CHAPTER V
It was the evening of the day on which Jack Newcombe had parted from Gideon and Una, and the young moon fell peacefully on the irregular pile of the ancient mansion known familiarly for twenty miles of its neighborhood as The Hurst.
The present owner was one Ralph Davenant, or Squire Davenant, as Jack Newcombe had called him, and as he was called by the county generally.
He was an old man of eighty, who had lived one-half his life in the wildest and most dissipated fashion, and the other half in that most unprofitable occupation known as repenting thereof.
I say “known as,” for if old Squire Davenant had really repented, this story would never have been written.
If half the stories which were told of him were true, Ralph Davenant, the present owner of Hurst, deserves a niche in the temple of fame – or infamy – which holds the figures of the worst men of his day. He had been a gambler, a spendthrift, a rogue of the worst kind for one half his life; a miser, a cynic, a misanthrope for the other.
And he now lay dying in his huge, draughty bed-chamber, hung with the portraits of his ancestors – all bad and filled with the ghosts of his youth and wasted old age.
As it was, he lay quite still – so still that the physician, brought down from London at a cost of – say, ten guineas an hour, was often uncertain whether he was alive or dead.
There was a third person in the room – a tall, thin young man, who stood motionless beside the bed, watching the old man, with half-closed eyes and tightly compressed lips. This was Stephen Davenant, the old man’s nephew, and, as it was generally understood, his heir. Stephen Davenant was called a handsome man, and at first sight he seemed to merit that description. It was not until you had looked at him closely that you began to grow critical and to find fault. He was dark; his hair, which was quite black, was smooth, and clung to his head with a sleek, slimy closeness that only served to intensify the paleness, not to say pallor, of the face. Pallor was, indeed, the prevailing characteristic, his lips even being of a subdued and half-tinted red; they were not pleasant lips, although for every forty minutes out of the sixty they wore a smile which just showed a set of large and even teeth, which were, if anything, too faultless and too white. Jack said that when Stephen smiled it was like a private view of a cemetery.
In short, to quote the Savage again, Stephen Davenant was an admirable example, as artists would say, of “a study in black and white.”
As he stood by the bed, motionless, silent, with the fixed regard of his light gray eyes on the sick man, he looked not unlike one of those sleek and emaciated birds which one sees standing on the bank of the Ganges, waiting for the floating by of stray dead bodies.
And yet he was not unhandsome. At times he looked remarkably well; when, for instance, he was delivering a lecture or an address at some institute or May meeting. His voice was low and soft, and not seldom insinuating, and some of his friends had called him, half in jest, half in earnest, “Fascination Davenant.”
It will be gathered from this description that to call all the race of Davenants bad was unfair; every rule has its exception, and Stephen Davenant was the exception to this. He was “a good young man.”
Fathers held him up as a pattern to their wayward sons, mothers patronized and lauded him, and their daughters regarded him as almost too good to live.
The minutes, so slow for the watchers, so rapid to the man for whom they were numbered, passed, and the old cracked clock in the half-ruined stables wheezed out the hour, when, as if the sound had roused him, old Ralph moved slightly, and opening his eyes, looked slowly from one upright figure to the other.
Dark eyes that had not even yet lost all their fire, and still shone out like a bird’s from their wrinkled, cavernous hollows.
Stephen unlocked his wrist, bent down, and murmured, in his soft, silky voice:
“Uncle, do you know me?”
A smile, an unpleasant smile to see on such a face, glimmered on the old man’s lips.
“Here still, Stephen?” he said, slowly and hollowly. “You’d make a good – mute.”
A faint, pink tinge crept over Stephen’s pale face, but he smiled and shook his head meekly.
“Who’s that?” asked Ralph, half turning his eyes to the physician.
“Sir Humphrey, uncle – the doctor,” replied Stephen, and the great doctor came a little nearer and felt the faint pulse.
“What’s he stopping for?” gasped the old man. “What can he do, and – why don’t he go?”
“We must not leave you, uncle, till you are better.”
A faint flame shot up in the old man’s eyes.
“Better, that’s a lie, you know. You always were – ” Then a paroxysm of faintness took him, but he struggled with and overcame it.
“Is – is – Jack here?” he asked.
“I regret to say,” he replied, “that he is not. I cannot understand the delay. I hope, I fervently hope, that he has not willfully – ”
“Did you tell him I was dying?” asked Ralph, watching him keenly.
“Can you doubt it?” murmured Stephen, meekly. “I particularly charged the messenger to say that my cousin was not to delay.”
The old man looked up with a sardonic smile.
“I’ll wait,” he muttered, and he closed his eyes resolutely. The minutes passed, and presently there was a low knock at the door, and a servant crept up to Stephen.
“Mr. Newcombe is below, sir.”
Stephen looked warningly at the bed, and stole on tiptoe from the room – not that there was any occasion to go on tiptoe, for his ordinary walk was as noiseless as a cat’s – down the old treadworn stairs, into the neglected hall, and entered the library.
Bolt upright, and looking very like a Savage indeed, stood Jack Newcombe.
With noiseless step and mournful smile, Stephen entered, closed the door, and held out his hand.
“My dear Jack, how late you are!”
With an angry gesture Jack thrust his hands in his pockets, and glared wrathfully at the white, placid face.
“Late!” he echoed, passionately. “Why didn’t you tell me that he was dying?”
“Hush!” murmured Stephen, with a shocked look – though if Jack had bellowed in his savagest tone, his voice would not have reached the room upstairs. “Pray, be quiet, my dear Jack. Tell you! Didn’t my man give you my message? I particularly told him to describe the state of my uncle’s health. Slummers is not apt to forget or neglect messages!”
“Messages!” said Jack, with wrathful incredulity; “he gave me none – left none, rather, for I was out. He simply said that the squire wanted to see me.”
“Dear, dear me,” murmured Stephen, regretfully. “I cannot understand it. Do you think the person who took the message delivered it properly? Slummers is so very careful and trustworthy.”
“Oh,” said Jack, contemptuously. “Do you suppose anyone would have forgotten to tell me if your man had told them that the squire was dying? I don’t if you do, and I don’t believe you do. You’re no fool, Stephen, though you have made one of me,” and he moved toward the door.
“Stay,” said Stephen, laying his white hand gently on Jack’s arm. “Will you wait a few minutes? Though by some unfortunate accident you were not told how ill my uncle is, I assure you that he is too ill now to be harassed – ”
“Oh, I know what you mean without so many words,” interrupted Jack, scornfully. “Make your mind easy, I am not going to split upon you. Bah!” he added, as Stephen shook his head with sorrowful repudiation. “Do you suppose that I don’t know that your man was instructed to keep it from me? What were you afraid of – that I should cut you out at the last moment? You judge me by your own standard, and you make a vast mistake. It isn’t on account of the money – you are welcome to that – and you deserve it, for you’ve worked hard enough for it; no, it’s not on that account, it’s – but you wouldn’t understand if I told you. I am going up now,” and he sprang up the stairs quickly.
Stephen followed him, and entered the room close behind him. The old man looked up, motioned with his hand to Jack, looked at the other two and quietly pointed to the door.
Stephen’s eyes closed and his lips shut as he hesitated for a moment, then he turned and left with the physician.
“I think,” said Sir Humphrey, blandly, and looking at his watch – one of a score left him by departed patients, “I think that I will go now, Mr. Davenant; I can do no good and my presence appears only to irritate your uncle.”
The great doctor departed, just thirty guineas richer than when he came, and Stephen went into the library and closed the door, and as he did so it almost seemed as if he had taken off a mask and left it on the mat outside.
The set, calm expression of the face changed to one of fierce, uncontrollable anxiety and malice. With sullen step he paced up and down the room, gnawing – but daintily – at his nails, and grinding the white tombstones.
“Another half hour,” he muttered, “and the fool would have been too late? Will he tell the old man? Curse him; how I hate him! I was a fool to send for him – an idiot! What is he saying to him? What are they doing? Thank Heaven, that old knave Hudsley isn’t there! They can’t do anything – can’t, can’t! No, I am safe.”
Stephen Davenant need not have been so uneasy; Jack was not plotting against him, nor was the old man making a will in the Savage’s favor.
Jack stood beside the bed, waiting for one of the attacks of faintness to pass, looking down regretfully at the haggard, death-marked face, recalling the past kindnesses he had received from the old man, and remorsefully remembering their many quarrels and eventful separation.
“Bad lot” as he was, no thought of lucre crossed the Savage’s mind; he forgot even Stephen and the cowardly trick he had played him, and remembered only that he was looking his last on the old man, who, after his kind, had been good, and so far as his nature would allow it, generous to him.
At last old Ralph opened his eyes.
“Here at last,” he said; and by an effort of the resolute will, he made himself heard distinctly, though every word cost him a breath.
“I’m sorry I’m so late,” he said; and his voice was husky. “I didn’t know – ”
The old man looked at him shrewdly.
“So Stephen didn’t send? It was just like him. A good stroke.”
“Yes, he sent,” said Jack; “but – ”
The old man waved his hand to show that he understood.
“A sharp stroke. A clever fellow, Stephen. You always were a fool.”
“I’m afraid so, sir,” he said quietly.
“But Stephen is a knave, and a fool, too,” murmured the old man. “Jack, I wish – I wish I could come back to the funeral.”
“To see his face when the will’s read,” explained old Ralph, with a grim smile.
Jack colored, and, I am ashamed to say, grinned.
A sardonic smile flitted over the old man’s face.
“Be sure you are there, Jack; don’t let him keep you away.”
“Not that you will be disappointed – much,” said the old man.
“Don’t think of me, sir,” said Jack, with a dim sense of the discordance in such talk from such lips.
“I have thought of you as far – as – as I dared. Jack, you are an honest fool. Why – why did you give that post obit?”
“I don’t know,” said Jack, quietly. “Don’t worry about that now.”
“Stephen told me,” said the old man, grimly. “He has told me every piece of wickedness you have done. He is a kind-hearted man, is – Ste – phen.”
“We never were friends, sir,” he said. “But don’t talk now.”
“I must,” murmured the old man. “Now or never, and – give me your hand, Jack.”
“I’ve had yours ever since I came in,” said Jack, simply.
“Oh, I didn’t know it. Good-by, boy – don’t – don’t end up like this. It – and – for Heaven’s sake don’t cry!” for Jack emitted a suspicious little choking sound, and his eyes were dim. “Good-by; don’t be too disappointed. Justice, Jack, justice. Where is Stephen? – send him to me. I” – and the old sardonic smile came back – “I like to see him – he amuses me!”
The eyes closed; Jack waited a moment, then pressed the cold hand, and crept from the room.
Half way down the stairs he leaned his arm on the balustrade and dropped his face on it for a minute or two, then choking back his tears, went into the library – where Stephen was sitting reading a volume of sermons – and pointed up-stairs.
“My uncle wants me?” murmured Stephen. “I will go. Might I recommend this book to you, my dear Jack; it contains – ”
Jack, I regret to say, chucked the volume into a corner of the room, and Stephen, with a mournfully reproachful sigh, shook his head and left the room.
CHAPTER VI
“Villains,” says an old adage, “are made by accident.” Now mark how accident helped to make a villain of the good Stephen Davenant.
He passed up the stairs and entered the bedroom. As he did so his foot struck against a chair and caused a little noise. The dying man heard it, however, and opening his eyes, said, almost inaudibly:
“Is that you, Hudsley?”
Stephen was about to reply, “No, it is I – Stephen,” but stopped, hesitated, and as if struck by a sudden idea, drew back behind the bed-curtains.
Whatever that idea was, he was considerably moved by it; his hands shook, and his lips trembled during the interval of silence before the old man repeated the question:
“Is that you, Hudsley?”
Then Stephen, wiping his lips, answered in a dry voice utterly unlike his own, but very remarkably resembling that of the old solicitor, Hudsley:
“Yes, squire, it’s Hudsley.”
The dying man’s hearing was faint, his senses wandering and dimmed; he caught the sense of the words, however, for with an effort he turned his head toward the curtains.
“Where are you?” he asked, almost inaudibly; “I can’t see you; my sight has gone. You have been a long while coming. Hudsley, you thought you – knew – everything about the man who lies here; you were wrong. There’s a surprise for you as well as the rest. Did you see Jack?”
Stephen had no need to reply: the old man rambled on without waiting, excepting to struggle for breath.
“He is down-stairs. Poor boy! it’s a pity he is such a fool. There was always one like him in the Newcombe family. But the other – Stephen – the man who has been hanging about me all this time, eager to lick my boots so that he might step into them when I was gone; he is a fool and a knave.”
Stephen’s face went white and his lips twitched. It is probable that he remembered the adage: “Listeners hear no good of themselves.”
“He is the first of his kind we have had in the family. Plenty of fools and scamps, Hudsley, but no hypocrites till this one. Well, he’ll get his deserts. I’d give a thousand pounds to come back and hear the will read, and see his face. He makes so sure of it, too, the oily eel!”
Stephen writhed like an eel, indeed, and his lips blanched. Was the old man delirious, or had he, Stephen, really played the part of sycophant, toady and boot-licker all these years for nothing?
Great drops of sweat rolled down his face, his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and his knees shook so that he had to steady himself by holding the curtain.
“Yes, disappointed all. You don’t understand. You think that you know everything. But no; I trusted you with a great deal, but not with all. How dark it is! Hudsley, you are an old man; don’t finish up like – like this. Only one soul in the wide world is sorry that I’m going; and he’s a fool. Poor Jack! I remember – ”
Then followed, half inaudibly, a string of names belonging to the companions of his youth. Most of them were dead and forgotten by him until this hour, when he was about to join their shades.
“Ah, the old time! the old time. But – but – what was it I was saying? I – I – Hudsley – quick! for Heaven’s sake! I – the key – the key – ”
Stephen came round, in his eagerness risking recognition.
“The key?” he asked, so hoarsely that his voice might well be taken for an old man’s. “What key?”
“Feel – under my pillow!” gasped Ralph Davenant.
Stephen thrust his trembling hand under the pillow, and, with a leap of the heart, felt a key.
“The safe!” murmured a faltering voice. “The bottom drawer. Bring them to me! Quick!”
Stephen glided snake-like across the room to a small safe that stood in a recess, opened the door, and with trembling hands drew out the drawer. His hands shook so, his heart beat to such an extent, that as a movement in the next room struck upon his ears, he could scarcely refrain from shrieking aloud; but it was only the nurse, whom the old man would only allow to enter the room at intervals; and setting his teeth hard, and fighting for calm, Stephen took out two documents.
One was a parchment of goodly proportions.
Both were folded and endorsed on the back – the parchment with the inscription, “Last will and testament of Ralph Davenant, Gent., Jan. 18 – .”
With eyes that almost refused to do their task, Stephen turned the other paper to the light, and read, “Will, July 18 – .” This inscription was written in an old man’s hand – the parchment was engrossed as usual.
Two wills! The one – the parchment, however, was useless; the other – the sheet of foolscap – was the last.
“Well,” rose the voice from the bed, hollow and broken, “have you got them?”
Stephen came up and stood behind the curtain, and held the wills up.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “The first is – is in whose favor?”
The old man struggled for breath. White, breathless himself with the agony of anxiety and fear – for any moment someone might enter the room – Stephen stood staring beside him. He dared not undo the tapes and glance at the wills, in case of interruption – dared not conceal them, for Hudsley might appear on the scene. With the wills clasped in his hand, he stood and waited.
The faintness passed – old Ralph regained his voice.
“One is parchment – the other is paper. The parchment one you drew up; you know its contents – I want it destroyed, or, stay, keep it. It will add to the deceitful hound’s disappointment. The other – ah, my God – it is too late – Hudsley, there is a cruel history in that paper. No hand but mine could pen it. But – but – I have done justice. Too late! – why do you say – too late? Why do you mock a dying man? Mind, Hudsley, I trust to you. It is a sound will, made in sound body – and – mind. Don’t leave that hypocritical hound a chance of setting it aside. I trust to you. Stop, better burn the first will; burn it here now – now,” and in his excitement he actually raised his head. Raised it to let it drop upon the pillow again with exhaustion.
Stephen stood and glared, torn this way and that by doubt and uncertainty.
“Justice,” he whispered hoarsely. “The first will, my will leaves all to – ”
“To that hound Stephen!” gasped the old man. “I did it in a weak moment and repented of it. Leaves all to him; but not now.”
Stephen hesitated no longer. With the quick, gliding movement of a cat he reached the iron safe, replaced the parchment in the drawer and locked the outer door, and thrust the paper will into his pocket.
Scarcely had he done so, before he had time to get to his place, the door opened and Hudsley, the lawyer, entered.
He was an old man, as thin and bent as a withy branch, with a face seamed and wrinkled, like his familiar parchment, with the like spots; his dark, keen gray eyes, which looked out from under his shaggy eyebrows, like stars in a cloudy sky.
As he entered, Stephen came forward, his back to the light, his face in the shadow, and held out his hand.
Hudsley took it, held it for a moment, and dropped it with a little, irritable shudder – the slim, white hand was as cold as ice – and, turning to the bed, looked anxiously at the dying man.
“Great heaven!” he said, “is he dead?”
A savage hope shot up in Stephen’s heart, but he looked and shook his head.
“No. You have been a long time coming, Mr. Hudsley.”
“I have, sir, thanks to your man’s stupidity,” said the lawyer, in an angry whisper. “He came for me in a confounded dogcart!”
“The quickest vehicle to get ready,” murmured Stephen. “I told him, to take the first that came to hand.”
“And the result,” said the lawyer impatiently. “The result is that we lost half an hour on the road! Does your man drink, Mr. Stephen?”
“Drink! Slummers drink!” murmured Stephen. “A most steady, respectable – I may say conscientious – man.”
“He may be conscientious, but he’s a very bad driver. I never saw such a clumsy fellow. He drove into a ditch half a mile after we had started.”
“Dear, dear,” murmured Stephen regretfully. “Poor Slummers. It is not his fault. He is a worthy fellow, but too sympathetic, and my uncle’s illness quite upset him – ”
“Hush!” interrupted Mr. Hudsley, holding up his finger and bending down.
“Squire, do you know me? I am Hudsley.”
The dying man moved his hand faintly in assent.
“Yes. Have you done as I told you?”
“You have told me nothing yet.”
“The safe! – the key! – the pillow!” said the Squire.
Hudsley caught his meaning and felt under the pillow, and Stephen, as if to assist, thrust his hand under, and withdrew it with the key in his fingers.
“Why – again?” came the voice, broken and impatient. “You have done it! you have burnt the first.”
“What is he saying?” he asked.
“You have burned it; show me the other – the last; let me – touch it.”
Hudsley opened the safe and took the first will from the drawer.
“Two, did he say?” he muttered: “there is only one here – the will;” and he came to the bed with it.
“There is only one will here, of course, squire,” he said, bending down and speaking slowly and distinctly.
“Yes – you, you have – burned the other. Speak. I cannot see, but I can hear you.”
“I have burned none,” said Hudsley. “Have only just come – there is only one will here.”
“Which?” gasped the dying man.
“The will of January – Mr. Stephen – ”
Before they could finish, they saw, with horror, the dying man half raise himself, his face livid, his hands wildly clutching the air, his eyes, by accident, turned toward Stephen.
“You – you thief!” he gasped. “Give it to me! – give – give – oh, God! Too late? – too la – ”
It was too late. Before the nurse and Jack could rush into the room, horrified by the shriek which rang from Stephen’s white lips, old Ralph Davenant had fallen back dead!