Never can I forget the cruelty and malevolence with which his bloodshot eyes rested on Derrick, or the patience with which the dear old fellow bore his father’s scathing sarcasms. It was while I was sitting by the bed that the landlady entered with a telegram, which she put into Derrick’s hand.
“From Lawrence!” said the dying man triumphantly, “to say by what train we may expect him. Well?” as Derrick still read the message to himself, “can’t you speak, you d—d idiot? Have you lost your d—d tongue? What does he say?”
“I am afraid he cannot be here just yet,” said Derrick, trying to tone down the curt message; “it seems he cannot get leave.”
“Not get leave to see his dying father? What confounded nonsense. Give me the thing here;” and he snatched the telegram from Derrick and read it in a quavering, hoarse voice:
“Impossible to get away. Am hopelessly tied here. Love to my father. Greatly regret to hear such bad news of him.”
I think that message made the old man realise the worth of Lawrence’s often expressed affection for him. Clearly it was a great blow to him. He threw down the paper without a word and closed his eyes. For half an hour he lay like that, and we did not disturb him. At last he looked up; his voice was fainter and his manner more gentle.
“Derrick,” he said, “I believe I’ve done you an injustice; it is you who cared for me, not Lawrence, and I’ve struck your name out of my will—have left all to him. After all, though you are one of those confounded novelists, you’ve done what you could for me. Let some one fetch a solicitor—I’ll alter it—I’ll alter it!”
I instantly hurried out to fetch a lawyer, but it was Saturday afternoon, the offices were closed, and some time passed before I had caught my man. I told him as we hastened back some of the facts of the case, and he brought his writing materials into the sick room and took down from the Major’s own lips the words which would have the effect of dividing the old man’s possessions between his two sons. Dr. Mackrill was now present; he stood on one side of the bed, his fingers on the dying man’s pulse. On the other side stood Derrick, a degree paler and graver than usual, but revealing little of his real feelings.
“Word it as briefly as you can,” said the doctor.
And the lawyer scribbled away as though for his life, while the rest of us waited in a wretched hushed state of tension. In the room itself there was no sound save the scratching of the pen and the laboured breathing of the old man; but in the next house we could hear someone playing a waltz. Somehow it did not seem to me incongruous, for it was ‘Sweethearts,’ and that had been the favourite waltz of Ben Rhydding, so that I always connected it with Derrick and his trouble, and now the words rang in my ears: