The White Virgin

The young man came to the bedside and knelt down.

“Ah! I like that,” said the old father. “Good lad!” and he laid his hand gently upon his son’s head. “I’m not a grand old patriarch,” he sighed. “What, Doctor? – not talk? Yes, I must have my say now, while there’s time. Not a good old patriarch, Clive – not a religious man; made too much of a god of money; but I said my wife and sons should never know the poverty from which I had suffered, and I think it was right; but I overdid it, boy. Don’t follow my example; there’s no need. There – my blessing for what it’s worth, boy. Now go: I want Jessop.”

Clive rose, and his brother came and stood where he had knelt.

“Well,” said the dying man, in a firm voice, “I have little to say to you, Jessop. Shake hands, my boy, and God forgive you, as I do – everything.” Jessop was silent, and after a few moments the old man went on —

“I have settled everything, my lad. The Doctor here is one of my executors, and he will see that Clive does his duty by you; though he would without.”

Jessop winced, for these words were very pregnant of meaning, and showed only too well the place he would take after his father’s death.

“There,” said his father, pressing his hand, “that is all. I know your nature, boy, so I will not ask you to promise things which you cannot perform. Go now.”

“Not stay with you, father?” said the young man, speaking for the first time.

“No; go now. I’ve done my duty by you, boy; now go and do yours by your brother. Good-bye, Jessop.” There was dead silence, and the old man spoke again as he grasped his son’s hand, “Good-bye, Jessop, for the last time.”

“Good-bye, father,” was the reply; and then, with head bent, the young man walked slowly out.

“Hah! that’s over!” sighed the dying man. “He will not break his heart, Doctor; and if I had left him double, it would do him no good. Now then, Praed, I want to see little Janet. Where is she?”

“Downstairs in the drawing-room.”

“That’s right. Go and fetch her. Tell her not to be frightened. She shan’t see me die, for it won’t be yet.”

The Doctor left the bedroom, and the old man was alone with his younger son.

“Take hold of my hand, Clive. Sit down, my lad. That’s right. There, don’t look so cut up, my boy. I’m only going to sleep like a man should. It’s simply nature; not the horror fanatics teach us. Now I want to talk business to you for a few minutes, and then business and money will be dead to me for ever.”

“You wish me to do something, father?”

“Yes, boy. You will find everything in my will – you and the Doctor. He’s a good old friend, and his counsel is worth taking. Marry Janet, and make her a happy wife. She has some weaknesses, but you can mould her, my lad; and it will make her happy, and the Doctor too, for he loves you like a son.”

“Yes, father.”

“That’s good. You’re a fine, strong, clever man, Clive, but that was the dear, good, affectionate boy of twenty years ago speaking. Now then, about money matters. You’ll be enormously rich over that mine, so for heaven’s sake be a true, just man with it, and do your duty by all the shareholders. Stick to it through thick and thin. I remember all you told me when I recovered from my fit. I could repeat your report. But I was convinced before, when all the London world thought I was getting up a swindle. There! that’s enough about the mine – save this. You’ll be thinking of sharing with your brother. I forbid it. Keep to your portion as I have left it to you, and do good with it. To give to Jessop is to do evil. I am sorry, but it is the truth. He cannot help it perhaps, but he is not to be trusted, and you are not to league yourself with him in any way. You understand?”

“Yes, father!”

“I have made him a sufficiently rich man. Let him be content. You are not to trust him. I know Jessop by heart, and I can go from here feeling that I have done my duty by him.”

At that moment the Doctor returned with his daughter, and the old speculator’s face lit up with pleasure.

“Come here, Pussy,” he said. “I’m not very dreadful yet, my dear.”

“Dear Mr Reed – dear Mr Reed!” cried Janet, running sobbing to his side; “don’t, pray, talk like that.”

The old man smiled with content as the girl fell upon her knees by the bed, and embraced him tenderly, “Ah! that’s right. That’s like my little darling,” he said, and he stroked her cheek. “Don’t cry any more, my dear. There! you two go farther away; Janet and I have a few words to say together.”

Clive and the Doctor moved to the window and stood with their backs to the bed, the old man watching them intently for a few moments, and then smiling at Janet as he held and fondled her hand.

“There!” he said, “you are not to fret and be miserable about it, and when I’m gone it is not to interfere with your marriage.”

“Oh, Mr Reed!” she cried passionately.

“No, no, no,” he continued quietly; “not a bit. Life is short, my dear; enjoy it, and do your work in it while you can. And mind, there is to be no silly parade of mourning for me. I’m not going to have your pretty face spoiled with black crape, and all that nonsense. Mourn for me in your dear little heart, Janet: not sadly, but with pleasant, happy memories of one who held you when you were a baby, and who has always looked upon you as his little daughter.” Janet’s face went down on the old man’s hands with the tears flowing silently.

“Now, just a few more words, my dear,” he almost whispered. “Your father and I have rather spoiled you by indulgence.”

“Yes, yes,” she whispered quickly. “I have not deserved so much.”

“Never mind; you are going to be a dear good girl now, and make Clive a true, loving wife.”

“Yes, I’ll try so hard.”

“It will not take much trying, Janet, for he loves you very dearly.”

She raised her head sharply, and there was an angry look in her eyes.

“No, no, you are wrong,” said the old man. “Always the same, my pet. I can read you with these little jealous fits and fancies. I tell you, he loves you very dearly, and I’m going to say something else, my pet, my last little bit of scolding, for I’ve always watched you very keenly for my boy’s sake.”

“Mr Reed!” she whispered, shrinking from him and glancing towards the window; but he held her hands tightly.

“They cannot hear us, little one,” he said, “and I want you to listen. For your own happiness, Janet, my child. It is poor Clive who ought to have been jealous and complained.”

Janet hid her burning face.

“It was not all your fault, little one, but I saw a great deal. Innocent enough with you; but Jacob has always been trying to win Esau’s heritage, and even his promised wife.”

The girl sobbed bitterly now, and laid her burning face close to the old man’s, hiding it in the pillow.

“Oh, don’t, don’t,” she whispered. “I never liked him, but he was always flattering me and saying nice things.”

“Poison with sugar round them, my dear. But that’s all past. You are to be Clive’s dear honoured wife. No more silly, girlish little bits of flirtation. You are not spoiled, my dear, only petted a little too much. That’s all to be put behind us now, is it not?”

“Yes, dear – yes, dear Mr Reed,” she whispered, with her arms about his neck; and it was as if years had dropped away, and it was the little child the old man had petted and scolded a hundred times, asking forgiveness, as she whispered, “I will be good now, and love him very dearly.”

“That’s like my own child,” said the old man. “Now let’s hear the true woman speak.”

“And do always what you wish,” she said, looking him full in the eyes.

“That’s right – try,” he said, drawing her down to kiss her, and then signing to her to go.

“I’m tired,” he said wearily. “Clive, take your little wife downstairs for a bit. Your hand, my boy. God bless you! Now, Doctor, I’ll have an hour’s sleep.”

The Doctor signed for the young people to go down; and as he took a chair by the bed’s head, Grantham Reed turned his head away from the light, and went off into the great sleep as calmly as a tired child.

Chapter Eleven.

Jessop Plays Trumps

Jessop Reed, when he left his father’s bedroom, had gone straight down to the study, with his brow contracted and his heart full of bitterness, without seeing that he was closely watched, and that a pale, troubled face was raised over the top balustrade, which looked very dull and gloomy in the yellow light which streamed through the soot-darkened skylight panes.

“So that’s it,” he said to himself, as he closed the door and threw himself into his father’s great morocco-covered chair. “I’m nobody at all. The new king is to reign, and his name is Clive. I’m not even executor. No voice in anything; only the naughty boy to be punished. If I could only see that will!”

His eyes wandered about the dark room with its conventional cases of books that were never read, and he looked at the cabinets and writing-table as if he expected to see some drawer open with the key already in it, so that he could take out the will and read it at his ease.

But he shook his head, for he knew that his father was too business-like a man to be careless over so important a document.

“At the lawyer’s,” he said to himself; “and there is no need. I know the old man too well; but I wonder what he has said. A few hundred a year for his naughty boy, and the dear, good, industrious youth, who always did as father wished, nearly everything.”

“I know,” he said, half aloud, as he sat back in the chair and took out his cigar-case to open it and select a strong, black roll of the weed, bit off the end savagely, and spat it upon the carpet.

“I suppose I may smoke here now without getting into grief. Poor old boy! his game’s over; but, curse him, he might have played fair.”

He lit the cigar, and began to smoke and muse with his eyes half closed.

“I know,” he thought, and he laughed bitterly. “To my dear old friend, Peter Praed, M.D., my cellar of wine, the Turner picture, and one hundred pounds to buy a mourning ring and as recompense for acting as my executor. To my servants fifty pounds each and six months’ wages. To my son Jessop the interest on bank-stock to produce five hundred pounds per annum, paid in quarterly dividends. To my beloved son, Clive Reed, the whole of my remaining property in bank-stock, shares, and my interest in the ‘White Virgin’ mine in the county of Derby. Hah! yes,” he said aloud, “and it is good, or the old man would not have taken it up as he has. Yes, it is no balloon business puffed into a state of inflation, but a genuine, solid affair. All to him, and he is co-executor with the Doctor. He said he had made him so months ago; I am nowhere. And that’s my father!”

He bit off a piece of the end of his cigar and spat it out angrily, but started up as a thought struck him.

“No, that’s not all,” he muttered, as his eyes flashed, – “Janet!”

“Of course,” he said, with a long-drawn breath, full of satisfaction, “he would not forget her. He worshipped the girl, and he would leave her quite independent of Clive. A hundred thousand, if he has left her a penny. The artful little jade: she played her cards right with the old man.”

He started from the chair, threw the cigar-end into the fireplace, and hurried up to the drawing-room, to find it empty, and rang the bell.

“Where is Miss Praed?” he asked, as the servant appeared.

“She was fetched up into poor master’s room, sir.”

Jessop Reed went back to the study, and shut himself in, his brow contracted more and more, and lighting another cigar, he lay back smoking and thinking intently, but with his face less clouded by anger, as he felt more and more satisfied that he was right about his father’s disposition of his property, and over his own plans and those of his friend Wrigley.

“There is such a thing as salvage when there is a fire,” he said, with a laugh which disfigured his handsome features; “and it comes in too after a wreck. Well, we shall see, my dear brother; matters may balance themselves fairly after all.”

He started almost out of his chair just then, for a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and there stood pretty, fair-haired Lyddy, with her eyes red and swollen with weeping.

“How did you get here?” cried Jessop angrily.

“I opened the door, dear, and came in softly; didn’t you hear me?”

“Hear you? No; and how many more times am I to tell you not to call me dear?”

“Oh, Jessop, don’t, don’t!” cried the poor girl, bursting into tears. “Poor master! he’s dying fast, they say, and there’ll be no need to hide anything from him now.”

“But – but – ”

“I was on the staircase watching for you, dear, and you were shut up here so long, instead of being with master, that I was afraid you were ill.”

“Well, I’m not; so now go, there’s a good girl; and wait a bit till I’ve settled something about you.”

“Settled something about me, dear! Why, as soon as poor dear master’s dead you’ll be master then, and can do as you like. You won’t be the first gentleman who has married a servant.”

“Oh no, of course not,” he replied, with a bitter sarcasm in his tone.

“And you will make me happy then, won’t you, dear? For I am so miserable when I see you courting Miss Janet, I could find it in my heart to go some night to the Serpentine and end it all.”

“Will you hold your tongue?” he cried, with a shiver. “Do you think I haven’t enough to worry me as it is? Now, my good girl, is this a time for you to come bothering me?”

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