Loe raamatut: «International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art, and Science — Volume 1, No. 4, July 22, 1850», lehekülg 3

THE OLD MAN'S BEQUEST;

A STORY OF GOLD

Through the ornamented grounds of a handsome country residence, at a little distance from a large town in Ireland, a man of about fifty years of age was walking with a bent head, and the impress of sorrow on his face.

"Och, yer honor, give me one sixpence, or one penny, for God's sake," cried a voice from the other side of a fancy paling which separated the grounds in that quarter from a thoroughfare. "For heaven's sake, Mr. Lawson, help me as ye helped me before. I know you've the heart and the hand to do it."

The person addressed as Mr. Lawson looked up and saw a woman whom he knew to be in most destitute circumstances, burdened with a large and sickly family, whom she had struggled to support until her own health was ruined.

"I have no money—not one farthing," answered John Lawson.

"No money!" reiterated the woman, in surprise: "isn't it all yours, then?—isn't this garden yours, and that house, and all the grand things that are in it yours?—ay, and grand things they are—them pictures, and them bright shinin' things in that drawing-room of yours; and sure you deserve them well, and may God preserve them long to you, for riches hasn't hardened your heart, though there's many a one, and heaven knows the gold turns their feelin's to iron."

"It all belongs to my son, Henry Lawson, and Mrs. Lawson, and their children—it is all theirs," he sighed heavily, and deep emotion was visible in every lineament of his thin and wrinkled face.

The poor woman raised her blood-shot eyes to his face, as if she was puzzled by his words. She saw that he was suffering, and with intuitive delicacy she desisted from pressing her wants, though her need was great.

"Well, well, yer honor, many's the good penny ye have given me and the childer, and maybe the next time I see you you'll have more change."

She was turning sadly away, when John Lawson requested her to remain, and he made inquiries into the state of her family; the report he heard seemed to touch him even to the forgetfulness of his own sorrows; he bade her stop for a few moments and he would give her some relief.

He walked rapidly toward the house and proceeded to the drawing-room. It was a large and airy apartment, and furnished with evident profusion; the sunlight of the bright summer-day, admitted partially through the amply-draperied windows, lit up a variety of sparkling gilding in picture-frames, and vases, and mirrors, and cornices; but John Lawson looked round on the gay scene with a kind of shudder; he had neither gold, silver, nor even copper in his pocket, or in his possession.

He advanced to a lady who reclined on a rose-colored sofa, with a fashionable novel in her hand, and after some slight hesitation he addressed her, and stating the name and wants of the poor woman who had begged for aid, he requested some money.

As he said the words "some money," his lips quivered, and a tremor ran through his whole frame, for his thoughts were vividly picturing a recently departed period, when he was under no necessity of asking money from any individual.

"Bless me, my dear Mr. Lawson!" cried the lady, starting up from her recumbent position, "did I not give you a whole handful of shillings only the day before yesterday; and if you wasted it all on poor people since, what am I to do? Why, indeed, we contribute so much to charitable subscriptions, both Mr. Lawson and I, you might be content to give a little less to common beggars."

Mrs. Lawson spoke with a smile on her lips, and with a soft caressing voice, but a hard and selfish nature shone palpably from her blue eyes. She was a young woman, and had the repute of beauty, which a clear pink-and-white complexion, and tolerable features, with luxuriant light hair, generally gains from a portion of the world. She was dressed for the reception of morning visitors whom she expected, and she was enveloped in expensive satin and blond, and jewelry in large proportions.

John Lawson seemed to feel every word she had uttered in the depths of his soul, but he made a strong effort to restrain the passion which was rising to his lips.

"Augusta, my daughter, you are the wife of my only and most beloved child—I wish to love you—I wish to live in peace with you, and all—give me some money to relieve the wants of the unfortunate woman to whom I have promised relief, and who is waiting without. I ask not for myself, but for the poor and suffering—give me a trifle of money, I say."

"Indeed, Mr. Lawson, a bank would not support your demands for the poor people; that woman for whom you are begging has been relieved twenty times by us. I have no money just now."

She threw herself back on the sofa, and resumed her novel; but anger, darting from her eyes, contrasted with the trained smile which still remained on her lips.

A dark shade of passion and scorn came over John Lawson's face, but he strove to suppress it, and his voice was calm when he spoke.

"Some time before my son married you, I gave up all my business to him—I came to live here amongst trees and flowers—I gave up all the lucrative business I had carried on to my son, partly because my health was failing, and I longed to live with nature, away from the scenes of traffic; but more especially because I loved my son with no common love, and I trusted to him as to a second self. I was not disappointed—we had one purse and one heart before he married you; he never questioned me concerning what I spent in charity—he never asked to limit in any way my expenditure—he loved you, and I made no conditions concerning what amount of income I was to receive, but still I left him in entire possession of my business when he married you. I trusted to your fair, young face, that you would not controvert my wishes—that you would join me in my schemes of charity."

"And have I not?" interrupted Mrs. Lawson, in a sharp voice, though the habitual smile still graced her lips; "do I not subscribe to, I don't know how many, charitable institutions? Charity, indeed—there's enough spent in charity by myself and my husband. But I wish to stop extravagance—it is only extravagance to spend so much on charity as you would do if you could; therefore, you shall not have any money just now."

Mrs. Lawson was one of those women who can cheerfully expend a most lavish sum on a ball, a dress, or any other method by which rank and luxury dissipate their abundance, but who are very economical, and talk much of extravagance when money is demanded for purposes not connected with display or style.

"Augusta Lawson, listen to me"—his voice quivering with passion—"my own wants are very few; in food, in clothes, in all points my expenditure is trifling. I am not extravagant in my demands for the poor, either. All I have expended in charity during the few years since you came here, is but an insignificant amount as contrasted with the income which I freely gave up to my son and you; therefore, some money for the poor woman who is waiting, I shall now have; give me some shillings, for God's sake, and let me go." He advanced closer to her, and held out his hand.

"Nonsense!" cried Mrs. Lawson; "I am mistress, here—I am determined to stop extravagance. You give too much to common beggars; I am determined to stop it—do not ask me any further."

A kind of convulsion passed over John Lawson's thin face; but he pressed his hand closely on his breast, and was silent for some moments.

"I was once rich, I believe. Yes—it is not a dream," he said, in a slow, self-communing voice. "Gold and silver, once ye were plenty with me; my hands—my pockets were filled—guineas, crowns, shillings—now I have not one penny to give to that starving, dying woman, whose face of misery might soften the very stones she looks on—not one penny."

"Augusta," he said, turning suddenly toward her, after a second pause of silence, "give me only one shilling, and I shall not think of the bitter words you have just said."

"No; not one shilling," answered Mrs. Lawson, turning over a leaf of her novel.

"One sixpence, then—one small, poor sixpence. You do not know how even a sixpence can gladden the black heart of poverty when starvation is come. One sixpence, I say—let me have it quickly."

"Not one farthing I shall give you. I do beg you will trouble me no further."

Mrs. Lawson turned her back partially to him, and fixed all her attention on the novel.

"Woman! I have cringed and begged; I would not so beg for myself, from you—no: I would lie down and die of want before I would, on my own account, request of you—of your hard heart—one bit of bread. All the finery that surrounds you is mine—it was purchased with my money, though now you call it yours; and, usurping the authority of both master and mistress here, you—in what you please to call your economical management—dole out shillings to me when the humor seizes you, or refuse me, as now, when it pleases you. But, woman, listen to me. I shall never request you for one farthing of money again. No necessity of others shall make me do it. You shall never again refuse me, for I shall never give you the opportunity."

He turned hastily from the room, with a face on which the deep emotion of an aroused spirit was depicted strongly.

In the lobby he met his son, Henry Lawson. The young man paused, something struck by the excited appearance of his father.

"Henry," said the father, abruptly, "I want some money; there is a poor woman whom I wish to relieve—will you give me some money for her?"

"Willingly, my dear father; but have you asked Augusta? You know I have given her the management of the money-matters of the establishment, she is so very clever and economical."

"She has neither charity, nor pity, nor kindness; she saves from me—she saves from the starving poor—she saves, that she may waste large sums on parties and dresses. I shall never more ask her for money—give me a few shillings. My God! the father begs of the son for what was his own—for what he toiled all his youth—for what he gave up out of trusting love to that son. Henry, my son, I am sick of asking and begging—ay, sick—sick; but give me some shillings now."

"You asked Augusta, then," said Henry, drawing out his purse, and glancing with some apprehension to the drawing-room door.

"Henry," cried Mrs. Lawson, appearing at that instant with a face inflamed with anger—"Henry, I would not give your father any money to-day, because he is so very extravagant in giving it all away."

Henry was in the act of opening his purse; he glanced apprehensively to Mrs. Lawson; his face had a mild and passive expression, which was a true index of his yielding and easily-governed nature. His features were small, delicate, and almost effeminately handsome; and in every lineament a want of decision and force of character was visible.

"Henry, give me some shillings, I say—I am your father—I have a just right."

"Yes, yes, surely" said Henry, making a movement to open his purse.

"Henry, I do not wish you to give him money to waste in charity, as he calls it."

Mrs. Lawson gave her husband an emphatic, but, at the same time, cunningly caressing and smiling look.

"Henry, I am your father—give me the money I want."

"Augusta, my love, you know it was all his," said Henry, going close to her, and speaking in a kind of whisper.

"My dearest Henry, were it for any other purpose but for throwing away, I would not refuse. I am your father's best friend, and your best friend, in wishing to restrain all extravagance."

"My dear father, she wishes to be economical, you know."

He dangled the purse, undecidedly, in his fingers.

"Will you give me the money at once, and let me go?" cried John Lawson, elevating his voice.

"My dear Augusta, it is better—"

"Henry, do not, I beg of you."

"Henry, my son, will you let me have the money?"

"Indeed, Augusta—"

"Henry!"

Mrs. Lawson articulated but the one word; there was enough of energy and determination in it to make her husband close the purse he had almost opened.

"I ask you only this once more—give me the few shillings?"

John Lawson bent forward in an eager manner; a feverish red kindled on his sallow cheeks; his eyes were wildly dilated, and his lips compressed. There was a pause of some moments.

"You will not give it me?" he said, in a voice deep-toned and singularly calm, as contrasted with his convulsed face.

Henry dangled the purse again in his hand, and looked uneasily and irresolutely toward his wife.

"No, he will not give it—you will get no money to squander on poor people this day," Mrs. Lawson said, in a very sharp and decided voice.

John Lawson did not say another word; he turned away and slowly descended the stairs, and walked out of the house.

He did not return that evening. He had been seen on the road leading to the house of a relative who was in rather poor circumstances. Henry felt rather annoyed at his fathers absence; he had no depth in his affection, but he had been accustomed to see him and hear his voice every day, and therefore he missed him, but consoled himself with the thought that they would soon meet again, as it never entered his imagination that his father had quitted the house for a lengthened period. Mrs. Lawson felicitated herself on the event, and hoped that the old man would remain for some time with his relative.

The following day a letter was handed to Henry; it was from his father, and was as follows:

"TO MY SON HENRY—I have at last come to the resolution of quitting your house, which I can no longer call mine, in even the least degree. For weeks—for months—ever since you married—ever since your wife took upon herself what she calls the management of your house and purse, I have felt bound down under the weight of an oppressive bondage. I could not go and take a pound or a shilling from our common stock, as I used to do before you married, when you and I lived in one mind, and when I believed that the very spirit of your departed, your angel mother, dwelt in you, as you had, and have still, her very face and form. No, no, we had no common stock when you married. She put me on an allowance—ay, an allowance. You lived, and saw me receiving an allowance; you whom I loved with an idolatry which God has now punished; you to whom I freely gave up my business—my money-making business. I gave it you—I gave all to you—I would have given my very life and soul to you, because I thought that with your mother's own face you had her noble and generous nature. You were kind before you married; but that marriage has proved your weakness and want of natural affection. Yes, you stood at my side yesterday; you looked on my face—I, the father who loved you beyond all bounds of fatherly love—you stood and heard me beg for a few shillings; you heard me supplicate earnestly and humbly, and you would not give because your wife was not willing. Henry, I could force you to give me a share of the profits of your business; but keep it—keep it all. You would not voluntarily give me some shillings, and I shall not demand what right and justice would give me. Keep all, every farthing.

"It was for charity I asked the few shillings; you know it. You know from whom I imbibed whatever I possess of the blessed spirit of charity. I was as hard and unpitying as even your wife before your mother taught me to feel and relieve the demands of poverty. Yes, and she taught you; you cannot forget it. She taught you to give food to the starving, in your earliest days. She strove to impress your infant mind with the very soul of charity; and yesterday she looked down from the heaven of the holy departed, and saw you refusing me, your father, a few shillings to bestow on charity.

"Henry, I can live with you and your wife no more. I should grow avaricious in my old age, were I to remain with you. I should long for money to call my own. Those doled out shillings which I received wakened within me feelings of a dark nature—covetousness, and envy, and discontent—which must have shadowed the happiness of your mother in heaven to look down upon. I must go and seek out an independent living for myself, even yet, though I am fifty-two. Though my energies for struggling with the world died, I thought, when your mother died, and, leaving my active business to you, I retired to live in the country, I must go forth again, as if I were young, to seek for the means of existence, for I feel I was not made to be a beggar—a creature hanging on the bounty of others; no, no, the merciful God will give me strength yet to provide for myself, though I am old, and broken down in mind and body. Farewell; you who were once my beloved son, may God soften and amend your heart."

When Henry perused this letter, he would immediately have gone in search of his father, in order to induce him to return home; but Mrs. Lawson was at his side, and succeeded in persuading him to allow his father to act as he pleased, and remain away as long as he wished.

Ten years rolled over our world, sinking millions beneath the black waves of adverse fortune and fate, and raising the small number who, of the innumerable aspirants for earthly good, usually succeed. Henry Lawson was one of those whom time had lowered in fortune. His business speculations had, for a lengthened period, been rather unsuccessful, while Mrs. Lawson's expensive habits increased every day. At length affairs came to such a crisis, that retrenchment or failure was inevitable. Henry had enough of wisdom and spirit to insist on the first alternative, and Mrs. Lawson was compelled by the pressure of circumstances to yield in a certain degree; the country-house, therefore, was let, Mrs. Lawson assigning as a reason, that she had lost all relish for the country after the death of her dear children, both of whom had died, leaving the parents childless.

It was the morning of a close sultry day in July, and Mrs. Lawson was seated in her drawing-room. She was dressed carefully and expensively as of old, but she had been dunned and threatened at least half-a-dozen times for the price of the satin dress she wore. Her face was thin and pale, and there was a look of much care on her countenance; her eyes were restless and sunken, and discontent spoke in their glances as she looked on the chairs, sofas, and window-draperies, which had once been bright-colored, but were now much faded. She had just come to the resolution of having new covers and hangings, though their mercer's and upholsterer's bills were long unsettled, when a visitor was shown into the room. It was Mrs. Thompson, the wife of a very prosperous and wealthy shopkeeper.

Mrs. Lawson's thin lips wreathed themselves into bright smiles of welcome, whilst the foul demon took possession of her soul. Mrs. Thompson's dress was of the most costly French satin, whilst hers was merely British manufacture. They had been old school companions and rivals in their girlish days. During the first years of the married life of each, Mrs. Lawson had outshone Mrs. Thompson in every respect; but now the eclipsed star beamed brightly and scornfully beside the clouds which had rolled over her rival. Mrs. Thompson was, in face and figure, in dress and speech, the very impersonation of vulgar and ostentatious wealth.

"My goodness, it's so hot!" she said, loosening the fastening of her bonnet, the delicate French blond and white satin and plume, of which that fabric was composed, contrasting rather painfully at the same time with her flushed mahogany-colored complexion, and ungracefully-formed features. "Bless me, I'm so glad we'll get off to our country-house to-morrow. It's so very delightful, Mrs. Lawson, to have a country residence to go to. Goodness me, what a close room, and such a hot, dusty street. It does just look so queer to me after Fitzherbert-square."

To this Mrs. Lawson made a response as composed as she could; she would have retorted bitterly and violently, but her husband had a connection with the Thompson establishment, and for strong reasons she considered it prudent to refrain from quarreling with Mrs. Thompson. She therefore spoke but very little, and Mrs. Thompson was left at full liberty to give a lengthened detail of Mr. Thompson's great wealth and her own great profusion. She began first with herself, and furnished an exact detail of all the fine things she had purchased in the last month, down to the latest box of pins. Next, her babies occupied her for half an hour—the quantity of chicken they consumed, and the number of frocks they soiled per diem were minutely chronicled. Then her house came under consideration: she depicted the bright glory of the new ponceau furniture, as contrasted with shocking old faded things—and she glanced significantly toward Mrs. Lawson's sofas and chairs. Next she made a discursive detour to the culinary department, and gave a statement of the number of stones of lump sugar she was getting boiled in preserves, and of the days of the week in which they had puddings, and the days they had pies at dinner.

"But, Mrs. Lawson dear, have you seen old Mr. Lawson since he came home?" she said, when she was rising to depart: "but I suppose you haven't, for they say he won't have anything to do with his relations now—he won't come near you I have heard. They say he has brought such a lot of money with him from South America."

At this intelligence every feature of Mrs. Lawson's face brightened with powerful interest. She inquired where Mr. Lawson stopped, and was informed that he had arrived at the best hotel in town about three days previously, and that every one talked of the large fortune he had made abroad, as he seemed to make no secret of the fact.

A burning eagerness to obtain possession of that money entered Mrs. Lawson's soul, and she thought every second of time drawn out to the painful duration of a long hour, while Mrs. Thompson slowly moved her ample skirts of satin across the drawing-room, and took her departure. Mrs. Lawson dispatched a messenger immediately for her husband.

Henry Lawson came in, and listened with surprise to the intelligence of his father's return. He was taking up his hat to proceed to the hotel in quest of him, when a carriage drove to the door. Mrs. Lawson's heart palpitated with eagerness—if it should be her husband's father in his own carriage—how delightful!—that horrible Mrs. Thompson had not a carriage of her own yet, though she was always talking of it. They, Mrs. Lawson and her husband, had just been about setting up a carriage when business failed with them. She ran briskly down the stairs—for long years she had not flown with such alertness—rapid visions of gold, of splendor, and triumph seemed to bear her along, as if she had not been a being of earth.

She was not disappointed, for there, at the open door, stood John Lawson. He was enveloped in a cloak of fur, the costliness of which told Mrs. Lawson that it was the purchase of wealth; a servant in plain livery supported him, for he seemed a complete invalid.

Mrs. Lawson threw her arms around his neck, and embraced him with a warmth and eagerness which brought a cold and bitter smile over the white, thin lips of John Lawson. He replied briefly to the welcomings he had received. He threw aside his cloak, and exhibited the figure of an exceedingly emaciated and feeble old man, who had all the appearance of ninety years, though he was little more than sixty; his face was worn and fleshless to a painful degree; his hair was of the whitest shade of great age, but his eyes had grown much more serene in their expression than in his earlier days, notwithstanding a cast of suffering which his whole countenance exhibited. He was plainly, but most carefully and respectably dressed; a diamond ring of great value was on one of his fingers; the luster of the diamonds caught Mrs. Lawson's glance on her first inspection of his person, and her heart danced with rapture—Mrs. Thompson had no such ring, with all her boasting of all her finery.

"I have come to see my child before I die," said the old man, gazing on his son with earnest eyes; "you broke the ties of nature between us on your part, when, ten years ago, you refused your father a few shillings from your abundance, but—"

He was interrupted by Mrs. Lawson, who uttered many voluble protestations of her deep grief at her having, even though for the sake of economy, refused the money her dear father had solicited before he left them. She vowed that she had neither ate, nor slept, nor even dressed herself for weeks after his departure; and that, sleeping or waking, she was perpetually wishing she had given him the money, even though she had known that he was going to throw it into the fire, or lose it in any way. Her poor, dear father—oh, she wept so after she heard that he had left the country. To be sure, Henry could tell how, for two or three nights, her pillow was soaked with tears.

A cold, bitter smile again flitted across the old man's lips; he made no response to her words, but in the one look which his hollow eyes cast on her, he seemed to read the falsehood of her assertions.

"I was going to add," he said, "that though you forgot you were my son, and refused to act as my son, when you withheld the paltry sum for which I begged, yet I could not refrain from coming once more to look on my child's face—to look on the face of my departed wife in yours—for I know that a very brief period must finish my life now. I should not have come here, I feel—I know it is the weakness of my nature—I should have died amongst strangers, for the strangers of other countries, the people of a different hue and a different language, I have found kind and pitiful, compared with those of my own house."

"Oh, don't say so—don't say so—you are our own beloved father; ah, my heart clings to every feature of your poor, dear old face: there are the eyes and all that I used to talk to Henry so much about. Don't talk of strangers—I shall nurse you and attend to you night and day."

She made a movement, as if she would throw her arms around his neck again, but the old man drew back.

"Woman! your hypocritical words show me that your pitiless heart is still unchanged—that it has grown even worse. You forced me out to the world in my old age, when I should have had no thoughts except of God and the world to come; you forced me to think of money-making, when my hair was gray and my blood cold with years. Yes, I had to draw my thoughts from the future existence, and to waste them on the miserable toils of traffic, in order to make money: for it was better to do this than to drag out my life a pensioner on your bounty, receiving shillings and pence, which you gave me as if it had been your own heart's blood, though I only asked my own. Woman! the black slavery of my dependence on you was frightful; but now I can look you thanklessly in the face, for I have the means of living without you. I spent sick and sleepless days and nights, but I gained an independence; the merciful God blessed the efforts of the old man, who strove to gain his livelihood—yes, I am independent of you both. I came to see my son before I die—that is all I want."

Mrs. Lawson attempted a further justification of herself, but the words died on her lips. The stern looks of the old man silenced her.

After remaining for a short time, he rose to take his departure; but, at the earnest solicitations of his son, he consented to remain for a few days, only on condition that he should pay for his board and lodging. To this Mrs. Lawson made a feint of resistance, but agreed in the end, as the terms offered by the old man were very advantageous.

"I shall soon have a lodging for which no mortal is called on to pay—the great mother-earth," said the old man, "and I am glad, glad to escape from this money-governed world. Do not smile so blandly on me, both of you, and attend me with such false tenderness. There, take it away," he said, as Mrs. Lawson was placing her most comfortable footstool under his feet; "there was no attendance, no care, not a civil action or kind look for me when I was poor John Lawson, the silly, most silly old man, who had given up all to his son and his son's wife, for the love of them, and expected, like a fool as he was, to live with them on terms of perfect equality, and to have the family purse open to him for any trifling sums he wished to take. Go, go for God's sake; try and look bitterly on me now, as you did when you forced me out of your house. I detest your obsequious attentions—I was as worthy of them ten years ago, before I dragged down my old age to the debasing efforts of money-making. You know I am rich; you would worship my money in me now. Not a smiling look, not a soft word you bestow on me, but is for my riches, not for me. Ay, you think you have my wealth in your grasp already; you know I cannot live long. Thank God that my life is almost ended, and I hope my death will be a benefit to you, in softening your hard hearts."

Mrs. Lawson drew some hope from his last words, and she turned away her head to hide the joy which shone on her face.