THE UNWELCOME GUEST.
Thurston was very ill with typhoid fever, which held high carnival with
him physically, but left him mentally untouched. One afternoon, the
fifth after Rex’s arrival, the two were alone, and for some time Fred
lay with his eyes closed and an expression of intense thought upon his
face. Then, turning suddenly to Rex, he said, “Sit close to me. I want
to tell you something.”
Rex drew his chair to the bedside, and Fred continued, “That idiot of a
doctor has the same as told me I am going to die, and, though I don’t
believe him, I can’t help feeling a little anxious about it, and I want
you to help me get ready.”
“Certainly,” Rex answered, with a gasp, entirely misunderstanding Fred’s
meaning, and wishing the task of getting his friend ready to die had
devolved on some one else. “We hope to pull you through, but it is
always well to be prepared for death, and I’ll help you all I can. I’m
afraid, though, you have called upon a poor stick. I might say the
Lord’s Prayer with you, or, better yet,” and Rex grew quite cheerful,
“there’s a young American clergyman in the hotel. I will bring him to
see you. He’ll know just what to say.”
“Thunder!” Fred exclaimed, so energetically that Rex started from his
chair. “Don’t be a fool. I shall die as I have lived, and if there is a
hereafter, which I doubt, I shall take my chance with the rest. I don’t
want your clergy round me, though I wouldn’t object to hearing you say,
‘Our Father.’ It would be rather jolly. I used to know it with a lot of
other things, but I quit it long ago,—left all the praying to Louie, who
goes on her knees regularly night and morning in spite of my ridicule.
Once, when she was posing beautifully, with her long, white
dressing-gown spread out a yard or so on the floor, I walked over it on
purpose to irritate her, but didn’t succeed. I never did succeed very
well with Louie. But it is more my fault than hers, although I was
fonder of her than she ever knew. She never pretended to love me. She
told me she didn’t when she promised to marry me, and when I asked her
if any one stood between us she said no, but added that there was
somebody for whom she could have cared a great deal if he had cared for
her. I did not ask her who it was, but I think I know, and she would
have been much happier with him than with me. Poor Louie! maybe she will
have a chance yet; and if she does I am willing.”
His bright, feverish eyes were fixed curiously on Rex, as he went on,
“It’s for Louie and her matters I want help, not for my soul; that’s all
right, if I have one. Louie is a child in experience, and you must see
to her when I am gone, and stand by her till she goes home. There’ll be
an awful row with the landlord, and no end of expense, and a terrible
muss to get me to America. My man, John, will take what there is left of
me to Mount Auburn, if you start him right. Louie can’t go, and you must
stay with her and Bertha. If Mrs. Grundy kicks up a row about your
chaperoning a handsome girl and a pretty young widow,—and, by Jove,
Louie will be that,—bring your aunt to the rescue; that will make it
square. And now about my will. I made one last summer, and left
everything to Louie on condition that she did not marry again. That was
nonsense. She will marry if the right man offers;—wild horses can’t hold
her; and I want you to draw up another will, with no conditions, giving
a few thousands to the Fresh Air Fund and the Humane Society. That will
please Louie. She’s great on children and horses. What is it about a
mortgage on old man Leighton’s farm? Louie wanted me to pay it and keep
Bertha from going out to service, as she called it. But I was in one of
my moods, and swore I wouldn’t. I am sorry now I didn’t. Maybe I have a
soul, after all, and that is what is nagging me so when I think of the
past. I wish I knew how much the mortgage was.”
“I know; I can tell you,” Rex said, with a great deal of animation, as
he proceeded to narrate the particulars of the mortgage and his visit to
the Homestead, while Fred listened intently.
“Ho-ho,” he said, with a laugh, when Rex had finished. “Is that the way
the wind blows? I thought maybe—but never mind. Five hundred, is it?
I’ll make it a thousand, payable to Bertha at once. You’ll find
writing-materials in the desk by the window. And hurry up; I’m getting
infernally tired.”
It did not take long to make the will, and when it was finished, Rex and
Mr. Thurston’s valet John and Louie’s maid Martha, all Americans,
witnessed it. After that Fred, who was greatly exhausted, fell into a
heavy sleep, and when he awoke Bertha was alone with him. He seemed very
feverish, and asked for water, which she gave him, and then bathed his
forehead and hands, while he said to her faintly, “You are a trump. I
wish I’d made it two thousand instead of one; but Louie will make it
right. Poor Louie! she’s going to be so disappointed. It’s a big joke on
her. I wonder how she will take it.”
Bertha had no idea what he meant, and made no reply, while he continued,
“Say, how does a fellow feel when he has a soul?”
Bertha felt sure now that he was delirious, but before she could answer
he went on, “I never thought I had one, but maybe I have. I feel so
sorry for a lot of things, and mostly about Louie. Tell her so when I am
dead. Tell her I wasn’t half as bad a sort as she thought. It will be
like her to swathe herself in crape, with a veil which sweeps the
ground. Tell her not to. Black will not become her. Think of Louie in a
widow’s cap!”
Weak as he was, he laughed aloud at the thought of it, and then began to
talk of the prayer which had “forgive” in it, and which Rex was to say
with him.
“Do you know it?” he asked, and, with her heart swelling in her throat,
Bertha answered that she did, and asked if she should say it.
He nodded, and Rex, who at that moment came unobserved to the door,
never forgot the picture of the kneeling girl and the wistful, pathetic
expression on the face of the dying man as he tried to say the words
which had once been familiar to him.
“Amen! So be it! Finis! I guess that makes it about square. Tell Louie I
prayed,” he whispered, faintly, and never spoke again until the early
morning sunlight was shining on the lake and the hills of Savoy, when he
started suddenly and called, “Louie, Louie! Where are you? I can’t find
you. Oh, Louie, come to me.”
But Louie was asleep in her room across the long salon, and when, an
hour later, she awoke, Bertha told her that her husband was dead.