AN UNSELFISH FATHER.
The city of Daneford, on the river Weeslade, is about eighteen miles
from the small watering-town, Seacliff, which stands in a little bay at
the mouth of the river. Between Daneford and Seacliff the width of the
river varies, but is never less than a mile.
At a distance of less than four miles from the city the river widens
considerably into a loop, and in the loop is the island of Warfinger.
The island, which rarely is called by its particular name, but is spoken
of as "The Island," measures a mile long by half a mile broad. It rises
gradually from the shores to the centre, and on the highest point of it
stands Island Castle, the seat of the Midharsts for generations. In the
neighbourhood the title of Island Castle is cut down also, and no one at
all familiar with the locality ever calls it anything but "The Castle."
In the early part of the year 1866 the tenant for life of Island Castle
was old Sir Alexander Midharst, a widower, who lived in the Castle in
great retirement and the meanest economy. His wife had then been dead
twenty years. She had died in giving birth to her only child, Maud, now
rapidly approaching her majority; a girl of such gentle beauty and
simple childlike manners that all who met her spoke of her beauty and
her grace with tender respect and ready enthusiasm.
Maud Midharst did not need any adventitious aid to make her beauty
apparent and her presence acceptable, but her delicate complexion, her
dark sweet eyes, her pleasant smile, all came out in strong contrast
with her surroundings at the Castle.
In the building everything, including the structure itself, seemed
hastening to decay. The walls, the floor, the furniture, the servants,
the master, all were old. She formed the one exception to the general
appearance of approaching dissolution. The outer walls of the pile were
seamed and lined, the water had eaten into the stone, the frost had
cracked the mortar, and unsightly yellow stains lay upon the masonry,
like long skeleton fingers pointing to the earth into which the walls
were hastening.
When castles were places of defence as well as of residence, Island
Castle was well known. It had stood two sieges, and had been a famous
place of meeting among the Jacobites. Its insular position, the wide
prospect it commanded, the fact that it could not be invested on all
sides at once except by a whole army, the facilities it afforded to
approach and flight of friends, and the difficulty, amounting almost to
an impossibility, of reaching it by surprise except under the favour of
night or a fog, all added together made it a place of great importance
once upon a time.
The Castle had not always been in the Midharst family. It had come to
them early in the eighteenth century, upon the failure in heirs male of
the great Fleurey family, by which failure the historic earldom of
Stancroft was lost to the blood for ever. The Midharsts had some of the
female Fleurey blood in their veins, but it was of distant origin; and
title to the fine castle and property was declared to Sir John Midharst,
the first of his name who laid claim to it, only after long and
expensive litigation and much scandal.
Up to that time the Midharsts had been poor baronets. The property
accompanying the Island in the year 1866 brought in a rental of more
than twenty-two thousand pounds a year.
It was a very singular fact that from the first baronet who sat as
master in Warfinger Island Castle down to old Sir Alexander, no son
succeeded a father. It was always a grandson or a nephew, or a
grand-nephew or some remote cousin. Now matters were worse than ever.
Sir Alexander was upwards of seventy years of age, with an only child, a
daughter, and the closest male was a direct descendant of the youngest
son of the baronet, the lucky Sir John who came in for the property that
had supported the extinct earldom of Stancroft.
No doubt this remote cousin was a Midharst in name and blood, but
somehow it was hard for Sir Alexander to feel very cordial or friendly
towards one so remote from him, one who was going to take the property
and the title away from his immediate family.
At the time Lady Midharst died Sir Alexander was but a little over fifty
years of age, and many thought he would marry again. But even then he
was ailing, and doctors told him that between asthma and valvular
derangement of the heart his chance of living even a few years was
slight. Of course, they said, he might live fifty years, but he was
heavily handicapped.
As long as his wife, who had been much younger than he, lived he
continued to hope for an heir; but upon the death of Lady Midharst,
having ascertained the precise nature and import of the diseases from
which he suffered, he made up his mind to give up all thought of an
heir, and devote himself wholly to making a suitable provision for his
daughter Maud, who was healthy and well-grown, and promised to be strong
and long-lived.
And now began with Sir Alexander Midharst the practices by which he
disgraced his order, and made himself a byword for all who knew his
habits and his name.
He shut up his London house and advertised it to be let. A rich
distiller took it furnished at two hundred pounds a month during the
season, and a manufacturing jeweller for eighty pounds a month during
the unfashionable periods of the year.
He sold his horses and carriages, all save one old state coach, which he
could not sell for two reasons; first, because its preservation and
"maintenance" were provided for by his predecessors; and secondly,
because no one would pay haulage for it from the Island to the city.
He dismissed all his servants but the housekeeper, one maid, and one
man, allowing, however, a nurse and "governess" for the baby, who yet
lacked of three months. He resigned the membership of his two London
clubs, of the three county clubs he belonged to, and intimated to all
institutions or bodies or guilds to which he was patron, chairman,
subscriber, or member, that his connection in any way with them must
cease.
He discharged his steward, and resolved upon collecting his own rents
and superintending his own property.
Up to this anyone who chose might go over his fine old Castle. Anyone
still might go over the Castle, but an entrance fee of one shilling was
now demanded from each sightseer.
As time advanced, and he became more imbued with avarice, more expert in
meanness, he cut and shaved and clipped here and there and everywhere,
until he had reduced his expenditure to about a thousand a year.
But he did not rest content with cutting down his own expenses; he was
fully as careful to increase his income by every means in his power.
When leases expired they were renewed only on payment of heavy fines.
His care was not so much to inflate the rent-roll as to get in all the
ready-money he could. He had, he calculated, only a few years, if so
long, to live, and the rent-roll would then be the concern of that
William Midharst whom he had never seen and whom he wished never to see.
He cut down and sold all the timber as far as his right to do so
extended; and all the trimming and underwood, which had previously been
allowed to go as perquisites to the men or as gleaning among the poor,
he took possession of and sold.
He let the right of shooting over his land and the right of fishing in
his streams and rivers. He sold off all he might of the more modern
furniture at the Castle.
He sold all his personal plate and jewels, and all the pictures he had
acquired in his lifetime. When he was young he had made a collection of
coins; this, too, he converted into cash.
At one time he contemplated letting one wing of the Castle to a rich
tallow-chandler of the city, and was absolutely in treaty with him, when
with a shudder of shame he drew back and broke off the negotiations.
When he commenced his scheme of economy and exactions, he had said to
himself that if he pursued it for one year, and sold off all the things
he then contemplated, he should be able to leave his baby-girl close on
forty thousand pounds. At the end of twelve months he found he had put
more money together than he had anticipated. There was no new cause of
anxiety with regard to his health, and he made up his mind to continue
upon the track he had adopted. He might live a year, ay, two years yet;
if he lasted two years more the leases of Garfield estate would fall in,
and he should reap a harvest out of renewals. Give him two years more,
that is, three from the beginning, and he should be able to leave his
only child close upon one hundred thousand pounds.
At the end of the three years he found he had not come within several
thousand pounds of his limit; so he resolved to complete the hundred
thousand before he changed his manner of living or of dealing with the
property.
When the end of the fourth year was reached he had saved more than the
hundred thousand pounds. By this time he had become accustomed to the
loss of all his old associations, had grown to love the new, and, above
all, had become the slave of avarice, that most inflexible and enduring
of all the passions. Therefore, he threw all idea of change to the
winds, and resolved as long as he lived, whether for a week or twenty
years, to save all the money he could, in order that the descendants of
his side of the family might be able to hold up their heads hereafter.
At the death of his wife Sir Alexander Midharst closed his London
banking account and transferred all his business to the Daneford Bank,
where he had had an account when he came into the property, and where
his predecessor in the title had also kept his account.
Now in money matters Sir Alexander may have been a good sergeant, or
even on occasions a trustworthy captain; but he was no general, and he
knew it. He accordingly resolved to consult with Mr. Grey, father of
Wat. He explained the whole scheme to the banker, and the purpose for
which the money was being saved, and said that in the first place he
wanted to invest the money safely, and in the second of course he wanted
some interest for it.
The banker suggested that for the present the money should be invested
in the Three per Cent. Consols, which could be realised readily should
any more desirable form of investment offer itself, and where it would
be as safe as in land.
After some consideration Sir Alexander agreed to follow the banker's
advice, on the condition that Mr. Grey would buy the stock, keep the
account of it, with the heirloom jewels and plate of Island Castle, but
that in this case Mr. Grey was to retain the key of the chest containing
the valuables and transact all the business connected with the Consols,
such as receiving dividends, crediting the amount, and buying in more
Consols with the interest of the Consols themselves, and any money Sir
Alexander should lodge to the Midharst (Consols) account.
"I shall save the money," said the baronet, "and you will take care of
it."
And so it was arranged. Sir Alexander gave the banker power-of-attorney
with regard to these Consols and all the money lodged to their account
for the future; all communications from the Bank of England, of
solicitors, or anyone else, were to be addressed to Sir Alexander
Midharst, Daneford Bank, Daneford. These letters were to be opened and
attended to by Mr. Grey, who was to make a reasonable charge for the
trouble.
Things went on thus until the elder Mr. Grey's death, when the son
succeeded to the banking business and a considerable private fortune in
1856.
Young Mr. Grey, as soon as he came into the business, at once waited
upon Sir Alexander Midharst, and said he would advise that some new plan
should be adopted with regard to the baronet's business and accounts.
The baronet, who knew young Grey very well, and liked him exceedingly,
told him that his father had managed the business excellently, and that
the son ought to be able to do as well.
Young Grey said the responsibility was very great, the sum being now
more than two hundred thousand pounds over which Grey had complete
power.
The baronet took him by the hand and said:
"You are a younger man than your father, and ought not to be more timid.
Our family have known your bank before now; for my part, I am not able
to take charge of these things. I prefer your guardianship to that of my
lawyer's or of anybody else. If your father charged too little for the
trouble, you may charge more. You know the money is for my little
daughter: the estates go to a stranger after my death; and this money is
the fortune of my child, that no man shall say she, a Midharst--the last
of the direct line, I may say--was left penniless and portionless,
though she may be left homeless, on the world."
"As you put it now I cannot refuse," answered young Grey.
"Look around you." They were in the gateway leading to the courtyard,
with their faces turned towards the slope of the hill. "Look around you.
I have shorn the land close for my child. I work night and day for her,
as though her daily bread depended on my arms and my brain. I may die
any time. I have no friend, no relative. I am alone with my child.
Everyone seems against me. That greedy, rapacious young scoundrel who is
to follow me is looking with hungry eyes upon Warfinger Island, and
nightly praying for my death. All my old friends have given me up. I am
not of them now, because I have striven to make provision for my child.
They call me a sordid miser, a stain upon the order I share with them.
Let them rave. I will do what I think right by my child. Let them do as
they choose. I do not ask their help. I only ask them to let me alone.
But you I ask to help me; and you will, for you are not ennobled by the
accident of your birth, but by the generosity of your nature."
If any power of wavering had remained in young Grey, this appeal would
have overcome it. So the matter was finally settled: the son was to act
for the baronet precisely as the father had acted before.
During the year 1856 Mr. Grey the younger was a frequent visitor to
Island Castle. He liked boating; and often in the fine evenings pulled
down the river Weeslade to the Island, had a consultation with Sir
Alexander, and then pulled back to Daneford in the sweet fresh twilight.
Often when it was growing dusk, and he was about to start from the
Island for the city, he pushed off his boat into mid-stream, and rested
on his oars, looking up at the mouldering Castle standing out clear
against the darkening sky.
There was something desolate and forlorn about that vast pile,
inhabited by that ageing man and that young girl.
In front, facing the wider water-passage, it stood high above him, its
blind gateway looking down upon him, a lonely round tower at the right
of the archway catching the strange gleams of light reflected from the
Weeslade as the river glided silently towards the sea.
Winter and summer, when there was sunshine at sunset, the top of that
tower caught the reflection of the last red streak that flickered on the
polished surface of the river. This fact affected long ago the
superstitious feelings of the people. There was a tradition in the
neighbourhood that in times gone by the wicked mother of a Lord
Stancroft used abominable witchcraft against her daughter-in-law, her
son's bride, newly brought home from the kingdom of Spain, a country far
away, and near the sun, and full of gallant men and fine ladies, whose
eyes it were a marvellous fine feast to see, but who were--the
ladies--treacherous and light of love.
The abominable and damnable exercises practised by the wicked dowager
caused the dark-eyed Lady Stancroft, who had come among strangers out of
the far-away kingdom of Spain, to wither up and grow old and loathsome
in a year. So that the young lord turned away from her, and cared
nothing for her any more. And the poor young lady, gap-toothed and
wrinkled and foul-looking as she had been made by devilish witchcraft,
was still young in her mind and her affections, and doated on the lord,
who would not as much as come nigh the Castle while she was there, but
took to wine and evil ways.
So at last the poor young wife, who looked eighty, was lost, and could
be found nowhere. It was long after, and in the time of the next lord,
that, in the topmost chamber of the round gate-tower, a chamber never
used save in war-time, they discovered the skeleton of the young wife,
and words written in a strange tongue, the language of Spain, saying how
she had stolen up there to die, as she could not win back the love of
her husband, the young lord. Ever after that the topmost chamber of the
tower was red at sunset. Some thought this red gleam came from the fire
where the wicked dowager Lady Stancroft suffered for her great sin;
others thought this was the reflection from the wreath of glory worn by
the poor young wife. But all agreed it had to do with the deed of the
wicked Lady Stancroft; and so they called the tower the Witch's Tower, a
name it bore until Walter Grey gave it another.
The year 1856 was one full of remarkable events in the life of Mr. Grey.
In it his father died; he came into a considerable fortune; he
purchased a house; and grew to be a frequent visitor at Island Castle.
It often struck him as a peculiar coincidence that in the same year he
should have become owner of the most remarkable house near Daneford, and
caretaker to the fortune of the owner of the most remarkable house in
the whole district.
About that time he read an account of a certain tree said to be in
sympathy with a certain tower. The idea was fresh to him, and seemed to
open up a new field of speculation, and he dwelt upon it a good deal.
One evening, as he was rowing from the Castle to his own home, a thought
flashed into his mind. There was a striking coincidence in the fact of
his being connected so closely with two such houses. Each was unpopular,
each was weird, strange; there were queer stories about each, each had a
tower. The tower of one had an unpleasant history connected with the
skeleton of that poor Spanish lady; the tower on his house had that
rusty framework of a tank that looked like a skeleton. "Might not," he
thought, with a smile at the absurdity, "there be some sympathy between
these two houses?"
He ceased to row, and looked at the vast pile that brooded over the dark
waters of the Weeslade. He rested upon his oars.
"It looks, if like anything human, like a witch charming the river. My
house, too, looks like a witch sitting at bay within her magic circle of
grove. It wouldn't be bad to name them both The Weird Sisters. They are
uglier than the crones in 'Macbeth.'"
He pulled a few strokes and mused again, resting on his oars.
"They don't use that tower. I don't use my tower. They found the
skeleton of the Spanish Lady Stancroft in the top of that tower. There's
the skeleton of that old tank on the top of mine. Towers and skeletons
suggest Bombay and the Parsees. By Jove, the Towers of Silence would not
be a bad name for those two."
Next day he told several people the names he had given the two houses
and the two towers. All who heard of the new nomenclature smiled, and
admired the cleverness; and from that time forth in Daneford the two
houses were known as the Weird Sisters, and the two towers as the Towers
of Silence.