“Who is that coming up the drive?” asked the 181 invalid, craning his neck to look out of the window.
“It is Mrs. Swinton, sir, and Mr. Swinton.”
“On foot?” cried the old man. “And since when, pray, did they begin to take the walking exercise? Ha! ha! Coming to see me—about their boy. Of course, you’ve heard all about it, Trimmer.”
“Very little, sir.”
“Well, if you stay here, you’ll hear a little more.”
The decrepit creature chuckled with a sound like loose bones rattling in his throat. He laughed so much that he almost choked. Trimmer was obliged to lift him up and pat his back vigorously. The valet’s handling was firm, but by no means gentle; and, the moment the old man was touched, he began to whine as if for mercy, pretending that he was being ill-used.
Mrs. Swinton entered the room alone; the rector remained below in the library. She found her father well propped up with pillows, and his skull-cap, with the long white tassel, was drawn down over one eye, giving him a curious leer. The rakish angle of the cap, with the piercing eyes beneath, the hawk-like beak, and the shriveled old mouth, puckered into a sardonic smile, made him an almost comic figure. Trimmer stood at attention by the head of the bed like a sentinel. His humility and deference to both his master and Mrs. Swinton were almost servile; it 182 was always so in the presence of a third person.
“I am glad to see you sitting up and looking so well, father,” observed the daughter, after her first greeting.
“Oh, yes, I’m well—very well—better than you are,” grunted the old man. “I know why you have come.”
“I wish to talk on important family matters, father,” said Mrs. Swinton, dropping into the chair which Trimmer brought forward, and giving the valet a sharp, resentful look.