The two young men went upstairs after dinner to smoke and lounge in the rooms which Gerard had copied from those unforgotten chambers in the old Inn. Here they usually sat of an evening, when they were alone; and it was here that most of those games of piquet had been played, the result of which had been to supply Justin Jermyn with a comfortable income without impoverishing the less successful player. But to-night Gerard was in no mood for piquet. His nerves were strained, and his brain was fevered. The game, which had generally a tranquillising influence, to-night only worried him. He threw his cards upon the table in a sudden fretfulness.
“It’s no use,” he said. “I hardly know what I am doing. I’ll play no more.”
He rose impatiently, and began to walk about the room, then stopped abruptly before a Japanese curtain, which hung against the panelling, and plucked it aside.
“Do you know what that is?” he asked, pointing to the sheet of drawing-paper scrawled with pen and ink lines.
“It looks as if it were meant for an outline map. Your idea of Italy, perhaps, or Africa — drawn from memory, and not particularly like.”
“It is my peau de chagrin — the talisman that shows the shrinking of vital force — vital force meaning life itself — and thus marks the swift passage to the grave. You see the outer line of all. Tolerably firm and free, is it not? Scarcely drawn by the hand of a Hercules, yet with no mark of actual feebleness. You see the inner lines, each following each, weaker and more irresolute, the last tremulous as a signature made on a death-bed.”
He snatched a pen from the table near him, and dipped it in the ink, then made a dash at the chart, and tried to follow the outer line with a bolder sweep, but his arm was too weak to bear the strain of the upward position, and the pen ran down the paper with a single swift descending stroke, till it touched the outermost edge, then glanced oft’ and dropped from the loosening hand. —
“Do you see that?” he cried, with a burst of hysterical laughter. “The line goes down — straight as a falling star — as the life goes down to the grave.”
“Come, come, my dear fellow, this is all womanish nonsense,” said Jermyn, with his smooth, somnolent voice, in whose sound there was a sense of comfort, as in the falling of summer rain. “You are tired. Lie down on this delightful sofa, and let me talk you to sleep.”
He laid his hand on Gerard’s shoulder with a friendly movement, and drew or led him to the capacious old Italian sofa, with its covering made of priestly vestments, still rich in delicate colouring, despite the sunlight and dust of centuries. Brain weary, and weak in body, Gerard sank on that luxurious couch, as Endymion on a bed of flowers, and the soft, slow music of Jermyn’s voice — talking of the yacht, and the harbours where they two were to anchor along the shores of the Mediterranean — was potent as mandragora or moly. He sank into a delicious sleep — the first restful sleep he had known since he had left Florence.
It was ten o’clock when he fell asleep, and it was past eleven when he woke suddenly, his mind filled with one absorbing thought.
“My will!” he said; “I have made no will. If I were to die suddenly — and with a weak heart who can tell when death may come — I should die intestate. That would be horrible. I have settled something — but not much; not enough” — this to himself, rather than to Jermyn, who sat quietly beside the sofa, watching him. “I must make a will.” No such thought had been in his mind before he fell asleep; no idea of any such necessity. If he had thought — as a millionaire must think — of the disposal of his money, he had told himself that were he to die intestate his father would inherit everything, and that having provided for Hester’s future by a deed of trust, it mattered little whether he made a will or not. A few casual friends would be cheated of expected legacies — but that mattered little. He had no friends — not even this umbra of his, Justin Jermyn — whose disappointment mattered to him. But to-night his whole mind was absorbed in the necessity of disposing of his fortune. He was fevered with impatience to get the thing done.
“Give me a sheet of that large paper,” he said, pointing to his writing-table. “I will make my will at once. You and a servant can witness it. A holograph will is as good as any, and there is no one who could attack my will.”
“I hope you won’t ask me to witness the document,” said Jermyn, laying a quire of large Bath Post before Gerard, with inkstand and blotter, “for that would mean that you are not going to leave me so much as a curio or a mourning ring.”
“True — I must leave you something. I’ll leave you your own likeness — the faun yonder,” said Gerard, looking up at the bust, the laughing lips in marble seeming to repeat Jermyn’s broad smile.
“You must leave me something better than that. I am as poor as Job, and if I outlive you where will be my winnings at piquet? Leave me the scrapings of your money bags. Make me residuary legatee, after you have disposed of your fortune. The phrase will mean very little, though it sounds big — but there must be some scrapings.” Gerard opened an enamelled casket, a master work of the cinque-cento goldsmiths, and took out a long slip of paper, the schedule of his possessions, a catalogue of stocks and shares, in his own neat penmanship. A glance along this row of figures showed him where his wealth lay, and with this slip of paper spread on the table before him he began to write.
To my father, the Reverend Edward Hillersdon, Rector of Helmsleigh, in Consols, so much, in South-Western Ordinary Stock — in Great Western — Great Eastern — Great Northern, so much, and so much, and so much, till he had disposed of the first million, Justin Jermyn standing by his side and looking down at him, with his hand on his shoulder.
He no longer wrote the small neat hand which had once penned a popular love-story, and almost made its owner a name in literature. To-night, in his fever and hurry of brain, his writing sprawled large over the page — the first page was covered with the mere preliminary statement of sound mind, etc., etc., and his father’s name. Then came the list of securities, covering three other pages — then to my sister Lilian, wife of John Cumberland, vicar of St. Lawrence, Soho, and then another list of securities — then to my mother, all my furniture, pictures, plate, in my house at Knightsbridge, with the exception of the marble faun in my study — then to my beloved friend, Hester Davenport, fifty thousand pounds in Consols, and my house and grounds at Lowcombe, with all contents thereof — and, finally, to Justin Jermyn whom I appoint residuary legatee, the marble faun. One after another, as the pages were finished in the large hurried penmanship, Justin Jermyn picked them up, and dried them at the wood fire. The nights were chilly, though May had begun, and Gerard’s sofa had been drawn near the hearth.
It was on the stroke of midnight when the will was ready for signature. “Kindly ring, Jermyn. My valet will be up, of course, and most of the other servants, perhaps, for this is a dissipated house. I hear them creeping up to bed at midnight very often when I am sitting quietly here. The servants’ staircase is at this end of the house.”
“Talking of staircases, you haven’t left Larose so much as a curio,” said Jermyn, as he pressed a bronze knob beside the mantelpiece.
“Why should I leave him anything? He has made plenty of money out of this house. Do you think I want to give him a pleasant half-hour, when I am in my grave?”
“I thought you liked him.”
“I like no one, in the face of death,” answered Gerard fiercely. “Do you think I can love the men whose lives are long — who are to go on living and enjoying for the greater part of a century, perhaps, to be recorded approvingly in the Times obituary, after drinking the wine of life for ninety years, ‘We regret to announce the death of Archdeacon So-and-so, in his eighty-ninth year’? Regrets for a man of eighty-nine! And you think that I, who am doomed to die before I am thirty, can feel kindly towards the long-lived of my species! Why should one man have so much, and I so little?”
“Why should one man be an agricultural labourer with fifteen shillings a week for his highest wage, while you have two
millions?”
“Money! Money is nothing! Life is the only thing that is precious. Death is the only thing that is horrible.”
“True; and I doubt if the man of ninety is any more in love with death than you are at nine-and-twenty.”
Oh, but he is worn out; he must know that. The machine has done its work, and perishes of fair wear and tear. It doesn’t go to pieces suddenly because of a flaw in the metal. I grant that it is a hideous thought that life should end — ever; that this Ego, so strong, so distinct, so vivid and all-absorbing, should go out with a snap into unknown darkness; but to die young, to die before wrinkles and grey hairs, to die while life is still fresh and beautiful — that is hard. I almost hate my own father when I think by how many golden years he may survive me, and revel in this wealth that was mine. They will make him a bishop, perhaps. Who knows? A rich man must always be a power in the Church. My father would make an admirable bishop. He will live as long as Martin Routh, I dare say — live on into the new century, opulent, portly, benevolent, happy — while T am nothing! Oh, think how hard these differences are! Think of Shelley’s heart turned to dust under the stone in the Roman graveyard, and Shelley’s friend living for sixty years after him, to lie down tired and full of years beside him who went out in water and flame, like the bright wild spirit he was.” Jermyn laid his hand upon him soothingly, yet with something of imperiousness. “Be calm,” he said; “you have to sign these sheets.” The door opened, and the valet whose duty it was to answer his master’s bell in the late evening came quietly into the room.
“Are there any of the servants still up?” asked Jermyn.
“Burton has not gone to bed yet, sir.”
“Then ask Burton to come here with you to witness some papers. He is sober enough to remember what he does, I suppose?”
“Sober, sir? Yes, sir; I never saw Burton otherwise,” replied the valet, with dignity.
“Be quick, then,” said Jermyn. “Your master is waiting.”
His master waited very patiently, with fixed and dreamy eyes, his hand lying loose upon the first sheet of the will, as Jermyn had placed it before him. Jermyn stood at his elbow, holding the other leaves of the will in his left hand, while his right rested lightly upon Gerard’s shoulder.
The valet returned, accompanied by the butler, who looked solemn, and was careful to abstain from speech.
He stood at attention, breathing brandy, but the penmanship with which he witnessed his master’s signature, as the sheets were signed one after another, was not illegible.
The valet signed with a steady hand and a bold front. He, too, had been drinking heavily, but he had a more delicate taste in liquors than his fellow-servant.
“You may as well understand the nature of this document,” said Jermyn to the witnesses, “but it is not legally necessary that you should do so. It is your master’s will. The only will you have made, I think, Hillersdon,” he added, with his hand still lying upon Gerard’s shoulder, a large hand, with abnormal length of finger, and deadly white.
“It is the only will I have made,” Gerard said slowly.
“Or intend to make.”
“Or intend to make,” replied Gerard.
“You can go,” said Jermyn to the men; “I am to sleep here to-night, by the way.”
“Yes, sir. Your room is ready. I have put out your things.” Jermyn had been staying in the house since his return from Italy, but in a casual way, and he had daily talked of going to his own chambers. He had rooms somewhere in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly, but rarely imparted the secret of his address, and had never been known to entertain anybody except at a club. Gerard’s single experience of his hospitality had been that after-midnight supper in the chambers eastward of Lincoln’s Inn.
“You are very tired, my dear fellow,” said Jermyn, when the servants were gone. “You had better lie down again.”
Gerard rose out of his chair, leaving the loose sheets of Bath Post lying on the table, without so much as a look at them, and Jermyn slipped an arm through his and led him back to the sofa, where he sank down with closing eyelids, and was deep asleep a few moments later.
Jermyn took up the loose pages, folded them carefully, put them in an inner pocket of his dinner jacket, and went out of the room. The valet was waiting on the landing.
“Your master has fallen asleep on the sofa,” said Jermyn. “He seems very much exhausted, and I think you had better let him stay there all night rather than disturb him. You can put a rug over him, and leave him till the morning. He is not ill, only tired. I’ll look in upon him now and then in the night. I’m a very light sleeper.” The valet paused, anxious to get to bed, yet doubtful.
“Do you really think he will require nothing, sir?”
“Nothing but sleep. He is thoroughly worn out. Along night’s rest will do wonders for him.”
The valet submitted to a friendly authority. Mr. Jermyn wore his hair very short, had a scientific air, and was doubtless half a doctor. The valet went to look at his master, and covered him carefully with a soft Indian rug. Certainly that deep and peaceful sleep was not to be rudely broken. It was a sleep that might mean healing.
It was ten o’clock next morning before Gerard awoke. Mr. Jermyn had gone into the study several times during the night, but at ten he left the house, and it was only as the outer door closed upon him that Gerard began to stir in his sleep, and presently opened his eyes and got up, wondering to see the morning sunlight stealing through the Venetian shutters, and making golden bars upon the sombre carpet.
He looked at the clock. Ten, and broad daylight. He had slept nine hours, yet with no consciousness of more than the light and brief slumber of a man who throws himself upon his sofa for a casual nap. A sleep without dreams — a mere gap in life — that blank and idealess slumber which Socrates declared to be the equivalent of supremest earthly bliss.
“I never slept so many hours on end in my life,” he said to himself, almost appalled at his abnormal slumber.
He looked about the room, slowly recalling the events of yesterday. His journey to Lowcombe, his return to town, the letter from Edith Champion.
He felt in his pocket for the letter. Yes, it was there. He read it a third time hurriedly. He wanted to be sure that he was a free man.
“Free as air,” he told himself, “whistled down the wind to prey at fortune. Free to marry the woman I love — free to set right her wrongs.”
To right her wrongs! Could he bring his drowned child back to life — could he heal the mother’s shattered brain? Such wrongs can never be righted. The scar they leave is deadly.
He thought over the words of Edith’s letter, so cold in their hard common-sense; and then he recalled his own image as he had seen it in the glass that first afternoon in the Florentine villa. That face of his, with death written upon it, was enough to scare away love. He was contemptuous and angry as he thought of that summer-time love; so exacting, so jealous, so insistent, while the sun of life and youth rode high in the cloudless heaven; so quick to faint and fail when the shadows fell.
Of the will made at midnight he had not a moment’s thought. Upon that point memory was a blank. Nor did he make any inquiry about Jermyn. He dressed, breakfasted, and was on the way to Lowcombe before noon.
There was no change in the patient, but the doctor was not unhopeful. Progress must needs be slow, and it was well if there were no retrograde steps.
“Time is now the only healer we can look to,” said Mr. Mivor.
There was a considerable change in the Rector after half an hour’s confidential talk with Gerard; and Miss Gilstone, who hitherto had kept herself out of Mr. Hillersdon’s way, received him in her drawing-room, and talked with him for more than an hour, graciously accepting his thanks for all her goodness to Hester.
“Be assured I would have done as much for the poorest girl in the parish, if her sorrows had appealed to me as Hester’s did,” said Miss Gilstone, “but I don’t mind confessing that her beauty and her
sweetness have made a profound impression upon me. Poor soul, even in her worst hours every word she spoke helped to show us the gentleness and purity of her nature. I could but think of what Ophelia’s brother said of his sister,
‘Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
She turns to favour, and to prettiness.’
Oh, Mr. Hanley, it would be an awful thought for you in after years to have led such a girl astray, and not to have made the utmost reparation in your power.”
“It would have been — it is an awful thought,” Gerard answered dejectedly. “My only desire now is that I may live long enough to make Hester my wife. The day she first recognises me, the day she is in her right mind, I am ready to marry her. The Rector has asked me to be his guest, so that I may know how she progresses hour by hour. Shall I be in your way, Miss Gilstone, if I venture to accept his invitation?”
“In my way? No, indeed. As if any one my brother likes to ask could ever be in my way. Why, he and I have never had two opinions about anything or anybody in our lives. We are not like the husbands and wives, who seldom seem to think alike.”
“Then I may stay?”
“Of course you may. Your room is being got ready; and we can put up your servant if you like to bring him.”
“Yon are too good; but I have no need of a servant. I shall not impose upon your kindness further than by my own presence.” He sauntered in the churchyard with the Rector during the balmy hour before sunset, and in that hour he told Mr. Gilstone his name and his history, frankly and fully, holding back nothing of folly or selfishness, greed of pleasure or greed of wealth.
“Do not think too meanly of me if I confess to having envied my rich friends their wealth, at the University and in the world. the greed of gold is the vice of the age we live in. The air is charged with bullion. All life is flavoured with the follies and extravagances of the newly rich. Everything is given and forgiven to the millionaire. For one Nero, with his Golden House, we have Neros by the score, and whole streets of golden houses. For one Lucullus we have an army of dinner-givers, at whose tables the parasite fattens. It is not possible for a young man to live in the stress and turmoil of London society and not hanker after gold as the one supreme good, and not ache with the pangs of poverty. The time came when I meant to blow my brains out, because it was better to be dead and dust than alive and poor. And on that day of despair Fortune turned her wheel, and behold! I was a double millionaire. But scarcely had I tasted the rapture of wealth before I was told that my life was not worth two years’ purchase; and from that hour to this I have lived with one dark spectre always at my elbow.”
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 934
