Monsieur Droqville had no confidence in Richard Marston. He had been informed, besides, of the exact nature of Sir Harry’s will, and of a provision that made his bequest to me void, in case I should embrace the Roman Catholic faith.
It was in consequence of that provision in the draft-will of Sir Harry Rokestone, and from a consideration of the impolicy of any action while Lady Lorrimer’s death was so recent, and my indignation so hot, that Droqville had resolved that, for a time, at least, the attempt to gain me to the Church of Rome should not be renewed.
Taking the clear, hard view they do of the office of the Church upon earth, they are right to discriminate. In the sight of Heaven, the souls of Dives and of Lazarus are equally precious. In electing which to convert, then, they discharge but a simple duty in choosing that proselyte who will most strengthen the influence and action of the Church upon earth. In that respect, considering the theories they hold, they do right. Common sense acquits them.
I have now ended my necessary chapter of explanation, and my story goes on its way.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
THE LAST OF THE ROKESTONES.
A solemn low-voiced fuss was going on in the old house at Dorracleugh; preparations and consultations were afoot; a great deal was not being done, but there were the whispering and restlessness of expectation, and the few grisly arrangements for the reception of the coffined guest.
Old Mrs. Shackleton, the housekeeper, crept about the rooms, her handkerchief now and then to her eyes; and the housemaid-in-chief, with her attendant women, was gliding about.
Sir Harry had, years before, left a letter in Mr. Blount’s hands, that there might be no delay in searching for a will, directing all that concerned his funeral.
The coffin was to be placed in the great hall of the house, according to ancient custom, on tressels, under the broad span of the chimney. This arrangement is more than once alluded to in Pepys’s Diary. He was to be followed to the grave by his tenantry, and such of the gentry, his neighbours, as might please to attend. There was to be ample repast for all comers, consisting of as much “meat and drink of the best as they could consume;” what remained was to be distributed among the poor in the evening.
He was to be laid in the family vault adjoining the church of Golden Friars; a stone with the family arms, and a short inscription, “but no flatteries,” was to be set up in the church, on the south wall, next the vault, and near the other family monuments, and it was to mention that he died unmarried, and was the last of the old name of Rokestone, of Dorracleugh.
The funeral was to proceed to Golden Friars, not by the “mere road,” but, as in the case of other family funerals, from Dorracleugh to Golden Friars, by the old highroad.
If he should die at home, at Dorracleugh, but not otherwise, he was to be “waked” in the same manner as his father and his grandfather had been.
There were other directions, presents to the sexton and parish-clerk, and details that would weary you.
About twelve o’clock the hearse arrived, and two or three minutes after Mr. Blount drove up in a chaise.
The almost gigantic coffin was carried up the steps, and placed under the broad canopy assigned to it at the upper end of the hall.
Mr. Blount, having given a few directions, inquired for Mr. Marston, and found that gentleman, in a suit of black, in the drawingroom.
He came forward; he did not intend it, but there was something in the gracious and stately melancholy of his reception, which seemed to indicate not only the chief mourner, but the master of the house.
“Altered circumstances — a great change,” said Mr. Marston, taking his hand. “Many will feel his death deeply. He was to me — I have said it a thousand times — the best friend that ever man had.”
“Yes, yes, sir; he did show wonderful patience and forbearance with you, considering his temper, which was proud and fiery, you know — poor gentleman! — poor Sir Harry! — but grandly generous, sir, grandly generous.”
“It is a consolation to me, having lost a friend, and, I may say, a father, who was, in patience, forbearance, and generosity, all you describe, and all you know, that we were lately, thanks, my good friend, mainly to your kind offices, upon the happiest terms. He used to talk to me about that farm; he took such an interest in it — sit down, pray — won’t you have some sherry and a biscuit — and such a growing interest in me.”
“I think he really was coming gradually not to think quite so ill of you as he did,” said good Mr. Blount. “No sherry, no biscuit — no, I shan’t mind. I know, sir, that under great and sudden temptation a man may do the thing he ought not to have done, and repent from his heart afterwards, and from very horror of his one great lapse, may walk, all the rest of his life, not only more discreetly, but more safely than a man who has never slipped at all. But Sir Harry was sensitive and fiery. He had thought that you were to represent the old house, and perhaps to bear the name after his death; and that both should be slurred by, if I may be allowed the expression, a shabby crime....”
“Once for all, Mr. Blount, you’ll be good enough to remember that such language is offensive and intolerable,” interrupted Richard Marston, firmly and sharply. “My uncle had a right to lecture me on the subject — you can have none.”
“Except as a friend,” said Mr. Blount. “I shall, however, for the future, observe your wishes upon that subject. You got my letter about the funeral, I see.”
“Yes, they are doing everything exactly as you said,” said Marston, recovering his affability.
“Here is the letter,” said Mr. Blount. “You should run your eye over it.”
“Ha! It is dated a long time ago,” said Mr. Marston. “It was no sudden presentiment, then. How well he looked when I was leaving this!”
“We are always astonished when death gives no warning,” said Mr. Blount; “it hardly ever does to the persons most interested. Doctors, friends, they themselves, are all in a conspiracy to conceal the thief who has got into the bedroom. It matters very little that the survivors have had warning.”
Richard Marston shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.
“Some day I must learn prudence,” said he.
“Let it be the true prudence,” said Mr. Blount. “It is a short foresight that sees no further than the boundary of this life.”
Mr. Marston opened the letter, and the old gentleman left him, to see after the preparations.
Some one at Golden Friars — I think it was the vicar — sent me the country paper, with a whole column in mourning, with a deep black edge, giving a full account of the funeral of Sir Harry Rokestone, of Dorracleugh. The ancient family whose name he bore was now extinct. I saw in the list the names of county people who had come in their carriages more than twenty miles to attend the funeral, and people who had come by rail hundreds of miles. It was a great county gathering mostly that followed the last of the Rokestones, of Dorracleugh, to the grave.
CHAPTER LXIX.
SEARCH FOR THE WILL.
The funeral was over; but the old house of Dorracleugh was not quiet again till the night fell, and there was no more to-ing and fro-ing in the stableyard, and the last tenant had swallowed his last draught of beer, and mounted and ridden away through the mist, over the fells, to his distant farm.
The moon shone peacefully over mere and fell, and on the timeworn church of Golden Friars, and through the window, bright, on the grey flags that lie over Sir Harry Rokestone. Never did she keep serener watch over the first night of a mortal’s sleep in his last narrow bed.
Richard Marston saw this pure light, and musing, looked from the window. It shone, he thought, over his wide estate. Beyond the mere, all but Clusted, for many a mile was his own. At this side, away in the direction of distant Haworth, a broad principality of moss and heath, with scattered stretches of thin arable and pasture, ran side by side with the Mardykes estate, magnificent in vastness, if not in rental.
His dreams were not of feudal hospitality and the hear
ty old-world life. His thoughts were far away from this grand scenery or lonely Dorracleugh. Ambition built his castles in the air; nothing very noble. It was not even the tawdry and tradesman-like ambition of modern times. He had no taste for that particular form of meanness, nor patience for its drudgery. He would subscribe to election funds, place his county influence at the disposal of the minister; spend money on getting and keeping a seat; be found in his place whenever a critical vote was impending; and by force of this, and of his county position, and the old name — for he would take the name of Rokestone, in spite of his uncle’s awkward direction about his epitaph, and no one could question his relationship — by dint of all this, with, I daresay, the influence of a high marriage, he hoped to get on, not from place to place, but what would answer him as well, from title to title. First to revive the baronetage, and then, after some fifteen or twenty years more of faithful service, to become Baron Rokestone, of Dorracleugh.
It was not remorse, then, that kept the usurper’s eyes wide open, as he lay that night in the dark in his bed, his brain in a fever. His conscience had no more life in it than the window-stone. It troubled him with no compunction. There was at his heart, on the contrary, a vindictive elation at having defeated with so much simplicity the unnatural will of his uncle.
Bright rose the sun next morning over Dorracleugh, a sun of good omen. Richard Marston had appointed three o’clock as the most convenient hour for all members of the conference, for a meeting and a formality. A mere formality, in truth, it was, a search for the will of Sir Harry Rokestone. Mr. Blount had slept at Dorracleugh. Mr. Jarlcot, a short, plump man, of five-and-fifty, with a grave face and a bullet head, covered with short, lank, black hair, accompanied by his confidential man, Mr. Spaight, arrived in his gig, just as the punctual clock of Dorracleugh struck three.
Very soon after the old vicar rode up, on his peaceable pony, and came into the drawingroom, where the little party were assembled, with sad, kind face, and gentle, oldfashioned ceremony, with a little powdering of dust in the wrinkles of his clerical costume.
It was with a sense of pleasant satire that Richard Marston had observed old Lemuel Blount ever since he had been assured that the expected will was not forthcoming. These holy men, how they love an annuity! Not that they like money, of course; that’s Mammon; but because it lifts them above earthy cares, and gives them the power of relieving the wants of their fellow-Christians. How slyly the old gentleman had managed it! How thoughtful his appointing himself guardian to the young lady! What endless opportunities his powers over the settlements would present of making handsome terms for himself with an intending bridegroom!
On arriving, in full confidence that the will was safe in its iron repository, Christian could not have looked more comfortable when he enjoyed his famous prospect from the delectable mountains. But when it turned out that the will was nowhere, the same Christian, trudging on up the hill of difficulty in his old “burdened fashion,” could not have looked more hang-dog and overpowered than he.
His low spirits, his sighs and ejaculations, amused Richard Marston extremely. When he heard him say to himself, when first he learned that the vicar had looked into the safe and found nothing, “How sad! How strange! How very sad!” as he stood at the window, with his head lowered, and his fingers raised, he was tempted to rebuke his audacity with some keen and cautious irony; but those who win may laugh — he could afford to be goodhumoured, and a silent sneer contented him.
Mr. Blount, having, as I said, heard that the vicar had searched the “safe,” and that Mr. Spaight, accompanied by Mr. Marston, and the housekeeper, had searched all the drawers, desks, boxes, presses, and other lock-up places in the house in vain, for any paper having even a resemblance to a will, said: “It is but a form; but as you propose it, be it so.”
And now this form was to be complied with. Mr. Marston told the servant to send Mrs. Shackelton with the keys. Mr. Marston led the way, and four other gentlemen followed, attended by the housekeeper.
There was not much talking; a clatter of feet on uncarpeted floors, the tiny jingle of small keys, the opening of doors, and clapping of lids, and now and then Mrs. Shackelton’s hard treble was heard in answer to an interrogatory.
This went on for more than twenty minutes upstairs, and then the exploring party came down the stairs again, Richard Marston talking to the vicar, Mr. Blount to Mr. Spaight, while Mr. Jarlcot, the attorney, listened to Mrs. Shackleton, the housekeeper.
Richard Marston led the party to Sir Harry’s room. The carpet was still on the floor, the curtains hanging still, in gloomy folds, to the ground. Sir Harry’s hat and stick lay on the small round table, where he had carelessly thrown them when he came in from his last walk about Dorracleugh, his slippers lay on the hearthrug before his easy-chair, and his pipe was on the mantelpiece.
The party stood in this long and rather gloomy room in straggling disarray, still talking.
“There’s Pixie,” said old Mr. Spaight, who had been a bit of a sportsman, and loved coursing in his youth, as he stopped before a portrait of a greyhound, poking his long nose and spectacles, with a faint smirk, close into the canvas. “Sir Harry’s dog; fine dog, Pixie, won the cup twice on Doppleton Lea thirty-two years ago.” But this was a murmured meditation, for he was a staid man of business now, and his liking for dogs and horses was incongruous, and no one in the room heard him. Mr. Jarlcot’s voice recalled him.
“Mr. Marston was speaking to you, Mr. Spaight.”
“Oh! I was just saying I think nothing could have been more careful,” said Mr. Marston, “than the search you made upstairs, in the presence of me and Mrs. Shackleton, on Thursday last?”
“No, sir — certainly nothing — it could not possibly have escaped us,” answered Mr. Spaight.
“And that is your opinion also?” asked Mr. Jarlcot of Richard Marston.
“Clearly,” he answered.
“I’ll make a note of that, if you’ll allow me,” said Mr. Jarlcot; and he made an entry, with Mr. Marston’s concurrence, in his pocketbook.
“And now about this,” said Mr. Jarlcot, with a clumsy bow to Mr. Marston, and touching the door of the safe with his open hand.
“You have got the key, sir?” said Marston to the good vicar with silver hair, who stood meekly by, distrait and melancholy, an effigy of saintly contemplation.
“Oh, yes,” said the vicar wakening up. “Yes; the key, but — but you know there’s nothing there.”
He moved the key vaguely about as he looked from one to the other, as if inviting any one who pleased to try.
“I think, sir, perhaps it will be as well if you will kindly open it yourself,” said Marston.
“Yes, surely — I suppose so — with all my heart,” said the vicar.
The door of the safe opened easily, and displayed the black iron void, into which all looked.
Blessed are they who expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed. Of course no one was surprised. But Mr. Blount shook his head, lifted up his hands, and groaned audibly, “I am very sorry.”
Mr. Marston did not affect to hear him.
CHAPTER LXX.
A DISAPPOINTMENT.
“I think,” said Mr. Jarlcot, “it will be desirable that I should take a note of any information which Mr. Marston and the vicar may be so good as to supply with respect to the former search in the same place. I think, sir,” he continued, addressing the vicar, “you mentioned that the deceased, Sir Harry Rokestone, placed that key in your charge on the evening of his departure from this house for London?”
“So it was, sir,” said the vicar.
“Was it out of your possession for any time?”
“For about three quarters of an hour. I handed it to Mr. Marston on his way to this house; but as I was making a sick-call near this, I started not many minutes after he left me, and on the way it struck me that I might as well have back the key. I arrived here, I believe, almost as soon as he, and he quite agreed with me that I had b
etter get the key again into — — “
“Into your own custody,” interposed Marston. “You may recollect that it was I who suggested it the moment you came.”
“And the key was not out of your possession, Mr. Marston, during the interval?” said Mr. Jarlcot.
“Not for one moment,” answered Richard Marston, promptly.
“And you did not, I think you mentioned, open that safe?”
“Certainly not. I made no use whatever of that key at any time. I never saw that safe open until the vicar opened it in my presence, and we both saw that it contained nothing; so did Mrs. Shackleton, as intelligent a witness as any. And, I think, we can all — I know I can, for my part — depose, on oath, to the statements we have made.”
Mr. Jarlcot raised his eyebrows solemnly, slowly shook his head, and having replaced his notebook in his pocket, drew a long breath in through his rounded lips, with a sound that almost amounted to a whistle.
“Nothing could be more distinct; it amounts to demonstration,” he said, raising his head, putting his hands into his trousers-pockets, and looking slowly round the cornice. “Haven’t you something to say?” he added, laying his hand gently on Mr. Blount’s arm, and then turning a step or two away; while Marston, who could not comprehend what he fancied to be an almost affected disappointment at the failure to discover a will, thought he saw his eyes wander, when he thought no one was looking, curiously to the grate and the hobs; perhaps in search, as he suspected, of paper ashes.
“I am awfully sorry,” exclaimed Mr. Blount, throwing himself into a chair in undisguised despondency. “The will, as it was drafted, would have provided splendidly for Miss Ethel Ware, and left you, Mr. Marston, an annuity of two thousand five hundred a year, and a sum of five thousand pounds. For two or three years I had been urging him to execute it; it is evident he never did. He has destroyed the draft, instead of executing it. That hope is quite gone — totally.”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 655
