“Partredge?”
“Partredge always did sleep like the dead,” thought Bayard. “I hope
he doesn’t neglect my uncle, now he is growing old.”
“Nancy?” summoned the voice again.
Nancy always woke easily and good-naturedly. But Nancy heard
nothing now. Bayard, afraid to shock the old man by so astounding
an appearance, was moving quickly and quietly to find the servants,
when something caused him to change his purpose. Apparently,
Mr. Worcester had tried to reach the bell--it was one of the
old-fashioned kind, with a long, embroidered bell-handle--he had
partly crossed the room, when Bayard intercepted the fall, and
caught him.
The gas was lighted, and recognition was instant. Without shock, it
seemed without surprise, Hermon Worcester lay back in the young
man’s arms, and smiled pleasantly into his face.
“I _thought_ you would use the latch-key--some night,” he said with
difficulty. “You’ve chosen the right one, Manuel. The servants did
not hear--and--I’m afraid I’m not--quite--well, my boy.”
After this, he said nothing; but lingered for three days, without
evident suffering, and with evident content, making signs that
Manuel should not leave him; which he did not, to the end.
Hermon Worcester passed on serenely, in the Faith, and the
prominence and usefulness thereof; though the last prayer that he
heard on earth came from the lips of the affectionate heretic in
whose arms he died.
Bayard had been so long out of the world and the ways of it, that
it did not occur to him, till he received the summons of the family
lawyer, that he would be required to be present at the reading of
his uncle’s will.
“As the nearest of kin, my dear sir,” suggested the attorney, “the
occasion will immediately concern you, doubtless.”
Bayard bowed, in silence. He did not think it necessary to explain
to the attorney that he had been, for a long time, aware of the
fact of his disinheritance.
“Possibly Uncle may have left me his library,” he thought, “or the
furniture of my old room.”
He had, indeed, received the library. The rest of Hermon
Worcester’s fortune, barring the usual souvenirs to relatives,
had been divided between Mr. Worcester’s favorite home missionary
associations and Cesarea Seminary, of which he had been, for thirty
years, trustee.
The house on Beacon Street, with its contents, went unreservedly,
“and affectionately,” the testator had expressed it, to his nephew,
Emanuel Bayard.
“I think,” observed the lawyer at the first decent opportunity,
“that Mr. Worcester intended, or--hoped that you might make your
plans of life in accordance with such circumstances as would enable
you to keep, and to keep up, the homestead.”
“But of course,” added the attorney, shrewdly reading Bayard’s
silent face, “that might be--as you say--impossible.”
“I said nothing,” replied Bayard in a low voice.
“The place is yours, without conditions,” pursued the lawyer,
with polite indifference. “It can be sold, or converted into
income--rented, if you please, if ever unfortunately necessary. It
would seem a pity. It would bring so little. But still, it could,
of course, be done.”
“What do you call a little?” asked Bayard.
“Oh, enough for a small fresh-water Professor or retail grocer
to get along on, if he knew how,” replied the Back Bay lawyer
carelessly.
He mentioned the figures.
The house was old, and in need of repair; the furniture out of
date, and worn. The probable values were not large, as the attorney
said. To the pastor from Angel Alley their possession seemed to
represent the shock of nature involved in a miracle.