"You discharged me, sir--but I thought better of it."
A grunt was the only answer to this impertinence.
"You seem to have been muddling things nicely in my absence," observed Trimmer after a moment, with cool audacity.
"Have I? That"s all you know. Who told you what I"ve been doing?"
"Your heir is dead, I hear. I hope you had nothing to do with that."
"What do you mean, sir--what do you mean?"
"I mean that I hope you didn"t send him away to the war to save money and keep him from further debt."
"My family affairs are nothing to do with you, sir."
"So you have told me for the last forty years, sir. I liked the young man. There was nothing bad about him. But I hear you drove him to forgery."
"It"s a lie--a lie!"
"How did he get your checks?"
The miser made no answer. Trimmer came over, and fixed glittering eyes upon him. The old man cowered.
"You"ve ruined the boy, and sent him to the war. I can see it in your face. I knew what would happen if I let you alone--I knew you"d do some rascally meanness that--"
"Trimmer, it"s a lie!" cried the old man, shaking as with a palsy, and drawing further down into his pillow. "I"m an old man--I"m helpless--I won"t be bullied."
"This is one of the occasions when I feel that a shaking would do you good," declared Trimmer.
"No, no--not now--not again! Last time, I was bad for a week. The shock might kill me. It would be murder."
"Well, and would that matter?" asked Trimmer, callously. He stood at the bedside, with a duster in one hand and a medicine-gla.s.s in the other, polishing the gla.s.s in the most leisurely fashion, and speaking in hard, even tones. He looked down upon the old wreck as on the carcase of a dead dog.
They were a strange pair, these two, and the world outside, although it knew something of the influence of Trimmer over his master, had no conception of its real extent. Trimmer ought to have been a master of men; but some defect in his mental equipment at the beginning of life, or an unkind fate, was responsible for his becoming a menial. He was a slave of habit, a stickler for scrupulous tidiness. A dusty room or an ill-folded suit of clothes would agitate him more than the rocking of an empire. He entered the service of Herresford when quite a young man, and that service had become a habit with him, and he could not break it. He was bound to his menial occupation by bonds of steel; and the idea of doing without Trimmer was as inconceivable to his master as the idea of going without clothes. The miser, who followed no man"s advice, nevertheless revealed more of his private affairs to his valet than to his lawyers. And Trimmer, who consulted n.o.body, and was by nature secretive, jealously guarded his master"s interests, and insisted on being consulted in all private matters. A miser himself, Trimmer approved and fostered the miserly instincts of his master, until there had grown up between them an intimacy that was almost a partnership.
And, now that Herresford was broken in health, and had become a pitiful wreck, he preferred to be left entirely at Trimmer"s mercy.
"What are you going to do about an heir now?" asked the valet, curtly.
"Have you made a new will?"
"No, I"ve not. Why should I? I left everything to the boy--with a reasonable amount for his mother. In the event of his death, his mother inherits. You wouldn"t have me leave my money to charities--or rascally servants like you, who are rolling in money? You needn"t be anxious. I told you that you would have your fifty thousand dollars, if you were in my service at my death and behaved yourself--and if I died by natural means! Ha, ha! I had to put in that clause, or you would have smothered me with my own pillows long ago."
"Very likely--very likely," murmured Trimmer indifferently, as though the suggestion were by no means strained. He had heard it many hundreds of times before. It was a favorite taunt.
"Who is that coming up the drive?" asked the invalid, craning his neck to look out of the window.
"It is Mrs. Swinton, sir, and Mr. Swinton."
"On foot?" cried the old man. "And since when, pray, did they begin to take the walking exercise? Ha! ha! Coming to see me--about their boy. Of course, you"ve heard all about it, Trimmer."
"Very little, sir."
"Well, if you stay here, you"ll hear a little more."
The decrepit creature chuckled with a sound like loose bones rattling in his throat. He laughed so much that he almost choked. Trimmer was obliged to lift him up and pat his back vigorously. The valet"s handling was firm, but by no means gentle; and, the moment the old man was touched, he began to whine as if for mercy, pretending that he was being ill-used.
Mrs. Swinton entered the room alone; the rector remained below in the library. She found her father well propped up with pillows, and his skull-cap, with the long white ta.s.sel, was drawn down over one eye, giving him a curious leer. The rakish angle of the cap, with the piercing eyes beneath, the hawk-like beak, and the shriveled old mouth, puckered into a sardonic smile, made him an almost comic figure. Trimmer stood at attention by the head of the bed like a sentinel. His humility and deference to both his master and Mrs. Swinton were almost servile; it was always so in the presence of a third person.
"I am glad to see you sitting up and looking so well, father," observed the daughter, after her first greeting.
"Oh, yes, I"m well--very well--better than you are," grunted the old man.
"I know why you have come."
"I wish to talk on important family matters, father," said Mrs. Swinton, dropping into the chair which Trimmer brought forward, and giving the valet a sharp, resentful look.
"You can talk before Trimmer. You ought to know that by this time.
Trimmer and I are one."
"If madam wishes, I will withdraw," murmured Trimmer, retiring to the door.
"No--no--don"t leave me--not alone with her--not alone!" cried the old man, reaching out his hand as if in terror. But Trimmer had opened the door. He gave his master one sharp look of reproof, and closed the door--almost.
Father and daughter sat looking at each other for a full minute. The old man dragged down the ta.s.sel of his skull-cap with his bony fingers, and commenced chewing the end. The glittering eyes danced with evil amus.e.m.e.nt, and, as he sat there huddled, he resembled nothing so much as an ape.
"I am glad to find you in a good temper, father."
"Good temper--eh!" He laughed, and again the bones seemed to rattle in his throat. The fit ended with coughing and whining and abuse of the draughts and the cold.
"Why don"t you have a fire in the room, father? You"d be so much more comfortable."
"Fire! We don"t throw away money here--nor steal it."
"Father, I beg that you will not refer to d.i.c.k in this interview by offensive terms; I can"t stand it. My boy is dead."
"Who was referring to d.i.c.k?"
His eyes sought hers, and searched her very soul. She felt her flesh growing cold and her senses swooning. It had been a great effort to come up and face him at such a time, but her mission was urgent. She came to entreat an amnesty, to beg that he would not drag the miserable business of the checks into court by a dispute with the bank, and there was something horrible in his mirth.
"Hullo, forger!" he cried at last, and he watched the play of her face as the color came and went.
"What do you mean, father?"
"What I say. How does it feel to be a forger--eh? What is it like to be a thief? I never stole money myself--not even from my parents. D"ye think I believe your story? D"ye think I don"t know who altered my checks--who had the money--who told the dirty lie to blacken the memory of her dead son? D"ye think I"m going to spare you--eh?"
"Father! Father! Have mercy--I was helpless!" she cried in terror, flinging herself on her knees beside his bed. "I couldn"t ruin both husband and daughter for the sake of a boy who was gone."
"You couldn"t ruin yourself, you mean--but you could sully the memory of my heir with a foul charge--the worst of all that can be brought against a man and a gentleman."