A threatened life is said to last long. Winifred Chester lived in great
alarm and misery for a week or two, watching every movement and every
look of her father, expecting almost to see him fall and die before her
very eyes. The horror of a catastrophe which she could not avert, which
nothing could be done to stave off, intensified the natural feeling
which makes the prospect of another’s death, even of an indifferent
person, overawing and terrible. And though it was impossible to believe
that a man like Mr. Chester could inspire his daughter with that
impassioned filial love which many daughters bear to their parents, yet
he was her father, and all the habits of her life were associated with
him: so that the idea of his sudden removal conveyed almost as great a
shock to her mind as if the warmest bonds of love, instead of a natural
affection much fretted by involuntary judgments given in her heart
against him, had been the bond between them.
And there can be nothing in the world more dreadful to the mind than to
watch the life and actions of a human creature whom we know to be on the
brink of the grave, but who neither suspects nor anticipates any danger,
and lives every day as though he were to live for ever. To hear him say
what he was going to do in the time to come, the changes he meant to
make, the improvements, the new furnishings, the plantings, all that was
to be done during the next ten years, filled Winifred with a thrill of
misery which was not unmingled with compunction. Could she say nothing
to him, give him no hint, whisper in his ear no intimation that his days
were numbered? She shrank within herself at the thought of presuming to
do so; and yet to be with him and walk by him, and listen to all his
anticipations, and never do it, seemed horrible. All his thoughts were
of the world in which he had, as he did not know, so precarious a
footing. He was a man who wanted no other, whose horizon was bounded by
the actual, whose aspirations did not exceed what human life could give
him. He had met with disappointments and probably had felt them as
bitterly as other men, but his active spirit had never been arrested, he
had turned to something else in which he expected compensation. The
something else at present was Winifred; she had done him credit, and
might do so still in a higher degree than had been possible to her
brothers. She might marry anybody. As for the doctor, when the moment
came, Mr. Chester knew very well how to make short work of the doctor.
And Winnie, of whom there could be no doubt that she was a lady, should
marry a lord and satisfy her father’s pride, and make up for everything.
His mind had taken refuge in this with an elasticity which minds of
higher tone and better inspirations do not always possess; and those
plans which to her were so frightful, those arrangements of years which
he should never see, were all with a view to this satisfaction which he
had promised himself. He was going to preserve the game strictly, a duty
which he had not much thought of hitherto: he was going to enlarge the
house--to build a new wing for my lord, as he began within himself to
name his unknown son-in-law. In these arrangements he forgot his own
sons, putting them aside altogether, as if they had never existed, and
forgot also, or at least never took into consideration, any uncertainty
in life, any thought of consolations less positive.
To see a man so terribly off his guard is always a spectacle very
terrible and surprising when the mind of the spectator is roused to it,
just as the sight of any indifferent passer-by going lightly along a
road on which death awaits him round the next corner, is almost more
appalling than the sight of death itself, especially if we cannot warn
him or do anything to save. And how could he die? A man who cared for
nothing that was not in the life he knew, how was he to adapt himself to
another, to anything so different? Winifred’s brain swam, the light
faded before her as she sat watching him, unable to take her eyes from
him, full of terror, compassion, pity.
“What are you staring at so?” he asked on more than one occasion.
“Nothing, papa,” Winifred replied incoherently, consciousness suddenly
coming back to her as his voice broke the giddiness and throng of
intolerable thoughts.
“One would think you saw a ghost behind me,” he said, with a laugh.
“That’s the new æsthetic fashion of absent-mindedness, I suppose;” and
this explanation satisfied and even pleased him, for he wished Winnie to
be of the latest fashion and “up to everything” with the best.
Miss Farrell, on the other hand, scolded her pupil, as much as she could
scold any one, for this sudden alarm which had seized her. “It is just a
fad,” the old lady said. “Edward has his fads like other people: doctors
have; they are fond of a discovery that leads to nothing. I never saw
your dear father look better in his life.”
“He does not look ill,” Winifred allowed, with a faint movement of
relief.
“Ill? he looks strong, younger than he did five years ago, and such a
colour, and an excellent appetite. But I am glad to hear that is what
Edward thinks, for it explains everything.”
“Glad?” it was Winifred’s turn to exclaim.
“My dear, when you are my age you will know that one is sometimes glad
of an explanation of things that have puzzled one, even though the
explanation itself is not cheerful. I think this fright of Edward’s is a
piece of folly, but yet it explains many things. As for your dear
father, if he were a little unwell from time to time, that would be
nothing to wonder at. Gout, for instance--one is always prepared for
gout in a man of his age. But he is up early and late, he has the
complexion of a ploughboy, and can eat everything without even a thought
of his digestion. I envy him,” she said, with fervour. Then, giving
Winifred a kiss as she leant over her, “You are seeing everything _en
noir_, my dear, and Edward is giving in to you. Don’t think any more
about it for three days; in the meantime I will watch him; give me three
days, and promise me to be happy in the meantime.”
This time Winifred did not repeat the inappropriate expression, but only
looked at her old friend with tears in her eyes. “I don’t think I have
very much to be happy about,” she said.
“You have life before you, and youth and hope; and you have Edward; and
your dear father, so far as I can see, in perfect health; and the
others--in the hands of Providence Winnie.”
“Are we not all in the hands of Providence,” said the girl; “those who
live and those who die, those who do well and those who do ill? and it
does not seem to make any difference.”
“That is because we see such a little way, such a little way--never what
to-morrow is going to bring forth,” Miss Farrell said.
But this conversation did not do very much to reassure Winifred, and at
the end of the three days the old lady said nothing. Her experienced
eyes saw, after a close investigation, certain trifles which brought her
to the young doctor’s opinion, or at least made her acknowledge to
herself that he might possibly be right. It is to be feared that Miss
Farrell did not look upon this possibility with horror. She was calmer,
not so much interested, and less full of that instinctive horror and awe
of death which is most strong in the young. She had seen a great many
people die; perhaps she was not for that more reconciled to the idea of
it in her own person than others; but she had come to look upon it with
composure where others were concerned. She thought it likely enough that
Edward might be right; and she thought that, perhaps, this was not the
conclusion which would be most regrettable. It would leave Winifred
free. If he did not alter his will, it would restore the boys to their
rights; and if he did alter his will, Winifred would restore them to
their rights. On making a balance of the greatest happiness of the
greatest number, no doubt it would be for the best that Mr. Chester
should end his career.
After these three days, at the end of which Winifred asked no
explanation from her friend, many other days followed, with nothing
happening. The force of the impression was softened in her mind, and
though the appearance of Mr. Chester’s man of business on two or three
several occasions gave her a renewed thrill of terror, yet her father
said nothing on the subject of his will, and she was glad on her side to
ignore it, feeling that nothing she could say or do would have any
effect upon his resolution. On the last evening, when Mr. Babington,
after a long afternoon with Mr. Chester in the library, stayed to
dinner, the cheerfulness and satisfaction of the master of the house
were visible to everybody. He had the best wine in his cellar out for
his old friend, and talked to him all the evening of “old days,” as he
said, days when he himself had little expectation of ever being the
Squire of Bedloe.
“But many things have changed since that time,” he added, “and the last
is first and the first last, eh, Babington, in more senses than one.”
“Yes, in more senses than one,” the lawyer said gravely, sipping the old
port which had been disinterred for him with an aspect not half so
jovial as that of his patron, though it was wine such as seldom appears
at any table in these degenerate days.
“In more senses than one,” Mr. Chester repeated. “Fill your glass again,
old Bab; and, Miss Farrell, stay a moment, and let me give you a little
wine, for I am going to propose a toast.”
“I am not in the habit of drinking toasts,” said Miss Farrell, who had
risen from her chair; “but as I am sure it is one which a lady need not
hesitate about, since you propose it”--
“No lady need hesitate,” said Mr. Chester, “for it is to one that is a
true lady, as good a lady as if she had royal blood in her veins. You
would not better her, I can tell you, if you were to search far and
wide; and as you have had some share in making her what she is, Miss
Farrell, it stands to reason you should have a share in her advancement.
I have a great mind to call in all the servants and make them drink it
too.”
“Don’t,” said the lawyer hurriedly; “a thing is well enough among
friends that is not fit for strangers, or servants either. For my part,
I wish everything that is good to Miss Winifred; but yet”--
“Hold your tongue, Babington; it is none of your business. Here’s the
very good health of the heiress of Bedloe, and good luck to her, and a
fine title and a handsome husband, and everything that heart can
desire.”
The two ladies had risen, and still stood, Miss Farrell with the glass
of wine which Mr. Chester had given her in her hand, Winifred standing
very straight by the table, and white as the dress she wore. Miss
Farrell grew pale too, gazing from one to the other of the two
gentlemen, who drank their wine, one with a flushed and triumphant
countenance, the other in little thoughtful gulps. “I can’t refuse to
drink the health of Winifred, however it is put,” she said tremulously.
“But if this is what you mean, Mr. Chester”--
“Yes, my old girl,” cried Mr. Chester, “this is what I mean; and I don’t
know what anybody can have to say against it--you, in particular, that
have brought her up, and done your duty by her, I must say. She has
always been a good friend to you, and always will be, I can answer for
her, and you shall never want a home as long as she has one. But if you
have anything to say against my arrangements, or what I mean to do for
her”--
Miss Farrell put down the wine with a hand that trembled slightly. She
towered into tremulous height, or so it seemed to the lookers-on. “I say
nothing about the term which you have permitted yourself to apply to me,
Mr. Chester,” she said. “I can make allowance for bad breeding; but if
you think you can prevent me from forming an opinion, and expressing
it”--
“Be quiet, Chester,” cried the lawyer, kicking him under the table; but
in the height of his triumph he was not to be kept down.
“You may form your opinions as you please, and express them too; but, by
George! if you express anything about my affairs, or take it upon you to
criticise, it will have to be in some one else’s house.”
“That is quite enough,” said the old lady. “I am not in the habit of
receiving affronts. This day is the last I shall spend in your house. I
bid you good evening, Mr. Babington.” She waved her hand majestically as
she went away. As for Winnie, who had endeavoured to stop him with an
indignant cry of “Father!” she turned upon Mr. Chester a pair of eyes,
large and full of woe, which blazed out of her pale face in passionate
protestation as she hurried after her friend. The exit of the ladies was
so sudden after this swift and hot interchange of hostilities that it
left the two men confounded. Mr. Chester gave vent to an exclamation or
two, and turned to his supporter on the other side.
“What did I say?” he cried. “I haven’t said anything, have I, to make a
tragedy about?”
“It would have been a great deal better to say nothing at all,” was all
the comfort Babington gave him. The lawyer went on with the port, which
was very good. He thought quarrels were always a nuisance, but that
Chester did indeed--there could be no doubt of it--want some one to take
him down a peg or two.
“If your daughter does not much like it herself, as seems to be the
case, it’s a pity to set the old lady on to make her worse. And Miss
Winifred wants a lady with her,” he said between the gulps.
He gave no support to the angry man, hot with excitement and triumph, to
whom this sudden check had come in the midst of his outburst of angry
satisfaction.
Mr. Chester’s countenance fell.
“You don’t mean,” he cried, “that she will be such a fool as to go away?
Pshaw! she’s not such a fool as that. She knows on what side her
bread’s buttered. She’s lived at Bedloe these dozen years.”
“Everybody knows Miss Farrell,” said the lawyer. “She’s as proud as
Lucifer, and as fiery, if she is set ablaze.”
“Pooh!” said the other; “it is nothing but a breeze; we’ll be all right
again to-morrow. She knows me, and I know her. She is not such a fool as
to throw away a comfortable home, because I called her old girl. Are you
determined, after all, that you won’t stay the night?”
“I must get home--I must indeed. To-morrow early I have half a dozen
appointments.”
“Then, if you will go,” said Mr. Chester,--“which I take unkind of you,
for, of course, the appointments could stand, if you chose;--but if you
must go, it’s time for your train.”
“Thank you for telling me,” said Mr. Babington. He jumped up with a
slight resentment, though he had been quite determined about going away
that night; but then he had not known that there would be this quarrel,
which he should have liked to see the end of, or that the port would be
so good.