Читать книгу The Mysteries of Heron Dyke (Vol. 1-3) - T. W. Speight - Страница 5

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The First Gentleman in Europe sat upon the throne of his fathers, and the Battle of Waterloo was a stupendous event that still dwelt freshly in men's memories, when one bright August evening, Gilbert Denison, gentleman, of Heron Dyke, Norfolk, lay dying in his lodgings in Bloomsbury Square, London.

He was a man of sixty, and, but a few days before he had been full of life, health, and energy. As he was riding into town from Enfield, where he had been visiting some friends, his horse slipped, fell, and rolled heavily over its rider. All had been done for Gilbert Denison that surgical skill could do, but to no avail. His hours were numbered, and none knew that sad fact better than the dying man. But in that strong, rugged, resolute face could not be read any dread of the approaching end. He was a Denison, and no Denison had ever been known to fear anything.

By the bedside sat his favourite nephew and heir, whose christian name was also Gilbert. He was a young man of three or four and twenty, with a face which, allowing for the difference in their years, was, both in character and features, singularly like that of his uncle. Gilbert the younger was not, and never had been, a handsome man; but his face was instinct with power: it expressed strength of will, and a sort of high, resolute defiance of Fortune in whatever guise she might present herself. This young man carried a riding-whip in his hand; on a table near lay a pair of buckskin gloves. He wore Hessian boots with tassels, and a bottle-green riding-coat much braided and befrogged. His vest was of striped nankin, and he carried two watches with a huge bunch of seals pendant from each of them; while over the velvet collar of his coat fell his long hair. His throat was swathed in voluminous folds of soft white muslin, tied in a huge bow, and fastened with a small brooch of brilliants. Our young gentleman evidently believed himself to be a diamond of the first water.

The August sun shone warmly into the room; through the half-open windows came the hum of traffic in the streets; a vagrant breeze, playing at hide-and-seek among the heavy hangings of the bed, brought with it a faint odour of mignonette from the boxes on the broad window-sills outside. A hand of the dying man sought a hand of his nephew, found it, and clasped it. The latter had been expressing his sorrow at finding his uncle in so sad a state, and his hopes that he would yet get over the results of his accident.

"There is no hope of that, boy," said Mr. Denison. "A few hours more, and all will be ended. But why should you be sorry? Is the heir ever really sorry when he sees the riches and power, which all his life he has been taught will one day be his, coming at last into his own grasp? Human nature's pretty much the same all the world over."

"But I am indeed heartily sorry; believe me or not, uncle, as you like."

"I will try to believe you, boy," said Mr. Denison with a faint smile, "and that, perhaps, will answer the same purpose."

There was silence for a little while, then the sick man resumed.

"Nephew, this is a sad, wild, reckless life that you have been leading in London these four years past."

"It is all that, uncle."

"Had I lived, what would the end of it have been?"

"Upon my word I don't know. Utter beggary I suppose."

"How much money are you possessed of?"

"I won a hundred guineas the other night at faro. I am not aware that I possess much beyond that."

"And your debts?"

The young man mused a moment.

"Really, I hardly know to a hundred or two. A thousand pounds would probably cover them, but I am not sure."

"A thousand pounds! And I have paid your debts twice over within the last four years!"

Gilbert the younger smiled.

"You see, uncle, the schedule I sent you each time was not a complete one. I did not care to let you know every liability."

"You did not expect me to assist you again?"

"Certainly not, sir, after the last letter you wrote to me. I knew that when you wrote in that strain you meant what you said. I should never have troubled you again."

"After your hundred guineas had gone--and they would last you but a very short time--what did you intend to do?"

"I had hardly thought seriously about it. Perhaps the fickle goddess might have smiled on me again. If not, I should have done something or other. Probably enlisted."

"Enlisted as a common soldier?"

"As a common soldier. I don't know that I'm good for much else."

"But all that is changed now. Or at least you suppose so."

"I suppose nothing of the kind, sir," said the young man, hotly.

"As the master of Heron Dyke, with an income of six thousand a year, you will be a very different personage from a needy young rake, haunting low gaming-tables, and trying to pick up a few guineas at faro from bigger simpletons than yourself."

Gilbert the younger sprang to his feet, his lips white and quivering with passion.

"Sir, you insult me," he said, "and with your permission I will retire."

And he took up his hat and gloves.

"Sit down, sir--sit down, I say," cried the elder man, sternly. "Don't imagine that I have done with you yet."

"I have never been a frequenter of low gaming-houses; I have never cheated at cards in my life," said the young man, proudly.

"You would not have been a Denison if you had cheated at cards. But again I tell you to sit down. I have much to say to you."

Gilbert the younger did as he was told, but with something of an ill grace. In his eyes there was a cold, hard look that had not been there before.

"Nephew, if you have not yet disgraced yourself--and I don't believe that you have--you are on the high-road to do so. Has it ever entered your head to think whither such mad doings as yours must inevitably land you?"

"I suppose that other men before me have sown their wild oats," said Gilbert, sulkily. "I have heard it said that you yourself, sir----"

"Never mind me. The question we have now to consider is that of your future. When you are master of Heron Dyke--if you ever do become its master--is it your intention to make ducks and drakes of the old property, as you have made ducks and drakes of the fortune left you by your father?"

"Really, sir, that is a question that has never entered into my thoughts."

"Then it is high time that it did enter them. I said just now 'If you ever do become the master of Heron Dyke.'"

"Is that intended as a threat, sir?" asked Gilbert, a little fiercely.

"Never mind what it is intended as, but listen to me. I presume you are quite aware that it is in my power to leave Heron Dyke to anyone whom I may choose to nominate as my heir--to the greatest stranger in England if I like to do so?"

"I am of course aware that the property is not entailed," said the other, stiffly.

"And never has been entailed," said Mr. Denison with emphasis. "It has come down from heir male to heir male, for six hundred years. Providence having blessed me with no children of my own, by the unwritten law of the family the property would descend in due sequence to you. But that unwritten law is one which I have full power to abrogate if I think well to do so. Such being the case, ask yourself this question, Gilbert Denison: 'Judging from my past life for the last four years, am I a fit and proper person to become the representative of one of the oldest families in Norfolk? And would my uncle, taking into account all that he knows of me, be really justified in putting me into that position?'"

The elder man paused, the younger one hung his head.

"I think, sir, that the best thing you can do will be to let me go headlong to ruin after my own fashion," was all that he said.

"You will be good enough to remember that I have another nephew," resumed the dying man. "There is another Gilbert Denison as well as yourself."

"Aye! I'm not likely to forget him," said the other, savagely.

"So! You have met, have you? Well, from all I have heard of my brother Henry's son, he is a clever, industrious, and well-conducted young man--one not given, as some people are, to wine-bibbing and all kinds of riotous living. Had you been killed in a brawl, which seems a by no means unlikely end for you to come to, he would have stood as the next heir to Heron Dyke."

Young Gilbert writhed uneasily in his chair; the frown on his face grew darker as he listened.

"And even as matters are," resumed his uncle, blandly, "even though you have not yet come to an untimely end, it is quite competent for me to pass you over and nominate your cousin as my heir."

"Oh, sir, this is intolerable!" cried the young man, starting to his feet for the second time. "To see you as you are, uncle, grieves me to the bottom of my heart--believe me or not. But I did not come here to be preached at. No man knows my faults and follies so well as I know them myself. Leave your property as you may think well to do so; but I hope and pray, sir, that you will never mention the subject to me again."

He turned to quit the room, and had reached the door, when he heard his uncle's voice call his name faintly. Looking back, he was startled to see the change which a few seconds had wrought in the dying man. His eyes were glassy, the pallor of his face had deepened to a deathlike whiteness. Gilbert was seriously frightened: he thought the end had come. There was some brandy in a decanter on the little table. It was the work of a moment to pour some into a glass. Then, with the aid of a teaspoon, he inserted a small portion of the spirit between the teeth of the unconscious man. This he did again and again, and in a little while he was gratified by seeing some signs of returning life. There was an Indian feather-fan on the chimney-piece. With this, having first flung the window wide open, he proceeded to fan his uncle's face. Presently Mr. Denison sighed deeply, and the light of consciousness flickered slowly back into his eyes. He stared at his nephew for a moment as though wondering whom he might be, smiled faintly, and pointed to a chair.

Gilbert took one of his uncle's clammy hands in his, chafed it gently for a little while, and then pressed it to his lips. "You are better now, sir," he said.

"Yes, I am better. 'Twas nothing but a little faintness. I shall not die before tomorrow night." He lay for a little while in silence, gazing up at the ceiling like one in deep thought. Then he said, "And now about the property, Berty."

The young man thrilled at the word. His uncle had not called him by that name since he was quite a lad. "Oh, sir, do not trouble yourself any more about the property," he cried. "Whatever you have done, you have no doubt done for the best."

"But I want to tell you what I have done, and why I have done it. To-morrow I may not have strength to do so." Young Gilbert moved uneasily in his chair. The sick man noticed it. "Impatient of control as ever," he said, with a smile. "Headstrong--wilful--obstinate; you are a true Denison. Measure me a dose out of that bottle on the chimney-piece. It will give me strength."

Gilbert did as he was bidden, and then resumed his seat by the bedside.

"It was not a likely thing, my boy, that I should leave the estate away from you," resumed Mr. Denison; and, despite all his self-control, a sudden light leapt into Gilbert's eyes as he heard the words. "Notwithstanding all your wild ways and outrageous carryings on, I have never ceased to love you. You have been to me as my own son; as your father was to me a true brother. As for Henry, although he is dead, there was no love lost between us. We quarrelled and parted in anger, as we should quarrel and part in anger again were he still alive. I do not want to think that a son of his will ever call Heron Dyke his home."

Young Gilbert's face darkened again at the mention of his cousin's name. As between the two brothers years ago there had been a feud that nothing had ever healed, so between the two cousins there had arisen a deadly enmity which nothing in this world (so young Gilbert vowed a thousand times to himself) should ever bridge over. They were good haters, those Denisons, and never more so than when they had quarrelled with one of their own kith and kin.

"No, the old roof-tree shall be yours, Gilbert, and all that pertains to it," continued Mr. Denison, "as you will find when my will comes to be read. You will find, too, a good balance to your credit at the bank, for I have not been an improvident man. At the same time I have had expenses and losses of which you know nothing. But--there is a 'but' to everything in this world, you know--you will find in my will a certain proviso which I doubt not you will think a strange one, most probably a hard one, and which I feel sure you will at first resent almost as if I had done you a personal injury. It has not been without much thought and deliberation that the proviso I speak of has been embodied in the will, but I fully believe that twenty years hence, should you live as long, you will bless my memory for having so introduced it."

Mr. Denison lay back for a moment or two to gather breath. His nephew spake no word, but sat with his eyes bent studiously on the floor.

"Gilbert, as a rule we Denisons are a long-lived race," resumed the dying man, "and but for this unhappy accident, I have a fancy that I should have worn for another score years at the least. If you have ever been at the trouble to read the inscriptions on the tombs of your ancestors in Nullington Church, you must have noticed how many of them lived to be seventy-five, eighty, and in some cases ninety years of age. Now, what prospect or likelihood is there of your living to be even seventy years old? Your constitution is impaired already. That dark, sunken look about the eyes, those fine-drawn lines around the mouth, what business have they there at your age? I tell you, Gilbert Denison, that if you do not change your mode of life at once and for ever, you will not live to see your thirtieth birthday. And what probability is there that you will change it? That is the question that I have asked myself, not once, but a thousand times. If this wild and reckless mode of life has such fascinations for you, that it has induced you to dissipate the fortune left you by your father, to apply to me more than once to extricate you from your difficulties, to involve you deeply with the money-lenders, and to bring you at length to contemplate I know not what as a mode of escape from your troubles, what sort of hold will it have over you when you come into the uncontrolled possession of six thousand a year? That is a problem which I, for my part, cannot answer."

Mr. Denison paused as though he expected a reply to his last question. There was silence for a little while, and then the nephew spoke in a low, constrained voice.

"I can only repeat, sir, what I said before: that you had better let me go headlong to ruin my own way."

"Not so. I have told you already that I have made you my heir. Heron Dyke, and all that pertains to it, will call you master in a few short hours. It----" but here he broke off for a moment to overcome some inward emotion. "I shall never see the old place again, and I had such schemes for the next dozen years! Well--well! we Denisons are not children that we should cry because our hopes are taken from us."

"Sir, is not this excitement too much for you?" asked the nephew.

But the other cleared his voice, and went on more firmly than before:

"Yes, Gilbert, the old roof-tree and the broad acres shall all be yours, and long may you live to enjoy them. That is now the dearest wish left me on earth."

"But the proviso, sir, of which you spoke just now?" said the young man, whose curiosity was all aflame.

"The proviso is this: That should you not live to be seventy years of age, the estate, and all pertaining to it, shall pass away from you and yours at your death, and go to your cousin, the son of my brother Henry; or to his heirs, should he not be alive at the time. But should you overpass your seventieth birthday, though it be but by twelve short hours, the estate will remain yours, to will away to whom you please, or to dispose of as you may think best."

Gilbert Denison stared into his uncle's face, with eyes which plainly said: "Are you crazy, or are you not?"

"No, Gilbert, I am not mad, however much, at this first moment, you may be inclined to think me so," said Mr. Denison with a faint smile, as he laid his fingers caressingly on the young man's arm. "I told you before, that I had not done this thing without due thought and deliberation. It is the only mode I can think of to save you from yourself, to tear you away from this terrible life of dissipation, and to make a man of you, such as I and your father, were he now alive, would like you to become. I have given you something to live for; I have put before you the strongest inducement I can think of to reform your ways. Once on a time you had a splendid constitution, and seventy is not a great age for a Denison to reach. In due time you will probably marry and have a son. That son may be left little better off than a pauper should his father not live to see his seventieth birthday. If I cannot induce you to take care of your health for your own sake, I will try to induce you to do so for the sake of those who will come after you. Heaven only knows whether my plan will succeed. Our poor purblind schemes are but feeble makeshifts at the best."

"In case I should fall in the hunting-field, sir, or----"

"Or come to such an untimely end as I have come to, eh? Should you meet with your death by accident, and not by your own hand, the special stipulation in the will which I have just explained to you will become invalid, and of no effect. You will find this and other points duly provided for. Nothing has been forgotten."

There ensued a silence. The sick man suddenly broke it.

"Perhaps some scheme may enter your head, Gilbert, of trying to upset the will after I am dead? But you will find that a difficult matter to do."

"Now, Heaven forbid, sir," cried the young man, vehemently, "that such a thought should find harbourage in my brain for a single moment! You think me worse than I am. You do not know me: you have never understood me."

"Do we ever really understand one another in this world? We are so far removed from Heaven, that the lights burn dimly, and we see each other but as shadows walking in the dusk."

At this moment there was a ring below stairs, then a knock at the chamber door, and in came the nurse. The doctor was waiting.

"You had better go now, my boy," said Mr. Denison, pressing Gilbert's hand affectionately. "At ten tomorrow I shall expect to see you again."

Gilbert Denison stood up and took the dying man's fingers within his strong grasp; he gazed with grave, resolute eyes into the dying man's face.

"One moment, sir. As I said before--you do not know me. You have seen one side of me--the weak side--and that is all. If you think that, when I make up my mind to do so, I cannot throw off the trammels of my present life, almost as easily as I cast aside an old coat, then, sir, you are quite and entirely mistaken. That I have been weak and foolish I fully admit, but it is just possible, sir, that, young as I am, I may have had trials and temptations of which you know nothing. How many men before me have striven to find in reckless dissipation a Lethe for their troubles? Not that I wish to excuse myself: far from it. I only wish you to understand and believe, uncle, that there is a side to my character of which as yet you know nothing."

"I am willing to believe it, Gilbert," was the answering murmur: and once more the young man pressed Mr. Denison's hand to his lips.

When Gilbert Denison called in Bloomsbury Square the following morning he found his uncle much weaker and more exhausted. Mr. Denison was evidently sinking fast. Gilbert stayed with him till the end. A little while before that end came, he drew his nephew down to him and spoke in a whisper:

"Never forget the motto of your family, my boy: 'What I have, I hold.'"

And before the sun rose again, Gilbert Denison the younger was master of Heron Dyke, with an income of six thousand a year.