“Doubtless, doctor, if dear Stephen had been granted time he would have treated you more liberally, seeing how much he thought of you, and that you had given up your profession entirely to please him and serve the party. That is what he meant when he looked at me before he died, I guessed it from the first, and now I am sure of it. Well, doctor, while I have anything you shall never want. Of course, a member of Parliament is a great person, expected to live in a style which would take more money than I have, but I think that if I put my own expenses at 500 pounds a year, which is as much as I shall want, and allow another 1000 pounds for subscriptions to the anti-vaccination societies, the society for preventing the muzzling of dogs, and the society for the discovery of the lost Tribes of Israel, I shall be able to help you to the extent of 1200 pounds a year, if,” she added apologetically, “you think you could possibly get along on that.”
“But, Mrs. Strong,” I said, “I have no claim at all upon you.”
“Please do not talk nonsense, doctor. Dear Stephen wished me to provide for you, and I am only carrying out his wishes with his own money which God gave him perhaps for this very purpose, that it should be used to help a clever man to break down the tyranny of wicked governments and false prophets.”
So I took the money, which was paid with the utmost regularity on January the first and June the first in each year. On this income I lived in comfort, keeping up my house in Dunchester for the benefit of my little daughter and her attendants, and hiring for my own use a flat quite close to the House of Commons.
As the years went by, however, a great anxiety took possession of me, for by slow degrees Mrs. Strong grew as feeble in mind as already she was in body, till at length, she could only recognise people at intervals, and became quite incompetent to transact business. For a while her bankers went on paying the allowance under her written and unrevoked order, but when they understood her true condition, they refused to continue the payment.
Now my position was very serious. I had little or nothing put by, and, having ceased to practise for about seventeen years, I could not hope to earn an income from my profession. Nor could I remain a member of the House, at least not for long. Still, by dint of borrowing and the mortgage of some property which I had acquired, I kept my head above water for about eighteen months. Very soon, however, my financial distress became known, with the result that I was no longer so cordially received as I had been either in Dunchester or in London. The impecunious cannot expect to remain popular.
At last things came to a climax, and I was driven to the step of resigning my seat. I was in London at the time, and thence I wrote the letter to the chairman of the Radical committee in Dunchester giving ill-health as the cause of my retirement. When at length it was finished to my satisfaction, I went out and posted it, and then walked along the embankment as far as Cleopatra’s Needle and back again. It was a melancholy walk, taken, I remember, upon a melancholy November afternoon, on which the dank mist from the river strove for mastery with the gloomy shadows of advancing night. Not since that other evening, many many years ago, when, after my trial, I found myself face to face with ruin or death and was saved by Stephen Strong had my fortunes been at so low an ebb. Now, indeed, they appeared absolutely hopeless, for I was no longer young and fit to begin the world afresh; also, the other party being in power, I could not hope to obtain any salaried appointment upon which to support myself and my daughter. If Mrs. Strong had kept her reason all would have been well, but she was insane, and I had no one to whom I could turn, for I was a man of many acquaintances but few friends.
Wearily I trudged back to my rooms to wait there until it was time to dress, for I had a dinner engagement at the Reform Club. On the table in the little hall lay a telegram, which I opened listlessly. It was from a well-known firm of solicitors in Dunchester, and ran:—
“Our client, Mrs. Strong, died suddenly at three o’clock. Important that we should see you. Will you be in Dunchester to-morrow? If not, please say where and at what hour we can wait upon you in town.”
“Wait upon you in town,” I said to myself as I laid down the telegram. A great firm of solicitors would not wish to wait upon me unless they had something to tell me to my advantage and their own. Mrs. Strong must have left me some money. Possibly even I was her heir. More than once before in life my luck had turned in this sudden way, why should it not happen again? But she was insane and could not appoint an heir! Why had not those fools of lawyers told me the facts instead of leaving me to the torment of this suspense?