The Fortunes of Richard Mahony

by Henry Handel Richardson

  A second later and the whole face was transfigured— lit by an expression of rapturous joy. John even made an abortive effort to raise himself—to hold out his arms. His breath came sobbingly.

  “Emma! Oh, Emma!. . . .wife!”

  At first sound of her name, Emmy sprang from her seat behind the curtains and threw herself on her knees at the bedside, close to John’s groping hand. “Papa!. . . .yes, oh yes? Oh, papa. . . .darling!”

  But John did not hear her. All the life left him was centred in his eyes, which hung, dazed with wonder, on something visible to them alone. Bending over the passionately weeping girl Mary whispered: “Hush, hush, Emmy! Hush, my dear! He sees. . . .he thinks he sees your mother.”

  Mahony knew nothing of this occurrence till long after. By the time he got there that evening, the death-agony had begun; and now the one thought of those gathered round John’s bed was to ease and speed his passing. It was a murderous business. For the drug that had thus far blunted the red-hot knives that hacked at his vitals suddenly lost its power: injections now gave relief but for a few moments on end; and, hour after hour, hour after hour, his heart-breaking cry for help beat the air. “Morphia. . . .morphia! For God’s sake, morphia!”

  But the kindly, bearded physician who sat with a finger on John’s wrist remained impassive: the dose now necessary to reduce the paroxysms would be more than the weakened heart could bear. And so, livid, drenched in sweat, John fought his way to death through tortures indescribable.

  At the end of the afternoon those present felt that the limits of human endurance had been reached. All eyes hung on the doctor’s, with the same mute appeal. The two men, Mahony and the other, exchanged a rapid glance. Then, bending over the writhing anguished thing that had once been John Turnham, the doctor addressed it by name. “Mr. Turnham; you are in your right mind. . . .and fully aware of what you are saying. Do you take the injection necessary to relieve you, of your own free will and at your own risk?”

  “For the love of God!”

  A moment’s stir and business, and the blessed sedative was running through the quivering veins, the last excruciating pangs were throbbing with hammer-strokes to their end: upwards from the feet crept the blissful numbness. . . .rising higher. . . .higher. . . .higher. And, as peace descended and the heavy lids fell to, Mahony stepped forward, and taking one of the dying hands in his said in a loud, clear voice: “Have no fear of death, John!”

  Already floating out on the great river, John yet heard these words and was arrested by them. Slowly the lids rolled back once more, and for the fraction of a second the broken eyes met Mahony’s. In this, their last, living look, not a trace was left of the man who had been. They were now those of one who was about to be—fined and refined; rich in an experience that transcended all mortal happenings; wise with an ageless wisdom. And as they closed for ever to this world, there came an answer to Mahony’s words in ever so faint a flattening of the lips, an almost imperceptible intake at the corners of the mouth, which, on the sleeping face, had the effect of a smile: that lurking smile, remote with peace, and yet touched with the lightest suspicion of amused wonder, that sometimes makes the faces of the dead so good to see.

  John did not wake again. Towards midnight his breathing grew more stertorous, the intervals between the breaths longer. And at last the moment came when the watchers waited for the next. . . .and waited. . . .in vain.

  All was over; the poor weeping, shattered women were led from the room. Mary, despite her grief, kept her presence of mind, and Miss Julia with her. But Lizzie was convulsed; and poor little Emmy, her long service ended, broke down utterly and had to be carried to bed, and chafed, and dosed with restoratives. Zara was bidden see to the children, John’s three, who had been brought over during the afternoon in case their father should ask for them: forgotten, hungry, tired, they had cried themselves to sleep, and now lay huddled in a tear-stained group on the dining-room sofa. Mahony and the doctor busied themselves for yet a while in the death-chamber; after which, decently composed and arranged, John formed no more than a sheet-draped rising on the bed’s smooth plain. Mahony locked the door behind him and took the key. The dogcart had come round, and Jerry, who was to drive back to town with the doctor, stood, his collar turned up; all of a fidget to get home to Fanny and his children. Mahony went out with them and, having watched them drive off, paused to breathe the night air, which was fresh and welcome after the fetid odours of the sickroom. And standing there under the stars he sent, like an arrow of farewell, a parting thought to the soul that might even now be winging its way to freedom, and to whom soon all mysteries would be plain. John had made a brave end. There had been no whining for pity or pardon: on his own responsibility he had lived, and he died by the same rule—the good Turnham blood had come out in him to the last. And as he re-entered the house, where, by now, the last exhausted watcher was sinking into unconsciousness, Mahony murmured half-aloud to himself: “Well done, John. . . .well done!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Some six months later the Mahonys set out on their second voyage to England. They sailed by the clipper-ship Atrata and travelled in style, accompanied by a maid to attend to Mary and both nurses.—And “Ultima Thule” passed into other hands.

  It had proved easier to persuade Mary to the break than Mahony had dared to hope. John’s illness and death paved the way. For, by the time her long vigil at his bedside was over, and Lizzie seen safely through a difficult confinement, Mary’s own health was beginning to suffer. A series of obstinate coughs and colds plagued her; and a thorough change of air was advisable. A change of scene, too. Though Mary was not given to moping and, at the time, had thankfully accepted John’s release, yet when it came to taking up her ordinary life again the full sense of her loss came home to her. And not to her alone but to every one. John’s had been such a vigorous personality. Its withdrawal left a gap nothing could fill.

  None the less, the sacrifice she was now called on to make was a bitter one, and cost her much heartburning: when she first grasped the kind of change Richard was tentatively proposing, she burst into heated exclamation. What, break up their home again?. . . .their lovely home? Leave all the things they had collected round them? Leave intimates and friends and their assured position?. . . .to go off no one knew where. . . .and where nobody knew them? Oh, he couldn’t mean it!—And what about the children?. . . .still mere babies—“For though you talked till you were black in the face, Richard, you would never get me to leave them behind!”—and the drawbacks of ship-life for them at their tender age?. . . .the upset in their habits. . . .not to speak of having to watch them grow spoilt and fractious: winding up with her dread of the sea, his antipathy to England and English life.

  But Mahony, though he spoke soothingly, stuck to his guns. It was only to be a visit this time, he urged. It could hardly hurt the house to be let for a year or so. A good tenant would take good care of it; and it would be there, just as it stood, for them to come back to. Then both nurses would go with them; and as for the darlings being too young for a voyage, that was the sheerest nonsense: on the contrary, it would do them a world of good; perhaps even turn Cuffy into a sturdy boy. The same could be said for her own ailments: there was nothing like the briny for laying coughs and colds; while the best cabin in the ship would go far towards lessening the horrors of seasickness. As for England, they would not know it for the same country, travelling as they did to-day. Plenty of money, introductions to good people, going everywhere, seeing everything; and ending up, if she felt disposed, with a jaunt to the Paris Exhibition and a tour of the Continent. “It isn’t every wife, my dear, has such an offer made her.”

  But his words fell flat: Mary only shrugged her shoulders in reply. Tours and exhibitions meant nothing to her. She hadn’t the least desire to travel—or at any rate to go farther afield than Sydney or Tasmania. She had been so happy here. . . .so perfectly happy! Why, oh why,
could Richard not be content? And that he could forget so easily how he had hated England. . . .and disliked the English. . . .Well, no, she must be fair to him. As he said, life over there would be a very different thing now they had money. (Though all the money in the world wouldn’t stop it raining!) He might also be right about the voyage doing the chicks good; and it would certainly give them, tiny tots though they were, just that something which colonial-bred children lacked. But oh, her home!. . . .her beautiful home. To have to hand it over to strangers, have strangers tramping on your best carpets, sleeping in your beds, using your egg-shell china—even the best of tenants would not care for the things as she did. She had asked nothing better than to spend the rest of her life at “Ultima Thule”; and here now came Richard, for whom even a few years of it had proved too many. Luxury and comfort, or poverty and hard work, it did not seem to matter which: the root of the evil lay in himself. On the other hand she mustn’t forget how splendidly he had behaved over John’s illness: never grumbling at her long absences, or at being left to the tender mercies of the servants. Many another husband might have said: let them hire some one to do their nursing, and not wear out my wife over it! But Richard wasn’t like that.

  And her first heat cooled, wiser counsels prevailed; the end of which was a sturdy resolve to smother her own feelings and think only of him. Two considerations finally turned the scale. One was that when, with Lizzie’s convalescence, she was free to return home, she had a nasty shock at the state in which she found Richard. Without her to nag at him and rout him out, he had let himself go as never before: he had forgotten to change his under-clothing or have his hair cut; had neglected his meals, neglected the children—lost interest even in his beloved garden. And for all this they had to thank that horrid spiritualism! During the last few months it had come to be a perfect obsession with him; and from a tolerably clear-headed person he had turned into a bundle of credulous superstition. He actually sat for as long as an hour at a time, with a pencil in his hand, waiting for it to write by itself—write messages, from the dead. . . .and wasn’t he angry when she laughed at him!

  This was one thing—the chance for him of a complete break with all such nonsense. Again, coming back to him as it were with fresh eyes, she saw that he was beginning to look very elderly. He seemed to be growing downwards, losing his height, through always sitting crouched over books; and the fair silky hair at his temples was quite silvery now, did you peer closely at it. It was hard to think of Richard as old. . . .and him still well under fifty. Yet the coming on of age might account for much. Elderly people did settle into ruts; and, once fixed in them, were impossible to move. Perhaps his present morbid hankering after change was a kind of warning from something inside him to shake himself up and get out of his groove before it was too late. In which case it would be folly and worse than folly, on her part, to try to prevent him.

  For his sake then, and for his alone. When it came to a question of Richard’s welfare, all other considerations went by the board. One condition, though, she did stand out for, and that was, the house should not be let to any one, no matter whom, for longer than a year. By then, she was positive, Richard would have had his fill of travelling, with the varied discomforts it implied, and be thankful to get back to his own dear home.

  Thus it came that “Ultima Thule” was put into an agent’s hands, and Mary fell to sorting and packing and making her preparations for the long sea voyage. Not the least of these was fitting the three children out anew from top to toe. Richard had forbidden them even an armband as mourning for their uncle—he was never done railing at Lizzie for having turned John’s three into little walking mountains of bombazine and crêpe. So Mary was free to indulge her love for dainty stuffs and pretty colours. And, thought she, if ever children paid for dressing hers did. The Dumplings were by now lovely, fair-haired, blue-eyed three-year-olds, with serious red mouths and firm chubby legs. They prattled the livelong day; loved and were loved by every one. Cuffy, dark, slim, retiring, formed just the right contrast. People often stopped nurse to ask whose children they were. And on this, their first excursion into the big world, nobody should be able to say they were not the best-dressed, best-cared-for children on the ship!

  Before, however, a suitable tenant for the house had been found—Richard turned up his nose at every one who had so far looked over it (when it came to the point he was the fastidious one of the two)—before anything had been fixed, a note came from Tilly saying she and Purdy had travelled down from Ballarat overnight, and were putting up at “Scott’s.” So after breakfast Mary on with her bonnet and drove to town.

  She found Tilly in a fine sitting-room on the first floor of the hotel, looking very, very prosperous. . . .all silk and bugles. Purdy was out, on the business that had brought him to town: “So we two have all the morning, love, to jaw in.” As she spoke, Tilly whipped off Mary’s bonnet and mantle and carried them to the bedroom, supplying Mary meanwhile with one of her own caps, lest any one should enter the room and find her with a bare pate. Then, a second chair having been drawn up for her to put her feet on, a table with cake and wine set at her elbow, they were free to fall to work. They had not met since Tilly’s wedding; and Mary had now to tell the whole sad story of John’s illness and death, starting from the night on which he had unexpectedly come to consult Richard, and not omitting his queer hallucination the day before he died (an incident she had so far religiously kept from Richard, as only too likely to encourage his present craze). Next they discussed Lizzie, her behaviour during John’s illness, her attitude to the children and the birth of her boy—a peevish, puny infant to whom, much against her inclination, she thinking the world of her own family and little of any other, she had been induced to give John’s name. And then John’s will, “John’s infamous will!” as Richard called it, by which Lizzie was left sole executrix, and trustee of Emmy and the little girls’ money (five thousand apiece), with free use of the interest so long as she provided a home for them under her roof. “Which, as you can see, Tilly, is about as foolish a condition as the poor fellow could well have made.”

  Tilly nodded; but suppressed the: “Yes, but oh how like ’im!” that jumped to her lips, on the principle of not picking holes in the dead. “But what about if Madam marries again. . . .eh, Mary? How then?”

  Mary nodded ruefully. “Why, then it’s the usual thing: she’s cut off with a penny; most of her money goes to the boy; and Richard and Jerry become trustees in her stead.” But, extenuating where Tilly had suppressed, Mary added: “You must remember the will was drawn up directly after marriage, when John was still very much in love.”

  “Lor’, Mary, what a picnic!” said Tilly, and sagely wagged her head. “My dear, can’t you see ’em? Madam, gone sour as curds, clinging like grim death to ’er posse of old maids! Poor old Jinn! Poor little kids! Caught like fishes in a net.”

  “Yes, well, except that. . . .as Richard says. . . .it’s very unlikely. . . .”

  Their eyes met.

  “Why, yes, I suppose it is,” said Tilly dryly.

  Thence they passed to their own affairs; and Mary told of the fresh uprootal that was in store for her—and, over the telling, let out some of the exasperation that burned in her at the prospect. Tilly was the one person who would understand what it meant; to whom she could utter a word of complaint. To the world at large Richard and she must, and would, always present a united front.

  Said she: “Oh, I did think this time, Tilly, he would be content; when he’d got everything he could possibly wish for. It was a different matter him leaving Ballarat—and I couldn’t blame him myself for not wanting to settle permanently in England. But here. . . .our nice house. . . .his library. . . .the garden. . . .And the stupid part of it is I know he’ll regret it. . . .tire of being on the move long before we can get back into the house. I’m making up my mind to that, before I start.”

  “Poor old girl! You do have a toug
h time of it.”

  “Besides, there are the chicks to think of now as well. Their father says the voyage will do them good, and he may be right. But the voyage isn’t everything. What about the change of climate for them while they’re so small?—going over into the cold as we shall do. Then, travelling isn’t the thing for little children—you know what an excitable child Cuffy is.—Besides, just think what it’s going to cost us, with three servants, renting a furnished house in London, making a tour of the Continent and all the rest of it. Richard has such grand notions nowadays. Economy’s a word that has ceased to exist for him. The money’s there and it’s to be spent, and that’s the end of it. But it does sometimes seem. . . .I mean I can’t help feeling it would be better if I had some idea what we’ve got and how it goes.”

  But having opened her heart thus, Mary came to a stop: there were things she drew the line at touching on, and though her hearer was only Tilly. You did not, even to your dearest friend, belabour the point that your husband was growing old and rusty, stiff in body and in mind. You locked the knowledge up, with a pang, inside your own heart. Again, Tilly had always made such game of spiritualism. Did she now hear that, from an interested inquirer, Richard had become an out-and-out adherent, accepting as gospel the rubbish its devotees talked, attending sittings which opened with prayers and hymns, just as if they were trying to take the place of going to church—why, at this, Tilly would certainly tap her forehead and make significant eyes, imagining goodness only knew what. So Mary kept a wifely silence.