A Secret Inheritance. B. L. Farjeon
his death?"
"I found none," I said, much moved at this iteration of a mystery which was evidently weighing heavily upon her.
"Perhaps," she murmured, "he thought silence kindest and wisest."
I strove to keep her mind upon this theme, for I was profoundly agitated by her strange words, but I found it impossible. Her hands moved feebly about the coverlet, her eyes wandered still more restlessly around. My cunningest endeavours failed to woo her back to the subject; her speech became so wild and whirling that I was not ungrateful to Mrs. Fortress when she emerged from behind the curtains, and led me firmly out of the room. I turned on the threshold to look at my mother; her face was towards me, but she did not recognise me.
On the evening of the following day I was walking moodily about the grounds between the house and the cottage, thinking of the interview, and reproaching myself for want of feeling. Was it that I was deficient in humanity that I did not find myself overwhelmed with grief by the conviction that my mother was dying? No thought but of her critical condition should have held place in my mind, and the weight of my genuine sorrow should have impressed itself upon surrounding nature. It was not so; my grief was trivial, artificial, and I bitterly accused myself. But if natural love would not come from the prompting of my heart, I could at least perform a duty. My mother should not be left to draw her last breath with not one of her kin by her bedside.
I entered the house. In the passage which led to my mother's room I was confronted by Mrs. Fortress. She had heard my footsteps, and came out to meet me.
"What do you want, Mr. Gabriel?"
"I must see my mother."
"You cannot; It would hasten her end."
"Has she not asked for me?"
"No; if she wished to see you she would have sent for you."
It was a truthful indication of the position; I had never gone unbidden to my mother's room.
We spoke in low tones. My voice was tremulous, Mrs. Fortress's was cold and firm.
"If not now," I said, "I must see her to-morrow."
"You shall see her," said Mrs. Fortress, "within the next twenty-four hours."
I passed the evening in my cottage, trying to read. I could not fix my mind upon the page. I indulged in weird fancies, and once, putting out the lights, cried:
"If the Angel of Death is near, let him appear!"
There was no sign, and I sat in the dark till I heard a tapping at my door. I opened it, and heard Mrs. Fortress's voice.
"You can see your mother," she said.
I accompanied her to the sick room, the bedside of my mother. She was dead.
"It is a happy release," Mrs. Fortress said.
CHAPTER V.
This event, which set me completely free, caused a repetition of certain formalities. The doctor visited me, and regaled me with doleful words and sighs. In the course of conversation I endeavoured to extract from him some information as to the peculiar form of illness from which my mother had been so long a sufferer, but all the satisfaction I could obtain from him was that she had always been "weak, very weak," and always "low, very low," and that she had for years been "gradually wasting away." She suffered from "sleeplessness," she suffered from "nerves," her pulse was too quick, her heart was too slow, and so on, and so on. His speech was full of feeble medical platitudes, and threw no light whatever upon the subject.
"In such cases," he said, "all we can do is to sustain, to prescribe strengthening things, to stimulate, to invigorate, to give tone to the constitution. I have remarked many times that the poor lady might go off at any moment. She had the best of nurses, the best of nurses! Mrs. Fortress is a most exemplary woman. Between you and me she understood your mother's ailments almost as well as I did."
"If she did not understand them a great deal better," I thought, "she must have known very little indeed."
In my conversations with the lawyer Mrs. Fortress's name also cropped up.
"A most remarkable woman," he said, "strong-minded, self-willed, with iron nerves, and at the same time exceedingly conscientious and attentive to her duties. Your lamented father entertained the highest opinion of her, and always mentioned her name with respect. The kind of woman that ought to have been born a man. Very tenacious, very reserved--a very rare specimen indeed. Altogether an exception. By the way, I saw her a few minutes ago, and she asked me to inform you that she did not consider she had any longer authority in the house, and that she would soon be leaving."
At my desire the lawyer undertook for a while the supervision of affairs, and sent a married couple to Rosemullion to attend to domestic matters.
Three days after my mother's funeral Mrs. Fortress came to wish me good-bye. Although there had ever been a barrier between us I could not fail to recognise that she had faithfully performed her duties, and I invited her to sit down. She took a seat, and waited for me to speak. She was wonderfully composed and self-possessed, and had such perfect control over herself that I believe she would have sat there in silence for hours had I not been the first to speak.
"You are going away for good, Mrs. Fortress?" I said.
"Yes, sir," she answered, "for good."
It was the first time she had ever called me "sir," and I understood it to be a recognition of my position as Master of Rosemullion.
"Do you intend to seek another service?" I asked.
"No, sir; it is not likely I shall enter service again. You are aware that your father was good enough to provide for me."
"Yes, and I am pleased that he did so. Had he forgotten, I should have been glad to acknowledge in a fitting way your long service in our family."
"You are very kind, sir."
"Where do you go to from here?"
"I have a home in Cornwall, sir."
"Indeed. I do not remember that you have ever visited it."
"It is many years since I saw it, sir."
"Not once, I think, since you have been with us."
"Not once, sir."
"Your duties here have been onerous. Although we are in mourning you must be glad to be released." I pointed to her dress; she, like myself, was dressed in black; but she made no comment on my remark. "Will you give me your address, Mrs. Fortress?"
"Willingly, sir."
She wrote it on an envelope which I placed before her, and I put it into my pocket-book.
"If I wish to communicate with you, this will be certain to find you?"
"Yes, sir, quite certain."
"Circumstances may occur," I said, "which may render it necessary for me to seek information from you."
"Respecting whom, or what, sir?"
"It is hard to say. But, perhaps respecting my mother."
"I am afraid, sir, it will be useless to communicate with me upon that subject."
"Mrs. Fortress," I said, nettled at the decisive tone in which she spoke, "it occurs to me that during the many years you have been with us you have been unobservant of me."
"You are mistaken, sir."
"Outwardly unobservant, perhaps I should have said. When you entered my father's service I must have been a very young child. I am now a man."
"Yes, sir, you will be twenty-two on your next birthday. I wish you a happy life, whether it be a long or a short one."
"And being a man, it