeed have
been miserable.”
“Yes, both in body and mind,” was the answer; “I am sure that something
preyed on him at the last. But Madame never left him at this period, and
though he seemed anxious to converse with me, her presence always
prevented it.”
“Strange what could have troubled him so! Possibly it might have been
that he repented of that strange will.”
“Not altogether that, I think. It was some persons he wished to see,—an
old man and woman. Madame spoke of them impatiently in that way, but
promised to send for them.”
“And did she?”
“No, there was no effort made to send for any one. Another night, when
he was growing worse and worse, I heard him pleading with her; some
person was to be sent for whom he wished to speak with before he
died—must speak with if she was on the face of the earth. Madame became
furiously angry then. She no longer attempted to pacify him with
promises, but filled the sick-room with her angry revilings, while he
lay trembling under her violence till the bed shook beneath him. At
last, urged on by rage, such as I had never seen even in her before, she
darted toward the bed, and would have seized him by the shoulders, but I
flung my arms around her, and prevented the sacrilege by taking her
almost by force from the room. When I came back to the bed, our father
was stricken with paralysis.
“Oh, George! it would have broken your heart, could you have seen his
beseeching eyes follow me around the room after that. I knew that he
would have spoken to me then, had the power been left him. Once, when
Madame was out for a moment, he made a desperate effort to speak, but
his voice came forth in a broken moan; and I saw two great tears roll
from the pleading eyes, wrung from some want which he had no power to
express.”
“Could he not write?” inquired George, in a troubled voice.
“No; he made an effort, and with his poor shaking hand, strove to scrawl
a name; but I could not read it; Madame came in while I was trying to
make it out. With an angry glance at him, she took it from my hand and
tore it up.
“My poor father’s eyes turned upon her with an expression that would
have melted a heart of iron. I have heard of wounded stags, weeping
while under the torment of a pack of hounds, George. The great tears
which came again to that old man’s eyes, when his wife—I will not call
her mother with this feeling upon me—tore up the name he had tried to
write, seemed as if shed under like torture.”
“All this fills me with self-reproach. I ought to have been by my poor
father’s death-bed. I being older than you, might have comprehended his
wishes,” said George De Marke, sadly.
“I cannot tell, George; it might have been a wish to redeem the
injustice of his will; sometimes I think it was only his lawyer’s name
that he wrote; for Madame looked like death when she read it. I am sure
she did read it, illegible as it was, for she muttered something that
made the sick man struggle in his bed. Nothing but the fear of losing
her grasp on the property could have disturbed her so!”
“It was a strange will, and unjust as strange,” said George. “Why should
our father have feared to trust my intellect more than yours, Louis? If
at thirty I have never given proofs of insanity, and am the father of a
lawful son, then and not till then can I demand an equal share of the
property with yourself. This is a strange clause against an elder son,
who has never offended him, or deserved anything but kindness at his
hands.”
“It is indeed. The anxieties of his death-bed must have arisen from this
cause. But it was all needless; for though I had a hard struggle to get
my portion from Madame at the time of my majority, it is safe from her
control now, and the income is enough for us both.”
George reached forth his hand, grasping that of his brother with
grateful warmth.
“You forget,” he said, pointing to his portmanteau, “that I am just from
the gold region, and though not able to compete with my rich brother,
there will be found yonder enough of gold and bills of exchange for my
moderate wants, till the time appointed by my father’s will arrives.”
“Are you so rich as that, George? I am glad of it; independence is the
right of every man, but I should have liked to divide with you, after
all.”
“I am sure you would, dear old fellow; but the time is not far off, and
I think it will go hard for any one to give proofs of insanity against
me so far; and if my brain has withstood all that I have endured till
now, it will probably hold firm to the end.”
“Yes, that will be easily settled. But the babe? Poor Catharine Lacy
left no living child, so it is stated in the hospital record.”
“So it is recorded; poor girl! poor wronged wife!”
“She was a lovely creature,” said Louis, “a sweet, gentle girl. How was
she driven to such straits, George?”
“It is answered in a sentence,” was the stern reply. “Madame De Marke,
who had doubtless suspicions of our private marriage, induced me to go
to India, by promises of giving a portion of my inheritance into my own
independent possession. She had entire control, even of the income, you
know. In his large shipping-interest, my father had left unsettled
affairs at Calcutta, which she professed to be very anxious about. I was
to remain abroad two years and settle up all his affairs in the East, as
the price of my own independence. I had just married Catharine Lacy, who
urged me to make this sacrifice, and expressed herself willing to stay
with Madame, hard as her life was, until my return.
“If Madame knew of our marriage, her dissimulation was complete, for she
gave no sign of such knowledge. I now understand it all. She either had
information of the marriage and wished to separate us, or had a
suspicion that the poor child was devoted to me, and that by marrying
her, one condition of the will might be secured.”
“It is possible,” muttered Louis.
“With this promise, she sent me to the East Indies, where letters might
not reach me for months; made that delicate girl a drudge of all work,
and at last drove her to desperation, to the Almshouse, and, God pardon
her!—I never can,—to death.”
“It was a terrible fate,” said Louis; “but in charity to my mother, let
us hope she was not all to blame. There was a time, George, when I can
remember her a stylish and attractive woman—never generous or liberal,
it is true, but far, far above what she is now. The powerful will of our
father kept down her faults, and at his death they broke over all
control. It seems to me that, on this one subject of money, she is a
monomaniac.”
“You are her son, Louis, and heaven knows I have little wish to wound
you by talking of her failings; but you will comprehend how they bear on
this case. If I fail to accomplish the conditions of our father’s will,
this property goes to your mother during her life, and afterward to
you.”
“Yes, I know; there the sting lies. It is, in fact, my interest she is
seeking. It is for me that she hoards and starves, and has committed
this terrible wrong.”
“No, it is for the love of hoarding. Did she not struggle to keep
possession of your portion also?”
“But that was for my own good, Madame urged; she was in terrible trouble
about my fancied extravagance, and would gladly share her den with me in
order to roll up her income. I really think it grieves her that I will
not consent to this. But we were speaking of Catharine Lacy. I was in
complete ignorance of everything you have told me regarding her. Indeed,
my whole attention was too painfully occupied elsewhere. I was absent
when Madame made her degrading change of residence.”
“I know it; we were both sent out of the way, while she made
arrangements for a life of miserable parsimony. Had I dreamed of the way
she intended to live, my poor young wife would never have been left to
her mercy. From her own confession, Catharine almost perished of
absolute want in her miserable den.”
“But her aunt, Mrs. Judson, was a rich woman. It is strange that she did
not apply to her,” said Louis. “Did she never think of that?”
“I cannot tell. Probably the poor angel kept her word too faithfully.
She had promised not to make our marriage known. Remember, Louis, I was
young, and did not think of the cruel necessity that might arise to
protect herself by this very confession. When it came, Madame turned her
into the street, and somehow—I had no heart to inquire the harrowing
particulars—she reached the hospital, and died there!”
The brothers were silent for some minutes; when they looked up, it was
through a mist of tears which no manly pride could suppress.
“They were together, your wife and mine,” said Louis, at last, drawing a
hand across his eyes. “Poor Catharine!—poor Louisa!”
George did not answer, but his chest heaved, and his face fell forward
upon the arms which were folded on the table before him. At last he
lifted his face, pale and tear-stained, turning it to his brother.
“This remembrance is killing me, Louis. We will never talk these matters
over again.”
“As you think best, George,” replied the brother, “but I _must_ speak
with you. My situation is more painful than yours, for suspense is added
to the rest!”
“True, true. I interrupted your story, Louis. You see how selfish grief
is.”