“I shall dismiss that woman the very first good opportunity. She has been here too long to come quietly under a new administration,” Mrs. Walter Scott thought, as she went slowly down the stairs, and through the lower rooms, deciding, at a glance, that this piece of furniture should be banished to the garret, and that piece transferred to some more suitable place. “The old man has lived here alone so long, that everything bears the unmistakable stamp of a bachelor’s hall; but I shall soon remedy that. I’ll have a man from the city whose taste I can trust,” she said; by which it will be seen that Mrs. Walter Scott fully expected to reign triumphant at Millbank, without a thought or consideration for Roger, the dead man’s idol, who, according to all natural laws, had a far better right there than herself.
She had never fancied Roger, because she felt that through him her husband would lose a part of his father’s fortune, and as he grew older and she saw how superior he was to Frank, she disliked him more and more, though she tried to conceal her dislike from her husband, who, during his lifetime, evinced almost as much affection for his young half brother as for his own son. Walter Scott Irving had been a spendthrift, and the fifty thousand dollars which his father gave him at his marriage had melted away like dew in the morning sun, until he had barely enough to subsist upon. Then ten thousand more had been given him, with the understanding that this was all he was ever to receive. The rest was for Roger, the father said; and Walter acquiesced, and admitted that it was right. He had had his education with sixty thousand beside, and he could not ask for more. A few weeks after this he died suddenly of a prevailing fever, and then, softened by his son’s death, the old man added to the ten thousand and bought the house on Lexington avenue, and deeded it to Mrs. Walter Scott herself. Since that time fortunate speculations had made Squire Irving a richer man than he was before the first gift to his son, and Mrs. Walter Scott had naturally thought it very hard that Frank was not to share in this increase of wealth. But no such thoughts were troubling her now, and her face wore a very satisfied look of resignation and submission as she moved languidly around the house and grounds in the morning, and then in the afternoon dressed herself in her heavy, trailing silk, and throwing around her graceful shoulders a scarlet shawl, went down to receive the calls and condolences of the rector’s wife and Mrs. Colonel Johnson, who came in to see her. She did not tell them she expected to be their neighbor a portion of the year, and when they spoke of Roger, she looked very sorry, and sighed: “Poor boy, it will be a great shock to him.”
Then, when the ladies suggested that he would undoubtedly have a great deal of property left to him, and wondered who his guardian would be, she said “she did not know. Lawyer Schofield, perhaps, as he had done the most of Squire Irving’s business.”
“But Lawyer Schofield is dead. He died three weeks ago,” the ladies said; and Mrs. Walter Scott’s cheek for a moment turned pale as she expressed her surprise at the news, and wondered she had not heard of it.
Then the conversation drifted back to Roger, who was expected the next night, and for whom the funeral was delayed.
“I always liked Roger,” Mrs. Johnson said; “and I must say I loved his mother, in spite of her faults. She was a lovely creature, and it seems a thousand pities that she should have married so old a man as Squire Irving when she loved another so much.”
Mrs. Walter Scott said it was a pity,—said she always disapproved of unequal matches,—said she had not the honor of the lady’s acquaintance, and then bowed her visitors out with her loftiest air, and went back to the parlor, and wondered what people would say when they knew what she did. She would be very kind to Roger, she thought. Her standing in Belvidere depended upon that, and he should have a home at Millbank until he was of age, when, with the legacy left to him, he could do very well for himself. She wished the servants did not think quite so much of him as they did, especially Aleck and Hester Floyd, who talked of nothing except that “Master Roger was coming to-morrow.” Her mourning was coming, too; and when the next day it came, she arrayed herself in the heavy bombazine, with the white crape band at the throat and wrists, which relieved the sombreness of her attire. She was dressing for Roger, she said, thinking it better to evince some interest in an event which was occupying so much of the servants’ thoughts.
The day was a damp, chilly one in mid-April, and so a fire was kindled in Roger’s room, and flowers were put there, and the easy chair from the hall library; and Hester went in and out and arranged and re-arranged the furniture, and then flitted to the kitchen, where the pies and puddings which Roger loved were baking, and where Jeruah, or “Ruey,” as she was called was beating the eggs for Roger’s favorite cake. He would be there about nine o’clock, she knew, for she had received a telegram from Albany, saying, “Shall be home at nine. Meet me at the depot without fail.”
In a great flurry Hester read the dispatch, wondering why she was to meet him without fail, and finally deciding that the affectionate boy could not wait till he reached home before pouring out his tears and grief on her motherly bosom.
“Poor child! I presume he’ll cry fit to bust when he sees me,” she said to Mrs. Walter Scott, who looked with a kind of scorn upon the preparations for the supposed heir of Millbank.