Farewell.
The first thing Maxwell Drewitt did when he got rid of his visitors was
to order a room to be prepared for his accommodation.
“And, Robert, tell Flynn to put the saddle on Madcap, and to bring her
round directly.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Give my compliments to Mrs. Drewitt, and say I shall be glad to speak
to her alone for a few minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
And he walked up and down the room until Robert reappeared.
“Mrs. Drewitt’s compliments, sir, and she is in the breakfast-parlour.”
That was the first note of war on Mrs. Drewitt’s part; and Maxwell
accepted it as such.
Nevertheless, he repaired to the breakfast-parlour, where Mrs. Drewitt
was talking to Mr. Pryor.
“I thought,” said Maxwell, “I saw you leave with Mr. Butler.”
“I only went so far as the gate. I wished to speak to Mrs. Drewitt
before I returned to Durrow; but I have said all I had to say, and am
going directly.”
“Not on my account, I hope,” answered Maxwell, with a great accession of
civility. “I merely wanted to tell Mrs. Drewitt that I trust she will
consider Kincorth her home for the present. I have no desire to make her
position at all unpleasant. I am quite willing to meet her half-way in
any reasonable plan for the future. And if Brian will apologize for his
extraordinary conduct, I am ready to forgive and forget.”
“But I am not, Maxwell,” she answered. “You have always hated me; and
you have always hated my children. Twenty-one years ago you told me you
disliked me, and why? For twenty-one years you have been scheming and
plotting to get us out of Kincorth; and your schemes and your plots have
been successful. I cannot forget, and I cannot forgive. As if it were
not trouble enough to lose my husband, I must also see my children
beggars.” At which point Mrs. Drewitt burst into tears, and Maxwell
answered—
“When my father lost this property he accepted that loss without a
murmur. Many a one now living can tell you that. It is not half so hard
for your sons as it was for my father, for they are unencumbered, and he
was married and had a family: you have your jointure; my father had not
a sixpence. Kincorth, and the other farms and estates, which we have
usually put under one head and called Kincorth, brought in at that day
fifteen thousand a year. Without mortgages its nett value was probably
eight thousand a year. Am I stating my case fairly, Mr. Pryor?”
“I have no reason to suppose otherwise,” was the reply.
“After thirty-seven years Kincorth returns to the elder branch
absolutely valueless; so valueless that I declare to you, were it not
that it has been in the family for more generations than I could tell
you, I would let Mr. Pryor foreclose to-morrow and trouble myself with
the place no more: do you believe what I am saying?”
She made no answer, and he proceeded.
“I must ask you, Mrs. Drewitt, now, to look back to the time when you
came first to Kincorth. What had we out of the property?—food. Had we
anything else? were we well-dressed? were we well-lodged? were not we
thrust to the wall? were we not intruders and dependents in the house of
our fathers? Had we anything which a gentleman’s children had a right to
expect at the hands of the person who had supplanted that gentleman?
Many and various were the humiliations I experienced in those the early
days of my life. But I have no desire to pay back my uncle’s family in
kind. Many a long year ago, Mrs. Drewitt, you were good enough to
sympathise with me and to entreat me not to leave Kincorth—”
She made a gesture of impatience, but he disregarded it and went on.
“Since then I have succeeded; I have been prosperous; I am wealthy, and
the owner of the place where I once was little better than a servant. I
do not forget your kindness, but entreat you to remain; to consider this
house your home; to let me help you and your children as you were once
anxious to help me.”
He had made his speech, and it was not a bad one; and now he waited to
hear what effect it had produced on Mrs. Drewitt.
“Maxwell,” she answered, “I always admitted your position in life was
not what it ought to have been, until by your own industry and
cleverness you made yourself what you are. I always thought your
grandfather’s will most unjust; and even in this house, from whence my
dead husband has so lately been carried, I am not afraid to say that,
had he acted more wisely and fairly by his brother, his life would have
been a more prosperous one. But,” and here Mrs. Drewitt rose, as if she
could not find breath to speak sitting—as if in her nervous excitement
it was needful for every muscle to be strained, every limb stretched,
“my husband did not act unfairly by design, or through any premeditated
wickedness. He came honestly into Kincorth, and sure am I in my inmost
heart, Maxwell, that you have come dishonestly. I know that for
twenty-one years you have kept this end in view; and you have achieved
your object so far. When I think of my poor boy—when I think of
Brian”—and as she spoke the tears fell like rain over her altered
face—“when I think of how he has worked, of how you set his father
against him, of how you sowed dissension between him and Harold, and of
how you have destroyed every hope and plan of his life, I feel that if I
were to eat your bread it would choke me; that if I were to accept any
grace, any favour, at your hands I should be as bad as you.”
“What do you think of that, Mr. Pryor, as a civil answer to a kind
offer?” asked Maxwell.
“I will tell you by-and-by,” replied the Englishman; “meantime I think
Mrs. Drewitt will be more composed at Durrow, where she has no old
associations, where everything will be fresh and new. She is not capable
at present of appreciating your kindness, or in fact of clearly
understanding what you say; and as you are going to take up your
quarters here to-night, your aunt and cousins will accompany me back to
Durrow.”
“If they do then,” said Maxwell Drewitt, “they shall never return to
Kincorth.”
“Oh! Kincorth—dear, dear Kincorth,” broke out the widow, and she fell on
her knees, and burying her head in the sofa pillow, sobbed passionately.
“You had better leave her,” suggested Mr. Pryor, and he drew Maxwell out
of the room.
“They are a nice comfortable sort of people to have to do with, are not
they?” said Maxwell, with a forced laugh, slowly drawing on his
left-hand glove, and smoothing every wrinkle out of the kid while he
spoke. “There are not many men who would bear having their kindness
flung back in their face as I do. What do you think of the family now,
Mr. Pryor?”
“I think that they have received a great shock, following on the top of
another great shock, and that consequently every allowance ought to be
made for them, and for what they say under the circumstances.”
“And what do you think about the whole affair—about the will I mean?”
“That it must be very unpleasant for you,” was the reply.
“Well, it is: the property is not worth that,” and Maxwell snapped his
fingers, “only I am glad to have back the old place. If Brian had gone
on with his improvements it would soon have come to the hammer.”
“I cannot quite agree with you there,” answered the Englishman. He could
see the chesnut waiting for her new master, and he added, “You are going
to ride Harold’s mare?”
“Harold’s, indeed! I really was not aware.”
“I thought it was his: did his father not give her to him?”
“He said so,” answered Maxwell; “but, on the same principle, Brian might
say his father gave him Kincorth.”
“Of course; you are right. Then you are not going to confirm your
uncle’s present?”
“Give a lad like that a mare worth two hundred and fifty guineas? If you
have made your money so easily, Mr. Pryor, I have not.”
The Englishman did not press the point further. “Good-bye,” he said, “I
suppose you will not be back before we leave.”
“We! Then you really are going to adopt the entire family? Be advised—a
widow and three children is no light responsibility. Besides, you ought
really to consider _les convenances_.”
“What _convenances_?” asked Mr. Pryor, hurriedly.
“Why, the world may say one of two things—either that you are going to
marry the widow, who is only about a year or so older than yourself; or
else that you are in love with the daughter. I have long inclined to the
latter opinion myself, and I congratulate you on an arrangement which
will give you such ample opportunities of winning her young affections.”
“I am your debtor, Mr. Maxwell Drewitt.”
“Not at all; if you were so, I should be only too proud to be your
creditor.”
“You are very kind, but I prefer paying my bills as I go on. You have
asked me twice within the last ten minutes what I thought of your
position. Let me give you my answer now. If you have come into Kincorth
honestly, I think we are all dealing very hardly by you; but if you have
come into Kincorth dishonestly, then I think you have not had half your
deserts. And in either case,” added Mr. Pryor, “I must say that I
consider your manner unfortunate.”
“Our opinions with regard to each other may be identical on the latter
point,” retorted Maxwell; “but I suppose that need not hinder our being
friends in the future as we have been in the past. Good-bye for the
present,” and he held out his hand.
But Geoffry Pryor refused to take it. He bowed stiffly and walked back
across the hall to the breakfast-parlour, where he had left Mrs.
Drewitt.
“As you like, my fine fellow,” muttered the new owner of Kincorth;
“those that win may laugh.” But somehow Maxwell Drewitt did not laugh.
He looked—while he rode down the avenue and out of the gates, of that
property which was now his own for life—as unlike a person who had the
remotest intention of laughing as it is possible to conceive.
After all, the cup of prosperity is not entirely sweet. There are an
immense number of bitters in the pharmacopœia even of success.
But he had succeeded in annoying Mr. Pryor, that was one great
consolation; and if he could have imagined how desperately he had
wounded his opponent he would have been better pleased still.
To a man like Geoffry Pryor it does not matter much what the world says;
but it matters excessively what his own conscience tells him; and his
own conscience told him Maxwell had not spoken altogether falsely, for
that he should find it very sweet to have Geraldine living under the
same roof as that which covered his own head.
“I must go to Waller’s; it is the only way of cutting that knot,” he
decided; and more determined than ever that, so long as he had a shelter
to offer her, Mrs. Drewitt should not remain at Kincorth, he pressed
upon her the necessity of packing her things as soon as possible, and of
taking her departure before Maxwell returned.
“Your maid could follow with your luggage,” he suggested.
“Poor old Nannie was the only maid I could ever boast of,” answered Mrs.
Drewitt through her tears.
“Well, let Nannie put your things together, and the boys can soon find
their own; and I will send Flynn over to Durrow for the car and a light
cart. If there are any of the servants you would like to accompany you
we can make room for them at Durrow.”
“But how should I ever be able to keep servants?” she inquired.
“If you are not able to do so, I will find something for them,” he
answered.
“If I were to take one or two the rest would think I did not care for
them. I had better leave all, I had indeed.”
She was right, and Mr. Pryor could not help marvelling how so sensible a
woman had never been able to make a wiser man of the owner of Kincorth.
While he went round to the stable-yard to despatch Flynn to Durrow, she
called the servants together and told them all what they knew
beforehand—that Mr. Brian was heir no longer, that Mr. Maxwell now owned
Kincorth and everything in it.
“You must not think,” she added, for her sense of justice prevented her
saying anything to prejudice the servants against their new master, or
leaving anything unsaid which it was right they should know—“you must
not think Mr. Maxwell Drewitt is turning us out of Kincorth; on the
contrary, he offered me its hospitality for as long as I liked to
remain. It is by my own wish I leave the house I have loved so well.”
(“Ah! hear that, the craythur!” said some one in the rear.) “I could not
be happy here; and though it is very kind of Mr. Maxwell (dark faces and
lowering looks among the men), still I feel it is best for me to avail
myself of Mr. Pryor’s kindness and go to Durrow till I see what the
future may bring forth. It is so soon—” and Mrs. Drewitt paused to
recover herself—“so soon after my dear husband’s death, and altogether
so sudden and unexpected, that I cannot tell yet where I may go or what
I may do; but wherever I am—”
She paused again:—“wherever I am”—but it would not do: she put her
handkerchief to her face, and then the women crowded round her weeping
and bewailing themselves, and Mrs. Drewitt sobbed out too.
She was like a queen among them—she who had come there so lonely and
unwelcomed—and when she said, “You have been my friends; I have loved
you all,” and held out her hand for each to shake ere she departed, they
stooped down and kissed it, men and women alike, and a bitter cry of
lamentation arose to the chamber where Brian sat all alone.
He knew right well what was the meaning of it. He knew his mother and he
could be but of one mind, and that she meant to leave the house, and
leave it at once; but he did not think where she proposed going, and so
he descended the staircase and entered the drawing-room, where she and
Geraldine and Harold stood, and walked up to her.
“An’ here’s Masther Brian, ma’am; an’ it’s himself’ll be the comfort to
you from this day forth for ever.”
“An’ haven’t ye yer childer, ma’am? Shure there’s nobody living can take
them from ye: an’ wouldn’t him that has got Kincorth give Kincorth to
have any one of them for his own?”
“There’s a silver lining to ivery cloud.”
“But it’s us that’ll feel it, losing masther and misthress within the
week.”
“An’ it’s the good masther he was.”
“An’ the kind misthress you’ve been.”
“An’ the blissin’ of God will follow ye; and the prayers of the poor
have gone before ye.”
“She can’t stand it,” said Brian, huskily; “think of what she has gone
through and let her be quiet, Mother; come with me—mother darling.”
He led her through the servants, who made a way for them to pass out,
and took her to her own room, where he inquired what she meant to do,
what plan she had laid out.
Then he took the management of affairs on himself. He went and asked Mr.
Pryor what his mother was legally entitled to carry out of Kincorth, and
when Mr. Pryor told him, in strict law, only the clothes she wore, Brian
observed there would be the less packing needful.
“_He_ can send them after us if he likes,” said Brian, pointing towards
Headlands; “but she shall take nothing except what she has a clear right
to take.”
“And you, Brian?”
“I want to be alone for a while. I will walk over the hills to Durrow.”
“Let me walk with you;” and Brian saw that the Englishman was afraid of
what he might be meaning to do.
“Trust me,” he said; “I would not shoot Maxwell if there were no gallows
on earth. I am not going to seek an interview with him—upon my honour I
am not;” and Mr. Pryor was satisfied.
“Mamma wants to go all round the grounds, and would like you to go with
her,” Geraldine came whispering at this juncture. “She wants to go alone
with you,” the girl added, and Brian went.
Had Mrs. Drewitt been remaining on at Kincorth, I wonder how long a time
would have elapsed ere she set foot on lawn, in field, in garden? But
now, on the very day when the husband she had loved was laid in Eversbeg
Abbey, she walked about the place bidding to each tree and plant and
flower a sorrowful adieu.
Up the glen she went, and over a plank which was thrown across the
waterfall. She had been timid about that plank in former days, and
afraid to cross it; but now she stepped over without a helping hand.
Where the summer-house had once been she stood and looked down on the
country, speaking never a word. She plucked a leaf here and another
there; she picked up a pebble out of the stream, and pulled a fern and a
piece of moss from beside the waterfall. She went into the garden and
gathered for herself lavender, and heliotrope, and a sprig of bay, and
another of lemon verbena, a morsel of heath, a late-blooming rose, a
spray of fuchsia, two or three scarlet geraniums, and a handful of
woodruffe, and these she tied all together with a piece of ribbon, and
laid aside.
“When I am dead, Brian,” she said, “you will find those flowers
somewhere among my possessions. You will put them in my coffin. Promise
me, my son.”
“Mother, mother!” he remonstrated.
“Promise me,” she insisted, and he did as she wished.
Thus Agnes Drewitt bade farewell to Kincorth. In her heart she knew she
should tread its pleasant lawns, its shady walks, its sunny gardens, no
more for ever.
When she drove down the avenue with her children about her to the lodge,
where the way was blocked by a crowd eager to do her honour, eager to
tell her they sorrowed with her sorrow and sympathized with her
distress, she felt that, let who else would, return to Kincorth in
triumph, let who else would, come back to dwell in the familiar rooms,
to take their rest under those magnificent trees, she might return to
Kincorth no more!