"A WOMAN OF A THOUSAND."
About this time Tatham, the Squire's body-servant, fell ill, and at
his own request was allowed to leave Stanbrook for awhile and go to
stay with his married sister, who lived in the next county. Hitherto
he and Miss Baynard had shared the duties of the sick-room between
them, and as the Squire, instead of gathering strength, seemed to be
slowly losing what little was left him, it was evident that some one
must be found to fill Tatham's place during his unavoidable absence.
Now in the village--a populous and thriving one--the outlying houses
of which lay within a bowshot of the park gates of Stanbrook, there
dwelt at this time a certain Mrs. Dinkel, herself English, but the
widow of a Dutchman who had formerly been head gardener at
Heronscourt, the seat of Sir Willoughby Freke. Mrs. Dinkel had been
left with enough to keep her comfortably in humble village fashion,
but being at the time of her husband's death scarcely beyond middle
age, and of an active disposition, she presently began to cast about
for some way not merely of adding to her limited income, but of
banishing from her life the idleness which her soul abhorred.
Being determined to find work, she took the first chance that came in
her way, which was to nurse a young lady laid up with a virulent
fever. And thus it fell out that within a couple of years of that time
Mrs. Dinkel's name had become well known throughout a wide circle of
provincial society as that of a woman with a born gift for nursing.
Like many others of both sexes, she had not discovered her _métier_
till late in life, but having once found it, she stuck to it. Still,
her services were not at the beck and call of anybody, nor were they
to be bought merely by the offer of a certain number of guineas. She
would only go out to nurse among gentlefolk, or, as she termed them,
"the quality," and whenever none of the quality stood in need of her
services she preferred to stay at home with folded hands, doing
nothing, till they should send for her.
When a message from Stanbrook one day reached her, she responded to it
with alacrity.
To the Squire it seemed very inconsiderate on Tatham's part that he
should choose to fall ill at such a time, but as he supposed there was
no help for it, it mattered not a jot to him, he said, whom they
supplied him with by way of temporary substitute. So, at the express
instance of Dr. Banks, Mrs. Dinkel was sent for.
She was a woman of few words and strong nerve, who seemed never to
require more than two hours' sleep out of the twenty-four. All her
thoughts and attention were given to her patient; she moved about the
sick room almost as silently as a shadow, and before long the Squire
found her presence far more soothing, and her ministrations far more
gentle, than those of Tatham had been. Nell took to Mrs. Dinkel from
the first. They seemed to understand each other instinctively. The
sick man was the bond between them. Each in her separate way had for
the time being vowed herself to his service.
A few days later, and Mr. Cortelyon had finally made up his mind,
bitter as the need for doing so was to him. But it was indeed high
time that he should come to some conclusion, for the sands of life
were now beginning to run very low indeed, and he knew it. What but a
little while before had been a suggestion--not emanating from any
outside source, but his own suggestion to himself--had now become a
determination. To Mrs. Bullivant in the first place, and to her son
after her, he would bequeath three-fourths of everything he was worth.
He was quite aware that, in the ordinary course of things--his
grandson being out of the running--his niece's claim upon him ought to
have had priority of that of everybody else. And he told himself that
it should have had if only Nell had been a clear-headed, sensible,
businesslike woman of the type of Onoria Bullivant. Unfortunately,
she was nothing of the kind. Instead, her head was crammed full of
high-flown, sentimental, and quixotic notions (he prided himself on
having read her thoroughly), and he felt morally sure that if he were
to leave her any large lump sum, say fifteen or twenty thousand
pounds, by way of legacy, she would be quite capable, when she found
that Master Evan had been left out in the cold, of making over a big
slice, perhaps even the whole of it, for the benefit of the brat. Such
a result as that must on no account be allowed to come to pass. What
he would do was, to invest a certain number of thousands in her name
in the Funds, just enough to bring in about three hundred a year, and
allow her the interest to live upon. With such an income she could not
do much harm, or what the Squire designated to himself as harm. Should
she be fool enough to take the boy to live with her, and assume the
responsibility of his future, why, she was welcome to do so. But owner
of Stanbrook and Barrowmead, and of his latest purchase, that big
property on the Yorkshire border, his grandson never should be.
Thus it one day came to pass that Mrs. Bullivant received a note
written by Andry Luce, asking her, if convenient, to drive over next
day to Stanbrook in time for luncheon, and take her son with her. The
widow was a shrewd woman, and it seemed to her that such a note was
capable of but one interpretation, and as she drove through the
country lanes next day on her way to the Hall her heart beat high with
hopes, which, however wanting in substance they might be, were none
the less _couleur de rose_.
In point of fact, before causing his testamentary dispositions to be
recorded in black and white the Squire was desirous of taking stock of
the youngster whom he was proposing to constitute his heir. If he
should prove to be a weak, puling child, or betray any signs of
delicacy of constitution, why, in that case that there would be good
reason for reconsidering his decision.
As it turned out, the Squire had no cause for uneasiness on that
score. Young Gavin Bullivant, who had just entered on his fifth year,
looked as strong and sturdy as an oak sapling. He was a bright-eyed,
apple-cheeked lad, both inquisitive and acquisitive by natural
disposition, and not knowing what shyness meant. He was very like his
mother, but more in expression than features, and at times one caught
a far-off hint of something in his face, at once hard and cunning,
which seemed curiously out of keeping with his years. It was as though
a very old man--and not a good old man either--was peering at you from
behind a beautiful mask of childhood.
"Not much likeness here to the late lamented--hey?" queried the Squire
after a good stare at him, which the boy returned with interest.
Mr. Cortleyon had only met the Hon. Hector on one occasion, at a sale
of some of Lord Cossington's stock, and had felt no desire to
cultivate his acquaintance.
"It may seem like self-flattery to say so," replied Mrs. Bullivant
with a complacent smile, "but both in looks and disposition dear Gavin
takes wholly after me. Even his grandfather cannot help admitting as
much."
Then the Squire proceeded to put several questions to the lad, which
he answered with promptitude and aplomb. He betrayed no timidity in
the presence of the sick man, although to many a child of his age the
latter would have seemed a sufficiently formidable object, with his
parchment-like skin, his hollow cheeks, his heavy, grizzled eyebrows,
which seemed bent in a perpetual frown, and the strange half-fierce,
half-pathetic eyes beneath them, in which the flame of life seemed to
burn all the more strongly just now because it was so soon to be
extinguished forever.
After that Gavin was planted in the big easy-chair, with a supply of
sweet cakes to keep him quiet while his mother and the Squire talked
together in confidential fashion.
But it was not in Gavin to keep quiet for any length of time, and
hardly had the last cake gone the way of the rest before he had slid
from his perch to the ground, bent on a more minute inspection of the
room and its contents than he had yet been able to give them. So,
while the two elder people talked together in low tones, he went about
his self-imposed task, examining this object and the other, opening
every drawer that was unlocked in the big escritoire and making a
study of its contents, and in all respects making himself thoroughly
at home.
At the end of three-quarters of an hour Mrs. Bullivant rose to take
her leave, for the Squire was showing signs of fatigue. There was upon
her a sense of disappointment, for nothing of a confidential nature
had fallen from the sick man's lips, and she was still at a loss to
imagine not merely why she had been sent for, but why she had been
asked to bring Gavin with her. Sick people are subject to strange
whims, but surely there was something more than a whim at the back of
Mr. Cortelyon's request to see her son!
The Squire's keen eyes seemed to be reading her thoughts. "Onoria," he
said--and he was holding her hand as he spoke--"Onoria, I am about to
make my will, a new one, for I destroyed the old one some years ago
and I have sent for you to-day in order to tell you that it is my
intention to bequeath you the sum of three thousand pounds. Nor will
the boy be forgotten, as you will find when my testament comes to be
read. No thanks, please--they would only worry me, and--and I can't
afford to be worried nowadays."
Mrs. Bullivant raised the hand that was holding hers to her lips and
kissed it. "Dear Mr. Cortelyon," she said, and for once her voice had,
or seemed to have, a tremor in it, "although you forbid me to thank
you for your act of noble generosity to me and my son, you cannot, at
any rate, hinder me from remembering you in my prayers."
[Illustration: "His mother now produced the Squire's watch and
appendages."]
A cynical smile lighted up the Squire's haggard face. Perhaps the
picture of Mrs. Bullivant on her knees, returning thanks for a
thumping legacy--for that was the form her remembrance of him would
take, if it took any--struck him as being a trifle incongruous.
Next moment an exclamation escaped him. He had suddenly missed his big
gold watch, with its pendant of seals and trinkets, which he was in
the habit of keeping within reach on the little table by his bedside.
That it had been there only a few minutes before he was fully
convinced. Whither, then, had it vanished?
Mrs. Bullivant at once began a search for the missing article, but at
the end of two or three minutes she gave it up as a bad job. Then her
eyes fell on Gavin, who had gone back to his perch on the easy-chair,
and had been watching her movements with much apparent interest. She
knew from previous experience that when he looked the most cherubic he
was usually most in fault. It seemed to her that he appeared too
unconscious to be wholly innocent. "Come here," she said, beckoning
him with her finger. He obeyed without hesitation.
He had only lately been breeched, and very proud he was at having been
emancipated from petticoats. Pockets had not been omitted from his
jean trousers--cut short in the leg, as was the fashion, so as to
leave displayed an amplitude of white stocking--and from one of them
his mother now produced the Squire's watch and appendages. He flushed
a little and threw a timorous glance at the sick man, but, on the
whole, his mother was the more put about of the two.
"I cannot imagine what made him do such a thing," she said, with tears
of vexation in her eyes. "But you may rest assured, dear Mr.
Cortelyon, that I will not fail to chastise him most severely when we
reach home."
But the Squire was sniggering. "I trust, Onoria, you will do no such
thing," he said. "It was merely the trick of a child too young to know
the difference between _meum_ and _tuum_. The best course will be to
overlook it as if it were a matter of no consequence and so leave him
to forget it. Indeed, I am rather glad than otherwise to have had such
a proof of the young rascal's acquisitive faculty. It goes, I think,
to prove that he will not grow up a prodigal like his father."
When his visitors had left him the Squire lay for some time deep in
thought. At length he said, speaking aloud, for he had just taken his
cordial and was alone: "The more I see of her, the more confirmed I am
in my decision. Her views in all that relates to the great question of
property are almost the counterpart of my own. She is a woman of a
thousand. What an admirable daughter-in-law she would have made! If
only that poor headstrong lad of mine had---- But why go back to that
business even in thought? The past is dead and buried; we have now to
deal with the present and to arrange for the future. I would give
something to be able to see Onoria's face while she is hearing the
will read. I told her about the legacy of three thousand pounds, but I
said nothing about a life-interest in my landed estate. I have left
that by way of a surprise, and what a joyful surprise it will be to
her! Well, well, to-morrow I will send for Piljoy."
It was in the course of the afternoon of the second day after Mrs.
Bullivant's last visit that Mr. Piljoy arrived at Stanbrook. He was
genuinely shocked at the condition in which he found the Squire, whose
confidential business agent he had been for more than a quarter of a
century. The sick man's lamp of life had indeed flickered down to a
very feeble flame. Evidently no time must be lost in having the
all-important document drawn up and then signed and witnessed in due
form.
So for a full hour or more the two men, lawyer and client, were
closeted together in the latter's bedroom. The will itself, engrossed
and ready for signature, was to be brought by Mr. Piljoy three days
later.
The lawyer was to dine and stay the night at Stanbrook, as he had done
many times before; and in order that he should not lack company, his
old acquaintance Mr. Herries, the vicar, had been asked to meet him.
Miss Baynard and Mrs. Budd honored the two gentlemen with their
company at dinner, but left them to their own devices as soon as the
meal was over. Then the lawyer and the vicar--the latter of whom was a
jovial, fox-hunting parson of what we are accustomed to term "the old
school!"--drew their chairs closer, in anticipation of a pleasant
evening over their long pipes and a steaming bowl of punch, and in all
likelihood they were not disappointed.
At ten o'clock the vicar's man came with a lantern to light his master
home. By this time Mr. Piljoy was not quite so steady on his feet as
he customarily was, and when Andry Luce brought him his bed-candle and
proffered his arm to help him upstairs, he accepted it without demur,
for he had sense enough to know that at his time of life it would not
do to risk a fall. But, indeed, Andry had helped him in similar
fashion on more than one occasion before.
Nor did the thoughtful Andry leave him till he had helped him off with
his coat, waistcoat, cravat, gaiters, and shoes. He also wound up his
watch, and placed it, together with his purse and bunch of keys, on
the dressing-table. One of the abominations of those days, known as a
rushlight, was left to burn itself away.
An hour later, Andry, minus his shoes, stole into the bedroom, having,
earlier in the evening, taken the precaution to abstract the key of
the door. The lawyer's measured, long-drawn breathing convinced him
that he had nothing to fear. Inside the small valise Mr. Piljoy had
brought with him he found the paper of instructions for the drawing-up
of the Squire's will. To make himself master of its contents was the
object of his nocturnal intrusion. Five minutes by the dim aid of the
rushlight sufficed for his purpose. Then he put the paper back and
went his way as silently as he had come.
Mr. Piljoy left Stanbrook immediately after breakfast, and without
seeing the Squire again, travelling, as he always did on such
occasions, by post-chaise.