Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy
Page 6
dark. Long after his eyes had opened, therewas a film over them and he still felt for his way out into light. Butby slow degrees his sight cleared and his hands stopped. He saw theceiling, he saw the wall, he saw me. As his sight cleared, mine clearedtoo, and when at last we looked in one another's faces, I started back,and I cries passionately:
"O you wicked wicked man! Your sin has found you out!"
For I knew him, the moment life looked out of his eyes, to be Mr. Edson,Jemmy's father who had so cruelly deserted Jemmy's young unmarried motherwho had died in my arms, poor tender creetur, and left Jemmy to me.
"You cruel wicked man! You bad black traitor!"
With the little strength he had, he made an attempt to turn over on hiswretched face to hide it. His arm dropped out of the bed and his headwith it, and there he lay before me crushed in body and in mind. Surelythe miserablest sight under the summer sun!
"O blessed Heaven," I says a crying, "teach me what to say to this brokenmortal! I am a poor sinful creetur, and the Judgment is not mine."
As I lifted my eyes up to the clear bright sky, I saw the high towerwhere Jemmy had stood above the birds, seeing that very window; and thelast look of that poor pretty young mother when her soul brightened andgot free, seemed to shine down from it.
"O man, man, man!" I says, and I went on my knees beside the bed; "ifyour heart is rent asunder and you are truly penitent for what you did,Our Saviour will have mercy on you yet!"
As I leaned my face against the bed, his feeble hand could just moveitself enough to touch me. I hope the touch was penitent. It tried tohold my dress and keep hold, but the fingers were too weak to close.
I lifted him back upon the pillows and I says to him:
"Can you hear me?"
He looked yes.
"Do you know me?"
He looked yes, even yet more plainly.
"I am not here alone. The Major is with me. You recollect the Major?"
Yes. That is to say he made out yes, in the same way as before.
"And even the Major and I are not alone. My grandson--his godson--iswith us. Do you hear? My grandson."
The fingers made another trial to catch my sleeve, but could only creepnear it and fall.
"Do you know who my grandson is?"
Yes.
"I pitied and loved his lonely mother. When his mother lay a dying Isaid to her, 'My dear, this baby is sent to a childless old woman.' Hehas been my pride and joy ever since. I love him as dearly as if he haddrunk from my breast. Do you ask to see my grandson before you die?"
Yes.
"Show me, when I leave off speaking, if you correctly understand what Isay. He has been kept unacquainted with the story of his birth. He hasno knowledge of it. No suspicion of it. If I bring him here to the sideof this bed, he will suppose you to be a perfect stranger. It is morethan I can do to keep from him the knowledge that there is such wrong andmisery in the world; but that it was ever so near him in his innocentcradle I have kept from him, and I do keep from him, and I ever will keepfrom him, for his mother's sake, and for his own."
He showed me that he distinctly understood, and the tears fell from hiseyes.
"Now rest, and you shall see him."
So I got him a little wine and some brandy, and I put things straightabout his bed. But I began to be troubled in my mind lest Jemmy and theMajor might be too long of coming back. What with this occupation for mythoughts and hands, I didn't hear a foot upon the stairs, and wasstartled when I saw the Major stopped short in the middle of the room bythe eyes of the man upon the bed, and knowing him then, as I had knownhim a little while ago.
There was anger in the Major's face, and there was horror and repugnanceand I don't know what. So I went up to him and I led him to the bedside,and when I clasped my hands and lifted of them up, the Major did thelike.
"O Lord" I says "Thou knowest what we two saw together of the sufferingsand sorrows of that young creetur now with Thee. If this dying man istruly penitent, we two together humbly pray Thee to have mercy on him!"
The Major says "Amen!" and then after a little stop I whispers him, "Dearold friend fetch our beloved boy." And the Major, so clever as to havegot to understand it all without being told a word, went away and broughthim.
Never never never shall I forget the fair bright face of our boy when hestood at the foot of the bed, looking at his unknown father. And O solike his dear young mother then!
"Jemmy" I says, "I have found out all about this poor gentleman who is soill, and he did lodge in the old house once. And as he wants to see allbelonging to it, now that he is passing away, I sent for you."
"Ah poor man!" says Jemmy stepping forward and touching one of his handswith great gentleness. "My heart melts for him. Poor, poor man!"
The eyes that were so soon to close for ever turned to me, and I was notthat strong in the pride of my strength that I could resist them.
"My darling boy, there is a reason in the secret history of this fellow-creetur lying as the best and worst of us must all lie one day, which Ithink would ease his spirit in his last hour if you would lay your cheekagainst his forehead and say, 'May God forgive you!'"
"O Gran," says Jemmy with a full heart, "I am not worthy!" But he leaneddown and did it. Then the faltering fingers made out to catch hold of mysleeve at last, and I believe he was a-trying to kiss me when he died.
* * * * *
There my dear! There you have the story of my Legacy in full, and it'sworth ten times the trouble I have spent upon it if you are pleased tolike it.
You might suppose that it set us against the little French town of Sens,but no we didn't find that. I found myself that I never looked up at thehigh tower atop of the other tower, but the days came back again whenthat fair young creetur with her pretty bright hair trusted in me like amother, and the recollection made the place so peaceful to me as I can'texpress. And every soul about the hotel down to the pigeons in thecourtyard made friends with Jemmy and the Major, and went lumbering awaywith them on all sorts of expeditions in all sorts of vehicles drawn byrampagious cart-horses,--with heads and without,--mud for paint and ropesfor harness,--and every new friend dressed in blue like a butcher, andevery new horse standing on his hind legs wanting to devour and consumeevery other horse, and every man that had a whip to crack crack-crack-crack-crack-cracking it as if it was a schoolboy with his first. As tothe Major my dear that man lived the greater part of his time with alittle tumbler in one hand and a bottle of small wine in the other, andwhenever he saw anybody else with a little tumbler, no matter who itwas,--the military character with the tags, or the inn-servants at theirsupper in the courtyard, or townspeople a chatting on a bench, or countrypeople a starting home after market,--down rushes the Major to clink hisglass against their glasses and cry,--Hola! Vive Somebody! or ViveSomething! as if he was beside himself. And though I could not quiteapprove of the Major's doing it, still the ways of the world are the waysof the world varying according to the different parts of it, and dancingat all in the open Square with a lady that kept a barber's shop myopinion is that the Major was right to dance his best and to lead offwith a power that I did not think was in him, though I was a littleuneasy at the Barricading sound of the cries that were set up by theother dancers and the rest of the company, until when I says "What arethey ever calling out Jemmy?" Jemmy says, "They're calling out Gran,Bravo the Military English! Bravo the Military English!" which was verygratifying to my feelings as a Briton and became the name the Major wasknown by.
But every evening at a regular time we all three sat out in the balconyof the hotel at the end of the courtyard, looking up at the golden androsy light as it changed on the great towers, and looking at the shadowsof the towers as they changed on all about us ourselves included, andwhat do you think we did there? My dear, if Jemmy hadn't brought someother of those stories of the Major's taking down from the telling offormer lodgers at Eighty-one Norfolk Street, and if he didn't bring 'emout with this spee
ch:
"Here you are Gran! Here you are godfather! More of 'em! I'll read.And though you wrote 'em for me, godfather, I know you won't disapproveof my making 'em over to Gran; will you?"
"No, my dear boy," says the Major. "Everything we have is hers, and weare hers."
"Hers ever affectionately and devotedly J. Jackman, and J. JackmanLirriper," cries the Young Rogue giving me a close hug. "Very well thengodfather. Look here. As Gran is in the Legacy way just now, I shallmake these stories a part of Gran's Legacy. I'll leave 'em to her. Whatdo you say godfather?"
"Hip hip Hurrah!" says the Major.
"Very well then," cries Jemmy all in a bustle. "Vive the