One of My Sons Read online

  VI

  A HAPPY INSPIRATION

  While waiting for this young lady, I surveyed the three Gillespieswith a more critical attention than I had hitherto had the opportunityof giving them. As a result, George struck me as being the mostcandid, Leighton the most intellectual, and Alfred the most turbulentand ungovernable in his loves and animosities. All were under the samemental tension and in all I beheld evidence of deep humiliation anddistrust, but this similarity of feeling did not draw them togethereven outwardly, but rather seemed to provoke a self-concentrationwhich kept them widely apart. As I looked longer, Leighton impressedhimself upon me as an interesting study--possibly because he wasdifficult to understand; Alfred as a good lover but dangerous hater;and George as the best of good fellows when his rights were notassailed or his kindly disposition imposed upon. None of them seemedto take any interest in _me_. To them I was simply a connecting linkbetween their dead father and the letter I held in charge for MissMeredith.

  Meanwhile the coroner showed but one anxiety, and that was for thelady's speedy appearance and the consequent reading of the letter uponwhich all minds were fixed.

  She came sooner than we expected. As her soft footfall descended thestairs a visible change took place in us all. Drooping figures startederect and furrowed brows grew smooth. Some of us even assumed thatappearance of reserve which men unconsciously take on when theirdeeper feelings are stirred. Only Leighton acted in a perfectlynatural manner; consequently it was in his direction her frightenedglances flew when she realised that she had been summoned for somedefinite purpose.

  "I don't know what more you can want of me to-night," she protested ina tone little short of a frightened gasp. "I am hardly fit to talk.But the doctor said I must come down. Why couldn't you have left mewith Claire?"

  "Because, dear Hope, this gentleman you see here, and who, as youknow, was with my father when he died, says he has a letter, or somecommunication from your uncle, which he is sure was meant for your eyeonly. Do you think my father would be likely to leave you such amessage? Have you any reason for expecting his last thoughts would befor you, rather than for his sons? Answer; we are quite prepared tohear you say Yes."

  She had been trying to steady herself without laying hold of his arm.But she found this impossible. With an expression of deepest anguishshe caught at his wrist, and then facing us, murmured in failingtones:

  "He might. I have helped him lately a great deal with hisletter-writing. Must I read it _here_?"

  In this last question and her manner of uttering it there was anappeal which almost took the form of prayer. But it failed to produceany effect upon the coroner, favourably as he seemed disposed toregard her. With some bluntness, I had almost said harshness, heanswered her with a peremptory:

  "Yes, miss, _here_."

  She was not prepared for this refusal, and her eyes, full of entreaty,flashed from one face to another till they settled again on thecoroner.

  "I cannot," she protested. "Spare me! I do not seem to have full useof my faculties. My head swims--I cannot see--let me take it to thelight over there--I am a nervous girl."

  She had gradually drawn herself away from Leighton. The envelope whichhad been given her was trembling in her hand, and her eyes, wanderingfrom George to Alfred, seemed to pray for some encouragement they werepowerless to give. "I ought to be allowed the right to read the lastwords of one so dearly loved without feeling myself under the eyesof--of strangers," she finally declared with a certain pitiful accessof hauteur certainly not natural to one of her manifestly generoustemperament.

  Was the shaft meant for me? I did not think so, but, in recognition ofthe hint conveyed, I stepped back and had almost reached the door whenI heard the coroner say:

  "If the words you find there have reference solely to your owninterests, Miss Meredith, you will be allowed to read them in privacy.But if they refer in any way to the interests of the man who wrote it,you will yourself desire to read his words aloud, as the manner andmeaning of his death is a mystery which you as well as all the othermembers of his household must desire to see immediately cleared up."

  "Open it!" she cried, thrusting it into the hands of the physician,who by this time had rejoined the group. "And may God----"

  She did not finish. The sacred name seemed to act as a restraint uponthe passion in whose cause it had been invoked. With her back to themall she waited for the doctor to read the lines to which she seemed toattach so apprehensive an interest.

  It was impossible for me to leave at a moment so critical. Watchingthe doctor, I saw him draw out the paper I had so carefully enclosedin an envelope, and after looking at it, turn it over and over in suchastonishment and perplexity that we all caught the alarm and crowdedabout him for explanation. Alas, it was a simple one! The paperconcerning which I had endured so many qualms of conscience, and fromthe reading of which the young girl had shrunk with every appearanceof intolerable dread, proved upon opening it to be an absolutely blankone.

  There was not upon its smooth surface so much as the faintest trace ofwords.