CHAPTER XXIII.
“THE BOY.”
They all came round, gathering about his bed, Rochford stooping, drawing the papers out of his bag, Edward Penton approaching closer, looking with a revival in his bosom of all the forgotten feelings of his youth upon the severed friend, the old protector, the fatherly patron of those days that were no more. To be sundered for years, and then to come again and see the object of the filial, friendly affection of the past, the man round whom your dearest recollections center, lying, whatever chasm may in the meantime have opened between, upon his death-bed—what heart can resist that? Scarcely the most obdurate, the most prejudiced; and Edward Penton was neither one nor the other. He came slowly forward and stood by the bedside, forgetting all about the motive which brought him thither, impatient, so far as he noticed them at all, of the presence of the strangers. He came close, placing himself before Russell Penton, who had no such claim to be there as he. He did not attempt to say anything, but claimed the place, he who was the last one left of the three boys; he whom they had hated rather than loved because he was the survivor, yet who forgot that entirely now, and everything involved in it. He stood by the side of Alicia as he had stood so often. He forgot that there was any question between them. He had been brought, indeed, to sign and settle, but all that floated from him now. Russell Penton stood aside to let him pass, and the lawyer placed himself at the writing-table, which had been brought nearer, within reach of the bed, and where all the papers had been laid out. “Do you think he will be able to understand if I read them?” Rochford said, aside, to Russell Penton; “or shall we try for his signature at once?” Russell Penton made no reply, except by a slight wave of his hand toward the bed. It seemed a profanity that any one should speak or occupy the attention of the group save he who was the center of it. Sir Walter’s eyes were open, his interest fully awakened. He watched while the writing-table was drawn forward and put in order. He gave one glance of recognition to Edward Penton at his bedside, but had not time, it seemed, for greetings, his whole mind being fixed on this thing which he had to do.
“I had almost lost sight of it,” he said. “Now, thank God, I remember—while I have the time. It will be—what you call a codicil. Alicia, you always were generous; you won’t grudge it, Alicia?”
“Father!” she cried, bewildered by this preamble; then, in the rapid process of thought trying to believe that it was some further compensation to Edward which was in her father’s mind. “You know,” she said, fervently, “that I will grudge nothing that is your pleasure—nothing; you know that!”
“Yes, my love—I know; it is not money she would ever grudge. Alicia—no, no; but perhaps honor—or love. Rochford, what I want is about the boy.”
“The boy!” Mrs. Russell Penton turned quickly a searching glance on her father, to which his dim eyes made no response; then looked round with one rapid demand for explanation. She seemed to ask Heaven and earth what he meant. “Could it be this? Could this be all?”
“The boy!” Rochford echoed, with amazement; “what boy, sir?” faltering. “There was nothing about any boy;” and he too gave Russell Penton a significant look, meaning that Sir Walter’s mind was wandering, and that no settlements could be possible now.
“Gerald, you understand, tell them.”
Sir Walter turned his eyes instinctively to the one impartial. “The boy—Edward’s boy. Alicia would not see how like he was; but it was very plain to me—and a nice boy. He has the name as well, and he will have Penton. Eh, Penton? What was there about Penton?” The old man paused a moment, trying to raise his heavy brow, his drooping eyelids—and there was a great silence in the room; they all looked at each other, conscious, with something like a sense of guilt, and no one ventured to be the first to speak. It was Alicia, perhaps, who should have done it, but she felt as if her laboring bosom was bound by icy chains, and could not; or the lawyer, who gazed at her mutely, demanding whether he should say anything—what he should say. It was but a moment, breathless, precipitate. Then, as if there had been nothing in it but the break of his difficult breathing, Sir Walter resumed, “He will have Penton, in the course of nature. But we’re long-lived, it may be a long time first. Alicia,” he groped for her with the feeble hand which he could scarcely raise, moving the heavy fingers like a blind man. “Alicia, I want, as long as I can, to do something for the boy.”
She had turned half away, her hands had fallen by her side, a blank of something like despair had come over her. Not for Penton! oh, not for Penton; but because he had glided away from her into the valley of darkness, and his mind had gone beyond the reach, beyond the sphere of hers. To feel that as he did so the mind of her father, so long united to hers, as she had believed, in every thought, took another turning, and disclosed other wishes, other sentiments, overwhelmed Alicia with a wild surprise. Death was nothing to that. It made heaven and earth reel to her with the greatness of the astonishment. But that too was but for a moment. She turned round, it seemed to the spectators instantly, though to herself after a pause which was tragical in its passion, and answered the feeble groping of the blind hand by clasping it in both of hers. Then she had to summon her voice from the depths, to break the chains of ice. “Whatever,” she said, “father, whatever you wish.”