Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

"The Ivers?" he stammered.

"The Ivers! What's it to the Ivers compared to what it is to him? It'll never come out. If it did--Oh, but it won't! It's life and death to him. And isn't it right? Isn't it justice? He's her son. This thing's just a horrible accident. Oh, if you'd heard him speak of Blent!" She paused a moment, rubbing her hand across her eyes. Then she threw herself back into her chair, asking again, "What are you going to do?"

He sat silent, thinking hard. It was not his business. Right and justice seemed, in some sense at least, on Harry's side. But the law is the law. And there were his friends the Ivers. In him there was no motive of self-interest such as had swayed Major Duplay and made his action seem rather ugly even to himself. Neeld owed loyalty and friendship; that was all. Was it loyal, was it friendly, to utter no word while friends were deceived? With what face would he greet Iver if the thing did come out afterward? He debated with entire sincerity the point that Major Duplay had invoked in defence of himself against his conscience. On the other side was the strong sympathy which that story in the Journal had created in him since first he read it, and realized its perverse little tragedy; and there was the thought of Lady Tristram dying down at Blent.

The long silence was broken by neither of them. Neeld was weighing his question; Mina had made her appeal and waited for an answer. The quiet of the book-lined room (There were the yellowy-brown volumes from which Mina had acquired her lore!) was broken by a new voice. They both started to hear it, and turned alert faces to the window whence it came. Harry Tristram, in flannels and a straw hat, stood looking in.

"I've got an hour off," he explained, "so I walked up to thank you for the flowers. My mother liked them, and liked to have them from you." He saw Neeld, and greeted him courteously. "I asked her if I should give you her love, and she said yes--with her eyes, you know. She speaks mostly that way now. Well, she always did a good deal, I expect." His smile came on the last words.

"She sent her love to me?"

"Yes. I told her what you did one evening, and she liked that too."

"I hope Lady Tristram is--er--going on well?" asked Neeld.

"She doesn't suffer, thank you."

Mina invited him in; there was an appositeness in his coming which appealed to her, and she watched Neeld with covert eagerness.

Harry looked round the room, then vaulted over the sill.

"My uncle's playing golf with Mr Iver," remarked Mina. "Tea?"

"No; too sick-roomy. I'm for nothing but strong drink now--and I've had some." He came to the middle of the room and stood between them, flinging his hat on the table where Mr Cholderton's Journal had so lately lain. "My mother's an extraordinary woman," he went on, evidently so full of his thought that he must speak it out; "she's dying joyfully."

After an instant Mina asked, "Why?" Neeld was surprised at the baldness of the question, but Harry took it as natural.

"It's like going off guard--I mean, rather, off duty--to her, I think." He made the correction thoughtfully and with no haste. "Life has always seemed rather like an obligation to do things you don't want to--not that she did them all--and now she's tired, she's glad to leave it to me. Only she wishes I was a bit better-looking, though she won't admit it. She couldn't stand a downright ugly man at Blent, you know. I've a sort of notion"--he seemed to forget Neeld, and looked at Mina for sympathy--"that she thinks she'll be able to come and have a look at Blent and me in it, all the same." His smile took a whimsical turn as he spoke of his mother's dying fancies.

Mina glanced at Mr Neeld; was the picture visible to him that rose before her eyes--of the poor sprite coming eagerly, but turning sadly away when she saw a stranger enthroned at Blent, and knew not where to look for her homeless, landless son? Mina was not certain that she could safely credit Neeld with such a flight of imagination; still he was listening, and his eyes were very gentle behind his spectacles.

"The parson came to see her yesterday. He's not what you'd call an unusual man, Madame Zabriska--and she is an unusual woman, you know. It was--yes, it was amusing, and there's an end of it." He paused, and added, by way of excuse, "Oh, I know her so well, you see. She wouldn't be left alone with him; she wanted another sinner there."

Mina marked the change in him--the new expansiveness, the new appeal for sympathy. He had forgotten his suspicion and his watchfulness; she was inclined to say that he had forgotten himself. On her death-bed Addie Tristram had exerted her charm once more--and over her own son. Once more a man, whatever his own position, thought mainly of her--and that man was her son. Did Neeld see this? To Neeld it came as the strongest reinforcement to the feelings which bade him hold his peace. It seemed an appeal to him, straight from the death-bed in the valley below. Harry found the old gentleman's gaze fixed intently on him.

"I beg your pardon for troubling you with all this, Mr Neeld," he said, relapsing rather into his defensive attitude. "Madame Zabriska knows my ways."

"No, I don't think I know this new way of yours at all," she objected. "But I like it, Mr Tristram. I feel all you do. I have seen her." She turned to Neeld. "Oh, how I wish you had!" she cried.

Her earnestness stirred a little curiosity in Harry. He glanced with his old wariness at Neeld. But what could he see save a kindly precise old gentleman, who was unimportant to him but seemed interested in what he said. He turned back to Mina, asking:

"A new way of mine?"

"Well, not quite. You were rather like it once. But generally you've got a veil before your face. Or perhaps you're really changed?"

He thought for a moment. "Things change a man." And he added, "I'm only twenty-two."

"Yes, I know," she smiled, "though I constantly forget it all the same."

"Well, twenty-three, come the twentieth of July," said he. His eyes were on hers, his characteristic smile on his lips. It was a challenge to her.

"I shan't forget the date," she answered, answering his look too. He sighed lightly; he was assured that she was with him.

The twentieth of July! The Editor of Mr Cholderton's Journal sat by listening; he raised no voice in protest.

"I must get back," said Harry. "Walk with me to the dip of the hill."

With a glance of apology to Neeld, she followed him and stepped out of the window; there were two steps at the side leading up to it. "I'll be back directly," she cried over her shoulder, as she joined Harry Tristram. They walked to the gate which marked the end of the terrace on which Merrion stood.

"I'm so glad you came! You do believe in me now?" she asked.

"Yes, and I'm not afraid. But do you know--it seems incredible to me--I'm not thinking of that now. I shall again directly, when it's over. But now--well, Blent won't seem much without my mother."

"She couldn't rest if you weren't there," cried Mina, throwing back the impression she had received, as her disposition made her.

"I haven't changed about that, but it will wait. Three days they say now--three days, or maybe four, and then--she goes."

Together they stood, looking down. Mina's heart was very full. She was with the Tristrams indeed now, thick and thin; their cause seemed hers, their house must stand.

Harry turned to her suddenly.

"Say nothing of this to the Major. Let him alone; that's best. We'll see about all that afterward. Good-by."

"And--and the Ivers?" She could not restrain the question.

A slight frown came on his brow; he seemed to have no relish for the subject.

"Oh, that'll wait too," he said impatiently. He caught her by the arm as he had done once before. "If all they said was true, if what you think was true (he smiled at her as he spoke), I'd change with no man in England; remember that. If it comes to a fight and I'm beaten, remember that." And he ran down the hill.

Mina returned slowly to the library and found Neeld walking restlessly to and fro. For the moment they did not speak. Mina sat down and followed the old gentleman's figure in its restless pacing.

"You heard him about his mother?" she asked at last.

He nodded, but did not reply.

"You make all the difference," she blurted out after another pause.

Again he nodded, not ceasing his walk. For a minute or two longer Mina endured the suspense, though it seemed more than she could bear. Then she sprang up, ran to him, intercepted him, and caught hold of both his hands, arresting his progress with an eager, imperious grip.

"Well?" she cried. "Well? What are you going to do?"

For a moment still he waited. Then he spoke deliberately.

"I can't consider it my duty to do anything, Madame Zabriska."

"Ah!" cried the Imp in shrill triumph, and she flung her arms round his neck and kissed him. She did not mind his putting it on the score of duty.

IX

THE MAN IN POSSESSION

In these days Janie Iver would have been lonely but for the Major's attentions. Her father had gone to London on business--showing, to Mr Neeld's relief, no disposition to take the Journal with him to read on the way--Neeld was absurdly nervous about the Journal now. Her mother was engrossed in a notable scheme which Miss Swinkerton had started for the benefit of the poor of Blentmouth. Bible-readings, a savings-bank, and cottage-gardens were so inextricably mingled in it that the beneficiary, if she liked one, had to go in for them all. "Just my object," Miss Swinkerton would remark triumphantly as she set the flower-pots down on the Bibles, only to find that the bank-books had got stored away with the seed. Clearly Mrs Iver, chief aide-de-camp, had no leisure. Harry was at Blent; no word and no sign came from him. Bob Broadley never made advances. The field was clear for the Major. Janie, grateful for his attentions, yet felt vaguely that he was more amusing as one of two attentive cavaliers than when he was her only resource. A sense of flatness came over her sometimes. In fact the centre of interest had shifted from her; she no longer held the stage; it was occupied now, for the few days she had still to live, by Lady Tristram. Moreover, Duplay was puzzling. Although not a girl who erected every attention or every indication of liking into an obligation to propose matrimony, Janie knew that after a certain point things of this kind were supposed to go either forward or backward, not to remain _in statu quo_. If her own bearing toward Bob contradicted this general rule--well, that was an exceptional case. In Duplay's instance she could see nothing exceptional. She herself was not eager for a final issue--indeed that would probably be brought about in another way--but, knowing nothing of his diplomatic reasons for delay, she thought he ought to be. It is not very flattering when a gentleman takes too long over considering such a matter; a touch of impetuosity is more becoming. She would have preferred that he should need to be put off, and failed to understand why (if it may be so expressed) he put himself off from day to day.

But Duplay's reasons were, in fact, overwhelming. Lady Tristram lived still, and he had the grace to count that as the strongest motive for holding his hand. Harry's campaign was for the moment at a standstill; Duplay had no doubt he would resume it as soon as his mother was buried; on its apparent progress the Major's action would depend. It was just possible that he could defeat his enemy without his secret weapon; in that event he pictured himself writing a letter to Harry, half sorrowful, half magnanimous, in which he would leave that young man to settle matters with his conscience, and, for his own part, wash his hands of the whole affair. But his conviction was that there would come a critical moment at which he could go to Iver, not (as he must now) without any compelling reason, but in the guise of a friend who acts reluctantly yet under an imperious call. What would happen if he did? Victory, he used to repeat to himself. But often his heart sank. Mina was with him no more; he never thought of Neeld as a possible ally; Harry's position was strong. Among the reasons for inactivity which Duplay did not acknowledge to himself was the simple and common one that he was in his heart afraid to act. He meant to act, but he shrank from it and postponed the hour as long as he could. Defeat would be very ignominious; and he could not deny that defeat was possible merely from want of means to carry on the war. When the Major recognized this fact he was filled with a sombre indignation at the inequalities of wealth, and at the ways of a world wherein not even Truth shall triumph unless she commands a big credit at the bank.

And Mina annoyed him intensely, assuming an aggrieved air, and hinting severe moral condemnation in every glance of her eye. She behaved for all the world as though the Major had begun the whole thing, and entirely ignored her own responsibility. She conveyed the view that he was the unscrupulous assailant, she the devoted defender, of the Tristrams. Such a _volte-face_ as this was not only palpably unjust, it was altogether too nimble a bit of gymnastics for Duplay to appreciate. The general unreasonableness of woman was his only refuge; but the dogma could not bring understanding, much less consolation, with it.

"What did you tell me for, then?" he cried at last. "You were hot on it then. Now you say you won't help me, you'll have nothing more to do with it!"

"I only told it you as--as a remarkable circumstance," the Imp alleged, with a wanton disregard for truth.

"Nonsense, Mina. You were delighted to have a weapon against young Tristram then."

"I can't help it if you insist on misunderstanding me, uncle; and, anyhow, I suppose I can change my mind if I like, can't I?"

"No," he declared, "it's not fair to me. I can't make you out at all. You're not in love with Harry Tristram, are you?"

"With that boy?" asked Mina, attempting to be superb.

"That's women's old nonsense," observed Duplay, twirling his mustache knowingly. "They often fall in love with young men and always try to pass it off by calling them boys."

"Of course I haven't your experience, uncle," she rejoined, passing into the sarcastic vein.

"And if you are," he went on, reverting to the special case, "I don't see why you make his path smooth to Janie Iver."

"Some people are capable of self-sacrifice in their love."

"Yes, but I shouldn't think you'd be one of them," said the Major rather rudely. He looked at her curiously. Her interest in Harry was unmistakable, her championship of him had become thorough-going, fierce, and (to the Major's mind) utterly unscrupulous. Was he faced with a situation so startlingly changed? Did his niece object to turning Harry off his throne because she harbored a hope of sharing it with him? If that were so, and if the hope had any chance of becoming a reality, Duplay would have to reconsider his game. But what chance of success could there be? She would (he put it bluntly in his thoughts) only be making a fool of herself.

The Imp screwed up her little lean face into a grimace which served effectually to cover any sign of her real feelings. She neither admitted nor denied the charge levied against her. She was bewildering her uncle, and she found, as usual, a genuine pleasure in the pursuit. If she were also bewildering herself a little with her constant thoughts of Harry Tristram and her ardent championship of his cause, well, in the country there is such a thing as being too peaceful, and up to the present time the confusion of feeling had been rather pleasant than painful.

"I don't really know what I feel," she remarked the next moment. "But you can read women, uncle, you've often said so, and I dare say you really know more about what I feel than I do myself." A grossness of innocence was her new assumption. "Now judging from what I do and look--that's the way to judge, isn't it, not from what I say?--what do you think my real inmost feelings are about Mr Tristram?"

If the Major had been asked what his real inmost feelings about his niece were at the moment, he would have been at some difficulty to express them decorously. She was back at fifteen--a particularly exasperating child of fifteen. Her great eyes, with their mock gravity, were fixed on his irritated face. He would have agreed absolutely with Mr Cholderton's estimate of the evil in her, and of its proper remedy.

Wherein Duplay was derided his niece made very plain to him; wherein his words had any effect was studiously concealed. Yet she repeated the words when he had, with a marked failure of temper, gone his way and slammed the door behind him. "In love with Harry Tristram!" Mina found the idea at once explanatory and picturesque. Why otherwise was she his champion? She paused (as they say) for a reply. How better could she draw to herself a part and a share in the undoubtedly romantic situation in which she grouped the facts of the case? By being in love with Harry she became part of the drama; and she complicated the drama most delightfully. Janie knew nothing--she knew everything. Janie hesitated--what if she did not hesitate? A big _rôle_ opened before her eyes. What if it were very unlikely that Harry would reciprocate her proposed feelings? The Imp hesitated between a natural vexation and an artistic pleasure. Such a failure on his part would wound the woman, but it would add pathos to the play. She became almost sure that she could love Harry; she remained uncertain whether he should return the compliment. And, after all, to be Lady Tristram of Blent! That was attractive. Or (in case Harry suffered defeat) to be Lady Tristram of Blent in the sight of heaven (a polite and time-honored way of describing an arrangement not recognized on earth, and quite adaptable to the present circumstances); that had a hardly less alluring, and at least a rarer, flavor. The Imp looked down on Blent with an access of interest. Monsieur Zabriska had left her with unexhausted reserves of feeling. Moreover she could not be expected to help her uncle if she were seriously attached to Harry. The moral of all this for the Major was that it is unwise to suggest courses of action unless you are willing to see them carried out, or channels of emotion unless you are prepared to find them filled.

"Some people are capable of self-sacrifice in their love." That would mean being his champion still, and letting him marry Janie Iver. She did not object much to her own part, but she cavilled suddenly at Janie's--or at Harry's relation to Janie. Would it be better to share adversity with him? Perhaps. But, after all, she did not fancy him in adversity. The third course recommended itself--victory for him, but not Janie. Who then?

At this point Mina became sensible of no more than the vaguest visions, not at all convincing even to herself. By a sad deficiency of imagination, she could give no definiteness to a picture of Harry Tristram making love. He had never, to her mind, looked like it with Janie Iver, even while he had purported to be doing it. He never looked like it at all, not even as though he could do it. Stay, though! That new way of his, which she had marked when he came up the hill to thank her for the flowers, was an exception. But the new way had been for his mother's sake. Now a man cannot be in love with his mother. The question grew more puzzling, more annoying, more engrossing still.

While full of these problems, refusing indeed to be anything else, Mina was surprised by a visit from Miss Swinkerton, who sought a subscription for the scheme of which an inadequate account has already been given. Miss Swinkerton (for some reason she was generally known as Miss S., a vulgar style of description possessing sometimes an inexplicable appropriateness) was fifty-five, tall and bony, the daughter of a Rear-Admiral, the sister of an Archdeacon. She lived for good works and by gossip. Mina's sovereign (foreigners will not grasp the cheap additional handsomeness of a guinea) duly disbursed, conversation became general--that is to say, they talked about their neighbors.

"A hard young man," said Miss S. (Why be more genteel than her friends?) "And if Janie Iver thinks he's in love with her----"

"What do you mean by being in love, Miss Swinkerton?"

Miss Swinkerton had always been rather surprised, not to say hurt, when the Catechism asked for an explanation of what she meant by the Lord's Prayer. This question of Mina's was still more uncalled for.

"You know enough English, my dear----"

"It's not a question of English," interrupted Mina, "but of human nature, Miss Swinkerton."

"When I was a girl there were no such questions."

"What about Lady Tristram, then?"

There was flattery in this, ten or fifteen years of flattery. Miss S. was unmoved.

"I am happy to say that Lady Tristram never called at Seaview." Miss S.'s house was called Seaview--Sea-Backview would have been a more precise description.

"I call him in love with Janie Iver. He must want to marry her or----"

"They do say that money isn't very plentiful at Blent. And there'll be the Death Duties, you know."

"What are they?" asked Mina.

"Like stamps," explained Miss S., vaguely. "For my part, I think it's lucky he is what he is. There's been enough of falling in love in the Tristram family. If you ask me who is in love with her, of course it's poor young Broadley. Well, you know that, as you're always driving up to Mingham with her."

"We've only been three or four times, Miss Swinkerton."

"Six, I was told," observed Miss S., with an air of preferring accuracy. "Oh, I should be very pleased to see him married to Janie--Mr Tristram, I mean, of course--but she mustn't expect too much, my dear. Where's your uncle?"

"At Fairholme, I expect," answered the Imp demurely. As a matter of fact the Major had gone to Exeter on a business errand.

"Fairholme?" Miss S.'s air was significant, Mina's falsehood rewarded. Mina threw out a smile; her visitor's pursed lips responded to it.

"He goes there a lot," pursued Mina, "to play golf with Mr Iver."

"So I've heard." Her tone put the report in its proper place. To play golf indeed!

"I think Janie's rather fond of Mr Tristram, anyhow." This was simply a feeler on Mina's part.

"Well, my dear, the position! Blent's been under a cloud--though people don't seem to mind that much nowadays, to be sure. But the new Lady Tristram! They've always been the heads of the neighborhood. She'll have him, no doubt, but as for being in love with him--well, could you, Madame Zabriska?"

"Yes," said the Imp, without the least hesitation. "I think he's most attractive--mysterious, you know. I'm quite taken with him."

"He always looks at me as if I wanted to pick his pocket."

"Well, you generally do--for your charities." The laugh was confined to Mina herself. "But I know the manner you mean."

"Poor young man! I'm told he's very sensitive about his mother. That's it perhaps." The guess was at all events as near as gossip generally gets to truth. "It would make him a very uncomfortable sort of husband though, even if one didn't mind having that kind of story in the family."

With a flash of surprise--really she had not been thinking about herself, in spite of her little attempts to mystify Miss S.--Mina caught that lady indulging in a very intent scrutiny of her, which gave an obvious point to her last words and paved the way (as it appeared in a moment) for a direct approach to the principal object of Miss S.'s visit. That this object did not come to the front till Miss S. was on her feet to go was quite characteristic.

"I'm really glad, my dear," she observed, hanging her silk bag on her arm, "to have had this talk with you. They do say such things, and now I shall be able to contradict them on the best authority."

"What do they say?"

"Well, I never repeat things; still I think perhaps you've a right to know. They do say that you're more interested in Harry Tristram than a mere neighbor would be, and--well, really, I don't quite know how to put it."

"Oh, I do!" cried Mina, delightedly hitting the mark. "That uncle and I are working together, I suppose?"

"I don't listen to such gossip, but it comes to my ears," Miss S. admitted.

"What diplomatists we are!" said the Imp. "I didn't know we were so clever. But why do I take Janie to Mingham?"

"They'd say that Bob Broadley's no real danger, and if it _should_ disgust Harry Tristram----"

"I am clever! Dear Miss Swinkerton, I never thought of anything half so good myself. I'll tell uncle about it directly."

Miss S. looked at her suspiciously. The innocence seemed very much over-done.

"I knew you'd laugh at it," she observed.

"I should do that even if it was true," said Mina, thoroughly enjoying herself.

Miss S. took her leave, quite undecided whether to announce on the best authority that the idea was true, or that it was quite unfounded. One thing only was certain; whatever she decided to say, she would say on the best authority. If it turned out incorrect in the end, Miss S. would take credit for an impenetrable discretion and an unswerving loyalty to the friends who had given her their confidence.

Mina was left very unquiet. Miss S. chimed in with the Major; the neighborhood too seemed in the same tune. She could laugh at the ingenuities attributed to her, yet the notions which had given them birth found, as she perceived more and more clearly, a warrant in her feelings, if not in her conduct. Look at it how she would, she was wrapped up in Harry Tristram; she spent her days watching his fortunes, any wakeful hour of the night found her occupied in thinking of him. Was she a traitor to her friend Janie Iver? Was that treachery bringing her back, by a roundabout way, to a new alliance with her uncle? Did it involve treason to Harry himself? For certainly it was hard to go on helping him toward a marriage with Janie Iver.

"But I will all the same if he wants it," she exclaimed, as she paced about on the terrace, glancing now and then down at Blent. And again she stood aghast at the thorough-going devotion which such an attitude as that implied. "If only I could keep out of things!" she murmured. "But I never can."

Major Duplay drove up the hill in a Blentmouth station fly; he had met the doctor on the road, and the news was that in all probability Lady Tristram would not live out the night. The tidings gained added solemnity from Duplay's delivery of them, even though a larger share of his impressiveness was directed to the influence the event might have on his fortunes than to the event itself.

"Then we shall see. He'll assume the title, I suppose. That's no affair of mine. And then he'll go to Fairholme. That is." He turned suddenly, almost threateningly, upon her. "I hope you've come to your senses, Mina," said he. "You'll have to speak, you know. If I can't make you, Iver will." He paused and laughed. "But you'll speak fast enough when you find yourself in the lawyer's office."

Mina refused to be frightened by the threatened terrors of the law.

"Who's going to take me to a lawyer's office?" she demanded.

"Why, Iver will, of course." He showed contemptuous surprise. "Oh, you've gone too far to think you can get out of it now."

She studied him attentively for a moment or two. The result was reassuring; his blustering manner hid, she believed, a sinking heart.

"You can't frighten me, uncle. I've made up my mind what to do, and I shall do it."

She was not afraid of him now. She was wondering how she had come to be bullied into telling her secret at all, looking back with surprise to that scene in the library when, with sullen obedience and childish fear, she had obeyed his command to speak. Why was it all different now? Why was his attempt to take the same line with her not only a failure, but a ridiculous effort? She knew the angry answer he would give. Could she give any other answer herself? A new influence had come into her life. She had not ceased to be afraid, but she was afraid of somebody else. A domination was over her still, but it was no longer his. Like some turbulent little city of old Greece, she had made her revolution: the end had been to saddle her with a new tyrant. There seemed no more use in denying it; the Major said it, Miss S. said it, the neighborhood was all agreed. What she herself was most conscious of, and most oppressed by, was a sense of audacity. How dared she devote herself to Harry Tristram? He had asked nothing of her. No, but he had imposed something on her. She had volunteered for his service. It was indeed "women's nonsense" when she spoke of him as "That Boy."

Duplay turned away from her, disheartened and disgusted. Things looked well for the enemy. He was alone with his unsupported story of a conversation which Mina would not repeat, with his empty purse which could supply no means of proving what he said. He ran the risk of losing what chance he had of Janie Iver's favor, and he was in sore peril of coming off second-best again in his wrestling-bout with Harry Tristram. The Man in Possession was strong. The perils that had seemed so threatening were passing away. Mina was devoted; Neeld would be silent. Who would there be who could effectively contest his claim, or oust him from his place? Thus secure, he would hardly need the check always by him. Yet he was a cautious wary young man. There is little doubt that he would still like to have the check by him, and that he would take the only means of getting it.

Now that the moment had come for which all his life had been a preparation, Harry Tristram had little reason to be afraid.

X

BEHOLD THE HEIR!

Addie Tristram died with all her old uncommonness. Death was to her an end more fully than it is to most; had she been herself responsible for it, she could hardly have thought less of any possible consequences. And it was to her such a beginning as it can seldom seem. She had been living in anticipation of dying, but in a sense utterly remote from that contemplation of their latter end which is enjoined on the pious. So that, together with an acquiescence so complete as almost to justify her son in calling it joyful, there was an expectation, nearly an excitement--save that the tired body failed to second the mind. She might have shown remorse, both for her own acts and for the position in which she was leaving Harry; she fell in with the view he had always maintained with her, that all these things had come about somehow, had produced a certain state of affairs, and must be made to seem as if they had done nothing of the sort. During the last day or two she was delirious at intervals; as a precaution Harry was with her then, instead of the nurse. The measure was superfluous; there was nothing on Lady Tristram's mind, and when she spoke unconsciously, she spoke of trifles. The few final hours found her conscious and intelligent, although very weak. Just at the end a curious idea got hold of her. She was a little distressed that the Gainsboroughs were not there; she whispered her feeling to Harry apologetically, well remembering his objection to that branch of the family, and his disinclination to have them or any of them at Blent. "Cecily ought to be here," she murmured. Harry started a little; he was not accustomed in his own mind to concede Cecily any rights. His mother's fear of offending him by the suggestion was very obvious. "She'd come after you, you see, if----" she said once or twice. There did not pass between them a word of acknowledgment that Cecily ought to come before him. Yet he was left wondering whether that idea, so scorned before, had not won its way to her with some sudden strength--as though an instinct for the true heir made itself felt in spite of all her resolution and all her prejudices, and forced her to do something toward recognizing the claims which they were both determined to thwart.

The barest hint of this kind would have raised Harry's suspicion and anger a few weeks before; the new mood which Mina Zabriska had marked in him made him take it quietly now, and even affectionately. For this Addie Tristram was grateful; she had always the rare grace of seeming surprised at her own power over men. It was no less in keeping with her character and her life that the feeling she suffered under, and manifested, was very easily appeased. Harry promised to ask the Gainsboroughs to her funeral. Addie Tristram's conscientious scruples were entirely laid to rest; with a sigh of peace she settled herself to die. It was the feudal feeling, Harry decided, which insisted that the family must not be ignored; it did not deny their humble position, or the gulf that separated them from the succession. Yet he was vaguely vexed, even while he agreed to what she wanted.

So she passed away in the full tide of the darkness of night. The doctor had left her some hours before, the nurse had been sent to bed, for there was nothing that could be done. Harry was alone with her; he kissed her when she was dead, and stood many minutes by her, looking from her to the picture of her that hung on the wall. A strange loneliness was on him, a loneliness which there seemed nobody to solace. He had said that Blent would not be much without his mother. That was not quite right; it was much, but different. She had carried away with her the atmosphere of the place, the essence of the life that he had lived there with her. Who would make that the same to him again? Suddenly he recollected that in four days he was to ask Janie Iver for her answer. Say a week now, for the funeral would enforce or excuse so much postponement. Janie Iver would not give him back the life or the atmosphere. A description of how he felt, had it been related to him a year ago, would have appeared an absurdity. Yet these crowding unexpected thoughts made not a hair's breadth of difference in what he purposed. It was only that he became aware of an irreparable change of scene; there was to be no change in his action. He was Tristram of Blent now--that he must and would remain. But it was not the same Blent, and did not seem as though it could be again. So much of the poetry had gone out of it with Addie Tristram.

After he had left her room, he walked through the house, carrying a shaded candle in his hand along the dark corridors of shining oak. He bent his steps toward the long gallery which filled all the upper floor of the left wing. Here were the Valhalla and the treasure-house of the Tristrams, the pictures of ancestors, the cases of precious things which the ancestors had amassed. At the end of this gallery Addie Tristram had used to sit when she was well, in a large high-backed arm-chair by the big window that commanded the gardens and the river. He flung the window open and stood looking out. The wind swished in the trees and the Blent washed along leisurely. A beautiful stillness was about him. It was as though she were by his side, her fair head resting against the old brocade cover of the arm-chair, her eyes wandering in delighted employment round the room she had loved so well. Who should sit there next? As he looked now at the room, now out into the night, his eyes filled suddenly with tears; the love of the place came back to him, his pride in it lived again, he would keep it not only because it was his but because it had been hers before him. His blood spoke strong in him. Suddenly he smiled. It was at the thought that all this belonged in law to Miss Cecily Gainsborough--the house, the gallery, the pictures, the treasures, the very chair where Addie Tristram had used to sit. Every stick and stone about the place was Cecily Gainsborough's, aye, and the bed of the Blent from shore to shore. He had nothing at all--according to law.

Well, the law must have some honor, some recognition, at all events. The Gainsboroughs should, as he had promised, be asked to the funeral. They should be invited with all honor and most formally, in the name of Tristram of Blent--which, by the by was, according to law, also Miss Cecily Gainsborough's. Harry had no name according to law; no more than he had houses or pictures or treasures, any stick or stone, or the smallest heritage in the bed of the Blent. He had been son to the mistress of it all; she was gone and he was nobody--according to law. It was, after all, a reasonable concession that his mother had urged on him; the Gainsboroughs ought to be asked to the funeral. The last of his vexation on this score died away into a sense of grim amusement at Addie Tristram's wish and his own appreciation of it. He had no sense of danger; Tristram had succeeded to Tristram; all was well.

Little inclined to sleep, he went down into the garden presently, lit his cigar, and strolled on to the bridge. The night had grown clearer and some stars showed in the sky; it was nearly one o'clock. He had stood where he was only a few moments when to his surprise he heard the sound of a horse's hoofs on the road from Blentmouth. Thinking the doctor, who often did his rounds in the saddle, might have returned, he crossed the bridge, opened the gate, and stood on the high road. The rider came up in a few minutes and drew rein at the sight of his figure, but, as Harry did not move, made as though he would ride on again with no more than the customary country salute of "Good-night."

"Who is it?" asked Harry, peering through the darkness.

"Me--Bob Broadley," was the answer.

"You're late."

"I've been at the Club at Blentmouth. The Cricket Club's Annual Dinner, you know."

"Ah, I forgot."

Bob, come to a standstill, was taking the opportunity of lighting his pipe. This done, he looked up at the house and back to Harry rather timidly.

"Lady Tristram----?" he began.

"My mother has been dead something above an hour," said Harry.

After a moment Bob dismounted and threw his reins over the gatepost.

"I'm sorry, Tristram," he said, holding out his hand. "Lady Tristram was always very kind to me. Indeed she was that to everybody." He paused a moment and then went on slowly. "It must seem strange to you. Why, I remember when my father died I felt--besides the sorrow, you know--sort of lost at coming into my bit of land at Mingham. But you----" Harry could see his head turn as he looked over the demesne of Blent and struggled to give some expression to the thoughts which his companion's position suggested. The circumstances of this meeting made for sincerity and openness; they were always Bob's characteristics. Harry too was in such a mood that he liked Bob to stay and talk a little.

They fell into talk with more ease and naturalness than they had recently achieved together, getting back to the friendliness of boyhood, although Bob still spoke as to one greater than himself and infused a little deference into his manner. But they came to nothing intimate till Bob had declared that he must be on his way and was about to mount his horse.

"As soon as I begin to have people here, I hope you'll come often," said Harry, cordially. "Naturally we shall be a little more lively than we've been able to be of late, and I shall hope to see all my friends."

He did not instantly understand the hesitation in Bob's manner as he answered, "You're very kind. I--I shall like to come."

"Blent must do its duty," Harry pursued.

Bob turned back to him, leaving his horse again. "Yes, I'll come. I hope I know how to take a licking, Tristram." He held out his hand.

"A licking?" Both the word and the gesture seemed to surprise Harry Tristram.

"Oh, you know what I mean. You're engaged to her, aren't you? Or as good as anyhow? I don't want to ask questions----"

"Not even as good as, yet," answered Harry slowly.

"Of course you know what I feel. Everybody knows that, though I've never talked about it--even to her."

"Why not to her? Isn't that rather usual in such cases?" Harry was smiling now.

"It would only worry her. What chance should I have?"

"Well, I don't agree with being too humble."

"Oh, I don't know that I'm humble. Perhaps I think myself as good a man as you. But"--he laughed a little--"I'm Broadley of Mingham, not Tristram of Blent."

"I see. That's it? And our friend the Major?"

"I shouldn't so much mind having a turn-up with the Major."

"But Tristram of Blent is--is too much?"

"It's not your fault, you can't help it," smiled Bob. "You're born to it and----" He ended with a shrug.

"You're very fond of her?" Harry asked, frowning a little.

"I've been in love with her all my life--ever since they came to Seaview. Fairholme wasn't dreamed of then."

He spoke of Fairholme with a touch of bitterness which he hastened to correct by adding--"Of course I'm glad of their good luck."

"You mean, if it were Seaview still and not Fairholme----?"

"No, I don't. I've no business to think anything of the sort, and I don't think it," Bob interposed quickly. "You asked me a question and I answered it. I'm not in a position to know anything about you, and I'm not going to say anything."

"A good many reasons enter into a marriage sometimes," remarked Harry.

"Yes, with people like you. I know that."

His renewed reference to Harry's position brought another frown to Harry's face, but it was the frown of thoughtfulness, not of anger.

"I can't quarrel with the way of the world, and I'm sure if it does come off you'll be good to her."

"You think I don't care about her--about her herself?"

"I don't know, I tell you. I don't want to know. I suppose you like her."

"Yes, I like her." He took the word from Bob and made no attempt to alter or to amplify it.

Bob was mounting now; the hour was late for him to be abroad and work waited him in the morning.

"Good-night, Tristram," he said, as he settled in his saddle.

"Good-night. And, Bob, if by any chance it doesn't come off with me, you have that turn-up with the Major!"

"Well, I don't like the idea of a foreign chap coming down and---- But, mind you, Duplay's a very superior fellow. He knows the deuce of a lot."

"Thinks he does, anyhow," said Harry, smiling again. "Good-night, old fellow," he called after Bob in a very friendly voice as horse and rider disappeared up the road.

"I must go to bed, I suppose," he muttered as he returned to the bridge and stood leaning on the parapet. He yawned, not in weariness but in a reaction from the excitement of the last few days. His emotional mood had passed for the time at all events; it was succeeded by an apathy that was dull without being restful. And in its general effect his interview with Bob was vaguely vexatious in spite of its cordial character. It left with him a notion which he rejected but could not quite get rid of--the notion that he was taking, or (if all were known) would be thought to be taking, an unfair advantage. Bob had said he was born to it and that he could not help it. If that had indeed been so in the fullest possible sense, would he have had the notion that irritated him now? Yes, he told himself; but the answer did not quite convince. Still the annoyance was no more than a restless suggestion of something not quite satisfactory in his position, and worth mentioning only as the first such feeling he had ever had. It did not trouble him seriously. He smoked another cigar on the bridge and then went into the house and to bed. As he undressed it occurred to him (and the idea gave him both pleasure and amusement) that he had made a sort of alliance with Bob against Duplay, although it could come into operation only under circumstances which were very unlikely to happen.

The blinds drawn at Blent next morning told Mina what had happened, and the hour of eleven found her at a Committee Meeting at Miss Swinkerton's, which she certainly would not have attended otherwise. As it was, she wanted to talk and to hear, and the gathering afforded a chance. Mrs Iver was there, and Mrs Trumbler the vicar's wife, a meek woman, rather ousted from her proper position by the energy of Miss Swinkerton; she was to manage the Bible-reading department, which was not nearly so responsible a task as conducting the savings-bank, and did not involve anything like the same amount of supervision of other people's affairs. Mrs Trumbler felt, however, that on matters of morals she had a claim to speak _jure mariti_.

"It is so sad!" she murmured. "And Mr Trumbler found he could do so little! He came home quite distressed."

"I'm told she wasn't the least sensible of her position," observed Miss S., with what looked rather like satisfaction.

"Didn't she know she was dying?" asked Mina, who had established her footing by a hypocritical show of interest in the cottage-gardens.

"Oh, yes, she knew she was dying, my dear," said Miss S. What poor Lady Tristram might have known, but apparently had not, was left to an obvious inference.

"She was very kind," remarked Mrs Iver. "Not exactly actively, you know, but if you happened to come across her." She rose as she spoke and bade Miss S. farewell. That lady did not try to detain her, and the moment the door had closed behind her remarked:

"Of course Mrs Iver feels in a delicate position and can't say anything about Lady Tristram; but from what I hear she never realized the peculiarity of her position. No (this to Mrs Trumbler), I mean in the neighborhood, Mrs Trumbler. And the young man is just the same. But I should have liked to hear that Mr Trumbler thought it came home to her at the last."

Mr Trumbler's wife shook her head gently.

"Well, now we shall see, I suppose," Miss S. pursued. "The engagement is to be made public directly after the funeral."

Mina almost started at this authoritative announcement.

"And I suppose they'll be married as soon as they decently can. I'm glad for Janie Iver's sake--not that I like him, the little I've seen of him."

"We never see him," said Mrs Trumbler.

"Not at church, anyhow," added Miss S. incisively. "Perhaps he'll remember what's due to his position now."

"Are you sure they're engaged?" asked Mina.

Miss S. looked at her with a smile. "Certain, my dear."

"How?" asked Mina. Mrs Trumbler stared at her in surprised rebuke.

"When I make a mistake, it will be time to ask questions," observed Miss S. with dignity. "For the present you may take what I say. I can wait to be proved right, Madame Zabriska."

"I've no doubt you're right; only I thought Janie would have told me," said Mina; she had no wish to quarrel with Miss S.

"Janie Iver's very secretive, my dear. She always was. I used to talk to Mrs Iver about it when she was a little girl. And in your case----" Miss S.'s smile could only refer to the circumstance that Mina was Major Duplay's niece; the Major's manoeuvres had not escaped Miss S.'s eye. "Of course the funeral will be very quiet," Miss S. continued. "That avoids so many difficulties. The people who would come and the people who wouldn't--and all that, you know."

"There are always so many questions about funerals," sighed Mrs Trumbler.

"I hate funerals," said Mina. "I'm going to be cremated."

"That may be very well abroad, my dear," said Miss S. tolerantly, "but you couldn't here. The question is, will Janie Iver go--and if she does, where will she walk?"

"Oh, I should hardly think she'd go, if it's not announced, you know," said Mrs Trumbler.

"It's sometimes done, and I'm told she would walk just behind the family."

Mina left the two ladies debating this point of etiquette, Miss S. showing some deference to Mrs Trumbler's experience in this particular department, but professing to be fortified in her own view by the opinion of an undertaker with a wide connection. She reflected, as she got into her pony carriage, that it is impossible even to die without affording a good deal of pleasure to other people--surely a fortunate feature of the world!

On her way home she stopped to leave cards at Blent, and was not surprised when Harry Tristram came out of his study, having seen her through the window, and greeted her.

"Send your trap home and walk up the hill with me," he suggested, and she fell in with his wish very readily. They crossed the foot-bridge together.

"I've just been writing to ask my relations to the funeral," he said. "At my mother's wish, not mine. Only two of them--and I never saw them in my life."

"I shouldn't think you'd cultivate your relations much."

"No. But Cecily Gainsborough ought to come, I suppose. She's my heir."

Mina turned to him with a gesture of interest or surprise.

"Your heir?" she said. "You mean----?"

"I mean that if I died without having any children, she'd succeed me. She'd be Lady Tristram in her own right, as my mother was." He faced round and looked at Blent. "She's never been to the place or seen it yet," he added.

"How intensely interested she'll be!"

"I don't see why she should," said Harry rather crossly. "It's a great bore having her here at all, and if I'm barely civil to her that's all I shall manage. They won't stay more than a few days, I suppose." After a second he went on: "Her mother wouldn't know my mother, though after her death the father wanted to be reconciled."

"Is that why you dislike them so?"

"How do you know I dislike them?" he asked, seeming surprised.

"It's pretty evident, isn't it? And it would be a good reason for disliking the mother anyhow."

"But not the daughter?"

"No, and you seem to dislike the daughter too--which isn't fair."

"Oh, I take the family in the lump. And I don't know that what we've been talking of has anything to do with it."