Chapter VIII: "a Woman of a Thousand."

About this time Tatham, the Squire's body-servant, fell ill, and at his own request was allowed to leave Stanbrook for awhile and go to stay with his married sister, who lived in the next county. Hitherto he and Miss Baynard had shared the duties of the sick-room between them, and as the Squire, instead of gathering strength, seemed to be slowly losing what little was left him, it was evident that some one must be found to fill Tatham's place during his unavoidable absence.

Now in the village--a populous and thriving one--the outlying houses of which lay within a bowshot of the park gates of Stanbrook, there dwelt at this time a certain Mrs. Dinkel, herself English, but the widow of a Dutchman who had formerly been head gardener at Heronscourt, the seat of Sir Willoughby Freke. Mrs. Dinkel had been left with enough to keep her comfortably in humble village fashion, but being at the time of her husband's death scarcely beyond middle age, and of an active disposition, she presently began to cast about for some way not merely of adding to her limited income, but of banishing from her life the idleness which her soul abhorred.

Being determined to find work, she took the first chance that came in her way, which was to nurse a young lady laid up with a virulent fever. And thus it fell out that within a couple of years of that time Mrs. Dinkel's name had become well known throughout a wide circle of provincial society as that of a woman with a born gift for nursing. Like many others of both sexes, she had not discovered her _métier_ till late in life, but having once found it, she stuck to it. Still, her services were not at the beck and call of anybody, nor were they to be bought merely by the offer of a certain number of guineas. She would only go out to nurse among gentlefolk, or, as she termed them, "the quality," and whenever none of the quality stood in need of her services she preferred to stay at home with folded hands, doing nothing, till they should send for her.

When a message from Stanbrook one day reached her, she responded to it with alacrity.

To the Squire it seemed very inconsiderate on Tatham's part that he should choose to fall ill at such a time, but as he supposed there was no help for it, it mattered not a jot to him, he said, whom they supplied him with by way of temporary substitute. So, at the express instance of Dr. Banks, Mrs. Dinkel was sent for.

She was a woman of few words and strong nerve, who seemed never to require more than two hours' sleep out of the twenty-four. All her thoughts and attention were given to her patient; she moved about the sick room almost as silently as a shadow, and before long the Squire found her presence far more soothing, and her ministrations far more gentle, than those of Tatham had been. Nell took to Mrs. Dinkel from the first. They seemed to understand each other instinctively. The sick man was the bond between them. Each in her separate way had for the time being vowed herself to his service.

A few days later, and Mr. Cortelyon had finally made up his mind, bitter as the need for doing so was to him. But it was indeed high time that he should come to some conclusion, for the sands of life were now beginning to run very low indeed, and he knew it. What but a little while before had been a suggestion--not emanating from any outside source, but his own suggestion to himself--had now become a determination. To Mrs. Bullivant in the first place, and to her son after her, he would bequeath three-fourths of everything he was worth.

He was quite aware that, in the ordinary course of things--his grandson being out of the running--his niece's claim upon him ought to have had priority of that of everybody else. And he told himself that it should have had if only Nell had been a clear-headed, sensible, businesslike woman of the type of Onoria Bullivant. Unfortunately, she was nothing of the kind. Instead, her head was crammed full of high-flown, sentimental, and quixotic notions (he prided himself on having read her thoroughly), and he felt morally sure that if he were to leave her any large lump sum, say fifteen or twenty thousand pounds, by way of legacy, she would be quite capable, when she found that Master Evan had been left out in the cold, of making over a big slice, perhaps even the whole of it, for the benefit of the brat. Such a result as that must on no account be allowed to come to pass. What he would do was, to invest a certain number of thousands in her name in the Funds, just enough to bring in about three hundred a year, and allow her the interest to live upon. With such an income she could not do much harm, or what the Squire designated to himself as harm. Should she be fool enough to take the boy to live with her, and assume the responsibility of his future, why, she was welcome to do so. But owner of Stanbrook and Barrowmead, and of his latest purchase, that big property on the Yorkshire border, his grandson never should be.

Thus it one day came to pass that Mrs. Bullivant received a note written by Andry Luce, asking her, if convenient, to drive over next day to Stanbrook in time for luncheon, and take her son with her. The widow was a shrewd woman, and it seemed to her that such a note was capable of but one interpretation, and as she drove through the country lanes next day on her way to the Hall her heart beat high with hopes, which, however wanting in substance they might be, were none the less _couleur de rose_.

In point of fact, before causing his testamentary dispositions to be recorded in black and white the Squire was desirous of taking stock of the youngster whom he was proposing to constitute his heir. If he should prove to be a weak, puling child, or betray any signs of delicacy of constitution, why, in that case that there would be good reason for reconsidering his decision.

As it turned out, the Squire had no cause for uneasiness on that score. Young Gavin Bullivant, who had just entered on his fifth year, looked as strong and sturdy as an oak sapling. He was a bright-eyed, apple-cheeked lad, both inquisitive and acquisitive by natural disposition, and not knowing what shyness meant. He was very like his mother, but more in expression than features, and at times one caught a far-off hint of something in his face, at once hard and cunning, which seemed curiously out of keeping with his years. It was as though a very old man--and not a good old man either--was peering at you from behind a beautiful mask of childhood.

"Not much likeness here to the late lamented--hey?" queried the Squire after a good stare at him, which the boy returned with interest.

Mr. Cortleyon had only met the Hon. Hector on one occasion, at a sale of some of Lord Cossington's stock, and had felt no desire to cultivate his acquaintance.

"It may seem like self-flattery to say so," replied Mrs. Bullivant with a complacent smile, "but both in looks and disposition dear Gavin takes wholly after me. Even his grandfather cannot help admitting as much."

Then the Squire proceeded to put several questions to the lad, which he answered with promptitude and aplomb. He betrayed no timidity in the presence of the sick man, although to many a child of his age the latter would have seemed a sufficiently formidable object, with his parchment-like skin, his hollow cheeks, his heavy, grizzled eyebrows, which seemed bent in a perpetual frown, and the strange half-fierce, half-pathetic eyes beneath them, in which the flame of life seemed to burn all the more strongly just now because it was so soon to be extinguished forever.

After that Gavin was planted in the big easy-chair, with a supply of sweet cakes to keep him quiet while his mother and the Squire talked together in confidential fashion.

But it was not in Gavin to keep quiet for any length of time, and hardly had the last cake gone the way of the rest before he had slid from his perch to the ground, bent on a more minute inspection of the room and its contents than he had yet been able to give them. So, while the two elder people talked together in low tones, he went about his self-imposed task, examining this object and the other, opening every drawer that was unlocked in the big escritoire and making a study of its contents, and in all respects making himself thoroughly at home.

At the end of three-quarters of an hour Mrs. Bullivant rose to take her leave, for the Squire was showing signs of fatigue. There was upon her a sense of disappointment, for nothing of a confidential nature had fallen from the sick man's lips, and she was still at a loss to imagine not merely why she had been sent for, but why she had been asked to bring Gavin with her. Sick people are subject to strange whims, but surely there was something more than a whim at the back of Mr. Cortelyon's request to see her son!

The Squire's keen eyes seemed to be reading her thoughts. "Onoria," he said--and he was holding her hand as he spoke--"Onoria, I am about to make my will, a new one, for I destroyed the old one some years ago and I have sent for you to-day in order to tell you that it is my intention to bequeath you the sum of three thousand pounds. Nor will the boy be forgotten, as you will find when my testament comes to be read. No thanks, please--they would only worry me, and--and I can't afford to be worried nowadays."

Mrs. Bullivant raised the hand that was holding hers to her lips and kissed it. "Dear Mr. Cortelyon," she said, and for once her voice had, or seemed to have, a tremor in it, "although you forbid me to thank you for your act of noble generosity to me and my son, you cannot, at any rate, hinder me from remembering you in my prayers."

A cynical smile lighted up the Squire's haggard face. Perhaps the picture of Mrs. Bullivant on her knees, returning thanks for a thumping legacy--for that was the form her remembrance of him would take, if it took any--struck him as being a trifle incongruous.

Next moment an exclamation escaped him. He had suddenly missed his big gold watch, with its pendant of seals and trinkets, which he was in the habit of keeping within reach on the little table by his bedside. That it had been there only a few minutes before he was fully convinced. Whither, then, had it vanished?

Mrs. Bullivant at once began a search for the missing article, but at the end of two or three minutes she gave it up as a bad job. Then her eyes fell on Gavin, who had gone back to his perch on the easy-chair, and had been watching her movements with much apparent interest. She knew from previous experience that when he looked the most cherubic he was usually most in fault. It seemed to her that he appeared too unconscious to be wholly innocent. "Come here," she said, beckoning him with her finger. He obeyed without hesitation.

He had only lately been breeched, and very proud he was at having been emancipated from petticoats. Pockets had not been omitted from his jean trousers--cut short in the leg, as was the fashion, so as to leave displayed an amplitude of white stocking--and from one of them his mother now produced the Squire's watch and appendages. He flushed a little and threw a timorous glance at the sick man, but, on the whole, his mother was the more put about of the two.

"I cannot imagine what made him do such a thing," she said, with tears of vexation in her eyes. "But you may rest assured, dear Mr. Cortelyon, that I will not fail to chastise him most severely when we reach home."

But the Squire was sniggering. "I trust, Onoria, you will do no such thing," he said. "It was merely the trick of a child too young to know the difference between _meum_ and _tuum_. The best course will be to overlook it as if it were a matter of no consequence and so leave him to forget it. Indeed, I am rather glad than otherwise to have had such a proof of the young rascal's acquisitive faculty. It goes, I think, to prove that he will not grow up a prodigal like his father."

When his visitors had left him the Squire lay for some time deep in thought. At length he said, speaking aloud, for he had just taken his cordial and was alone: "The more I see of her, the more confirmed I am in my decision. Her views in all that relates to the great question of property are almost the counterpart of my own. She is a woman of a thousand. What an admirable daughter-in-law she would have made! If only that poor headstrong lad of mine had---- But why go back to that business even in thought? The past is dead and buried; we have now to deal with the present and to arrange for the future. I would give something to be able to see Onoria's face while she is hearing the will read. I told her about the legacy of three thousand pounds, but I said nothing about a life-interest in my landed estate. I have left that by way of a surprise, and what a joyful surprise it will be to her! Well, well, to-morrow I will send for Piljoy."

It was in the course of the afternoon of the second day after Mrs. Bullivant's last visit that Mr. Piljoy arrived at Stanbrook. He was genuinely shocked at the condition in which he found the Squire, whose confidential business agent he had been for more than a quarter of a century. The sick man's lamp of life had indeed flickered down to a very feeble flame. Evidently no time must be lost in having the all-important document drawn up and then signed and witnessed in due form.

So for a full hour or more the two men, lawyer and client, were closeted together in the latter's bedroom. The will itself, engrossed and ready for signature, was to be brought by Mr. Piljoy three days later.

The lawyer was to dine and stay the night at Stanbrook, as he had done many times before; and in order that he should not lack company, his old acquaintance Mr. Herries, the vicar, had been asked to meet him.

Miss Baynard and Mrs. Budd honored the two gentlemen with their company at dinner, but left them to their own devices as soon as the meal was over. Then the lawyer and the vicar--the latter of whom was a jovial, fox-hunting parson of what we are accustomed to term "the old school!"--drew their chairs closer, in anticipation of a pleasant evening over their long pipes and a steaming bowl of punch, and in all likelihood they were not disappointed.

At ten o'clock the vicar's man came with a lantern to light his master home. By this time Mr. Piljoy was not quite so steady on his feet as he customarily was, and when Andry Luce brought him his bed-candle and proffered his arm to help him upstairs, he accepted it without demur, for he had sense enough to know that at his time of life it would not do to risk a fall. But, indeed, Andry had helped him in similar fashion on more than one occasion before.

Nor did the thoughtful Andry leave him till he had helped him off with his coat, waistcoat, cravat, gaiters, and shoes. He also wound up his watch, and placed it, together with his purse and bunch of keys, on the dressing-table. One of the abominations of those days, known as a rushlight, was left to burn itself away.

An hour later, Andry, minus his shoes, stole into the bedroom, having, earlier in the evening, taken the precaution to abstract the key of the door. The lawyer's measured, long-drawn breathing convinced him that he had nothing to fear. Inside the small valise Mr. Piljoy had brought with him he found the paper of instructions for the drawing-up of the Squire's will. To make himself master of its contents was the object of his nocturnal intrusion. Five minutes by the dim aid of the rushlight sufficed for his purpose. Then he put the paper back and went his way as silently as he had come.

Mr. Piljoy left Stanbrook immediately after breakfast, and without seeing the Squire again, travelling, as he always did on such occasions, by post-chaise.