Gretchen’s words of herself seemed a prophecy, as such words will in the old. The next weeks, aided by a spell of cold and a normal carelessness, brought her to her end.
She met it with matter-of-factness, as a normal thing, and showed a desire to deal with its problems herself. Her goods were disposed and her burial directed, while she lay waiting for her will and her brain to die with her body.
Beatrice was admitted at times with counsel she dared not give, and was never to know that her purpose of brightening a deathbed had been fulfilled.
The end seemed smooth and sudden, as Gretchen was herself to her last breath.
‘You will soon be free of me,’ she said on the day of her death to her son, ‘and be able to live with a wife like other men. It has been hard on you to have my support, and I know plenty who have thought so; but I don’t know what I should have done without a home; and none of them offered me one. But my time is up, and my place ready for another.’
‘Mother, don’t try to be so unusual,’ said Cassie. 282
‘You will not gain by my going,’ said Gretchen. ‘But I love you better, because you live apart. It is a great thing to be separated. Your brother will soon find he loves me better.’
The words seemed to have a difference, and Oscar and his sister came to the bed.
‘I hope the boys will behave at the funeral,’ said Gretchen. ‘They have never gone to church without me; but I shall not be able to help it, when I am dead.’ She gave an uncertain laugh. ‘People will say it is a good thing I am not there, and they will feel it is a good thing.’
She lay looking at the light, as if she did not see it, and it was soon clear that she did not see. There seemed simply to be a pause, before her son and daughter left her.
‘Mother did not live her last moments well,’ said Cassie.
‘You had to see no change,’ said Fabian.
‘I certainly saw no improvement. But I don’t mind people’s not being at their noblest at the last. It is the least useful time.’
‘She seemed to have nothing to repent of,’ said Oscar. ‘But she has something now. After a life of hiding her preference for you, she might have died with her secret.’
‘For you, she was at her noblest, Miss Cassie,’ said Fabian, smiling, and then changing to an incidental, condoning tone. ‘Yes, Miss Dulcia and Miss Beatrice are in the house. I believe they came with some flowers.’
‘Shall we have to see them? Mother has died in the nick of time.’
Dulcia came from the hall, with Beatrice a step behind.
‘I am going to talk in an ordinary way. Something tells me you would prefer that vehicle of sympathy to an encroachment upon a sacrosanct. I am glad I brought the flowers when I did. It is a small thing in itself, but a big one to me.’ 283
‘Mrs Jekyll was in peace?’ asked Beatrice in an oddly jerky tone.
‘Unusually at ease,’ said Oscar. ‘She showed my sister favouritism with her last breath.’
‘Mr Jekyll, you take me at my word,’ said Dulcia, ‘and follow me gladly. Sometimes one’s instinct does tell one truth.’
‘Who is that crying?’ said Beatrice, as they crossed the hall.
‘One of the lads. They were very attached to my mother.’
‘Dear little fellows!’ said Dulcia. ‘It shows how Mrs Jekyll was really beloved in her own home. Not that I ever met one of those who doubted it.’
‘Is anyone with him?’ said Beatrice, coming to a pause.
‘The cook, a comfortable soul. She will soon have them happy. They really think it right for the old to die; they must have been amazed that my mother lived so long.’
‘I am so glad they are not alone,’ said Beatrice.
‘Are you not coming with us, Mr Jekyll?’ said Dulcia, pausing in the doorway. ‘We ask you to do so.’
‘I am staying here for a while. My sister is going home.’
‘Well, if he must stay, he must,’ said Beatrice, glancing backwards with a sigh.
‘Mr Jekyll!’ said Dulcia, moving back. ‘You have refused me one request! Will you grant me another? Will you undertake not to think of Mrs Jekyll’s last words to you – well, as her last words? You will speed me with a lighter heart, if you grant me that.’
‘I will undertake anything about them. I have many other words to remember.’
‘Thank you. I might have known; I did know; but still, thank you.’
Cassie took leave of her brother, and left the house; and Beatrice and Dulcia simply set off at her side. 284
‘This is where our paths diverge,’ she said. ‘I must not take you out of your way.’
The two walked on.
‘Nothing doing, Mrs Edgeworth!’ said Dulcia.
‘It is really needlessly kind.’
‘It is. We are neither of us under the delusion that we are doing anything for you, in pacing by your side. But the fact that you would prefer to be alone is a reason why you should not be. You will look back and see it.’
Cassie walked on in silence.
‘Dear Mrs Edgeworth,’ said Dulcia, ‘we are talking lightsomely of set purpose. You know we are not oblivious of this last milestone in your life.’
Cassie gave an assurance of the transparence of their disguise.
‘It is impossible to say anything that helps,’ said Beatrice, ‘anything of a usual kind, though many things ought to be usual that are not.’
‘Go on, dear, go on,’ whispered Dulcia. ‘The moment!’
‘Now, here are my gates, and I can release you. Thank you very much for your company.’
‘My gates!’ said Dulcia. ‘Even at this moment it gives me satisfaction to hear you say it. You little thought, when you first entered them, that you would live to call them that, so unselfconsciously.’
Beatrice walked through the gates, and Dulcia glanced at her and followed.
‘Am I to be escorted to the door?’
‘To the door, and not a step beyond,’ said Dulcia. ‘We shall not respond to any pressure to come in, so you need not think so. 285That is, you may freely give the unavoidable invitation, without fear of its having any result.’
Cassie paused at the steps, and then mounted them with her companions.
‘The door is shut, but I can hear Bethia’s step. Will you not really come in?’
‘Good-bye, Mrs Edgeworth,’ said Beatrice, offering her hand; ‘I am so glad to think of you at home.’
‘Good-bye, Mrs Edgeworth,’ said Dulcia, doing the same, and turning and running down the steps.
Cassie went into the library, where Duncan and Grant were together.
‘Duncan, my mother died while I was at the house. Oscar and Fabian were with us. She was herself up to the last.’
‘Ah! poor woman, poor woman!’ said Duncan, rising and putting his hands on her shoulders. ‘Yes, I will take you to the other woman. I remember losing my mother; I have lost a good woman more than once. Nance, here is Cassie, out of sorts and out of heart. So listen to her, and let her talk herself out. She hasn’t come to you, for you to be of no good to her. See you are of some use as a woman, as you can be of none as anything else.’
‘It has happened at last Nance,’ said Cassie. ‘We had no hope, and really did not want it. And Mother knew, and had a heart of hatred at the end.’
‘I am glad she died as she lived. The temptations of a deathbed might have been too much. Did Father tell you that his sister was dead? I wonder if she yielded to them.’
‘This deathbed had its own temptations, and my mother yielded.’
‘Well, people are too much above themselves at the last. 286They repent of their sins, and forgive other people, as if there were all that difference between them. I am glad she could not forgive, as no one can really. Do you suppose Aunt Maria forgave Father for what he was as a boy?’
‘Cassie, I am upset that you are an orphan,’ said Grant, coming in. ‘I have found how difficult it is lately. Uncle no longer attempts to be a parent to me. Could you sink your own troubles in mine? It is the best way to forget.’
‘He will never be reconciled to your living apart from Sibyl. And he feels her place is here, if you are not together.’
‘It is a deadlock. I can’t afford to run my house and make her allowance. I have no business to exist. My only use is to make a fourth at cards, when I am just better than a dummy.’
In the course of this pastime later in the day, Oscar spoke to Duncan.
‘Have I your leave to propose to Nance, Edgeworth? I believe it is the custom to approach the father, before the person more concerned.’
Duncan looked up from his hand.
‘A reasonable custom, if it had any meaning. But wouldn’t you let one woman get to her grave, before you concern yourself with another?’
‘No, I would not, in this case.’
‘Well, you seem to me as good a man as most. But I had hoped for more for her. Though I don’t know why, when she has seen nothing and nobody.’
‘I am a better man than most.’
‘In that case you may see if she will have you, though it is odd you should think yourself a person to take her fancy. And she has a better home than you can give her.’ 287
‘She is not the mistress of it.’
‘No; your sister is that.’
The game continued.
‘Would you look for my daughter to shepherd a flock of brats?’ asked Duncan in a pause.
‘That comes to an end. What it brought in, will be covered by her allowance, if it is the same as you made to her sister.’
‘You may refer to my other daughter by her name, if you wish to become her brother-in-law.’
‘The same as you made to Sibyl. I do wish to become so. The allowance would balance the teaching. The profit did not come to much.’
‘Well, in that case perhaps it would,’ said Duncan. ‘So our game, and your deal, Smollett.’
‘You think it a good plan, Smollett?’
‘Don’t chatter to the dealer,’ said Duncan, watching the cards. ‘You are right to arrange to live with a woman. You seem to be cut out for it.’
‘Just not too good to be true,’ said Fabian.
‘I suppose I shan’t have you on my hands, like this man, Oscar?’ said Duncan, using the other’s Christian name for the first time, and indicating his nephew. ‘Your wife will be able to bear the sight of you for more than a month? I will hope so, if you tidy up your house after the urchins. But you don’t want praising up like a girl, do you?’
‘Sibyl and I parted by my wish as well as hers,’ said Grant.
‘And you think it becomes you to say so? You think I can never bear enough? I have seen to it that you should think it. But I will thank myself for no more. Here is a letter, which I desire you shall read and return; and as that is so, you will do 288 both. You and Nance may consider it together, and consider also your own future.’
Grant read the letter while his companions looked at their cards.
my dear father,
You will hear from Aunt Maria’s lawyer that she has left me all she had.
There was no question of undue influence. I did what I could for her last days, as no one else thought of her.
The old plan was, as you knew, though we did not, that the money should go to the sons and daughters of her brothers, in the proportion of two to one. This would mean that Grant and a son of Cassie’s would each have about eight hundred a year, and Nance and I four; the figures being modified in the case of Cassie’s having a daughter. Aunt Maria had a right to do as she wished, as most of the money was her husband’s.
If I am to live apart from all I have known, I shall definitely keep the whole. If Grant and I come together, I shall transfer it by deed of gift in the old proportion, keeping what would have been my own. Grant and I together would take at least twelve hundred a year. The lawyer tells me I am in my rights in either course. There are advantages for me on either side.
Your loving daughter,
sibyl edgeworth.