The Three Brothers

by Eden Phillpotts

CHAPTER XI

The accident of a heavy cold had suddenly aggravated the morbid condition of Nathan Baskerville's throat, and set all doubt of the truth at rest. Often on previous occasions he had anticipated death at short notice, and prepared to face it; but now he trusted fate not to deal the final blow before his daughter's marriage. His only concern was to be on his feet again swiftly, that none of the plans for the wedding should be changed.

The doctor warned him that he was very ill, and took the gravest view of his condition; but Nathan, out of a sanguine heart, declared that he would make at least a transient recovery. He obeyed the medical man's directions very carefully, however; he kept his bed and put himself into the hands of the parish nurse.

In sombre triumph she came to this important case, and brought with her certain errors of judgment and idiosyncrasies of character that went far to counter-balance real ability begot of experience. She was a good nurse, but an obstinate and foolish woman. No more conscientious creature ruled a sick room or obeyed a doctor's mandate; but she added to her prescribed duties certain gratuitous moral ministrations which were not required by science or demanded by reason.

Mrs. Lintern saw Mr. Baskerville often, and sometimes shared the night watches with Eliza Gollop. The latter viewed her attentions to Nathan and her emotion before his suffering with a suspicious eye. But she reserved comment until after the end. The case was not likely to be a long one in her opinion. For one week little happened of a definite character, and during that time Nathan Baskerville saw his relations and several of his more intimate friends. Then ensued a malignant change, and at the dawn of this deterioration, after the doctor had left him, Miss Gollop sat alone with her patient and endeavoured to elevate his emotions.

"I've flashed a bit of light on a wandering soul at many a deathbed," she declared; "and I hope I shall be spared to do so at many more. There's not a few men and women that wouldn't hear me in health, but they listened, meek as worms, when the end was in sight, and they hadn't strength left to move an eye-lash. That's the time to drive truth home, Mr. Baskerville, and I've done it. But always cheerful, mind. I'm not the sort to give up hoping."

"I'm sure not," he whispered. "Wasn't Christ's first and last message hope?"

"Don't you talk. Let me do the talking. Yes, 'twas hope He brought into this hopeless world. But even hope can be trusted too much. You must put your hope in the next world now, not in this one, I'm afraid."

"Did he say so?"

"Yes—I knew he would. Death was in his eyes when he went out of your chamber. Still, there's plenty of time. Things may mend. He's going to send a new physic."

"What's the good of that if I've got to go?"

"You'll know presently, my poor man. 'Tis to ease what be bound to creep over you later on."

"Bodily pain's nought. Haven't I suffered all that man can suffer?"

"No, you haven't—not yet. Don't talk about that part. You shan't suffer while I'm here—not if I can help it in reason, and under doctor's orders. But I won't stray beyond them; I was never known to take anything upon myself, like some of they hospital chits, that call themselves nurses, do."

"When is Mrs. Lintern coming?"

Eliza's lips tightened.

"Very soon, without a doubt; though why, I can't ezacally say. Listen to me a little afore she's here. 'Tis my duty to say these things to you, and you're not one that ever stood between man or woman and their duty."

"I'll not see them married now. That's cruel hard after——"

"How can you say that? You may be there in the spirit, if not in the flesh. I suppose you ban't one of they godless ones that say ghosts don't walk? Haven't I beheld 'em with these eyes? Didn't I go down to Mrs. Wonnacott at Shaugh Bridge in the dimpsy of the evening two year ago; and didn't I see a wishtness coming along out of they claypits there? 'Tis well known I seed it; and if it weren't the spirit of Abraham Vosper, as worked there for fifty year and then was run over by his own team of hosses and fractured to death in five places, whose spirit was it? So you may be at your nephew's wedding with the best; and, for my part, I shall know you be there, and feel none the less cheerful for it."

"So much to do—so many to save—and no strength and no time—no time," he said.

The air was dark and hurtling with awful wings for Nathan Baskerville. He heard and saw the storm coming. But others would feel it. He was safe from the actual hurricane, but, by anticipation, dreadfully he endured it now. Death would be no release save from physical disaster. His place was with the living, not with the dead. Cruelly the living must need him presently; the dead had no need of him.

Miss Gollop supposed that she read her patient's heart.

"'Tis your own soul you must seek to save, Mr. Baskerville. None can save our souls but ourselves. And as for time, thanks to the rivers of blood Christ shed, there's always time for a dip in 'em. You're well thought on. But that's nought. 'Tis the bird's-eye view the Almighty takes that will decide. And our conscience tells us what that view's like to be. 'Tis a good sign you be shaken about it. The best sort generally are. I've seen an evil liver go to his doom like a babby dropping asleep off its mother's nipple; and I've seen a pious saint, such as my own father was, get into a terrible tear at the finish, as if he seed all the devils in hell hotting up against his coming."

She ministered to the sick man, then sat down and droned on again. But he was not listening; his strength had nearly gone, his gaiety had vanished for ever. Not a smile was left. The next world at this juncture looked inexpressibly vain and futile. He cared not a straw about it. He was only concerned with his present environment and the significance of passing from it at this juncture.

"Run out—all run out!" he whispered to himself.

Would there be no final parenthesis of strength to deal with the manifold matters now tumbling to chaos? Was the end so near? He brushed aside lesser things and began to think of the one paramount obligation.

"Why don't she come? Why don't she come?" he whispered; but Miss Gollop did not hear him.

This was a sort of moment when she felt the call of her faith mighty upon her. She had often inopportunely striven to drag a dying's man's mind away from earth to the spectacle of heaven and the immense difficulty of winning it.

"How many houses have you got, Mr. Baskerville?" she asked abruptly; and in a mechanical fashion he heard and answered her.

"Six—two here and four at Bickleigh; at least, they can't be called mine, I'm afraid, they're all——"

"And you'd give the lot for one little corner in a heavenly mansion—wouldn't you, Mr. Baskerville?"

"No doubt—no doubt," he said. "Don't talk for a bit. I'm broken; I'm terrible anxious; I must see—— Give me something to drink, please."

While she obeyed him Mrs. Lintern came in. The doctor, who had perceived her tragic interest in the patient, kept her closely informed of his condition, and Priscilla had learned within the hour that Nathan was growing worse.

Now she came, and Mr. Baskerville asked Miss Gollop to leave them.

"I can't think why," murmured Eliza. "I'm not generally told to go out except afore relations. Still, I can take my walk now instead of this afternoon. And if the new physic comes, don't you give him none, Mrs. Lintern, please. 'Tis very powerful and dangerous, and only for skilled hands to handle."

Neither spoke until the nurse had departed.

"And I shall be gone exactly twenty minutes and no more," she said. "I've got my reputation, I believe, if some of us haven't; but with chapel people——"

The exact problem respecting chapel people she left unstated, and in closing the door behind her made some unnecessary noise.

Then Priscilla folded Nathan in her arms and kissed him. He held her hand and shut his eyes while she talked; but presently he roused himself and indicated that the confession to his children must not in safety be longer delayed.

"I don't feel particular worse, though I had a bit of a fight for wind last night; but I am worse, and I may soon be a lot worse. They'd better all come to-day—this afternoon."

"They shall," she promised.

"If that was all—my God, if that was all, Priscilla!"

"It is all that matters."

"'Tis the least—the very least of it. Dark—dark wherever I turn. Plots miscarried, plans failed, good intentions all gone astray."

She thought that he wandered.

"Don't talk, 'tis bad for you. If you've got to go, go you must—God pity me without you! But you are all right, such a steadfast man as you. The poor will call you blessed, and your full tale of well-doing will never be told."

"Well-meaning, that's all—not well-doing. A dead man's motives don't count, 'tis his deeds we rate him by. He's gone. He can't explain what he meant. Pray for me to live a bit longer, Priscilla. Beg 'em for their prayers at the chapel; beg 'em for their prayers at church. I'm terrible, terrible frighted to go just now, and that's truth. Frighted for those I leave—for those I leave."

She calmed him and sought to banish his fears. But he entered upon a phase of mental excitement, deepening to frenzy. He was bathed in sweat and staring fixedly before him when the nurse returned.

After noon the man had regained his nerve and found himself ready for the ordeal. A dose of the new drug brought ease and peace. He was astonished and sanguine to feel such comfort. But his voice from the strain of the morning had almost become extinguished.

When Priscilla and his children came round him and the family were alone, he bade the woman speak.

"Tell them," he said. "I'm not feared to do it, since you wish them to know, but my throat is dumb."

Heathman stood at the bottom of the bed and his mother sat beside it. Cora and Phyllis were in chairs by the fire. They looked and saw Mrs. Lintern clasp her hands over Nathan Baskerville's. The act inspired her, and she met the astonished glances of her children.

"For all these years," she said, "you've been kept without hearing the truth, you three. You only knew I was a widow, and that Mr. Baskerville was a widower, and that we were friends always, and that he never married again because his dead wife didn't want him to. But there's more to know. After Mrs. Baskerville died, Nathan here found me an orphan girl, working for my living in a china and glass shop at Bath. I hadn't a relation or friend in the world, and he got to love me, and he wanted to marry me. But I wouldn't have it, because, in honour to his wife's relations, if he'd married me he'd have had to give up five thousand pound. And they would have taken very good care he did so. The law was his side, but truth was against it, since his wife gave him the money only if he didn't wed. She couldn't enforce such a thing, but he acted as if she could. I went to live with him, and you three children were born. Then, a bit after, he came back here, and of course I came with him. He's your father, but there's no call for any else to know it but us. I don't care, and never shall care if everybody knows it. A better man won't breathe God's air in this world than your father, and no woman have been blessed with a kinder husband in the eye of the Almighty. But there's you three to think of, and 'twould be against you if this was known now. He didn't even want to tell you; but I was determined that you should know it afore either of us died. And now it's pleased God to shorten your dear father's days; and you've got to hear that he is your father."

There was a silence.

"I ask them to forgive me," whispered Nathan Baskerville. "I ask my son and my daughters to forgive me for what I've done."

"No need for that," answered Priscilla. "Lie down and be easy, and don't get excited."

He had sat up and was holding his beard, and stroking it nervously.

Mrs. Lintern shook his pillow and took his hand again. Then she looked at her son, who stood with his mouth open, staring at the sick man. His expression indicated no dismay, but immense astonishment.

"Well, I'm damned!" he said. "This beats cock-fighting! You my father! And now you'm going to drop out—just when I might have been some use to you. There! what a 'mazing thing, to be sure."

"Call him by his right name then—for my sake, Heathman," urged his mother.

"Why—good God!—I will for his own," answered the man. "I don't care a curse about such things as laws and all the rest of it. He's been a rare good sort all his life; and no man could have a better father, whichever side the blanket he was got. I'll call him father, and welcome, and I wish to Christ he wasn't going to die."

Heathman came and took Nathan's hand, and his mother broke down at his words, buried her face in the counterpane and wept.

"Tell them to come over," whispered Mr. Baskerville to his son. "And thank you, and God bless you, son. You've done more than you know to lighten a cruel load."

"Come here, you two, and kiss your father," said Heathman.

The girls came, and first Phyllis kissed Nathan nervously, and then the touch that he hungered for rested a moment on his cheek. With Cora's kiss the tension subsided; he sank back, and Priscilla drew the sheet up to his beard, and again lifted the pillow.

"Now I shall go in some sort of peace, though an erring and a sinful man," he murmured. "If you can forgive me, so will my Saviour. And let this secret be a secret for ever. Remember that, all of you. 'Tis beyond human power to make you legitimate Baskervilles; but Baskervilles you are, and, please God, will lead a better and wiser life than I have led. No need to tell anybody the truth. Forgive your father, and forget him so soon as ever you can; but worship your mother always—to your dying day worship her; protect her and shield her, and stand between her and the rough wind, and be proud of having such a blessed brave woman for a mother."

"You needn't tell me that," said Heathman.

The other stopped, but held up his hand for silence. After a little rest he proceeded.

"The time's coming when she will need all the love and wit you've got among you. 'Tis no good talking much about that, and I haven't the human courage left to meet your hard faces, or tears, or frowns. All I say is, forgive me, and love your mother through thick and thin. All the blame is mine—none of it belongs to her."

He held his hand out to Cora. She was sitting on the edge of the bed looking out of the window.

"You'll remember, my Cora," he said. "And—and let me hear you call me 'father' just once—if you can bring yourself to do it."

"The money, dear father?" she asked.

He smiled, and it was the last time that he ever did so.

"Like my sensible Cora," he answered. But he did not continue the subject.

"You'd best all to go now," declared Priscilla. She rose and looked straight into the eyes of her children each in turn. The girls flinched; the son went to her and kissed her.

"Don't you think this will make any difference to me," said Heathman. "You're a damned sight too good a mother for me, whether or no—or for them women either; and this man here—our father, I should say—needn't worrit about you, for I'll always put you afore anything else in the world."

"And so will I, mother," said Phyllis.

"Of course, we all will," added Cora; "and the great thing must be for us all to keep as dumb as newts about it. 'Twould never do for it to come out—for mother's sake more than ours, even. I don't say it for our sakes, but for mother's sake, and for father's good name, too."

"Such wisdom—such wisdom!" said Nathan. "You've all treated me better than I deserved—far better. And God will reward you for such high forgiveness to a wicked wretch. I'll see you all again once before I die. Promise that. Promise you'll come again, Cora."

"I will come again," she said; "and please, father, make mother promise on her oath to be quiet and sensible and not run no risks. If it got out now—you never know. We're above such small things, but many people would cold shoulder us if they heard of it. You know what people are."

Her mother looked at her without love. The girl was excited; she began to appreciate the significance of what she had heard; her eyes were wet and her voice shook.

"I'll be 'quiet and sensible,' Cora Lintern," said the mother. "I've been 'quiet and sensible' for a good many years, I believe, and I shan't begin to be noisy and foolish now. You're quite safe. Better you all go away now and leave us for the present."

They departed silently, and, once below, the girls crept off together, like guilty things, to their home, while Lintern dallied in the bar below and drank. He was perfectly indifferent to the serious side of his discovery, and, save for his mother's sake, would have liked to tell the men in the bar all about it. He regarded it rather as a matter of congratulation than not. No spark of mercenary feeling touched his emotion. That he was a rich man's son had not yet occurred to him; but that he was a good man's son and a popular man's son pleased him.

Mrs. Lintern suffered no detraction in his eyes. He felt wonder when he considered her power of hiding this secret for so many years, and he experienced honest sorrow for her that the long clandestine union was now to end. The day's event, indeed, merely added fuel to the flame of his affection for her.

But it was otherwise with the sisters. Phyllis usually took on the colour of Cora's thought, and now the elder, with no little perspicacity, examined the situation from every point of view.

"The only really bright side it's got is that there'll be plenty of money, I suppose. I'd give a sovereign, Phyllis, to see the will. Father—how funny it sounds to say it—poor father was always terrible fond of me, and I've often wondered why for. Now, of course, 'tis easy to explain."

"What about the wedding?" asked Phyllis. "'Twill have to be cruel quiet now, I suppose."

"Certainly not," answered her sister. "'Twill have to be put off, that's all. I won't have a scrubbly little wedding smothered up in half mourning, or some such thing; but, come to think of it, we shan't figure among the mourners in any case—though we shall be among them really. 'Twill be terrible difficult to help giving ourselves away over this. I think the best thing would be for mother to take the money and clear out, and go and live somewhere else—the further off the better. For that matter, when the will's read, everybody will guess how it is."

"Heathman might go on with the public-house."

"Yes, he might. But I hope he'll do no such thing," answered her sister. "He's always the thorn in my side, and always will be. Don't know the meaning of the word 'decency.' However, he's not like to trouble us much when we're married. I shan't be sorry to change my name now, Phyllis. And the sooner you cease to be called Lintern, too, the better."

"About mother?"

"I shouldn't presume to say a word about mother, one way or the other," answered Cora. "I'm not a fool, and I'm not going to trouble myself about the things that other people do; but all the same, I shall be glad to get out of it and start with a clean slate among a different class of people."

"What amazing cleverness to hide it all their lives like that," speculated Phyllis. "I'm sure us never would have been so clever as to do it."

"It became a habit, no doubt. 'Twas salt to their lives, I reckon, and made 'em all the fonder of each other," declared Cora. "Everyday married life must have looked terrible tame to them—doing what they did. Their time was one long love-making in secret."

"I'm awful sorry for mother now, though," continued Phyllis; "because when he dies she can't put on weeds and go and hear the funeral sermon, and do all the things a proper widow does do."

"No," admitted her sister; "that she certainly can't. She'll have to hide the truth pretty close from this day forward, that's very clear. She owes that to me—and to you; and I shall see she pays her debt."

"She will, of course," replied the other. "She's a terrible brave woman, and always has been. She'll hide it up close enough—so close as we shall, for that matter. Heathman's the only one who's like to let it out. You know what a careless creature he is."

Cora frowned.

"I do," she said. "And I know there's no love lost between him and me. A coarse man, he is, and don't care what gutter he chooses his friends out of. Take one thing with another, it might be so well to marry Ned at the appointed time, and get it hard and fast."

So they talked, and misprized Heathman from the frosty standpoint of their own hearts. Rather than bring one shadow on his mother's fame, the brother of these girls would have bitten out his tongue and swallowed it.