Complete Works of Bram Stoker (275 page)

There was a solemn ring in her voce as the words were spoken which went through the young girl’s heart.  Love and confidence demanded in return that she should have at least the relief of certain acquiescence; there is a possible note of pain in the tensity of every string!  Stephen lifted her head proudly and honestly, though her cheeks were scarlet, saying with a consciousness of integrity which spoke directly soul to soul:

‘You are right, dear!  I have done something very foolish; very, very foolish!  But it was nothing which any one could call wrong.  Do not ask me what it was.  I need only tell you this: that it was an outrage on convention.  It was so foolish, and based on such foolish misconception; it sprang from such over-weening, arrogant self-opinion that it deserves the bitter punishment which will come; which is coming; which is with me now!  It was the cause of something whose blackness I can’t yet realise; but of which I will tell you when I can speak of it.  But it was not wrong in itself, or in the eyes of God or man!’  The old woman said not a word.  No word was needed, for had she not already expressed her belief?  But Stephen felt her relief in the glad pressure of her finger-tips.  In a voice less strained and tense Miss Rowly went on:

‘What need have I for money, dear?  Here I have all that any woman, especially at my age, can need.  There is no room even for charity; you are so good to all your people that my help is hardly required.  And, my dear one, I know  —  I know,’ she emphasised the word as she stroked the beautiful hair, ‘that when I am gone my own poor, the few that I have looked after all my life, will, not suffer when my darling thinks of me!’  Stephen fairly climbed upon her as she said, looking in the brave old eyes:

‘So help me God, my darling, they shall never want!’

Silence for a time; and then Miss Rowly’s voice again:

‘Though it would not do for the world to know that a young maiden lady had paid the debts of a vicious young man, it makes no matter if they be paid by an old woman, be the same maid, wife, or widow!  And really, my dear, I do not see how any money I might have could be better spent than in keeping harm away from you.’

‘There need not be any harm at all, Auntie.’

‘Perhaps not, dear!  I hope not with all my heart.  But I fear that young man.  Just fancy him threatening you, and in your own house; in my very presence!  Oh! yes, my dear.  He meant to threaten, anyhow!  Though I could not exactly understand what he was driving at, I could see that he was driving at something.  And after all that you were doing for him, and had done for him!  I mean, of course, after all that I had done for him, and was doing for him.  It is mean enough, surely, for a man to beg, and from a woman; but to threaten afterwards.  Ach!  But I think, my dear, it is checkmate to him this time.  All along the line the only proof that is of there being any friendliness towards him from this house points to me.  And moreover, my dear, I have a little plan in my head that will tend to show him up even better, in case he may ever try to annoy us.  Look at me when next he is here.  I mean to do a little play-acting which will astonish him, I can tell you, if it doesn’t frighten him out of the house altogether.  But we won’t talk of that yet.  You will understand when you see it!’  Her eyes twinkled and her mouth shut with a loud snap as she spoke.

After a few minutes of repose, which was like a glimpse of heaven to Stephen’s aching heart, she spoke again:

‘There was something else that troubled you more than even this.  You said you would tell me when you were able to speak of it . . . Why not speak now?  Oh! my dear, our hearts are close together to-night; and in all your life, you will never have any one who will listen with greater sympathy than I will, or deal more tenderly with your fault, whatever it may have been.  Tell me, dear!  Dear!’ she whispered after a pause, during which she realised the depth of the girl’s emotion by her convulsive struggling to keep herself in check.

All at once the tortured girl seemed to yield herself, and slipped inertly from her grasp till kneeling down she laid her head in the motherly lap and sobbed.  Miss Rowly kept stroking her hair in silence.  Presently the girl looked up, and with a pang the aunt saw that her eyes were dry.  In her pain she said:

‘You sob like that, my child, and yet you are not crying; what is it, oh! my dear one?  What is it that hurts you so that you cannot cry?’

And then the bitter sobbing broke out again, but still alas! without tears.  Crouching low, and still enclosing her aunt’s waist with her outstretched arms and hiding her head in her breast; she said:

‘Oh! Auntie, I have sent Harold away!’

‘What, my dear?  What?’ said the old lady astonished.  ‘Why, I thought there was no one in the world that you trusted so much as Harold!’

‘It is true.  There was  —  there is no one except you whom I trust so much.  But I mistook something he said.  I was in a blind fury at the time, and I said things that I thought my father’s daughter never could have said.  And she never thought them, even then!  Oh, Auntie, I drove him away with all the horrible things I could say that would wound him.  And all because he acted in a way that I see now was the most noble and knightly in which any man could act.  He that my dear father had loved, and honoured, and trusted as another son.  He that was a real son to him, and not a mock sop like me.  I sent him away with such fierce and bitter pain that his poor face was ashen grey, and there was woe in his eyes that shall make woe in mine whenever I shall see them in my mind, waking or sleeping.  He, the truest friend . . . the most faithful, the most tender, the most strong, the most unselfish!  Oh! Auntie, Auntie, he just turned and bowed and went away.  And he couldn’t do anything else with the way I spoke to him; and now I shall never see him again!’

The young girl’s eyes ware still dry, but the old woman’s were wet.  For a few minutes she kept softly stroking the bowed heat till the sobbing grew less and less, and then died away; and the girl lay still, collapsed in the abandonment of dry-eyed grief.

Then she rose, and taking off her dressing-gown, said tenderly:

‘Let me stay with you to-night, dear one?  Go to sleep in my arms, as you did long ago when there was any grief that you could not bear.’

So Stephen lay in those loving arms till her own young breast ceased heaving, and she breathed softly.  Till dawn she slept on the bosom of her who loved her so well.

CHAPTER XXI  —  THE DUTY OF COURTESY

Leonard was getting tired of waiting when he received his summons to Normanstand.  But despite his impatience he was ill pleased with the summons, which came in the shape of a polite note from Miss Rowly asking him to come that afternoon at tea-time.  He had expected to hear from Stephen.

‘Damn that old woman!  You’d think she was working the whole show!’  However, he turned up at a little before five o’clock, spruce and dapper and well dressed and groomed as usual.  He was shown, as before, into the blue drawing-room.  Miss Rowly, who sat there, rose as he entered, and coming across the room, greeted him, as he thought, effusively.  He actually winced when she called him ‘my dear boy’ before the butler.

She ordered tea to be served at once, and when it had been brought she said to the butler:

‘Tell Mannerly to bring me a large thick envelope which is on the table in my room.  It is marked L.E. on the outside.’  Presently an elderly maid handed her the envelope and withdrew.  When tea was over she opened the envelope, and taking from it a number of folios, looked over them carefully; holding them in her lap, she said quietly:

‘You will find writing materials on the table.  I am all ready now to hand you over the receipts.’  His eyes glistened.  This was good news at all events; the debts were paid.  In a rapid flash of thought he came to the conclusion that if the debts were actually paid he need not be civil to the old lady.  He felt that he could have been rude to her if he had actual possession of the receipts.  As it was, however, he could not yet afford to have any unpleasantness.  There was still to come that lowering interview with his father; and he could not look towards it satisfactorily until he had the assurance of the actual documents that he was safe.  Miss Rowly was, in her own way, reading his mind in his face.  Her lorgnon seemed to follow his every expression like a searchlight.  He remembered his former interview with her, and how he had been bested in it; so he made up his mind to acquiesce in time.  He went over to the table and sat down.  Taking a pen he turned to Miss Rowly and said:

‘What shall I write?’  She answered calmly:

‘Date it, and then say, “Received from Miss Laetitia Rowly the receipts for the following amounts from the various firms hereunder enumerated.”‘  She then proceeded to read them, he writing and repeating as he wrote.  Then she added:

‘“The same being the total amount of my debts which she has kindly paid for me.”‘  He paused here; she asked.

‘Why don’t you go on?’

‘I thought it was Stephen  —  Miss Norman,’ he corrected, catching sight of her lorgnon, ‘who was paying them.’

‘Good Lord, man,’ she answered, ‘what does it matter who has paid them, so long as they are paid?’

‘But I didn’t ask you to pay them,’ he went on obstinately.  There was a pause, and then the old lady, with a distinctly sarcastic smile, said:

‘It seems to me, young man, that you are rather particular as to how things are done for you.  If you had begun to be just a little bit as particular in making the debts as you are in the way of having them paid, there would be a little less trouble and expense all round.  However, the debts have been paid, and we can’t unpay them.  But of course you can repay me the money if you like.  It amounts in all to four thousand three hundred and seventeen pounds, twelve shillings and sixpence, and I have paid every penny of it out of my own pocket.  If you can’t pay it yourself, perhaps your father would like to do so.’

The last shot told; he went on writing: ‘“Kindly paid for me,”‘ she continued in the same even voice:

‘“In remembrance of my mother, of whom she was an acquaintance.”  Now sign it!’  He did so and handed it to her.  She read it over carefully, folded it, and put it in her pocket.  She then stood.  He rose also; and as he moved to the door  —  he had not offered to shake hands with her  —  he said:

‘I should like to see, Miss Norman.’

‘I am afraid you will have to wait.’

‘Why?’

‘She is over at Heply Regis.  She went there for Lady Heply’s ball, and will remain for a few days.  Good afternoon!’  The tone in which the last two words were spoken seemed in his ears like the crow of the victor after a cock-fight.

As he was going out of the room a thought struck her.  She felt he deserved some punishment for his personal rudeness to her.  After all, she had paid half her fortune for him, though not on his account; and not only had he given no thanks, but had not even offered the usual courtesy of saying good-bye.  She had intended to have been silent on the subject, and to have allowed him to discover it later.  Now she said, as if it was an after-thought:

‘By the way, I did not pay those items you put down as “debts of honour”; you remember you gave the actual names and addresses.’

‘Why not?’ the question came from him involuntarily.  The persecuting lorgnon rose again:

‘Because they were all bogus!  Addresses, names, debts, honour!  Good afternoon!’

He went out flaming; free from debt, money debts; all but one.  And some other debts  —  not financial  —  whose magnitude was exemplified in the grinding of his teeth.

After breakfast next morning he said to his father:

‘By the way, you said you wished to speak to me, sir.’  There was something in the tone of his voice which called up antagonism.

‘Then you have paid your debts?’

‘All!’

‘Good!  Now there is something which it is necessary I should call your attention to.  Do you remember the day on which I handed you that pleasing epistle from Messrs. Cavendish and Cecil?’

‘Certainly, sir.’

‘Didn’t you send a telegram to them?’

‘I did.’

‘You wrote it yourself?’

‘Certainly.’

‘I had a courteous letter from the money-lenders, thanking me for my exertions in securing the settlement of their claim, and saying that in accordance with the request in my telegram they had held over proceedings until the day named.  I did not quite remember having sent any telegram to them, or any letter either.  So, being at a loss, I went to our excellent postmaster and requested that he would verify the sending of a telegram to London from me.  He courteously looked up the file; which was ready for transference to the G.P.O., and showed me the form.  It was in your handwriting.’  He paused so long that Leonard presently said:

‘Well!’

‘It was signed Jasper Everard.  Jasper Everard! my name; and yet it was sent by my son, who was christened, if I remember rightly, Leonard!’  Then he went on, only in a cold acrid manner which made his son feel as though a February wind was blowing on his back:

‘I think there need not have been much trouble in learning to avoid confusing our names.  They are really dissimilar.  Have you any explanation to offer of the  —  the error, let us call it?’  A bright thought struck Leonard.

‘Why, sir,’ he said, ‘I put it in your name as they had written to you.  I thought it only courteous.’  The elder man winced; he had not expected the excuse.  We went on speaking in the same calm way, but his tone was more acrid than before:

‘Good! of course!  It was only courteous of you!  Quite so!  But I think it will be well in the future to let me look after my own courtesy; as regards my signature at any rate.  You see, my dear boy, a signature is queer sort of thing, and judges and juries are apt to take a poor view of courtesy as over against the conventions regarding a man, writing his own name.  What I want to tell you is this, that on seeing that signature I made a new will.  You see, my estate is not entailed, and therefore I think it only right to see that in such a final matter justice is done all round.  I therefore made a certain provision of which I am sure you will approve.  Indeed, since I am assured of the payment of your debts, I feel justified in my action.  I may say, inter alia, that I congratulate you on either the extent of your resources or the excellence of your friendships, or both.  I confess that the amounts brought to my notice were rather large; more especially in proportion to the value of the estate which you are some day to inherit.  For you are of course to inherit some day, my dear boy.  You are my only son, and it would be hardly  —  hardly courteous of me not to leave it to you.  But I have put a clause in my will to the effect that the trustee’s are to pay all debts of your accruing which can be proved against you, before handing over to you either the estate itself or the remainder after its sale and the settlement of all claims.  That’s all.  Now run away, my boy; I have some important work to do.’