THE PASSING OF PATRICK LOVELL
Autumn had given place to winter, and a bitter northeast wind was
tearing through the pines, shrieking, as it fled, like the cry of a lost
soul. The eerie sound of it served in some indefinable way to emphasise
the cosy warmth and security of the room where Sara and her uncle were
sitting, their chairs drawn close up to the log fire which burned on the
wide, old-fashioned hearth.
Sara was engrossed in a book, her head bent low above its pages,
unconscious of the keen blue eyes that had been regarding her
reflectively for some minutes.
With the passage of the last two months, Patrick's face seemed to
have grown more waxen, worn a little finer, and now, as he sat quietly
watching the slender figure on the opposite side of the hearth, it wore
a curious, inscrutable expression, as though he were mentally balancing
the pros and cons of some knotty point.
At last he apparently came to a decision, for he laid aside the
newspaper he had been reading a few moments before, muttering half
audibly:
“Must take your fences as you come to 'em.”
Sara looked up abstractedly.
“Did you say anything?” she asked doubtfully.
Patrick gave his shoulders a grim shake.
“I'm going to,” he replied. “It's something that must be said, and,
as I've never been in favour of postponing a thing just because its
disagreeable, we may as well get it over.”
He had focused Sara's attention unmistakably now.
“What is it?” she asked quickly. “You haven't had bad news?”
An odd smile crossed his face.
“On the contrary.” He hesitated a moment, then continued: “I had a
longish talk with Dr. McPherson yesterday, and the upshot of it is that
I may be required to hand in my checks any day now. I wanted you to
know,” he added simply.
It was characteristic of the understanding between these two that
Patrick made no effort to “break the news,” or soften it in any way. He
had always been prepared to face facts himself, and he had trained Sara
in the same stern creed.
So that now, when he quietly stated in plain language the thing which
she had been inwardly dreading for some weeks--for, though silent on
the matter, she had not failed to observe his appearance of increasing
frailty--she took it like a thorough-bred. Her eyes dilated a little,
but her voice was quite steady as she said:
“You mean----”
“I mean that before very long I shall put off this vile body.” He
glanced down whimsically at his useless legs, cloaked beneath the
inevitable rug. “After all,” he continued, “life--and death--are both
fearfully interesting if one only goes to meet them instead of running
away from them. Then they become bogies.”
“And what shall I do . . . without you?” she said very low.
“Aye.” He nodded. “It's worse for those who are left behind. I've been
one of them, and I know. I remember--” He broke off short, his blue
eyes dreaming. Presently he gave his shoulders the characteristic little
shake which presaged the dismissal of some recalcitrant secret thought,
and went on in quick, practical tones.
“I don't want to go out leaving a lot of loose ends behind me--a tangle
for you to unravel. So, since the fiat has gone forth--McPherson's a
sound man and knows his job--let's face it together, little old pal. It
will mean your leaving Barrow, you know,” he added tentatively.
Sara nodded, her face rather white.
“Yes, I know. I shan't care--then.”
“Oh yes, you will”--with shrewd wisdom. “It will be an extra drop in
the bucket, you'll find, when the time comes. Unfortunately, however,
there's no getting round the entail, and when I go, my cousin, Major
Durward, will reign in my stead.”
“Why does the Court go to a Durward?” asked Sara listlessly. “Aren't
there any Lovells to inherit?”
“He is a Lovell. His father and mine were brothers, but his godfather,
old Timothy Durward left him his property on condition that he adopted
the name. Geoffrey Durward has a son called Timothy--after the old man.”
“The Durwards have never been here since I came to live with you,”
observed Sara thoughtfully. “Don't you care for him--your cousin, I
mean?”
“Geoffrey? Yes, he's a charming fellow, and he's been a rattling good
soldier--got his D.S.O. in the South African campaign. But he and his
wife--she was a Miss Eden--were stationed in India so many years, I
rather lost touch with them. They came home when the Durward
property fell in to them--about seven or eight years ago. She, I
think”--reminiscently--“was one of the most beautiful women I've ever
seen.”
The shadow in Sara's eyes lifted for a moment.
“Is that the reason you've always remained a bachelor?” she asked,
twinkling.
“God bless my soul, no! I never wanted to marry Elisabeth Eden--though
there were plenty of men who did.” He regarded Sara with an odd smile.
“Some day, you'll know--why I never wanted to marry Elisabeth.”
“Tell me now.”
He shook his head.
“No. You'll know soon enough--soon enough.”
He was silent, fallen a-dreaming once again; and again he seemed to
pull himself up short, forcing himself back to the consideration of the
practical needs of the moment.
“As I was saying, Sara, sooner or later you'll have to turn out of the
old Court. It's entailed, and the income with it. But I've a clear four
hundred a year, altogether apart from the Barrow moneys, and that, at my
death, will be yours.”
“I don't want to hear about it!” burst out Sara passionately. “It's
hateful even talking of such things.”
Patrick smiled, amused and a little touched by youth's lack of worldly
wisdom.
“Don't be a fool, my dear. I shan't die a day sooner for having made
my will--and I shall die a deal more comfortably, knowing that you are
provided for. I promised your mother that, as far as lay in my power,
I would shield you from wrecking your life as she wrecked hers. And
money--a secure little income of her own--is a very good sort of
shield for a women. Four hundred's not enough to satisfy a mercenary
individual, but it's enough to enable a woman to marry for love--and
not for a home!” He spoke with a kind of repressed bitterness, as though
memory had stirred into fresh flame the embers of some burnt-out passion
of regret, and Sara looked at him with suddenly aroused interest.
But apparently Patrick did not sense the question that troubled on her
lips, or, if he did, had no mind to answer it, for he went on in lighter
tones:
“There, that's enough about business for the present. I only wanted
you to know that, whatever happens, you will be all right as far as
bread-and-cheese are concerned.”
“I believe you think that's all I should care about!” exclaimed Sara
stormily.
Patrick smiled. He had not been a citizen of the world for over
sixty years without acquiring the grim knowledge that neither intense
happiness nor deep grief suffice to deaden for very long the pinpricks
of material discomfort. But the worldly-wise old man possessed a broad
tolerance for the frailties of human nature, and his smile held
nothing of contempt, but only a whimsical humour touched with kindly
understanding.
“I know you better than that, my dear,” he answered quietly. “But I
often think of what I once heard an old working-woman, down in the
village, say. She had just lost her husband, and the rector's wife was
handing out the usual platitudes, and holding forth on the example
of Christian fortitude exhibited by a very wealthy lady in the
neighbourhood, who had also been recently widowed. 'That's all very
well, ma'am,' said my old woman drily, 'but fat sorrow's a deal easier
to bear than lean sorrow.' And though it may sound unromantic, it's the
raw truth--only very few people are sincere enough to acknowledge it.”
In the weeks that followed, Patrick seemed to recover a large measure
of his accustomed vigour. He was extraordinarily alert and cheerful--so
_alive_ that Sara began to hope Dr. McPherson had been mistaken in his
opinion, and that there might yet remain many more good years of the
happy comradeship that existed between herself and her guardian.
Such buoyancy appeared incompatible with the imminence of death, and one
day, driven by the very human instinct to hear her optimism endorsed,
she scoffed a little, tentatively, at the doctor's verdict.
Patrick shook his head.
“No, my dear, he's right,” he said decisively. “But I'm not going to
whine about it. Taken all round, I've found life a very good sort of
thing--although”--reflectively--“I've missed the best it has to offer a
man. And probably I'll find death a very good sort of thing, too, when
it comes.”
And so Patrick Lovell went forward, his spirit erect, to meet death
with the same cheerful, half-humorous courage he had opposed to the
emergencies of life.
It was a few days after this, on Christmas Eve, that Sara, coming into
his special den with a gay little joke on her lips and a great bunch of
mistletoe in her arms, was arrested by the sudden, chill quiet of the
little room.
The familiar wheeled chair was drawn up to the window, and she could see
the back of Patrick's head with its thick crop of grizzled hair, but he
did not turn or speak at the sound of her entrance.
“Uncle, didn't you hear me? Are you asleep? . . . _Uncle!_” Her voice
shrilled on to a sharp staccato note, then cracked and broke suddenly.
There came no movement from the chair. The silence remained unbroken
save for the ticking of a clock and the loud beating of her own heart.
The two seemed to merge into one gigantic pulse . . . deafening . . .
overwhelming . . . like the surge of some immense, implacable sea.
She swayed a little, clutching at the door for support. Then the
throbbing ceased, and she was only conscious of a solitude so intense
that it seemed to press about her like a tangible thing.
Swiftly, on feet of terror, she crossed the room and stood looking down
at the motionless figure of her uncle. His face was turned towards the
sun, and wore an expression of complete happiness and content, as though
he had just found something for which he had been searching. He had
looked like that a thousand times, when, seeking for her, he had come
upon her, at last, hidden in some shady nook in the garden or swinging
in her hammock. She could almost hear the familiar “Oh, there you are,
little pal!” with which he would joyously acclaim her discovery.
She lifted the hand that was resting quietly on his knee. It lay in
hers, flaccid and inert, its dreadful passivity stinging her into
realization of the truth. Patrick was dead. And, judging from his
expression, he had found death “a very good sort of thing,” just as he
had expected.
For a little while Sara remained standing quietly beside the still
figure in the chair. They would never be alone together any more--not
quite like this, Patrick sitting in his accustomed place, wearing
his beloved old tweeds, with an immaculate tie and with his single
eyeglass--about which she had so often chaffed him--dangling across his
chest on its black ribbon.
Her mouth quivered. “Stand up to it!” . . . The voice--Patrick's
voice--seemed to sound in her ear . . . “Stand up to it, little old
pal!”
She bit back the sob that climbed to her throat, and stood silently
facing the enemy, as it were.
This was the end, then, of one chapter of her existence--the chapter of
sheltered, happy life at Barrow, and in these quiet moments, alone for
the last time with Patrick Lovell, Sara tried to gather strength and
courage from her memories of his cheery optimism to face gamely whatever
might befall her in the big world into which she must so soon adventure.