Page 70 of Threads that Remain

“Charles.”

“I know. I am not going to say anything more. I am a great clod.” He gave a short hoarse laugh and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. They sat so, in the swaying darkness, side by side, without a word, for a very long time.

“She will leave you everything,” said the Captain, at last, in a different voice.

“Charles —”

“Do not be a fool. You know she will. It is certainly believed by the whole of Devonshire, and a considerable proportion of Somerset. It is in the hedges. I am not in the least in the way; I have Combe Magna, and Mamma’s fortune, and I have a great deal more than I want; and I should like it to go to you.” He grinned, in the dark. “You will do something very good with it. You will give it all to the boys without the boots.”

“I do not know that she has.”

“We will see,” said the Captain.

Chapter XXXVI.

They came to Allenham at dawn.

She lay in the great four-poster in a room that was full of the grey light of morning. She was propped upon three pillows. She wore her black lace cap, and a shawl, and a small, grim, fixed expression; her right hand lay upon the coverlet, in its ring, quite still; and by the bed, in the chair at the other side, with her hands in hers, and a face that was very pale, sat Marianne. The Colonel was standing at the window. He turned when he heard the steps.

“Well, sir,” said Mrs. Smith.

Her voice came a little slowly, out of one side of her mouth; but it was perfectly clear, and there was in it every ounce of the old hard humour. She turned her head on the pillow and looked at the tall figure in the doorway; and one pale eye, that had been half closed, opened, and fastened upon him.

“You are late.”

“I am so sorry, Aunt Smith.”

“I said that you would be. I said so on Wednesday.” She sniffed. “Do not stand there like a heron. Come here. And shut the door; there is a draught; and you may all go out, except the boy.”

They went. Marianne stooped and kissed the old cheek; the Colonel took his wife’s arm; and Henry, alone in the room, crossed the carpet, and knelt beside the great bed, in the grey light, and took the old hand in both of his.

“Now,” said Mrs. Smith. “I am not going to be sentimental; I have never been able to stand it. I have made a will.”

“Aunt —”

“I made it when you were nine years old.” She drew a laboured breath. “I decided I should tell you at one-and-twenty. You were one-and-twenty this June, and I was in bed with a cold; and I have been a great deal too busy since. It is a thing that I did not wish you to hear from anybody else. I have left the bulk to you.”

“I do not know what to say.”

“No. It is an extraordinary sum. I have often thought so. I have never in my life been able to think what to do with it, and I think that it is much better to have it go to a person who does not want it.” She turned her head. “You do not want it, do you?”

“I do not think that I do,” said Henry, in a muffled voice. “I think that I am rather afraid of it.”

“That is quite right. That is the only proper way to be. I have seen what it does to people who are afraid of it, and to people who love it; and I say that you are to be neither.” She coughed. “I have got one condition.”

“What is it?”

“You are not to cut down the mulberry.”

He laughed. It was a strange, broken, half-choked laugh, with a sob in it; and the old woman’s hand tightened, and there was, for one moment, in the colourless mouth, a twitch that was very nearly a smile. “You are to be useful,” said Mrs. Smith. “That is the only thing. I have watched you for seventeen years. You have got a great deal of your father’s charm, and a good deal of the other father’s heart, and a quantity of good sense that I cannot account for; and I should be a very poor sort of great-aunt if I did not see that you mean to do something with them. I do not care what. I shall not be there. But you will remember that I said it.”

“I shall remember.”

“And you will be good to your brother, Charles. He is a fine one and he will need somebody.” She stopped. She closed her eyes for a moment, and it seemed to him that she was drifting.

“Henry?”

“Yes, Aunt?”