"Close up his eyes and draw the curtain close;And let us all to meditation."
--2 Henry VI.
That night after twelve o'clock Mary Garth relieved the watch in Mr. Featherstone's room, and sat there alone through the small hours.
She often chose this task, in which she found some pleasure, notwithstanding the old man's testiness whenever he demanded her attentions. There were intervals in which she could sit perfectly still, enjoying the outer stillness and the subdued light.
The red fire with its gently audible movement seemed like a solemn existence calmly independent of the petty passions, the imbecile desires, the straining after worthless uncertainties, which were daily moving her contempt. Mary was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse herself well sitting in twilight with her hands in her lap; for, having early had strong reason to believe that things were not likely to be arranged for her peculiar satisfaction, she wasted no time in astonishment and annoyance at that fact. And she had already come to take life very much as a comedy in which she had a proud, nay, a generous resolution not to act the mean or treacherous part.
Mary might have become cynical if she had not had parents whom she honored, and a well of affectionate gratitude within her, which was all the fuller because she had learned to make no unreasonable claims.
She sat to-night revolving, as she was wont, the scenes of the day, her lips often curling with amusement at the oddities to which her fancy added fresh drollery: people were so ridiculous with their illusions, carrying their fool's caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque while everybody else's were transparent, making themselves exceptions to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow under a lamp they alone were rosy. Yet there were some illusions under Mary's eyes which were not quite comic to her. She was secretly convinced, though she had no other grounds than her close observation of old Featherstone's nature, that in spite of his fondness for having the Vincys about him, they were as likely to be disappointed as any of the relations whom he kept at a distance.
She had a good deal of disdain for Mrs. Vincy's evident alarm lest she and Fred should be alone together, but it did not hinder her from thinking anxiously of the way in which Fred would be affected, if it should turn out that his uncle had left him as poor as ever.
She could make a butt of Fred when he was present, but she did not enjoy his follies when he was absent.
Yet she liked her thoughts: a vigorous young mind not overbalanced by passion, finds a good in making acquaintance with life, and watches its own powers with interest. Mary had plenty of merriment within.
Her thought was not veined by any solemnity or pathos about the old man on the bed: such sentiments are easier to affect than to feel about an aged creature whose life is not visibly anything but a remnant of vices. She had always seen the most disagreeable side of Mr. Featherstone. he was not proud of her, and she was only useful to him. To be anxious about a soul that is always snapping at you must be left to the saints of the earth;and Mary was not one of them. She had never returned him a harsh word, and had waited on him faithfully: that was her utmost.
Old Featherstone himself was not in the least anxious about his soul, and had declined to see Mr. Tucker on the subject.
To-night he had not snapped, and for the first hour or two he lay remarkably still, until at last Mary heard him rattling his bunch of keys against the tin box which he always kept in the bed beside him.
About three o'clock he said, with remarkable distinctness, "Missy, come here!"Mary obeyed, and found that he had already drawn the tin box from under the clothes, though he usually asked to have this done for him; and he had selected the key. He now unlocked the box, and, drawing from it another key, looked straight at her with eyes that seemed to have recovered all their sharpness and said, "How many of 'em are in the house?""You mean of your own relations, sir," said Mary, well used to the old man's way of speech. He nodded slightly and she went on.
"Mr. Jonah Featherstone and young Cranch are sleeping here.""Oh ay, they stick, do they? and the rest--they come every day, I'll warrant--Solomon and Jane, and all the young uns?
They come peeping, and counting and casting up?""Not all of them every day. Mr. Solomon and Mrs. Waule are here every day, and the others come often."The old man listened with a grimace while she spoke, and then said, relaxing his face, "The more fools they. You hearken, missy.
It's three o'clock in the morning, and I've got all my faculties as well as ever I had in my life. I know all my property, and where the money's put out, and everything. And I've made everything ready to change my mind, and do as I like at the last.
Do you hear, missy? I've got my faculties.""Well, sir?" said Mary, quietly.
He now lowered his tone with an air of deeper cunning. "I've made two wills, and I'm going to burn one. Now you do as I tell you.
This is the key of my iron chest, in the closet there. You push well at the side of the brass plate at the top, till it goes like a bolt:
then you can put the key in the front lock and turn it. See and do that; and take out the topmost paper--Last Will and Testament--big printed."
"No, sir," said Mary, in a firm voice, "I cannot do that.""Not do it? I tell you, you must," said the old man, his voice beginning to shake under the shock of this resistance.
