REPARATION
"You will have to go," said Henry Leslie, glancing sharply at his wife
across the breakfast-table as he returned her an open letter which had
lately arrived by the English mail. "I hardly know where to find the
money for your passage out and home just now, and you will want new
dresses--women always seem to. Still, we can't afford to miss an
opportunity, and it may prove a good investment," he added,
reflectively.
Millicent sighed as she took the letter, and, ignoring her husband's
words, read it through again. It had been written by a relative, a
member of the legal profession, and requested her to return at once to
England. The stern old man, who had reared her, was slowly dying, and
had expressed an urgent wish to see her.
"Isn't that the man who wanted you to marry Thurston, and when you
disappointed him washed his hands of both of you?" Leslie inquired.
"There were reasons why I hadn't the pleasure of duly making the
acquaintance of your relatives, but I think you said he was tolerably
wealthy, and, as he evidently desires a reconciliation, you must do
your best to please him. Let me see. You might catch the next New
York Cunarder or the Allan boat from Quebec."
Millicent looked up at him angrily. She was not wholly heartless, and
her kinsman had not only provided for her after her parents died in
financial difficulties, but in his own austere fashion he had been kind
to her. Accordingly, her husband's comments jarred upon her.
"I should certainly go, even if I had to travel by Colonist car and
steerage," she declared. "I should do so if there were no hope of
financial benefit, which is, after all, very uncertain, for Anthony
Thurston is not the man to change his mind when he has once come to a
determination. The fact that he is dying and asks for me is
sufficient--though it is perhaps useless to expect you to believe it."
"We must all die some day," was the abstracted answer. "Hardly an
original observation, is it? But it would be folly to let such a
chance pass, and I must try to spare you. If you really feel it, I
sympathize with you, and had no intention of wounding your
sensibilities, but as, unfortunately, circumstances force us to
consider these questions practically, you will--well, you will do your
best with the old man, Millicent. To put it so, you owe a duty to me."
Leslie and his wife had by this time learned to see each other's real
self, naked and stripped of all disguise, and the sight was not
calculated to inspire either with superfluous delicacy. The man,
however, overlooked the fact that his partner in life still clung to a
last grace of sentiment, and could, on occasion, deceive herself.
"I owe you a duty! How have you discharged yours to me?" she said,
reproachfully. "Do not force me to oppose you, Harry, but if you are
wise, go around to the depot and find out when the steamers sail."
"Yes, my dear," Leslie acquiesced with a smile, which he did not mean
to be wholly ironical. "Would it be any use for me to say that I shall
miss you?"
"No," answered Millicent, though she returned his smile. "You really
would not expect me to believe you. Still, if only because of the
rareness of such civility, I rather like to hear you say so."
Mrs. Leslie sailed in the first Cunarder, and duly arrived at a little
station in the North of England where a dogcart was waiting to drive
her to Crosbie Ghyll. She had known the man, who drove it long before,
and he told her, with full details, how Anthony Thurston, having come
down from an iron-working town to visit the owner of the dilapidated
mansion had been wounded by a gun accident while shooting. The wound
was not of itself serious, but the old man's health was failing, and he
had not vitality enough to recover from the shock.
Meantime, while Millicent Leslie was driven across the bleak brown
moorlands, Anthony Thurston lay in the great bare guest-chamber at
Crosbie Ghyll. He had been a hard, determined man, a younger son who
had made money in business, while his brothers died poor, clinging to
the land, and it was with characteristic grimness that he was quietly
awaiting his end. The narrow, deep-sunk window in front of him was
open wide, though the evening breeze blew chilly from the fells, which
rose blackly against an orange glow. Though he manifested no
impatience, the sunset light beating in showed an expectant look in his
eyes. A much younger man sat at a table close by and laid down the pen
he held, when the other said:
"That will do, Halliday. Is there any sign of the dog-cart yet? You
are sure she will come to-night?"
"There is a vehicle of some kind behind the larches, but I cannot see
it clearly," was the answer. "You can rest satisfied, sir, for if Mrs.
Leslie has missed the train, she will arrive early to-morrow."
"To-morrow may be too late," said the old man. "I do not feel well
to-night. Yes, she will come. Millicent is like her father, and,
though he ruined himself, it was not because he hadn't a keen eye for
the main chance. Because I was a lonely man and because, in my
struggling days her mother was kind to me, I was fond of her. You
needn't be jealous, Halliday. You will have the winding up of my
estate, and it won't affect your share."
There was a vein of misanthropic irony in most of what Anthony Thurston
said, but the other man had the same blood in him, and answered quickly:
"My own business is flourishing, and I have tried to serve you hitherto
because of the relationship. I have no other reason, sir."
"No," assented Thurston, with something approaching a laugh. "There is
no doubt you are genuine. Millicent took after her father and, in
spite of it, I was fond of her. Tell me again. Did you consider her
happy when you saw her in Canada?"
"As I said before, it is a delicate question, but I did not think so.
Her husband struck me as a particularly poor sample, sir."
"Ah! She married the rascal suddenly out of pique, perhaps, when
Geoffrey left her. I could never quite get at the truth of that story,
which, of course, was framed in the conventional way, but even now,
though he's nearer of kin than Millicent, I can't quite forgive
Geoffrey. You saw him, you said, on your last visit to those mines."
The speaker's tone was indifferent, but his eyes shoved keen interest,
and Halliday answered:
"If ever the whole truth came out I don't think you would blame
Geoffrey, sir. Individually, I would take his word against--well,
against any woman's solemn declaration. Yes, I saw him. He was making
a pretty fight single-handed against almost overwhelming natural
difficulties."
"Why?" asked Anthony Thurston. "A woman out there, eh? Are you
pleading his cause, Halliday? Remember, if you convince me, he may be
another participant in the property."
"He did not explain all his motives to me, and nobody ever gained much
by attempting to force a Thurston's confidence. If you were not my
kinsman and were in better health I should feel tempted to recommend
you to place your affairs in other hands. Confound the property!"
There was a curious cackle in the sick man's throat, and the flicker of
a smile in his sunken eyes.
"I can believe it. You are tarred with the same brush as Geoffrey.
The obstinate fool must go out there with a couple of hundred pounds or
so, when he knew he had only to humor me by marrying Millicent and wait
for prosperity. And yet, in one way, I'm glad he did. He never wrote
me to apologize or explain--still, that's hardly surprising either. I
don't know that any of us ever troubled much about other folks'
opinions or listened to advice. Here am I, who might have lived
another ten years, dying, because, when an officious keeper warned me,
I went the opposite way. I hear wheels, Halliday."
"It is the dogcart," Halliday announced. "Yes--I see Mrs. Leslie."
"Thank God!" said the sick man. "Bring her here as soon as she's
ready. Meantime, send in the doctor. I feel worse to-night."
The light was dying fast when Millicent Leslie came softly into the
great bare room, and, for Anthony Thurston had paid for overtaxing his
waning strength, her heart smote her as she looked upon him. She could
recognize the stamp of fast approaching death. There was an unusual
gentleness in his eyes, which brightened at her approach, and with the
exception of Geoffrey, whose sympathy filled her with shame, it was
long since anyone had looked upon her with genuine kindliness. So it
was with real sorrow she knelt beside the bed and kissed him.
"I was shocked to hear of your accident, but it was some time ago, and
you are recovering," she remarked, trying to speak hopefully, but with
a catch in her breath.
"I am dying," was the answer, and Millicent sobbed when the withered
fingers rested on her hair.
"I wanted to see you before I went. I was fond of you, Milly, and
you--you and Geoffrey angered me. It was not your fault," the somewhat
strained voice added wistfully. "He--I don't wish to hurt you, or hear
the stereotyped version he of course endorsed. He left you?"
Millicent Leslie was not wholly evil. She had a softer side, and, in
the moment of reconciliation, dreaded to inflict further pain upon one
to whom she owed much. If the truth was not in her, there was one
thing in her favor, so at least the afterwards tried to convince
herself. Prompted by a desire to soothe a dying man's last hours, she
voluntarily accepted a very unpleasant part. She was thankful her head
was bent as she said: "It was perhaps my fault. I would not--I could
not consent to humor him in what appeared a senseless project--and so
Geoffrey went to Canada."
She felt the old man's hand move caressingly across her hair. "Poor
Millicent," he sympathized. "And you chose another husband. Are you
happy with him out there? But stay, it is twilight and the old place
is gloomy. If you would like them, ask for candles.
Geoffrey--Geoffrey left you!"
Millicent did not desire candles, but gently drew herself away.
Anthony Thurston's tenderness had touched her, and, with sudden
compunction, she remembered that she had deceived a dying man. He
believed her, but she did not wish him to see her face. She drew a
chair towards the bed, and for a moment looked about her, striving to
collect her scattered thoughts. Framed by the stone-ribbed window, the
afterglow still shimmered, a pale luminous green, and one star twinkled
over the black shoulder of Crosbie Fell. Curlews called mournfully
down in the misty mosses, and when she turned her head the sick man's
face showed faintly livid against the darker coverings of the bed. For
a moment she felt tempted to make full confession, or at least excuses
for Geoffrey, but Anthony Thurston spoke again just then and the moment
was lost.
"I asked are you happy in Canada, Millicent," he repeated, and there
was command as well as kindness in his tone. Anthony Thurston, mine
owner and iron works director, was dying, but he had long been a ruler
of stiff-necked men, and the habit of authority still remained with
him. It struck Millicent that he was in many ways very like Geoffrey.
"I am not," she admitted. "I would not have told you if you had not
insisted. It is the result of my own folly, and there is no use
complaining."
Anthony Thurston stretched out a thin, claw-like hand and laid it on
one of her own. "Tell me," he said.
"We are poor. That is, my husband's position is precarious, and it is
a constant struggle to live up to it."
"Then why do you try?"
Millicent sighed as she answered:
"It is, I believe, necessary or he would lose it, while he aims at
obtaining sufficient influence to win him a connection, if he resumed
his former land business."
"From what I know it is a rascally business; but there is more than
this. My time is very short, Millicent, but it seems such a very
little while since a bright-haired girl who atoned for another's injury
sat upon my knee, and for the sake of those days I can still protect
you. Your husband treats you ill?"
There was a vibration in the strained voice which more strongly
reminded the listener of Geoffrey's, and awoke her bitterness against
the man she had married. It was so long since she had taken a living
soul into her confidence, that she answered impulsively: "There is no
use hiding the truth from you. He does not treat me well."
Then she related the story of her married life, and Anthony Thurston
listened gravely, comprehending more than she meant to tell him, for
when she had finished he commented: "You have neither been over loyal
nor over wise--too quick to see the present gain, blind to the greater
one behind--but it is my part to help, not blame you, and I will try to
do so. It is dark now. Please ask for my draught and the candles.
Then I want you to tell me about Geoffrey. You have met him in Canada."
Millicent, retiring, stood for a few minutes looking down from a narrow
window in the bare stone corridor on to the moor. There was no moon,
but the night was luminous, for the stars twinkled with a windy glitter
that was flung back by a neighboring tarn. The call of the curlew
seemed more mournful, the crying of lapwing rose from the meadow land,
and she started at a hollow hoot as an owl swept by on muffled wing.
The night voices filled her with an eerie sensation--there was, she
recollected, always something creepy about Crosbie Ghyll, and, for
Millicent was superstitious, she shivered again at the reflection that
she had cheated a dying man. But she could make partial reparation to
the living at least, and when she came back with the candles there was
resolve in her face.
"You asked me about Geoffrey. He has no reason to be ashamed of his
record in Canada," she said. "I will tell you what I know from the
beginning--and I hope I shall tell it well."
It was a relief to do so, and the story of Geoffrey's struggle and
prospective triumph was a stirring one as it fell from the lips of the
woman who had thrice wronged him. She guessed how her husband's
employers had plotted, having gathered much from the talk of his
guests, and the old man listened eagerly, until he struck the coverlet
when she concluded. Grim satisfaction was stamped upon his twitching
face.
"It is a brave story. I thank you, Millicent; you told it very well.
Ay, the old blood tells--and I was proud of the lad. Went his own way
in spite of me--he is my kinsman, what should I expect of him?
Standing alone for a broken master, with cunning and wealth against him
and his last dollar in the scheme! Quite in keeping with traditions,
and there'll be broken crowns before they beat him down."
The dying man, who had fought perhaps as stubbornly all his life long,
gasped once or twice before he added, "You must go now, Millicent.
Send Halliday to me."
Millicent went out with a throbbing pulse and downcast eyes, and when
the lawyer came in Thurston said: "Read over that partly completed
will."
"Had you not better rest until to-morrow, sir?" was the answer. "Dr.
Maltby warned you----"
"You ought to know by this time that I seldom take a warning, and
to-morrow may be too late. Write, and write quickly. After payment of
all bequests above, balance of real estate to yourself and Forsyth as
trustees, to apply and use for the individual benefit of Millicent
Leslie. If her husband lays hands upon it, I'll haunt you. You have
power to nominate Geoffrey Thurston as your co-trustee. God knows what
may happen, and her rascally husband may get himself shot by somebody
he has swindled some day. What I wished for mightn't follow then? I'm
paying you to make my will and not dictate to me. Repeat it as many
times as may appear necessary to let my meaning show clearly through
your legal phraseology."
"I have got it down, sir," the writer told him presently.
"Now, after deductions enumerated, all my floating investments in
mines, stocks and shares to Geoffrey Thurston, to hold or sell as
pleases him, unconditionally. Bequeathed in the hope that this will
help him to confound his enemies."
It was written, signed and witnessed by Musker and the surgeon, then
Anthony Thurston asked once more and very faintly for Millicent. He
drew her down beside him and took her hand in his thin, gnarled one
before he said:
"I have done my best for you, Milly--and again thank you for the story.
After what Halliday said, it has helped to conquer an old bitterness,
and--for my work is finished--I can die contented. I may be gone
to-morrow, and my strength is spent. Good-by, Milly. God bless you!"
Millicent stooped and kissed him with a sense of shame. Before morning
all power of speech or volition left Anthony Thurston, and twelve hours
later he was dead.