Hear the very latest counsel
That ever I shall breathe.
_King Henry the Fourth._
A considerable time elapsed before the violence of Robert’s grief could
be mastered. It took the form of an hysterical passion evidently beyond
his powers to subdue, springing no doubt in a great measure from the
unnerved condition in which his late habits had left him.
It gave place at last to exhaustion; he seemed as weak as a child, and
he submitted like a child to go to bed. When this was accomplished, the
room was darkened, and Mrs. Vavasour sat down by his side to watch over
him. Robert opened his eyes and saw her there; and, as if forgetting all
that had passed, held out his hand to her with a faint sweet smile; and
having so done he dropped asleep with hers clasped in his. It was like
the days of infancy once more, and Mr. Addison, who was standing by,
turned away at the sight with tears he could no longer restrain. Who
could wonder at the love the mother bore to her poor prodigal son?
When he left the room he found Hope watching outside. He desired her to
go and lie down, and husband her powers for the time when they might be
wanted. She had been up and standing the whole of the night before, and
she looked, though she did not seem, worn out.
She went in obedience to his advice, and he then turned his steps in
search of Everard; but on his way to Everard’s room so many questions
and inquiries assailed him, so many necessary delays occurred, that it
was above an hour and a half since Mr. Vavasour’s death before he
reached him.
On approaching the door he met a housemaid, an elderly woman who had
been long in the family, coming from it.
“How is Mr. Everard?” he inquired, stopping her as she was passing with
her apron to her eyes.
“He’s come to a bit, poor dear,” she replied, “but he’s been terribly
bad. Mr. Everard always was so uncommonly fond of his papa.”
“Has Mr. Everard been ill?” Mr. Addison asked, with a pang of
self-reproach, although mortal powers of comforting are limited as other
things.
“He passed me by when he came to his room with such a white face, sir,
that I made bold to go after him, and I found him on the floor, poor
dear, with his heart going like a mill-wheel. But he told me to give no
trouble and say nothing about it, and he’s come to now a bit. I made him
lie down, and I took him some tea just now, and he seems more composed
and like himself, poor dear,” and with a curtsey she hastened on her
way.
With an added fear lest Everard should have thought himself neglected,
Mr. Addison went on. In a small degree his watchful eyes had discovered
that this was sometimes the case; but even he had no conception of the
keenness with which the lack of warm affection was felt. It was in fact
a grief which none but the one who suffered from it could understand.
The outward forms of affection, the care and thought, were, though calm,
so kind and constant that it was only the heart itself which pined for a
quicker pulse of love in answer to its own, which could be aware of the
one thing wanting.
He knocked at the door, but entered without waiting for an answer, and
approached the bed. The room was already darkened, in token of death in
the house, but the bright April evening shone through the openings and
gave light enough for observation.
Mr. Addison was struck by the look of abandonment to sorrow in the
usually composed countenance, and the lassitude in the usually vigorous
frame. Everard did raise himself on his approach, and say he would get
up, but when he gently touched him and said, “No, lie down again,” he
obeyed without a word of remonstrance.
“I could not get to you before,” he began in a tone of tender affection.
“How are you, my poor Everard?”
“How are they all?” he asked in reply, looking wistfully into his face.
“All quiet now, and Hope and Robert are lying down. Poor Robert has been
terribly overcome. We cannot wonder. He has his own keen pangs of
sorrow, which nothing else can equal. Happy, dear Everard, those who are
spared them.”
“And my mother?” Everard said, without heeding those words of
consolation.
“She is sitting by Robert,” Mr. Addison replied, after a momentary
hesitation. “He greatly needs her care, and at this moment, Everard, I
feel almost thankful it should be so. The sun of her life is gone out,
and were it not for this anxiety, she might scarcely have strength to
live on.”
Everard turned away his eyes; but if the thought of what Robert was to
his mother gave him pain, it was a longing not an envious pain.
“Everard,” Mr. Addison said, stooping over him, “I have come last to
you, because you are the strongest; but do not think I am not well aware
that in some respects, this loss is more to you than to all the world
beside.”
“Do not restrain yourself too much,” he continued, perceiving that
Everard clenched his hands to control his emotion. “Grief should and
must have its way. I will not speak if it grieves you too much, but if
you can bear it, there are some things I would say.”
“You said that I felt already too much,” Everard replied passionately.
“Oh! Mr. Addison, I know I am selfish to think it, but I feel that I
have lost all; in all the world there was but one who cared for me, and
he is gone. What is life now? What have I to live for? I know I am
selfish--I hate myself for what I say, and yet I feel it still. I am
desolate.”
“It may be selfish, dear Everard, but do not blame yourself too
severely; in some respects grief makes us selfish, and is intended to do
so, for it teaches us to search and look into our hearts. I wish to use
it for that purpose now. Let us see what this sorrow says to you. I
think it has a message for you. Can you bear to hear me?”
Everard looked gratefully up into the face of his old friend, already
soothed by the soft touch of his kind words.
“It seems hardly a fitting time to preach a sermon,” he said, with a
faint smile on his lips, “but what I have to say, Everard, may, I think,
bring a word in season to your weary heart. You ask, ‘what have you to
live for now?’ Dear Everard, I do but repeat some words already spoken
this day, when I say ‘You have been a good son.’ You have made your
father’s will the guide of your life. Do not think that I have a fault
to find in that. I so loved your devotion, that even though I saw a
want, I feared to disturb it by a single word of advice; but now,
Everard, when that guide has been taken from you, I would partly in
comfort, partly in warning, point your thoughts upward to your father in
Heaven; a Guide and Friend that cannot fail or pass away. Everard,” he
continued, after a moment, with emphasis and solemnity, looking fixedly
at him, “Your future life may be very different to your past; strong
temptations may be before you, heavy cares oppress you; if you would
walk safely under them, safely, and as your father would have you walk,
you must make the will of God your guide, and His grace the support of
your life. I will add no more; but, dear Everard, in these days of
seclusion and sorrow, think upon what I say.”
“I know you are right,” Everard sadly said; “very right. I am not in
that way which I should be. I will try to remember; and yet,” he added,
after some consideration, “I feel now that if I _had_ made my father my
only guide, I should be less wretched now--but you do not know;--all
these past months, oh! Mr. Addison, you do not know what a place my mind
has been. Not my father, my dear father there, but vain, mean, worthless
thoughts and motives, and other loves and cares, and few thoughts of him
have filled it. Oh! Mr. Addison, if all were known, I have _not_ been a
good son.”
“You are unjust, and needlessly torment yourself,” Mr. Addison said
soothingly; “there may have been, it was but natural there should have
been, a noise of many voices in your heart; but I know, and you know it
too, one word from your father, had he spoken, would have silenced them
all. No word was ever truer, Everard, than that you heard to-day: ‘_You
have been a good son._’ Take the comfort God gives you home to your
heart, and be thankful for it. To have been a good son is no light
blessing--a father’s blessing follows such a one all his days, and come
what may, dear Everard, will follow you.”
He bent over him, and laid his cool hand on his burning brow, putting
back the masses of his disordered hair with a soft touch, like a
mother’s; and the act of gentle and womanly tenderness went to the heart
of the desolate son, and he left him comforted.
For the three days that followed Mr. Vavasour’s death, Robert was
confined to bed. He was seriously ill. The cold which had attacked his
throat returned more violently, and excitement of mind produced fever of
body.
During those days Mrs. Vavasour never left him. She watched beside him
by day, she slept on a sofa in his room at night. When he once observed
to her that he was sure there were some Psalms and prayers which were
fit for such a one as he was to use, she commanded her trembling voice,
and read to him. For the time being, he seemed to fill all her mind. But
when after the third day he recovered, she fell back into that trance of
speechless sorrow, from which her care for him alone had had power to
rouse her.
The tables were then reversed. Robert devoted himself to her--happy if
only he could force a tear from her tearless eyes; consoled if he could
draw one word from her lips.
During Robert’s illness, Everard and Hope had been left to themselves.
They did, indeed, go in and out of the darkened room, but both alike
felt that there was a sacredness of union there, their presence jarred
upon. Robert asked for neither. His mother was all in all.
They were three miserable days. Hope saw that the link that had united
her and Robert was indeed severed; and in the severing discovered how
dear, too dear, that link had been; how dark was earth--yes, and heaven,
too, now _that_ union was not. Her days were days of one long
prayer--such prayer as gains the thing it fain would have.
With Everard they were passed by the side of the inanimate form he had
loved so well, and with whom all that made life bearable seemed
vanished. Darkness was on his weary heart in the present and in the
future, and though in the very sight of death, his thoughts did in a
degree lose their earthliness, and he did in a degree follow the
counsel of his old friend, and strive to seek a guide and support in
Heaven; yet it is not at once that such thoughts become natural inmates
of the mind, much less comforters. Animated with religious principles,
Everard had always been; but from the formation of his mind and
character--a character strong, stubborn, and earthly, he had been less
susceptible than even Robert of religious feeling Mr. Addison had long
seen the want; yet, as he had said, had scarcely dared to point it out,
lest he should disturb that other principle which guided him so safely
on his way.
The last days of the week brought a comfort to Hope they could not give
to Everard. In their cares of Mrs. Vavasour, Robert and Hope were again
united. They were rarely alone together, and if it chanced to happen
that they were alone, no word regarding that which had made a change
between them was ever spoken; but, as if blotting out the days of that
last return home, during the whole of which, however unconsciously,
Robert had been perpetually seeking to awaken her to love him, they
returned to the tranquil, confiding intercourse of earlier days. A
change there was, and Hope felt it, and yet was content.
To some it might have been hardly possible to bear the change; to some
it might have been impossible so to put self and consciousness aside, as
to turn back her steps to a former from a nearer and closer union; but
with Hope it was possible--she knew how to win a victory over self, and
she won it.
Everard would have shared their cares if he could. He, too, approached
his mother and kissed her, and longed, till his heart seemed bursting,
to put his arms round her to implore her to love him, and to let his
love comfort her as they did; but he dared not. His tongue was tied by
the dread of a cold response, and he was silent.
The day of the funeral came and passed.
When Everard left his room the following morning the sun was shining
brilliantly through the now opened windows; there were sounds of voices
no longer hushed, and footsteps no longer stealthy, in the gardens and
about the house; all things seemed to be resuming their usual course,
and life and light to have returned to the dwelling from which the inner
light and life had just departed.
Sorrow is not always soft; nor a true mourning always faultless. Sorrow
has its infirmities as well as, nay, much more than, joy. As Everard
paced along the corridors, outwardly so bright, so dreary to him, his
feelings were much like Jonah’s over the withering of his gourd; he was
angry, and thought he did well to be angry. He had a strange jealous
feeling that others were forgetting, that none were mourning like him,
and in bitterness of spirit he said he would escape from his unbearable
misery, and return to his toilsome life in London.
In this mood he entered the breakfast room; and on such a mood a very
trifling circumstance jars with acute pain. Robert and Hope were there
before him. From the lingering effects of his illness, Robert had
hitherto breakfasted late and in his room; but he was there this
morning; the room looked bright and fresh; the windows were open,
letting in the sweet breeze of a May morning, and Robert was in his
father’s chair and place.
There was nothing to surprise in this; for there were but three places
at the table, and Robert’s mind was not of the kind which thoughtfully
dwells on minute things; but to those whose minds were of another class
it did speak. It did forcibly say--a change is come, yet life flows on
unchanged; one generation gone, another era begun; a father dead, a son
already in his place; a father, in his venerable and virtuous old age,
and _Robert_ in his place.
A torrent of impetuous, rebellious blood crimsoned Everard’s cheek, and
he sat down, scarcely knowing what he said or did. Perhaps Robert
observed his countenance, perhaps guessed in part what feelings agitated
him, for he immediately leant towards him, and put a letter into his
hand, observing in a low voice, “That is this afternoon. I will go down
and tell Mr. Addison that he is to be here.”
The letter was from Mr. Low, the solicitor. It informed Robert that Mr.
Vavasour’s will was in his hands, and that he had received a special
charge to read it in the presence of the assembled family, (not
excepting Mrs. Vavasour, if she could be prevailed on to comply with her
husband’s request), and of Mr. Addison. He added that Mr. Vavasour had
specified the day following his funeral for the reading of the will,
and, therefore, without waiting to hear from Robert, he should be at
Audley Court at four o’clock.
This information and Robert’s manner put Everard’s _most_ miserable
thoughts to flight. There was something yet to be heard from, or done
for his father. The day was to be full of him; and the jealous dread
that he was forgotten, for the time was gone.
He thought no more of his purpose of escape, and for the mere benefit of
finding something to do, walked down with Robert to desire Mr. Addison
to be at Audley Court at the appointed hour.
Mr. Addison gave a grave consent, looking fixedly at each brother; but
they too were grave, and expected nothing but gravity, and his looks
excited no remark.
On their return, as they approached the house, the butler came to meet
Robert, and asked him if he chose to have the bells rung as usual for
dinner and other things.
“Yes--no,” Robert replied, colouring crimson, and averting his eyes from
Everard. “I don’t care, just as you think best.”
“I think it would be best. It secures punctuality,” observed the butler,
with some importance in offering advice to his young master.
“Just as you please,” Robert said, hastily, and then as the man
departed, he turned to Everard and exclaimed--“Oh! Everard, how I hate
it all.”
“You must,” said his brother, passionately. “I feel how you must.”
“Don’t _you_ hate me, that is all.”
“No, indeed,” Everard said warmly, and those few words of Robert’s blew
away into airy nothing, the strange sad feeling that had made his heart
ache that day, when he thought of Robert in his father’s place; blew it
away, and brought love, trust, and even reverence in its place.
* * * * *
Mr. Low arrived punctually. Mrs. Vavasour unwilling to refuse compliance
with the smallest wish expressed by her husband, forced herself to
obedience; and the room was darkened, and a chair placed for her in the
darkest corner; and to her chair she was led by Robert when the hour
came, with Hope by her side.
“Now call him!” Robert said hurriedly to Everard, “and let there be no
delay.”
Everard left the room.
As he came up the stairs with the solicitors, Mr. Low looked at him and
said, “Have you any idea, Mr. Everard, as to the contents of your
father’s will?”
“No, none!” he said with a kind of sad indifference.
“I think it may surprise you.”
Everard shook his head. He thought it possible Mr. Low intended to
suggest that a better provision had been made for him than he had reason
to expect; and _once_ such a suggestion would have been no matter of
indifference; but in the cloud that had now darkened his future, utter
indifference as to his prospects had grown up.
He forgot Mr. Low’s remark as soon as it was made, and recurred to what
was upper-most in his mind; the hope that he would make the affair as
little painful to his mother as was possible.
“I will do my best,” said Mr. Low, “but some things unfortunately are
not in my power to....”
“Of course,” Everard said hastily, “I know, only let it be as short as
you can.”
Mr. Low bowed as he entered the room, but kindly and discreetly
refrained from any further notice of Mrs. Vavasour.
He then sat down, giving his companion a paper to hold, and desired
Robert and Everard to sit on each side of him.
They obeyed, and pale and grave Mr. Addison placed himself in the
window.
Mr. Low then proceeded to read a will made ten years before this time.
It contained a few bequests, left a sum of ten thousand pounds to
Everard, and the whole of the rest of the property to Robert.
When he had finished reading, Mr. Low turned to Robert and said, “This
will remained unaltered in my hands till about ten days ago; I regret
to be compelled to add that since then an alteration has taken place. On
the 22nd of April I was summoned from London, and in my presence, and in
the presence of this gentleman, a new will was made and signed. I am
compelled, Mr. Vavasour, though with great reluctance, to read it to
you.”
In the second will there was simply a change in the bequests to his two
sons. Where Robert stood now was Everard, and Robert in Everard’s place.
But the conclusion was couched in most solemn words. The cause of the
change was distinctly stated to arise from the unworthiness of his elder
son, and though there was no concealment of the pain which his
resolution cost, there was no faltering in the terms in which that
resolution was expressed. Then followed a few words to “his dear son
Robert,” assuring him of his unaltered affection, his full pardon, and
his dying blessing.
To Everard also there was a special address, and at greater length.
Into his hand Mr. Vavasour said he delivered all the cares which had
occupied him through life. Some things were specified by name. He
appointed him guardian to Hope Linton, and very solemnly committed to
“his integrity, judgment, and affection,” the care of the welfare and
happiness of the three beloved beings he left behind him. Lastly, he
alluded to Everard’s new position, and no words could be imagined more
forcible and pathetic than those in which he implored him to accept, and
not to cast away, this his last will and testament.
Mr. Low’s thin, sharp voice deepened into pathos as he concluded, and
agitated in an unusual degree, he drew his handkerchief from his pocket,
and blew his nose. This was the only sound that broke the silence either
during the reading or after its conclusion. Both sons remained with
their eyes downcast; Robert’s cheek was crimson, Everard’s ashy pale.
Mr. Low looked at them alternately, then at Mrs. Vavasour’s motionless
form. He seemed perplexed how to act.
“I believe my task is done,” at last he observed, slowly rising from his
seat, and bowing where he stood, while he rustled the papers in his
hand.
Robert sprang up and shook hands with him; Everard remained immoveable.
“I must wish you good evening,” Mr. Low observed again, and having
repeated his bow to Everard, in which his companion joined, but of which
no notice was taken, they left the room together.
“Take me back,” Mrs. Vavasour faintly said to Hope, and, putting her
arms round her, as if to support herself, she also rose, and attempted
to depart; but her limbs trembled so much that Hope’s support seemed
scarcely sufficient, and Robert hastening after her, caught her arm,
forced her to lean on him, and so guided her away.
When the door closed, Mr. Addison made a few steps towards Everard, who
still sat immoveable; but at the very first sound, Everard started up
with a cheek like death, and eyes flashing like fire, and flew out of
the room by the door which had just closed on Mr. Low.
Mr. Addison returned to the window, opened the shutters that had
darkened it, and leaned out and sighed. He stood there in profound
meditation, the fresh air cooling and calming his mind, until he was
roused by the re-entrance of Robert.
“I say, Mr. Addison, you must go to my mother,” he said quickly, as he
approached him; “she is in a sad way, and nothing I can say or do will
comfort her. Go in at once; that will be the best; if you ask to go in
she will not see you.”
There was a tone in Robert’s voice, and a look on his countenance which
seemed to imply a desire of braving it out with a show of indifference.
It made Mr. Addison uneasy; but, at the same time, it told him that this
would not be the proper moment to make observations or offer sympathy
or counsel. Without commenting, therefore, on what had passed, he merely
thanked Robert for summoning him, and acquiesced in his request.
He left the room by one door; Robert left it by the other, coolly
fetched his hat, and went out for a walk.