Chapter 8

Of all the anticipatory 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."

"No--no, he won't! That horrible beast will see that he doesn't!"

Miss Walkingshaw started nervously.

"You're not meaning the nurse?"

"I mean that--ugh!--that Andrew!"

A bright pink spot appeared in each of Miss Walkingshaw's cheeks. But the widow was too agitated to observe either them or the horrified stare with which she greeted this outburst.

"I believe he would _kill_ him to spite me!"

"Madge!" said the exemplary spinster in a voice which for the first time reminded her of Heriot's.

Mrs. Dunbar collected herself. Doubtless she realized the injustice she was doing that excellent man.

"I am sorry, Mary," she said gently. "I don't know what I'm saying. I admire Andrew as much as any one. I didn't mean it. It was only that I felt I _had_ to blame some one for this terrible sorrow."

Her friend continued to look at her with decidedly diminished warmth.

"Our religion forbids us--" she began austerely; but the sympathetic widow hurriedly anticipated her.

"I know, I know, dear--so it does. How true, Mary; oh, how true! How sweet of you to remind me."

She turned her large black eyes, glistening pathetically, full upon her friend; but for some reason Mary continued to regard her with a new and curious expression. A trace of suspicion seemed to be among its ingredients.

Meanwhile her slandered nephew was in the library with his two elder sisters. The gas was now lit and the storm curtained out. Mrs. Ramornie and Andrew talked in decorously lowered voices; Mrs. Donaldson more loudly, and almost more airily, as became her dashing appearance and smart reputation. Yet she too had a nice sense of the solemnity of the occasion, and they forgave her elevated voice, since they knew several people of rank who talked like that.

"An irretrievable loss," Andrew was saying; "an irretrievable loss."

They agreed with him as heartily as people could who were feeling so depressed.

"A public loss," he added; and again they concurred.

"That will have to be taken into consideration in making the arrangements," he went on.

They looked graver than ever.

"Something like Sir James Maitland's?" suggested Mrs. Donaldson.

"Something of the sort," said he.

"I only hope it will not be a wet day," said Mrs. Ramornie. "George caught lumbago at his last funeral--Lord Pitcullo's, you know."

George was the laird of Pettigrew. Nowadays his wife saw that he mixed with none but the most desirable company, whether it were alive or dead.

"Oh, my dear, he must come over for it!" said her sister.

"He will," replied Mrs. Ramornie; and they knew that point was settled.

"To tell the honest truth, I'm devoutly thankful for one thing," observed Andrew, with the first smile he had permitted himself, and even it was appropriately grim: "this will put Madge Dunbar's nose out of joint."

"Thank Heaven for that!" replied Mrs. Ramornie devoutly.

"She meant to get him," said Mrs. Donaldson. "I never saw a woman try harder."

"If you'd been living in the house, you'd have seen still more of her trying," replied her brother.

Another fierce shower beat upon the window, with it the gale rose higher and the branches clashed more noisily. Even behind curtains one felt in the presence of something elemental. Silence fell on the three, and when they spoke again it was more solemnly than ever.

"It will make a considerable difference to us all, of course," said Mrs. Donaldson.

Her brother seemed to take this as a question, for he nodded gravely and answered--

"Oh, decidedly it will make that."

She mused for a moment and then turned to her sister.

"What was the name of the shoot the Hendersons had last season?"

"Glenfiddle."

"They paid two hundred, didn't they?"

"Two hundred and twenty," said Andrew.

He was a mine of information on the affairs of his acquaintances, especially on what they paid for things.

"Can you not get enough invitations in the meantime?" asked Mrs. Ramornie.

"Oh, dozens. But we want a little shoot of our own--when we can afford it."

"I only mean to build that new conservatory we've always been talking about," said Mrs. Ramornie; and Andrew pursed his lips and nodded his approval. The pursing was meant as a hint of criticism on their too dashing sister.

It was at that moment that there came the first gentle tap upon the door.

"Come in," said Andrew, and the invalid's nurse entered.

"Mr. Walkingshaw would like a pint bottle of champagne," said she.

The junior partner stared first at her and then at his sisters. They in turn opened their eyes.

"Is it the--er--usual thing?" he inquired.

"The doctor said nothing about it. Who would ever imagine he was going to want champagne again?"

"Is it ever given?" asked Andrew cautiously.

"Oh, I know it's given," interposed Mrs. Ramornie decisively. "George's uncle drank it up to five minutes before he died."

George's uncle had been a very bad example. At the same time he had been a baronet, and Andrew swithered between the dissoluteness of the request and a certain stylishness it undoubtedly possessed.

"Mr. Walkingshaw is very determined for it," said the nurse.

"Very well," he answered. "I'll get it for you."

He went out with her and then returned to his sisters.

"Does it mean the end is near?" asked Mrs. Donaldson in a very hushed voice.

"It means it's nearer," he answered grimly.

Undoubtedly this was a wild end for one of the most respectable lives ever lived in Edinburgh. Outside, the gale was now positively shrieking; and inside, he presumed the cork was already popping.

"What a pity!" said Gertrude.

"Oh, I don't know about that," replied her sister. "It keeps them happy. George's uncle tried to sing after they thought all was over."

Her brother frowned. The possibility that the head of Walkingshaw & Gilliflower might exit singing exceeded his gloomiest forebodings. He wished women did not have that habit of talking about unpleasant things. Could they not keep the like of that to themselves?

Even as he frowned the second tap disturbed them.

"What is it now?" he snapped.

"Could you tell me," asked the nurse, "where Mr. Walkingshaw keeps his cigars?"

"Cigars!" he cried.

"He is very set upon one."

Andrew silently opened a cupboard and handed her a box of cigars. Then, still in silence, he seated himself before the fire and frowned at the dancing flames. Behind his back his sisters talked in low voices, but he seemed to have no taste for further conversation.

A few minutes later came the third tap, and this time there was so curious a look in the nurse's face that the junior partner was on his feet in an instant.

"Is it--shall we come up?" he exclaimed.

"Mr. Walkingshaw would like to know what there's to be for dinner," said the nurse.

He looked at his sisters and they at him, and then he rang the bell. Nobody spoke till the butler came up.

"Will you ask the cook what's for dinner? Mr. Walkingshaw wants to know."

Andrew threw into this speech all the concentrated bitterness of his soul. Here was the quintessence of unorthodoxy in the very home of Walkingshaw & Gilliflower! The head of the firm proposed to die not merely drinking and smoking, but, if possible, feasting. They might be in some wretched Bohemian den.

In a few minutes the butler returned with a menu. Andrew read it with a sardonic smile.

"Tell him," he said, "that he can have cocky-leeky soup, boiled cod and oyster sauce, loin of mutton, apple charlotte, and cheese straws--any or all of them he likes."

"Thank you," said the nurse.

Andrew planted himself before the fire.

"A fine story this is to get about!" he exclaimed darkly.

"But surely father must be light-headed," said Mrs. Ramornie.

"Umph," he replied.

He clearly did not consider this a very creditable excuse.

"Or perhaps he is really feeling better," suggested Gertrude.

"Better! A man at death's door one minute--given up by the doctors--and wanting to eat his dinner the next!"

He started.

"I wonder's that nurse fooling us! I didn't like the look of the woman from the moment she came into the house. I don't believe in your good-looking nurses."

On this point his sisters cordially agreed with him. Still they didn't believe it was the nurse.

"Then what is it?" he demanded. "If he's light-headed, why does she pay any attention to him?"

The door opened, this time without a tap, and in petrified silence they beheld the portly form of Heriot Walkingshaw, arrayed in a yellow dressing-gown, holding between his fingers a cigar, and smiling upon them with a curious blend of satisfaction and meekness.

"I have recovered," said he.

As he made this simple announcement he blew luxuriously through his nose two thin streams of smoke, while the meekness of his aspect seemed to make some conscious effort to keep on terms with the satisfaction.

A duet of questions and exclamations arose from the two ladies, and again some conscious restraint appeared to underlie the paternal calm with which he answered them.

"Yes," said he, "it is probably one of the most extraordinary recoveries on record. It began all of a sudden. The spasms passed completely away, my temperature fell to normal, and I felt a curious sensation almost of exhilaration. It grew stronger and stronger till at last I could keep in bed no longer. I felt livelier than I have for years."

He passed the cigar under his nose, drew in his breath, and smiled at it with a kind of partially chastened affection.

"Do you think could we not have dinner put on a little earlier, eh?"

A cry from the open door startled them. The sympathetic widow, her black eyes dilated, was gazing at the patient.

"Heriot!" she exclaimed, and there was a note in her voice that came very near to damping the junior partner's enthusiasm at finding the head of his firm restored to him.

"Yes, Madge," said Mr. Walkingshaw, his beatific smile still blander, "I have indeed been spared."

He drew another deep whiff from his cigar, and added gently--

"For maybe a few more years of quiet usefulness."