University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.
ANOTHER LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.

The Wetherel household, habitually in a state of twilight seriousness, had
descended into a still lower and more darkling atmosphere, as if the shadow
of the oncoming tragedy were already stealing over it.

Every member of the family was occupied with sorrowful meditations and
exercises concerning the luckless drama of Nestoria and Edward. The girl
herself was of course in a state of worry about her lover; sometimes believing
that he was good, and even very good, and at all events too good for her;
sometimes fearing lest she should discover him to be one of those with whom
conscientious spirits must not hold companionship. She made no public moan,
indeed, being too modest to parade her griefs and too self-sustaining to lay
them on the shoulders of others; but her cheek had faded a little, and her eyes
had lost somewhat of their lucid brightness, so that her watchful friends knew
that she wept in secret. Mrs. Dinneford and Alice sorrowed for her, though
not without hope, for they were women of the good old womanly sort, who held
in the main that a love affair must have a blessed ending. The Judge appeared
outwardly more shaken than anybody else; his habitual solemnity had degenerated
into an absent-minded anxiety, his face unusually wan and his step forbodingly
feeble.

“Uncle is more than half sick,” observed Alice to her mother. “And I
am glad of it. He is too hard to put up with.”

“Hush, my child,” returned Mrs. Dinneford. “Cousin Wetherel looks at
everything through his sense of duty. Edward has certainly been a wild boy;
and I dare say he might make a very bad use of the property, if he should get
it; and I sometimes must think of him in Tupper's wonderful words, `Behold,
the simple did sow and hath reaped the right harvest of folly'; and as for
his marrying Nestoria, he might make her dreadfully unhappy, you know,
though I'm sure I hope not; and finally, how in the world could he possibly
support her? Why, the poor child might have to go to teaching school and
painting her fans to keep him out of the poorhouse. Dear me, when I think
of it all I feel that we ought to be angry with Edward instead of with Cousin
Wetherel, though nature inclines the other way. Young men are so attractive!”

“It is a horrid muddle,” fretted Alice. “Why wasn't Nestoria warned?”
she added, quite forgetting her own responsibility in the matter. “Here you
knew, you venerable people, that Edward was a flibbertigibbet, and never told
her.”

“Who could have guessed how things were going?” groaned the elder
woman. “The ways of Providence are dreadfully mysterious; too much so
for some of us poor mortals. I sometimes think they were laid out without
the least regard to us. We are left to look out for ourselves just as much as
if we were rats and puppies, with a lot of Chinamen going to and fro to make
pies of us. If we can keep out of the way, very good; and if we can't, we are
devoured, and that's the end of it.”

“Don't bring Providence into the squabble,” protested Alice. “The whole
fault of the present muss lies with Uncle Wetherel. He could clear up matters
if he wanted to. He ought to settle a hundred thousand dollars on them,
and tie up the money so that Edward couldn't spend it, and let them be married.
They would get along as well as half the people. Somebody says that
reformed rakes make the best husbands.”

“Perhaps so—if they ever do reform.”

And Mrs. Dinneford shook her head seriously, for Alice was a little too
much given to favoring rakes.

During two days the only complaint which Nestoria uttered concerning
her troubles was a confession that Sea Lodge had become a sad place to her.

“I cannot stay here much longer,” she sighed. “I love you all, but I
must go.”

“Oh, no!” implored Mrs. Dinneford. “Not yet awhile. Stay with us
till the vacations are over. There is no sense in your going till you have got
a place.”

And Alice added, with the headlong fervor of youthful friendship. “There
is no sense in your going ever.”

“Do help me then to find a place,” was Nestoria's piteous answer.

Let us inquire a little more minutely than we have hitherto done into this
extravagant mystery of the affection of a pure and conscientious soul for one
whom Judge Wetherel numbered not unfairly among the sons of Belial. Serious
people will be ready to affirm that a thoroughly good girl cannot trust
and admire and love a bad man. In a general way this is true; the saintly
do not incline toward the openly corrupt; they instinctively dislike and avoid
them. But we must remember that when the wolves put on sheep's clothing,
they often enter the fold without difficulty and are well received among the
flock. Now, as far as Nestoria had seen or could perceive, Edward Wetherel
was vestured in the very purest and whitest of lambs' wool, such as might
have served for the covering of a prophet or high priest. As gentle and courteous
as any missionary, and in her hearing as becoming in conversation, she
classed him with the worthy souls among whom she had been educated, and
could not possibly think of him as on a par with the heathen. The mere fact
that he wore European clothing was a certificate of good character in the eyes
of a child who had rarely seen a wicked man without a turban, loose robes,
and a shawl full of firearms.

It might seem that she had received warnings and hints enough concerning
Edward to make her comprehend clearly that he was a scapegrace. But
innocence is very dull in the matter of understanding insinuations as to evil.
It has sometimes occurred to me that the angels who abide permanently in
heaven must be exceedingly incredulous and hard to instruct concerning the
wickedness of our planet. Difficult as the thing is to accept, we must be contented
to receive it as a fact (and it seems to me a fact of great beauty and
pathos) that Nestoria had not comprehended much of what the Judge had said

to her against his nephew. The two men had disagreed, and that certainly
was a very lamentable business; but which was darkly to blame she could not
tell, and she charitably, sweetly hoped, neither.

Well, what must she do? Of course she must eventually leave all with
her father, that entirely wise and good being, that representative to her of Deity.
But meantime was she to hear and see nothing of Edward? It was improbable
that he would come again to his uncle's house; and after bearing his absence
for a day or two, she could not help writing to him.

This letter she showed to Mrs. Dinneford, who read it with moist eyes
—and sent it.

“If the Lord,” said the good lady to herself, “if the Lord doesn't take care
of that child, I don't know whom he will take care of. And if Edward doesn't
turn a sharp corner now and make a decent man of himself, he ought to be—
hung! I wish I could lock him up. We put dumb creatures into yokes and
pokes when they are unruly. Edward is just as fit to run about alone as a
truant goose or a hooking cow. And here I can't blow a warning trumpet
against him in this poor child's ear, for fear of worrying her. I never had
anybody take such a hold of my feelings. Well, there is one comfort in it,
she may have got the same hold of Edward.”

I suspect that most of us are like Mrs. Dinneford in finding it difficult to
deal faithfully with pretty and agreeable persons. Indeed, it strikes one as a
general reflection of much weight, that Providence has been kind to the human
race in making many plain women. If all the representatives of that exacting
sex were beautiful and captivating, men would hardly ever be masters of their
own minds and actions; they would be constantly on the go to please some
irresistible charmer, and they would have neither thought nor time for the
virile labors of life, so that politics, business, and possibly civilization altogether,
would march haltingly, if indeed we did not remain in a state of figleaves.

Judge Wetherel himself, that incarnate case of conscience, who was accustomed
to denounce beauty as a delusion and a share, was spiritually benumbed
to an amazing extent by Nestoria's graces. It was mainly because
her sweet smile and golden hair reminded him of seraphs that he could not

warn her frankly that she had thrown her pearls of affection before the unclean,
and command her strenously to withdraw the precious offering. At
last it was borne in upon him that, if his nephew was to be this child's detriment,
he ought to be her salvation, at least in a worldly sense; and thus he
came to conceive the idea of leaving her fifty thousand dollars or so, the said
legacy to be secured to her by a trusteeship, so that her husband might not
waste it.

This generous plan he in fact decided upon. During the evening he commenced
drawing up a new will. He was so eager about it that, instead of
going to bed at nine o'clock, according to his prudent custom, he sat in his
study until long afterward, slowly tracing out his good deed in his large, formal,
conscientious handwriting. At half past ten he was still busy, for both
mind and hand were somewhat stiffened by age, and he could only work
slowly. One by one the others retired, leaving him alone with his benevolence.

“Cousin Wetherel, take care of your eyes,” said Mrs. Dinneford, entering
the study to bid him good-night. “You can't labor as you could once.”

“Do not interrupt me,” replied the old man. “I must do with my might
what my hand findeth to do. The night cometh when no man can work.”

“But the morning cometh also,” observed Mrs. Dinneford, who was accustomed
to talk with her relative in his own Biblical way.

“We know not the plans of Providence,” said the Judge. “I have always
endeavored to labor as if each day were to be my last. Suffer me to go on.”

“You are altering your will!” exclaimed the good lady, her large blue
eyes opening so wide with delight that her spectacles were a very close fit.
“Cousin Wetherel, I am rejoiced. I do hope poor Edward is to have something
to keep him off the town.”

“A pretty reason for giving a man wealth because he is of the almshouse
sort!” grumbled the old gentleman, a shrewd economist and financier, be it
observed, and necessarily somewhat scornful of those who were not. “Cousin
Dinneford,” he added, in a humorously pettish tone, “if you cannot sleep without
learning what I am doing, be it known to you that I am bequeathing a
support to this damsel who has found her sojourn under my roof such a pitfall
to her feet.”

“Nestoria!” fairly laughed Mrs. Dinneford. “Cousin Wetherel, the Lord
speed you! I won't delay you another minute. Do finish it and sign it.”

“There must be witnesses,” answered the Judge. “And we have none
here of a proper status. To-morrow, if Providence permit, all shall be done
in order and with punctuality.”

“Well, to-morrow,” smiled Mrs. Dinneford. “Good-night. Cousin Wetherel.”

She hastened up stairs, looked in upon Alice to tell her the good news,
found the girl asleep, and went to her own room.

The house fell silent. Only in the Judge's study, situated, we must remember,
upon the ground floor, was there a light burning. After a time this
too disappeared; the mystery of a night without moon or stars settled upon
the dwelling; there was a darkness such as they love whose deeds are evil.