Checkmate Part 46

"That's Crozier talking," said Richard.

"Yes, Sir," said Crozier, in a low tone; "I'm here half-an-hour, Sir, waiting till you should wake."

"Let in some light; I can't see you."

Crozier opened half the window-shutter, and drew the curtain.

"Are ye ailin', Master Richard--are ye bad, Sir?"

"Ailing--yes, I'm bad enough, as you say--I'm miserable. I don't know where to turn or what to do. Hold my coat while I count what's in the pocket. If my father, the old scoundrel----"

"Master Richard, don't ye say the like o' that no more; all's over, this morning, wi' the old master--Sir Reginald's dead, Sir," said the old follower, sternly.

"Good G.o.d!" cried Richard, starting up in his bed and staring at old Crozier with a frightened look.

"Ay, Sir," said the old servant, in a low stern tone, "he's gone at last: he was took just a quarter past five this mornin', by the clock at Mortlake, about four minutes before St. Paul's chimed the quarter. The wind being southerly, we heard the chimes. We thought he was all right, and I did not leave him until half-past twelve o'clock, having given him his drops, and waited till he went asleep. It was about three he rang his bell, and in I goes that minute, and finds him sitting up in his bed, talking quite silly-like about old Wainbridge, the groom, that's dead and buried, away in Skarkwynd Churchyard, these thirty year."

Crozier paused here. He had been crying hours ago, and his eyes and nose still showed evidences of that unbecoming weakness. Perhaps he expected Richard, now Sir Richard Arden, to say something, but nothing came.

"'Tis a change, Sir, and I feel a bit queer; and as I was sayin', when I went in, 'twas in his head he saw Tom Wainbridge leadin' a horse saddled and all into the room, and standin' by the side of his bed, with the bridle in his hand, and holdin' the stirrup for him to mount. 'And what the devil brings Wainbridge here, when he has his business to mind in Yorkshire? and where could he find a horse like that beast? He's waiting for me; I can hear the roarin' brute, and I see Tom's parchment face at the door--_there_,' he'd say, 'and _there_--where are your eyes, Crozier, can't you see, man? Don't be afraid--can't you look--and don't you hear him? Wainbridge's old nonsense.' And he'd laugh a bit to himself every now and again, and then he'd whimper to me, looking a bit frightened, 'Get him away, Crozier, will you? He's annoying me, he'll have me out,' and this sort o' talk he went on wi' for full twenty minutes. I rang the bell to Mrs. Tansey's room, and when she was come we agreed to send in the brougham for the doctor. I think he was a bit wrong i' the garrets, and we were both afraid to let it be no longer."

Crozier paused for a moment, and shook his head.

"We thought he was goin' asleep, but he wasn't. His eyes was half shut, and his shoulders against the pillows, and Mrs. Tansey was drawin' the eider-down coverlet over his feet, softly, when all on a sudden--I thought he was laughin'--a noise like a little flyrin' laugh, and then a long, frightful yellock, that would make your heart tremble, and awa'

wi' him into one o' them fits, and so from one into another, until when the doctor came he said he was in an apoplexy; and so, at just a quarter past five the auld master departed. And I came in to tell you, Sir; and have you any orders to give me, Master Richard? and I'm going on, I take it you'd wish me, to your uncle, Mr. David, and little Miss Alice, that han't heard nout o' the matter yet."

"Yes, Crozier--go," said Richard Arden, staring on him as if his soul was in his eyes; and, after a pause, with an effort, he added--"I'll call there as I go on to Mortlake; tell them I'll see them on my way."

When Crozier was gone, Richard Arden got up, threw his dressing-gown about him, and sat on the side of his bed, feeling very faint. A sudden gush of tears relieved the strange paroxysm. Then come other emotions less unselfish. He dressed hastily. He was too much excited to make a breakfast. He drank a cup of coffee, and drove to Uncle David's house.

CHAPTER XLIX.

VOWS FOR THE FUTURE.

As he drove to his uncle's house, he was tumbling over facts and figures, in the endeavour to arrive at some conclusion as to how he stood in the balance-sheet that must now be worked out. What a thing that _post-obit_ had turned out! Those cursed Jews who had dealt with him must have known ever so much more about his poor father's health than he did. They are such fellows to worm out the secrets of a family--all through one's own servants, and doctors, and apothecaries.

The spies! They stick at nothing--such liars! How they pretended to wish to be off! What torture they kept him in! How they talked of the old man's nervous fibre, and pretended to think he would live for twenty years to come!

"And the deed was not six weeks signed when I found out he had those epileptic fits, and they knew it, the wretches!--and so I've been hit for that huge sum of money. And there is interest, two years' nearly, on that other charge, and that swindle that half ruined me on the Derby.

And there are those bills that Levi has got, but that is only fifteen hundred, and I can manage that any time, and a few other trifles."

And he thought what yeoman's service Longcluse might and _would_ have rendered him in this situation. How translucent the whole opaque complexity would have become in a hour or two, and at what easy interest he would have procured him funds to adjust these complications! But here, too, fortune had dealt maliciously. What a piece of cross-grained luck that Longcluse should have chosen to fall in love with Alice! And now they two had exchanged, not shots, but insults, harder to forgive.

And that officious fool, Vandeleur, had laid him open to a more direct and humiliating affront than had before befallen him. Henceforward, between him and Longcluse no reconciliation was possible. Fiery and proud by nature was this Richard Arden, and resentful. In Yorkshire the family had been accounted a vindictive race. I don't know. I have only to do with those inheritors of the name who figure in this story.

There remained an able accountant and influential man on 'Change, on whose services he might implicitly reckon--his uncle, David Arden. But he was separated from him by the undefinable chasm of years--the want of sympathy, the sense of authority. He would take not only the management of this financial adjustment, but the carriage of the future of this young, handsome, full-blooded fellow, who had certainly no wish to take unto himself a Mentor.

Here have been projected on this page, as in the disk of an oxy-hydrogen microscope, some of the small and active thoughts that swarmed almost unsuspected in Richard Arden's mind. But it would be injustice to Sir Richard Arden (we may as well let him enjoy at once the t.i.tle which stately Death has just presented him with--it seems to me a mocking obeisance) to pretend that higher and kinder feelings had no place in his heart.

Suddenly redeemed from ruin, suddenly shocked by an awful spectacle, a disturbance of old a.s.sociations where there had once been kindness, where estrangements and enmity had succeeded: there was in all this something moving and agitating, that stirred his affections strangely when he saw his sister.

David Arden had left his house an hour before the news reached its inmates. Sir Richard was shown to the drawing-room, where there was no one to receive him; and in a minute Alice, looking very pale and miserable, entered, and running up to him, without saying a word threw her arms about his neck, and sobbed piteously.

Her brother was moved. He folded her to his heart. Broken and hurried words of tenderness and affection he spoke, as he kissed her again and again. Henceforward he would live a better and wiser life. He had tasted the dangers and miseries that attend on play. He swore he would give it up. He had done with the follies of his youth. But for years he had not had a home. He was thrown into the thick of temptation. A fellow who had no home was so likely to amuse himself with play; and he had suffered enough to make him hate it, and she should see what a brother he would be, henceforward, to her.

Alice's heart was bursting with self-reproach; she told Richard the whole story of her trouble of the day before, and the circ.u.mstances of her departure from Mortlake, all in an agony of tears; and declared, as young ladies often have done before, that she never could be happy again.

He was disappointed, but generous and gentle feelings had been stirred within him.

"Don't reproach yourself, darling; that is mere folly. The entire responsibility of your leaving Mortlake belongs to my uncle; and about Wynderbroke, you must not torment yourself; you had a right to a voice in the matter, surely, and I daresay you would not be happier now if you had been less decided, and found yourself at this moment committed to marry him. I have more reason to upbraid myself, but I'm sure I was right, though I sometimes lost my temper; I know my Uncle David thinks I was right; but there is no use now in thinking more about it; right or wrong, it is all over, and I won't distract myself uselessly. I'll try to be a better brother to you than I ever _have_ been; and I'll make Mortlake our head-quarters: or we'll live, if you like it better, at Arden Manor, or I'll go abroad with you. I'll lay myself out to make you happy. One thing I'm resolved on, and that is to give up play, and find some manly and useful pursuit; and you'll see I'll do you some credit yet, or at least, as a country squire, do some little good, and be not quite useless in my generation; and I'll do my best, dear Alice, to make you a happy home, and to be all that I ought to be to you, my darling."

Very affectionately he both spoke and felt, and left Alice with some of her anxieties lightened, and already more interest in the future than she had thought possible an hour before.

Richard Arden had a good deal upon his hands that morning. He had money liabilities that were urgent. He had to catch his friend Mard.y.k.es at his lodgings, and get him to see the people in whose betting-books he stood for large figures, to represent to them what had happened, and a.s.sure them that a few days should see all settled. Then he had to go to the office of his father's attorney, and learn whether a will was forthcoming; then to consult with his own attorney, and finally to follow his uncle, David Arden, from place to place, and find him at last at home, and talk over details, and advise with him generally about many things, but particularly about the further dispositions respecting the funeral; for a little note from his Uncle David had offered to relieve him of the direction of those hateful details transacted with the undertaker, which every one is glad to depute.

CHAPTER L.

UNCLE DAVID'S SUSPICIONS.

Mr. David Arden, therefore, had made a call at the office of Paller, c.r.a.pely, Plumes, and Co., eminent undertakers in the most gentleman-like, and, indeed, aristocratic line of business, with immense resources at command, and who would undertake to bury a duke, with all the necessary draperies, properties, and _dramatis personae_, if required, before his grace was cold in his bed.

A little dialogue occurred here, which highly interested Uncle David. A stout gentleman, with a muddy and melancholy countenance, and a sad suavity of manner, and in the perennial mourning that belongs to gentlemen of his doleful profession, presents himself to David Arden, to receive his instructions respecting the deceased baronet's obsequies.

The top of his head is bald, his face is furrowed and baggy; he looks fully sixty-five, and he announces himself as the junior partner, Plumes by name.

Having made his suggestions and his notes, and taken his order for a strictly private funeral in the neighbourhood of London, Mr. Plumes thoughtfully observes that he remembers the name well, having been similarly employed for another member of the same family.

"Ah! How was that? How long ago?" asked Mr. Arden.

"About twenty years, Sir."

"And where was that funeral?"

"The same place, Sir, Mortlake."

"Yes, I know that was----?"

"It was Mr. 'Enry, or rayther 'Arry Harden. We 'ad to take back the plate, Sir, and change 'Enry to 'Arry--'Arry being the name he was baptised by. There was a hinquest connected with that horder."

"So there was, Mr. Plumes," said Uncle David with awakened interest, for that gentleman spoke as if he had something more to say on the subject.

"There was, Sir,--and it affected me very sensibly. My niece, Sir, had a wery narrow escape."

"Your niece! Really? How could that be?"