The Prodigal Father Part 8

"If anything does happen to father," said Jean sorrowfully, "I shall never forgive myself."

Frank looked surprised.

"Forgive yourself--for what?"

"For not loving him more. I almost hated him yesterday."

Her voice sank very low and she looked apprehensively at her brother.

But he did not rebuke her as he ought.

"It's jolly difficult to love him sometimes," he admitted sadly.

She seemed to gain courage.

"Frank," she said, "have you _ever_ actually felt as affectionate about him as one ought?"

He shook his head.

"He never struck me as wanting that kind of thing. I've respected him, of course."

"Oh, so have I--enormously."

"Well," said Frank, "that's all he wanted out of us, I fancy."

"Still," she murmured, "we might have given him something more."

"'Pon my word, I don't know what he'd have done with it."

She could not but admit that that, in fact, was just the difficulty. The cultivation of sentiment had not been included in Mr. Walkingshaw's youthful curriculum. His father before him had enjoyed but two forms of relaxation from his daily burden of obligations to clients and Calvin--a gla.s.s of good claret, and a primitive form of golf played with a missile of feathers in the interstices of a tract of whins. His mother had not even these amus.e.m.e.nts. Small wonder Heriot Walkingshaw found it a little difficult to sympathize with soft creatures who demanded hot-water bottles at night and affection by day. Jean had a weakness for both, and had only managed to obtain the hot bottle--and even that was a secret.

The deluge continued and the wind bellowed. Lower and lower sank their spirits.

"I sometimes wish I were more like Andrew," sighed Jean.

The young soldier started.

"Oh, Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed, and then in a moment added in a low voice, "I wish I had his luck, though."

Jean softly pressed his hand. She understood.

"I wish you had, Frank," she whispered.

As if in rebuking answer to these impious desires, the portly form of Andrew filled the doorway. He looked like the reincarnation of all the mourners who had ever followed a hea.r.s.e.

"He is worse," he said in a sepulchral voice. "The end's not far off.

You had better come up and see him."

In the sick chamber they found already a.s.sembled Miss Walkingshaw, Mrs.

Dunbar, Ellen (who kept in the background and never caught Frank's eye once), and their two elder sisters. Of this pair, Maggie, the eldest of them all, had long been coupled with Andrew as the two greatest credits to the family. She was the wife (and incidentally, it was said, the making) of Ramornie of Pettigrew, a laird of good estate in the kingdom of Fife. Her business capacity was almost equal to her brother's. She had extracted Pettigrew from the hands of the friends who had been "doing him no good," paid off the bonds on his property, presented him with three creditable children, including the necessary heir male, and would undoubtedly have put him into Parliament could she have ensured her own presence always at his side. But as he would have to deliver his speeches himself, even if she composed them, she was content with making him a deputy-lieutenant. In person this lady suggested the junior partner as well as in mind. She, however, was blonde, and though her cheeks took after his, her upper lip was not quite so substantial.

Gertrude, the second sister, was now Mrs. Donaldson, wife of Hector Donaldson, advocate. At the time, it was considered a middling sort of marriage; since his cross-examination of the co-respondent in Macpherson _v._ Macpherson and Tattenham-Welby, it had been considered a creditable marriage; and if his practice continued its present rate of increase, it would soon become a good marriage. In any case, she had justified the Walkingshaw reputation for investing money or person soundly and shrewdly. She resembled her father, and he had always been considered a fine-looking man. Both Andrew and Maggie thought she got too many of her clothes in London. They made her a little conspicuous, and they hoped she could afford it. Still, one heard very encouraging things said of Hector nowadays.

Mr. Walkingshaw was evidently weakening. He lay back with his eyes closed till they were all a.s.sembled, and then Andrew, who seemed to have the entire management of the melancholy ceremony, stepped up to the bedside and, with lowered eyelids, murmured--

"They are all here now."

Mr. Walkingshaw opened his eyes.

"I'm likely to be taken," he said in a weak voice. "Andrew'll have told you."

He paused: and one little stifled sob was heard, too gentle to catch his ear. It came from Jean.

"I'd just like to say a word to you all before I go. I've tried my best to do my duty by my children and my sister and my kinsfolk."

At this specific inclusion of herself the sympathetic widow could keep silence no longer.

"Indeed you have, Heriot!" she murmured.

"Hus.h.!.+" said Andrew sternly.

"Let them say what they feel, Andrew," said his father, with a glance of melancholy kindness at the widow. "It's natural enough."

Mrs. Ramornie at once took that hint, and her brief words of eulogy were corroborated by a general murmur.

"Thank you, thank you," said Mr. Walkingshaw. "I may possibly have made mistakes now and then--I am but human. At the same time, I think there's none will gainsay I've shown a kind of respectable example. It's a great thing to be thankful for if one can die without making an exhibition of oneself--a great thing to be thankful for."

The master of ceremonies by a grave glance indicated to the company that another approving murmur would be appropriate, and his own voice led the hum.

"I've another thing to be thankful for," resumed the invalid, "and that's my eldest son. Andrew'll take good care of you all--of you and the business both. Oh, Frank, my lad, he's a fine example to you; just as your sister Maggie is to you, Jean. Mind you both follow them. You'll never give folks reason to talk about you then. Don't get yourselves talked about! That's the main thing. Of course, you'll take every opportunity of bettering yourselves, both of you; but do it in a kind of sober, decent way. Do it like Andrew: I can say no more than that."

All eyes were sadly fixed on the two distressed young people, but they made no answer, and the affecting scene now terminated with these last few words--

"If by any kind of chance it happens I'm given a year or two more after all, I'll take no more part in worldly matters. I'll leave things to you, Andrew, just the same as if I was gone. If I linger on, a chastened man, taking for a wee while an interest in your welfare, that's all that will be left to me--that's the whole I look forward to."

Andrew's sorrowful eyes replied, "And that's more than we do," as he silently shook his father's hand. Then the company tiptoed sadly out of the sick-room.

CHAPTER VIII

Of all the antic.i.p.atory mourners, the most demonstrative was the sympathetic widow. She could barely control her emotion till she reached the drawing-room. There she broke down quite.

"Oh, Mary, Mary!" she sobbed.

They were alone together--Mary, commonly styled Miss Walkingshaw, and she. The exemplary spinster was likewise distressed, but in a calmer manner, as became a lady who had shared Heriot's Spartan upbringing.

"Whisht, whisht," said she. "He'll maybe get over it yet."