Читать книгу Gladys, the Reaper - Anne Beale - Страница 10

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Whilst Mr. Gwynne is reading his sermon, and Mrs. Prothero is nursing the mendicant Gladys, an event is passing in the neighbouring country-town, involving matters of interest to her, and those belonging to her. In a small bedroom over a little huckster's shop, an old man lies dangerously ill. By his side is seated a middle-aged woman watching. In a dark corner, behind the bed, stands a man, who is so deep in shadow that you scarcely know whether he is young or old.

The room is small and shabby, and contains apparently few comforts for one nearly approaching his last hour.

There is a tap at the door, upon which the man behind the bed goes out, and returns, almost immediately, followed by Rowland Prothero. He goes towards the bed, and stooping down, whispers to the sick man.

'Father, you wished to see Rowland—he is here.'

Rowland advances, and takes the seat vacated for him by the woman.

The three inmates of the room are Mr. and Mrs. Griffith Jenkins, and their only son, Howel. They are cousins of the Protheros, Mrs. Jenkins being Mr. Prothero's first cousin, and the members of the younger generation being consequently second cousins.

Griffith Jenkins motions to his wife and son to leave the room, which they do immediately. Rowland kneels beside his bed, the better to hear what he has to say. He appears, however to revive, and is distinct enough in his enunciation of the following words, though very slow.

'My son Howel is come back, Mr. Rowland, and do promise to be study.'

'I am very glad to hear it; it must be a great comfort to you,'

'But I am not seure of him. He will be spending my money that I have been takking such pains to make.'

'I hope he may do good with it, Uncle Griff.'

'Good! no such thing. Squander, squander! Spend the beauty gold! Will you promise me to see to it? tak' care of it?'

'I, Uncle Griff! I have no power with Howel. Would it not be better to pray to God to guide Howel, and trust in a higher power than mine?'

Mr. Jenkins put a long, thin, bony hand out of bed, and grasped Rowland's hand tightly. He fixed two keen black eyes upon him, and, as he half raised himself in bed, displayed a withered face, the most remarkable feature of which was a very prominent, hooked nose, like the beak of a large bird.

'You wasn't thinking I was going to die, was you, Rowland? I 'ont just awhile, see you. But tell you your father there's more gold than he is thinking of; and Howel'll be a husband for any one, much less for Miss Netta. Promise me to be lending him a hand, if he do keep constant to your sister.'

'I am sorry, Uncle Griff, that I cannot promise anything for Howel. If he grows steady as you say, there can be no objection; but he must prove it first. Would you like me to read to you, and pray to Almighty God, for Christ's sake, to change his and all our hearts?'

'I didn't be wanting a parson, but a relation, sir; and I don't be going to die yet. Look you here. There's money in the bank—there's more in mortgages on Davies, Llansadwn, and Rees, Llanarthney—there's more on loan to Griffiths, Pontardewé—Jones, Glantewey—Pugh the draper, Llansant—and others. And there's a box beside. Mind you, I 'ont die yet, but I tell you, because I can trust you; and Howel don't know nothing.'

'May I write it down for you, Uncle Griff; or would you have a lawyer?'

'No, no. I've had enough of law in paying for Howel, and nothing come of it. But you may be writing down a little. Here, in that chest, there's pen, ink and paper; tak' you my keys, and open you it.'

Griffith Jenkins took from under his pillow a bunch of keys, and fumbling amongst them, gave one to Rowland, with which he opened the chest, and procured the necessary writing apparatus.

'Give you me my keys—quick, quick!' cried the old man, again hiding them somewhere in his bed.'

At his dictation, Rowland wrote a list of the different moneys he possessed in various places, and was utterly astonished to find that he had soon written down between sixty and seventy thousand pounds. Everybody knew that Griffith Jenkins was rich, but nobody had guessed how rich he was.

'Now say, "I give and bequeath to my wife, 'Lizbeth Jenkins, ten thousand pound out of the aforesaid mortgage on Jacob Davies Llansadwn's property."'

'Is that all, Uncle Griff?'

'Yes, I sha'n't say no more.'

'And the box of gold?'

Again the miser grasped Rowland's hand, and fixed his keen eyes on his face.

'I 'ont be dying yet, and I 'ont be putting that down to-night. Tell you your father what there is, without the box, and without more mortgages and loans; but don't you be talking to anybody about it. Mind you, not to Howel nor to 'Lizbeth: promise me.'

Rowland promised.

The miser fell back exhausted.

'And now Uncle Griff, may I pray for you? Only think how soon you may be called to your account, to say exactly how you have employed your time, and the talents given—'

'I have done plenty—plenty—all out at interest, at five, six, even ten per cent.; none wrapped up in a napkin. I don't be calling a box a napkin, Rowland Prothero.'

'May I call in Mrs. Jenkins and Howel, and pray for you? Think; oh think, of the great Judge, and great Mediator. O God, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!'

As Rowland said this, he clasped his hands, and looked upwards, in unutterable supplication. The old man was alarmed.

'I don't be going to die, but you may call 'em in.'

Rowland rose and obeyed. Mrs. Jenkins appeared with a candle in her hand. The old man rose with an effort as she drew near the bed.

'Put—out—the—candle,' he muttered.

As the night was fast drawing in, Mrs. Jenkins hesitated.

'Put—out—the—candle,' repeated the dying man, with a still stronger effort to rise and extinguish it himself. 'The ruling passion strong in death' must be attended to, and the light was extinguished.

Rowland Prothero clasped his hands with a groan, and repeated aloud a prayer from the service for the dying. The terrified wife knelt down by the bed in the deep gloom, and in the still deeper gloom behind, the son buried his face in his arms, and leaned upon the little table.

Whilst Rowland Prothero was praying from the very depth of his heart for the soul that was thus awfully passing to its account, they were all aroused by the last fearful struggle between death and life of him who had made gold his god. For some time they feared to rekindle the light, but at last they ventured. It was but to witness the last dread pangs of one who had made wife and son secondary to the great absorbing passion of avarice; and now he was constrained to depart from the scene of his toil, and to leave all that he had grovelled for behind him, for ever!

We will not dwell upon the awful hours that succeeded his final words. He neither spoke nor was conscious again. Light and dark were alike to him. Save that he grasped something in his right hand with an iron hold, reason and power had left him; death was still fighting with life, and gradually gaining the last great victory.

A few hours afterwards, and when that victory had been gained, the scene was changed in that small house. The chamber of death was deserted, and the wretched clay of the miser, decently covered with a white sheet, lay heavy and still, where the spirit that formerly animated it had been accustomed to brood over the miserable gains of its clays and years on earth.

In the small sitting-room below, behind the little shop where these gains had been begun and continued for half-a-century or more, sat the widow, surrounded by a score of gossips, who had left their beds and homes at daybreak to condole with her.

It would have been much more unnatural than natural if Mrs. Jenkins had grieved at heart for the husband she had lost. Married, or rather sold to him, when he was fifty and she thirty, she had lived five or six and twenty years of pure misery with him. She had starved with him, when she could not pilfer from him, and had endured patiently all these years what seemed past endurance in expectation of the closing scene. She had married and lived upon the prospect of his death, and it was come at last; and now that it was come, the awfulness of that last struggle overpowered her, and she wept and lamented as copiously as if her husband had been the kindest and most liberal in the world. Still, she was free, with competence, she hoped, in perspective? and this thought, together with the ever all-pervading one of her idol, her treasure, her only son, and his expectations, more than counterbalanced that of the death she had witnessed.

'Come you, don't you be takking on so,' said one old woman soothingly, as the widow rocked herself to and fro, and held her handkerchief to her eyes.

'Tak' you this drop o' tea,' said another, 'it'll be doing you good,'

'The Lord will be having mercy on his soul,' said a third, whose conscience was large when she was offering comfort.

'There now, keep up your spirits, Mrs. Jinkins, fach,' said a fourth, entering with a comfortable glass of gin and water that did seem of an exhilarating nature.

'There's a comfort Howel will be to you now!' said a fifth triumphantly.

'Deed to goodness, Griffey Jinkins was a saving man, and you have lost him, Mrs. Jinkins, fach,' began the friend with the gin and water; 'but I am seeing no use in takking on so. When John Jones died, he was leaving me with ten children, and they have all come on somehow. And you have only wan son, and he is so ginteel! Drink you this, my dear, and don't be down-hearted.'

Mrs. Jenkins turned from the tea to the gin and water with no apparent reluctance, and swallowed a portion of it. Revived by the beverage, she responded to the condolences of her friends by more rockings, sobs, and applications of the handkerchief and finally unburdened herself of her grief in the following manner.

'My son Howel, oh yes, he'll be a blessing to me, I know. Says I to my poor Griffey—oh, dear, only to be thinking of him now!—says I, "Let us be giving Howel a good eddication, and he so clever as never was, and able to be learning everything he do put his mind to, and never daunted at nothing—grammar, nor music, nor Latin, nor no heathen languages, and able to read so soon as he could speak, and knowing all the beasts in the ark one from another, when he was no bigger than that," says I, to my poor Griffey; "oh, annwyl! we have only wan child, let him be a clargy, or a 'torney, or a doctor, or something smart," and says he, "I can't afford it." He was rather near or so, you know, was my poor Griffey; but I never was letting him rest day or night, and the only thing he wasn't liking was being much talked over. So says I, "Come you, Jinkins, bach,"—he liked to be called by his sirname—"if you do larn Howel well, he'll be making his fortune some day," for he do say so, he do be always saying, "I'll be a great man, and get as much money as father." I eused to put in the last words of myself, for Howel never was taking to making money, but 'ould as soon give it away as not. Only poor Griffey—oh dear! oh dear!—was never knowing that, because I did be hiding it from him as much as I could.'

Whilst the widow talks on in this strain to her sympathising friends, her son and Rowland Prothero are in another small room of the house, engaged in a very different style of conversation. The room in which they are is worth a few words of description, not for any beauty or desert of its own, but for its heterogeneous, contents. You would think a small music warehouse, a miniature tobacco shop, or branch depot of foreign grammars and dictionaries were before you. Every kind of musical instrument seems to have met with a companion in this tiny apartment. Here are a violin, violoncello, horn, and cornopean; there an old Welsh harp and unstrung guitar. On this shelf are pipes of all sorts and sizes, forms, and nations—the straight English, the short German, and the long Turkish; on that are cigar-boxes, snuff-boxes, and tobacco-boxes of various kinds and appearances. Scattered about the room are play-books without number, from Shakspeare to the dramatists of the present day; and, interspersed with these, collections of songs of all countries and of all grades of merit. Some few novels, mostly French, live with the plays and songs; and Latin, French, German, Italian, Welsh, Spanish, and English grammars and dictionaries take up their abode in every available corner. A quantity of fishing tackle and a gun are thrown upon the window seat, and an embroidered waistcoat, blue satin cravat, and a pair of yellow kid gloves lie on an unoccupied chair.

From the general appearance of this room, the imagination would conceive great things of its inmate. All we shall here say is that he is one who has the reputation of being a natural genius, and firmly believes that he is one.

As all natural geniuses are supposed to have something very remarkable in their appearance, we will just take a sketch of the miser's son, as he alternately leans on the table or stalks about the room during his earnest conversation with his cousin. He has decidedly sentimental hair; long, black, shining, and with a tendency to curl; he has what might be termed poetical eyes, bright, piercing, and very restless; the sharp, aquiline nose of his father, slightly modified; and a mouth and brow which curl and knit in a manner that may be poetic, but might be disagreeable, under less soothing influences. That he is very handsome no one could dispute, and it is equally certain that he has an air much above the position in which he was born; but the expression of his face inspires distrust rather than confidence, and conveys the impression that there is more of passion than feeling beneath the fiery eyes and compressed mouth.

A great contrast to this family genius is presented in the person of his cousin Rowland, now addressing him earnestly and seriously upon the grave subjects naturally uppermost at such a time. He, too, is sufficiently good-looking, with an open, though grave, cast of countenance, fine, soft, hazel eyes, and a tall, manly figure. By 'sufficiently good-looking,' I mean that he is neither very handsome nor ugly, and when his lady friends debate upon his outer man they generally wind up by saying, 'Well, if he isn't handsome, he is very genteel.'

We are not going to repeat here the well-known fable of the 'Hare and the Tortoise,' but something of the character of those animals may be found in the cousins. At their first dame's school, as well as at the more advanced grammar school of their little town. Howel was always able to beat Rowland in swiftness, whilst Rowland effectually distanced Howel in the long run. It was Rowland who carried off the prizes, when study and prolonged endeavour were necessary to obtain them, whilst Howel eclipsed all his contemporaries, if a theme were to be written, or a poem learnt.

Such differences are so frequent, and have been so often discussed that it is scarcely necessary to pursue the contrast further; but the result at the present stands thus. Howel, the elder of the two, has dipped a little into everything; has gained a reputation for genius; has been articled to an attorney—but is in no apparent danger of becoming one—has written various articles for the county papers, and has had the pleasure of seeing them printed; has acquired a smattering of several languages, and various styles of music; and has proved himself an admired beau amongst the ladies, and a favourite boon companion amongst the gentlemen. He has been idolised and spoilt by his mother, and stinted and pinched by his father, and having no very great respect or admiration for the talents or conduct of either parent, has not tried much to please them, save when it suited him.

The result of all this, if not already apparent, will doubtless be seen hereafter, for, at four or five and twenty, conduct and principles begin to establish themselves.

Rowland Prothero is very much the reverse of all this. From a child he had a desire to enter the Church, which desire was fostered by his uncle and aunt into a resolution, when he grew old enough to resolve. As they very nearly adopted and educated him, his parents made no objection, and as they were ambitious to raise their family in worldly position, they spared no expense.

Rowland was reckoned dull, but plodding, at Rugby, whither his uncle sent him. However, his dulness and plodding were more successful than the brightness of many, since they managed to gain a scholarship at school, which helped him at Oxford. He was called proud and obstinate, and he was both. Pride and obstinacy were the characteristics of his family, but in him they fortunately tended to good: inasmuch as his pride generally led him to do well, and his obstinacy kept up his pride.

At present, it would be difficult to say whether he is a young man likely to shine in the path he has chosen, or to walk quietly along it unnoticed. His friends do not anticipate anything remarkable, but they expect him to be slow and sure. He did very well at college, but gained no greater honours than the respect and goodwill of those he was known to. Query—Is not that worth as much, morally, as a first class?

At home, he is understood by few. He has not many associates, because, either from his own fault, or some mental peculiarity, he cannot fall in with those who are immediately about him; and consequently is rather feared by his acquaintances and reckoned proud, stiff, and conceited—above his birth, in short.

With him, as with Howel and every one else, the course of years will show the man. 'Handsome is that handsome does.'

'The fact is, Rowland,' said Howel, as he suddenly stood still in one of his rapid walks across the room, 'you and I never could agree in anything, and never shall.'

'I hope we may yet agree in many things,' said Rowland gently. 'At present, all I wish you to do is to pay your debts, go to London, take out your stamps, and become an attorney.'

'I am the best judge of that, and shall be my own master now. At all events, I can make some people ashamed of themselves.'

'I only wish to advise you for your good, now that you are your own master. Your poor father begged me—'

'Oh, Rowland, I can't stand any more about my father. Everybody knows what he was, and, I suppose, nobody expects me to live in the same line. I am emancipated, thank heaven! and the world shall soon know it.'

'Still, he was your father.'

'No one knows that better than I do, I should imagine; but if you expect me to mourn as others do for a parent, you will be disappointed. He never showed me one token of love, or acted by me as a father from the day of my birth till his death.'

'At least he has left you and your mother handsomely provided for, and with his last words, hoped that you were now very steady.'

'He did! I wonder who dares to say that I am not steady? But how do you know how we are provided for?'

'He begged me to write down what he was worth. I will give it you at some future period, but not now.'

'Why not now?'

'Because I think it is scarcely yet a time to consider money matters. After the last duties are performed you shall have the paper. Part of his property is written down, but a box of gold and some other sums he did not name. After that last sad scene one can scarcely think of anything earthly. Oh, Howel! I wish you would consider the shortness and uncertainty of life, and what is its end.'

'So awful do I consider its end that I mean to enjoy it while it lasts. But don't go off with the impression that I was not shocked and frightened with what we have just seen. It is one thing to read and write about a death-bed and another to witness it. But I cannot weep or pray as some people can.'

'You might do both if you would only seek aright.'

'There, enough! I am past being preached to as a naughty boy, and can now look forward to some enjoyment without robbing my own father, or getting my mother to rob him, to procure it. But I shall never forget that last struggle? no, never.'

Here, with a face of horror, Howel began his restless walk again. Rowland sat in melancholy silence.

'Rowland,' suddenly broke in Howel, 'how is Netta?'

'Quite well, I thank you,' answered Rowland gravely.

'I have not seen her for a long time? will you remember me to her?'

'I cannot promise to do so.'

'Do you think me a fiend, sir, that my name cannot be mentioned to my cousin? I will manage to convey my own remembrances.'

'Howel, you know how it is? I do not mean to be unkind. If only you would give up your old life, enter your profession, and begin another—'

'That is as I choose. I shall be glad of the paper you wrote for my father, and then you and I, Rowland, are best apart.'

'Good-bye then, Howel? perhaps some day you may know that I wish you well. I will bring the paper at the funeral.'

'For heaven's sake stay, or send some one else! I cannot bear to be alone here? his ghost will haunt me.'

'Then let me read to you.'

Howel assented gloomily and threw himself on the bed in the corner of the room. Rowland took a small Testament from his pocket and resolutely read several chapters.

During the reading Howel fell asleep.