Volume I Part 7 (1/2)
This reply was bitter every way; for, first, it spoke plainly enough the spinster's disbelief in the domestic elegance of her niece; and secondly, it alluded to her being childless, a subject of very considerable mortification to Mrs. Barnaby.
How far this sort of ambush warfare might have proceeded it is impossible to say, as it would have been difficult to place together any two people who more cordially disliked each other; but before Mrs.
Barnaby had time to seek for words bearing as sharp a sting as those she had received, her husband entered. He waited not for the pompous introduction his wife was preparing, but walking up to his guest addressed her respectfully but mournfully, saying he feared it was necessary to press an early interview with her brother, if she wished that he should be sensible of her kindness in coming to him.
Miss Compton immediately rose, and uttering a short, strong phrase expressive of grat.i.tude for his kindness to the dying man, said she was ready to attend him. She found her brother quite sensible, but very weak, and evidently approaching his last hour; he thanked her for coming to him, warmly expressed his grat.i.tude to Mr. Barnaby, and then murmured something about wis.h.i.+ng to see little Agnes before he died.
”She will be here to-morrow, brother,” replied Miss Compton, ”and in time, I trust, to receive your blessing.”
”Thank you, thank you, sister Betsy; ... but tell me, tell me before you go, ... have you sold father's poor dear fields as I have done? That is all I have got to be very sorry for.... I ought never to have done that, sister Betsy.”
Mr. Barnaby had left the room as soon as he had placed Miss Compton in a chair by the sick man's bed, and none but an old woman who acted as his nurse remained in it.
”You may go, nurse, if you please, for a little while; I will watch by my brother,” said Miss Compton. The woman obeyed, and they were left alone. The old man followed the nurse with his eyes as she retreated, and when she closed the door said,--
”I am glad we are alone once more, dear sister, for you are the only one I could open my heart to.... I don't believe I have been a very wicked man, sister Betsy, though I am afraid I never did much good to anybody, nor to myself neither; but the one thing that lies heavy at my heart, is having sold away my poor father's patrimony.... I can't help thinking, Betsy, that I see him every now and then at the bottom of my bed, with his old hat, and his spud, and his brown gaiters ... and ... I never told anybody; ... but he seems always just going to repeat the last words he ever said to me, which were spoken just like as I am now speaking to you, Betsy, with his last breath; ... and he said, 'Josiah, my son, I could not die with a safe conscience if I left my poor weakly Betsy without sufficient to keep her in the same quiet comfort as she has been used to. But it would grieve me, Josiah....' Oh! how plain I hear his voice at this minute!--'it would grieve me, Josiah,' he said, 'if I thought the acres would be parted for ever ... they have been above four hundred years belonging to us from father to son; and once Compton Basett was a name that stood for a thousand acres instead of three hundred;' ... and then ... don't be angry, sister Betsy,” said the sick man, pressing her hand which he held, ”but he said, 'I don't think Betsy very likely to marry; and if she don't, Josiah, why, then, all that is left of Compton Basett will be joined together again for your descendants,' ... and yet, after this I sold my portion, Betsy, ... and I do fear his poor spirit is troubled for it--I do indeed ... and it is that which hangs so heavy upon my mind.”
”And if that be all, Josiah, you may close your eyes, and go to join our dear father in peace. He struggled with and conquered his strongest feeling, his just and honourable pride, for my sake; and for his, as well as for the same feeling, which is very strong within my own breast also, I have lived poorly, though not hardly, Josiah, and have added penny to penny till I was able to make Compton Basett as respectable a patrimony as he left it. It was not farmer Wright who bought the land, brother--it was I.”
The old man's emotion at hearing this was stronger than any he had shewn for many years. He raised his sister's hand to his lips, and kissed it fervently. ”Bless you, Betsy!... bless you, my own dear sister!”... he said in a voice that trembled as much from feeling as from weakness, and for several minutes afterwards he lay perfectly silent and motionless.
Miss Compton watched him with an anxious eye, and not without a flutter at her heart lest she should suddenly find this stillness to be that of death. But it was not so; on the contrary, his voice appeared considerably stronger than it had done since their interview began, when he again spoke, and said,--
”I see him now, sister Betsy, as plainly as I see the two posts at the bottom of my bed, and he stands exactly in the middle between them; he has got no hat on, but his smooth white hair is round his face just as it used to be, and he looks so smiling and so happy.... Do not think I am frightened at seeing him, Betsy; quite the contrary.... I feel so peaceful ... so very peaceful....”
”Then try to sleep, dear brother!” said Miss Compton, who felt that his pulse fluttered, and, aware that his senses were wandering, feared that the energy with which he spoke might hasten the last hour, and so rob his grandchild of his blessing.
”I will sleep,” he replied, more composedly, ”as soon as you have told me one thing. Who will have the Compton Basett estate, Betsy, when you are dead?”
”Agnes Willoughby,” replied the spinster, solemnly.
”That is right.... Now go away, Betsy, ... it is quite right ... go away now, and let me sleep.”
She watched him for a moment, and seeing his eyes close, and hearing a gentle, regular breathing that convinced her he was indeed asleep, she crept noiselessly from his bedside; then having summoned the nurse, and re-established her beside the fire, retired to the solitude of her own room.
CHAPTER VIII.
SOLITARY MEDITATION AND IMPORTANT RESOLUTIONS.--AGNES WILLOUGHBY ARRIVES AT SILVERTON.--HER GRANDFATHER GIVES HER HIS BLESSING, AND DIES.--MISS COMPTON MAKES A SUDDEN RETREAT.
When Miss Compton reached her room, she found a tiny morsel of fire just lighted in a tiny grate; and as the season was November, the hour nine P. M., and the candle she carried in her hand not of the brightest description, the scene was altogether gloomy enough. But not even to save herself from something greatly worse, would she at that moment have exchanged its solitude for the society of Mrs. Barnaby, although she had been sure of finding her in the best-lighted room, and seated beside the brightest fire that ever blazed. So, wrapping around her the stout camlet cloak by the aid of which she had braved the severity of many years' wintry walks to church, she sat down in the front of the little fire, and gave herself up to the reflections that crowded upon her mind.
Elizabeth Compton did not believe in the doctrine of ghosts; her mind was of a strong and healthy fibre, which was rarely sufficiently wrought upon by pa.s.sing events to lose its power of clear perception and unimpa.s.sioned judgment; but the scene she had just pa.s.sed through, had considerably shaken her philosophy. Five-and-thirty years had pa.s.sed since Josiah and Elizabeth shared the paternal roof together. They were then very tender friends, for he was affectionate and sweet-tempered; and she, though nearly seventeen, was as young in appearance, and as much in need of his thoughtful care of her, as if she had been many years younger. But this union was totally and for ever destroyed when Josiah married; from the first hour they met, the two sisters-in-law conceived an aversion for each other which every succeeding interview appeared to strengthen; and this so effectually separated the brother from the sister, that they had never met again with that peculiar species of sympathy which can only be felt by children of the same parents, till now, that the sister came expressly to see the brother die.
This reunion had softened and had opened both their hearts: Josiah confessed to his dear sister Betsy that his conscience reproached him for having made away with his patrimony ... a fact which he had never hinted to any other human being ... and she owned to him that she was secretly possessed of landed property worth above six hundred a-year, and also--which was a confidence, if possible, more sacred still--that Agnes Willoughby would inherit it.
It would be hardly doing justice to the good sense of Miss Betsy to state, that this rational and proper destination of her property had never been finally decided upon by her till the moment she answered her brother's question on the subject; and still less correctly true would it be to say, that the dying man's delirious fancy respecting the presence of their father was the reason that she answered that appeal in the manner she did; yet still there might be some slight mixture of truth in both. Miss Compton was constantly in the habit of telling herself that she had _not_ decided to whom she would leave her property; but it is no less true, that the only person she ever thought of as within the possibility of becoming her heir, was Agnes. It is certain also, as I have stated above, that Miss Compton did _not_ believe that departed spirits ever revisited the earth; nevertheless, the dying declaration of Josiah, that he saw the figure of his father, did produce a spasm at her heart, which found great relief by her p.r.o.nouncing the words, ”Agnes Willoughby.”
And now that she was quietly alone, and perfectly restored to her sober senses, she began to reconsider all that she had spoken, and to pa.s.s judgment upon herself for the having yielded in some degree to the weakness of a visionary imagination.