A Hungarian Nabob Part 48

"Many thanks, Rudolf, many thanks for coming. Pardon me for sending for you at such an hour and in such hot haste. G.o.d has brought you. Thank you very much for coming. Rudolf, a peculiar feeling has come over me.

Three days ago, a strange sort of sensation, not unpleasant, took possession of my limbs, and when I awoke from my sleep in the night it was with a odd sort of joy, I know not how to express it, as if my soul had quitted me. I take it as an omen of my death. Do not gainsay me, I beg. I am not afraid of death; I long for it. At such times a quick current of air brushes past my ear, as if some one were about to fly away from close beside me. I know what that means. Twice I have had a similar sensation, and on each occasion a current of air has struck me.

I fancy this will be the last of them. I think of it with joy, and have not the slightest fear of it. I have sent for you in order that I may make my last will, while I still have the possession of all my faculties, and I wish you to be my executor. Will you accept the trust?"

Rudolf indicated his willingness in silence.

"Then come with me to my library. The other witnesses are waiting there now. I have got them together as rapidly as I could, and they are all honest fellows."

As they were pa.s.sing through the suite of rooms, Squire John suddenly stopped Rudolf, and said--

"Look! in this room I heard her laugh for the last time. On that chair yonder she lost her shawl--it is there still. On that table is a pair of gloves, the last she ever wore. Here she used to sit when she sketched.

There's the piano, still open--a _fantasia_ lies, you see, on the music-stand. If she should come back again, eh?"

And now he opened the door of a room illuminated by candles--Rudolf shrunk back.

"Old friend, that's not a fit place to enter. Surely you have lost yourself in your own house! That is your wife's bedroom."

"I know, but I can never pa.s.s it without going in. And now I mean to have a last look at it, for to-morrow I shall have it walled up. Look, everything remains just as she left it. She did not die in this room--don't be alarmed! That door yonder leads to the garden. Look, everything is in its old place--there the lamp by which she used to read, on the table a half-written letter, which n.o.body has read. A hundred times have I entered the room, and not a word of that letter have I read. To me it is holy. In front of the bed are her two little embroidered slippers, so tiny that they look as if they had been made for a child. On the table is an open prayer-book, between the open leaves of which are an iris and an amaranth and a maple leaf. She greatly loved those flowers."

"Let us go away from hence, let us go away," urged Rudolf. "It pains me to hear you talk so."

"It pains you, eh?--it does me good. I have sat here for days together, and have called to mind every word she said. I see her before me everywhere, asleep, awake, smiling, sorrowful--I see her resting her pretty head on the pillows, I see her sleeping, I see her dying----"

"Oh! come, come away!"

"We will go, Rudolf. And I shall never come back again. To-morrow a smooth wall will be here in the place of the door, and iron shutters will cover all the windows. I feel that I ought not to seek her here any more. Elsewhere, elsewhere I will seek her: we will dwell together in another room. Let us go, let us go!"

And smilingly, without a tear, like one who is preparing for his bridal day, he quitted the room, casting one more look around upon it from the threshold, and a dumb kiss into the darkness, as if he were taking leave for a last time of a beloved object visible only to himself.

"Let us come, let us come!"

In the large library the witnesses were awaiting them.

They were four--the local notary, a stoutish young man, with his back planted against the warm stove; the estate agent, benevolent Peter Varga, who had asked, as a favour, that he might wear black like the other family servants; the parish priest, and Mike Kis. That worthy youth had quitted the brilliant saloons whose hero he was, to comfort his old friend in the days of his tribulation. The fiscal was there also, cutting quills for every one present, and sticking them into the inkstands, which were placed all round the round table in front of the witnesses.

When Squire John and Rudolf entered the room, every one present saluted them with the grave solemnity befitting the occasion.

The Squire beckoned to everybody to be seated--Rudolf on his right, Mike Kis on his left, the fiscal opposite to him, that they might the better hear what he was going to say.

At the furthest end of the table sat Mr. Varga, with all the candles piled in front of him. _He_ knew why.

"My dear friends and good neighbours," began the Nabob, while every one listened with the deepest attention, "G.o.d has numbered my days, and is about to call me from this transitory life to His glory, and therefore I call you all to witness that what I am going to say now is said clearly, deliberately, and while I am in the full possession of all my faculties.

I find that the estates which G.o.d, of His goodness, has entrusted to my hands, now yield over a million of florins more of clear income than when I came into possession of them. G.o.d grant that they may be more productive of blessings in the hands of others than they have been in mine! I begin my last will and testament with a reference to her who was dearest to me in the world and now slumbers in her tomb. This tomb is the beginning and the end of my arrangements in this life; it has been my first thought when I rose up, and my last thought when I lay down, and will last on when I rise up no more. My first bequest, then, is 50,000 florins, the interest on which is to go to that gardener on my domains whose duty it shall be, in return therefor, to cultivate from early spring to late autumn, irises and amaranths,--flowers which 'she'

loved so much,--and have them planted regularly round the grave of my unforgettable wife. Furthermore I bequeath the interest of 10,000 florins to the gardeners of the Castle of Madaras, from father to son, whose corresponding obligation it shall be to maintain a conservatory near to the maple tree, beneath which is a white bench." Here the Squire sighed, half to himself, "That was her favourite seat; there she used to sit all through the afternoons. And the gardener is to plant another maple tree beside it, that it may not stand so solitarily there. If at any time the tree should wither, or if any careless descendant of mine should ever cut it down, the whole amount reserved for this purpose shall go to the poor."

Rudolf sat there with a cold, immovable face while all this was being said; n.o.body guessed what he felt while these words were being spoken.

"'How foolish the old man must have grown in his latter years,' his descendants will one day say, when they read these dispositions, 'leaving legacies to trees and shrubs!'"

"Furthermore," pursued Squire John, "I bequeath 50,000 florins to form a fund for dowering girls of good behaviour on their marriage. On every anniversary of the day on which my unforgettable wife fell asleep, all the young maids on my estate shall meet together in the church to pray to G.o.d for the souls of those that have died; then the three among these virgins whom the priest shall judge to be the most meritorious shall be presented with bridal wreaths in the presence of the congregation, and the sum of money set apart for them; and then they shall proceed to the tomb and deck it with flowers, and pray that G.o.d may make her who lies there happier in the other world than she was in this. And that is my desire."

Here he stopped, waiting till the lawyer had written down all his words, during which time a mournful silence prevailed in the room, interrupted only by the scratching and spluttering of the pen on the paper.

When the lawyer looked up from his parchment by way of signifying that he had written everything down, the Squire sighed, and hung his head.

"When it pleases G.o.d to bring upon me the hour in which I shall quit this transitory life, when I am dead, I desire to be buried in the dress in which I was married to her; my faithful servant, old Paul, will know which it is. The coffin, in which I am to be put, stands all ready in my bedroom; every day I look at it, and accustom myself to the thought of it; often I lay me down in it, and bethink me how good it would be were I never to rise from it again. It is quite ready. I took some trouble about it; it is just like hers. My name has already been driven into it with nice silver nails, only the date of my death has to be added. That priest is to pray over me who prayed over her, and how beautiful that will be!"

"Sir, sir!" interrupted the priest, "who can read in the book of life and death, or tell which of us twain will live longest, or die first?"

The Squire beckoned to the priest to bear with him--he himself knew best.

"Further, remove none of the mourning draperies from the rooms, let everything remain as it was at the time of her burial. Let the selfsame cantors come from Debreczen and sing over me the same chants, and no other. Just what they sang over her, and the selfsame youths must do it.

All those chants were so dear to me."

"Oh, sir," said the priest, "perchance every one of these students may be grown-up men by then."

The Squire only shook his head, and thus proceeded--

"And when they have opened the vault, they are to break down the part.i.tion wall between the two niches, so that there may be nothing between her coffin and mine, and I may descend into the grave with the comfortable thought that I shall sleep beside her till the day of that joyful resurrection which G.o.d grants to every true believer. Amen!"

And all those big grave men sitting round the table there fell a-weeping, and not one of them felt ashamed of himself before the others. Even the matter-of-fact lawyer spoilt his nib, and could not see the letters he was writing. Only on the Squire's face was there no sign of sadness. He spoke like one bent on preparing his bridal chamber.

"When I am buried, my funeral monument--it is standing all ready in my museum--must be placed beside hers. The date of death is alone wanting, and I want nothing added to the inscription: it must remain just as it is--my name and nothing more. Beneath it are inscribed these lines: 'He lived but one year, the rest he slept away.' One of my treasures is beneath the ground, and in no long time I shall be alone with it. My second treasure, my joy, the hope of my soul, remains here. I mean my son."

At these words the first tear he had shed appeared in Karpathy's eyes.

He dried it hastily, but it was a tear of joy.

"May he never resemble me in anything! may he be better, wiser than his father was! Mr. Lawyer, write down what I say in as many words. Why should I make any mystery of it? I am standing before the presence of G.o.d. I want my son to be better than I was. Perchance G.o.d will forgive me for the sake of his virtues. May my country, too, forgive me, and my ancestors who have led lives like mine, for our sins against her! May his life make manifest what ours ought to have been! May his wealth never spoil his heart, so that in his old age he may not repent him of his youth. I would have my son a happy man. But what is happiness?

Money? possessions? power? No, none of these. I possessed them all, and yet I was not happy. Let his soul be rich, and then he will be happy.

Let him be an honourable, wise, courageous citizen, a good patriot, a n.o.bleman not merely by name, but in heart and soul, and then he will be happy.

"I am well aware," pursued Karpathy, "that if I left my son in the guardianship of his nearest relative--I allude to my nephew Bela--it would mean his utter ruin. I charge that kinsman of mine before G.o.d's judgment-seat with being a bad man, a bad relative, a bad patriot, who would be even worse than he is if he were not as mad as he is bad. No! I will not have the heart of my boy ruined by such a man as that. I would place him in the hands of those who would inspire him with all n.o.ble ideas; who would guide him along the paths of honour and virtue; who would cherish and defend him better than I could do were I able to stretch forth my hand from the tomb in his defence. I would place him in the hands of a man who will be a better father to him than I could ever be, and who, if he cannot love him better than I love him, will, at least, love him more wisely. The man whom I appoint the legal guardian of my son is Count Rudolf Szentirmay."

The good old man warmly pressed the hands of the youth sitting on his right, who thereupon arose from his chair and embraced the Nabob with tears of emotion. On resuming his seat, he whispered, in a husky voice, of which he was scarce the master, that he accepted the trust.

"'She' also wished it," said the Nabob. "In her last hour, as she placed my child in the arms of your wife, she said these words: 'Be a mother to my child!' I have not forgotten it; and now I say to you, 'Be a father to my child!' Happy child! What a good father, what a good mother, you will inherit!

"And now," continued the Nabob, "a word or two concerning him who was the cause of the bitterest moments of my life. I mean my nephew, who was christened Bela, but who calls himself Abellino. I will not reckon up the sins he has committed against G.o.d, his country, and myself. G.o.d and his country forgive him, as I have forgiven him; but I should be a liar and a hypocrite before G.o.d if I said, at this hour, that I loved him. I feel as cold towards him as towards one whom I have never seen. And now he is reduced to the beggar's staff; now he has more debts than the hairs of his head. What will become of him? He cannot work--he has never earned a penny; he has never learnt anything: he is bankrupt both in body and mind. He is not likely to take his own life, for libertines do not readily become suicides. And far be the thought of such a thing from him. I desire it not. Let him live. Let him have time to turn to G.o.d!

Nor do I wish him to be a beggar, to feel want, to beg his bread at other men's doors. I order, therefore, that my agent at Pest shall pay him a gold ducat down every day. I fancy that will be quite enough to keep anybody from suffering want. But this ducat he himself must come and fetch day by day, and it must be paid to n.o.body but himself personally. But every time he fails to come for such ducat it shall be forfeited to the lawyer, and it must in no case be attached for debt, or paid to him in advance. But every time my birthday, John Baptist's Day, comes round, he shall receive a lump sum of one hundred ducats down extra. It is my wish that he should rejoice beforehand at the coming of that day every year, and that he should thus remember me from year to year.

"And now my business with the world is over. I have no other kinsmen to remember. My friends I can easily count up. I only know of three to whom I can really give that name. The first is Rudolf, to him I have left my child. The second is Mike Kis. He, also, was always a good fellow, who loved me right well. Whenever misfortune came, he was always to be found by my side. To him I leave my favourite horse and my favourite dog. I could not leave them a better master, or him a more pleasant keepsake.

My third good friend is my steward, Peter Varga."

"Oh, sir!" the other old man would have murmured; but his tongue refused to move.

"To him I leave my old servant Paul, and old Vidra the jester, and the Lapayi property. May he live there happily with my two faithful servants.

"All my agents now employed upon the estate are to go on receiving their usual salaries, and they are not to lose their pay if they have to be discharged from old age or infirmity. The general management of my estate I leave to the wise discretion of Count Rudolf Szentirmay.