Vain Fortune Part 5

'Read it! Read it!'

Relieved of much detail and much c.u.mbersome legal circ.u.mlocution, it was to the following effect:--That about three months ago Mr. Burnett had come up from his place in Suss.e.x, and at the offices of Messrs. Grandly & Co. had made a will, in which he had disinherited his adopted daughter, Miss Emily Watson, and left everything to Mr. Hubert Price. There was no question as to the validity of the will; but Messrs. Grandly deemed it their duty to inform Mr. Hubert Price of the circ.u.mstances under which it had been made, and also of the fact that a few weeks before his death Mr. Burnett had told Mr. John Grandly, who was then staying with Mr. Burnett at Ashwood, that he intended adding a codicil, leaving some two or three hundred a year to Miss Watson. It was unfortunate that Mr. Burnett had not had time to do this; for Miss Watson was an orphan, eighteen years of age, and entirely unprovided for. Messrs. Grandly begged to submit these facts to the consideration of Mr. Hubert Price. Miss Watson was now residing at Ashwood.

She was there with a friend of hers, Mrs. Bentley; and should Mr. Hubert Price feel inclined to do what Mr. Burnett had left undone, Messrs. Grandly would have very great pleasure in carrying his wishes into effect.

'I'm not dreaming, am I?'

'No, you are not. It is quite true. Your uncle has left his money to you. I am so glad; indeed I am. You will be able to finish your play, and take a theatre and produce it yourself if you like. I hope you won't forget me. I do want to play that part. You can't quite know what I shall do with it.

One can't explain oneself in a scene here and there.... What are you thinking of?'

'I'm thinking of that poor girl, Emily Watson. It comes very hard upon her.'

'Who is she?'

'The girl my uncle disinherited.'

'Oh, she! Well, you can marry her if you like. That would not be a bad notion. But if you do, you'll forget all about me and Lady Hayward.'

'No; I shall never forget you, Rose.' He stretched his hand to her; but, irrespective of his will, the gesture seemed full of farewell.

'I'm so much obliged to you,' he said; 'had it not been for you, I might never have opened that letter.'

'Even if you hadn't, it wouldn't have mattered; you would have heard of your good fortune some other way. But it is getting very late. I must say good-night. I hope you will have a pleasant time in the country, and will finish your play. Good-night.'

Returning from the door, he stopped to think. 'We have been very good friends--that is all. How strangely determined she is!... More so than I am. She is bound to succeed. There is in her just that note of individual pa.s.sion.... Perhaps some one will find her out before I have finished,--that would be a pity. I wonder which of us will succeed first?'

Then the madness of good fortune came upon him suddenly; he could think no more of Rose, and had to go for a long walk in the streets.

VII

'Dearest Emily, you must prepare yourself for the worst.'

'Is he dead?'

'Yes; he pa.s.sed away quite quietly. To look at him one would say he was asleep; he does not appear to have suffered at all.'

'Oh, Julia, Julia, do you think he forgave me? I could not do what he asked me.... I loved him very dearly as a father, but I could not have married him.'

'No, dear, you could not. Such a marriage would have been most unnatural; he was more than forty years older than you.'

'I do not think he ever thought of such a thing until about a month or six weeks ago. You remember how I ran to you? I was as white as a ghost, and I trembled like a leaf. I could hardly speak.... You remember?'

'Yes, I remember; and some hours after, when I came into this room, he was standing there, just there, on the hearth-rug; there was a fearful look of pain and despair on his face--he looked as if he was going mad. I never saw such a look before, and I never wish to see such a look again. And the effort he made to appear unconcerned when he saw me was perhaps the worst part of it. I pretended to see nothing, and walked away towards the window and looked out. But all the while I could feel that some terrible drama was pa.s.sing behind me. At last I had to look round. He was sitting in that chair, his elbows on his knees, clasping his head with both hands, the old, gnarled fingers twined in the iron-grey hair. Then, unable to contain himself any longer, he rushed out of the room, out of the house, and across the park.'

'You say that he pa.s.sed away quietly; he did not seem to suffer at all?'

'No, he never recovered consciousness.'

'But do you think that my refusal to marry him had anything to do with his death?'

'Oh no, Emily; a fit of apoplexy, with a man of his age, generally ends fatally.'

'Even if I had known it all beforehand I don't think I could have acted differently. I could not have married him. Indeed I couldn't, Julia, not even if I knew I should save his life by doing so. I daresay it is very wicked of me, but----'

'Dearest Emily, you must not give way to such thoughts; you did quite right in refusing to marry Mr. Burnett. It was very wrong of him even to think of asking you, and if he had lived he would have seen how wrong it was of him to desire such a thing.'

'If he had lived! But then he didn't live, not even long enough to forgive me, and when we think of how much he suffered--I don't mean in dying, you say he pa.s.sed away quietly, but all this last month how heart-broken he looked! You remember when he sat at the head of the table, never speaking to us, and how frightened I was lest I should meet him on the stairs; I used to stand at the door of my room, afraid to move. I know he suffered, poor old man. I was very, very sorry for him. Indeed I was, Julia, for I'm not selfish, and when I think now that he died without forgiving me, I feel, I feel--oh, I feel as if I should like to die myself. Why do such things happen to me? I feel just as miserable now as I used to when I lived with father and mother, who could not agree. I have often told you how miserable I was then, but I don't think you ever quite understood. I feel just the same now, just as if I never wanted to see any one or anything again. I was so unhappy when I was a child, they thought I would die, and I should have died if I had remained listening to father and mother any longer. ... Every one thought I was so lucky when Mr. Burnett decided to adopt me and leave me all his money, and he has done that, poor old man, so I suppose I should be happy; but I'm not.'

The girl's eyes turned instinctively towards the window and rested for a moment on the fair, green prospects of the park.

'I hated to listen to father and mother quarrelling, but I loved them, and I had not been here a year before father died, and darling mother was not long following him--only six months. Then I had no one: a few distant relatives, whom I knew nothing of, whom I did not care for, so I gave all my love to Mr. Burnett. He was so good to me; he never denied me anything; he gave me everything, even you, dearest Julia. When he thought I wanted a companion, he found you for me. I learnt to love you. You became my best and dearest friend. Then things seemed to brighten up, and I thought I was happy, when all this dreadful trouble came upon us. Don't let's speak of it more than we can help. I often wished myself dead. Didn't you, Julia?'

Emily Watson told the story of her misfortunes in a low, musical voice, heedless of two or three interruptions, hardly conscious of her listener, impressed and interested by the fatality of circ.u.mstances which she believed in design against her. She was a small, slender girl of about eighteen. Her abundant chestnut hair--exquisite, soft, and silky--was looped picturesquely, and fastened with a thin tortoisesh.e.l.l comb. The tiny mouth trembled, and the large, prominent eyes reflected a strange, yearning soul. She was dressed in white muslin, and the fantastically small waist was confined with a white band. Her friend and companion, Julia Bentley, was a woman of about thirty, well above the medium height, full-bosomed and small-waisted. The type was Anglo-Saxon even to commonplace. The face was long, with a look of instinctive kindness upon it. She was given to staring, and as she looked at Emily, her blue eyes filled with an expression which told of a nature at once affectionate and intelligent. She was dressed in yellow linen, and wore a gold bracelet on a well-turned arm.

The room was a long, old-fashioned drawing-room. It had three windows, and all three were filled with views of the park, now growing pale in the evening air. The flower-gardens were drawn symmetrically about the house and were set with blue flower-vases in which there were red geraniums. It was a very large room, nearly forty feet long, with old portraits on the walls--ugly things and ill done; and where there were no portraits the walls were decorated with vine leaves and mountains. The parqueted floor was partially covered with skins, and the furniture seemed to have known many a generation; some of it was heavy and c.u.mbersome, some of it was modern. There was a grand piano, and above it two full-length portraits--a lady in a blue dress and a man in black velvet knee-breeches. At the end of a long silence, Emily suddenly threw herself weeping into Julia's arms.

'Oh, you are my only friend; you will not leave me now.... We shall always love one another, shall we not? If anything ever came between us it would kill me.... That poor old man lying dead up-stairs! He loved me very dearly, and I loved him, too. Yet I said just now I could not have married him even if I had known it would save his life. I was wrong; yes, I would have married him if I had known.... You don't believe me?'

'My dearest girl, you must try to forget that Mr. Burnett ever entertained so foolish a thought. He was a very good man, and loved you for a long time as he should have loved you--as a daughter. We shall respect his memory best by forgetting the events of the last six weeks. And now, Emily, dinner will be ready at seven o'clock, and it is now six. What are you going to do?'

'I shall go out for a little walk. I shall go down and see the swans.'

'Shall I come with you?'

'No, thank you, dear; I think I'd sooner be alone. I want to think.'

Julia looked a moment anxiously at this fragile girl, whose tiny head was poised on a long, delicate neck like a fruit on its stem.

'Yes, go for a walk, dear,' said Julia; 'it will do you good. Shall I go and fetch your hat and jacket?'

'No, thank you, I will not trouble you; I'll go myself.'

'No, Emily, I think you had better let me go.'

'Oh, no; I am not afraid.'

And she went up the wide oak staircase, thinking of the man who lay dead in the room at the end of the pa.s.sage. She was conscious of a sense of dread; the house seemed to wear a strange air, and her dog, Dandy, was conscious of it, too; he was more silent, less joyful than usual. And when she came from her room, dressed to go out, instead of rushing down-stairs, barking with joy, he dropped his tail and lingered at the end of the pa.s.sage. She called him; he still hesitated, and then, yielding to a sudden desire, she went down the pa.s.sage and knocked at the door of the room. The nurse answered her knock.

'Oh, don't come in, miss.'

'Why not? I want to see him before he goes away for ever.'

Upon the limp, white curtains of an old four-posted bed she saw the memorable profile--stern, unrelenting. How still he lay! Never would that face speak or laugh or see again. Although sixty-five, his head was covered with short, thick, iron-grey hair; the beard, too, was short and thick, and iron-grey. The face was rugged, and when Emily touched the coa.r.s.e hand, telling of a life of toil, she started--it was singularly cold. Fear and sorrow in like measure choked her, and her soul awoke, and tremblingly she walked out of the house, glad to breathe the sweet evening air.

She walked towards the artificial water. The sky was melancholy and grey, and the park lay before her, hushed and soundless. Through the shadows of the darkening island two swans floated softly, leaving behind slight silver lines; above, the swallows flew high in the evening. There was sensation of death, too, in this cold, mournful water, and in the silence that hung about it, and in some vague way it reminded Emily of her own life. She had known little else but death; her life seemed full of death; and those reflections, so distinct and so colourless, were like death.