A DEATH-BED.
Sir Walter lay in his luxurious bed, where everything was arranged with
the perfection of comfort, warmth, softness, lightness, all that wealth
could procure to smooth the downward path. He was not in pain. Even the
restlessness which is worse than pain, which so often makes the last
hours of life miserable, an agony to the watchers, perhaps less so to
the sufferer, had not come to this old man. He lay quite still, with
eyes shining unnaturally bright from amid the curves and puckers of his
heavy old eyelids, with a half smile on his face, and the air of
deliverance from all care which some dying people have. He was dying not
of illness, but because suddenly the supplies of life had failed, the
golden cord had broken, its strands were dropping asunder. The wheels
were soon to stand still, but for the moment that condition of suspense
did not seem to be painful. There was fever in his eyes which threw a
certain glamour over everything about. He had asked that the candles
might be lighted, that the room should be made bright, and had called
his daughter to his side. Perhaps it was only her own anxiety which had
made her suppose that he had asked for Rochford and the papers. At all
events, if he had done so, he did so no more. He held her hand, or
rather she held his as she stood by him, and he lightly patted it with
the other of his large, soft, feeble hands.
“You are looking beautiful to-night--as I used to see you--not as you
have been of late. Alicia, you are looking like a queen to-night.”
“Oh, father, dear father, my beauty is all in your eyes.”
“Perhaps, more or less,” he said; “I have fever in my eyes, and that
gives a glory. The lights are all like stars, and my child’s eyes more
than all. You were a beautiful girl, Alicia. I was very proud of you.
Nobody but your father ever knew how sweet you were. You were a little
proud outside, perhaps a little proud. And then we had so much
trouble--together, you and I--”
She said nothing. She had not attained even now to the contemplative
calm which could look back upon that trouble mildly. It brought hard
heart-beats, convulsive throbs of pain to her bosom still. She had
silenced him often by some cry of unsoftened anguish when he had begun
so to speak. But as he lay waiting there, as it were in the vestibule of
death, saying his last words, she could silence him no more.
“Something has occurred to-night,” he said, “that has brought it all
back. What was it, Alicia? Perhaps your ball; the dancing--we’ve not
danced here for long enough--or the music. Music is a thing that is full
of associations; it brings things back. Was there anything more? Yes, I
think there must have been something more.”
She stood looking at him with dumb inexpressive eyes. She could not,
would not say what it was besides, not even now at the last moment, at
the supreme moment. All the opposition of her nature was in this. Love
and pride and sorrow and the bitter sense of disappointment and loss,
all joined together. She met his searching glance, though it was
pathetic in its inquiry, with blank unresponsive eyes. And after awhile
in his feebleness he gave up the inquiry.
“We have gone through a great deal together, you and I--ah, that is
so--only sometimes I think there was a great deal of pride in it, my
dear. My two poor boys--poor boys! I might be hard on them sometimes.
There was the disappointment and the humiliation. God would be kinder to
them. He’s the real father, you know. I feel it by myself. Many and many
a time in these long years my heart has yearned over them. Oh, poor
boys, poor silly boys! had they but known, at least in this their
day--Alicia! how could you and I standing outside know what was passing
between God and them when they lay--as I am lying now?’
“Oh, father, father!” she cried, with an anguish in her voice.
“It is you that are standing outside now, Alicia, alone, poor girl; and
you don’t know what’s passing between God and me. A great deal that I
never could have thought of--like friends, like friends! I feel easy
about the boys, not anxious any longer. After all, you know, they belong
to God, too, although they are foolish and weak. Very likely they are
doing better--well, now--”
“Oh, father!” she cried, with a keen pang of pain at what she thought
the wandering of his mind. “You forget, you forget that they are dead.”
“Dead!” he repeated, slowly. “I don’t forget; but do you know what that
means? We never understand anything till we come to it in this life. I’m
coming very close, but I don’t see--yet--except that it’s very
different--very different--not at all what we thought.”
“Father,” she cried, in the tumult of her thoughts: “oh, tell me
something about yourself! Are you happy--do you feel--do you remember--”
Alicia Penton had said the prayers and received the faith of Christians
all her life, and she wanted, if she could, to recall to the dying man
those formulas which seemed fit for his state, to hear him say that he
was supported in that dread passage by the consolations of the Gospel.
But her lips, unapt to speak upon such subjects, seemed closed, and she
could not find a word to say.
“Happy!” he said, with that mild reflectiveness which seemed to have
come with the approaching end. “It is a long, long time since I’ve been
asked that question. If you mean, am I afraid? No, no; I’m not afraid.
I’m--among friends. I feel--quite pleased about it all. It will be all
right, whatever happens. I don’t seem to have anything to do with it. In
my life I have always felt that I had everything to do with it, Alicia;
and so have you, my dear; it’s your fault, too. We were always setting
God right. But it’s far better this way. I’m an old fellow--an old, old
fellow--and I wonder if this is what is called second childhood, Alicia;
for I could feel,” he said, with the touching laugh of weakness, “as if
I were being carried away--in some one’s arms.”
His heavy eyes, that were still bright with fever, closed with a sort of
smiling peacefulness, then opened again with a little start. “But it
seemed to me just now as if there was something to do--what was there to
do?--before I give myself over. I don’t want to be disturbed, but if
there is something to do--Ah, Gerald, my good fellow, you are here,
too.”
Russell Penton had come in to say that the men who had been sent for so
hurriedly, they whose coming was so important, a matter almost of life
and death, had arrived. He had entered the room while Sir Walter was
speaking, but the hush of peace about the bed had stopped on his lips
the words he had been about to say. He came forward and took the other
hand, which his father-in-law, scarcely able to raise it, stretched out
toward him faintly with a smile. “I hope you are better, sir,” he said,
mechanically, bending over the soft helpless hand, and under his breath
to his wife, “They are come,” he said.
She gave him a look of helplessness and dismay, with an appeal in it.
What could be done? Could anything be said of mortal business now? Could
they come in with their papers, with their conflict of human interests
and passion, to this sanctuary of fading life? And yet again, could
Alicia Penton make up her mind to be balked, disappointed, triumphed
over in the end?
“Better--is not the word.” Sir Walter spoke very slowly, pausing
constantly between his broken phrases, his voice very low, but still
clear. “I am well--floating away, you know--carried very softly--in some
one’s arms. You will laugh--at an old fellow. But I don’t feel quite
clear if I am an old fellow, or perhaps--a child.” Then came that
fluttering laugh of weakness, full of pathetic pleasure and weeping and
well-being. “But,” he added, with a deeper drawn, more difficult breath,
“you come in quickly. Tell me--before it’s late. There is something on
my mind--like a shadow--something to do.”
Alicia held his hand fast; she did not move, nor look up; her eyes
blank, introspective, without any light in them, making no reply to him,
fixed on her father’s face; but her whole being quivering with a
conflict beyond describing, good and evil, the noble and the small,
contending over her, in a struggle which felt like death.
A similar struggle, but slighter and fainter was in her husband’s mind;
but in him it was not a mortal conflict, only a question which was best.
Was it right to permit the old man to float away, as he said, without
executing a project which seemed so near to his heart? Because it was
not one which pleased Russell Penton, because he would rather that it
should fail, he felt himself the more bound to his wife that it should
not fail through him.
“It seems almost wicked to disturb you, sir,” he said, “but I heard that
you wanted Rochford; if so, he is here.”
Alicia caught her husband by the arm, pressing it almost fiercely with
her hand, leaning her trembling weight upon him. “But not to disturb
you, father,” she cried, with a gasp.
“Ah!” said Sir Walter, “I remember. What was it? I don’t seem to see
anything--except those lights like stars shining; and Alicia, Alicia!
How beautiful she is looking--like a girl--to-night.”
Her husband gave her a strange glance. She was gripping his arm as if
for salvation, clutching it, her breath coming quick; her cheeks with
two red spots of anxiety and excitement; her eyes dull, with no
expression in the intensity of their passion, fixed on her father’s
face. The white dressing-gown which she had thrown on when she was
called to him was open a little at the throat, and showed the gleam of
the diamonds which she had not had time to take off. It was not
wonderful that in the old man’s eyes, with love and fever together in
them, Alicia, in her unusual white, should seem for a moment to have
gone back to the dazzle and splendor of youth.
Sir Walter resumed after a moment, as though this little outbreak of
tender admiration were an indulgence which he had permitted himself. “My
mind’s getting very hazy, Gerald--all quite pleasant, the right thing,
no trouble in it, but hazy. I remember, and yet I don’t remember. If I
had but the clew--Rochford?--the young one, not the father. He’s gone,
like all the rest, and now the young one--reigns in his stead. Bring
him, and perhaps I’ll remember. You could tell me, you two, but you’re
afraid to disturb me. What does it matter about disturbing me? a
moment--and then--Send for him; perhaps I’ll remember.”
Alicia would scarcely let her husband go. She looked at him with terror
in her eyes. What was she afraid of? When he withdrew his arm from her
she dropped down suddenly on her knees by her father’s bedside with a
low shuddering cry, and hid her face, pressing her cheek upon the old
man’s hand. The excitement had risen too high. She could bear it no
longer. Complicated with all the aching and trouble of the moment, the
bursting of this last tie of nature, the dearest and longest
companionship of her life, to have that other anxiety, the miserable
question of the inheritance, the triumph or sacrifice of her pride,
which yet, even amid the solemnity of death, moved her more than any
other question oh earth--was something intolerable. It was more than she
could bear. She sunk down, partly out of incapacity to support herself,
partly that she could not, dared not, meet her father’s eyes with their
vague and wistful question. “You could tell me, you two.” He had seen
it, then, in her face, though she had made efforts so determined to
banish all sign of comprehension, all answer out of her eyes. And now,
if he insisted, how could she refuse to answer him? and if Gerald
perceived that the old man had found the necessary clew through her,
what would he think of her? That she had preferred her own
aggrandizement to her father’s peace, that she had prompted him on the
very edge of the grave to enrich herself. She could not sustain Sir
Walter’s look, nor face the emergency without at least that passive
protection of her husband’s presence, which for the moment was
withdrawn. And Alicia trembled for the moment when the strangers would
come into this sacred room; the lawyer, and Edward Penton behind him,
hesitating, not without feeling (she knew), looking sadly at the
death-bed where lay one whom in his early days he had looked up to with
familiar kindness. Nobody in the world, not even Gerald, could be so
near to him in that moment as Edward Penton. She felt this even while
she trembled at the anticipation of his coming. He was nearer than any
one living. He would bring in with him the shadows of those two helpless
ones disappeared so long out of life. She bethought her in that moment
how it had been usual to say “the three boys.” Was her mind wandering,
too? All these thoughts surged up into her brain in a wild
confusion--the old tenderness, the irritation, the bitter jealous grudge
at him who had outlived the others, the natural longing toward one who
could understand.
Sir Walter was unaffected by any of these thoughts; he felt it all
natural--that the grief of his child should overwhelm her, that the
sense of parting and loss should be profounder on her side than on his.
After various efforts he raised his hand, which was so heavy, which
would not obey his will, and laid it tenderly upon her bowed head.
“Alicia, my dear, child, don’t let it overwhelm you. Who can tell even
how small the separation is--as long as it lasts, and it can not last
very long. You must not, you must not, my dear, be sorry for me. I tell
you--it is all pleasant--sweet. I am not--not at all--sorry for myself.
God bless you, my dear. He is so close that when I say ‘God bless you’
it is as if, my love. He Himself was putting out His hand.”
“Oh, father! oh, father!” she repeated, and could say no more.
And he lay with his face turned to her, and his hand feebly smoothing,
stroking her bowed head, as if she had been a child. She was a child to
him, his young Alicia, looking so beautiful after her ball, in which he
had seen her--had he not seen her?--admired of everybody, the fairest,
the most stately, with the Penton diamonds glittering at her white
throat as they were now. He had her in his mind’s eye so distinct, as he
had seen her--was it an hour, was it a life-time ago? His breathing
began to be disturbed, becoming more difficult, and his thoughts to grow
more confused. He talked on, in broken gasps of utterance, more
difficult, always more difficult. The fog in his throat--he began to
feel it now; but always in flashes saw the lights gleaming, and Alicia
in full beauty, with her eyes like the stars, and those other stars,
less precious, yet full of luster at her throat. He took no note of
outward things, being more and more absorbed--yet with a dullness which
softened everything, even the difficulty of the breath--in his own
sensations, and in the sweep of the hurrying movement that seemed to be
carrying him away, away, into halcyon seas beyond, into repose and
smiling peace. But the woman kneeling under his hand was as much alive
to every sound and incident as he was dull to them. Nothing muffled her
keen sense, or stilled the flood of thoughts that were pouring through
her mind. She heard, her heart leaping to the sound, steps approaching
softly, on tiptoe, every noise restrained. She heard a low murmur of
voices, then the opening of the door; but she was afraid to lift her
head, to startle her father. She dared not look up to see who was there,
or how he took the entrance of the new-comers. As for Sir Walter, he was
almost beyond disturbance. His hand moved heavily from time to time over
her head; sometimes there was a faint tremble when a breath came harder,
nothing more. Would he die so? she asked herself, making no sign; was it
all sealed up forever, the source of life that had made the light or the
darkness of so many other lives. Her own wildly beating heart seemed to
stand still, to stop in the tremendous suspense.
“Can you hear me?” said her husband’s voice, low and full of emotion.
“Rochford is here, sir; do you want him?”
He shook his head as he spoke to the two awe-stricken men behind.
“Eh!” Sir Walter gave a start as if half awakened. “Who did you say?--I
think--I must have been asleep. Some one who wants me? They’ll excuse
a--a sick old man. Some one--who?--Gerald--whom did you say?”
“Rochford, sir, whom you wanted to see.”
“Rochford! What should I want with Rochford? He’s the--lawyer--the
lawyer. We have had plenty to do with lawyers in our day. Yes--I think
there was something if I could remember. Alicia, where is Alicia?”
She rose up quickly, all those wild sensations in her stilled by this
supreme call. “I am here, father,” she said. Her countenance was
perfectly colorless, except for two spots of red, of excitement and
misery, on her cheeks. Her lips were parched, it was with difficulty she
spoke.
“Yes, my love; stand by me till the last. What was it? I feel stronger.
I can attend--to business. Tell me, my child, what it was.”
She stood for a moment speechless, turning her face toward them all with
a look which was awful in its internal struggle. How was she to say it?
How not to say it? Her fate, and the fate of the others, seemed to lie
in her hands. It was not too late. His strength fluctuated from moment
to moment, yet he could do what was needed still.
“Father,” she began, moistening her dry lips, trying to get the words
out of her parched throat.
Sir Walter had opened his heavy eyes. He looked round with a bewildered,
half-smiling look. Suddenly he caught sight of Edward Penton, who stood
lingering, hesitating, half in sympathy, half in resistance, behind. The
dying man gave a little cry of pleasure. “Ah! I remember,” he said.