CHAPTER XLIV.THE NEW HEIR.
He stepped from the car one June afternoon, elegantly habited in the latest Parisian style of coat, and vest, and hat, with a band of crape around the latter, and a grieved look on his handsome face, as if he were thinking of the dear little girl, dead so far away, and whose fortune he had come to take. With him was a sharp, shrewd-looking man, with round, bright eyes, which saw everything at a glance, and a decidedly foreign accent. To him the doctor always spoke in German, and in this language the two talked together for a few moments after alighting upon the platform in Rothsay. Evidently they were not expected, for no one was there to meet them, but the doctor inquired for the best hotel, and making his way thither registered his own name and that of his friend, “Walter Klyne, Esq., New York City.” Then, engaging two of the best rooms in the house, and ordering dinner at seven o’clock, he started out to reconnoiter,going first to Everard’s office and greatly astonishing the young man, who did not know that he had yet landed in New York. It might be thought, perhaps, that the sight of him, with his band of crape upon his hat, and the peculiar air of sadness he managed to infuse into his voice and manner, would awaken in Everard a feeling of sympathy and kindness for one in whose sorrow he had so large a part, but it produced just the contrary effect, and though he went forward with offered hand to meet him, there swept over him a sensation of distrust, and aversion, and dread,—a feeling of horror for which he could not account, any more than he could explain the sudden chill which crept through his veins, as if Rossie’s cold, dead hands were touching his, and Rossie’s white, still face pressed against his own.
Dr. Matthewson was very polite and very much afraid of wounding Everard’s feelings. He was sorry not to find Mr. Russell there, he said, as he wished to talk a little about business, and would like to go over the Forrest House, which he believed was shut up.
Everard gave him the keys, and added, hurriedly:
“You will have no trouble whatever, as I have no intention to dispute your right to the property. It was lawfully Rossie’s, and, therefore, yours now.”
It was the first time Rossie had been mentioned, and Everard felt as if his heart were bursting as he pronounced the name, while the doctor’s lip quivered, and he shut his eyes tight to keep the tears back.
“Thanks,” he said, as he took the offered keys. “We will speak of business by and by, when I can trust myself to tell you more fully what your sister’s wishes were. Now, I only wish to see the house where she used to live. I will return the keys on my way back to the hotel. I wish you good evening, sir.”
He lifted his hat courteously, and walked away with his friend, while Everard watched him for a moment with that same icy chill about his heart and the feeling as if from the darkness and silence of her far-off grave Rossie were beckoning to him and trying to warn him of danger.
Meantime the two gentlemen went rapidly along the streets of Rothsay, where, as strangers, they were staredat by the people, who watched them until they turned into the avenue leading to the Forrest House.
“A splendid inheritance! I quite envy you, old boy,” Walter Klyne said, as they ascended the broad steps and stood upon the piazza.
“Yes, it will do very well for a country house, but it will take a mint of money to fix it up as I’d like to have it,” was the doctor’s reply, as he fitted the key to the lock and entered the wide, old-fashioned hall, already beginning to grow dim with the shadows of the late afternoon. “It’s deuced cold, and damp, and ghost-like in here; don’t you think so?” the doctor said, shivering a little as he hurried on through room after room, hardly seeing them at all, until he came to one, the door of which was open as well as the blind opposite, so that a flood of sunlight streamed through the window and fell across the floor.
“This is a jolly room; let’s go in here,” Klyne said, entering himself, and looking curiously around, while the doctor stood by the threshold, wiping from his face great drops of sweat, and starting at every sound, as if he fancied the place full of something harmful. “Why, Doc, what ails you? You are white as a sheet. What’s the matter?” Klyne asked, and the doctor replied:
“Nothing, only this was her room; Rossie’s, you know. I am sure of it; she described it to me so often, and I feel as if she was here with us; I do, upon my soul. That’s her chair, where she used to sit, and these must be her books, and that’s her bed where she used to sleep. Let’s go away; it’s like a graveyard to me.”
He seemed so excited that his friend looked at him curiously, wondering if the glass of wine taken just before they left the hotel had affected his brain, or if it really was true that his grief for his sister was augmented by the sight of her old home, and the objects which had once made a part of her life.
“It’s not like John Matthewson to love any one like that. There’s a kink somewhere,” he thought, as he left the room and followed on through one apartment after another, until the whole had been gone through, and they went out into the open air, where the doctor seemed tobe more at his ease. Taking off his hat and wiping his forehead, where the perspiration was standing, he said:
“This is a confounded hot night after all, or I am no judge of the weather, and this place in particular seems hotter than Tophet. I say, Walt, do you believe in ghosts, or haunted houses, or any of that sort of nonsense?”
“Of course not. Why do you ask?” Walter Klyne said; and the doctor replied:
“Because I was just nervous enough to fancy that the whole Forrest race, Rossie and all, were after me as I went over the lonesome old hut. Maybe they don’t like the idea of my being the heir, and that has brought them from their graves; but I feel better now, and I think we will be going, or the dinner will be cold.”
Early next morning the doctor interviewed Lawyer Russell, and at the close of the conference the doctor knew that as Rossie’s heir he was entitled to several hundred thousand dollars, some in lands and houses, some in bonds and mortgages, some in railroad shares and some in ready cash. The amount, so far exceeding what he had expected, surprised and delighted him, and inclined him to be very generously disposed toward Everard, with whom he had one long talk. He had taken all the necessary steps to prove that Rossie died at Haelder-Strauchsen, Austria, on the evening of April 20th; he had sworn to that effect before the lawful authority; and he was accepted by the public as the heir, though under protest, for there was no one in Rothsay who did not think it was a shame for Everard to be so defrauded of what ought always to have been his. This feeling the doctor perfectly understood, and it strengthened his resolution to be very generous toward the young man, to whom he offered half of the entire estate.
“Perhaps I ought to give you the whole,” he said, “but hanged if I can quite bring myself to that. You see, when a poor chap like me gets a little money it is mighty hard to give it up.”
“But I thought you had unlimited means in Europe,” Everard said; and without the slightest change of countenance the doctor replied:
“I did have something there, though not so much asRossie supposed. I deceived her purposely, thinking she would feel easier if she believed me very rich. But unluckily the firm failed where most of my money was deposited, so that I am much poorer now than when I went from America more than a year ago.”
He seemed to be in earnest, and insisted that Everard should take half the property, until the latter stopped him by saying decidedly:
“Your talk is all in vain, for I shall never take a dollar of that money. It would prove a curse to me if I did. I do not want it, I will not have it, and I only ask that I hear no more on the subject.” So saying he rose suddenly from his chair and left the room. The interview was ended; the doctor had discharged his duty; and it was not his fault that he was a richer man by more than two hundred thousand dollars than he expected to be. On the whole, he felt quite satisfied with matters as they were, and would not quarrel with the good luck which had made him so rich that he need never again feel a moment’s anxiety.
He had nothing more to do but to enjoy himself, and let others do so too, for that was part of his creed. Naturally generous and free, he was always ready to share his fortune with others, and he made up his mind at once to be very popular in Rothsay, and to begin by liberal gifts to every public and charitable object, as that was sure to win him favor. Walter Klyne, who served no purpose whatever, was retained, nominally as legal adviser, but really because under his smooth, placid exterior the doctor carried a coward’s heart, and did not like to be alone at the Forrest House, where he soon took up his quarters. There was an odor of aristocracy about the place which he liked, for it reminded him of some of the palaces in Europe which he had coveted, envying the possessor, and fancying how happy he should be were he the lord and owner. He was lord and owner now, with an income of more money than he had ever had at any one time in his life. He had men-servants and maid-servants, and fast horses, and carriages, and hunting-dogs, and choice cigars by the hundreds, and rare wines, which he drank as freely as water. He ordered several costly pictures from Munich andDresden, with statuary from Florence, and filled the halls and grounds with the latter, and fitted up a gallery for the former, and set up to be a connoisseur and critic general of fine art, and gained considerable reputation in that line, and was spoken of as a highly cultivated and generous man, of whom Rothsay would have been glad if his coming there had not been brought about by the death of the sweet young girl, whose memory was so fresh and green in the minds of her friends. He had the most expensive pew in church, and was present every Sunday morning, and joined reverently in the service, though his preference, he frankly said, was for the plain Methodist chapel; and he made no secret that he had once been a Methodist clergyman, and said he should return to that body were it not that Rossie loved the church as a child loves its mother, and for her sake he should be a churchman, and instruct himself in all its usages and doctrines. So the Episcopalians claimed him, and made much of him, and took his gifts thankfully, and rejoiced that at last the Forrest money, which the judge had held so tightly, was being distributed among them in so liberal a manner. Could they have had their choice they would rather have seen Everard in his father’s house. Dr. Matthewson was genial and pleasant, and very generous, but in some sense he was an interloper, while Everard was to the manor born; the purple was his by birth; the blue blood of Forrest and Bigelow was in his veins, and the people sympathized with and pitied him more than he ever dreamed.
It was a very lonely life which he led that summer after Rossie’s death; and with the exception of Beatrice he seldom talked with any one, except upon business. He could not mingle with his old friends and seem as he used to do, with that sad memory constantly in his heart; that grave always yawning before him, where he had buried his darling. A thought of Rossie was always with him; not as he saw her last, standing on the deck and waving him her farewell, with tears swimming in her eyes, and a look upon her face whose meaning he could readily interpret, but as she was when a little girl sporting on the terrace behind the house, or romping on the grounds, with the white sun-bonnet hanging downher back, the strings chewed into a hard knot, her hair blowing about her face, and her starry eyes brightening when he joined her with his raillery and teasing jokes.
Sometimes in the stillness of the night he almost fancied that he heard again the quick tread of the busy feet which had run so willingly for him, and always when his grief was at its height, and his heart aching the worst, he felt that pale, thin hands were beckoning him from out the darkness of the grave, beckoning him to come, as if the spirit could not rest until it was joined by his. Once, when the impression was very strong upon him, and it almost seemed as if the dead hands touched his and were leading him away, he said, aloud:
“Rossie, are you here? Is there something you want me to do, and are you trying to tell me? I’d go to the ends of the earth at your slightest bidding.”
But to this appeal no answer came from the far-off grave across the sea, though the hands still seemed beckoning with a never-tiring persistence which moved and troubled him greatly. Had he been at all tainted with spiritualism as it exists in modern times, he might perhaps have sought through mediums to know what his love would tell him, but he was free from superstitions of all kind, except this one, that Rossie was calling to him, and that ere long it would be granted him to join her in the world beyond. And to this end he tried to make himself ready, praying earnestly as he never prayed before that God would lead him to himself in any path he chose, so that it conducted him at last to Heaven, where Rossie was. Well he knew that if he would find that rest, all sinful affections must be overcome, and he be made humble and submissive as a little child. At first, however, it was very hard to be submissive and humble, and harder still not to hate the man who had blasted his whole life, and who seemed to be riding triumphantly in the high and pleasant roads of success. But gradually the hardness began to give way as the new life within him became clearer and brighter, and though he could not bring himself to like the doctor or find pleasure in his society, he could endure his presence, and no longer crossed the street to avoid meeting him if he saw him coming in the distance, and that was about all the progresshe could make with him. He distrusted and disliked him, and never on any occasion went near the Forrest House, which, as the summer advanced, the doctor filled with his friends from New York, men of his own class, who were as unlike Everard as he was unlike his former self when he rebelled hotly against his fate and blamed the Almighty for having dealt so hardly with him. He did not feel that way now, and every Sunday found him an occupant of his father’s old pew, where Rossie used to sit, and where he now knelt and prayed earnestly for grace to bear whatever might be in store for him, feeling, it is true, that nothing worse could happen to him than had already happened,—the loss of Rossie and the loss of his estate.
From Josephine he seldom heard. She was still in Indianapolis with her friends, but she did not write him often, and never asked for money.
He had sent her a Rothsay paper which had in it a column and a half of matter concerning the disposition of the Forrest property, and the new proprietor, but she had made no comment. That she could not live at the Forrest House he knew, and that she would not return to Rothsay he devoutly hoped, and so he grew more quiet and contented each day, though there was ever with him a sense of bitter pain and a constant thought of the grave across the sea where Rossie was buried.
And so the summer waned, and September came and went, and one morning in October a bombshell was thrown into Rothsay which made Everard stagger for a moment from the suddenness of its coming; then he rallied, and his first sensation was one of intense relief, such as the prisoner feels when told that ere long he will be free again to go and come as he likes.
It came first in the form of an article published in the RothsayStar, and which was as follows:
“Divorce in High Life.—We learn from a friend residing in Indianapolis that there is a divorce suit pending between two parties well known in Rothsay. The gentleman, in fact, is still a resident here, but the lady is at present in Indianapolis, where she went last May with the intention of getting the divorce.”
Everard read this article twice before fully comprehending its meaning. Then, when he knewhewas one of the parties meant, that it was the Forrest name which must be mixed with the affair, his first feeling was one of shame and mortification, notwithstanding that he had once contemplated doing just what Josephine was doing for him. But his next feeling was one of intense relief that at last he would be free from the burden which had borne so heavily upon him. He went with the notice to Beatrice, who, although she disapproved of divorces as a rule, looked upon this as an exceptional case, and was glad for him. Of course all Rothsay talked, and gossiped, and wondered, but asked no questions of Everard, who, outwardly, was just the same, and came and went as if nothing had happened or was likely to happen.
Dr. Matthewson seemed as much surprised as any one, but offered no opinion whatever on the subject, and after a few days he went to New York with his inseparable friend and adviser, Walter Klyne. Four weeks later a notice was sent to Everard to the effect that a divorce from him had been granted to his former wife, who chose to take her maiden name, and was again Josephine Fleming; also, that he, too, was divorced, with a right to marry again, if he chose.
From that time onward Everard was a changed man. It is true that Rossie was always in his mind, and he never for a moment forgot the pain and loss, which it seemed to him grew greater every day, but the consciousness that Josephine had no claim upon him made him in one way very happy, and he felt freer from care and anxiety than he had done since that fatal night when he made the mistake of his life. That Josephine would marry again he was confident, and it did not need Beatrice’s hint, cautiously given, to awake in his mind a suspicion as to who the man would be; and still it was a shock when it came to him early in the spring that the Forrest House was to have a mistress, and that its last occupant was coming back with a right to rule and reign and spend his father’s money as she chose.