"Give me a minute to sign it," I said--and rang to summon the witnesses.
Mrs. Mozeen answered the bell. Rothsay looked at her, as if he wished to have my housekeeper put away as well as my will. From the first moment when he had seen her, he conceived a great dislike to that good creature. There was nothing, I am sure, personally repellent about her.
She was a little slim quiet woman, with a pale complexion and bright brown eyes. Her movements were gentle; her voice was low; her decent gray dress was adapted to her age. Why Rothsay should dislike her was more than he could explain himself. He turned his unreasonable prejudice into a joke--and said he hated a woman who wore slate colored cap-ribbons!
I explained to Mrs. Mozeen that I wanted witnesses to the signature of my will. Naturally enough--being in the room at the time--she asked if she could be one of them.
I was obliged to say No; and not to mortify her, I gave the reason.
"My will recognizes what I owe to your good services," I said. "If you are one of the witnesses, you will lose your legacy. Send up the men-servants."
With her customary tact, Mrs. Mozeen expressed her grat.i.tude silently, by a look--and left the room.
"Why couldn"t you tell that woman to send the servants, without mentioning her legacy?" Rothsay asked. "My friend Lepel, you have done a very foolish thing."
"In what way?"
"You have given Mrs. Mozeen an interest in your death."
It was impossible to make a serious reply to this ridiculous exhibition of Rothsay"s prejudice against poor Mrs. Mozeen.
"When am I to be murdered?" I asked. "And how is it to be done? Poison?"
"I"m not joking," Rothsay answered. "You are infatuated about your housekeeper. When you spoke of her legacy, did you notice her eyes."
"Yes."
"Did nothing strike you?"
"It struck me that they were unusually well preserved eyes for a woman of her age."
The appearance of the valet and the footman put an end to this idle talk. The will was executed, and locked up. Our conversation turned on Rothsay"s travels by sea. The cruise had been in every way successful.
The matchless sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean defied description; the sailing of the famous yacht had proved to be worthy of her reputation; and, to crown all, Rothsay had come back to England, in a fair way, for the first time in his life, of making money.
"I have discovered a treasure," he announced.
"It _was_ a dirty little modern picture, picked up in a by-street at Palermo. It is a Virgin and Child, by Guido."
On further explanation it appeared that the picture exposed for sale was painted on copper. Noticing the contrast between the rare material and the wretchedly bad painting that covered it, Rothsay had called t o mind some of the well-known stories of valuable works of art that had been painted over for purposes of disguise. The price asked for the picture amounted to little more than the value of the metal. Rothsay bought it.
His knowledge of chemistry enabled him to put his suspicion successfully to the test; and one of the guests on board the yacht--a famous French artist--had declared his conviction that the picture now revealed to view was a genuine work by Guido. Such an opinion as this convinced me that it would be worth while to submit my friend"s discovery to the judgment of other experts. Consulted independently, these critics confirmed the view taken by the celebrated personage who had first seen the work. This result having been obtained, Rothsay asked my advice next on the question of selling his picture. I at once thought of my uncle.
An undoubted work by Guido would surely be an acquisition to his gallery. I had only (in accordance with his own request) to let him know that my friend had returned to England. We might take the picture with us, when we received our invitation to Lord Lepel"s house.
FOURTH EPOCH.
My uncle"s answer arrived by return of post. Other engagements obliged him to defer receiving us for a month. At the end of that time, we were cordially invited to visit him, and to stay as long as we liked.
In the interval that now pa.s.sed, other events occurred--still of the trifling kind.
One afternoon, just as I was thinking of taking my customary ride in the park, the servant appeared charged with a basket of flowers, and with a message from Mrs. Rymer, requesting me to honor her by accepting a little offering from her daughter. Hearing that she was then waiting in the hall, I told the man to show her in. Susan (as I ought to have already mentioned) had sent her exercises to me regularly every week.
In returning them corrected, I had once or twice added a word of well-deserved approval. The offering of flowers was evidently intended to express my pupil"s grateful sense of the interest taken in her by her teacher.
I had no reason, this time, to suppose that Mrs. Rymer entertained an unfriendly feeling toward me. At the first words of greeting that pa.s.sed between us I perceived a change in her manner, which ran in the opposite extreme. She overwhelmed me with the most elaborate demonstrations of politeness and respect; dwelling on her grat.i.tude for my kindness in receiving her, and on her pride at seeing her daughter"s flowers on my table, until I made a resolute effort to stop her by asking (as if it was actually a matter of importance to me!) whether she was in London on business or on pleasure.
"Oh, on business, sir! My poor husband invested his little savings in bank stock, and I have just been drawing my dividend. I do hope you don"t think my girl over-bold in venturing to send you a few flowers.
She wouldn"t allow me to interfere. I do a.s.sure you she would gather and arrange them with her own hands. In themselves I know they are hardly worth accepting; but if you will allow the motive to plead--"
I made another effort to stop Mrs. Rymer; I said her daughter could not have sent me a prettier present.
The inexhaustible woman only went on more fluently than ever.
"She is so grateful, sir, and so proud of your goodness in looking at her exercises. The difficulty of the French language seem as nothing to her, now her motive is to please you. She is so devoted to her studies that I find it difficult to induce her to take the exercise necessary to her health; and, as you may perhaps remember, Susan was always rather weakly as a child. She inherits her father"s const.i.tution, Mr.
Lepel--not mine."
Here, to my infinite relief, the servant appeared, announcing that my horse was at the door.
Mrs. Rymer opened her mouth. I saw a coming flood of apologies on the point of pouring out--and seized my hat on the spot. I declared I had an appointment; I sent kind remembrances to Susan (pitying her for having such a mother with my whole heart); I said I hoped to return to my uncle"s house soon, and to continue the French lessons. The one thing more that I remember was finding myself safe in the saddle, and out of the reach of Mrs. Rymer"s tongue.
Reflecting on what had pa.s.sed, it was plain to me that this woman had some private end in view, and that my abrupt departure had prevented her from finding the way to it. What motive could she possibly have for that obstinate persistence in presenting poor Susan under a favorable aspect, to a man who had already shown that he was honestly interested in her pretty modest daughter? I tried hard to penetrate the mystery--and gave it up in despair.
Three days before the date at which Rothsay and I were to pay our visit to Lord Lepel, I found myself compelled to undergo one of the minor miseries of human life. In other words I became one of the guests at a large dinner-party. It was a rainy day in October. My position at the table placed me between a window that was open and a door that was hardly ever shut. I went to bed shivering; and woke the next morning with a headache and a difficulty in breathing. On consulting the doctor, I found that I was suffering from an attack of bronchitis. There was no reason to be alarmed. If I remained indoors, and submitted to the necessary treatment, I might hope to keep my engagement with my uncle in ten days or a fortnight.
There was no alternative but to submit. I accordingly arranged with Rothsay that he should present himself at Lord Lepel"s house (taking the picture with him), on the date appointed for our visit, and that I should follow as soon as I was well enough to travel.
On the day when he was to leave London, my friend kindly came to keep me company for a while. He was followed into my room by Mrs. Mozeen, with a bottle of medicine in her hand. This worthy creature, finding that the doctor"s directions occasionally escaped my memory, devoted herself to the duty of administering the remedies at the prescribed intervals of time. When she left the room, having performed her duties as usual, I saw Rothsay"s eyes follow her to the door with an expression of sardonic curiosity. He put a strange question to me as soon as we were alone.
"Who engaged that new servant of yours?" he asked. "I mean the fat fellow, with the curly flaxen hair."
"Hiring servants," I replied, "is not much in my way. I left the engagement of the new man to Mrs. Mozeen."
Rothsay walked gravely up to my bedside.
"Lepel," he said, "your respectable housekeeper is in love with the fat young footman."
It is not easy to amuse a man suffering from bronchitis. But this new outbreak of absurdity was more than I could resist, even with a mustard-plaster on my chest.
"I thought I should raise your spirits," Rothsay proceeded. "When I came to your house this morning, the valet opened the door to me. I expressed my surprise at his condescending to take that trouble. He informed me that Joseph was otherwise engaged. "With anybody in particular?"
I asked, humoring the joke. "Yes, sir, with the housekeeper. She"s teaching him how to brush his hair, so as to show off his good looks to the best advantage." Make up your mind, my friend, to lose Mrs.
Mozeen--especially if she happens to have any money."
"Nonsense, Rothsay! The poor woman is old enough to be Joseph"s mother."
"My good fellow, that won"t make any difference to Joseph. In the days when we were rich enough to keep a man-servant, our footman--as handsome a fellow as ever you saw, and no older than I am--married a witch with a lame leg. When I asked him why he had made such a fool of himself he looked quite indignant, and said: "Sir! she has got six hundred pounds."
He and the witch keep a public house. What will you bet me that we don"t see your housekeeper drawing beer at the bar, and Joseph getting drunk in the parlor, before we are a year older?"
I was not well enough to prolong my enjoyment of Rothsay"s boyish humor.
Besides, exaggeration to be really amusing must have some relation, no matter how slender it may be, to the truth. My housekeeper belonged to a respectable family, and was essentially a person accustomed to respect herself. Her brother occupied a position of responsibility in the establishment of a firm of chemists whom I had employed for years past.
Her late husband had farmed his own land, and had owed his ruin to calamities for which he was in no way responsible. Kind-hearted Mrs.
Mozeen was just the woman to take a motherly interest in a well-disposed lad like Joseph; and it was equally characteristic of my valet--especially when Rothsay was thoughtless enough to encourage him--to pervert an innocent action for the sake of indulging in a stupid jest. I took advantage of my privilege as an invalid, and changed the subject.