Ralph Touchett

“ Touchett—a fact which caused Ralph to congratulate himself afresh on Sir Matthew Hope’s having promised to come down in the five o’clock train and spend the night. Mrs. Touchett, he learned, on reaching home, had been constantly with the old man and was with him at that moment; and this fact made Ralph say to himself that, after all, what his mother wanted was just easy occasion. The finer natures were those that shone at the larger times. Isabel went to her own room, noting throughout the house that perceptible hush which precedes a crisis. ”

“ He has got rather a good man, but I’m afraid he’s beyond human help. I wanted him to take with him some clever fellow—I mean some sharp young doctor; but he wouldn’t hear of it. If you don’t mind my saying so, I think it was a most extraordinary time for Mrs. Touchett to decide on going to America.”
Isabel had listened eagerly; her face was full of pain and wonder. “My aunt does that at fixed periods and lets nothing turn her aside. When the date comes round she starts; I think she’d have started if Ralph had been dying.”
“I sometimes think he is dying,” Lord Warburton said. ”

“ Touchett such a declaration would savour of immodesty, even of arrogance. She risked it nevertheless in talking with Ralph, with whom she talked a great deal and with whom her conversation was of a sort that gave a large licence to extravagance. Her cousin used, as the phrase is, to chaff her; he very soon established with her a reputation for treating everything as a joke, and he was not a man to neglect the privileges such a reputation conferred. She accused him of an odious want of seriousness, of laughing at all things, beginning with himself. ”

“ Ralph answered. “She’s making fools of us all. She’ll please herself, of course; but she’ll do so by studying human nature at close quarters and yet retaining her liberty. She has started on an exploring expedition, and I don’t think she’ll change her course, at the outset, at a signal from Gilbert Osmond. She may have slackened speed for an hour, but before we know it she’ll be steaming away again. Excuse another metaphor.”
Mrs. Touchett excused it perhaps, but was not so much reassured as to withhold from Madame Merle the expression of her fears. ”

“ Ralph is really dying, and there’s no other company.” Isabel was prepared for this news, having received from Henrietta Stackpole a detailed account of her journey to England with her appreciative patient. Ralph had arrived more dead than alive, but she had managed to convey him to Gardencourt, where he had taken to his bed, which, as Miss Stackpole wrote, he evidently would never leave again. She added that she had really had two patients on her hands instead of one, inasmuch as Mr. Goodwood, who had been of no earthly use, was quite as ailing, in a different way, as Mr. Touchett. ”

“ Ralph did not choose to pry into the motives of this transformation; and, to say the truth, he was so occupied in thinking of the slow progress of his own affairs that he soon forgot the matter altogether, accustomed himself to call the servant Tuckett, and hardly remembered that he ever had another name. Slow progress! Oh, the eager hopes of youth, how they hurry us on to disappointing conclusions! He had been five days in the house of the Duke of Norfolk. He had seen more or less of that nobleman every day, and had been treated by him with kindness and distinction ”

“ Tucker cheerfully. “I don’t expect much more than we’ve got now.”
“How much have you got?” asked Murray.
“Well, our broker picked up a few shares, and there were some more in the estate of Ralph’s uncle, and the president of the company kindly arranged it so that we could get a little more. Such a delightful man he is, too! It was when I heard he had a place in this vicinity, where he came for an outing every year, that I insisted upon Ralph’s buying this ranch. ”

“ But how do you make out the brothership? This billet is signed Kate Stilling; the other man said Ralph's servant was called Jack Tuckett."
"A traveling name, sir, a traveling name," replied Roger, mingling in the conversation; "I know the man quite well, and have seen his pretty sister Kate more than once. He may call himself Jack Tuckett at the third table, if he likes, but his real name is Gaunt Stilling, and so you will find him written down in the chamberlain's book, for I saw it myself. ”

“ So complete was his abstraction, however, that Ralph, usually as quick-sighted as any man, did not observe that he was followed by a shambling figure, which at one time stole behind him with noiseless footsteps, at another crept a few paces before him, and at another glided along by his side; at all times regarding him with an eye so keen, and a look so eager and attentive, that it was more like the expression of an intrusive face in some powerful picture or strongly-marked dream, than the scrutiny even of a most interested and anxious observer. ”

“ No more was said as the scout, Dick and Rasco rode away down the trail by which they had come. But, once out of sight, Tucker raised his fist and shook it savagely.
"I'll get square with you some day, Pawnee Brown, mark my words!" he muttered between his set teeth.
"We'll all get square," said Ross. "I hate the sight of that man."
"I understand the boomers have made him their leader," broke in Skimmy. "If they have, he'll try to break through to Oklahoma as sure as guns are guns."
"And he'll get shot, too," answered Tucker dryly. ”

“ Tucker. “But, of course, your doctor is right. Poor Ralph!”
“Please don’t do that,” pleaded Murray.
“Poor Ralph!” sighed Mrs. Tucker again. “The doctors don’t think he’ll live more than a lifetime.”
“Put in another application and take another examination,” urged Murray in despair. “The doctor may have been misled by some trifling temporary trouble.”
“What would be the use?” asked Tucker. “I’ve already invested the premium money in a small ranch.”
“It’s too bad,” remarked Mrs. Tucker lugubriously. “That money would have done the company so much good.” ”

“ No one cared to go near Murray all the rest of that day.
Soon after the first of the following month another missive arrived—a mere formal affidavit, headed “Certificate of Life,” and solemnly averring that “Ralph Tucker’s heart has not ceased to murmur along in the 141 land of the living.” This was followed a month later by a certificate from a physician to the effect that “a restful ranch life is especially conducive to longevity, and Mr. Tucker’s health continues to show all the improvement that can be expected in a man who had nothing the matter with him in the first place.” ”

“ Tucker urged on the fourth. “Poor Ralph!” was Mrs. Tucker’s comment on the fifth.
“Poor Dave Murray!” grumbled Murray, and he and the doctor started West the next day. “Might as well get this thing settled,” he said. “You and I have got to be on harmonious terms with the stock-holders. Besides, there’s an early grave yawning for me if I don’t succeed in making peace with Mrs. Tucker. I tell you, Doctor, when a woman decides to make things uncomfortable for a man,—well, the man might just as well resign himself to being perpetually uncomfortable.” ”

“ Flushed in the new radiance of the morning, the long flowing waves of the prairie, the tumbling hills, the mighty rocky peaks stand surprised, as if caught all unprepared by the swift advance, trembling and blushing in the presence of the triumphant King, waiting the royal proclamation that it is time to wake and work, for the day is come. ”

“ Touchett brings her to England.”
Then young Mr. Touchett explained. “My mother, you know, has been spending the winter in America, and we’re expecting her back. She writes that she has discovered a niece and that she has invited her to come out with her.”
“I see,—very kind of her,” said Lord Warburton. Is the young lady interesting?”
“We hardly know more about her than you; my mother has not gone into details. She chiefly communicates with us by means of telegrams, and her telegrams are rather inscrutable. ”

“ The sum thus made over was not a very large one, not a fortune, by any means, but it was enough to make the future of the children no matter of anxiety to their grandfather.
Ralph's first step was to write to Mr. Arnott, offering to pay the two-and-sixpence in the pound, which had once made him so miserable. His creditors, one and all, begged him not to do so, and Ralph thanked them, and accepted their kindness frankly, for the children's sake. ”

“ and, going back to the old gentleman, good did come of it to him too, for he had the pleasure of thinking of it all his life long, and of being envied and courted by all his family besides.’ And Ralph always wound up these mental soliloquies by arriving at the conclusion, that there was nothing like money. ”

“ “Well, they want to feel earnest,” Mr. Touchett allowed; “but it seems as if they took it out in theories mostly. Their radical views are a kind of amusement; they’ve got to have some amusement, and they might have coarser tastes than that. You see they’re very luxurious, and these progressive ideas are about their biggest luxury. They make them feel moral and yet don’t damage their position. They think a great deal of their position; don’t let one of them ever persuade you he doesn’t, for if you were to proceed on that basis you’d be pulled up very short.” ”

“ Ralph brought out bread, and filled a jug with water; they all sat down, and very soon the pie-dish only remained to witness that there had been a pie!
"Now, Ruth," said Ralph Trulock, when dinner was quite over, "I want to have a little talk with you. I want you to tell me all about yourself and your father, for perhaps I may be able to help you to find out your people; but to do that I must know all about you. We must lose no time; for when winter comes what are you to do?"
"Winter's such a long, long way off," said Ollie. ”

“ As a matter of fact, this effort at discipline had been helped by the interests of a difficult profession, but the old conclusion to which Ralph had come when he left college still held sway in his mind, and tinged his views with the melancholy belief that life for most people compels the exercise of the lower gifts and wastes the precious ones, until it forces us to agree that there is little virtue, as well as little profit, in what once seemed to us the noblest part of our inheritance. ”

“ And besides, I don't know them any more than you do," said Ruth.
"I will come for you and go with you the first day, Ollie," said Ralph, not without a feeling of surprise at himself.
"Mr. Trulock, I do think you are the kindest person in the world!" cried Ruth earnestly.
"You won't find many to agree with you there," replied Ralph drily.
"That fat woman called you Old Crusty," remarked Ollie.
"You should not have said that Ollie," Ruth said reprovingly. "She did not mean Mr. Trulock to hear it. Well, sir, I hope our grandfather may turn out to be just like you," she added, turning to Ralph. ”

“ Short was a tolerable specimen; but Ralph cared little for these things. His idol was of a higher order: it was his own opinion of himself. He did not greatly care for other people's admiration, but he must satisfy himself. His notion was, that a man should be perfectly just, utterly truthful and upright, fulfil all his engagements honourably, and never ask or accept a favour. ”

“ The very next day, when the bright, warm rays trickle down through the interlacing branches, bathing the buds and twigs and limbs and trunks and flooding all the woods, the world grows surer of its new joy. ”

“ How would you like to have a thousand back in return for the five hundred you loaned me?"
"What sort of a game are you working on me now?"
"A square deal, Tucker. I've been keeping my eye on you, and I reckon you are the fellow to do what I want done."
"And what do you want done?"
Vorlange stepped closer.
"The boomers are going to try to cross into Oklahoma either to-morrow or day after. There will be a fight, I am certain of it, and somebody will be shot and killed. When you fire I want you to pick out your man—two men—or, rather, a man and a boy, if you can do it. ”

“ Trulock! That is what Gilbert bid me say to you!"
"What?" cried Ralph, with a start. "That I ought to have done that—gone to the poorhouse?"
"No, no,—but that you must look well to it that in this matter you are not governed by pride rather than by any better feeling."
"I have always been a proud man," Ralph answered, drawing himself up. "Mrs. Cloudesley, in living on the barest necessaries of life—and that I do, for bread and water are my usual food, and I roam the country to keep myself warm, to save firing,—I am doing the only thing that can reconcile me to life. ”

“ Trulock," said Ruth, "you are good—too good. You would only have to pinch yourself for us: it could not be. Ollie, don't say any more, dear."
"Listen to me, Ruth," said Ralph earnestly. "You think I am very poor, and I don't wonder at that, because I have given you good reason to think so. But I am not really poor. I have as much to live on as any one else in the Rest: as much as Mrs. Short, or Mrs. Archer, and you know she has six children."
Ollie gave a quick look round the room, mentally contrasting it with Miss Jones's and Mrs. Short's parlour ”

“ Is it true, Ruth Golong? Can't you speak, child?"
"Ruth," said Ralph, "I think this noise may waken Ollie; you'd better go and have a look at him."
"Mrs. Short," continued Ralph, "there will be an inquest to-morrow, and Ruth will be the principal witness. So she must not be talked to about the matter now. And Ollie has the measles, ma'am; did you ever have them?"
"Oh yes, when I was a little gel."
"I've known several people have them a second time," remarked Ralph thoughtfully; "and they go hard with people of a full habit, and not so young as they have been." ”