Watersprings, Arthur Christopher Benson [free novels .txt] 📗

it; to be in direct relations with everyone, not to be superior, not to be KIND--that implies superiority. I just plod along, believing, fearing, hoping, loving, glad to live while I may, not afraid to die when I must. The only detachment worth having is the detachment from the idea of making things one's own. I can't appropriate the sunset and the spring, the loves and cares of others; it is all divided up, more fairly than we think. I have had many sorrows and sufferings; but I am more interested than ever in life, glad to help and be helped, ready to change, desiring to change. It isn't a great way of living; but one must not want that--and believe me, dear Howard, it is the only way."


VIII


THE INHERITANCE

The first day or two of Howard's stay at Windlow seemed like a week, the succeeding week seemed like a day, as soon as he had settled down to a certain routine of life. He became aware of a continued sympathetic and quite unobtrusive scrutiny of him, his ways, his tastes, his thoughts, on the part of his aunt--her questions were subtle, penetrating, provocative enough for him to wish to express an opinion. He did not dislike it, and used no diplomacy himself; he found his aunt's mind shrewd, fresh, unaffected, and at the same time inspiring. She habitually spoke with a touch of irony--not bitter irony, but the irony that is at once a compliment and a sign of affection, such as Socrates used to the handsome boys that came about him. She was not in the smallest degree cynical, but she was very decidedly humorous. Howard thought that she did people even more than justice, while she was frankly delighted if they also provided her with amusement. She held nothing inconveniently sacred, and Howard admired the fine balance of interest and detachment which she showed, her delight in life, her high faith in something large, eternal, and advancing. Her health was evidently very frail, but she made light of it--it was almost the only thing she did not seem to find interesting. How could this clever, vivacious woman, Howard asked himself, retain this wonderful freshness and sweetness of mind in such solitude and dulness of life? He could imagine her the centre of a salon--she had all the gifts of a saloniste, the power of keeping a talk in hand, of giving her entire thought to her neighbour, and yet holding the whole group in view. Solitary, frail, secluded as she was, she was like an unrusted sword, and lavished her wit and her affection on all alike, callers, villagers, servants; and yet he never saw her tired or depressed. She took life as she found it, and was delighted with its simplest combinations. He found her company entirely absorbing and inspiring. He told her, in answer to her frank interest--she seemed to be interested on her own account, and not to please him--more about his own life than he had ever told a human being. She always wanted facts, impressions, details: "Enlarge that--describe that--tell me some more particulars," were phrases often on her lips. And he was delighted, too, by the belief that her explorations into his mind and life pleased and satisfied her. It dawned on him gradually that she was a woman of rich experience, and that her tranquillity was an aftergrowth, a development--"That was in my discontented days," she said once. "It is impossible to think of you as discontented," he had said. "Ah," she said lightly, "I had my dreams, like everyone else; but I saw at last that one must TAKE life--one can't MAKE it--and accept its limitations with enjoyment."

One morning, when he was called, the butler gave him a letter--he had been there about a fortnight--from his aunt. He opened it, expecting that it was to say that she was ill. He found that it ran as follows:

"MY DEAR BOY,--I always think that business is best done by letter and not by conversation. I am getting an old woman and my life is uncertain. I want to make a statement of intentions. I may tell you that I am a comparatively wealthy woman; my dear husband left me everything he had; including what he spent on this place, it came to about sixty thousand pounds. Now I intend to leave that back to his family; there are several sisters of his alive, and they are not wealthy people; but I have saved money too; and it is my wish to leave you this house and the residue of my fortune, after arranging for some small legacies. The estate is not worth very much--a great deal of it is wild downland. But you would have the place, when I died, and about twelve hundred a year. It would be understood that you should live here a certain amount--I don't believe in non-resident landlords. But I do not mean to tie you down to live here altogether. It is only my wish that you should do something for your tenants and neighbours. If you stayed on at Cambridge you could come here in vacations. But my hope would be that you might marry. It is a house for a family. If you do not care to live here, I would rather it were sold. While I live, I hope you will be content to spend some time here, and make acquaintance with our neighbours, by which I mean the village people. I shall tell Cousin Frank my intentions, and that will probably suffice to make it known. I have a very great love for the place, and as far as I can see, you will be likely to have the same.

"You need not feel overburdened with gratitude. You are my only near relation; and indeed I may say that if I were to die before I have signed my will, you would inherit all my fortune as next-of-kin. So you will see that instead of enriching you, I am to a great extent disinheriting you! Just tell me simply if you acquiesce. I want no pledges, nor do I want to bind you in any way. I will not say more, except that it has been a very deep delight to me to find a son in my old age. I had always hoped it would turn out so; and in my experience, God is very careful to give us our desires, just or unjust, great or small.--Your loving Aunt,

"ANNE GRAVES."

Howard was stupefied for a moment by this communication, but he was more affected by the love and confidence it showed than by the prospect of wealth--wealth was not a thing he had ever expected, or indeed thought much about; but it was a home that he had found. The great lack of his life had been a local attachment, a place where he had reason to live. Cambridge with all its joys had never been quite that. A curious sense of emotion at the thought that the sweet place, the beautiful old house, was to be his own, came over him; and another far-off dream darted into his mind as well, which he did not dare to shape. He got up and wrote a short note.

"MY DEAR AUNT,--Your letter fills me with astonishment. I can only say that I accept in love and gratitude what you offer me. The feeling that I have found a home and a mother, so suddenly and so unexpectedly, fills me with joy and happiness. I think with sadness of all the good years I have missed, by a sort of stupid perversity; but I won't regard that now. I will only thank you once more with all my heart for the proof of affection which your letter gives me.--Your grateful and affectionate nephew,

"HOWARD KENNEDY."

The old house had a welcoming air as he passed through it that morning; it seemed to hold him in its patient embrace, to ask for love. He spent the morning with Jack, but in a curiously distracted mood.

"What has happened to you?" said Jack at the end of the morning. "You have not been thinking about what you are doing. You seem like a man who has been stroking a winning crew. Has the Master been made a Dean, and have you been elected Master? They say you have a chance."

Howard laughed and said, "You are very sharp, Jack! I have NOT been attending. Something very unexpected has happened. I mustn't tell you now, but you will soon know. I have drawn a prize. Now don't pump me!"

"Here's another prize!" said Jack. "You are to lunch with us to-morrow, and to discuss my future career. There's glory for you! I am not to be present, and father is scheming to get me invited to luncheon here. If he fails, I am to take out some sandwiches and to eat them in the kitchen garden. Maud is to be present, and 'CONFER,' he says, 'though without a vote'!"

Howard met Mrs. Graves in the drawing-room; she kissed him, and holding his hand for a moment said, "Thank you for your note, my dear boy. That's all settled, then! Well, it's a great joy to me, and I get more than I give by the bargain. It's a shameless bribe, to secure the company of a charming nephew for a sociable old woman. Some time I shall want to tell you more about the people here--but I won't bore you; and let us just get quietly used to it all. One must not be pompous about money; it is doing it too much honour; and the best of it is that I have found a son." Howard smiled, kissed the hand which held his, and said no more.

The Vicar turned up in the afternoon, and apologised to Mrs. Graves for asking Howard to luncheon on the following day. "The fact is," he said, "that I am anxious to have the benefit of his advice about Jack's future. I think we ought to look at things from all sorts of angles, and Howard will be able, with his professional knowledge of young men, to correct the tendency to parental bias which is so hard to eliminate. I am a fond father--fond, but I hope not foolish--and I trust we shall be able to arrive at some conclusion."

"Then Jack and Maud can come and lunch with me," said Mrs. Graves; "you won't want them, I am sure."

"You are a sorceress," said Mr. Sandys, "in the literary sense of course--you divine my thought!"--but it was evident that he had much looked forward to using a little diplomacy, and was somewhat disappointed. He went on, "It will be very kind of you to have Jack, but I think I shall want Maud's assistance. I have a great belief in the penetration--in the observation of the feminine mind; more than I have, if you will excuse my frankness, in their power of dealing with a practical situation. Woman to interpret events, men to foresee contingencies. Woman to indicate, man to predicate--perhaps I mean predict! No matter; the thought, I think, is clear. Well, then, that is settled! I claim Howard for luncheon--a very simple affair--and for a walk; and by five o'clock we shall have settled this important matter, I don't doubt."

"Very well," said Mrs. Graves; "but before you go, I must claim YOU for a short stroll. I have something to tell you; and as Howard and Jack are dying to get away to deprive some innocent creatures of the privilege of life, they had better go and leave us."

That evening Howard had a long, quiet talk to his aunt. She said, "I am not going to