_ Letters had been written to Miss Pontifex's brothers and sisters,
and one and all came post-haste to Roughborough. Before they
arrived the poor lady was already delirious, and for the sake of her
own peace at the last I am half glad she never recovered
consciousness.
I had known these people all their lives, as none can know each
other but those who have played together as children; I knew how
they had all of them--perhaps Theobald least, but all of them more
or less--made her life a burden to her until the death of her father
had made her her own mistress, and I was displeased at their coming
one after the other to Roughborough, and inquiring whether their
sister had recovered consciousness sufficiently to be able to see
them. It was known that she had sent for me on being taken ill, and
that I remained at Roughborough, and I own I was angered by the
mingled air of suspicion, defiance and inquisitiveness, with which
they regarded me. They would all, except Theobald, I believe have
cut me downright if they had not believed me to know something they
wanted to know themselves, and might have some chance of learning
from me--for it was plain I had been in some way concerned with the
making of their sister's will. None of them suspected what the
ostensible nature of this would be, but I think they feared Miss
Pontifex was about to leave money for public uses. John said to me
in his blandest manner that he fancied he remembered to have heard
his sister say that she thought of leaving money to found a college
for the relief of dramatic authors in distress; to this I made no
rejoinder, and I have no doubt his suspicions were deepened.
When the end came, I got Miss Pontifex's solicitor to write and tell
her brothers and sisters how she had left her money: they were not
unnaturally furious, and went each to his or her separate home
without attending the funeral, and without paying any attention to
myself. This was perhaps the kindest thing they could have done by
me, for their behaviour made me so angry that I became almost
reconciled to Alethea's will out of pleasure at the anger it had
aroused. But for this I should have felt the will keenly, as having
been placed by it in the position which of all others I had been
most anxious to avoid, and as having saddled me with a very heavy
responsibility. Still it was impossible for me to escape, and I
could only let things take their course.
Miss Pontifex had expressed a wish to be buried at Paleham; in the
course of the next few days I therefore took the body thither. I
had not been to Paleham since the death of my father some six years
earlier. I had often wished to go there, but had shrunk from doing
so though my sister had been two or three times. I could not bear
to see the house which had been my home for so many years of my life
in the hands of strangers; to ring ceremoniously at a bell which I
had never yet pulled except as a boy in jest; to feel that I had
nothing to do with a garden in which I had in childhood gathered so
many a nosegay, and which had seemed my own for many years after I
had reached man's estate; to see the rooms bereft of every familiar
feature, and made so unfamiliar in spite of their familiarity. Had
there been any sufficient reason, I should have taken these things
as a matter of course, and should no doubt have found them much
worse in anticipation than in reality, but as there had been no
special reason why I should go to Paleham I had hitherto avoided
doing so. Now, however, my going was a necessity, and I confess I
never felt more subdued than I did on arriving there with the dead
playmate of my childhood.
I found the village more changed than I had expected. The railway
had come there, and a brand new yellow brick station was on the site
of old Mr and Mrs Pontifex's cottage. Nothing but the carpenter's
shop was now standing. I saw many faces I knew, but even in six
years they seemed to have grown wonderfully older. Some of the very
old were dead, and the old were getting very old in their stead. I
felt like the changeling in the fairy story who came back after a
seven years' sleep. Everyone seemed glad to see me, though I had
never given them particular cause to be so, and everyone who
remembered old Mr and Mrs Pontifex spoke warmly of them and were
pleased at their granddaughter's wishing to be laid near them.
Entering the churchyard and standing in the twilight of a gusty
cloudy evening on the spot close beside old Mrs Pontifex's grave
which I had chosen for Alethea's, I thought of the many times that
she, who would lie there henceforth, and I, who must surely lie one
day in some such another place though when and where I knew not, had
romped over this very spot as childish lovers together. Next
morning I followed her to the grave, and in due course set up a
plain upright slab to her memory as like as might be to those over
the graves of her grandmother and grandfather. I gave the dates and
places of her birth and death, but added nothing except that this
stone was set up by one who had known and loved her. Knowing how
fond she had been of music I had been half inclined at one time to
inscribe a few bars of music, if I could find any which seemed
suitable to her character, but I knew how much she would have
disliked anything singular in connection with her tombstone and did
not do it.
Before, however, I had come to this conclusion, I had thought that
Ernest might be able to help me to the right thing, and had written
to him upon the subject. The following is the answer I received -
"Dear Godpapa,--I send you the best bit I can think of; it is the
subject of the last of Handel's six grand fugues and goes thus:-
[Music score]
It would do better for a man, especially for an old man who was very
sorry for things, than for a woman, but I cannot think of anything
better; if you do not like it for Aunt Alethea I shall keep it for
myself.--Your affectionate Godson, ERNEST PONTIFEX."
Was this the little lad who could get sweeties for two-pence but not
for two-pence-halfpenny? Dear, dear me, I thought to myself, how
these babes and sucklings do give us the go-by surely. Choosing his
own epitaph at fifteen as for a man who "had been very sorry for
things," and such a strain as that--why it might have done for
Leonardo da Vinci himself. Then I set the boy down as a conceited
young jackanapes, which no doubt he was,--but so are a great many
other young people of Ernest's age. _