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Ralstons

<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> No one slept much during the early part of the night in the millionaire’s home. Katharine lay long awake, prevented from sleeping partly by the painful numbness in her bandaged arm, and partly by the ever recurring picture of the day’s doings which came back to her unceasingly in the stillness. Just as the picture was growing shadowy and dreamlike, some slight sound would break it and recall her to herself,—a distant foot-fall on the stairs, the opening and shutting of a door near her own, or even the occasional roll of a belated carriage in the street. There was a soft light in the sick man’s room. The white walls and hangings took up and distributed the whiteness, so that even the remotest corners were not dark. Robert Lauderdale lay in his bed, breathing softly, his eyes not quite closed, and his bony hands lying like knotty twigs upon the white Shetland wool that covered his body. For they were like wood or stone, yellowish in colour, rough in shape, and yet oddly polished by time, as some old men’s hands are. His snowy beard and hair, too, were almost sandy again, as they had been in youth, by contrast with the delicate linen and the snow-white, sheeny material that was everywhere. He was not sleeping with his eyes open, as dying persons sometimes sleep a whole day. Nor was his mind wandering. Doctor Routh could see that well enough, as he sat there hour after hour, watching his old friend. The doctor wished that he might really fall asleep, and let his weary old heart gather strength to live a little longer. But even Routh was giving up hope. The machine was running down, and the game was played out. There was not one chance in a hundred that Robert Lauderdale could live another twelve hours. From time to time the doctor gave him a little stimulant, but the failing heart reacted less and less. Between three and four o’clock in the morning, the old man turned his head slowly on the pillow, and his sunken eyes met Routh’s in a long look—the look which those who have watched by the dying know very well. “Routh,” said the hoarse voice, with solemn slowness, “I’m going to give up the ghost.” Still for a few seconds the deep, mysterious, wondering look continued in the hollow eyes. Then he turned his head slowly back to the original position. The words struck the doctor as singular. He did not remember that he had ever heard a patient use just that phrase, though so many persons when near the point of death give warning of their end in some such expression. “You’re not going yet,” the doctor answered, mechanically, and he held a glass to the old man’s lips. “I don’t want any false hope. I know it’s coming,” answered the dying man, speaking against the rim of the little tumbler. Routh stood up to his vast height, and then his nervous, emaciated frame bent like a birch sapling in a gale as he leaned over the bed, and listened to the fluttering beats of the heart that had almost done its work. “Shall I call anybody?” he asked. “Is there anything you want done?” “How long do you think it will be?” asked Robert Lauderdale, trying to speak more rapidly. “Half an hour, perhaps,” answered Routh. In their voices there was that indescribable tone with which the words of brave men are uttered in the face of death. No one who has ever heard it can forget it. “I’d like to say good-bye to Katharine.” He paused and drew breath heavily. “Will it hurt her?” he asked, presently. “No,” answered the doctor, seeing the look of anxiety which accompanied the question. A broken arm seemed a very slight matter to Routh, compared with the wish of his old friend. He did not hesitate, but touched the bell for Mrs. Deems, who appeared at the door. “He wishes to see Miss Lauderdale,” he whispered. “You must help her to wrap herself up, and bring her here.” Mrs. Deems nodded, and looked at the doctor with the grave glance of enquiry which means the one question, ‘Life or death?’ And Routh answered with the other glance, which means ‘Death.’ Mrs. Deems nodded again, and left the room. Routh returned to the bedside. “When she comes—leave us alone—please,” said the sick man. There was silence again for a few minutes. Again the lids were half closed, and the old eyes stared out beneath them into the soft whiteness, and perhaps beyond. But the beard moved a little from time to time, as though the lips were framing words, and Routh knew that the end was near. Then Katharine came, waxen pale, her raven hair coiled loosely upon her shapely head, her creamy throat collarless, her left arm and hand free, the rest of her wrapped and draped in soft, dark things. She, too, looked up into Routh’s face with the glance of the question, ‘Life or death?’ And again the answer was, ‘Death.’ But Mrs. Deems had told her. Her eyes said that she knew, and her face told that she felt. Robert Lauderdale’s great head turned again, slowly and painfully, towards her. She bent down to him, and the doctor left the room, taking the nurse with him. He did not quite close the door. He could almost hear, beforehand, the low cry the young girl would utter when the end came. Katharine bent down and laid her hand softly upon the old man’s brow. “Uncle dear—you’re not going,” she said. “You’ll get well, after all.” “I’m going to give up the ghost,” he said, as he had said to Doctor Routh. “No—no—” But she could not find anything to say, so she smoothed his forehead. She had never seen any one die, but she was not afraid. That is a matter of temperament, and neither man nor woman should be blamed who can not bear to feel a soul parting and see a body left behind. Katharine felt only that she would keep him if she could. She knelt down and took one of his hands, his left. It was cold and hard to touch, with little warmth in it, like that of a statue in a garden when the sun has gone down. “I want to say good-bye,” said the hoarse voice, just above a whisper. “Yes—I’m here,” answered Katharine, and there was silence again, while she gently caressed the cold hand. “Routh said half an hour.” The mysterious, dying eyes wandered a little, and then sought the white clock on the mantelpiece. “Can’t see—what time it is,” said the rough whisper. “Twenty minutes to four,” answered Katharine, glancing round quickly, and then looking again at his face. “Poor child—little girl—ought to be in bed.” The words came indistinctly, and the breathing grew more heavy. Then the beard moved with unspoken words, and Katharine watched, hearing nothing. She had been a little confused at first, but now she recollected that she should ask if there were anything she could do. She could not tell whence the recollection came. She had perhaps got it from a book read long ago. He might want something. He might die unsatisfied. She made anxious haste to ask the question. “Is there anything I can do? Any one else you want, uncle?” she enquired, speaking close to his ear. The breathing, almost stertorous now, ceased for an instant. He seemed to be trying to collect strength to say something. “Your father—tell him from me—bear no malice—” He could get no further. “Yes—yes—don’t think about it—don’t distress yourself,” said Katharine, quickly. “I’ll tell him.” Again the heavy breathing blew the stiff white hairs of his beard and moustache, as his chin, raised in the effort of speaking, fell suddenly to his breast again. The breath raised the coarse white and sandy hairs and blew them to right and left. The eyelids drooped. Katharine wondered whether old men always died like that. Then the thought that he was really dying put on its reality for the first time, and struck her suddenly in the heart, and the pain she felt struck back instantly into her helpless, bandaged arm. “Is it God?” asked the dying man, suddenly, in a louder voice and quite clearly. Again, in the effort, his chin rose and fell. There was something awful in the question, asked with the strength of the death struggle. Then came more words, indistinct and broken. “I shall be—a little boy again.” So much Katharine understood of what she heard. Her tears gathered. Some of them fell upon the yellow, branch-like hand. Then she bent close to his ear again. “There is God,” she said. “God will take you, dear—He is taking you now. Think of Him. You’re dying.” Her tears broke her voice, as raindrops break the sighing of the breeze in summer. She wept, though she would not, and her pale face was wet. And his heavy breath filled her ears till it seemed to roar like a furnace—the furnace of life burning itself out, where all was still and white. She said prayers that took meaning in her heart and lost it as they passed her lips, meeting the great doubt on the threshold of her soul. She did not know what she said. It was not much, nor eloquent. “I believe—God—” Then a great sigh blew the white hairs to right and left. The breathing grew more slow, longer, harder, a great breathing of sighs. Death had life by the throat. In awe, the girl looked into the ancient face, and the stream of tears trickled and ran dry. Once more the voice burst out, articulate but rattling. “Domine—quo—vadis?” The great head was raised, and the mysterious eyes were wide, gazing at her, waiting upon the answer, waiting to die. She remembered the answer. “Tendit ad astra.” He heard it, and died. Katharine had never seen death, but she knew him, as we all know him. Twice, thrice, the broad chest heaved under the soft, feathery woollen, and the after-breath of the storm quivered in the frost of his beard. But the girl knew he was dead. Then came her low, trembling cry, the echo of death’s voice from living heartstrings. It was not a great sorrow, though Katharine had been very fond of the old man and was very grateful to him, as well she might be. She was, perhaps, as closely attached to him as is possible in such a relationship between the very young and the very old. But although her tears flowed plentifully, it was not one of those deep-gripped wrenches that twist the heart and leave it shapeless and bruised for a time—or forever. Hearts, too, are less often broken by those who go than by those who stay with us. The young girl’s grief was sincere, and hurt her, but it was not profound. They led her away, and when the door of her own room closed behind her, the tears were already drying on her cheeks. Death brings confusion and leaves it in his path. Many hours passed before there was quiet in the great house, but Katharine slept, exhausted at last by all she had endured that day, beyond the possibility of being kept awake by mere bodily pain. Late in the morning her mother came to her bedside. Katharine had been awake a quarter of an hour, and had been hesitating as to whether she should ring or not. Her arm hurt her, and the hand that had been so white was purple against the tight white bandages. She longed to tear them off and have rest, if only for a moment. “Poor uncle Robert!” said Mrs. Lauderdale, seating herself, after kissing the young girl’s forehead. She was a little pale with natural excitement, and she was certainly not looking her best in a black frock which was far from new, but which had to do duty until she could have mourning made. Katharine said nothing in answer, but nodded her head on the pillow. She wondered whether her mother knew that she had broken her arm. But in this she did her an injustice. “Was your wrist much hurt?” asked Mrs. Lauderdale, almost immediately. Then she caught sight of the splints and bandages and the purple fingers, as Katharine lifted the coverlet a little. Instantly her face changed. “Heavens, child! What have you done to yourself?” she cried, springing to her feet and bending over to look. “Papa broke my arm,” answered Katharine, quietly. “Your father—broke your arm?” Mrs. Lauderdale spoke with the utmost astonishment, mingled with unbelief. “Why, yes. Didn’t you know? It was last night—that—all the confusion and trouble have killed poor uncle Robert. Didn’t papa tell you anything?” Katharine stared at her mother. “He came home and said he had hurt his mouth. I could not get him to say what had happened to him. To tell the truth, I was rather worried. It’s so unlike him to hurt himself, or have any accident. He said it was a ridiculous affair, and that he didn’t choose to be laughed at, and begged me to say nothing more about it. You know how he is. But he never mentioned you.” Katharine said nothing for a few moments. She wondered how wise it might turn to be to tell her mother all that had happened. But the instinct of child to mother overcame hesitation. Her mother had begun to take her part again, and the broken sympathy was being restored by bits and pieces, as it were. “There was a terrible scene yesterday afternoon—late,” said Katharine. “He came here, and Jack was with me in the library.” “Jack! Oh, Katharine! I wish you wouldn’t see him in this way—” “It’s no use wishing, mother,” answered the young girl. “I made up my mind long ago. Well, Jack was with me in the library, when Leek came in and said that papa was here. I saw him in the drawing-room, so that they shouldn’t meet. I forget all he said. The usual thing, about being disobedient and undutiful. He was awfully angry because I got out yesterday morning. So I just went over one or two of the things he had done to hurt me. By the bye—I ought to say, that just before he came Jack had been telling me that some one had been to Mr. Beman, and had said that Jack drank, and was dissipated, and was altogether rather a good-for-nothing. And Mr. Beman had seen Jack the next day, doing nothing, because he had nothing to do just then, and with his head in his hand. So Mr. Beman took it into his foolish old head that Jack had been drinking, and told him to go at the end of the month. Now I knew it must be papa who had spoken, so I accused him of it, and he admitted that it was true, and began abusing Jack like a pick-pocket, at the top of his lungs. Jack heard what he said, for the door was open, and I don’t blame him for coming in. They threatened each other, and got so angry, and I thought they’d kill each other, so, like a silly idiot as I was, I threw my arms round Jack’s neck as though I meant to protect him. Papa’s so much bigger, you know. Well, he—papa, I mean—lost his head and got me by the arm. He’s horribly strong. He got me by the right arm a little above the wrist, and threw me half across the room, and when I tried to help myself up—” “Do you mean to say that he threw you down?” cried Mrs. Lauderdale, really horrified. “Yes—of course! With all his might, half across the room, so that I rolled on the floor. Well, when I tried to get up, my arm was broken, and Jack was wrestling with papa. I couldn’t help screaming when I fell, and that roused the house, first the servants, and then uncle Robert, in those queer white velvet clothes he wears—don’t you know? Jack told what had happened, and uncle Robert was furious and ordered papa to leave the house—he swore awfully—I never saw him so angry. So papa went. But it was the rage, I suppose, and the exertion—they used up all the dear old man’s strength—” She stopped speaking suddenly as her thoughts went back to the dead man, and her expression changed. Her eyes filled very slowly with tears, that would not quite brim over, but dimmed her sight. When she turned her head again, she saw that her mother had hidden her face in her hands upon the edge of the bed. Katharine did not understand. A convulsive sob shook the shapely shoulders, and the golden hair trembled. “Mother dear—don’t cry so!” said Katharine, putting out her left hand and touching the fair head with a caress. “I know—you were very fond of him—of course—” Mrs. Lauderdale looked up suddenly with streaming eyes and a face drawn in pain. She shook her head slowly. “It’s not that, child—it’s not that! It’s the other—” “About me, dearest?” asked Katharine. “Don’t cry about me. I’m all right. It hurts a little now, but it will soon be over.” “No—child—you—you don’t understand!” answered Mrs. Lauderdale, with trembling lips. A passionate burst of weeping hindered her from saying more. Katharine tried to soothe her with voice and hand, but it was of no use. Then she just let her hand rest there, touching her mother’s cheek, and lay quite still, waiting till the storm should pass. It lasted long, for in the midst of her sorrow and indignation there was the acute consciousness of the part she herself had borne in all that had happened. “It’s my fault, it’s all my fault!” she sobbed, at last. “No, mother—why? I don’t understand! Try and tell me what you mean.” Little by little the sobs subsided and Mrs. Lauderdale dried her eyes. Katharine really did not at all understand what was taking place. She thought her mother must be hysterical. Dark women rarely understand the moods of fair ones. “You don’t know how dreadful it seems to me,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, as she grew calmer. “It seems—somehow—awful! There’s no other word. Your father treating you in such a way—and fighting with Jack! But it isn’t only that—it’s deeper. I’ve done very wrong myself. I’ve been very bad—much worse than you know—” “You, bad? Oh, mother! You’re losing your head! Don’t say such absurd things. You—well, you did go against Jack and me rather suddenly last winter, and I couldn’t quite forgive you at the time. But it’s going to be all right now.” Mrs. Lauderdale’s face grew pale again. For a few moments she said nothing, and once or twice she bit her lip. “I’m going to tell you what it was,” she said, with a sudden impulse—unwise, perhaps, but generous and even noble in its way. “I envied you, dear. That’s why I behaved as I did.” “Envied me? Envied—me?” Katharine repeated the words slowly and with a wondering emphasis. “Why? What for?” Mrs. Lauderdale stared at her a moment in surprise at not being understood immediately. “What for?” she repeated. “For your beauty—because you’re young. Don’t you know how beautiful you are?” Katharine stared in her turn, in genuine astonishment. The idea that her mother could envy her had never crossed her mind. “Yes—but—” she hesitated, and the rich young blood rose slowly under her white skin. “I know—at least—” she stammered, “people sometimes tell me I’m good-looking, of course. But—but the idea—of your envying—me! Why—it never occurred to me!” “It’s true,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, looking down and pulling at the lace on the pillow, with a regretful smile. “Oh, I don’t believe it!” cried Katharine, suddenly. “It’s impossible—you may have thought you did, once—” “No, it’s true,” answered Mrs. Lauderdale, and the smile faded and was lost in the contrite expression which came into her face. She had made her confession and wished to go to the end of it. She was trying to make a reparation, being a good woman, and she found it hard, especially as her daughter did not half understand what she meant. “I’m losing my beauty, Katharine,” she said, and every word of the acknowledgment cut her. “It’s going, day by day, little by little. You don’t know—it’s as though my life-blood were being drained—it’s worse—sometimes. I’d rather die than grow old and faded. You see, it’s all I had. I know now how much I’ve cared for it—now that it’s so hopeless to try and get it back. And one evening last winter—Crowdie was there—he kept looking at you while I was talking to him, and then I caught sight of my face in the little glass that hangs from the mantel-shelf. I shan’t forget how I looked. I knew then.” Her face grew suddenly weary and half-desperate now, as she told the little story of the hardest moment in her life. Katharine listened in wondering silence, knowing that she was learning one of the secrets of the human heart. Mrs. Lauderdale paused a moment, and shivered a little, perhaps with the last after-sob of her convulsive weeping. “Yes—I knew then,” she continued, in a low voice and still looking down. “I knew how much it had all meant. And I began to hate you. Don’t be horrified, child. I loved you just as much, but I hated you, too. How funny that sounds! But I can’t say it any other way. It wasn’t you I hated—at least it wasn’t the same you that I loved. It was your face, and your freshness, and your youth—and that walk of yours. I wanted you to be all covered up, so that no one could see you—then I should have loved you just as much and in just the same way as ever. Do you understand? I want you to understand. You must, or I shall never be a happy woman again. What I suffered! So I made you suffer, too. Do you know what I thought? You must know everything now. I thought that if I could separate you and Jack and make you marry some one else—since you couldn’t marry him—why, then you’d have been away somewhere else, and I could feel again that I was quite beautiful. Only for a month—one month! If I could only have that feeling of being perfectly beautiful again—just for one month.” She bowed her head again and hid her face in the pillow, for she was blushing with shame—the good red shame that honest blood brings from a sinful heart. The sight of the blush pained Katharine far more than the thought of what caused it. “Mother dear—” she stroked the golden hair—“it’s all over now. What does it matter? You don’t hate me now!” “Hate you! Ah, Katharine—I never hated you without loving you just as much. I never said those hateful things but what the loving ones fought them and came out when I was all alone. The moment you were gone, it was all different. The moment I didn’t have to look at you—and think of myself, and the little wrinkles. Oh, the vile, horrid little wrinkles—what they’ve cost me! And what they’ve made me do! And they’re growing deeper—to punish me—pity me, dear, if you can’t forgive me—” “Ah—don’t talk like that! I never guessed it, and now—why, I shall never think of it again. Unless I have a daughter some day—and then I daresay I shall feel just as you’ve felt. It seems so natural, somehow—now that you’ve explained it.” “Does it? Does it seem natural to you? Are you sure you understand?” Mrs. Lauderdale looked up anxiously. “Of course I understand!” answered Katharine, reassuring her. “You’ve always been the most beautiful woman everywhere, and just for a little while you thought you weren’t, because you were tired and not looking well. You remember how tired you used to be last winter, mother, when you were working so hard and then dancing every night, into the bargain. It was no wonder! But you are, you know—you’re quite the most beautiful creature I ever saw, and you always will be.” Yet Katharine in her heart, though she was comforting her mother and really helping her with every word she said, was by no means sure that she quite understood it all. At least, it was very strange to her, being altogether foreign to her own nature. With all his faults, her father had scarcely a trace of personal vanity, and she had inherited much of her character from him. The absence of avarice, as a mainspring which directed his life, and the presence of a certain delicacy of human feeling, together with a good share of her mother’s wit, were the chief causes of the wide difference between her and Alexander. It was hard for one so very proud and so little vain to understand how, in her mother, vanity could so easily have driven pride out. Yet she did her best to imagine herself in a like position, and was quite willing to believe that she might have acted in the same way. “Thank you, dear child,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, simply. “I don’t know why I’ve told you all this just this morning. I’ve been trying to for a long time. But I hadn’t the courage, I suppose. And now—somehow—we’re more alone in the world than we were, since the dear old uncle has gone—and we shall be more to each other. I feel it. I don’t know whether you do.” “Yes—I do.” And Katharine’s thoughts again went back to that strange death-scene in the night, in the white room with the soft, warm light. “We shall miss him more, by and by. He was a very live man. Do you know what I mean? Whatever one did, one always felt that he was there. It wasn’t because he was so rich—though, of course, we all have had the sensation of a great power behind us—a sort of overwhelming reserve against fate, don’t you know? But it really wasn’t that. He was such a man! Do you know? I can’t fancy that uncle Robert ever did a bad thing in his life. I don’t mean starchy, stodgy goodness. He swore at papa most tremendously yesterday—only yesterday—just think!” She paused a moment sadly. “No,” she continued, “I don’t mean that. He always seemed to go straight when every one else went crooked—straight to the end, as well as he could. Oh, mother—I saw him die, you know! I didn’t know death was like that!” “It must have been dreadful for you, poor child—” “Dreadful? No—it was strange—a sort of awe. He looked so grand, lying there amidst the white velvet! I see it now, but I didn’t think of it then—the picture comes back—” “Yes—I’ve seen him,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, softly. “His face is beautiful now.” “It wasn’t beautiful then—it was something else—I don’t know. I felt that the greatest thing in the world was happening—the great thing that happens to us all some day. I didn’t feel that he was dying exactly—nor that I should never hear him speak again after those last words.” “What did he say?” asked Mrs. Lauderdale. “No,” she added, contradicting herself quickly. “If it’s anything like a secret, I don’t want to know.” “It wasn’t. He looked at me very strangely, and then he said, quite loud, ‘Domine quo vadis?’ ” “Lord, whither goest Thou,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, translating the familiar words to herself. “Did you say anything?” “I answered, ‘Tendit ad astra.’ We had both said the same things once before, some time ago. He heard me, and then he died—that was all.” At this point some one knocked at the door. Mrs. Lauderdale rose and went to see who was there. Leek, the butler, clad in deep mourning already, stood outside. There was a puzzled look in his face. “If you please, Mrs. Lauderdale, I don’t know what to do, and I’d wish for your orders—” “Yes—what is it?” “There’s Mr. Crowdie downstairs, madam, wanting the picture of Miss Lauderdale that he brought yesterday for poor Mr. Lauderdale, and desirin’ to remove it. But the impression downstairs seems to be that Mr. Crowdie presented it to poor Mr. Lauderdale yesterday, in which case it appears to me, madam, to be part of poor Mr. Lauderdale’s belongings.” “Oh! Well—wait a minute, please. I’ll ask my daughter if she knows anything about it.” Mrs. Lauderdale re-entered the room. “I heard what he was saying,” said Katharine, before her mother could speak. “He distinctly said he gave the picture to uncle Robert. I was there when he brought it. Isn’t that just like them—coming to get what they can when he’s hardly dead!” “Yes—but what shall we do?” “I don’t care. He’ll give it to Hester, as he meant to do at first. Let him take it.” Mrs. Lauderdale went to the door again. “Let Mr. Crowdie have his picture, Leek. I’ll be responsible.” “Very good, madam.” <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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