The American Senator Part 63

"It is no sacrifice, Mrs. Morton." Lady Ushant was as meek as a worm, but a worm will turn. And, though innocent, she was quick enough to perceive that at this, their first meeting, the other old woman was endeavouring to turn her out of the house.

"I mean that it can hardly be necessary to call upon you to give up your time."

"What has an old woman to do with her time, Mrs. Morton?"

Hitherto Mrs. Morton had smiled. The smile indeed had been grim, but it had been intended to betoken outward civility. Now there came a frown upon her brow which was more grim and by no means civil. "The truth is that at such a time one who is almost a stranger--"

"I am no stranger," said Lady Ushant.

"You had not seen him since he was an infant."

"My name was Morton as is his, and my dear father was the owner of this house. Your husband, Mrs. Morton, was his grandfather and my brother. I will allow no one to tell me that I am a stranger at Bragton. I have lived here many more years than you."

"A stranger to him, I meant. And now that he is ill--"

"I shall stay with him--till he desires me to go away. He asked me to stay and that is quite enough." Then she got up and left the room with more dignity,--as also she had spoken with more earnestness,--than Mrs. Morton had given her credit for possessing.

After that the two ladies did not meet again till the next day.

CHAPTER IV.

THE TWO OLD LADIES.

On the next morning Mrs. Morton did not come down to breakfast, but sat alone upstairs nursing her wrath. During the night she had made up her mind to one or two things. She would never enter her grandson's chambers when Lady Ushant was there. She would not speak to Reginald Morton, and should he come into her presence while she was at Bragton she would leave the room. She would do her best to make the house, in common parlance, "too hot" to hold that other woman. And she would make use of those words which John had spoken concerning Chowton Farm as a peg on which she might hang her discourse in reference to his will. If in doing all this she should receive that dutiful a.s.sistance which she thought that he owed her,--then she should stand by his bed-side, and be tender to him, and nurse him to the last as a mother would nurse a child. But if, as she feared, he were headstrong in disobeying, then she would remember that her duty to her family, if done with a firm purpose, would have lasting results, while his life might probably be an affair of a few weeks,--or even days.

At about eleven Lady Ushant was with her patient when a message was brought by Mrs. Hopkins. Mrs. Morton wished to see her grandson and desired to know whether it would suit him that she should come now.

"Why not?" said the sick man, who was sitting up in his bed. Then Lady Ushant collected her knitting and was about to depart. "Must you go because she is coming?" Morton asked. Lady Ushant, shocked at the necessity of explaining to him the ill feeling that existed, said that perhaps it would be best. "Why should it be best?" Lady Ushant shook her head, and smiled, and put her hand upon the counterpane,--and retired. As she pa.s.sed the door of her rival's room she could see the black silk dress moving behind the partly open door, and as she entered her own she heard Mrs. Morton's steps upon the corridor. The place was already almost "too hot" for her.

Anything would be better than scenes like this in the house of a dying man.

"Need my aunt have gone away?" he asked after the first greeting.

"I did not say so."

"She seemed to think that she was not to stay."

"Can I help what she thinks, John? Of course she feels that she is--"

"Is what?"

"An interloper--if I must say it."

"But I have sent for her, and I have begged her to stay."

"Of course she can stay if she wishes. But, dear John, there must be much to be said between you and me which,--which cannot interest her; or which, at least, she ought not to hear." He did not contradict this in words, feeling himself to be too weak for contest; but within his own mind he declared that it was not so. The things which interested him now were as likely to interest his great-aunt as his grandmother, and to be as fit for the ears of the one as for those of the other.

An hour had pa.s.sed after this during which she tended him, giving him food and medicine, and he had slept before she ventured to allude to the subject which was nearest to her heart. "John," she said at last, "I have been thinking about Chowton Farm."

"Well."

"It certainly should be bought."

"If the man resolves on selling it."

"Of course; I mean that. How much would it be?" Then he mentioned the sum which Twentyman had named, saying that he had inquired and had been told that the price was reasonable. "It is a large sum of money, John."

"There might be a mortgage for part of it."

"I don't like mortgages. The property would not be yours at all if it were mortgaged, as soon as bought. You would pay 5 per cent. for the money and only get 3 per cent. from the land." The old lady understood all about it.

"I could pay it off in two years," said the sick man.

"There need be no paying off, and no mortgage, if I did it. I almost believe I have got enough to do it." He knew very well that she had much more than enough. "I think more of this property than of anything in the world, my dear."

"Chowton Farm could be yours, you know."

"What should I do with Chowton Farm? I shall probably be in my grave before the slow lawyer would have executed the deeds." And I in mine, thought he to himself, before the present owner has quite made up his mind to part with his land. "What would a little place like that do for me? But in my father-in-law's time it was part of the Bragton property. He sold it to pay the debts of a younger son, forgetting, as I thought, what he owed to the estate;"--It had in truth been sold on behalf of the husband of this old woman who was now complaining.

"And if it can be recovered it is our duty to get it back again. A property like this should never be lessened. It is in that way that the country is given over to shopkeepers and speculators and is made to be like France or Italy. I quite think that Chowton Farm should be bought. And though I might die before it was done, I would find the money."

"I knew what your feeling would be."

"Yes, John. You could not but know it well. But--" Then she paused a moment, looking into his face. "But I should wish to know what would become of it--eventually."

"If it were yours you could do what you pleased with it."

"But it would be yours."

"Then it would go with the rest of the property."

"To whom would it go? We have all to die, my dear, and who can say whom it may please the Almighty to take first?"

"In this house, ma'am, every one can give a shrewd guess. I know my own condition. If I die without children of my own every acre I possess will go to the proper heir. Thinking as you do, you ought to agree with me in that."

"But who is the proper heir?"

"My cousin Reginald. Do not let us contest it, ma'am. As certainly as I lie here he will have Bragton when I am gone."

"Will you not listen to me, John?"

"Not about that. How could I die in peace were I to rob him?"

"It is all your own,--to do as you like with."

"It is all my own, but not to do as I like with. With your feelings, with your ideas, how can you urge me to such an injustice?"

"Do I want it for myself? I do not even want it for any one belonging to me. There is your cousin Peter."