THE FIRSTFRUITS.
Some days had passed since this night of avowal when, very early one morning,
Henry was awakened from sleep by the sound of wheels and of knocking at the inn
door. A strange apprehension took hold of him, and he rose from his bed and
limped to the window. Then he saw that the carriage which had arrived was the
old Rosham shooting brake, a long plain vehicle with deal seats running down
its length on either side, constructed to carry eight or nine sportsmen to and
from the more distant beats. Knocking at the door was none other than Edward
Milward, and Henry guessed at once that he must have come to fetch him.
“Well, perhaps it is as well,” he thought to himself grimly; then
again his heart was filled with fear. What had happened? Why did Milward come
thus, and at such an hour?
In another minute Edward had entered the room, followed by Mrs. Gillingwater.
“Your father is dying, Graves,” he blurted out. “I
don’t know what it is; he collapsed suddenly in the middle of the night.
If you want to see him alive—and you had better, if you can, while he has
got his senses—you must make shift to come along with me at once. I have
brought the brake, so that you can lie in it at full length. That was
Ellen’s idea: I should never have thought of it.”
“Great Heaven!” said Henry. Then, assisted by Mrs. Gillingwater, he
began to get into his clothes.
In ten minutes they were off, Henry lying flat upon a mattress at the bottom of
the brake. Once he lifted his head and looked through the open rails of the
vehicle towards the door of the house. Mrs. Gillingwater, who was a shrewd
woman, interpreted the glance.
“If you are looking for Joan, sir, to say good-bye to her, it is no use,
for she’s in her room there sleeping like the dead, and I couldn’t
wake her. I don’t think she is quite herself, somehow; but she’ll
be sorry to miss you, and so shall I, for the matter of that; but I’ll
tell her.”
“Thank you, thank you—for everything,” he answered hastily,
and they started.
The drive was long and the road rough, having been much washed by recent rains;
but after a fashion Henry enjoyed it, so far as his pressing troubles of mind
would allow him to enjoy anything, for it was a lovely morning, and the breath
of the open air, the first that he had tasted for many weeks, was like wine to
him. On the way he learned from his companion all that there was to be told
about his father. It appeared, as Henry had heard already, that he had been
unwell for the last two months—not in a way to give alarm, though
sufficiently to prevent him from leaving the house except on the finest days,
or at times his room. On the previous day, however, he seemed much better, and
dined downstairs. About ten o’clock he went to bed, and slept soundly
till a little past midnight, when the household was aroused by the violent
ringing of Lady Graves’s bell, and they rushed upstairs to find that Sir
Reginald had been seized with a fit. Dr. Childs was sent for at once, and gave
an opinion that death might occur at any moment. His treatment restored the
patient’s consciousness; and Sir Reginald’s first words expressed
the belief that he was dying, and an earnest wish to see his son, whereupon
Edward, who chanced to be spending the night at Rosham, was despatched with the
brake to Bradmouth.
At length they reached the Hall, and Henry was helped from the vehicle; but in
ascending the stone steps, which he insisted upon doing by himself, one of his
crutches slipped, causing the foot of his injured limb to come down with some
force upon the edge of the step. The accident gave him considerable pain, but
he saved himself from falling, and thought little more of it at the time.
In the dining-room he found Ellen, who looked pale, and seemed relieved to see
him.
“How is my father?” he asked.
“Insensible again just now. But I am so glad that you have come, Henry,
for he has been asking for you continually. All this business about the
property seems to weigh more upon his mind now than it has done for years, and
he wants to speak to you on the subject.”
Then his mother came down, and her eyes were red with weeping.
“You have returned to a sad home, Henry,” she said kissing him.
“We are an unlucky family: death and misfortune are always at our doors.
You look very white, my dear boy, and no wonder. You had better try to eat
something, since it is useless for you to attempt to see your poor father at
present.”
So Henry ate, or made a pretence of doing so, and afterwards was helped
upstairs to a room opposite to that in which his father lay dying, where he
settled himself in an invalid chair which Sir Reginald had used on the few
occasions when he had been outside the house during the past weeks, and waited.
All that day and all the next night he waited, and still his father did not
recover consciousness—indeed, Dr. Childs now appeared to be of opinion
that he would pass from coma to death. Much as he wished to bid a last farewell
to his father, Henry could not repress a certain sense of relief when he heard
that this was likely to be the case, for an instinct, coupled with some words
which Ellen had let fall, warned him that Sir Reginald wished to speak to him
upon the subject of Miss Levinger.
But the doctor was mistaken; for about six o’clock in the morning, nearly
twenty-four hours after he had reached the house, Henry was awakened by Ellen,
who came to tell him that their father was fully conscious and wished to see
him at once. Seating himself in the invalid chair, he was wheeled across the
passage to the red bedroom, in which he had himself been born. The top halves
of some of the window-shutters were partly open, and by the light that streamed
through them into the dim death-chamber, he saw his father’s gaunt but
still stately form propped up with pillows in the great four-post bed, of which
the red curtains had been drawn back to admit the air.
“Here comes Henry,” whispered Lady Graves.
The old man turned his head, and, shaking back his snowy hair, he peered round
the room.
“Is that you, my son?” he said in a low voice, stretching out a
trembling hand, which Henry took and kissed. “You find me in a bad way:
on the verge of death, where you have so lately been.”
“Yes, it is I, father.”
“God bless you, my boy! and God be thanked that you have been able to
come to listen to my last words, and that I have recovered my senses so that I
can speak to you! Do not go away, my dear, or you, Ellen, for I want you all to
hear what I have to say. You know, Henry, the state of this property.
Mismanagement and bad times have ruined it. I have been to blame, and your dear
brother, whom I hope soon to see, was to blame also. It has come to this, that
I am leaving you beggars, and worse than beggars, since for the first time in
the history of our family we cannot pay our debts.”
Here he stopped and groaned, and Lady Graves whispered to him to rest awhile.
“No, no,” he answered. “Give me some brandy; I will go on; it
does not matter if I use myself up, and my brain may fail me at any moment.
Henry, I am dying here, on this spot of earth where so many of our forefathers
have lived and died before me; and more than the thought of leaving you all,
more than the memory of my sins, or than the fear of the judgment of the
Almighty, Whose mercy is my refuge, the thought crushes me that I have failed
in my trust, that my children must be beggared, my name dishonoured, and my
home—yes, and my very grave—sold to strangers. Henry, I have but
one hope now, and it is in you. I think that I have sometimes been unjust to
you in the past; but I know you for an upright and self-denying man, who,
unlike some of us, has always set his duty before his pleasure. It is to you,
then, that I appeal with my last breath, feeling sure that it will not be in
vain, since, even should you have other wishes, you will sacrifice them to my
prayer, to your mother’s welfare, and to the honour of our name. You know
that there is only one way of escape from all our liabilities for I believe you
have been spoken to on the subject; indeed, I myself alluded to it by a
marriage between yourself and Emma Levinger, who holds the mortgages on this
property, and has other means. Her father desires this, and I have been told
that the girl herself, who is a good and a sweet woman, has declared her
affection for you; therefore it all rests with you. Do you understand me?”
“Say yes, and that you will marry her on the first opportunity,”
whispered Ellen into Henry’s ear. “He will kill himself with
talking so much.” Then she saw her brother’s face, and drew back
her head in horror. Heavens! could it be that he was going to refuse?
“I will try to make myself plain,” went on Sir Reginald after a
pause, and swallowing another sip of brandy. “I want you to promise,
Henry, before us all, that nothing, except the death of one of you, shall
prevent you from marrying Emma Levinger so soon as may be possible after my
funeral. When I have heard you say that, I shall be able to die in peace.
Promise, then, my son, quickly; for I wish to turn my mind to other
matters.”
Now all eyes were bent upon Henry’s face, and it was rigid and ashen.
Twice he tried to speak and failed; the third time the words came, and they
sounded like a groan.
“Father, I _cannot!_”
Ellen gasped, and Lady Graves murmured, “! cruel, cruel!” As for
the dying man, his head sank back upon the pillow, and he lay there bewildered.
Presently he lifted it and spoke again.
“I do not think—my hearing—I must have misunderstood. Did you
say you could not promise, Henry? Why not? With everything at stake, and my
dying prayer—mine, your father’s. Oh! why not? Are you married,
then?”
The sweat broke from Henry’s brow and rolled down his face in large
drops, as he answered, always in the voice that sounded like a groan,—
“I am not married, father; and, before God, sooner than be forced to
refuse you I would lie as you lie now. Have pity, I beseech you, on my cruel
strait, between my honour and the denial of your wish. I cannot promise that I
will marry Emma Levinger, because I am bound to another woman by ties that may
not be broken, and I cannot be so base as to desert her.”
“Another woman? I am too late, then?” murmured his father more and
more feebly. “But stay: there is still hope. Who is she? At least you
will not refuse to tell me her name.”
“Her name is Joan Haste.”
“Joan Haste? What! the girl at the inn? The bastard! My son, my only
remaining son, denies his dying father, and brings his mother and his name to
disgrace and ruin, because he is bound in honour to a village bastard!”
he screamed. “Oh, my God! that I should have lived to hear this! Oh, my
God! my God!”
And suddenly the old man flung his arms wide and fell back. Lady Graves and
Ellen ran to him. Presently the former came away from the bed.
“Your father is dead, Henry,” she said. “Perhaps, after what
has passed, you will feel that this is no fit place for you. I will ring for
some one to take you to your room.”
But the last bitterness of these words, so awful from a mother’s lips,
was spared to Henry, for he had swooned. As he sank into unconsciousness a
solemn voice seemed to speak within his tortured brain, and it said,
“Behold the firstfruits of iniquity.”
Henry did not attend his father’s funeral, for the good reason that he
was ill in bed. In the first place, though he made light of it at the time,
that slip of his on the stone steps had so severely affected his broken limb as
to necessitate his lying by for at least another month; and in the second he
had received a shock to his nerves, healthy as they were, from which he could
not hope to recover for many a month. He was kept informed of all that went on
by Thomson, the old butler, for neither his mother nor Ellen came near him
during those dark days. He heard the footsteps of the carpenter who measured
his father’s body, he heard the coffin being brought upstairs; and the
day afterwards he heard the shuffling tramp of the tenants, who, according to
ancient custom, bore down the corpse of the dead owner of Rosham to lie in
state in the great hall. He heard the workmen nailing the hatchment of the
departed baronet beneath his window; and then at last a day came when he heard
a noise of the rolling wheels of carriages, and the sound of a church bell
tolling, as his father was laid to rest among the bones of his ancestors.
So bitter was the resentment against him, that none had asked Henry to look his
last upon his father’s face. For a while he thought it better that he
should not do so, but on the second night after the death nature grew too
strong for him, and he determined to do that alone which, under happier
circumstances, it should have been his duty to do with his widowed mother and
his sister at his side. Painfully he dragged himself from the bed, and, placing
a candle and a box of matches in the pocket of his dressing-gown, he limped
upon his crutches across the silent corridor and into the death-chamber, where
the atmosphere was so heavy with the scent of flowers that for a moment it
brought back his faintness. Recovering himself, he closed the door and made
shift to light his candle. Then by its solitary light he approached the bed on
which his father’s corpse was lying, half hidden by wreaths and covered
with a sheet. With a trembling hand he drew down the wrapping and exposed the
dead man’s face. It was calm enough now: there was no trace there of the
tormenting grief that had been upon it in the moment of dissolution; it bore
the seal of perfect peace, and, notwithstanding the snowy hair, a more youthful
aspect than Henry could remember it to have worn, even in the days of his
childhood.
In sad and solemn silence Henry gazed upon the clay that had given him life,
and great bitterness and sorrow took hold of him. He covered his eyes with his
hand, and prayed that God might forgive him for the pain which he had caused
his father in his last hour, and that his father might forgive him too in the
land where all things are understood, for there he would learn that he could
not have spoken otherwise. Well, he was reaping as he had sown, and there
remained nothing to him except to make amendment as best he could. Then with a
great effort he dragged himself up upon the bed, and kissed his father’s
forehead.
Having replaced the sheet, he extinguished the candle and turned to leave the
room. As he opened the door he saw a figure draped in black, who stood in the
passage listening. It was his mother. She advanced towards him with a cold, sad
mien, and opened her lips as though to speak. Then the light fell upon his
face, and she saw that it was torn by grief and stained with tears, and her
look softened, for now she understood something of what her son’s
sufferings must be. Still she did not speak, and in silence, except for the
tapping of his crutches on the polished floor, Henry passed her with bowed
head, and reached his room again.
In due course the family returned from the funeral, and, outwardly at any rate,
a break occurred in the conspiracy of silence and neglect of which Henry was
the object, for it was necessary that he should be present at the reading of
the will. This ceremony took place in the bedroom of the new baronet, and
gathered there were a representative from the London firm of lawyers that had
managed, or mismanaged, the Graves’s affairs for several generations, the
widow, Ellen, and Edward Milward. Bowing gravely to Sir Henry, the lawyer broke
the seals of the document and began the farce for a farce it was, seeing that
the will had been signed nearly five-and-twenty years before, when the position
of the family was very different. After reciting the provisions of the entail
that, by the way, had long been cut under which his deceased brother Reginald
should have entered into the enjoyment of all the land and hereditaments and
the real property generally, with remainder to his children, or, in the event
of his death without issue, to Henry, the testator went on to deal with the
jointure of the widow, which was fixed at eight hundred a year in addition to
the income arising from her own fortune, that, alas! had long since been lost
or muddled away. Then it made provision for the younger children,—ten
thousand to Henry and eight thousand to Ellen,—to be paid out of the
personalty, or, should this prove insufficient, to be raised by way of
rent-charge on the estate, as provided for under the marriage settlement of Sir
Reginald and his wife; and, after various legacies and directions as to the
disposal of heirlooms, ended by constituting Reginald, or, in the event of his
death without issue, Henry, residuary legatee.
When he had finished reading this lengthy document, which he well knew not to
be worth the paper on which it was written, the lawyer solemnly exhibited the
signatures of the testator and of the attesting witnesses, and laid it down
with a sigh. Three of the listeners were aware that the will might as well have
affected to dispose of the crown of England as to devise to them these various
moneys, lands and chattels; but the fourth, Edward Milward, who had never been
admitted to full confidence as to the family position, was vastly pleased to
learn that his future wife inherited so considerable a sum, to say nothing of
her chance of succeeding to the entire estate should Henry die without issue.
That there had been embarrassments and mortgage charges he knew, but these, he
concluded, were provided for by life insurances, and had rolled off the back of
the property on the death of the late owner. Indeed, he showed his pleasure so
plainly in his face that the lawyer, guessing he was labouring under some such
delusion, hesitated and looked at him pointedly before he proceeded to make
remarks upon the document. Ellen, always on the watch, took the hint, and,
laying her hand affectionately on Milward’s shoulder, said in a low voice:
“Perhaps you will not mind leaving us for a few moments, Edward: I fancy
there are one or two matters that my mother would not like to be discussed
outside her own family at present.”
“Certainly,” answered Edward, who, having learned all he wished to
know, rejoiced at the chance of escape, seeing that funerals and will-reading
exercised a depressing effect upon his spirits.
Lady Graves was at the other end of the room and looking out of an open window,
so that she did not overhear these remarks. Henry, however, did hear them, and
spoke for the first time.
“I think that you had better stay, Milward,” he said: “there
is nothing to conceal,” and he smiled grimly at his own
_double-entendre._
“No, thanks,” answered Edward airily: “I have heard all I
want to know, so I will go into the garden and smoke a cigarette.” And
before Henry could speak again he was gone.
“You are probably aware, Sir Henry,” began the lawyer, “that
all the main provisions of this document”—and he tapped the will
with his knuckle—“fall to the ground, for the reason that the
capital sums with which they dealt were exhausted some years since; though I am
bound to tell you that, in my opinion, the legality of the methods by which
some of those sums were brought into possession might even now be
contested.”
“Yes,” answered Henry, “and good money thrown after
bad.”
“Of course,” went on the lawyer, “you succeed to the estates,
which have been little, if at all, diminished in acreage; but they are, I
believe, mortgaged to more than their present value in favour of a Mr.
Levinger, who holds the securities in trust for his daughter, and to whom there
is a large sum due by way of back interest.”
“Yes, I am aware of it.”
“Hem,” said the lawyer. “Then I am afraid that there is not
much more to say, is there? I trust that you may be able—to find means to
meet—these various liabilities, in which case we shall be most happy to
act for you in the matter. By the way, we still have a small sum in our hands
that was sent to us by our late esteemed client to pay a debt of your late
brother’s, which on enquiry was found not to be owing. This we propose to
remit to you, after deducting the amount of our account current.”
“By all means deduct the account current,” said Henry; “for,
you see, you may not get another chance of paying yourselves. Well, the
carriage is waiting for you. Good afternoon.”
The lawyer gathered up his papers, shook hands all round, bowed and went.
“Well,” he thought to himself as he drove towards the station,
“I am glad to be clear of this business: somehow it was more depressing
than most funerals. I suppose that there’s an end of a connection that
has lasted a hundred years, though there will be some pickings when the estate
is foreclosed on. I am glad it didn’t happen in Sir Reginald’s
time, for I had a liking for the old man and his grand last-century manners.
The new baronet seems a roughish fellow, with a sharp edge to his tongue; but I
dare say he has a deal to worry him, and he looks very ill. What fools they
were to cut the entail! They can’t blame us about it, anyway, for we
remonstrated with them strongly enough. Sir Reginald was under the thumb of
that dead son of his—that’s the fact, and he was a scamp, or
something like it. Now they are beggared, absolutely beggared: they won’t
even be able to pay their debts. It’s not one man’s funeral that I
have been assisting at—it is that of a whole ancient family, without
benefit of clergy or hope of resurrection. The girl is going to marry a rich
man: she knows which side her bread is buttered, and has a good head on her
shoulders—that’s one comfort. Well, they are bankrupt and done
with, and it is no good distressing myself over what can’t be helped.
Here’s the station. I wonder if I need tip the coachman. I remember he
drove me when I came down to the elder boy’s christening; we were both
young then. Not necessary, I think: I sha’n’t be likely to see him
again.”