Маргарет Олифант - The Last of the Mortimers

I THOUGHT I heard a slight rustle, as if Sarah had taken off her spectacles, but I was really so interested in the matter which I was then discussing with Mr. Cresswell, our solicitor, that I did not look round, as I certainly should have done in any other circumstances; but imagine my utter amazement and the start which Mr. Cresswell gave, nearly upsetting the ink on the drab table-cover, which never could have got the better of it, when my sister Sarah, who never speaks except to me, and then only in a whisper, pronounced distinctly, loud out, the following words: “His Christian name was Richard Arkwright; he was called after the cotton-spinner; that was the chief thing against him in my father’s days.”

Now it was years and years ago since Sarah had lost her voice. It happened before my father died, when we were both comparatively young people; she had been abroad with him and caught a violent cold on her way home. She was rather proud in those days—it was before she took to knitting—and she had not forgotten then that she was once a beauty. When she saw that her voice was gone for good, Sarah gave up talking. She declared to me privately that to keep up a conversation in that hoarse horrid whisper was more than she could give in to, and though she was a very good Christian in principle she never could be resigned to that loss. At first she kept upstairs in her own room; but after my father’s death she came regularly to the drawing-room, giving everybody to understand that she was not to be spoken to. Poor dear old soul! she was as anxious to hear everything that was said to me as if she had come down off her stilts and taken part in the conversation; but you may suppose what a startling event it was to hear Sarah’s voice.

I gave a jump, as was natural, and ran to her to see what had happened.

“Do be cautious, Milly,” she said, fretfully, in her old whisper; for to be sure I had whisked down her ball of worsted, and caught one of her pins in my new-fashioned buttonholes. “At your age a gentlewoman should move about in a different sort of way. I am quite well, thank you. Please to go back to your occupation, and leave me to carry on mine in peace.”

“But Sarah, my dear soul! you’ve got back your voice!” cried I.

Sarah smiled at me, not with her pretty smile. “People who are strong are always thinking such things,” she said. “You don’t know what it is to be afflicted; go back to your business, please.”

“What does she say, Miss Milly?” cried Mr. Cresswell, quite eagerly, when I went back to the table.

“Oh, nothing at all; it’s all a mistake, I suppose,” said I, feeling a little nettled, “put it down all the same. I dare say it was one of those spirits we hear about nowadays. And a very useful bit of information too, which makes it all the more remarkable, for I never heard they did much good in that way. Richard Arkwright! Of all the names I ever heard, the oddest name for a Mortimer! but put it down.”

Mr. Cresswell put it down as I said. “Richard Arkwright Mortimer is something more of an individual than Blank Mortimer, Esq., that’s true,” said he; “he ought to be something with that name. Begging your pardon, Miss Milly, though he was a Mortimer, he ought to have had either a profession or a trade with that name. Don’t you think now,” he said, lowering his voice, and making a sign at Sarah over his shoulder, “after having broken the ice, something more might be got out of her ?”

I shook my head at first, being angry; then I nodded as I came to myself, and at last said—it was all I could say—“We’ll see.”

“Ah, ah, we’ll see—that’ll do, Miss Milly; but don’t lose your temper, my dear lady,” said Mr. Cresswell; “all the county reverences you for an angelic temper, as you well know.”

“Stuff!” said I; “I’ve too much Welsh blood in me for that; but a pack of interlopers, like the rest of you, never know the real mettle of them that come of the soil; we’re as clear of the soil as the ore in the Llangollen mines, we Mortimers; we can do what we have to do, whatever it may be.”

Mr. Cresswell cast up his eyebrows a little, and gave a kind of glance towards Sarah and her knitting. “Well, well, it isn’t bad ore, at all events,” he said, with a chuckle: “but, after all, I suppose the first squire was not dug out of Llewellyn cliff?”

“It will be a vast deal more profitable to find out where the next squire is to come from,” said I; “we are old women both of us; I’d advise you to set things agoing without delay. What would happen, do you suppose, if Sarah and I were both to die without finding an heir? What does happen, by the bye, when such a thing occurs; does it go to the crown?”

“My dear lady, I would not give much for the crown’s chance,” said Cresswell, with, a little shrug of his shoulders. “Heirs-at-law are never so far lost or mislaid but they turn up some time. Birds of the air carry the matter when there’s an estate in question. There’s nothing so safe to be found, in my humble opinion, as an heir-at-law.”

“For I shouldn’t much mind,” said I to myself, thinking over it, “if it went to the Queen. She might fix on the park for autumn quarters, sure, as well as on that outlandish Scotch castle of hers. It’s a great deal nearer, and I make sure it’s prettier; or if she gave it to the Prince of Wales as a present, or to any of the other children, I should not mind for my part. It is not by any means so bad a prospect as I supposed—it might go to the Queen.”

“But, then, what would be done with Mr. Richard Arkwright and his progeny? I’ll be bound he has ten children,” said Mr. Cresswell. “Somebody did leave Her Majesty an estate not so very long ago, and I rather think she sought out the heirs and made it up to them. Depend upon it, Mr. Richard Arkwright would have it out of her. Come, we must stick to the Mortimers, Miss Milly. I’ll go off and see after the advertisements; there’s plenty of time. I don’t believe you mean to be in any hurry out of this world, either Miss Sarah or you.”

“That’s as it may be—that’s as God pleases,” said I; “but you must wait a little first, and I’ll see if I can find out anything further about him. Perhaps some one can think on; we’ll see, we’ll see; more may come.”

Mr. Cresswell nodded his head confidentially. “You don’t remember anything about him yourself?” he said.

“Bless you, I am ten years younger than she is,” said I; “she was a young lady, I was only a child. I neither knew nor cared anything about the Lancashire cousin. Ten years make a great deal of difference when people are young.”

“And when they’re old as well,” said Cresswell, with a little nod of his head. Mr. Cresswell, of course, like all the other people, would never have looked at me when Sarah was present in old days; but now, when we were both old women, the sly old lawyer had wheeled about, and was rather an admirer of mine. I have had admirers since I was fifty; I never had many before.

“Now, are you going to stay to tea?” said I.

“Thank you. I have not the least doubt it would be for my own advantage; my cook is not to be named in the same breath with yours; but I promised to be home to dinner,” said Mr. Cresswell. “Thank you all the same; Sara will be waiting for me.”

“And how is the dear child?” said I.

“Very contrairy,” said Mr. Cresswell, shaking his head. “To tell the truth, I don’t know what to make of her. I had twenty minds to bring her to-day and leave her with you.”