“I have asked old Gateshead to bring over the deeds you executed before
our marriage, Mary,” said Mr Summerhayes, a few days before Charley came
of age; “I want to look over them again.”
“Yes!” said Mary, stopping suddenly in what she was doing, and giving
one furtive glance at him. She asked no farther question, but waited
with an anxious intensity of interest which almost stopped the breath on
her lips.
“I want to look over them again—there are some words in the duplicates
up-stairs I don’t feel quite sure about,” said Mr Summerhayes.
“But, Tom, you told me they were irrevocable, and never could be meddled
with,” said Mary, with a sudden flush of burning colour, which passed
away immediately, leaving her very pale. It had been all her comfort for
many a day to think that those deeds were beyond her power—or his—to
change. She could not help trembling in this sudden terror. She had no
confidence in her own power to resist him—and, alas, but a wavering,
uncertain confidence in him, that he would be able to resist the
temptation of securing, if a change were possible, a stronger title to
all the authority and power he at present, in her right, possessed.
“Do you imagine I want them meddled with?” said Mr Summerhayes. “I don’t
think women understand what honesty or honour means,” he added, in his
harshest tone. “I suppose you believe I am ready to perjure myself, or
break my word, or do anything that’s base, for a bit of your estate.”
“Indeed, Tom, I never thought anything of the kind,” said poor Mary,
faltering; but she had thought something of the kind, though her
thoughts were incapable of such decided expression, and the tremor in
her voice betrayed her.
“That’s how it always is,” said Mr Summerhayes, without any passion, but
with a concentrated sneer in his voice; “a woman who has anything always
suspects her husband of an intention to rob her. Though she may have
lived with him for years, and known his thoughts and shared his plans,
and thought him good enough to be her companion and protector, the
moment she recurs to her money he becomes a robber, and nothing is too
base for him to do. No,” he went on, breathing out a long breath of
indignation apparently, and offended virtue; “I don’t want to alter the
deeds—but I want to read over one clause with Gateshead, to make sure
it’s all right. You would not like your children to go to law about it
after you are dead?”
“No,” said Mary, with a slight shiver; her fears and her imagination
were roused. She, of course, knew nothing about the law, except a
general impression that it was never safe to have anything to do with
it. She had, however, an unreasoning faith in the efficacy of anything
solemnly signed and witnessed, which, notwithstanding, if anybody threw
the least doubt upon that document, changed instantly into a total
scepticism and unbelief of any value in it at all. She jumped at
conclusions, as is the habit of women; and from the most perfect
confidence in the security of Fontanel, instantly plunged into the
wildest uneasiness about it, and already saw herself compelled to
alienate the inheritance from her children;—and all this because Mr
Summerhayes had remarked some expression in one clause which struck him
as of doubtful meaning,—at least that was all the actual foundation upon
which Mary could build her fears.
So it was with feelings of an extremely mingled and doubtful character
that she proceeded with her arrangements for the birthday _fête_, which,
to tell the truth, Mr Summerhayes had strongly opposed—he could not very
well have told why. Charley was the heir of the estate—as indisputable
as if his father had been still its master; yet there was a great
difference; and perhaps the stepfather did not feel himself quite equal
to the necessary speeches, nor to the cordiality which would be required
of him on such a day. Mr Summerhayes had managed everything so
completely in his own way—he had felt the house so entirely his own
these five years, which yet was not his own, nor vested in him by any
natural right—that the idea of acknowledging as much virtually, if not
in distinct words, by this public recognition of the heir, galled him
strangely. He would rather have gone out of the way; but as he could not
go out of the way, he adopted, half unconsciously, the only mode that
remained of making himself disagreeable—he found out that possible flaw
in the deed. Probably nothing further was in his thoughts than to
express the discontent in his mind, and throw a little shadow of
insecurity upon the festivities which were sacred to the too-confident
heir. Like an ill-tempered father keeping up his power by a vague threat
of altering his will, Mr Summerhayes waved his threatening flag over the
heads of the family at Fontanel by this faint cloud of suspicion thrown
upon the invincible certainty of the deed. He meant nothing more; but
evil thoughts are suggestive, and have a wonderful power of cumulation.
Perhaps he did mean something more before old Gateshead, whom, on other
occasions, he did not hesitate to call an old fogy, was disembarked from
his old-fashioned chaise at the door, two days before Charley’s
birthday. The firm was Gateshead and Gateshead—but Europe and Asia are
not more unlike than were its two members. The elder was, as Mr
Summerhayes succinctly expressed it, an old fogy—the other, an acute and
tolerably accomplished young man of the world. Mr Courtenay Gateshead,
in ordinary cases, was Mr Summerhayes’s favourite, and was honoured with
his confidence; but on this special occasion old Mr Gateshead—whose
acuteness was somewhat blunted by age—who was a wonderful gossip and
genealogist, and who had the most profound respect for the superior
legal knowledge of the master of Fontanel, who had once been of the
Inner Temple—was, as an old friend of the family, the selected guest.
Mr Gateshead arrived with a big portmanteau and a little tin box. He was
rather nervous about this little tin box. He carried it into the
drawing-room with him, where he went on his arrival, being a great deal
too early for dinner, as old fogies, who are not much wanted in the
drawing-room, generally are. But Mary was very glad to see him, as an
old friend, and looked at him with a kind of half-conscious appeal in
her eyes, of which Mr Gateshead was totally unaware, and which he would
have been completely bewildered by could he have seen it. He made some
absurd mistakes to be sure. He called her Mrs Clifford, even in Mr
Summerhayes’s presence; and then, instead of prudently ignoring his
mistake, begged her pardon, and laughed and talked of his bad memory.
But the tin box was a heavy burden on the old man’s mind. Every ten
minutes or so, he paused in his talk, which was voluminous, to say,
“Bless my soul, where is that box?” and to shift it from the table or
chair on which he had placed it, to a chair or table nearer. The box
oppressed him even in the midst of the gossip in which his soul
delighted. He took it up to his room with him, but hesitated, not seeing
how he could leave it by itself when he came down to dinner; and at last
gratefully accepted Mr Summerhayes’s offer to put it in his own study,
where all his own papers were, and which nobody dared go into. It seemed
safe under the secure shelter of Mr Summerhayes, whose absolute monarchy
was indisputable, and with whose personalities nobody in Fontanel
ventured to interfere. There, accordingly, the tin box was deposited,
and there, after dinner, somewhat reluctantly on the part of old
Gateshead, who was fond of the society of ladies, and of Mrs
Summerhayes’s in particular, the two gentlemen adjourned, to talk over
that flaw, or possibility of a flaw, in the deeds which were the
safeguard of the young Cliffords. They sat late discussing that and
other affairs,—so late, that it seemed quite the middle of the night to
Mary when her husband awoke her with a cheerful face, to say that
Gateshead was of opinion—and he agreed with him, after the close
examination they had given it—that the deed was quite unassailable, so
that she might have a perfectly easy mind on the subject. “I thought I
might run the risk of a cross look for breaking your sleep, Mary, when
this was what I had to say. I am very glad myself, for it might have
been awkward, as no power was reserved to you under our settlement of
will-making, or that sort of thing,” said Mr Summerhayes. “However, it’s
all right. I left that old fogy pottering over his tin box in my study.
I hope he’ll not set himself on fire before he gets to bed. He’s getting
old very fast, Mary. Young Courtenay will soon have everything his own
way.” Poor Mary was so pleased, so delighted, so thankful, that it was a
long time before she could get to sleep again. She lay half dreaming and
dozing, with an exquisite compunction and renewal of love in her heart.
Had she perhaps suspected this good husband, who came so joyfully to
tell her that all was safe? She made it up to him by the fullest, most
lavish restoration of confidence, as was natural to a generous woman;
and in the happiest thankful state of mind, though with an odd
half-dreaming fancy that old Gateshead had set fire to himself, and that
she smelt his nightcap smouldering into slow destruction, fell finally,
when it was almost dawn, into a sound sleep.
But Mary could not believe that she had been more than a few minutes
asleep when she was awoke by the horrible clangour of the alarm-bell,
and by the rushing and screaming of all the servants. Could it be old
Gateshead’s nightcap that caused that terrible significant sniff of
burning that pervaded the entire atmosphere? Before she could wake her
husband, who lay in a profound sleep, Charley had rushed in at the door
with the alarming cry of fire. “Fire!—get up, mother, make haste, but
don’t flurry yourself; put something on; it’s in the west wing. There’s
time to escape,” cried Charley. “I’ll get out the children, and come
back for you,” he said, as he rushed off again. “Fire!” cried Mr
Summerhayes, springing up. “Good heavens! It’s that old fool, old
Gateshead How could I be so mad as to trust him by himself?” and almost
before Mary knew he was awake, he too had rushed out of the room,
drawing on his dressing-gown as he flew out at the door. “Oh Tom, see to
the children; don’t leave me!” cried Mary in her fright, and she too
wrapped herself hastily in the first garment she could find, and rushed
to the door. She could see nothing but a thick volume of smoke pouring
from the west wing through the entire house, into which her husband’s
figure disappeared, while every soul in the place seemed emerging out of
it in different varieties of fright and undress. “We’ve sent off for the
fire-engines; and don’t be alarmed, mother, it’s entirely in the west
wing,” cried Charley, who came towards her with Alf in one arm and
little Mary in the other. Harry and Loo came crouching close to the big
brother behind—all silent, all ready to cry, all staring with wide-open,
suddenly-awakened eyes, and frightened out of their very lives. “Oh
Charley, Mr Summerhayes will be killed! Where is he going? Is it to look
for Mr Gateshead?” cried Mary, who, when she saw her children safe, fell
into a panic about her husband. He had rushed into the very depths of
that black volume of smoke, in spite of many warning voices. He came
staggering back after a few minutes, half suffocated, to the staircase,
where he sat down to recover himself. “Oh Tom, Mr Gateshead is safe,”
cried Mary, who was shivering in her shawl with cold and terror, and who
would not leave her husband, though the smoke came nearer and nearer.
“D—Mr Gateshead,” cried the excited master of the house. “Charley, fly
to the other side—to the window—my study—the tin box! I’ll take care of
your mother,” he shouted, as Charley appeared coming back. When he had
placed Mary in safety, Mr Summerhayes himself hurried to the same spot.
It was he alone who mounted the ladder, though everybody else said it
was madness. But it would have been as sane a proceeding to walk into a
furnace as into that room, which was the very centre of the fire. He
came down again deadly pale, and almost fainting, with a hurt on his
head from a falling beam, and half suffocated with the fiery smoke. The
tin box was beyond the possibility of redemption.
But the fire, curiously enough, scarcely penetrated beyond the west
wing, which was an unimportant part of the house—a recent addition,
where nobody slept, and which, indeed, contained little that was
important except Mr Summerhayes’s study, which had been built after his
own design, and contained all his pet and personal belongings. Mary and
the children watched from the gardener’s cottage the working of the
fire-engines; and in the excitement of seeing how the fire was got
under, and how little damage, after all, was done to Fontanel, forgot
the misery of the morning and their comfortless circumstances. Even Loo
felt that her stepfather was to be regarded as a hero, when he came,
pale, black, and begrimed—after it became apparent that the work of
destruction was stopped—to the cottage to have his head bound up, and to
see that his wife and her children were safe. And perhaps Loo was still
better disposed towards him when she found that he did not take upon
himself any heroic airs, but was in a most savage temper, cursing old
Gateshead as nobody had ever before heard Mr Summerhayes curse any man.
“I was rash not to see him safe to bed,” cried the master of the burning
house; and Mary did all she could, in her generous way, to deprecate and
excuse “the poor old man.” “Nobody is to blame; it must have been an
accident—only an accident,” said Mary; and Mr Summerhayes, in his rage
and vexation, had not even the grace to be civil to her, but still
muttered curses upon old Gateshead.
While, for his part, Mr Gateshead went round and round what had been the
west wing, wringing his hands. “Burned!—lost!—my tin box. I will never
dare look Courtenay in the face again; and, good Lord! what’s to become
of the children?” cried the poor old lawyer. He could not help hearing
some of Mr Summerhayes’s passionate exclamations, and perceived, by the
way everybody hustled past him, that he was blamed for the sudden
calamity. Though he was an old fogy, he was as sensitive as any man to a
personal grievance. Very soon he began to think about this mysterious
business. “Good Lord, the deed! the poor dear children!” said the old
lawyer to himself. He, too, grew angry and pale with indignation; but he
kept silence and his own counsel. This was the strange and ill-omened
event which happened at Fontanel the day before Charley’s coming of age.