The Fourth Generation. Walter Besant
he came or whether he departed, whether he walked in silence over the coarse grass or snapped the twigs and rustled the dead leaves, the old man of the terrace took no notice. He neither saw nor heard anything.
Then the east wind continued dry and cold, and the birds chirped in discomfort, and the branches in the orchard fell to grinding each other, and the old man walked on. And the quarters struck from the church-tower somewhere, not far off.
At the open door of the house, at about half-past twelve, there appeared a young man dressed warmly, as was due to the weather. He was tall—over six feet in height; his face resembled that of the old man strikingly; he was certainly some close relation. He stood at the door looking on while that walk, as dismal, as monotonous, as purposeless as that of prisoners in their yard, went on minute after minute, hour after hour. He stood there, not hour after hour, but for a full half-hour, watching and wondering.
“Always and every day—and for all these years!”—to give words to his thoughts. “Why this tramp day by day every morning; always alone, always silent, seeing and not seeing, dead to outward things, apart from the world, taking no interest in the world? No recluse in a vault could be more lonely. No occupation; nothing to do; nothing to think about. Good heavens! what does he think about? No books, no newspapers to read; no letters to write. Why?”
The young man was the great-grandson of this ancient person: he was not only the great-grandson, but the heir to the house and the estates which belonged to the house: next to this old man he was the head of the family. He therefore, as a mark of respect and a matter of duty, ran down from London occasionally to see that his ancestor was properly cared for and in health. He was also in communication with the solicitors who managed the property.
It was a very curious case: from childhood the young man had been told of the strange and eccentric great-grandfather. He lived alone: he had no other servant than a woman with her daughter: he only saw them when they brought his meals: he received no visitors: he never went out of the house except to walk every morning, whatever the weather, for four hours up and down the terrace: he never spoke even to his housekeeper: if anyone spoke to him, he made no reply: he never read anything—neither book nor paper: his affairs were in the hands of a firm of solicitors in the neighbouring market-town: when they wanted his signature to a cheque, they drew it and sent it in to him, when he signed and returned it; when they consulted him concerning business, he received their statements in writing, and replied with the greatest brevity: there was no sign of mental derangement: so far as the solicitors, the only persons who were able to speak on the subject, understood, the man’s faculties were perfectly sound and his intellect as clear as ever. Moreover, there was no sign upon him of any hallucination, any melancholia, any mental trouble: if he maintained silence, his face betrayed no perturbation. Day after day he presented to the morning sun a calm and cloudless face: if he smiled not, neither did he sigh.
Now, the most remarkable thing was that this eccentricity, which might have been explained on the theory of great age and the loss of all his friends and contemporaries, had been practised for nearly seventy years. As a young man, quite a young man, he began this life, and he had continued it ever since. The reason, his great-grandson had always understood, was the shock caused by the sudden death of his wife. Further than this he neither knew nor did he inquire. If one grows up in presence of a certain strange line of conduct, it becomes accepted without inquiry. The old man had become a solitary when this young man’s grandfather was a boy: his grandfather, his father, and he himself had always had before them the knowledge, if not the sight, of this eccentricity. There was no curiosity in his mind at all about the possible cause.
Seventy years! It is the whole life of the average man, and this strange creature had spent the whole time alone, in silence, in solitude, and without occupation. It was not the whole span of the man’s own life, for he was now completing his ninety-fourth year.
From the distant church-tower came presently the striking of the quarters followed by the stroke of one. At that moment an old woman came out; she passed in front of the visitor in the doorway, and stood watching to catch the eye of the master. She said nothing, but waited there until he noticed her presence. Perhaps he was expecting her. He stopped; the old woman retired; her master entered the house, taking no notice whatever of the young man as he passed him; his eyes looked through him with no gleam of recognition or even of intelligence as to his presence. Yet this young man, the only one of all his descendants, paid him a visit once a month or so to see if he was still in health.
He walked straight into the room which was the single sitting-room and dining-room and living-room. It had been the library—a large room with a north aspect, lofty, and at all times of the year rather dark and cold. A good fire burned in the broad old-fashioned grate. Before the fire was a small table—it had formerly stood in the window for a reading or writing table; now it served as a table set there for the old man’s meals. The cloth was, in fact, spread, and the early dinner laid upon it—a plain dinner of steak, potatoes, and a bottle of port, which is a beverage proper to old age; it warms and comforts; it pleases and exhilarates; it imparts a sense of strength, and when the common forms of food can no longer be taken, this generous drink supplies their place. The walls were lined with shelves which were filled with books. Evidently some former member of the family had been a scholar and a bibliophile. The books were all bound in leather; the gilt of the titles had mostly disappeared. If you took a volume from the shelf, you found that it had parted from the binding; if not, it took advantage of the movement to remove itself from the binding; if you examined the shelves long enough, you would have found that there was not one book in the whole library of a date later than 1829. Of all the thousands upon thousands of books published in the seventy years since that time, not one was in this library. For instance, the Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews—they stood here bound; they stopped at 1829. The Annual Register was here also, bound; it stopped at 1829. And on this great library table there were lying, as if for daily use, scattered volumes and magazines which had been placed there for the reading of the house in 1829. No one had touched the table since some time in that year. A long low leather chair stood beside the fire—the leather was in rags and tatters, worn to shreds; at the table was placed a splendid great wooden chair, which looked like the chair of a hall-porter; the carpet was in rags and tatters, except the part along the front of the shelves; there it was whole, but its colour was faded. In front of the fire was placed a common thick sheepskin.
The young man followed his ancestor into the library. He took a chair, placed it by the fire, and sat down, his long legs curled, watching and waiting. He had been in the same place before. The silence of the old man, the meaningless look in his eyes, terrified him on the first occasion. He was then unaccustomed to the manner of the man. He had gradually grown accustomed to the sight; it no longer terrified him, and he now sat in his place on the other side of the fire, resolved upon making sure that the old man was properly cared for, properly fed, properly clad, properly looked after in all respects, that his health was good and that there was no need of seeking advice. He sat down therefore, by the fire and looked on while the old man took his dinner.
The visitor, I have said, was the great-grandson of the recluse. He was also the heir of his house and the future owner of the place and its possessions. As for what he was by calling you shall hear presently. Being the heir-presumptive, he assumed the duty of making these occasional visits, which were received—as has been stated—in silence, and with not the slightest show of recognition.
Without heeding his presence, then, the old man took his seat at the table, lifted the cover, and began his dinner. It consisted every day of the same dish. Perhaps there are not many men at ninety-four who can devour every day a full-sized steak with potatoes and bread, and can drink with it a whole bottle of port. Yet this is what the recluse did. The descendant for his part made it his business that the port should be of the best and that the steak should be “treated” scientifically, in order to ensure its tenderness and juiciness.
The recluse took his food fast and eagerly. One could perceive that in earlier days he must have enjoyed a great and noble power of putting away beef. He took his steak with fierceness, he devoured an immense quantity of bread, he drank his wine off in goblets as in the old days he had tossed off the great glasses of beer. He did not