The Lady of the Shroud - Bram Stoker (phonics reader txt) 📗
- Author: Bram Stoker
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but our family were always clever from the very beginning of life,
and father was telling me about the St. Leger family. My family
hadn’t, of course, seen anything of them since Captain St. Leger
died—the circle to which we belong don’t care for poor relations—
and was explaining where Miss MacKelpie came in. She must have been
a sort of nursery governess, for Mrs. St. Leger once told him that
she helped her to educate the child.
“Then, father,” I said, “if she helped to educate the child she ought
to have been called Miss MacSkelpie!”
When my first-cousin-once-removed, Rupert, was twelve years old, his
mother died, and he was in the dolefuls about it for more than a
year. Miss MacKelpie kept on living with him all the same. Catch
her quitting! That sort don’t go into the poor-house when they can
keep out! My father, being Head of the Family, was, of course, one
of the trustees, and his uncle Roger, brother of the testator,
another. The third was General MacKelpie, a poverty-stricken Scotch
laird who had a lot of valueless land at Croom, in Ross-shire. I
remember father gave me a new ten-pound note when I interrupted him
whilst he was telling me of the incident of young St. Leger’s
improvidence by remarking that he was in error as to the land. From
what I had heard of MacKelpie’s estate, it was productive of one
thing; when he asked me “What?” I answered “Mortgages!” Father, I
knew, had bought, not long before, a lot of them at what a college
friend of mine from Chicago used to call “cut-throat” price. When I
remonstrated with my father for buying them at all, and so injuring
the family estate which I was to inherit, he gave me an answer, the
astuteness of which I have never forgotten.
“I did it so that I might keep my hand on the bold General, in case
he should ever prove troublesome. And if the worst should ever come
to the worst, Croom is a good country for grouse and stags!” My
father can see as far as most men!
When my cousin—I shall call him cousin henceforth in this record,
lest it might seem to any unkind person who might hereafter read it
that I wished to taunt Rupert St. Leger with his somewhat obscure
position, in reiterating his real distance in kinship with my family-
-when my cousin, Rupert St. Leger, wished to commit a certain idiotic
act of financial folly, he approached my father on the subject,
arriving at our estate, Humcroft, at an inconvenient time, without
permission, not having had even the decent courtesy to say he was
coming. I was then a little chap of six years old, but I could not
help noticing his mean appearance. He was all dusty and dishevelled.
When my father saw him—I came into the study with him—he said in a
horrified voice:
“Good God!” He was further shocked when the boy brusquely
acknowledged, in reply to my father’s greeting, that he had travelled
third class. Of course, none of my family ever go anything but first
class; even the servants go second. My father was really angry when
he said he had walked up from the station.
“A nice spectacle for my tenants and my tradesmen! To see my—my—a
kinsman of my house, howsoever remote, trudging like a tramp on the
road to my estate! Why, my avenue is two miles and a perch! No
wonder you are filthy and insolent!” Rupert—really, I cannot call
him cousin here—was exceedingly impertinent to my father.
“I walked, sir, because I had no money; but I assure you I did not
mean to be insolent. I simply came here because I wished to ask your
advice and assistance, not because you are an important person, and
have a long avenue—as I know to my cost—but simply because you are
one of my trustees.”
“YOUR trustees, sirrah!” said my father, interrupting him. “Your
trustees?”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, quite quietly. “I meant the
trustees of my dear mother’s will.”
“And what, may I ask you,” said father, “do you want in the way of
advice from one of the trustees of your dear mother’s will?” Rupert
got very red, and was going to say something rude—I knew it from his
look—but he stopped, and said in the same gentle way:
“I want your advice, sir, as to the best way of doing something which
I wish to do, and, as I am under age, cannot do myself. It must be
done through the trustees of my mother’s will.”
“And the assistance for which you wish?” said father, putting his
hand in his pocket. I know what that action means when I am talking
to him.
“The assistance I want,” said Rupert, getting redder than ever, “is
from my—the trustee also. To carry out what I want to do.”
“And what may that be?” asked my father. “I would like, sir, to make
over to my Aunt Janet—” My father interrupted him by asking—he had
evidently remembered my jest:
“Miss MacSkelpie?” Rupert got still redder, and I turned away; I
didn’t quite wish that he should see me laughing. He went on
quietly:
“MACKELPIE, sir! Miss Janet MacKelpie, my aunt, who has always been
so kind to me, and whom my mother loved—I want to have made over to
her the money which my dear mother left to me.” Father doubtless
wished to have the matter take a less serious turn, for Rupert’s eyes
were all shiny with tears which had not fallen; so after a little
pause he said, with indignation, which I knew was simulated:
“Have you forgotten your mother so soon, Rupert, that you wish to
give away the very last gift which she bestowed on you?” Rupert was
sitting, but he jumped up and stood opposite my father with his fist
clenched. He was quite pale now, and his eyes looked so fierce that
I thought he would do my father an injury. He spoke in a voice which
did not seem like his own, it was so strong and deep.
“Sir!” he roared out. I suppose, if I was a writer, which, thank
God, I am not—I have no need to follow a menial occupation—I would
call it “thundered.” “Thundered” is a longer word than “roared,” and
would, of course, help to gain the penny which a writer gets for a
line. Father got pale too, and stood quite still. Rupert looked at
him steadily for quite half a minute—it seemed longer at the time—
and suddenly smiled and said, as he sat down again:
“Sorry. But, of course, you don’t understand such things.” Then he
went on talking before father had time to say a word.
“Let us get back to business. As you do not seem to follow me, let
me explain that it is BECAUSE I do not forget that I wish to do this.
I remember my dear mother’s wish to make Aunt Janet happy, and would
like to do as she did.”
“AUNT Janet?” said father, very properly sneering at his ignorance.
“She is not your aunt. Why, even her sister, who was married to your
uncle, was only your aunt by courtesy.” I could not help feeling
that Rupert meant to be rude to my father, though his words were
quite polite. If I had been as much bigger than him as he was than
me, I should have flown at him; but he was a very big boy for his
age. I am myself rather thin. Mother says thinness is an “appanage
of birth.”
“My Aunt Janet, sir, is an aunt by love. Courtesy is a small word to
use in connection with such devotion as she has given to us. But I
needn’t trouble you with such things, sir. I take it that my
relations on the side of my own house do not affect you. I am a Sent
Leger!” Father looked quite taken aback. He sat quite still before
he spoke.
“Well, Mr. St. Leger, I shall think over the matter for a while, and
shall presently let you know my decision. In the meantime, would you
like something to eat? I take it that as you must have started very
early, you have not had any breakfast?” Rupert smiled quite
genially:
“That is true, sir. I haven’t broken bread since dinner last night,
and I am ravenously hungry.” Father rang the bell, and told the
footman who answered it to send the housekeeper. When she came,
father said to her:
“Mrs. Martindale, take this boy to your room and give him some
breakfast.” Rupert stood very still for some seconds. His face had
got red again after his paleness. Then he bowed to my father, and
followed Mrs. Martindale, who had moved to the door.
Nearly an hour afterwards my father sent a servant to tell him to
come to the study. My mother was there, too, and I had gone back
with her. The man came back and said:
“Mrs. Martindale, sir, wishes to know, with her respectful service,
if she may have a word with you.” Before father could reply mother
told him to bring her. The housekeeper could not have been far off—
that kind are generally near a keyhole—for she came at once. When
she came in, she stood at the door curtseying and looking pale.
Father said:
“Well?”
“I thought, sir and ma’am, that I had better come and tell you about
Master Sent Leger. I would have come at once, but I feared to
disturb you.”
“Well?” Father had a stern way with servants. When I’m head of the
family I’ll tread them under my feet. That’s the way to get real
devotion from servants!
“If you please, sir, I took the young gentleman into my room and
ordered a nice breakfast for him, for I could see he was half
famished—a growing boy like him, and so tall! Presently it came
along. It was a good breakfast, too! The very smell of it made even
me hungry. There were eggs and frizzled ham, and grilled kidneys,
and coffee, and buttered toast, and bloater-paste—”
“That will do as to the menu,” said mother. “Go on!”
“When it was all ready, and the maid had gone, I put a chair to the
table and said, ‘Now, sir, your breakfast is ready!’ He stood up and
said, ‘Thank you, madam; you are very kind!’ and he bowed to me quite
nicely, just as if I was a lady, ma’am!”
“Go on,” said mother.
“Then, sir, he held out his hand and said, ‘Good-bye, and thank you,’
and he took up his cap.
“‘But aren’t you going to have any breakfast, sir?’ I says.
“‘No, thank you, madam,’ he said; ‘I couldn’t eat here … in this
house, I mean!’ Well, ma’am, he looked so lonely that I felt my
heart melting, and I ventured to ask him if there was any mortal
thing I could do for him. ‘Do tell me, dear,’ I ventured to say. ‘I
am an old woman, and you, sir, are only a boy, though it’s a fine man
you will be—like your dear, splendid father, which I remember so
well, and gentle like your poor dear mother.’
“‘You’re a dear!’ he says; and with that I took up his hand and
kissed it, for I remember his poor dear mother so well, that was dead
only a year. Well, with that he turned his head away, and when I
took him by the shoulders and turned him
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