บทที่ บทที่ 36 · 第36章

. Letters had been written to Miss Pontifex’s brothers and sisters, and

one and all came post-haste to Roughborough. Before they arrived the

poor lady was already delirious, and for the sake of her own peace at

the last I am half glad she never recovered consciousness.

I had known these people all their lives, as none can know each other

but those who have played together as children; I knew how they had all

of them—perhaps Theobald least, but all of them more or less—made her

life a burden to her until the death of her father had made her her own

mistress, and I was displeased at their coming one after the other to

Roughborough, and inquiring whether their sister had recovered

consciousness sufficiently to be able to see them. It was known that

she had sent for me on being taken ill, and that I remained at

Roughborough, and I own I was angered by the mingled air of suspicion,

defiance and inquisitiveness, with which they regarded me. They would

all, except Theobald, I believe have cut me downright if they had not

believed me to know something they wanted to know themselves, and might

have some chance of learning from me—for it was plain I had been in

some way concerned with the making of their sister’s will. None of them

suspected what the ostensible nature of this would be, but I think they

feared Miss Pontifex was about to leave money for public uses. John

said to me in his blandest manner that he fancied he remembered to have

heard his sister say that she thought of leaving money to found a

college for the relief of dramatic authors in distress; to this I made

no rejoinder, and I have no doubt his suspicions were deepened.

When the end came, I got Miss Pontifex’s solicitor to write and tell

her brothers and sisters how she had left her money: they were not

unnaturally furious, and went each to his or her separate home without

attending the funeral, and without paying any attention to myself. This

was perhaps the kindest thing they could have done by me, for their

behaviour made me so angry that I became almost reconciled to Alethea’s

will out of pleasure at the anger it had aroused. But for this I should

have felt the will keenly, as having been placed by it in the position

which of all others I had been most anxious to avoid, and as having

saddled me with a very heavy responsibility. Still it was impossible

for me to escape, and I could only let things take their course.

Miss Pontifex had expressed a wish to be buried at Paleham; in the

course of the next few days I therefore took the body thither. I had

not been to Paleham since the death of my father some six years

earlier. I had often wished to go there, but had shrunk from doing so

though my sister had been two or three times. I could not bear to see

the house which had been my home for so many years of my life in the

hands of strangers; to ring ceremoniously at a bell which I had never

yet pulled except as a boy in jest; to feel that I had nothing to do

with a garden in which I had in childhood gathered so many a nosegay,

and which had seemed my own for many years after I had reached man’s

estate; to see the rooms bereft of every familiar feature, and made so

unfamiliar in spite of their familiarity. Had there been any sufficient

reason, I should have taken these things as a matter of course, and

should no doubt have found them much worse in anticipation than in

reality, but as there had been no special reason why I should go to

Paleham I had hitherto avoided doing so. Now, however, my going was a

necessity, and I confess I never felt more subdued than I did on

arriving there with the dead playmate of my childhood.

I found the village more changed than I had expected. The railway had

come there, and a brand new yellow brick station was on the site of old

Mr and Mrs Pontifex’s cottage. Nothing but the carpenter’s shop was now

standing. I saw many faces I knew, but even in six years they seemed to

have grown wonderfully older. Some of the very old were dead, and the

old were getting very old in their stead. I felt like the changeling in

the fairy story who came back after a seven years’ sleep. Everyone

seemed glad to see me, though I had never given them particular cause

to be so, and everyone who remembered old Mr and Mrs Pontifex spoke

warmly of them and were pleased at their granddaughter’s wishing to be

laid near them. Entering the churchyard and standing in the twilight of

a gusty cloudy evening on the spot close beside old Mrs Pontifex’s

grave which I had chosen for Alethea’s, I thought of the many times

that she, who would lie there henceforth, and I, who must surely lie

one day in some such another place though when and where I knew not,

had romped over this very spot as childish lovers together. Next

morning I followed her to the grave, and in due course set up a plain

upright slab to her memory as like as might be to those over the graves

of her grandmother and grandfather. I gave the dates and places of her

birth and death, but added nothing except that this stone was set up by

one who had known and loved her. Knowing how fond she had been of music

I had been half inclined at one time to inscribe a few bars of music,

if I could find any which seemed suitable to her character, but I knew

how much she would have disliked anything singular in connection with

her tombstone and did not do it.

Before, however, I had come to this conclusion, I had thought that

Ernest might be able to help me to the right thing, and had written to

him upon the subject. The following is the answer I received—

“Dear Godpapa,—I send you the best bit I can think of; it is the

subject of the last of Handel’s six grand fugues and goes thus:—

[Illustration]

It would do better for a man, especially for an old man who was very

sorry for things, than for a woman, but I cannot think of anything

better; if you do not like it for Aunt Alethea I shall keep it for

myself.—Your affectionate Godson,

ERNEST PONTIFEX.”

Was this the little lad who could get sweeties for two-pence but not

for two-pence-halfpenny? Dear, dear me, I thought to myself, how these

babes and sucklings do give us the go-by surely. Choosing his own

epitaph at fifteen as for a man who “had been very sorry for things,”

and such a strain as that—why it might have done for Leonardo da Vinci

himself. Then I set the boy down as a conceited young jackanapes, which

no doubt he was,—but so are a great many other young people of Ernest’s

age.