The young man came to the bedside and knelt down.
“Ah! I like that,” said the old father. “Good lad!” and he laid his hand gently upon his son’s head. “I’m not a grand old patriarch,” he sighed. “What, Doctor? – not talk? Yes, I must have my say now, while there’s time. Not a good old patriarch, Clive – not a religious man; made too much of a god of money; but I said my wife and sons should never know the poverty from which I had suffered, and I think it was right; but I overdid it, boy. Don’t follow my example; there’s no need. There – my blessing for what it’s worth, boy. Now go: I want Jessop.”
Clive rose, and his brother came and stood where he had knelt.
“Well,” said the dying man, in a firm voice, “I have little to say to you, Jessop. Shake hands, my boy, and God forgive you, as I do – everything.” Jessop was silent, and after a few moments the old man went on —
“I have settled everything, my lad. The Doctor here is one of my executors, and he will see that Clive does his duty by you; though he would without.”
Jessop winced, for these words were very pregnant of meaning, and showed only too well the place he would take after his father’s death.
“There,” said his father, pressing his hand, “that is all. I know your nature, boy, so I will not ask you to promise things which you cannot perform. Go now.”
“Not stay with you, father?” said the young man, speaking for the first time.
“No; go now. I’ve done my duty by you, boy; now go and do yours by your brother. Good-bye, Jessop.” There was dead silence, and the old man spoke again as he grasped his son’s hand, “Good-bye, Jessop, for the last time.”
“Good-bye, father,” was the reply; and then, with head bent, the young man walked slowly out.
“Hah! that’s over!” sighed the dying man. “He will not break his heart, Doctor; and if I had left him double, it would do him no good. Now then, Praed, I want to see little Janet. Where is she?”
“Downstairs in the drawing-room.”
“That’s right. Go and fetch her. Tell her not to be frightened. She shan’t see me die, for it won’t be yet.”
The Doctor left the bedroom, and the old man was alone with his younger son.
“Take hold of my hand, Clive. Sit down, my lad. That’s right. There, don’t look so cut up, my boy. I’m only going to sleep like a man should. It’s simply nature; not the horror fanatics teach us. Now I want to talk business to you for a few minutes, and then business and money will be dead to me for ever.”
“You wish me to do something, father?”
“Yes, boy. You will find everything in my will – you and the Doctor. He’s a good old friend, and his counsel is worth taking. Marry Janet, and make her a happy wife. She has some weaknesses, but you can mould her, my lad; and it will make her happy, and the Doctor too, for he loves you like a son.”
“Yes, father.”
“That’s good. You’re a fine, strong, clever man, Clive, but that was the dear, good, affectionate boy of twenty years ago speaking. Now then, about money matters. You’ll be enormously rich over that mine, so for heaven’s sake be a true, just man with it, and do your duty by all the shareholders. Stick to it through thick and thin. I remember all you told me when I recovered from my fit. I could repeat your report. But I was convinced before, when all the London world thought I was getting up a swindle. There! that’s enough about the mine – save this. You’ll be thinking of sharing with your brother. I forbid it. Keep to your portion as I have left it to you, and do good with it. To give to Jessop is to do evil. I am sorry, but it is the truth. He cannot help it perhaps, but he is not to be trusted, and you are not to league yourself with him in any way. You understand?”
“Yes, father!”
“I have made him a sufficiently rich man. Let him be content. You are not to trust him. I know Jessop by heart, and I can go from here feeling that I have done my duty by him.”
At that moment the Doctor returned with his daughter, and the old speculator’s face lit up with pleasure.
“Come here, Pussy,” he said. “I’m not very dreadful yet, my dear.”
“Dear Mr Reed – dear Mr Reed!” cried Janet, running sobbing to his side; “don’t, pray, talk like that.”
The old man smiled with content as the girl fell upon her knees by the bed, and embraced him tenderly, “Ah! that’s right. That’s like my little darling,” he said, and he stroked her cheek. “Don’t cry any more, my dear. There! you two go farther away; Janet and I have a few words to say together.”
Clive and the Doctor moved to the window and stood with their backs to the bed, the old man watching them intently for a few moments, and then smiling at Janet as he held and fondled her hand.
“There!” he said, “you are not to fret and be miserable about it, and when I’m gone it is not to interfere with your marriage.”
“Oh, Mr Reed!” she cried passionately.
“No, no, no,” he continued quietly; “not a bit. Life is short, my dear; enjoy it, and do your work in it while you can. And mind, there is to be no silly parade of mourning for me. I’m not going to have your pretty face spoiled with black crape, and all that nonsense. Mourn for me in your dear little heart, Janet: not sadly, but with pleasant, happy memories of one who held you when you were a baby, and who has always looked upon you as his little daughter.” Janet’s face went down on the old man’s hands with the tears flowing silently.
“Now, just a few more words, my dear,” he almost whispered. “Your father and I have rather spoiled you by indulgence.”
“Yes, yes,” she whispered quickly. “I have not deserved so much.”
“Never mind; you are going to be a dear good girl now, and make Clive a true, loving wife.”
“Yes, I’ll try so hard.”
“It will not take much trying, Janet, for he loves you very dearly.”
She raised her head sharply, and there was an angry look in her eyes.
“No, no, you are wrong,” said the old man. “Always the same, my pet. I can read you with these little jealous fits and fancies. I tell you, he loves you very dearly, and I’m going to say something else, my pet, my last little bit of scolding, for I’ve always watched you very keenly for my boy’s sake.”
“Mr Reed!” she whispered, shrinking from him and glancing towards the window; but he held her hands tightly.
“They cannot hear us, little one,” he said, “and I want you to listen. For your own happiness, Janet, my child. It is poor Clive who ought to have been jealous and complained.”
Janet hid her burning face.
“It was not all your fault, little one, but I saw a great deal. Innocent enough with you; but Jacob has always been trying to win Esau’s heritage, and even his promised wife.”
The girl sobbed bitterly now, and laid her burning face close to the old man’s, hiding it in the pillow.
“Oh, don’t, don’t,” she whispered. “I never liked him, but he was always flattering me and saying nice things.”
“Poison with sugar round them, my dear. But that’s all past. You are to be Clive’s dear honoured wife. No more silly, girlish little bits of flirtation. You are not spoiled, my dear, only petted a little too much. That’s all to be put behind us now, is it not?”
“Yes, dear – yes, dear Mr Reed,” she whispered, with her arms about his neck; and it was as if years had dropped away, and it was the little child the old man had petted and scolded a hundred times, asking forgiveness, as she whispered, “I will be good now, and love him very dearly.”
“That’s like my own child,” said the old man. “Now let’s hear the true woman speak.”
“And do always what you wish,” she said, looking him full in the eyes.
“That’s right – try,” he said, drawing her down to kiss her, and then signing to her to go.
“I’m tired,” he said wearily. “Clive, take your little wife downstairs for a bit. Your hand, my boy. God bless you! Now, Doctor, I’ll have an hour’s sleep.”
The Doctor signed for the young people to go down; and as he took a chair by the bed’s head, Grantham Reed turned his head away from the light, and went off into the great sleep as calmly as a tired child.
Chapter Eleven.
Jessop Plays Trumps
Jessop Reed, when he left his father’s bedroom, had gone straight down to the study, with his brow contracted and his heart full of bitterness, without seeing that he was closely watched, and that a pale, troubled face was raised over the top balustrade, which looked very dull and gloomy in the yellow light which streamed through the soot-darkened skylight panes.
“So that’s it,” he said to himself, as he closed the door and threw himself into his father’s great morocco-covered chair. “I’m nobody at all. The new king is to reign, and his name is Clive. I’m not even executor. No voice in anything; only the naughty boy to be punished. If I could only see that will!”
His eyes wandered about the dark room with its conventional cases of books that were never read, and he looked at the cabinets and writing-table as if he expected to see some drawer open with the key already in it, so that he could take out the will and read it at his ease.
But he shook his head, for he knew that his father was too business-like a man to be careless over so important a document.
“At the lawyer’s,” he said to himself; “and there is no need. I know the old man too well; but I wonder what he has said. A few hundred a year for his naughty boy, and the dear, good, industrious youth, who always did as father wished, nearly everything.”
“I know,” he said, half aloud, as he sat back in the chair and took out his cigar-case to open it and select a strong, black roll of the weed, bit off the end savagely, and spat it upon the carpet.
“I suppose I may smoke here now without getting into grief. Poor old boy! his game’s over; but, curse him, he might have played fair.”
He lit the cigar, and began to smoke and muse with his eyes half closed.
“I know,” he thought, and he laughed bitterly. “To my dear old friend, Peter Praed, M.D., my cellar of wine, the Turner picture, and one hundred pounds to buy a mourning ring and as recompense for acting as my executor. To my servants fifty pounds each and six months’ wages. To my son Jessop the interest on bank-stock to produce five hundred pounds per annum, paid in quarterly dividends. To my beloved son, Clive Reed, the whole of my remaining property in bank-stock, shares, and my interest in the ‘White Virgin’ mine in the county of Derby. Hah! yes,” he said aloud, “and it is good, or the old man would not have taken it up as he has. Yes, it is no balloon business puffed into a state of inflation, but a genuine, solid affair. All to him, and he is co-executor with the Doctor. He said he had made him so months ago; I am nowhere. And that’s my father!”
He bit off a piece of the end of his cigar and spat it out angrily, but started up as a thought struck him.
“No, that’s not all,” he muttered, as his eyes flashed, – “Janet!”
“Of course,” he said, with a long-drawn breath, full of satisfaction, “he would not forget her. He worshipped the girl, and he would leave her quite independent of Clive. A hundred thousand, if he has left her a penny. The artful little jade: she played her cards right with the old man.”
He started from the chair, threw the cigar-end into the fireplace, and hurried up to the drawing-room, to find it empty, and rang the bell.
“Where is Miss Praed?” he asked, as the servant appeared.
“She was fetched up into poor master’s room, sir.”
Jessop Reed went back to the study, and shut himself in, his brow contracted more and more, and lighting another cigar, he lay back smoking and thinking intently, but with his face less clouded by anger, as he felt more and more satisfied that he was right about his father’s disposition of his property, and over his own plans and those of his friend Wrigley.
“There is such a thing as salvage when there is a fire,” he said, with a laugh which disfigured his handsome features; “and it comes in too after a wreck. Well, we shall see, my dear brother; matters may balance themselves fairly after all.”
He started almost out of his chair just then, for a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and there stood pretty, fair-haired Lyddy, with her eyes red and swollen with weeping.
“How did you get here?” cried Jessop angrily.
“I opened the door, dear, and came in softly; didn’t you hear me?”
“Hear you? No; and how many more times am I to tell you not to call me dear?”
“Oh, Jessop, don’t, don’t!” cried the poor girl, bursting into tears. “Poor master! he’s dying fast, they say, and there’ll be no need to hide anything from him now.”
“But – but – ”
“I was on the staircase watching for you, dear, and you were shut up here so long, instead of being with master, that I was afraid you were ill.”
“Well, I’m not; so now go, there’s a good girl; and wait a bit till I’ve settled something about you.”
“Settled something about me, dear! Why, as soon as poor dear master’s dead you’ll be master then, and can do as you like. You won’t be the first gentleman who has married a servant.”
“Oh no, of course not,” he replied, with a bitter sarcasm in his tone.
“And you will make me happy then, won’t you, dear? For I am so miserable when I see you courting Miss Janet, I could find it in my heart to go some night to the Serpentine and end it all.”
“Will you hold your tongue?” he cried, with a shiver. “Do you think I haven’t enough to worry me as it is? Now, my good girl, is this a time for you to come bothering me?”
“I’m not a good girl,” she replied with spirit; “and it’s cruel of you, in your man’s selfishness, to talk of my bothering you. No, no, no, I won’t be angry with you,” she cried, hurriedly changing her tone. “And now, dear, that you can do as you like, you will not think of Miss Janet any more.”
“Wait,” he said sullenly; “and now go. Do you think I want the servants to be tattling about your being shut up here?”
“Let them tattle,” cried the girl proudly. “Let them, if they dare. They shall soon find that I’m their mistress. Tattle, indeed!”
“You heard what I said. Now, then, go away from here at once. There’s a ten-pound note. Don’t bother about your pay, but get away from here, for your dignity’s sake. Your box can be fetched at any time. Go down home.”
“Go down home!” said the girl in a low voice, full of suppressed anger; “home, eh? so as to be out of your way now? No,” she cried, flashing out into a fit of passion; “it’s to get rid of me. I’m in your way now that you are going to be master, and you don’t mean to marry me, as you’ve promised a hundred times. I know: it’s Miss Janet.”
“Lyddy, don’t be a fool,” cried Jessop, in a tone full of suppressed passion. “Now, go, there’s a good girl. It’s all for the best. Hush! you will be heard.”
“Then every one shall hear me,” she cried, tearing up the note he had placed in her hand and flinging it in his face. “No; I won’t be a fool any longer. You’re as good as master now; you’ve promised to marry me, and I will not be packed off in disgrace. You’re master here, Jessop, and I’m mistress; and come what may, I will not stir.”
She flung her arms round him as she spoke, and in his rage he raised his doubled fist to strike her down, but it fell to his side.
“Mr Jessop Reed is not master here,” said a stern voice at the door, “and you are not the mistress.”
Jessop flung the girl from him, so that she staggered, and would have fallen heavily, had not Clive, who had opened the door softly to come and sit with his brother, caught her in his arms.
“Jessop,” he said coldly, “have you not done enough to insult our father without this miserable disgraceful episode, now while he is lying upstairs almost at his last.”
“The woman’s mad,” cried Jessop. “Crazy with grief or drink, I suppose. I don’t know what she means.”
“I’m not, I’m not, Mr Clive,” cried the girl, bursting into a violent fit of weeping.
“Lyddy,” cried Jessop.
“I don’t care; I must, I will speak. He has promised to marry me again and again, and now that master is dying and he is going to be free to do as he likes, he is trying to pack me off – to send me home, and I’d sooner go and jump off the bridges at once.”
“Jessop!” cried Clive, “how can you be such a scoundrel?”
“Scoundrel yourself!” shouted Jessop furiously. “The woman’s an impostor; it’s a hatched-up breach of promise case to get money – a fraud.”
“No, no, no,” cried Lyddy wildly, as she flung herself at Clive’s feet, and caught and clung to his hands. “It’s true – all true. Dear Mr Clive, don’t, don’t you forsake me. Don’t you turn against me now.”
“Doctor! you here!” cried Clive, as he became conscious of the fact that they were not alone; and he made a step to cross the room to where Doctor Praed was standing with his child’s arm locked in his. But, at the first movement, Lyddy uttered a piteous cry, clung to him wildly, and suffered herself to be dragged over, and half lie sobbing hysterically on the carpet.
“Yes, sir, I am here,” said the Doctor gravely.
“But my father?” cried Clive excitedly.
“Is spared this fresh trouble, sir,” said the Doctor coldly.
“Dead!” cried Clive, in a voice fall of agony, and he turned to his brother.
Jessop was drawing Janet’s arm through his as she gazed with flashing eyes at her betrothed.
“Come away,” Jessop whispered. “Janet, dearest, this is no place for you.”
Chapter Twelve.
In Russell Square
“But surely, Doctor, you don’t believe I could be such a scoundrel?”
“My dear Clive, I should be sorry to think ill of any one, but you see I am a student of man’s nature.”
“Then you believe it?”
“That you are a scoundrel, my dear boy? Oh, dear no; I think you one of the best of fellows, or I would not have allowed that engagement to take place; and as I said to Janet, we must be a bit lenient; there was every excuse.”
“What!” roared Clive, leaping from his seat in Doctor Praed’s consulting-room the morning after his father’s death.
“Now, now, be calm, and listen to what I have to say.”
Clive sank back with his face flushed and hands clenched, while the Doctor continued gravely —
“She was hot-headed and angry as could be when I got her home. You see, my dear boy, women are different in their nerve forces to men. There had been a great drain upon her during the interview with your poor father, and then the sad surprise with that woman and the shock of your father’s death combined were sufficient to completely disturb the nerve centres.”
Clive Reed looked at the Doctor, as though he would have liked to shake him, but he only waited.
“I told her, as I have said, that she must not be too severe.”
Clive drew his breath hard.
“That, speaking as her father and a man of the world of a few experiences, a young lady was in error if she expected to find the man to whom she was betrothed quite perfect.”
“Doctor, you’ll drive me mad,” said Clive.
“No, I am going to teach you to be a little philosophical and to be patient, for of course she will come round. I am angry, terribly angry with you; I think it disgraceful – ”
“But – ”
“Hear me out, boy, or, confound you, I’ll have you shown the door,” cried the Doctor angrily. Then calming down: “It is most unfortunate, coming at such a time, too. The old writer may well have said that about our pleasant vices and the rods, or whatever it was, to scourge us. Be silent, sir: you shall speak when I have done. I know there was every excuse, living in the same house with a pretty gentle young girl who looked above her station, but was not in her manners. I have known lots of cases. Bit of vanity – good-looking young master – thinks she’ll be a lady – flings herself literally at young fellow’s head. Yes, a young man needs to be superhuman, I may say, under the circumstances.”
“Have you done, Doctor?”
“No, sir, I have not. You will have to go through a kind of probation with Janet – and with me, of course; and in time the matter may perhaps be patched up. Now we will set that aside, and talk about the business matters connected with your father’s decease. Poor old Grantham! It’s a gap out of my life, Clive. We were chums for thirty years. Thank God he did not know of this, poor fellow, for he thought so highly of you, my boy.”
“Would to God he were here now!” cried Clive passionately.
“Amen!”
“To hear his son defend himself. I swear to you, Doctor Praed, by all that is holy, by my dead father lying there at home, and who from the spirit-world may hear my words, I am perfectly innocent. For years I have not had a thought that Janet might not know – that has not been hers. It was all a mistake – a misconception, and in her hurry and readiness to jump at conclusions she believed it.”
“But, my dear boy, do you mean to deny that the unhappy girl, whose words I heard as she knelt by you, has not had a promise of marriage?”
“No, sir – unfortunately no.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“Oh, Doctor,” cried Clive passionately, “why is it in this, world that one man may go on adding blot after blot to his bespattered scutcheon, and at each revelation people smile and shrug their shoulders; while another who has tried to make his life blameless and keep the shield of his honour bright is doubted at the first blur that is cast upon it; every one seems to rejoice, sets him down as a hypocrite, and cries ‘Ah! found out at last!’”
“Well, my boy, it is human nature. I must confess to feeling something like that yesterday myself.”
“Then shame upon you, sir! – Doctor, you’ve known me from a boy, and ought to be better able to judge me.”
“Well, you see, my boy, the circumstances,” said the Doctor – “the temptations. You suddenly lifted up to a position of great wealth and influence, she a poor servant.”
“Doctor, she is a gentle woman, and my nature would not let me forsake her like a brute. Damn you, sir!” cried Clive, leaping from his seat, “how dare you believe it of me – that I could come here ready to swear fidelity to Janet, kiss her sweet pure lips, and tender her my love, while I frankly offered you – her father – my hand? It is a shame, a disgrace, a blot upon your own nature, to think it of your old friend’s son.”
“I – I – beg your pardon, Clive, humbly, my boy,” said the Doctor, rising and catching the young man by the shoulders. “I was wrong, I ought to have known you better. I am as hasty and jealous as Janet. Forgive me. I was angry for my child’s sake. Things looked so against you. There, there! curse me again, my dear boy, I deserve it, I do indeed.”
“Then you do not believe it now?” cried Clive, as the Doctor got hold of his hands and shook them warmly.
“Believe it? No, not a word of it, nor shall Janet neither – a silly little jealous baby. Then it was that scoundrel Jessop, and the poor girl was appealing to you for help?”
“I am not going to be my brother’s accuser,” said Clive bitterly.
“And he played the hypocrite, and took Janet away home here out of the scene. Here! say damn again to me, Clive, my boy, for I am about the most idiotic old fool that ever lived. But why – why the deuce didn’t you speak out?”
“I was literally stunned, sir.”
“But the girl – why didn’t you make her?”
“You saw, sir; she ran sobbing out of the room.”
“Then you must make her speak now. No, no: not now; let’s set this aside till after the funeral. We cannot enter into such matters with my poor old friend lying there.”
“No, sir, not there; and there is a hindrance: the poor girl has gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yes; she disappeared last night. But I cannot go on living like this, Doctor. Take me up to Janet now; I must clear myself in her eyes.”
“I would, my boy, but she is not here.”
“Not here?” cried Clive excitedly.
“No; she left this letter and went out again within an hour.”
The Doctor took a note from his breast-pocket and handed it to Clive to read.
“Cannot stay at home and hear about that shame and disgrace – gone away to be at peace, and try to forget it – with one of her aunts or a schoolfellow – will write,” stammered Clive, as he hastily read the letter.
“Yes, my dear boy, you know what a creature of impulse she is; and I don’t know that we can wonder under the circumstances.”
“But tell me – where do you think she will be? I must follow her.”
“Heaven only knows,” said the Doctor. “Since my poor wife died she has been mistress here, and naturally very independent and womanly – a strange girl, my dear boy. I have been so wrapped up in my profession, that I have lost the habit of guiding her.”
