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Williams Manual of Hematology, Ninth Edition Marshall A.
Lichtman & Kenneth Kaushansky & Josef T. Prchal & Marcel
M. Levi & Linda Burns & James Armitage
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Williams
Manual of Hematology
 NOTICE
Medicine is an ever-changing science. As new research and clinical experience broaden our
knowledge, changes in treatment and drug therapy are required. The authors and the
publisher of this work have checked with sources believed to be reliable in their efforts to
provide information that is complete and generally in accord with the standards accepted at
the time of publication. However, in view of the possibility of human error or changes in
medical sciences, neither the authors nor the publisher nor any other party who has been
involved in the preparation or publication of this work warrants that the information
contained herein is in every respect accurate or complete, and they disclaim all
responsibility for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from use of the
information contained in this work. Readers are encouraged to confirm the information
contained herein with other sources. For example and in particular, readers are advised to
check the product information sheet included in the package of each drug they plan to
administer to be certain that the information contained in this work is accurate and that
changes have not been made in the recommended dose or in the contraindications for
administration. This recommendation is of particular importance in connection with new or
infrequently used drugs.
Williams
Manual of Hematology

Ninth Edition

Marshall A. Lichtman, MD
Professor of Medicine (Hematology-Oncology)
and of Biochemistry and Biophysics
James P. Wilmot Cancer Institute
University of Rochester Medical Center
Rochester, New York

Kenneth Kaushansky, MD
Senior Vice President, Health Sciences
Dean, School of Medicine
SUNY Distinguished Professor
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, New York

Josef T. Prchal, MD
Professor of Medicine, of Pathology, and of Genetics
Division of Hematology
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah
First Faculty of Medicine
Charles University
Prague, Czech Republic

Marcel M. Levi, MD, PhD

Professor of Medicine
Dean, Faculty of Medicine
Academic Medical Center
University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Linda J. Burns, MD
Professor of Medicine
Division of Hematology, Oncology, and Transplantation
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota

James O. Armitage, MD
The Joe Shapiro Professor of Medicine
Division of Oncology and Hematology
 University of Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha, Nebraska

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Williams Manual of Hematology, Ninth Edition

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Description: Ninth edition. | New York : McGraw-Hill Education, [2017] | Abridgement of: Williams hematology / editors, Kenneth
Kaushansky, Marshall A. Lichtman, Josef T. Prchal, Marcel Levi, Oliver W. Press, Linda J. Burns, Michael A. Caligiuri. Ninth
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 CONTENTS

Preface

PART I INITIAL CLINICAL EVALUATION

1 Approach to the Patient

PART II DISORDERS OF RED CELLS

2 Classification of Anemias and Polycythemias

3 Aplastic Anemia: Acquired and Inherited
4 Pure Red Cell Aplasia
5 Anemia of Chronic Disease
6 Anemia of Endocrine Disorders
7 Congenital Dyserythropoietic Anemias
8 Folate, Cobalamin, and Megaloblastic Anemias
9 Iron-Deficiency Anemia and Iron Overload
10 Anemia Resulting from Other Nutritional Deficiencies
11 Hereditary and Acquired Sideroblastic Anemias
12 Anemia Resulting from Marrow Infiltration
13 Erythrocyte Membrane Disorders
14 Hemolytic Anemia Related to Red Cell Enzyme Defects
15 The Thalassemias
16 The Sickle Cell Diseases and Related Disorders
17 Hemoglobinopathies Associated with Unstable Hemoglobin
18 Methemoglobinemia and Other Dyshemoglobinemias
19 Fragmentation Hemolytic Anemia
20 Hemolytic Anemia Resulting from a Chemical or Physical Agent
21 Hemolytic Anemia Resulting from Infectious Agents
22 Hemolytic Anemia Resulting from Warm-Reacting Antibodies
23 Cryopathic Hemolytic Anemia
24 Drug-Induced Hemolytic Anemia
25 Alloimmune Hemolytic Disease of the Newborn
26 Hypersplenism and Hyposplenism
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27 Polyclonal Polycythemias (Primary and Secondary)
28 The Porphyrias

PART III DISORDERS OF GRANULOCYTES

29 Classification and Clinical Manifestations of Neutrophil Disorders

30 Neutropenia and Neutrophilia
31 Disorders of Neutrophil Functions
32 Eosinophils and Related Disorders
33 Basophils, Mast Cells, and Related Disorders

PART IV DISORDERS OF MONOCYTES AND MACROPHAGES

34 Classification and Clinical Manifestations of Monocytes and Macrophages

35 Monocytosis and Monocytopenia
36 Inflammatory and Malignant Histiocytosis
37 Gaucher Disease and Related Lysosomal Storage Diseases

PART V PRINCIPLES OF THERAPY FOR NEOPLASTIC HEMATOLOGIC DISORDERS

38 Pharmacology and Toxicity of Antineoplastic Drugs

39 Principles of Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation

PART VI THE CLONAL MYELOID DISORDERS

40 Classification and Clinical Manifestations of the Clonal Myeloid Disorders

41 Polycythemia Vera
42 Essential (Primary) and Familial Thrombocythemia
43 Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria
44 Myelodysplastic Syndromes (Clonal Cytopenias and Oligoblastic Myelogenous Leukemia)
45 The Acute Myelogenous Leukemias
46 The Chronic Myelogenous Leukemias
47 Primary Myelofibrosis

PART VII THE POLYCLONAL LYMPHOID DISEASES

48 Classification and Clinical Manifestations of Polyclonal Lymphocyte and Plasma Cell Disorders
49 Lymphocytosis and Lymphocytopenia
50 Primary Immunodeficiency Syndrome
51 Hematological Manifestations of the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
52 The Mononucleosis Syndromes

PART VIII THE CLONAL LYMPHOID AND PLASMA CELL DISEASES

53 Classification and Clinical Manifestations of the Malignant Lymphoid Disorders

54 The Acute Lymphocytic Leukemias
55 Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and Related Diseases
56 Hairy Cell Leukemia
57 Large Granular Lymphocytic Leukemia
58 General Considerations of Lymphoma: Epidemiology, Etiology, Heterogeneity, and Primary Extranodal Disease
59 Hodgkin Lymphoma
60 Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma and Related Diseases
61 Follicular Lymphoma
62 Mantle Cell Lymphoma
63 Marginal Zone B-Cell Lymphoma
64 Burkitt Lymphoma
65 Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma
66 Mature T-Cell and Natural Killer Cell Lymphomas
67 Essential Monoclonal Gammopathy
68 Myeloma
69 Macroglobulinemia
70 Heavy-Chain Diseases
71 Amyloidosis

PART IX DISORDERS OF PLATELETS AND HEMOSTASIS

72 Clinical Manifestations, Evaluation, and Classification of Disorders of Hemostasis

73 Thrombocytopenia
74 Reactive (Secondary) Thrombocytosis
75 Hereditary Platelet Disorders
76 Acquired Platelet Disorders
77 The Vascular Purpuras

PART X DISORDERS OF COAGULATION PROTEINS

78 Hemophilia A and B
79 von Willebrand Disease
80 Hereditary Disorders of Fibrinogen
81 Inherited Deficiencies of Coagulation Factors II, V, V + VIII, VII, X, XI, and XIII
82 Antibody-Mediated Coagulation Factor Deficiencies
83 Hemostatic Dysfunction Related to Liver Diseases
84 The Antiphospholipid Syndrome
85 Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation
86 Fibrinolysis and Thrombolysis

PART XI THROMBOSIS AND ANTITHROMBOTIC THERAPY

87 Principles of Antithrombotic Therapy

88 Hereditary Thrombophilia
89 Venous Thromboembolism
90 Antibody-Mediated Thrombotic Disorders: Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura and Heparin-Induced Thrombocytopenia

PART XII TRANSFUSION AND HEMAPHERESIS

91 Red Cell Transfusion

92 Transfusion of Platelets
93 Therapeutic Hemapheresis

Table of Normal Values

Index
 PREFACE

Williams Manual of Hematology provides a convenient and easily navigable précis of the
epidemiology, etiology, pathogenesis, diagnostic criteria, differential diagnosis, and therapy of
blood cell and coagulation protein disorders. The 93 chapters in the Manual are a distillation of
the disease- and therapy-focused chapters of the ninth edition of Williams Hematology. The
Manual is a handbook, but it is comprehensive. It is organized into 12 parts, paralleling the ninth
edition of Williams Hematology, yet of a size that permits it to serve as a companion to the
physician in the hospital or clinic. It can be used as a hard copy carried in one’s coat pocket or,
more deftly, as an app on one’s smart phone or tablet.
We have included chapters on the classification of red cell, neutrophil, monocyte, lymphocyte,
and platelet disorders and of diseases of coagulation proteins to provide a framework for
considering the differential diagnosis of syndromes that are not readily apparent. Also included
are numerous tables that contain diagnostic and therapeutic information relevant to the diseases
discussed. Detailed chapters describing the features of individual myeloid and lymphoid
malignancies provide a guide to diagnosis, staging, and management. Chapters on the
manifestations, diagnostic criteria, and therapy of hereditary and acquired thrombophilia consider
the role hematologists play in diagnosing and managing this important mechanism of disease.
Descriptions of diseases of red cells, neutrophils, monocytes, macrophages, lymphocytes,
platelets, and coagulation proteins and their management leave no gaps and meet the needs of the
busy hematologist, internist, or pediatrician. In addition, this handbook is very useful for
advanced practice professionals, medical and pediatric residents and subspecialty fellows, and
medical or nursing students because of its succinct clinical focus on diagnosis and management.
For many tables reproduced in the Manual, the reader can find explicit citations documenting
those entries in the concordant chapter in the ninth edition of Williams Hematology. In addition,
where helpful, images of blood or marrow cell abnormalities or external manifestations of
disease are included. Each chapter ends with an acknowledgment of the authors of the relevant
chapter in the ninth edition of Williams Hematology, including the chapter title and number for
easy cross-reference to that comprehensive text.
The publisher prints a caution in the Manual that admonishes readers to verify drug doses,
routes of administration, timing of doses, and duration of administration and to check the
contraindications and adverse effects of drugs used to treat the diseases described. We
reemphasize that these often complex diseases require direct participation and close supervision
of an experienced diagnostician and therapist. This oversight should be provided by a person who
is able to individualize therapy depending on the nature of the expression of the primary
hematological disease, the patient’s physiological age, and the presence of coincidental medical
conditions, among other factors.
The authors acknowledge the valuable assistance of Marie Brito at Stony Brook University,
Kim Arnold at the University of Nebraska, and, notably, Susan Daley at the University of
Rochester, who entered tables and figures into the chapters, managed the administrative
requirements in the preparation of the Manual, and coordinated communication among the six of
us and McGraw-Hill. We also acknowledge the encouragement and support of Karen Edmonson,
Senior Content Acquisitions Editor, and Harriet Lebowitz, Senior Project Development Editor, at
the Medical Publishing Division, McGraw-Hill Education.

Marshall A. Lichtman, Rochester, New York

Kenneth Kaushansky, Stony Brook, New York
Josef T. Prchal, Salt Lake City, Utah
Marcel M. Levi, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Linda J. Burns, Minneapolis, Minnesota
James O. Armitage, Omaha, Nebraska
PART I
INITIAL CLINICAL EVALUATION
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CHAPTER 1
Approach to the Patient

FINDINGS THAT MAY LEAD TO A HEMATOLOGY CONSULTATION

Table 1–1 lists abnormalities that often require an evaluation by a hematologist.

TABLE 1–1 FINDINGS THAT MAY LEAD TO A HEMATOLOGY CONSULTATION

Decreased hemoglobin concentration (anemia)
Increased hemoglobin concentration (polycythemia)
Elevated serum ferritin level
Leukopenia or neutropenia
Immature granulocytes or nucleated red cells in the blood
Pancytopenia
Granulocytosis: neutrophilia, eosinophilia, basophilia, or mastocytosis
Monocytosis
Lymphocytosis
Lymphadenopathy
Splenomegaly
Hypergammaglobulinemia: monoclonal or polyclonal
Purpura
Thrombocytopenia
Thrombocytosis
Exaggerated bleeding: spontaneous or trauma related
Prolonged partial thromboplastin or prothrombin coagulation times
Venous thromboembolism
Thrombophilia
Obstetrical adverse events (eg, recurrent fetal loss, stillbirth, and HELLP* syndrome)
*Hemolytic anemia, elevated liver enzymes, and low platelet count.
Source: Williams Hematology, 9th ed, Chap. 1, Table 1–1.

The care of a patient with a hematologic disorder begins with eliciting a medical history and
performing a thorough physical examination. Certain parts of the history and physical examination
that are of particular interest to the hematologist are presented here.

HISTORY OF THE PRESENT ILLNESS

Estimation of the “performance status” helps establish the degree of disability and permits
assessment of the effects of therapy (Tables 1–2 and 1–3).
Drugs and chemicals may induce or aggravate hematologic diseases; drug use or chemical
exposure, intentional or inadvertent, should be evaluated. One should inquire about
professionally prescribed and self-prescribed drugs, such as herbal remedies. Occupational
exposures should be defined.
Fever may result from hematologic disease or, more often, from an associated infection. Night
 sweats suggest the presence of fever. They are especially prevalent in the lymphomas.
Weight loss may occur in some hematologic diseases.
Fatigue, malaise, lassitude, and weakness are common but nonspecific symptoms and may be
the result of anemia, fever, or muscle wasting associated with hematologic malignancy or
neurologic complications of hematologic disease.
Symptoms or signs related to specific organ systems or regions of the body may arise because
of involvement in the basic disease process, such as spinal cord compression from a
plasmacytoma, ureteral or intestinal obstruction from abdominal lymphoma, or stupor from
exaggerated hyperleukocytosis in chronic myelogenous leukemia.

TABLE 1–2 CRITERIA OF PERFORMANCE STATUS (KARNOFSKY SCALE)

Able to carry on normal activity; no special care is needed.
100% Normal; no complaints, no evidence of disease
90% Able to carry on normal activity; minor signs or symptoms of disease
80% Normal activity with effort; some signs or symptoms of disease
Unable to work; able to live at home, care for most personal needs; a varying amount of assistance is needed.
70% Cares for self; unable to carry on normal activity or to do active work
60% Requires occasional assistance but is able to care for most personal needs
50% Requires considerable assistance and frequent medical care
Unable to care for self; requires equivalent of institutional or hospital care; disease may be progressing rapidly.
40% Disabled; requires special care and assistance
30% Severely disabled; hospitalization is indicated though death not imminent
20% Very sick; hospitalization necessary; active supportive treatment necessary
10% Moribund; fatal processes progressing rapidly
0% Dead
Source: Williams Hematology, 9th ed, Chap. 1, Table 1–2.

TABLE 1–3 EASTERN COOPERATIVE ONCOLOGY GROUP PERFORMANCE STATUS

Grade Activity
0 Fully active; able to carry on all predisease performance without restriction
1 Restricted in physically strenuous activity but ambulatory and able to carry out work of a light or sedentary
nature (eg, light housework, office work)
2 Ambulatory and capable of all self-care but unable to carry out any work activities; up and about more than
50% of waking hours
3 Capable of only limited self-care; confined to bed or chair more than 50% of waking hours
4 Completely disabled; cannot carry on any self-care; totally confined to bed or chair
5 Dead
Source: Williams Hematology, 9th ed, Chap. 1, Table 1–3.

FAMILY HISTORY
 Hematologic disorders may be inherited as autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, or X
chromosome–linked traits (see Williams Hematology, 9th ed, Chap. 10). The family history is
crucial to provide initial clues to inherited disorders and should include information relevant
to the disease in question in grandparents, parents, siblings, children, maternal uncles and
aunts, and nephews. Careful and repeated questioning is often necessary because some
important details, such as the death of a sibling in infancy, may be forgotten years later.
Consanguinity should be considered in a patient who belongs to a population group prone to
marrying family members.
Absence of a family history in a dominantly inherited disease may indicate a de novo mutation
or nonpaternity.
Deviations from Mendelian inheritance may result from uniparental disomy (patient receives
two copies of a chromosome, or part of a chromosome, containing a mutation from one parent
and no copies from the other parent) or genetic imprinting (same abnormal gene inherited from
mother has a different phenotype than that inherited from father as a result of silencing or
imprinting of one parent’s portion of DNA) (see Williams Hematology, 9th ed, Chap. 12).

SEXUAL HISTORY
One should obtain the history of the sexual preferences and practices of the patient.

PHYSICAL EXAMINATION
Special attention should be paid to the following aspects of the physical examination:
Skin: cyanosis, ecchymoses, excoriation, flushing, jaundice, leg ulcers, nail changes, pallor,
petechiae, telangiectases, rashes (eg, lupus erythematosus, leukemia cutis, cutaneous T-cell
lymphoma)
Eyes: jaundice, pallor, plethora, retinal hemorrhages, exudates, or engorgement and
segmentation of retinal veins
Mouth: bleeding, jaundice, mucosal ulceration, pallor, smooth tongue
Lymph nodes: slight enlargement may occur in the inguinal region in healthy adults and in the
cervical region in children. Enlargement elsewhere, or moderate to marked enlargement in
these regions, should be considered abnormal
Chest: sternal and/or rib tenderness
Liver: enlargement
Spleen: enlargement, splenic rub
Joints: swelling, deformities
Neurologic: abnormal mental state, cranial nerve abnormalities, peripheral nerve
abnormalities, spinal cord signs

LABORATORY EVALUATION
The blood should be evaluated, both quantitatively and qualitatively. This is usually achieved
using automated equipment.
Normal blood cell values are presented in Table 1–4. Normal total leukocyte and differential
leukocyte counts are presented in Table 1–5.
Hemoglobin concentration and red cell count are measured directly by automated instruments.
Packed cell volume (hematocrit) is derived from the product of erythrocyte count and the
mean red cell volume. It may also be measured directly by high-speed centrifugation of
anticoagulated blood.
Both the hemoglobin and the hematocrit are based on whole blood and are, therefore,
dependent on plasma volume. If a patient is severely dehydrated, the hemoglobin and
hematocrit will appear higher than if the patient were normovolemic; if the patient is fluid
overloaded, those values will be lower than their actual level when normovolemic.
Mean (red) cell volume (MCV), mean (red) cell hemoglobin (MCH), and mean (red) cell
hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) are determined directly in automated cell analyzers. They
may also be calculated by using the following formulas:

The units are femtoliters (fL).

Mean cell hemoglobin (MCH) is calculated as follows:

The units are picograms (pg) per cell.

Mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) is calculated as follows:

The units are grams of hemoglobin per deciliter (g/dL) of erythrocytes, or a percentage.
The MCH may decrease or increase as a reflection of decreases or increases in red cell
volume as well as actual increases or decreases in red cell hemoglobin concentration. The
MCHC controls for those changes in red cell size, providing a more reliable measurement of
hemoglobin concentration of red cells.
Red cell distribution width (RDW) is calculated by automatic counters and reflects the
variability in red cell size. The term “width” in RDW is misleading; it is a measure of the
coefficient of variation of the volume of the red cells, and not the diameter. It is expressed as a
percent.
RDW = (Standard deviation of MCV ÷ mean MCV) × 100
— Normal values are 11% to 14% of 1.0.
— The presence of anisocytosis may be inferred from an elevated RDW value.
Reticulocyte index. This variable is derived from the reticulocyte count and gives an estimate
of the marrow response to anemia reflecting the red cell production rate.
— The normal marrow with adequate iron availability can increase red cell production two to
three times acutely and four to six times over a longer period of time.
— The reticulocyte index is used to determine if anemia is more likely the result of decreased
red cell production or accelerated destruction in the circulation (hemolysis).
— By convention, hemolysis should be considered if the reticulocyte index is more than two
times the basal value of 1.0.
— This calculation assumes (1) the red cell life span is ~100 days; (2) a normal reticulocyte
is identifiable in the blood with supravital staining for 1 day; (3) the red cell life span is
finite and the oldest 1% of red cells are removed and replaced each day; and (4) a
reticulocyte count of 1% in an individual with a normal red cell count represents the
normal red cell production rate per day thus, 1 is the basal reticulocyte index.
— The reticulocyte index provides the incidence of new red cells released per day as an
estimate of marrow response to anemia.
Consider a patient with a red cell count of 2 × 1012/L and a reticulocyte count of 15%. The
reticulocyte index is calculated as follows:
— Corrected reticulocyte percent = observed reticulocyte percent × observed red cell
count/normal red cell count. Calculation for patient values in this example = 15 × 2.0/5.0 =
6. This adjustment corrects the percent of reticulocytes for the decreased red cells in an
anemic person. This calculation provides the prevalence of reticulocytes, but we want to
know the incidence of reticulocytes (per day).
— In anemia, under the influence of elevated erythropoietin, reticulocytes do not mature in the
marrow for 3 days and then circulate for 1 day before they degrade their ribosomes and
cannot be identified as such. Reticulocytes are released prematurely and thus may be
identifiable in the circulation for 2 or 3 days and not reflect new red cells delivered that
day, as in the normal state.
— The corrected reticulocyte percent must be adjusted for premature release of reticulocytes.
This is done by dividing the corrected reticulocyte percent by a factor related to the
severity of anemia from 1.5 to 3. In practice, the value 2 is usually used as an
approximation.
— Thus, the corrected reticulocyte percent of 6 ÷ 2 results in a reticulocyte index of three
times the basal value, indicating the anemia is hemolytic.
Enumeration of erythrocytes, leukocytes, and platelets can be performed by manual methods by
using diluting pipettes, a specially designed counting chamber, and a light microscope, but an
electronic method provides much more precise data and is now used nearly universally for
blood cell counts.
Leukocyte differential count can be obtained from stained blood films prepared on glass
slides. Automated techniques may be used for screening purposes, in which case abnormal
cells are called out and examined microscopically by an experienced observer. Normal values
for specific leukocyte types in adults are given in Table 1–5. The identifying features of the
various types of normal leukocytes are shown in Figure 1–1 and are detailed in Williams
Hematology, 9th ed, Chap. 2; Chap. 60; Chap. 67; Chap. 73.
Electronic methods that provide rapid and accurate classification of leukocyte types based
largely on the physical properties of the cells have been developed and are in general use as
described in Williams Hematology, 9th ed, Chap. 2.
Properly stained blood films also provide important information on the morphology of
erythrocytes and platelets as well as leukocytes.
 Examination of the blood film may reflect the presence of a number of diseases of the blood.
These are listed in Table 1–6.

FIGURE 1–1 Images from a normal blood film showing major leukocyte types. The red cells are normocytic (normal size) and
normochromic (normal hemoglobin content) with normal shape. The scattered platelets are normal in frequency and morphology.
Images are taken from the optimal portion of the blood film for morphologic analysis. A. A platelet caught sitting in the biconcavity
of the red cell in the preparation of the blood film—a segmented (polymorphonuclear) neutrophil and in the inset, a band neutrophil.
This normal finding should not be mistaken for a red cell inclusion. B. A monocyte. C. A small lymphocyte. D. A large granular
lymphocyte. Note that it is larger than the lymphocyte in C with an increased amount of cytoplasm containing scattered eosinophilic
granules. E. An eosinophil. Virtually all normal blood eosinophils are bilobed and filled with relatively large (compared to the
neutrophil) eosinophilic granules. F. Basophil and in inset a basophil that was less degranulated during film preparation, showing
relatively large basophilic granules. The eosinophilic and basophilic granules are readily resolvable by light microscopy (×1000),
whereas the neutrophilic granules are not resolvable, but in the aggregate impart a faint tan coloration to the neutrophil cytoplasm,
quite distinctly different from the blue-gray cytoplasmic coloring of the monocyte and lymphocyte. (Source: Williams Hematology,
9th ed, Chap. 2, Figure 2–4.)

TABLE 1–4 BLOOD CELL VALUES IN A NORMAL POPULATION

Men Women Either

White cell count,* × 109/L blood 7.8 (4.4–11.3)+

Red cell count, × 1012/L blood 5.21 (4.52–5.90) 4.60 (4.10–5.10)
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She smiled in her dignified way, which made the young critic feel very
small. “We seldom hear any fault found with its size,” she said.
And then, to the astonishment of Walter, the little person, whom he had
allowed of his grace to pass in before him, came into the room, and took her
place and addressed the great lady in the most familiar terms. “Aunt
Gerald,” she said, “we are all a kind of cousins, don’t you think? We must
be a kind of cousins, though we never saw each other before, for you are
aunt to them and you are aunt to me, so of course we are friends by nature;”
and with that she put out her hand not only to Ally, whose face brightened
all over at this cordial greeting, but to Wat, who stood hanging over them
like a cloud, not knowing what to say.
“You are mistaken, Mab,” said Mrs. Russell Penton; “I am not aunt but
cousin to—to—” she did not know what to call them—“to my young
relations,” she said at last.
“That comes exactly to the same thing—an old cousin is always aunt,”
said Mab, settling herself on her seat like a little pigeon. She was very
plump, pink and white, with very keen little blue eyes, not at all unlike a
doll. There was nothing imposing in her appearance. “I am Mab,” she said,
“and are you Alicia, like Aunt Gerald? Do all your brothers and sisters call
you so? It is such a long name. I have neither brothers nor sisters.”
“Oh, what a pity,” said gentle Ally, who had brightened as soon as this
new companion came in with all the freemasonry of youth.
“Do you think so? but then they say it is very good in another way. I
have nobody to be fond of me though, nobody to bully me. Big brothers
bully you dreadfully, don’t they?” She cast a look at Walter, inviting him to
approach. She was not shy, and he was standing about, not knowing what to
do with himself. Walter would have been awkward in any circumstances,
having no acquaintance with strange ladies or habit of attending them at tea.
He drew a step nearer indeed, but her advances did not put him at his ease;
for had he not taken her for a lady’s-maid? though this she did not know.
Mrs. Russell Penton left them thus to make acquaintance, as Mab said,
but not willingly. She had to obey a summons from Sir Walter. Sir Walter
had been a great deal more restless than usual for the last day or two. There
was nothing the matter with him, he said himself, and the doctor said he
was quite well, there was not the slightest reason for any uneasiness; but yet
he was restless—constantly sending for Alicia when she was not with him,
changing his position, finding fault with his newspapers, and that all the
little paraphernalia he loved was not sufficiently at hand. Mrs. Russell
Penton was always ready when her father wanted her. She would have let
nothing, not the most exalted visitor, stand between her and her father, and
though she was by no means desirous of leaving these young people
together, yet she got up and left them without a word. It was, however, a
little too much for her when Sir Walter exclaimed almost before she got into
the room, “Where are those children? I suppose they have come, Alicia.
Why are you hiding them away from me?”
“The children!—what children? Father, I don’t know what you mean.”
“What children are there to interest me now, except the one set?” said Sir
Walter, peevishly. “Edward’s children of course I mean.”
“Edward’s children!”
“Am I growing stupid, or what is the matter with you, Alicia? I don’t
generally have to repeat the same thing a dozen times over. Naturally it is
Edward’s son I want. A man can scarcely help feeling a certain interest in
the boy who is his heir.”
“I am afraid I am very stupid, father. I thought we had settled—”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said the old man: “it is all settled just as you liked, I
know; but all the same the boy is my heir.”
Mrs. Russell Penton made no reply. Sir Walter was old enough to be
allowed to say what he would without contradiction; but the statement
altogether was extremely galling to her. “Settled just as you liked.” It was
not as she liked but as he liked. It was he who had moved in it, though it
was for her benefit. Though she could not deny that the desire of her life
was to possess Penton, to remain in her home, yet she was proudly
conscious that she would have taken no step in the matter, done nothing, of
her own accord. It was he who had settled it; and now he turned upon her,
and asked for the boy who was his heir! Everybody was hard upon Alicia at
this moment of fate. They all seemed to have united against her—her
husband, the little girl even whom she had wished to defend from fortune-
hunters—and now her father himself! If she had been twenty instead of fifty
she could not have felt this universal abandonment more. But the practice of
so many years was strong upon her. She would not oppose or make any
objections to what he wished, though it was of the last repugnance to
herself.
“I should have liked,” said the old man, “to see Edward too; when one
has advanced so far as I have on the path of life, Alicia, likes and dislikes
die away—and prejudices. I may have been too subject to prejudice.
Edward never was very much to calculate upon. He had no character; he
never could hold his own; but there was very little harm in him, as little
harm as good you will perhaps say. Bring me the boy. He will be the same
as I, Sir Walter Penton, when his turn comes, and it will not be long before
his turn comes. Edward will never last to be an old man like me. He hasn’t
got it in him; he hasn’t stuff enough. The young one will be Sir Walter—Sir
Walter Penton, the old name. The tenth, isn’t it—Walter the tenth—if we
were to count as some of the foreign houses do?’
“Oh, father, don’t!” cried Alicia. To think he could talk, almost jest,
about another Walter!
He looked up at her quickly, as if out of a little gathering confusion,
seeing for the moment what she meant.
“Eh! well, we must not always dwell on one subject—must not dwell
upon it. Let me see the boy.”
Mrs. Russell Penton rang the bell and gave a message, out of which it
was almost impossible to keep an angry ring of impatience. “Tell the young
gentleman who is in the drawing-room, he who arrived half an hour ago—
you understand—that Sir Walter would like to see him. Show him the way.”
“Why don’t you speak of him by his name, Alicia? Young Mr. Penton,
Mr. Walter Penton, my successor, you know, Bowker, that is to be. Say I
seldom leave my room, and that I should be pleased to see him here. My
dear,” he went on, “the servants always act upon the cue you give them, and
they ought to be very respectful to the rising sun, you know. It is bad policy
to set them out of favor with the rising sun.”
Alicia’s heart was too full for speech. She kept behind her father’s chair,
arranging one or two little things which required no arrangement, keeping
command over herself by a strong effort. A little more, she felt, and she
would no longer be able to do this. That even the servants should have such
a suggestion made to them, that Edward’s boy was the heir! Had her father
departed from the resolution which was, she declared to herself
passionately, his own resolution, not suggested by her? Had he forgotten?
Was this some wavering of the mind which might invalidate all future acts
of his? She felt on the edge of an outbreak of feeling such as had rarely
occurred in her reserved and dignified life, and at the same time she felt
herself turned to stone. The old man went on talking, more than usual, more
cheerfully than usual, as if something exhilarating and pleasant was about
to happen, but she paid little attention to what he said. She stood behind,
full of a new and anxious interest, when the door opened and Wat, timid,
but on his guard, not knowing what might be wanted with him, half defiant,
and yet more impressed and awed than he liked to show, came into the
room. Mrs. Russell Penton gave him no aid. She said, “This is Edward’s
son, father.” It annoyed her to name him by his name, though there was no
doubt that he had a right to it, as good a right as any one. She could not
form her lips to say Walter Penton. But what she failed in Sir Walter made
up. He half rose from his chair, which was a thing he rarely did, and held
out both his hands. “Ah, Walter! I’m glad to see you, very glad to see you,”
he said. He took the youth’s hands in those large, soft, aged ones of his, and
drew him close and looked at him, as he might have looked at a grandson:
and there was enough resemblance between them to justify the suggestion.
“So this is Walter,” he went on, “I’m very glad to see you, my boy. You’re
the last of the old stock—no, not the last either, for I hear there’s plenty of
you, boys and girls, Alicia”—the old man’s voice trembled a little, tears
came into his eyes, as they do so easily at his age—“Alicia, don’t you think
he has a look of—of—another Walter? About the eyes—and his mouth? He
is a true Penton. My dear, I’m very sorry if I’ve vexed you. I—I like to see
it. I could think he had lived and done well and left us a son to come after
him, my poor boy!”
And old Sir Walter for a moment broke down, and lifted up his voice and
wept, running the little wail of irrepressible emotion into a cough to veil it,
and swinging Wat’s hand back and forward in his own. Alicia stood as long
as she could behind him, holding herself down. But when her father’s voice
broke, and he called her attention to that resemblance, she could bear it no
longer. She walked away out of the room without a word. Had she not seen
it—that resemblance? and it was an offense to her, a bitter injury. He had
neither lived nor done well, that other Walter, the brother of her love and of
her pride. He had crushed her heart under his feet, beaten down her pride,
torn her being asunder; and now to have it pointed out to her that this
insignificant boy, who was not even to be the heir, whose birthright was
being sold over his head, that he was a true Penton and like her brother! She
could bear it no longer. Not even the recollection that this emotion might
injure her father, that he wanted care to soothe him, sufficed to make her
capable of restraining the passion which had seized possession of her. She
went away quickly, silent, saying nothing. It was more than she could bear.
In the corridor she met her husband, between whom and her there was,
she was conscious, a certain mist, also on account of this boy. Had all been
as usual in other ways she would have passed him by with a sense in her
heart of a certain separation and injury: but a woman must have some one
to claim support from, and after all he was her husband, bound to stand by
her, whatever questions might arise between them. She went up to him with
an instinctive feeling of having a right to his sympathy in any case, even if
he should disapprove, and put her hand within his arm with a hasty
appealing movement, quite unusual with her. No man was more easily
affected than Russell Penton by such an appeal. He put his hand upon hers,
and looked at her tenderly. “What is it, my dear?” he said.
“Nothing, Gerald; except that I want to lean upon you for a moment
because I have more than I can bear; though you disapprove of me,” she
said.
He held her close to him, full of pity and tenderness. “Lean, Alicia,
whether I approve or disapprove;” and he added, “I know that all this is
hard upon you.” He sympathized with her at least, if not with the tenor of
her thoughts.
She made no further explanation, nor did he ask for it. After a moment
she said, “Gerald, do you know whether a sudden change of mind,
abandoning one way of thinking for another, is supposed to be a bad sign—
of health, I mean?”
He paused a moment and looked at her, with an evident question as to
whether it was she who had changed her mind. But that look was enough to
show that, though she was suffering she was firm as ever, and a glance she
gave toward the closed door of the library enlightened him. “I should not
think it was a very good sign—of health,” he said.
“It shows a weakening—it shows a relaxation of the fiber—a—that is
what I think. And so complete a change! Gerald, my father shall do nothing
he does not wish to do for me.”
 “I never supposed you would wish that, my dear. What is it? Don’t form
too hasty a judgment. Has he said that he does not want to do anything that
has been spoken of between you?”
“No, he has spoken of nothing. He has got Edward Penton’s boy with
him, and he is quite affectionate, talking of a resemblance—”
“Alicia, is it Penton you are thinking so much of?”
“No, no,” she cried, leaning upon his shoulder, bursting at last into
sudden, long-repressed tears. “No, no! It is my brother, my brother! my
Walter! He who should have been, who ought to have been—Gerald, it may
be wrong, but I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it. He talks of a resemblance—”
“Alicia, I see it too. I thought it would soften your heart.”
“Oh!” she cried, “how little you know;” and, flinging herself from him,
with a cry of mortification and disappointment, she flew into her own room
and closed the door.
Russell Penton stood looking after her with a troubled countenance, and
then he began to walk slowly up and down the corridor. He did not approve,
and perhaps, as she said in her passion, did not understand this strange
revulsion of all gentle sentiments. But it went to his heart to leave her to
herself in a moment of pain, even though the pain was of her own inflicting.
He did not follow or attempt to console her. She was not a girl to be soothed
and persuaded out of this outburst of passionate feeling. He respected her
individuality, her age, her power to bear her own burdens; but because his
heart was very tender, though he did not disturb Alicia, he walked up and
down, waiting till she should return to him, outside that closed door.
 CHAPTER XX.

SIR WALTER AND HIS HEIR.

There was a ball at Penton that evening.

Nothing was more unusual than a ball at Penton. The family festivities
were usually of the gravest kind. Solemn dinner-parties, duties of society,
collections of people who had to be asked, county potentates, with whom
Alicia and her husband had dined, and who had to be repaid. Nothing under
fifty, unless it might be by chance now and then a newly married couple
added in the natural progress of events to the circle of the best people, ever
appeared at that luxurious but somewhat heavy table. Mr. Russell Penton
chafed, but endured, and talked politics with the squires, and did his best to
relieve the ponderous propriety of their wives. He was good at making the
best of things; and when he could do nothing more he put on a brave face
and supported it. But now, for once in a way, youth was paramount. The
young people from Penton Hook, who had little acquaintance with the other
young people of all the county families who were invited, had not so much
as heard of what was in store for them; and Ally reflected, when she did
hear, that it was something like an inspiration which had induced her
mother to provide her with that second evening dress, which was quite
suitable for a first ball. It was very simple, very white, fit for her age, her
slim figure, and youthful aspect. But it was not for Ally that the ball was
given. “I believe it is my ball,” Mab had told her. “It is my first visit to
Penton since I was a child, and now that I am out Aunt Alicia thinks that
something has to be done for me. Are you ‘out’? but you must be, of course,
or you would not have been asked for to-day.”
“I don’t know whether I am out or not,” said Ally, with a blush; “but I
don’t think mother, if she knew, would have any objection. I am eighteen. I
have never been at a ball before. Perhaps I may not dance in the right way.”
“Oh, nonsense,” said Mab, “whatever way you dance you have only to
stick to it and say that is the right way.”
The two girls were alone, for Walter had just been mysteriously called
out of the room. And though Ally’s thoughts followed her brother with
anxiety, wondering what could be wanted with him, yet the novelty of the
scene and the companionship of a girl of her own age so warmed her heart,
that she forgot the precautions and cares which had been so impressed upon
her, and began to talk and to act by natural impulse without thought.
“I should never have the courage to do that,” she said; “I have never
even seen people dancing. We had a few lessons when we were children,
and sometimes we try with Wat, just to see, if we ever had a chance, how
we could get on. Anne plays and I have a turn, or else Anne has a turn and I
play.”
“Is Anne your only sister?”
“Oh, no,” cried Ally, with a laugh at the impossibility of such a
suggestion; “there are two in the nursery. We are two boys and two girls,
grown up; and the little ones are just the same, two and two.”
“How unfair things are in this world,” said Mab; “to think there should
be so many of you and only one of me!”
“It is strange,” said Ally; “but not perhaps unfair: for when there is only
one your father and mother must seem so much nearer to you—you must
feel that they belong altogether to you.”
“Perhaps. Mamma died when I was born, so I never knew her at all.
Papa is dead too. Don’t let us talk of that. I never think of things that are
disagreeable,” said Mab, “what is the use? It can’t do you any good, it only
makes you worse thinking. Tell me about to-night. Who will be here? are
they nice? are they good dancers? Tell me which is the best dancer about,
that I may ask Uncle Gerald to introduce him to me.”
“I know nobody,” said Ally.
“Nobody! though you have lived here all your life! Oh, you little envious
thing! You want to keep them all to yourself; you won’t tell me! Very well. I
have no doubt your brother dances well; he has the figure for it. I shall
dance with him all the night.”
“Oh, no; that would be too much. But I hope you will dance with him to
give him a little confidence. Indeed, what I say is quite true. We don’t know
anybody; we have been brought up so—quietly. We never were here
before.”
“Oh!” Mab said. She was an inquiring young woman, and she had not
believed what she had heard. She had made very light of Mrs. Russell
Penton’s description of her relations as “not in our sphere.” As Ally spoke,
however, Mab’s eyes opened wider; she began to realize the real position.
The misfortunes of the young Pentons had gone further than she had
believed; they were poor relations in the conventional sense of the word,
people to be thrust into a corner, to be allowed to shift for themselves. But
not if they have some one to look after them, Mab said to herself. She took
up their cause with heat and fury. “You shall soon know everybody,” she
cried; “Uncle Gerald will see to that, and so shall I.” It then occurred to her
that Ally might resent this as an offer of patronage, and she added, hastily,
“Promise to introduce all your good partners to me, and I will introduce all
mine to you. Is that settled? Oh, then between us we shall soon find out
which are the best.”
How kind she was! To be sure, Cousin Alicia was not very kind; there
was nothing effusive about her. No doubt she must mean to be agreeable, or
why should she have asked them? though her manner was not very cordial.
But as for Mab—who insisted that she was to be called Mab, and not Miss
Russell—she was more “nice” than anything that Ally could have imagined
possible. She was like a new sister, she was like one of ourselves. So Ally
declared with warmth to Wat, who knocked at the door of her room just as
she was beginning to dress for dinner, with a face full of importance and
gravity. He was quite indifferent as to Mab, but he told her of Sir Walter
with a sort of enthusiasm. “He said I must not forget that I was his heir, and
that he would like to make a man of me. What do you think he could mean,
Ally, by saying that I was his heir, after all?”
Ally could not tell; how was it possible that she should tell, as she had
not heard or seen the interview? And besides, she was not the clever one to
be able to divine what people meant. She threw, however, a little light on
the subject by suggesting that perhaps he meant the title. “For you must be
heir to the title, Wat,” she said; “nobody can take that from you.” Wat’s
countenance fell at this, for he did not like to think that it was merely the
baronetcy Sir Walter meant when he called him his heir. However, there
was not very much time to talk. Walter had to hurry to his room to get
ready, and Ally to finish dressing her hair and to put on her dress, with a
curious feeling of strangeness which took away her pleasure in it. Of
course, you really could see yourself better in the long, large glass than in
the little ones at the Hook, but an admiring audience of mother and sisters
are more exhilarating to dress to than the noblest mirror. And Ally felt sad
and excited—not excited as a girl generally does before her first ball, but
filled with all manner of indefinite alarms. There was nothing to be alarmed
about. Cousin Alicia, however cold she might seem, would not suffer, after
all, her own relations to be neglected. And then there was Mab. The girl felt
the confused prospect before her of pleasure—which she was not sure
would be pleasure, or anything but a disguised pain—to grow brighter and
more natural when she thought of Mab. And that compact about the
partners. Ally wondered whether she would get any partners, or if they
would all overlook her in her corner, a little girl whom nobody knew.
And then came dinner, an agitating but brilliant ceremonial, with a
confusing brightness of lights and flowers and ferns, and everything so
strange, and the whole disturbed by an underlying dread of doing something
wrong. Sir Walter at the head of the table, a strange image of age and
tremulous state, looked to Ally like an old sage in a picture, or an old
magician, one in whose very look there were strange powers. She scarcely
raised her eyes when she was presented to him, but courtesied to the ground
as if he had been a king, and did not feel at all sure that the look he gave her
might not work some miraculous change in her. But Sir Walter did not take
much notice of Ally, his attention was all given to Wat, whom he desired to
have near him, and at whom he looked with that pleasure near to tears
which betrays the weakness of old age. When dinner was over the old man
would not have Russell Penton’s arm, nor would he let his servant help him.
He signed to Wat, to the astonishment of all, and shuffled into the ball-
room, where half of the county were assembled, leaning on the arm of the
youth, who was no less astonished than everybody else. Sir Walter was very
tall, taller than Wat, and he was heavy, and leaned his full weight upon the
slight boy of twenty, who required all his strength to keep steady and give
the necessary support. Mrs. Russell Penton, who was already in the ball-
room receiving her guests, grew pale like clay when she saw this group
approach. “Father, let me take you to your seat,” she said, hurriedly,
neglecting a family newly arrived too, who were waiting for her greeting.
“Nothing of the kind, Alicia. I’m well off to-night. I’ve got Wat, you see,”
the old gentleman said, and walked up the whole length of the room,
smiling and bowing, and pausing to speak to the most honored guests. “This
is young Walter,” he said, introducing the boy, “don’t you know? My
successor, you know,” with that old tremulous laugh which was half a
cough, and brought the tears to his eyes. The people who knew the
circumstances—and who did not know the circumstances?—stared and
asked each other what could have happened to bring about such a
revolution. When Sir Walter had been seated at the upper end of his room
he dismissed his young attendant with a caressing tap upon his arm. “Now
go, boy, and find your partner. You must open the ball, you know; nothing
can be done till you’ve opened the ball. Go, go, and don’t keep everybody
waiting.” Poor Wat could not tell what to do when raised to this giddy
height without any preparation, not knowing anybody, very doubtful about
his own powers as a dancer, or what was the etiquette of such performances.
Russell Penton almost thrust Mab upon him in his pause of bewilderment.
And from where she stood at the door, stately and rigid, Alicia looked with
a blank gaze upon this boy, this poor relation, whom her eyes had avoided,
whom she had included almost perforce in her reluctant invitation to his
sister, but who was thus made the principal figure in her entertainment. She
had been reluctant to ask Ally, but the brother had been put in quite against
her will. His name, his look, the resemblance which she refused to see, but
yet could not ignore, were all intolerable to her; but her father’s sudden
fancy for the boy, his change of sentiment so inconceivable, so
unexplainable, struck chill to her heart.
When she was released from her duties of receiving she found out the
doctor among the crowd of more important guests, and begged him to give
her his opinions.
“How do you think my father looks?”
“Extremely well—better than he has looked for years—as if he had
taken a new lease,” the doctor said.
Mrs. Russell Penton shook her head. She herself was very pale; her eyes
shone with a strange, unusual luster. She said to herself that it was
superstition. Why should not an old man take a passing fancy? It would
pass with the occasion, it might mean nothing. There was no reason to
suppose that this wonderful contradiction, this apparent revolution in his
mind, was anything but a sudden impression, an effect—though so different
from that in herself—of the stirring up of old associations. She sat down
beside her father, and did her best to subdue the state of unusual
exhilaration in which he was.
“You must not stay longer than you feel disposed,” she said, with her
hand upon his arm.
 “Oh, don’t fear for me, Alicia. I am wonderfully well; I never felt better.
Look at young Wat, with that little partner of his! Isn’t she the little heiress?
I shouldn’t wonder if he carried off the prize, the rascal! eh, Gerald? and
very convenient too in the low state of the exchequer,” the old gentleman
said; and he chuckled and laughed with the water in his eyes, while his
daughter by his side felt herself turning to stone. It was not, she said to
herself passionately, for fear of his changing his mind. It was that a change
so extraordinary looked to her anxious eyes like one of those mental
excitements which are said to go before the end.
It was Ally’s own fault that she got behind backs, and escaped the
attentions which Mr. Russell Penton, absorbed, he, too, in this curious little
drama, had intended to pay her. Ally, in the shade of larger interests, fell out
of that importance which ought to belong to a débutante. It was a great
consolation to her when young Rochford suddenly appeared, excited and
delighted, anxious to know if she had still a dance to give him. Poor Ally
had as many dances as she pleased to give, and knew nobody in all this
bewildering brilliant assembly so well as himself. She was unspeakably
relieved and comforted when he introduced her to his sisters and his mother,
who, half out of natural kindness, and half because of the distinction of
having a Miss Penton—who was a real Penton, though a poor one, in the
great house which bore her name—under her wing, encouraged Ally to take
refuge by her side, and talked to her and soothed her out of the frightened
state of loneliness and abandonment which is perhaps more miserable to a
young creature expecting pleasure in a ball-room than anywhere else. They
got her partners among their own set, the guests who were, so to speak,
below the salt, the secondary strata in the great assembly—who indeed
were quite good enough for Ally—quite as good as any one, though without
handles to their names or any prestige in society. Mab, when she met her
new friend, stopped indeed to whisper aside, “Where have you picked up
that man?” but Mab, too, was fully occupied with her own affairs. And
Walter was altogether swept away from his sister. He made more
acquaintances in the next hour or two than he had done for all the previous
years of his life. If his head was a little turned, if he felt that some
wonderful unthought-of merit must suddenly have come out in him, who
could wonder? He met Ally now and then, or saw her dancing and happy;
and, with a half-guilty gladness, feeling that there was no necessity for him
to take her upon his shoulders, abandoned himself to the intoxication of his
own success. It was his first; it was totally unexpected, and it was very
sweet.
The time came, however, as the time always comes, when all this
fascination and delight came to an end. Sir Walter had retired hours before;
and now the last lingering guest had departed, the last carriage had rolled
away, the lights were extinguished, the great house had fallen into silence
and slumber after the fatigue of excitement and enjoyment. Walter did not
know how late, or rather how early it was, deep in the heart of the wintery
darkness toward morning, when he was roused from his first sleep by
sudden sounds in the corridor, and voices outside his door. A sound of other
doors opening and shutting, of confused cries and footsteps, made it evident
to him that something unusual had occurred, as he sprung up startled and
uneasy. The first thought that springs to the mind of every inexperienced
adventurer in this world, that the something which has happened must
specially affect himself, made him think of some catastrophe at home, and
made him clutch at his clothes and dress himself hurriedly, with a certainty
that he was about to be summoned. There flashed through Walter’s mind
with an extraordinary rapidity, as if flung across his consciousness from
without, the possibility that it might be his father—the thought that in that
case it would actually be he, as old Sir Walter had said, who would be—The
thought was guilty, barbarous, unnatural. It did not originate in the young
man’s own confused, half-awakened mind. What is there outside of us that
flings such horrible realizations across our consciousness without any will
of ours? He had not time to feel how horrible it was when he recognized
Mrs. Russell Penton’s voice outside in hurried tones, sharp with some
urgent necessity. “Some one must go for Edward Penton and Rochford—
Rochford and the papers. Who can we send, who will understand? Oh,
Gerald, not you, not you. Don’t let me be alone at this moment—let all go
rather than that.”
“If it must be done, I am the only man to do it, Alicia—if his last hours
are to be disturbed for this.”
“His last hours! they are disturbed already; he can not rest; he calls for
Rochford, Rochford! It is no doing of mine—that you should think so of me
at this moment! How am I to quiet my father? But, Gerald, don’t leave me
—don’t you leave me?” she cried.
 Walter threw his door open in the excitement of his sudden waking. The
light flooded in his eyes, dazzling him. “I’ll go,” he said, unable to see
anything except a white figure and a dark one standing together in the
flicker of the light which was blown about by the air from some open
window. Presently Alicia Penton’s face became visible to him, pale, with a
lace handkerchief tied over her head, which changed her aspect strangely,
and her eyes full of agitation and nervous unrest. She fell back when she
saw him, crying, with a sharp tone of pain, “You!”
“I’m wide awake,” said the young man. “I thought something must have
happened at home. If there’s a horse or a dog-cart I’ll go.”
“Sir Walter is very ill,” said Russell Penton. “I hope not dying, but very
ill. And you know what they want, to settle the matter with your father and
get that deed executed at once.”
“I’ll go,” said Wat, half sullen in the repetition, in the sudden perception
that burst upon him once again from outside with all its train of ready-made
thoughts—that if he lingered, if he delayed, it might be too late, and Penton
would still be his—that there was no duty laid upon him to go at all,
contrary to his interests, contrary to all his desires that—that—He gave a
little stamp with his foot and repeated, doggedly, “I said I’d go. I’m ready.
To bring Rochford and the papers, to bring my father; that’s what I’ve got to
do.”
“That is what Mrs. Penton does not venture to ask of you.”
“Oh, boy,” cried Alicia, lifting up her hands, “go, go! It is not for me, it
is for my father. I don’t know what he means to do, but he can not rest till it
is done. He can’t die, do you know what I mean? It is on his mind, and he
can’t get free—for the love of Heaven go!”
“This moment,” Walter said.
 CHAPTER XXI.

A NIGHT DRIVE.

Walter Penton found himself facing the penetrating wind of the

December morning which was in its stillness and blackness the dead of
night, before he had fully realized what was happening. A number of keen
perceptions indeed had flashed across his mind, yet it felt like nothing so
much as the continuation of a dream when, enveloped in an atmosphere of
sound, the horse’s hoofs clanging upon the frosty road, the wheels grinding,
the harness jingling, all doubled in clamor by the surrounding stillness, he
was carried along between black, half-visible hedge-rows, under dark bare
trees, swaying in the wind, through shut-up silent villages, and the death-
like slumber of the wide country, bound hard in frost and sleep. A groom
less awake than himself, shivering and excited, but speechless, and
affording him no sense of human companionship, was by his side, driving
mechanically, but at the highest speed, along a road which to unaccustomed
eyes was invisible. The scene was a very strange one after the intoxicating
dream of the evening, with all its phantasmagoria of light and praise, and
confused delight and pride. The blackness before him was as heavy as the
preliminary vision had been dazzling; the air blew keen, cutting the very
breath which rose in white wreaths like smoke from his lips. Where was he
rushing? carried along by a movement which was not his own, an unwilling
agent, acting in spite of himself. Sir Walter’s old head, crowned with white
locks, looking upon him with so much genial approbation, Mrs. Russell
Penton’s drawn and rigid countenance, the disturbed face of her husband,
the plump simplicity of little Mab, a sort of floating rosy cherub among all
these older countenances, seemed to flit before him in the mists; the music
echoed, the lights glowed; and then came the darkness, the ring of the hoofs
and wheels, the stinging freshness of the cold air, and all dark, motionless,
silent around. He was in a vision still. The German poem in which the lady
is carried off behind the black horseman, tramp, tramp across the land,
splash, splash across the sea, seemed to ring in his ears through his dream.
He was preternaturally awake and aware of everything, yet his eyes were in
a mist of semi-consciousness, and all the half-visible veiled sights about
him seemed like the vague and flying landscape of uneasy fever-journeys.
The cold, which half stupefied him, by some strange process only
intensified these sensations; his companion and he never exchanged a word.
He was not acquainted even with the lie of the roads, the ascents and
descents, or of what houses those were which looked through the darkness
from time to time surrounded by spectral trees. After awhile an
overwhelming desire for sleep seized him. He had visions of the bed, all
white and in order, which he had left behind; of the chair by the fire which
he had been roused out of; of his own room at home, all silent, cold, waiting
for him. If only he could make a spring out of this moving, jingling thing,
out of the stinging of the air, and get into the quiet and warmth and sleep!
When the groom spoke Walter woke up again, broad awake from what
must have been a doze. “Shall we go to the Hook or to Mr. Rochford’s first,
sir?” the man asked. Walter started bolt upright, and came to himself. They
were clashing through his own village, and a moment later he would have
passed without seeing the white blinds at the windows of Crockford’s
cottage which shone through the gloom. He waved his hand in the direction
of his home, thinking that to give his father the benefit of a warning was
worth the trouble before he went on. He took the reins into his own hands,
knowing the steep descent toward the house, which was ticklish even in
daylight, and this touch of practical necessity brought him to his full senses,
and for the first time dispersed the mists. He perceived now fully what he
was doing. As the horse’s steps sunk half stumbling down the invisible
abyss of the way, Walter felt, with a tingling of his ears and a sinking of his
heart, that he also was dropping from the brilliant mount of possibility
which he had been ascending with delighted feet. It had seemed as if all the
decisions of fate might be reversed, as if he were to be the arbiter of his
own fortune, as if—And now it was his hand that was to seal his own fate.
Such thoughts and questionings, such rebellions against a duty which is not
to be escaped, may go on while one is executing that very duty without any
practical effect. Walter pushed on all the time as well as the difficulties of
the path would allow. He dashed into the little domain at the Hook with an
energy that made the still air tingle, feeling as if he were himself inside, and
starting to the shock of the sudden awakening in the midst of the darkness.
The groom, who had opened the gate, ran on and gave peal after peal to the
bell, and presently the house, which had stood so dead and dark in the midst
of the spectral trees, awoke with a start. One or two windows were opened
simultaneously. “Who is there?” cried Mr. Penton, in a bass tone, while a
sudden wavering treble with terror in it shrieked out, “Oh, it’s Wat, it’s
Wat!” and “Something has happened to Ally!” with a cry that penetrated the
night.
“Father,” said Wat, “nothing is the matter with either of us. Sir Walter’s
very ill. I’m going to fetch Rochford and the papers. You have to come too,
to sign. Be ready when I come back.”
“Rochford and the papers! To sign! What do you mean: In the middle of
the night!”
And here there came a white figure to the window, crying “Ally—are
you sure, are you sure, Wat, all’s right with Ally?” through the midst of the
question and reply.
“I tell you, father, Sir Walter’s dying. Be ready, be at the cross-roads if
you can in half an hour. It’s three miles further, but this horse goes like the
wind. Don’t stop for anything. In half an hour. It’s true; it’s not a dream,” he
shouted, turning round to go away.
“Wat! dying, did you say? And a ball in the house! Wat! had they got the
doctor? what was it? Wat!”
“I can’t stay. He may be dead before we get there. In half an hour at the
cross-roads,” cried the youth, turning the horse with dangerous abruptness:
and in a minute or two all was still again. The darkness and silence closed
round, and the astonished family, terrified, startled out of the profound quiet
of their repose, blinked, dazzled at the newly lit candles, and said to each
other wildly, “Dying! perhaps before they can get there. But Ally—Ally and
Wat are all right, thank God!” And soon there was a twinkle of lights from
window to window. The servants got up last, being less easily awakened;
but Mrs. Penton had already some tea ready for her husband, and Anne, in a
little dressing-gown, was collecting the warmest coats and wrappers which
the family possessed, before Mr. Penton himself, very grave, almost
tremulous, in the sudden emergency, could get ready. His fingers trembled
over his buttons. Sir Walter, whom he had not seen for years; the old man
who had been as one who would never die; the kind uncle of old; the
causeless antagonist of later years. It was strange beyond measure to
Edward Penton to be thus sent for with such startling and tragic suddenness
in the middle of the night. “What shall I do?” he said, wringing his hands,
“if he should die before—” “Oh, Edward, make haste; lose no time; a
minute may do it,” cried his wife in her anxiety. They almost pushed him
out, Anne running before to see that the gate was open, with a lantern to
show him the way. There was no one else to carry the lantern, and she went
with him up the steep ascent with the flicker of the light flaring unsteadily
about the dark road. She was very thinly clad, with an ulster over her
dressing-gown, and her poor little feet thrust into her boots, and shivered as
she ran, and stumbled with the lantern, which was too big for her, her father
being too much absorbed in his thoughts to perceive what a burden it was.
Anne shivered, but not altogether from cold. Her heart was beating high, the
quick pulsations vibrating to her lively brain, and alarm, awe, the indefinite
melancholy and horror of death mingling with that keen exhilaration of
quickened living which any tremendous event brings with it to the young. It
was a wonderful thing to be happening, to be mixed up in, to realize so
much more vividly than even her father did. Her very lantern and course
along this steep and dark road in the middle of the night gave a thrilling
consciousness to Anne of having a great deal to do with it, of being really
an actor in the drama. She would not leave him till the lights of the dog-cart
showed far off, coming on swiftly, silently, through the dark, before any
sound could be heard. It was all wonderful; the portentous darkness,
without a star; the cold, the silence, the consciousness of what was going
on; the sense, which took her breath away, that perhaps after all the lawyer,
with his papers, and her father, who had to sign them, might be too late; that
even now, when she turned to make her way, trembling a little with cold and
fright and nervous excitement, Sir Walter might be dead, and Penton be
“ours!” Mother would be my lady in any case; the servants would have to
be taught to call her so. And all this might be determined in an hour or two,
perhaps before daylight! Anne shivered more and more, and was afraid of
the darkness under the hedge-rows as she went home alone with the heavy
lantern. She had a great mind to leave it under the hedge and run all the way
home, without minding the dark; but such darkness as that was not a thing
which a girl could make up her resolution not to mind.
Walter had gone on from the Hook with this issue plainer and plainer in
his mind—if he but delayed a little, did not press the horse, took it more
easily, he might, without reproach, without harm, be late, and so after all
preserve his birthright. He said to himself that if the papers were but there
Mrs. Russell Penton would have them signed whatever might happen, if her
father was in the act of dying she would have them signed. There was
nothing she would not do to secure her end. Had she not secured himself,
even himself, who was so much against her, whose life was more in
question than any one’s, to do her will and serve her purpose? And when he
could not resist her who could? She would get her way. She would make the
old man’s melting, his sudden partiality, come to nothing; and again Walter,
whose head had been turned a little, who had begun to feel more than ever
what it would be to be the heir of Penton, would be replaced in the original
obscurity of his poor relationship. And all this might be changed if he but
delayed a little, went softly, spared the horse! All the time, while these
thoughts were going through his mind, he was pressing on with vehemence,
making the animal fly through the darkness. He did not hesitate a moment
practically, though he said all this to himself. What he did and what he
thought seemed to run on in two parallel lines without deflection, without
any effect upon each other. It was all in his hands to do as he pleased: no
one could blame him or say anything to him if he ceased to press on, if he
let the reins drop loosely. But it never occurred to him to do so. Then there
was the possibility that Rochford might not be ready at once, that he might
not be able to find the papers over which he had so dawdled, that he might
not be ready to jump up as Walter had done. What need was there to press
him, to make the same startling summons at his door that had been made at
the Hook, to insist on an answer? There seemed no need to take any active
steps in order to upset the family arrangement, to turn everything the other
way. All that it was necessary to do was only to let the reins fall on the
horse’s neck, to urge him forward no more.
They arrived thus flying at the gates of the Rochfords’ house, a big red-
brick mansion just outside the town. There was a light in the coachman’s
cottage which answered the purpose of a lodge, and the coachman himself
came out, half scared, half awake, to open to the pair of lamps that gleamed
through the darkness, and the fiery horse from whose nostrils went up what
seemed puffs of smoke into the frosty air. “At ’ome? He’ve just got home,
and scarce a-bed yet,” said the man. “Whatever can you want of master so
early in the morning?” Walter had considered it to be night up to this
moment; he recognized it as morning with a sigh of excitement. “Mr.
Rochford must be called immediately,” he said, his thoughts tugging at him
all the time, saying, Why? Why can’t you let him alone? Is it your business
to force him to get up, to produce his papers, to drive half a dozen miles in
the chill of the morning? But Walter, though he heard all this, took no
notice. “Let him know that I am waiting. Sir Walter Penton is very ill. He
must come at once,” he said. He jumped down from the cart, and began to
pace rapidly up and down to restore the circulation to his half-frozen limbs,
while the groom covered the horse with a cloth and eased the harness. There
was no time to put the animal up, to go in-doors and wait. As Walter took
his sharp walk up and down, the opposing force in his mind had a time to
itself of inaction and silence, and heaped argument upon argument before
him. What! hurry like this, drag every one that was wanted from their rest,
disturb the whole sleeping world with the clamor of his appeal in order to
undo himself! Was this his duty, anyhow that it could be considered? Was it
his duty to undo himself? More than ever, now he had seen it, Penton had
become the hope of his life, the object of all his wishes; and was it in order
to divest himself of the last possibility of being heir of Penton, though this
was what Sir Walter had called him, that he was here?
The chill became keener than ever; a sharp air, blighting everything it
touched, blew in his face and chilled him to the bone. It was the first breath
of the dreary dawning, the dismal rising of a dull day. A faint stir became
perceptible in the house, very faint, a light flashed at a window, there was a
far-off sound of a voice, the movement of some one coming down-stairs.
Then a voice called out, “What is it, Penton? Is it possible I’m wanted? I
can’t believe the man. What do you want with me?” And Rochford,
shivering, half dressed, with a candle in his hand, appeared at a side door,
close to which Walter was performing his march. “You can’t have come all
this way for nothing,” he cried, “but it’s not an hour since I came home. It
doesn’t seem possible. Am I wanted certainly?”
Now was the time. The reasonings within tore Walter as if they had got
hold of his heart-strings. Why should he be so obstinate, forcing on what
would be his own ruin? It would be all his doing, the hurry-scurry through
the night, the insistance, calling up this man, who yawned and gazed at him
with a speechless entreaty to be let off, and his father, who probably now
was waiting for him by the cross-roads in the dark, chilled too to the heart.
It would be all his own officiousness, offering himself to go, forcing the
others. These harpies were tearing at him all the time he was saying aloud,
his own voice sounding strange and far off in his ears, “Sir Walter has been
taken very ill; he wants you at once. Mrs. Russell Penton sent me. You are
to bring all the papers, and we are to pick up my father on the way.” He said
all this as steadily as if there was not another sentiment in his mind.
“What,” said Rochford, “the papers, and your father! Come in, at least; it
will take me some time to find them. Come in, though I fear there’s no fire
anywhere.”
“I want no fire, only make haste,” said Walter, “we may be too late.” Too
late! yes, it was possible even now to be too late, but no longer likely. Now
be still, oh, reasoning soul, keep silence, for there is no remedy—the thing
is done, and yet it was still possible that it might not be done in time.
Rochford was a long time getting himself and his papers together; so
long that the blackness became faintly gray, and objects grew slowly
visible, rising noiselessly out of the night. The young man went up and
down, up and down mechanically. He had jumped down to recover himself
of the numbness of his long drive, but numbness seemed to have taken
possession of him body and soul. His mind had fallen into a sort of sullen
calm. He asked himself whether he should take the trouble to accompany
them back at all. Rochford and his father were all that were necessary. He
was not wanted. He thought he would walk home, getting a little warmth
into him, following the clamor of the cart, but so far behind that all the
echoes would die out, and leave him in the silence, making his way home.
Not to Penton, where for a moment he had dreamed a glorious dream, and
heard himself called old Sir Walter’s heir, but home to the Hook, where he
had been born, where to all appearance he would die, where he could steal
to his own bed in the morning gray, and sleep and sleep, and forget it all.
But now again another revolution took place in him; he no longer wanted to
sleep, all his faculties were wide awake, and life ablaze in him as if he
never could sleep again. When Rochford at last came out with his bag,
Walter acted as if there had never been a question in his mind, as he had
acted all along; he sprung up to his place without a word, gathered the reins
out of the groom’s hand, and took the road again, reckless, at the hottest
pace. The horse was still fresh, rested yet fretted by the delay, and easily
urged to speed. Walter did not know how to drive, he had no experience of
anything more spirited than the pony-of-all-work at home, and it was solely
by the light of nature, and a determination to get forward, that he was
guided. The groom had not ventured to say anything, but Rochford was
afraid, and remonstrated seriously. “You can’t go downhill at this pace, you
will bring the horse down, or perhaps break our necks,” he said. “I’ll not be
too late,” said Walter, “that is the only thing; we must be there in time.” At
the cross-roads Mr. Penton, shivering, was pulled up on the cart almost
without stopping, and they dashed on once more. The landscape revealed
itself little by little, rising on all sides in gray mist, in vague ghostly
clearness—the skeleton trees, the solid mass of the houses, the long clear
ribbon of the river lighting the plain. And then Penton—Penton rising dark
and square with its irregular outline against the clouds. There were lights in
many of the windows, though every moment the light grew clearer. Dawn
had come, the darkness was fleeing away; had life gone with it? as it is said
happens so often. Walter, dashing in at the open gates, urging the horse up
the avenue, did not ask himself this question. He felt a conviction, which
was bitter at his heart, that he had completed his mission successfully, and
that they had come in time.
 CHAPTER XXII.

A DEATH-BED.

Sir Walter lay in his luxurious bed, where everything was arranged with
the perfection of comfort, warmth, softness, lightness, all that wealth could
procure to smooth the downward path. He was not in pain. Even the
restlessness which is worse than pain, which so often makes the last hours
of life miserable, an agony to the watchers, perhaps less so to the sufferer,
had not come to this old man. He lay quite still, with eyes shining
unnaturally bright from amid the curves and puckers of his heavy old
eyelids, with a half smile on his face, and the air of deliverance from all
care which some dying people have. He was dying not of illness, but
because suddenly the supplies of life had failed, the golden cord had
broken, its strands were dropping asunder. The wheels were soon to stand
still, but for the moment that condition of suspense did not seem to be
painful. There was fever in his eyes which threw a certain glamour over
everything about. He had asked that the candles might be lighted, that the
room should be made bright, and had called his daughter to his side.
Perhaps it was only her own anxiety which had made her suppose that he
had asked for Rochford and the papers. At all events, if he had done so, he
did so no more. He held her hand, or rather she held his as she stood by
him, and he lightly patted it with the other of his large, soft, feeble hands.
“You are looking beautiful to-night—as I used to see you—not as you
have been of late. Alicia, you are looking like a queen to-night.”
“Oh, father, dear father, my beauty is all in your eyes.”
“Perhaps, more or less,” he said; “I have fever in my eyes, and that gives
a glory. The lights are all like stars, and my child’s eyes more than all. You
were a beautiful girl, Alicia. I was very proud of you. Nobody but your
father ever knew how sweet you were. You were a little proud outside,
perhaps a little proud. And then we had so much trouble—together, you and
I—”
She said nothing. She had not attained even now to the contemplative
calm which could look back upon that trouble mildly. It brought hard heart-
beats, convulsive throbs of pain to her bosom still. She had silenced him
often by some cry of unsoftened anguish when he had begun so to speak.
But as he lay waiting there, as it were in the vestibule of death, saying his
last words, she could silence him no more.
“Something has occurred to-night,” he said, “that has brought it all back.
What was it, Alicia? Perhaps your ball; the dancing—we’ve not danced
here for long enough—or the music. Music is a thing that is full of
associations; it brings things back. Was there anything more? Yes, I think
there must have been something more.”
She stood looking at him with dumb inexpressive eyes. She could not,
would not say what it was besides, not even now at the last moment, at the
supreme moment. All the opposition of her nature was in this. Love and
pride and sorrow and the bitter sense of disappointment and loss, all joined
together. She met his searching glance, though it was pathetic in its inquiry,
with blank unresponsive eyes. And after awhile in his feebleness he gave up
the inquiry.
“We have gone through a great deal together, you and I—ah, that is so—
only sometimes I think there was a great deal of pride in it, my dear. My
two poor boys—poor boys! I might be hard on them sometimes. There was
the disappointment and the humiliation. God would be kinder to them. He’s
the real father, you know. I feel it by myself. Many and many a time in
these long years my heart has yearned over them. Oh, poor boys, poor silly
boys! had they but known, at least in this their day—Alicia! how could you
and I standing outside know what was passing between God and them when
they lay—as I am lying now?’
“Oh, father, father!” she cried, with an anguish in her voice.
“It is you that are standing outside now, Alicia, alone, poor girl; and you
don’t know what’s passing between God and me. A great deal that I never
could have thought of—like friends, like friends! I feel easy about the boys,
not anxious any longer. After all, you know, they belong to God, too,
although they are foolish and weak. Very likely they are doing better—well,
now—”
“Oh, father!” she cried, with a keen pang of pain at what she thought the
wandering of his mind. “You forget, you forget that they are dead.”
“Dead!” he repeated, slowly. “I don’t forget; but do you know what that
means? We never understand anything till we come to it in this life. I’m
coming very close, but I don’t see—yet—except that it’s very different—
very different—not at all what we thought.”
“Father,” she cried, in the tumult of her thoughts: “oh, tell me something
about yourself! Are you happy—do you feel—do you remember—”
Alicia Penton had said the prayers and received the faith of Christians all
her life, and she wanted, if she could, to recall to the dying man those
formulas which seemed fit for his state, to hear him say that he was
supported in that dread passage by the consolations of the Gospel. But her
lips, unapt to speak upon such subjects, seemed closed, and she could not
find a word to say.
“Happy!” he said, with that mild reflectiveness which seemed to have
come with the approaching end. “It is a long, long time since I’ve been
asked that question. If you mean, am I afraid? No, no; I’m not afraid. I’m—
among friends. I feel—quite pleased about it all. It will be all right,
whatever happens. I don’t seem to have anything to do with it. In my life I
have always felt that I had everything to do with it, Alicia; and so have you,
my dear; it’s your fault, too. We were always setting God right. But it’s far
better this way. I’m an old fellow—an old, old fellow—and I wonder if this
is what is called second childhood, Alicia; for I could feel,” he said, with
the touching laugh of weakness, “as if I were being carried away—in some
one’s arms.”
His heavy eyes, that were still bright with fever, closed with a sort of
smiling peacefulness, then opened again with a little start. “But it seemed to
me just now as if there was something to do—what was there to do?—
before I give myself over. I don’t want to be disturbed, but if there is
something to do—Ah, Gerald, my good fellow, you are here, too.”
Russell Penton had come in to say that the men who had been sent for so
hurriedly, they whose coming was so important, a matter almost of life and
death, had arrived. He had entered the room while Sir Walter was speaking,
but the hush of peace about the bed had stopped on his lips the words he
had been about to say. He came forward and took the other hand, which his
father-in-law, scarcely able to raise it, stretched out toward him faintly with
a smile. “I hope you are better, sir,” he said, mechanically, bending over the
soft helpless hand, and under his breath to his wife, “They are come,” he
said.
 She gave him a look of helplessness and dismay, with an appeal in it.
What could be done? Could anything be said of mortal business now?
Could they come in with their papers, with their conflict of human interests
and passion, to this sanctuary of fading life? And yet again, could Alicia
Penton make up her mind to be balked, disappointed, triumphed over in the
end?
“Better—is not the word.” Sir Walter spoke very slowly, pausing
constantly between his broken phrases, his voice very low, but still clear. “I
am well—floating away, you know—carried very softly—in some one’s
arms. You will laugh—at an old fellow. But I don’t feel quite clear if I am
an old fellow, or perhaps—a child.” Then came that fluttering laugh of
weakness, full of pathetic pleasure and weeping and well-being. “But,” he
added, with a deeper drawn, more difficult breath, “you come in quickly.
Tell me—before it’s late. There is something on my mind—like a shadow—
something to do.”
Alicia held his hand fast; she did not move, nor look up; her eyes blank,
introspective, without any light in them, making no reply to him, fixed on
her father’s face; but her whole being quivering with a conflict beyond
describing, good and evil, the noble and the small, contending over her, in a
struggle which felt like death.
A similar struggle, but slighter and fainter was in her husband’s mind;
but in him it was not a mortal conflict, only a question which was best. Was
it right to permit the old man to float away, as he said, without executing a
project which seemed so near to his heart? Because it was not one which
pleased Russell Penton, because he would rather that it should fail, he felt
himself the more bound to his wife that it should not fail through him.
“It seems almost wicked to disturb you, sir,” he said, “but I heard that
you wanted Rochford; if so, he is here.”
Alicia caught her husband by the arm, pressing it almost fiercely with
her hand, leaning her trembling weight upon him. “But not to disturb you,
father,” she cried, with a gasp.
“Ah!” said Sir Walter, “I remember. What was it? I don’t seem to see
anything—except those lights like stars shining; and Alicia, Alicia! How
beautiful she is looking—like a girl—to-night.”
Her husband gave her a strange glance. She was gripping his arm as if
for salvation, clutching it, her breath coming quick; her cheeks with two red
spots of anxiety and excitement; her eyes dull, with no expression in the
intensity of their passion, fixed on her father’s face. The white dressing-
gown which she had thrown on when she was called to him was open a
little at the throat, and showed the gleam of the diamonds which she had not
had time to take off. It was not wonderful that in the old man’s eyes, with
love and fever together in them, Alicia, in her unusual white, should seem
for a moment to have gone back to the dazzle and splendor of youth.
Sir Walter resumed after a moment, as though this little outbreak of
tender admiration were an indulgence which he had permitted himself. “My
mind’s getting very hazy, Gerald—all quite pleasant, the right thing, no
trouble in it, but hazy. I remember, and yet I don’t remember. If I had but
the clew—Rochford?—the young one, not the father. He’s gone, like all the
rest, and now the young one—reigns in his stead. Bring him, and perhaps
I’ll remember. You could tell me, you two, but you’re afraid to disturb me.
What does it matter about disturbing me? a moment—and then—Send for
him; perhaps I’ll remember.”
Alicia would scarcely let her husband go. She looked at him with terror
in her eyes. What was she afraid of? When he withdrew his arm from her
she dropped down suddenly on her knees by her father’s bedside with a low
shuddering cry, and hid her face, pressing her cheek upon the old man’s
hand. The excitement had risen too high. She could bear it no longer.
Complicated with all the aching and trouble of the moment, the bursting of
this last tie of nature, the dearest and longest companionship of her life, to
have that other anxiety, the miserable question of the inheritance, the
triumph or sacrifice of her pride, which yet, even amid the solemnity of
death, moved her more than any other question oh earth—was something
intolerable. It was more than she could bear. She sunk down, partly out of
incapacity to support herself, partly that she could not, dared not, meet her
father’s eyes with their vague and wistful question. “You could tell me, you
two.” He had seen it, then, in her face, though she had made efforts so
determined to banish all sign of comprehension, all answer out of her eyes.
And now, if he insisted, how could she refuse to answer him? and if Gerald
perceived that the old man had found the necessary clew through her, what
would he think of her? That she had preferred her own aggrandizement to
her father’s peace, that she had prompted him on the very edge of the grave
to enrich herself. She could not sustain Sir Walter’s look, nor face the
emergency without at least that passive protection of her husband’s
presence, which for the moment was withdrawn. And Alicia trembled for
the moment when the strangers would come into this sacred room; the
lawyer, and Edward Penton behind him, hesitating, not without feeling (she
knew), looking sadly at the death-bed where lay one whom in his early days
he had looked up to with familiar kindness. Nobody in the world, not even
Gerald, could be so near to him in that moment as Edward Penton. She felt
this even while she trembled at the anticipation of his coming. He was
nearer than any one living. He would bring in with him the shadows of
those two helpless ones disappeared so long out of life. She bethought her
in that moment how it had been usual to say “the three boys.” Was her mind
wandering, too? All these thoughts surged up into her brain in a wild
confusion—the old tenderness, the irritation, the bitter jealous grudge at
him who had outlived the others, the natural longing toward one who could
understand.
Sir Walter was unaffected by any of these thoughts; he felt it all natural
—that the grief of his child should overwhelm her, that the sense of parting
and loss should be profounder on her side than on his. After various efforts
he raised his hand, which was so heavy, which would not obey his will, and
laid it tenderly upon her bowed head. “Alicia, my dear, child, don’t let it
overwhelm you. Who can tell even how small the separation is—as long as
it lasts, and it can not last very long. You must not, you must not, my dear,
be sorry for me. I tell you—it is all pleasant—sweet. I am not—not at all—
sorry for myself. God bless you, my dear. He is so close that when I say
‘God bless you’ it is as if, my love. He Himself was putting out His hand.”
“Oh, father! oh, father!” she repeated, and could say no more.
And he lay with his face turned to her, and his hand feebly smoothing,
stroking her bowed head, as if she had been a child. She was a child to him,
his young Alicia, looking so beautiful after her ball, in which he had seen
her—had he not seen her?—admired of everybody, the fairest, the most
stately, with the Penton diamonds glittering at her white throat as they were
now. He had her in his mind’s eye so distinct, as he had seen her—was it an
hour, was it a life-time ago? His breathing began to be disturbed, becoming
more difficult, and his thoughts to grow more confused. He talked on, in
broken gasps of utterance, more difficult, always more difficult. The fog in
his throat—he began to feel it now; but always in flashes saw the lights
gleaming, and Alicia in full beauty, with her eyes like the stars, and those
other stars, less precious, yet full of luster at her throat. He took no note of
outward things, being more and more absorbed—yet with a dullness which
softened everything, even the difficulty of the breath—in his own
sensations, and in the sweep of the hurrying movement that seemed to be
carrying him away, away, into halcyon seas beyond, into repose and smiling
peace. But the woman kneeling under his hand was as much alive to every
sound and incident as he was dull to them. Nothing muffled her keen sense,
or stilled the flood of thoughts that were pouring through her mind. She
heard, her heart leaping to the sound, steps approaching softly, on tiptoe,
every noise restrained. She heard a low murmur of voices, then the opening
of the door; but she was afraid to lift her head, to startle her father. She
dared not look up to see who was there, or how he took the entrance of the
new-comers. As for Sir Walter, he was almost beyond disturbance. His hand
moved heavily from time to time over her head; sometimes there was a faint
tremble when a breath came harder, nothing more. Would he die so? she
asked herself, making no sign; was it all sealed up forever, the source of life
that had made the light or the darkness of so many other lives. Her own
wildly beating heart seemed to stand still, to stop in the tremendous
suspense.
“Can you hear me?” said her husband’s voice, low and full of emotion.
“Rochford is here, sir; do you want him?”
He shook his head as he spoke to the two awe-stricken men behind.
“Eh!” Sir Walter gave a start as if half awakened. “Who did you say?—I
think—I must have been asleep. Some one who wants me? They’ll excuse a
—a sick old man. Some one—who?—Gerald—whom did you say?”
“Rochford, sir, whom you wanted to see.”
“Rochford! What should I want with Rochford? He’s the—lawyer—the
lawyer. We have had plenty to do with lawyers in our day. Yes—I think
there was something if I could remember. Alicia, where is Alicia?”
She rose up quickly, all those wild sensations in her stilled by this
supreme call. “I am here, father,” she said. Her countenance was perfectly
colorless, except for two spots of red, of excitement and misery, on her
cheeks. Her lips were parched, it was with difficulty she spoke.
“Yes, my love; stand by me till the last. What was it? I feel stronger. I
can attend—to business. Tell me, my child, what it was.”
She stood for a moment speechless, turning her face toward them all
with a look which was awful in its internal struggle. How was she to say it?
How not to say it? Her fate, and the fate of the others, seemed to lie in her
hands. It was not too late. His strength fluctuated from moment to moment,
yet he could do what was needed still.
“Father,” she began, moistening her dry lips, trying to get the words out
of her parched throat.
Sir Walter had opened his heavy eyes. He looked round with a
bewildered, half-smiling look. Suddenly he caught sight of Edward Penton,
who stood lingering, hesitating, half in sympathy, half in resistance, behind.
The dying man gave a little cry of pleasure. “Ah! I remember,” he said.