Tales from "Blackwood," Volume 2

by Various

Toward the close of the last summer preceding his decease, a season which had been made particularly irksome to him by the prolonged visitation of Mrs Heneage and her family, my old friend was left once more to the quiet society of his sister, and to her gentle tending, through one of his constitutional attacks, the effects of which still lingered about him, when the health of his kind nurse began to droop, and a fearful change in her appearance was manifest to all those who were not blinded to it by habits of hourly intercourse, and her uncomplaining serenity. Her own maid, however, the faithful Celia, was but too competent to perceive the alteration in her lady, and to surmise its cause; for she was aware, though enjoined to strict secresy, that for some time past, on the first indication of any gouty symptoms, Mrs Eleanor had had recourse to powerful repellants, counting as little her own personal risk, in comparison with the dread necessity of leaving her brother companionless in the midst of his intrusive guests, or alone on the bed of sickness, as might have been the case had her own malady been allowed to take its progress unchecked at the first indications, which were of a more than heretofore threatening nature. The antidote had been but too efficacious, and when Mrs Eleanor was at length induced by the entreaties of her faithful servant, and her own internal sensations, to speak privately to her medical attendant (an attached friend of the family), he saw so much cause for serious alarm, that it was with difficulty she prevailed on him to withhold for a few days only from her brother the shock of a communication, which she undoubtedly flattered herself might yet be rendered unnecessary by her amendment.

And for a day or two she appeared to rally, and there was a visible improvement in her, to my observation and that of Mrs L——, when we stopt at the Hall in our evening drive, and drank tea with her and Mr Devereux, on the last of those few days.

We had hardly done breakfast the following morning, when our medical friend (the attendant of the Devereuxs) sent in a request to speak to me in my library.

It was to announce to me the removal of our dear friend from earth to heaven. She had been found that morning in her bed asleep in death.

It needs not to say how promptly I betook myself to the house of mourning—how earnestly I pressed for admittance to the forlorn survivor, who had locked himself into his library, at the door of which stood Hallings in an agony of grief and apprehension, imploring leave to enter, if but for a moment. I joined my supplications to his, and after a time we heard a heavy sigh, and the approach of feeble footsteps to the door, on the opening of which the bereaved old man, as if overpowered by the effort, staggered backwards, and would have fallen, but that I caught him in my arms, and supported him to his easy-chair, still holding his hand, as I took my seat beside him, in that deep awe of silent sympathy, which feels it profanation to break in with human speech upon the sacredness of unutterable sorrow. Long he lay back, as he had sunk into his chair, silent and motionless. The small thin hand I held, was as cold and pale as that of a corpse; and as I contemplated his venerable countenance, colourless as the hand, the closed eyelids, and sunken temples, and every sharpened feature set in rigid and unnatural composure, I was startled—not shocked—by a sudden thought that the imperishable spirit had departed already from that poor frame of decaying mortality.

In breathless awe I stole my fingers gently to the wrist of the hand I held in mine, almost praying inwardly that I might find all quiet there; but even while I felt for the imperceptible pulse, a change came over the pale countenance—a slight tremor of the muscles about the mouth, a quivering of the lower eyelids, and then a tear stole glistening through the thin worn lashes of either eye, and slowly, heavily trickled down the furrowed cheek, and after a minute the trembling hand was withdrawn from the tender pressure of mine, and with its fellow joined and half upraised in the attitude of prayer. The old man’s eyes were still closed, but his lips moved, and in the tremulous accents which escaped them, I distinguished—“I thank thee!... I thank thee.... Oh Lord!... Thou hast taken her from the evil to come.”

Uninvited and unwelcome, Mr Heneage Devereux presented himself at the Hall, as suddenly as rapid travelling could bring him there, after the notification of Mrs Eleanor’s death had reached him in London. And it was evident to me and others that he had motives for preventing as much as possible all unrestrained and confidential intercourse between his cousin and those old friends and neighbours, who would have rallied round him in his distress and perplexities, and, by their strenuous and disinterested counsels and assistance, have even then released him from his bondage to the fiend, had time been allowed them to win gradually upon the shyness and timidity of Mr Devereux’s character, so as to induce him to overstep the little weakness of that false pride which shrank from disclosure of worldly difficulties, and exposure—such as no doubt he had pictured to himself—to the humiliating comments of contemptuous pity. Mr Heneage came, and such perpetual and vexatious obstacles were thrown in the way of the neighbouring gentlemen, in all their attempts at a renewal of social intercourse with Mr Devereux, that one by one all relinquished their kindly hopes of serving him effectually, though a few, like myself, persevered in seeing him as often as we could obtain admission into that altered abode, where in past days such a gracious and smiling welcome had ever greeted us. But I fear our venerable friend derived little pleasure or comfort from these almost intrusive visits. Courteously and kindly indeed he ever received all who approached him; and to the few who had been particularly distinguished by his friendship and that of Mrs Eleanor, there was even a more touching expression—one of grateful tenderness in his accustomed affectionateness of manner. But the exertion of conversation, absorbed as he was by corroding cares and fatal concealments, was evidently a painful effort to him, and he often sunk, even while his friends were endeavouring to engage his attention, into fits of sad abstraction, broken unconsciously by such deep-fetched sighs as went to the heart of those who were powerless to comfort. Little was even yet known of the real nature of those transactions between our venerable friend and his kinsman, which had wrought such lamentable change in him, and all connected with him; but whispers got abroad that Mr Devereux’s circumstances were in a very dilapidated state, and that there was even a possibility, if his life were spared beyond a certain period, that the old man might be driven forth from the home of his ancestors, to seek some meaner shelter for his grey head, before it was laid to rest in the vault of the Devereuxs.

Mr Heneage began to assume more arbitrary authority over the establishment at the Hall—conducting himself with an insolence of manner so disgusting to the old respectable servants, that, by degrees, all dropped off except Hallings and his wife, and a white-headed coachman, whose devoted fidelity strengthened them to endure all things rather than desert their aged master in the hour of his utmost need.

Towards the close of that sad winter succeeding the death of Mrs Eleanor, Hallings (as I have since heard from him) observed an unwonted degree of restlessness in his master, and at times, after having been closeted with Mr Heneage and an attorney, who now frequently accompanied the latter to the Hall—at such times especially a feverish and flushed excitement, during the continuance of which his ideas seemed to wander, and he uttered expressions which gave but too much ground of probability to those rumours I have alluded to.