It was not long till everybody knew; from the top to the bottom of the great house the news ran in a moment. John Stokes, the carpenter, returned and mounted his ladder mechanically, to resume his work: then remembered, and got down solemnly and collected his tools, leaving one wreath up and half of the drapery. ‘There won’t be no ball here this time,’ he said to his mate. ‘You bring the stepladder, Sam.’ This was the first sign that one cycle of time, one reign was over, and another begun.
From that moment Heathcote Mountford’s position was changed. He felt it before he had gone up the stairs, reverently following that which now he no longer addressed with encouraging human words, but felt to be the unapproachable and solemn thing it was. A man had ridden off for the doctor before they entered the house, but there was no question of a doctor to those who now laid their old master upon his bed. ‘I should say instantaneous, or next to instantaneous,’ the doctor said when he came; and when he heard of the few groans which had followed the fall, he gave it as his opinion that these had been but unconscious plaints of the body after all sense of pain or knowledge of what was happening had departed. The horse had put his foot into a hole in the spongy wet turf—a thing that might have happened any day, and which it was a wonder did not happen oftener. There were not even the usual questionings and wonderings as to how it came about, which are so universal when death seizes life with so little warning. Mr. Mountford had been in the habit of riding with a loose rein. He had unbounded confidence in his cob, which, now that the event had proved its danger, a groom came forward to say by no means deserved his confidence, but had two or three times before stumbled with its rider. Heathcote felt that doctors and grooms alike looked to himself with something more than ordinary courtesy and respect. He walked away from the comfortable bedroom now turned into a solemn presence chamber, and all its homely uses intermitted, with a gravity he had not felt before for years. He was not this man’s son, scarcely his friend, that his death should affect him so. But, besides the solemnity of the event thus happening in his presence, it changed his position even more than if he had been St. John Mountford’s son. It would be barbarous to desert the poor women in their trouble; but how was he to remain here, a comparative stranger, their kinsman but their supplanter, become in a moment the master of the house in which these girls had been born, and which their mother had ruled for twenty years. He went to his room to change his wet and soiled clothes, with a sense of confusion and sadness that made everything unreal to him. His past as well as that of his kinsman had ended in a moment; his careless easy life was over, the indulgences which he had considered himself entitled to as a man upon whom nobody but Edward had any special claim. Now Edward’s claims, for which he had been willing to sacrifice his patrimony, must be put aside perforce. He could no longer think of the arrangement which an hour ago he had been talking of so easily, which was to have been accomplished with so little trouble. It was in no way to be done now. Actually in a moment he had become Mountford of Mount, the representative of many ancestors, the proprietor of an old house and property, responsible to dependents of various kinds, and to the future and to the past. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye; no idea of this kind had crossed his mind during that long half-hour in the park, which looked like half a year. A fatal issue had not occurred to him. It was not until he had reached the threshold of the house, until he felt hope and help to be near, until he had heard Anne’s voice appealing to him to know what it was, that the whole meaning of it had burst upon him. St. John Mountford dead, and he himself master of the house! It was impossible that, apart from the appalling suddenness of the catastrophe, and the nervous agitation of his own share in it, the death of his cousin even in this startling and pitiful way should plunge him into grief. He was deeply shocked and awed and impressed—sorry for the ladies, stricken so unexpectedly with a double doom, loss of their head, loss of their home—and sorry beyond words for the poor man himself, thus snatched out of life in a moment without preparation, without any suggestion even of what was going to happen; but it was not possible that Heathcote Mountford could feel any private pang in himself. He was subdued out of all thought of himself, except that strange sensation of absolute change. He dressed mechanically, scarcely perceiving what it was he was putting on, in his usual evening clothes which had been laid out for him, just as if he had been dressing for the usual peaceful dinner, his kinsman in the next room doing the same, and the table laid for all the family party. Notwithstanding the absolute change that had occurred, the revolution in everything, what could a man do but follow mechanically the habitual customs of every day?
He dressed very slowly, sometimes standing by the fire idly for ten minutes at a time, in a half stupor of excitement, restless yet benumbed and incapable of either action or thought; and when this was accomplished went slowly along the long corridors to the drawing-room, still as if nothing had happened, though more had happened than he could fathom or realise. The change had gone down before him and was apparent in every corner of the deserted place. There were two candles burning feebly on the mantelpiece, and the fire threw a little fitful light about, but that was all; and no one was there; of course it was impossible that anyone should be there—but Heathcote was strange to family trouble, and did not know what happened when a calamity like this same crashing down from heaven into the midst of a household of people. Mrs. Mountford’s work was lying on the sofa with the little sheaf of bright-coloured wools, which she had been used to tuck under her arm when she went ‘to sit with papa;’ and on the writing-table there was the rough copy of the ball programme, corrected for the printer in Rose’s hand. The programmes; it floated suddenly across his mind to recollect the commission they had received on this subject as they had ridden away; had they fulfilled it? he asked himself in his confusion; then remembered as suddenly how he who was lying upstairs had fulfilled it, and how useless it now was. Ball programmes! and the giver of the ball lying dead in the house within reach of all the preparations, the garlands, and ornaments. It was incredible, but it was true. Heathcote walked about the dark and empty room in a maze of bewildered trouble which he could not understand, troubled for the dead, and for the women, and for himself, who was neither one nor the other, who was the person to profit by it. It was no longer they who had been born here, who had lived and ruled here for so many years, but he himself who was supreme in the house. It was all his own. The idea neither pleased him nor excited, but depressed and bewildered him. His own house: and all his easy quiet life in the Albany, and his little luxuries in the way of art and of travel—all over and gone. It seemed unkind to think of this in the presence of calamity so much more serious. Yet how could he help it? When some one came with a soft knock at the door he was startled as if it had been a ghost. It was Saymore who came into the room, neat in his evening apparel, dressed and trim whatever happened, making his little formal bow. ‘The ladies, sir,’ Saymore said, conquering a little huskiness, a little faltering in his own voice, ‘send their compliments and they don’t feel equal to coming down. They hope you will excuse them; and dinner is served, Mr. Mountford,’ the old man said, his voice ending in a jar of broken sound, almost like weeping. Heathcote went downstairs very seriously, as if he had formed one of the usual procession. He seated himself at the end of the table, still decorated with all its usual prettinesses as for the family meal; he did all this mechanically, taking the place of the master of the house, without knowing that he did so, and sitting down as if with ghosts, with all those empty seats round the table and every place prepared. Was it real or was it a dream? He felt that he could see himself as in a picture, sitting there alone, eating mechanically, going through a semblance of the usual meal. The soup was set before him, and then the fish, and then—
‘Saymore, old man,’ Heathcote said suddenly, starting up, ‘I don’t know if this is a tragedy or a farce we are playing—I cannot stand it any longer—take all those things away.’
‘It do seem an awful change, sir, and so sudden,’ cried the old man, frightened by the sudden movement, and by this departure from the rigid rules of ceremony—yet relieved after his first start was over. And then old Saymore began to sob, putting down the little silver dish with the entrée. ‘I’ve been his butler, sir, this thirty years, and ten years in the pantry before that, footman, and born on the property like. And all to be over, sir, in a moment; and he was a good master, sir, though strict. He was very particular, but always a kind master. It’ll be long before we’ll yet another like him—not but what I beg your pardon, Mr. Mountford. I don’t make no doubt but them as serves you will give the same character to you.’
This good wish relieved the oppression with a touch of humour; but Heathcote did not dare to let a smile appear. ‘I hope so, sir,’ Saymore said. He rubbed his old eyes hard with his napkin. Then he took up again the little silver dish. ‘It’s sweetbreads, sir, and it won’t keep; it was a great favourite with master. Have a little while it’s hot. It will disappoint cook if you don’t eat a bit; we must eat, whatever happens, sir,’ the old man said.
CHAPTER XX.
THE WILL.
It is needless to dwell upon the gloom of the days that followed this event. Mr. Loseby came over from Hunston, as pale as he was rosy on ordinary occasions, and with a self-reproach that was half pathetic, half ludicrous. ‘I said every word of that new will of his would be a nail in his coffin, God forgive me,’ he said. ‘How was I to know? A man should never take upon himself to prophesy. God knows what a murdering villain he feels if it chances to come true.’
‘But nothing you said could have made the horse put his foot in that rabbit-hole,’ Heathcote said.
‘That is true, that is true,’ said the little lawyer: and then he began the same plaint again. But he was very active and looked after everything, managing the melancholy business of the moment, the inquest, and the funeral. There was a great deal to do. Telegrams flew about the country on all sides, warning the guests invited to the ball of what had happened—yet at least one carriage full of ladies in full ball dress had to be turned back from the lodge on the night when so much gaiety had been expected at Mount. Charley Ashley had come up from the rectory at once and took the position of confidential agent to the ladies, in a way that Heathcote Mountford could not do. He thought it wrong to forsake them, and his presence was needed as mourner at his cousin’s funeral; otherwise he would have been glad to escape from the chill misery and solitude that seemed to shut down upon the house which had been so cheerful. He saw nothing of the ladies, save that now and then he would cross the path of Anne, who did not shut herself up like her stepmother and sister. She was very grave, but still she carried on the government of the house. When Heathcote asked her how she was, she answered with a serious smile, though with quick-coming moisture in her eyes: ‘I am not ill at all; I am very well, Mr. Heathcote. Is it not strange one’s grief makes no difference to one in that way? One thinks it must, one even hopes it must; but it does not; only my heart feels like a lump of lead.’ She was able for all her work, just as usual, and saw Mr. Loseby and gave Charley Ashley the list of all the people to be telegraphed to, or to whom letters must be written. But Mrs. Mountford and Rose kept to their rooms, where all the blinds were carefully closed and every table littered with crape. Getting the mourning ready was always an occupation, and it did them good. They all went in a close carriage to the village church on the day of the funeral, but only Anne followed her father’s coffin to the grave. It was when Heathcote stood by her there that he remembered again suddenly the odiousness of the idea that some man or other, a fellow whom nobody knew, had managed to get between Anne Mountford and all the rest of the world. It was not a place for such a thought, yet it came to him in spite of himself, when he saw her falter for a moment and instinctively put out his arm to sustain her. She looked round upon him with a look in which gratitude and something like a proud refusal of his aid were mingled. That look suggested to him the question which suddenly arose in his mind, though, as he felt, nothing could be more inappropriate at such a time and place. Where was the fellow? Why was he not here? If he had permitted Anne to be disinherited for his sake, why had he not hurried to her side to support her in her trouble? Heathcote was not the only person who had asked himself this question. The Curate had not looked through Anne’s list of names before he sent intelligence of Mr. Mountford’s death to his friend. The first person of whom he had thought was Cosmo. ‘Of course you will come to the rectory,’ he telegraphed, sending him the news on the evening of the occurrence. He had never doubted that Cosmo would arrive next morning by the earliest train. All next day while he had been working for them, he had expected every hour the sound of the arrival, saying to himself, when the time passed for the morning and for the evening trains, that Cosmo must have been from home, that he could not have received the message, that of course he would come to-morrow. But when even the day of the funeral arrived without Cosmo, Charley Ashley’s good heart was wrung with mingled wrath and impatience. What could it mean? He was glad, so far as he himself was concerned, for it was a kind of happiness to him to be doing everything for Anne and her mother and sister. He was proud and glad to think that it was natural he should do it, he who was so old a friend, almost like a brother to the girls. But the other, who had a closer claim than that of any brother, who had supplanted Charley and pushed him aside, where was he? On this subject Anne did not say a word. She had written and received various letters, but she did not take anyone into her confidence. And yet there was a something in her eyes, a forlorn look, a resistance of any support, as if she had said to herself, ‘Since I have not his arm I will have no one else’s support.’ Heathcote withdrew from her side with a momentary sense of a rebuff. He followed her down the little churchyard path and put her into the carriage, where the others were waiting for her, without a word. Then she turned round and looked at him again. Was it an appeal for forgiveness, for sympathy—and yet for not too much sympathy—which Anne was making? These looks of mingled feeling which have so much in them of the poetry of life, how difficult they are to interpret! how easily it may be that their meaning exists only in the eyes that see them! like letters which may be written carelessly, hastily, but which we weigh, every word of them, in balances of the sanctuary, too fine and delicate for earthly words, finding out so much more than the writer ever thought to say. Perhaps it was only Heathcote’s indignant sense that the lover, for whom she had already suffered, should have been by Anne’s side in her trouble that made him see so much in her eyes. Charley Ashley had been taking a part in the service; his voice had trembled with real feeling as he read the psalms; and a genuine tear for the man whom he had known all his life had been in his eye; but he, too, had seen Anne’s looks and put his own interpretation upon them. When all was over, he came out of the vestry where he had taken off his surplice and joined Heathcote. He was going up to Mount, the general centre of everything at this moment. The mourners were going there to luncheon, and afterwards the will was to be read. Already, Mr. Mountford being safely in his grave, covered with wreaths of flowers which everybody had sent, the interest shifted, and it was of this will and its probable revelations that everybody thought.