Part 7 (2/2)
Andrew bent his head in solemn acknowledgment of the truth of this observation and the justice of the arrangement.
”There's just one little addendum I want to make. This unpleasant affair of Jean's has set me thinking, and supposing I'm taken, Andrew--just supposing--”
”a.s.suming it's as we fear--I understand, I understand.”
”Well, then, you see, I'll not be here myself to keep Frank and Jean from doing foolish-like things if they happen to have a mind to; and they're not like you and their sisters. You've all chosen sensibly, but they're in a kind of way different. I ought to have had them educated at home.”
”What I've always said,” his son agreed.
”Anyhow, it's too late now, and what I'll just have to do is this--introduce a clause making them forfeit their shares if they marry without your consent in the next five years.”
”Would ten not be safer?” suggested Andrew.
”We'll say seven, then. And of course you'll not withhold your consent unreasonably? I'll trust you for that.”
Andrew's att.i.tude expressed to such perfection the confidence that might be reposed in him that his father shed him a satisfied smile.
”And now,” said he, ”I wonder had you not better get me my will?--or we might wait till to-morrow, and see how I'm feeling then.”
If the junior partner had looked grave before, he looked funereal now.
”Your mind's clear now,” he said. ”I wouldn't put it off.”
”Well, well,” said Mr. Walkingshaw, ”there are my keys on the dressing-table: you know where to find the will.”
Andrew went downstairs as solemnly as he had come up, and with the same faint squeak.
CHAPTER VII
It never occurred to Frank and Jean to blame their father in any way for electing so boisterous a day for his probable decease. Clearly they had not so fine an instinct for respectability as their brother. Their orthodoxy, compared with his, was built upon a sandy foundation: warm hearts can never hope to sustain, in its impressive equipoise, the head of an Andrew Walkingshaw. One might as well expect to find sap running up the legs of his office stool.
That afternoon they instinctively drifted away from the others and sat unhappily together. The gusty booming of the wind and the clash of branches in the garden across the gale-scourged street tormented them with fancies. It seemed as though a thousand riotous misfortunes were buffeting their hearts.
”Rain!” cried Jean, with a little start and then a s.h.i.+ver.
”Isn't it beastly?” muttered Frank, his eyes on the carpet.
It came on with the sudden violence of a thunder-clap. In a moment the tossing trees became gesticulating ghosts seen dimly through a veil of glistening rods of water sharply diagonal--nearly horizontal; and even through the musketry rattle on the window-panes they could hear the pavement hiss beneath their deluge.
”Oh, Frank dear!” murmured Jean.
Giving way to illogical tenderness, the young soldier took her hand and held it.
Of course, the least turn for hard argument would have rea.s.sured them.
The storm would blow over; they could find new lovers; their father, even suppose he died, would receive suitable interment. Besides, they would be the richer by his decease. But they remained foolishly moved.
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