THE CATASTROPHE.
All was pleasant commotion and stir in Mount, where almost every room
had received some addition to its decoration. On this particular evening
there was a great show of candles in the old banqueting hall, which was
to be the ballroom, and great experiments in lighting were going on. The
ball at Mount was stirring the whole county. In all the houses about
there was more or less commotion, toilets preparing, an additional
thrill of liveliness and pleasure sent into the quiet country life. And
Mount itself was all astir. Standing outside, it was pretty to watch the
lights walking about the full house, gliding along the long corridors,
gleaming at windows along the whole breadth of the rambling old place.
With all these lights streaming out into the night, the house seemed to
warm the evening air, which was now white with inevitable mists over the
park. Rose ran about like a child, delighted with the stir, dragging
holly wreaths after her, and holding candles to all the workers; but
Anne had the real work in hand. It was to her the carpenters came for
their orders, and the servants who never knew from one half-hour to
another what next was to be done. Mrs. Mountford had taken the supper
under her charge, and sat serenely over her worsted work, in the
consciousness that whatever might go wrong, that, at least, would be
right. ‘As for your decorations, I wash my hands of them,’ she said. It
was Anne upon whom all these cares fell. And though she was by no means
sure that she would enjoy the ball, it was quite certain, as she had
said to Heathcote, that she enjoyed _this_. She enjoyed the sensation of
being herself again, and able to throw herself into this occupation
with a fine indifference to her own personal standing in the house. If
she had been dethroned in the will, only herself could dethrone her in
nature. She felt, as she wished to feel, that she was above all that;
that she was not even under the temptation of sullenness, and had no
sense of injury to turn the sweet into bitter. She went about holding
her head consciously a little higher than usual, as with a gay defiance
of all things that could pull her down. Who could pull her down, save
herself? And what was the use of personal happiness, of that inspiration
and exhilaration of love which was in her veins, if it did not make her
superior to all little external misfortunes? She felt magnanimous, and
to feel so seemed to compensate her for everything else. It would have
been strange, indeed, she said to herself, if the mere loss of a fortune
had sufficed to crush the spirit of a happy woman, a woman beloved, with
a great life before her. She smiled at fate in her faith and happiness.
Her head borne higher than usual, thrown back a little, her eyes
shining, a smile, in which some fine contempt for outside trouble just
touched the natural sweetness of her youth, to which, after all, it was
so natural to take pleasure in all that she was about--all these signs
and marks of unusual commotion in her mind, of the excitement of a
crisis about her, struck the spectators, especially the keen-sighted
ones below stairs. ‘It can’t be like we think. She’s the conquering
hero, Miss Anne is. She’s just like that army with banners as is in the
Bible,’ said the north-country cook. ‘I don’t understand her not a bit,’
Saymore said, who knew better, who was persuaded that Anne had not
conquered. Mrs. Worth opined that it was nature and nothing more. ‘A
ball is a ball, however downhearted you may be; it cheers you up,
whatever is a going to happen,’ she said; but neither did this theory
find favour in old Saymore’s eyes.
What a beehive it was! Rooms preparing for the visitors who were to come
to-morrow, linen put out to air, fires lighted, housemaids busy; in the
kitchen all the cook’s underlings, with aids from the village, already
busy over the ball supper. Even Mrs. Mountford had laid aside her
worsted work, and was making bows of ribbons for the cotillon. There was
to be a cotillon. It was ‘such fun,’ Rose had said. In the ballroom the
men were busy hammering, fixing up wreaths, and hanging curtains. Both
the girls were there superintending, Rose half encircled by greenery.
There was so much going on, so much noise that it was difficult to hear
anything. And it must have been a lull in the hammering, in the
consultation of the men, in the moving of stepladders and sound of heavy
boots over the floor, which allowed that faint sound to penetrate to
Anne’s ear. What was it? ‘What was that?’ she cried. They listened a
moment, humouring her. What should it be? The hammers were sounding
gaily, John Stokes, the carpenter belonging to the house, mounted high
upon his ladder, with tacks in his mouth, his assistant holding up to
him one of the muslin draperies. The wreaths were spread out over the
floor. Now and then a maid put in her head to gaze, and admire, and
wonder. ‘Oh, you are always fancying something, Anne,’ said Rose. ‘You
forget how little time we have.’ Then suddenly it came again, and
everybody heard. A long cry, out of the night, a prolonged halloo. John
Stokes himself put down his hammer. ‘It’s somebody got into the pond,’
he said. ‘No, it’s the other side of the park,’ said the other man. Anne
ran out to the corridor, and threw open the window at the end, which
swept a cold gust through all the house. A wind seemed to have got up at
that moment, though it had been calm before. Then it came again, a
long, far-echoing ‘halloo--halloo--help!’ Was it ‘help’ the voice cried?
No doubt it was an appeal, whatever it was.
The men threw down their hammers and rushed downstairs with a common
instinct, to see what it was. Anne stood leaning out of the window
straining her eyes in the milky misty air, which seemed to grow whiter
and less clear as she gazed. ‘Oh please put down the window,’ cried
Rose, shivering, ‘it is so cold--and what good can we do? It is
poachers, most likely; it can’t be anybody in the pond, or they wouldn’t
go on shrieking like that.’ Saymore, who had come up to look at the
decorations, gave the same advice. ‘You’ll get your death of cold, Miss
Anne, and you can’t do no good; maybe it’s something caught in a
snare--they cry like Christians, them creatures do, though we call ’em
dumb creatures; or it’s maybe a cart gone over on the low road--the
roads is very heavy; or one of the keepers as has found something; it’s
about time for Master and Mr. Heathcote coming back from Hunston;
they’ll bring us news. Don’t you be nervish, Miss Anne; they’ll see what
it is. I’ve known an old owl make just such a screeching.’
‘Could an owl say “halloo,”’ said Anne, ‘and “help”? I am sure I heard
“help.” I hear somebody galloping up to the door--no, it is not to the
door, it is to the stables. It will be papa or Heathcote come for help.
I am sure it is something serious,’ she said. And she left the great
window wide open, and rushed downstairs. As for Rose she was very
chilly. She withdrew within the warmer shelter of the ballroom, and
arranged the bow of ribbon with which one of the hangings was to be
finished. ‘Put down the window,’ she said; ‘it can’t do anyone any good
to let the wind pour in like that, and chill all the house.’
Heathcote had been half an hour alone in the great wilderness of the
park, nothing near him that could help, the trees rustling in the wind,
standing far off round about like a scared circle of spectators, holding
up piteous hands to heaven, but giving no aid. He was kneeling upon the
horse’s head, himself no more than a protuberance in the fallen mass,
unable to get any answer to his anxious questions. One or two groans
were all that he could elicit, groans which grew fainter and fainter; he
shouted with all his might, but there seemed nothing there to reply--no
passing labourer, no one from the village making a short cut across the
park, as he had seen them do a hundred times. The mist rose up out of
the ground, choking him, and, he thought, stifling his voice; the echoes
gave him back the faint sounds which were all he seemed able to make.
His throat grew dry and hoarse. Now and then the fallen horse gave a
heave, and attempted to fling out, and there would be another scarcely
articulate moan. His helplessness went to his very heart; and there,
almost within reach, hanging suspended, as it were, between heaven and
earth, were the lights of the house, showing with faint white haloes
round them, those lights which had seemed so full of warmth and welcome.
When the first of the help-bringers came running, wildly flashing a
lantern about, Heathcote’s limbs were stiffened and his voice scarcely
audible; but it required no explanation to show the state of the case.
His horse, which had escaped when he dismounted, had made its way to the
stable door, and thus roused a still more effectual alarm. Then the
other trembling brute was got to its legs, and the body liberated. The
body!--what did they mean? There was no groan now or cry--‘Courage, sir,
courage--a little more patience and you will be at home,’ Heathcote
heard himself saying. To whom? There was no reply; the groan would have
been eloquence. But he could not permit himself to believe that the
worst had come. He kept on talking, not knowing what he was doing, while
they brought something, he did not know what, to place the motionless
figure upon. ‘Softly, softly!’ he cried to the men, and took the limp
hand into his own, and continued to speak. He heard himself talking,
going along, repeating always the same words, ‘A little longer, only a
little longer. Keep up your heart, sir, we are nearly there.’ When they
had almost reached the door of the house, one of the bearers suddenly
burst forth in a kind of loud sob, ‘Don’t you, sir, don’t you
now!--don’t you see as he’ll never hear a spoken word again?’
Then Heathcote stopped mechanically, as he had been speaking
mechanically. His hat had been knocked off his head. His dress was wet
and muddy, his hair in disorder, his whole appearance wild and terrible.
When the light from the door fell full upon him, and Anne stepped
forward, he was capable of nothing but to motion her away with his hand.
‘What is it?’ she said, in an awe-stricken voice. ‘Don’t send me away. I
am not afraid. Did papa find it? He ought to come in at once. Make him
come in at once. What is it, Mr. Heathcote? I am not afraid.’
‘Send the young lady away, sir,’ cried the groom, imperatively. ‘Miss
Anne, I can’t bring him in till you are out o’ that. Good Lord, can’t
you take her away?’
‘I am not afraid,’ she said, very pale, ranging herself on one side to
let them pass. Heathcote, who did not know what it was, any more than
she did, laid a heavy hand upon her shoulder, and put her, almost
roughly, out of the way. ‘I will go,’ she said, frightened. ‘I will
go--if only you will make papa come in out of the damp--it is so bad for
his---- Ah!’ She fell down upon her knees and her cry rang through all
the house. She had seen a sudden light from a lantern out of doors flash
across the covered face, the locks of grey hair.
It was not long till everybody knew; from the top to the bottom of the
great house the news ran in a moment. John Stokes, the carpenter,
returned and mounted his ladder mechanically, to resume his work: then
remembered, and got down solemnly and collected his tools, leaving one
wreath up and half of the drapery. ‘There won’t be no ball here this
time,’ he said to his mate. ‘You bring the stepladder, Sam.’ This was
the first sign that one cycle of time, one reign was over, and another
begun.
From that moment Heathcote Mountford’s position was changed. He felt it
before he had gone up the stairs, reverently following that which now he
no longer addressed with encouraging human words, but felt to be the
unapproachable and solemn thing it was. A man had ridden off for the
doctor before they entered the house, but there was no question of a
doctor to those who now laid their old master upon his bed. ‘I should
say instantaneous, or next to instantaneous,’ the doctor said when he
came; and when he heard of the few groans which had followed the fall,
he gave it as his opinion that these had been but unconscious plaints of
the body after all sense of pain or knowledge of what was happening had
departed. The horse had put his foot into a hole in the spongy wet
turf--a thing that might have happened any day, and which it was a
wonder did not happen oftener. There were not even the usual
questionings and wonderings as to how it came about, which are so
universal when death seizes life with so little warning. Mr. Mountford
had been in the habit of riding with a loose rein. He had unbounded
confidence in his cob, which, now that the event had proved its danger,
a groom came forward to say by no means deserved his confidence, but
had two or three times before stumbled with its rider. Heathcote felt
that doctors and grooms alike looked to himself with something more than
ordinary courtesy and respect. He walked away from the comfortable
bedroom now turned into a solemn presence chamber, and all its homely
uses intermitted, with a gravity he had not felt before for years. He
was not this man’s son, scarcely his friend, that his death should
affect him so. But, besides the solemnity of the event thus happening in
his presence, it changed his position even more than if he had been St.
John Mountford’s son. It would be barbarous to desert the poor women in
their trouble; but how was he to remain here, a comparative stranger,
their kinsman but their supplanter, become in a moment the master of the
house in which these girls had been born, and which their mother had
ruled for twenty years. He went to his room to change his wet and soiled
clothes, with a sense of confusion and sadness that made everything
unreal to him. His past as well as that of his kinsman had ended in a
moment; his careless easy life was over, the indulgences which he had
considered himself entitled to as a man upon whom nobody but Edward had
any special claim. Now Edward’s claims, for which he had been willing to
sacrifice his patrimony, must be put aside perforce. He could no longer
think of the arrangement which an hour ago he had been talking of so
easily, which was to have been accomplished with so little trouble. It
was in no way to be done now. Actually in a moment he had become
Mountford of Mount, the representative of many ancestors, the proprietor
of an old house and property, responsible to dependents of various
kinds, and to the future and to the past. In a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye; no idea of this kind had crossed his mind during that long
half-hour in the park, which looked like half a year. A fatal issue had
not occurred to him. It was not until he had reached the threshold of
the house, until he felt hope and help to be near, until he had heard
Anne’s voice appealing to him to know what it was, that the whole
meaning of it had burst upon him. St. John Mountford dead, and he
himself master of the house! It was impossible that, apart from the
appalling suddenness of the catastrophe, and the nervous agitation of
his own share in it, the death of his cousin even in this startling and
pitiful way should plunge him into grief. He was deeply shocked and awed
and impressed--sorry for the ladies, stricken so unexpectedly with a
double doom, loss of their head, loss of their home--and sorry beyond
words for the poor man himself, thus snatched out of life in a moment
without preparation, without any suggestion even of what was going to
happen; but it was not possible that Heathcote Mountford could feel any
private pang in himself. He was subdued out of all thought of himself,
except that strange sensation of absolute change. He dressed
mechanically, scarcely perceiving what it was he was putting on, in his
usual evening clothes which had been laid out for him, just as if he had
been dressing for the usual peaceful dinner, his kinsman in the next
room doing the same, and the table laid for all the family party.
Notwithstanding the absolute change that had occurred, the revolution in
everything, what could a man do but follow mechanically the habitual
customs of every day?
He dressed very slowly, sometimes standing by the fire idly for ten
minutes at a time, in a half stupor of excitement, restless yet benumbed
and incapable of either action or thought; and when this was
accomplished went slowly along the long corridors to the drawing-room,
still as if nothing had happened, though more had happened than he could
fathom or realise. The change had gone down before him and was apparent
in every corner of the deserted place. There were two candles burning
feebly on the mantelpiece, and the fire threw a little fitful light
about, but that was all; and no one was there; of course it was
impossible that anyone should be there--but Heathcote was strange to
family trouble, and did not know what happened when a calamity like this
same crashing down from heaven into the midst of a household of people.
Mrs. Mountford’s work was lying on the sofa with the little sheaf of
bright-coloured wools, which she had been used to tuck under her arm
when she went ‘to sit with papa;’ and on the writing-table there was the
rough copy of the ball programme, corrected for the printer in Rose’s
hand. The programmes; it floated suddenly across his mind to recollect
the commission they had received on this subject as they had ridden
away; had they fulfilled it? he asked himself in his confusion; then
remembered as suddenly how he who was lying upstairs had fulfilled it,
and how useless it now was. Ball programmes! and the giver of the ball
lying dead in the house within reach of all the preparations, the
garlands, and ornaments. It was incredible, but it was true. Heathcote
walked about the dark and empty room in a maze of bewildered trouble
which he could not understand, troubled for the dead, and for the women,
and for himself, who was neither one nor the other, who was the person
to profit by it. It was no longer they who had been born here, who had
lived and ruled here for so many years, but he himself who was supreme
in the house. It was all his own. The idea neither pleased him nor
excited, but depressed and bewildered him. His own house: and all his
easy quiet life in the Albany, and his little luxuries in the way of art
and of travel--all over and gone. It seemed unkind to think of this in
the presence of calamity so much more serious. Yet how could he help
it? When some one came with a soft knock at the door he was startled as
if it had been a ghost. It was Saymore who came into the room, neat in
his evening apparel, dressed and trim whatever happened, making his
little formal bow. ‘The ladies, sir,’ Saymore said, conquering a little
huskiness, a little faltering in his own voice, ‘send their compliments
and they don’t feel equal to coming down. They hope you will excuse
them; and dinner is served, Mr. Mountford,’ the old man said, his voice
ending in a jar of broken sound, almost like weeping. Heathcote went
downstairs very seriously, as if he had formed one of the usual
procession. He seated himself at the end of the table, still decorated
with all its usual prettinesses as for the family meal; he did all this
mechanically, taking the place of the master of the house, without
knowing that he did so, and sitting down as if with ghosts, with all
those empty seats round the table and every place prepared. Was it real
or was it a dream? He felt that he could see himself as in a picture,
sitting there alone, eating mechanically, going through a semblance of
the usual meal. The soup was set before him, and then the fish, and
then--
‘Saymore, old man,’ Heathcote said suddenly, starting up, ‘I don’t know
if this is a tragedy or a farce we are playing--I cannot stand it any
longer--take all those things away.’
‘It do seem an awful change, sir, and so sudden,’ cried the old man,
frightened by the sudden movement, and by this departure from the rigid
rules of ceremony--yet relieved after his first start was over. And then
old Saymore began to sob, putting down the little silver dish with the
entrée. ‘I’ve been his butler, sir, this thirty years, and ten years in
the pantry before that, footman, and born on the property like. And all
to be over, sir, in a moment; and he was a good master, sir, though
strict. He was very particular, but always a kind master. It’ll be long
before we’ll yet another like him--not but what I beg your pardon, Mr.
Mountford. I don’t make no doubt but them as serves you will give the
same character to you.’
This good wish relieved the oppression with a touch of humour; but
Heathcote did not dare to let a smile appear. ‘I hope so, sir,’ Saymore
said. He rubbed his old eyes hard with his napkin. Then he took up again
the little silver dish. ‘It’s sweetbreads, sir, and it won’t keep; it
was a great favourite with master. Have a little while it’s hot. It will
disappoint cook if you don’t eat a bit; we must eat, whatever happens,
sir,’ the old man said.