England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; English fiction -- 19th century
It came back to him, his first experience of hunger--so very different
a thing from appetite. He saw the miserable bedroom where he sat on a
rainy day. He smelt the pawnshop. His heart sank again under the weight
of awful solitude. Then, his illness; the letter he wrote to Amy; her
visit to him; the help she brought. But she could not persuade him to
go back with her to Greystone to face the Doctor. Her money was a loan;
he would bestir himself and find occupation. For a wonder, it was
found--the place at the Emigration Agency; and so, for a good many
years, the notable Mr. Harvey Rolfe sank into a life of obscure routine.
Again and again his sister Amy besought him to visit Greystone. Dr
Harvey was breaking up; would he not see the kind old man once more?
Yes, he assured himself that he would; but he took his time about it,
and Dr Harvey, who at threescore and ten could not be expected to wait
upon a young man's convenience, one day very quietly died. To Amy
Rolfe, who had become as a daughter to him, he left the larger part of
his possessions, an income of nine hundred a year. Not long after this,
Harvey met his sister, and was astonished to find her looking thin,
pale, spiritless. What did it mean? Why did she gaze at him so sadly?
Come, come, he cried, she had been leading an unnatural life,
cloistered, cheerless. Now that she was independent, she must enjoy
herself, see the world! Brave words; and braver still those in which he
replied to Amy's entreaty that he would share her wealth. Not he,
indeed! If, as she said, the Doctor meant and hoped it, why did he not
make that plain in his will? Not a penny would he take. He had all he
wanted. And he seemed to himself the most magnanimous of men.
Amy lived on at Greystone; amid friends, to be sure, but silent,
melancholy; and he, the brother whom she loved, could spare her only a
day or two once a year, when he chattered his idle self-conceit. Anyone
else would have taken trouble to inquire the cause of her pallor, her
sadness. He, forsooth, had to learn with astonishment, at last, that
she wished to see him--on her deathbed.
He had often thought of her, and kindly. But he knew her not at all,
took no interest in her existence. She, on the other hand, had
treasured every miserable little letter his idleness vouchsafed; she
had hoped so for his future, ever believing in him. When Amy lay dead,
he saw the sheet of paper on which she had written the few lines
necessary to endow him with all she left--everything 'to my dear
brother'. What words could have reproached him so keenly?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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