A Poor Gentleman

by Mrs. Oliphant

A similar struggle, but slighter and fainter was in her husband’s mind; but in him it was not a mortal conflict, only a question which was best. Was it right to permit the old man to float away, as he said, without executing a project which seemed so near to his heart? Because it was not one which pleased Russell Penton, because he would rather that it should fail, he felt himself the more bound to his wife that it should not fail through him.

“It seems almost wicked to disturb you, sir,” he said, “but I heard that you wanted Rochford; if so, he is here.”

Alicia caught her husband by the arm, pressing it almost fiercely with her hand, leaning her trembling weight upon him. “But not to disturb you, father,” she cried, with a gasp.

“Ah!” said Sir Walter, “I remember. What was it? I don’t seem to see anything—except those lights like stars shining; and Alicia, Alicia! How beautiful she is looking—like a girl—to-night.”

Her husband gave her a strange glance. She was gripping his arm as if for salvation, clutching it, her breath coming quick; her cheeks with two red spots of anxiety and excitement; her eyes dull, with no expression in the intensity of their passion, fixed on her father’s face. The white dressing-gown which she had thrown on when she was called to him was open a little at the throat, and showed the gleam of the diamonds which she had not had time to take off. It was not wonderful that in the old man’s eyes, with love and fever together in them, Alicia, in her unusual white, should seem for a moment to have gone back to the dazzle and splendor of youth.

Sir Walter resumed after a moment, as though this little outbreak of tender admiration were an indulgence which he had permitted himself. “My mind’s getting very hazy, Gerald—all quite pleasant, the right thing, no trouble in it, but hazy. I remember, and yet I don’t remember. If I had but the clew—Rochford?—the young one, not the father. He’s gone, like all the rest, and now the young one—reigns in his stead. Bring him, and perhaps I’ll remember. You could tell me, you two, but you’re afraid to disturb me. What does it matter about disturbing me? a moment—and then—Send for him; perhaps I’ll remember.”

Alicia would scarcely let her husband go. She looked at him with terror in her eyes. What was she afraid of? When he withdrew his arm from her she dropped down suddenly on her knees by her father’s bedside with a low shuddering cry, and hid her face, pressing her cheek upon the old man’s hand. The excitement had risen too high. She could bear it no longer. Complicated with all the aching and trouble of the moment, the bursting of this last tie of nature, the dearest and longest companionship of her life, to have that other anxiety, the miserable question of the inheritance, the triumph or sacrifice of her pride, which yet, even amid the solemnity of death, moved her more than any other question oh earth—was something intolerable. It was more than she could bear. She sunk down, partly out of incapacity to support herself, partly that she could not, dared not, meet her father’s eyes with their vague and wistful question. “You could tell me, you two.” He had seen it, then, in her face, though she had made efforts so determined to banish all sign of comprehension, all answer out of her eyes. And now, if he insisted, how could she refuse to answer him? and if Gerald perceived that the old man had found the necessary clew through her, what would he think of her? That she had preferred her own aggrandizement to her father’s peace, that she had prompted him on the very edge of the grave to enrich herself. She could not sustain Sir Walter’s look, nor face the emergency without at least that passive protection of her husband’s presence, which for the moment was withdrawn. And Alicia trembled for the moment when the strangers would come into this sacred room; the lawyer, and Edward Penton behind him, hesitating, not without feeling (she knew), looking sadly at the death-bed where lay one whom in his early days he had looked up to with familiar kindness. Nobody in the world, not even Gerald, could be so near to him in that moment as Edward Penton. She felt this even while she trembled at the anticipation of his coming. He was nearer than any one living. He would bring in with him the shadows of those two helpless ones disappeared so long out of life. She bethought her in that moment how it had been usual to say “the three boys.” Was her mind wandering, too? All these thoughts surged up into her brain in a wild confusion—the old tenderness, the irritation, the bitter jealous grudge at him who had outlived the others, the natural longing toward one who could understand.

Sir Walter was unaffected by any of these thoughts; he felt it all natural—that the grief of his child should overwhelm her, that the sense of parting and loss should be profounder on her side than on his. After various efforts he raised his hand, which was so heavy, which would not obey his will, and laid it tenderly upon her bowed head. “Alicia, my dear, child, don’t let it overwhelm you. Who can tell even how small the separation is—as long as it lasts, and it can not last very long. You must not, you must not, my dear, be sorry for me. I tell you—it is all pleasant—sweet. I am not—not at all—sorry for myself. God bless you, my dear. He is so close that when I say ‘God bless you’ it is as if, my love. He Himself was putting out His hand.”

“Oh, father! oh, father!” she repeated, and could say no more.

And he lay with his face turned to her, and his hand feebly smoothing, stroking her bowed head, as if she had been a child. She was a child to him, his young Alicia, looking so beautiful after her ball, in which he had seen her—had he not seen her?—admired of everybody, the fairest, the most stately, with the Penton diamonds glittering at her white throat as they were now. He had her in his mind’s eye so distinct, as he had seen her—was it an hour, was it a life-time ago? His breathing began to be disturbed, becoming more difficult, and his thoughts to grow more confused. He talked on, in broken gasps of utterance, more difficult, always more difficult. The fog in his throat—he began to feel it now; but always in flashes saw the lights gleaming, and Alicia in full beauty, with her eyes like the stars, and those other stars, less precious, yet full of luster at her throat. He took no note of outward things, being more and more absorbed—yet with a dullness which softened everything, even the difficulty of the breath—in his own sensations, and in the sweep of the hurrying movement that seemed to be carrying him away, away, into halcyon seas beyond, into repose and smiling peace. But the woman kneeling under his hand was as much alive to every sound and incident as he was dull to them. Nothing muffled her keen sense, or stilled the flood of thoughts that were pouring through her mind. She heard, her heart leaping to the sound, steps approaching softly, on tiptoe, every noise restrained. She heard a low murmur of voices, then the opening of the door; but she was afraid to lift her head, to startle her father. She dared not look up to see who was there, or how he took the entrance of the new-comers. As for Sir Walter, he was almost beyond disturbance. His hand moved heavily from time to time over her head; sometimes there was a faint tremble when a breath came harder, nothing more. Would he die so? she asked herself, making no sign; was it all sealed up forever, the source of life that had made the light or the darkness of so many other lives. Her own wildly beating heart seemed to stand still, to stop in the tremendous suspense.