“Mr. Trimmer is back.”

The words went around among the servants at Asherton Hall in a whisper; and everybody was immediately alert, as at the return of a master.

Mr. Trimmer was old Herresford’s valet, who had been away for a long holiday—the first for many years. Trimmer was a power for good and evil—some said a greater power than Herresford himself, over whom he had gained a mental ascendency.

Mr. Trimmer was sixty at least. Yet, his face bore scarce a wrinkle, his back was as straight as any young man’s. His hair was coal black—Mrs. Ripon declared that he dyed it. And he was about Herresford’s height, spare of figure, and always faultlessly dressed in close-fitting garments with a tendency toward a horsey cut. His head was large, and his thick hair suggested a wig, for two curly locks were brushed forward and brought over the front of the ears, and at the summit of the forehead was a wonderful curl that would not have disgraced a hair-dresser’s window block. Faultless and trim, 174 with glistening black eyes that were ever wandering discreetly, he was the embodiment of alert watchfulness. He could efface himself utterly at times, and would stand in the background of the bedchamber, almost out of sight, and as still as if turned to stone.

Interviews with Herresford were generally carried on in Trimmer’s presence, but, although the old man frequently referred to Trimmer in his arguments and quarrels, the valet acutely avoided asserting himself beyond the bounds of the strictest decorum while visitors were present. But, when they were gone, Trimmer’s iron personality showed itself in a quiet hectoring, which made him the other’s master. Mr. Trimmer was financially quite independent of his employer’s ill humors. He was wealthy, and his name was mentioned by the other servants with ’bated breath. He was the owner of three saloons which he had bought from time to time. In short, Mr. Trimmer was a moneyed man. His was one of those strange natures which work in grooves and cannot get out of them. Nothing but the death of Herresford would persuade him to break the continuity of his service. His master might storm, and threaten, and dismiss him. It always came to nothing. Mr. Trimmer went on as usual, treating the miser as a child, and administering his affairs, both financial and domestic, with an iron hand.

Never before had he taken a holiday, and on his 175 return there was much anxiety. The servants at the Hall had hoped that he was really discharged, at last. But no, he came back, smiling sardonically, and, as he entered the front door—not the servants’ entrance—his eye roved everywhere in search of backsliding. Mrs. Ripon met him in the hall with a forced smile and a greeting, but she dared not offer to shake hands with the great man.

“Anything of importance since I have been away?” asked Mr. Trimmer.

“Yes, Mr. Trimmer. Mr. Herresford has changed his bedroom.”

“Humph! We’ll soon alter that,” murmured Trimmer.

“That’s what I told him, Mr. Trimmer. I said you’d be annoyed, and that he’d have to go back when you returned.”

“Just so, just so! Any trouble with his family?”

“Mr. Dick—I daresay you have heard.”

“I’ve heard nothing.”

“Dead—killed in the war.”

“Dead! Well, to be sure.”

“Yes, poor boy—killed.”

“Dear, dear!” murmured Mr. Trimmer, growing meditative.

Mrs. Ripon knew what he was thinking—or imagined that she did. There was no one now to inherit Herresford’s money but Mrs. Swinton, and 176 she believed that Trimmer was wondering how much of it he would get for himself; for it was a popular delusion below stairs that Mr. Trimmer had mesmerized his master into making a will in his favor, leaving him everything.

“How did Mr. Dick get away?” asked Mr. Trimmer. “Surely, his creditors wouldn’t let him go.”

“Ah, now you have touched the sore point, Mr. Trimmer. The poor young man swindled—yes, swindled the bank, forged checks in his grandfather’s name.”

Mr. Trimmer allowed some human expression to creep into his stone face. He puckered his brows, and his usually marble-smooth forehead showed unexpected wrinkles.

“It was the very last thing we’d have believed, Mr. Trimmer; it was for seven thousand dollars.”

“Tut, tut!” exclaimed Mr. Trimmer, sorrowfully. “That comes of my going away. I ought to have locked up the check-book. I suppose the young man came here to see his grandfather and stole the checks.”

“No, he never came—at least only once, and just for a moment. Then, his grandfather was so insulting that he only stayed a few minutes. That was when he came to say good-bye. But Mrs. Swinton came, trying to get money for the boy.”

“I must see Mr. Herresford about this.” Trimmer 177 walked mechanically upstairs to the former bedroom, quite forgetting that his master would not be there. He came out again with a short, sharp exclamation of anger, and at last found the old man in the turret room.

Herresford was reading a long deed left by his lawyer, and on a chair by his bedside was a pile of documents.

“Good morning, sir,” said Trimmer, in exactly the same tone as always during the last forty years, and he cast his eye around the untidy room.

“Oh, it’s you? Back again, eh?” grunted the miser. “About time, too! How long is it since valets have taken to doing the grand tour, and taking three months’ holiday without leave of their masters?”

“I gave myself leave, sir,” replied Trimmer, nonchalantly.

“And what right have you to take holidays without my permission?”

“You discharged me, sir—but I thought better of it.”

A grunt was the only answer to this impertinence.

“You seem to have been muddling things nicely in my absence,” observed Trimmer after a moment, with cool audacity.

“Have I? That’s all you know. Who told you what I’ve been doing?” 178

“Your heir is dead, I hear. I hope you had nothing to do with that.”

“What do you mean, sir—what do you mean?”

“I mean that I hope you didn’t send him away to the war to save money and keep him from further debt.”

“My family affairs are nothing to do with you, sir.”

“So you have told me for the last forty years, sir. I liked the young man. There was nothing bad about him. But I hear you drove him to forgery.”

“It’s a lie—a lie!”

“How did he get your checks?”

The miser made no answer. Trimmer came over, and fixed glittering eyes upon him. The old man cowered.

“You’ve ruined the boy, and sent him to the war. I can see it in your face. I knew what would happen if I let you alone—I knew you’d do some rascally meanness that—”

“Trimmer, it’s a lie!” cried the old man, shaking as with a palsy, and drawing further down into his pillow. “I’m an old man—I’m helpless—I won’t be bullied.”

“This is one of the occasions when I feel that a shaking would do you good,” declared Trimmer.

“No, no—not now—not again! Last time, I 179 was bad for a week. The shock might kill me. It would be murder.”

“Well, and would that matter?” asked Trimmer, callously. He stood at the bedside, with a duster in one hand and a medicine-glass in the other, polishing the glass in the most leisurely fashion, and speaking in hard, even tones. He looked down upon the old wreck as on the carcase of a dead dog.

They were a strange pair, these two, and the world outside, although it knew something of the influence of Trimmer over his master, had no conception of its real extent. Trimmer ought to have been a master of men; but some defect in his mental equipment at the beginning of life, or an unkind fate, was responsible for his becoming a menial. He was a slave of habit, a stickler for scrupulous tidiness. A dusty room or an ill-folded suit of clothes would agitate him more than the rocking of an empire. He entered the service of Herresford when quite a young man, and that service had become a habit with him, and he could not break it. He was bound to his menial occupation by bonds of steel; and the idea of doing without Trimmer was as inconceivable to his master as the idea of going without clothes. The miser, who followed no man’s advice, nevertheless revealed more of his private affairs to his valet than to his lawyers. And Trimmer, who consulted nobody, and was by 180 nature secretive, jealously guarded his master’s interests, and insisted on being consulted in all private matters. A miser himself, Trimmer approved and fostered the miserly instincts of his master, until there had grown up between them an intimacy that was almost a partnership.

And, now that Herresford was broken in health, and had become a pitiful wreck, he preferred to be left entirely at Trimmer’s mercy.

“What are you going to do about an heir now?” asked the valet, curtly. “Have you made a new will?”

“No, I’ve not. Why should I? I left everything to the boy—with a reasonable amount for his mother. In the event of his death, his mother inherits. You wouldn’t have me leave my money to charities—or rascally servants like you, who are rolling in money? You needn’t be anxious. I told you that you would have your fifty thousand dollars, if you were in my service at my death and behaved yourself—and if I died by natural means! Ha, ha! I had to put in that clause, or you would have smothered me with my own pillows long ago.”

“Very likely—very likely,” murmured Trimmer indifferently, as though the suggestion were by no means strained. He had heard it many hundreds of times before. It was a favorite taunt.

“Who is that coming up the drive?” asked the 181 invalid, craning his neck to look out of the window.

“It is Mrs. Swinton, sir, and Mr. Swinton.”

“On foot?” cried the old man. “And since when, pray, did they begin to take the walking exercise? Ha! ha! Coming to see me—about their boy. Of course, you’ve heard all about it, Trimmer.”

“Very little, sir.”

“Well, if you stay here, you’ll hear a little more.”

The decrepit creature chuckled with a sound like loose bones rattling in his throat. He laughed so much that he almost choked. Trimmer was obliged to lift him up and pat his back vigorously. The valet’s handling was firm, but by no means gentle; and, the moment the old man was touched, he began to whine as if for mercy, pretending that he was being ill-used.

Mrs. Swinton entered the room alone; the rector remained below in the library. She found her father well propped up with pillows, and his skull-cap, with the long white tassel, was drawn down over one eye, giving him a curious leer. The rakish angle of the cap, with the piercing eyes beneath, the hawk-like beak, and the shriveled old mouth, puckered into a sardonic smile, made him an almost comic figure. Trimmer stood at attention by the head of the bed like a sentinel. His humility and deference to both his master and Mrs. Swinton were almost servile; it 182 was always so in the presence of a third person.

“I am glad to see you sitting up and looking so well, father,” observed the daughter, after her first greeting.

“Oh, yes, I’m well—very well—better than you are,” grunted the old man. “I know why you have come.”

“I wish to talk on important family matters, father,” said Mrs. Swinton, dropping into the chair which Trimmer brought forward, and giving the valet a sharp, resentful look.

“You can talk before Trimmer. You ought to know that by this time. Trimmer and I are one.”

“If madam wishes, I will withdraw,” murmured Trimmer, retiring to the door.

“No—no—don’t leave me—not alone with her—not alone!” cried the old man, reaching out his hand as if in terror. But Trimmer had opened the door. He gave his master one sharp look of reproof, and closed the door—almost.

Father and daughter sat looking at each other for a full minute. The old man dragged down the tassel of his skull-cap with his bony fingers, and commenced chewing the end. The glittering eyes danced with evil amusement, and, as he sat there huddled, he resembled nothing so much as an ape.

“I am glad to find you in a good temper, father.”

“Good temper—eh!” He laughed, and again 183 the bones seemed to rattle in his throat. The fit ended with coughing and whining and abuse of the draughts and the cold.

“Why don’t you have a fire in the room, father? You’d be so much more comfortable.”

“Fire! We don’t throw away money here—nor steal it.”

“Father, I beg that you will not refer to Dick in this interview by offensive terms; I can’t stand it. My boy is dead.”

“Who was referring to Dick?”

His eyes sought hers, and searched her very soul. She felt her flesh growing cold and her senses swooning. It had been a great effort to come up and face him at such a time, but her mission was urgent. She came to entreat an amnesty, to beg that he would not drag the miserable business of the checks into court by a dispute with the bank, and there was something horrible in his mirth.

“Hullo, forger!” he cried at last, and he watched the play of her face as the color came and went.

“What do you mean, father?”

“What I say. How does it feel to be a forger—eh? What is it like to be a thief? I never stole money myself—not even from my parents. D’ye think I believe your story? D’ye think I don’t know who altered my checks—who had the money—who told the dirty lie to blacken the memory of her dead 184 son? D’ye think I’m going to spare you—eh?”

“Father! Father! Have mercy—I was helpless!” she cried in terror, flinging herself on her knees beside his bed. “I couldn’t ruin both husband and daughter for the sake of a boy who was gone.”

“You couldn’t ruin yourself, you mean—but you could sully the memory of my heir with a foul charge—the worst of all that can be brought against a man and a gentleman.”

“It was you, father—you—you who denounced him.”

“Lies, lies! I did nothing of the sort. The bank people suspected him because he was a man, because they didn’t think that any child of mine could rob me of seven thousand dollars—seven thousand dollars! Think of it, madam—seven thousand dollars! D’ye know how many nickels there are in seven thousand dollars? Why, I could send you to Sing-Sing for years, if I chose to lift my finger.”

“But you won’t father—you won’t! You’ll have mercy. You’ll spare us. If you knew what I have suffered, you’d be sorry for me.”

“Oh, I can guess what you have suffered. And you’re going to suffer a good deal more yet. Don’t tell me you’ve come up here to get more money—not more?”

“No, father—indeed, no. John and I are going to lead a different kind of life. I’ve come to 185 entreat you not to press the bank for that money. We’ll pay it all back, somehow. John and I will earn it, if necessary.”

“Earn it! Rubbish! You couldn’t earn a dime.”

“We’ll repay every penny—if you will only give us time, only stop pressing the bank—”

“I shall do nothing of the sort. You’ve robbed them, not me. You must answer to them. If you’ve got any of it left, pay it back to Ormsby. If your husband is such an idiot as to beggar himself to restore the spoils, more fool he, that’s all I can say. When you steal, steal and stick to it. Never give up money.”

“Father, you’ll not betray me! You won’t tell them—”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to think it over. Get up off your knees, and sit on a chair. That sort of thing has no effect with me. You ought to have found that out long ago.”

She arose wearily, and dropped back limply into the chair like a witness under fire in a court of law. The old man sat chewing the tassel of his cap, and mumbling, sniggering, chuckling, spluttering with indecent mirth.

“Listen to me, madam,” he said at last, leaning forward. “Behind my back you’ve always called me a skinflint, a miser, a villain. I always told you 186 I’d pay you out some day—and now’s my chance. I’m not going to lose anything. I’m going to leave you to your own conscience and to the guidance of your virtuous sky-pilot. People’ll believe anything of a clergyman’s son. They’re a bad lot as a rule, but your boy was not; he was only a fool. But he was my heir. I’d left him everything in my will.”

“Father, you always declared that—”

“Never mind what I declared. It wasn’t safe to trust you with the knowledge while he lived. You would have poisoned me.”

“Father, your insults are beyond all endurance!” she cried, writhing under the lash and stung to fury. She started up with hands clenched.

“There, there, I told you so!” he whined, recoiling in mock terror. “Trimmer, Trimmer! Help! She’ll kill me!”

“It would serve you right if I did lay violent hands upon you,” she cried. “If I took you by the throat, and squeezed the life out of you, as I could, though you are my father. You’re not a man, you’re a beast—a monster—a soulless caricature, whose only delight is the torturing of others. I could have been a good woman and a good daughter, but for your carping, sneering insults. At different times, you have imputed to me every vile motive that suggested itself to your evil brain. You hated me 187 from my birth. You hate me still—and I hate you. Yes, it would serve you right if I killed you. It would separate you from your wretched money, and send your soul to torment—”

“Trimmer! Trimmer!” screamed the old man, as she advanced nearer with threatening gestures, and fingers working nervously.

Trimmer entered as noiselessly as a cat.

“Trimmer, save me from this woman—she’ll kill me. I’m an old man! I’m helpless. She’s threatening to choke me. Have her put out. I can’t protect myself, or I’d—I’d have her prosecuted—the vampire!”

Mrs. Swinton recovered herself in the presence of Trimmer, and drew away in contempt. She flung back the chair upon which she had been sitting with an angry movement, and she would have liked to sweep out of the room; but fear seized her at the thought of what she had done. This was not the way to mollify the old man, who could ruin her by a word.

“I am sorry, father,” she faltered. “I forgot that you are an invalid, and not responsible for your moods.”

He leaned forward on the edge of the bed, resting on his hands, and positively spat out his next words. 188

“Bah! You’re a hypocrite. Go home to your sky-pilot. But keep your mouth shut—do you hear?”

“I hear, father.”

“Pay them back your money if you like, but don’t ask me for another cent, or I’ll tell the truth—do you hear?”

“I hear, father,” she replied, with a sob.

“Open the door for her, Trimmer.”

Trimmer darted to the door as if his politeness had been questioned, and bowed the daughter out.

When her footsteps had died away, he walked to the bed and looked down contemptuously at the mumbling creature. He surveyed him critically, as a doctor might look at a feverish patient.

“You’re overdoing it,” he said. “You’re getting foolish.”

“That’s right, Trimmer—that’s right. You abuse me, too!” whined the old man, bursting into tears. “Isn’t it bad enough to have one’s child a thief, without servants bullying one?”

“You are the last person to talk to Mrs. Swinton about stealing.”

“Keep your tongue still!”

“If your daughter knew what I know!”

“You don’t know anything, sir—you don’t know anything!”

“I know a good deal. Three times during your 189 illness, you were light-headed—you remember?”

“I tell you, I’m not a thief. The money was mine—mine! Her mother was my wife—it belonged to me. Doesn’t a wife’s money belong to her husband?”

“Tut, tut! Lie down and be quiet. I only kept quiet on condition that you set things straight for your daughter in your will, and left her the three thousand a year her mother placed in your care.”

“Trimmer, you’re presuming. Trimmer, you’re a bully. I’ll—I’ll cut your fifty thousand dollars out of my will—”

“And I’ll promptly cut you out of existence, if you do,” murmured Trimmer, bending down.

“That’s right, threaten me—threaten me,” whined the old man. “You’re all against me—a lot of thieves and scoundrels! What would become of the world, if there weren’t a few people like me to look after the money and save it from being squandered in soup-kitchens, and psalm-smiting, and Sunday schools?”

“Lie down and be quiet. You’ve done enough talking for to-day. I’m going to have you moved into the other room.”

“I’ll not be treated as a child, sir. I’ll stop your wages, sir. I’ll—”

“I’ve had no wages for many months. Lie down.”