Diana Tempest Volume I Part 13

John was eleven years old when, during a memorable Easter holidays, his father died, and lay in state in the round room in the western tower, and was buried at midnight by torchlight in the little Norman church at Overleigh, as had been the custom of the Tempests from time immemorial.

His father's death made very little difference to John, except that his holidays were spent with Miss Fane, an aunt in London: and Charles left to become a butler with a footman under him; and the other servants, too, seemed to melt away, leaving only Mitty, and Mr. Parker, and Mrs.

Alc.o.c.k, in the old shuttered home. Mr. Goodwin was John's tutor during the holidays. It was he who saved John's life at the railway station, at the risk of his own.

No one had been aware, till the accident happened, that John had been particularly attached to his tutor. He evidently got on with him, and was conveniently pleased with his society, but he had, to a peculiar degree, the stolid indifferent manner of most schoolboys. He was absolutely undemonstrative, and he tacitly resented his aunt's occasional demonstrative affection to himself. When will unmarried elder people learn that children are not to be deceived? John was very courteous, even as a boy, but his best friends could not say of him, at that or at any later period of his life, that he was engaging. He had, through life, a cold manner. No one had supposed, what really was the case, namely, that he would have given his body to be burned for the sake of the kind, cheerful young man who had taken an easy fancy to him on his arrival at school, and had subsequently become sufficiently fond of him to prefer being his tutor to that of any one else. He guessed John's absolute devotion to himself as little as any one. John's boyish thoughts, and feelings, and affections, were of that shy yet fierce kind, which shrink equally from expression and detection. No one had so far found them hard to deal with, because no one had thought of dealing with them.

Yet John sat for two days on the stairs outside the sick man's room, after the accident, unnoticed and unreprimanded. He was never seen to cry, but he was, nevertheless, almost unable to see out of his eyes. His aunt, Miss Fane, at whose house in London he was spending his Christmas holidays, had gone down to the country to nurse a sister, and the house was empty, but for the servants and the trained nurse. The doctor, who came several times a day, always found him sitting on the stairs, or appearing stealthily from an upper landing, working himself down by the bal.u.s.ters. He said very little, but the doctor seemed to understand the situation, and always had a kind and encouraging word for him, and gave him Mr. Goodwin's love, and took messages and offers of his best books from John to the invalid. But during those two long days, he always had some excellent reason for John's not visiting his tutor. He was invariably, at that moment, tired, or asleep, or resting, or---- A deep anxiety settled on John's mind. Something was being kept from him.

Christmas Day came and pa.s.sed. Mitty's present, and a Christmas card from a friend, the Latin master's youngest daughter, came for John, but they were unopened. The next day brought three doctors who stayed a long time in the drawing-room after they had been in the sick-room.

John sat on the stairs with clenched hands. At last he got up deliberately and went into the drawing-room. Two of the doctors were sitting down. One was standing on the hearth-rug looking into the fire.

"It can't be done," he was saying emphatically. "Both must go."

All three men turned in surprise as John entered the room. He came up to the fire, unaware of the enormity of the crime he was committing in interrupting a consultation. He tried to speak. He had got ready what he wished to ask. But his lips only moved; no words came out.

The consultation was evidently finished, for the man on the hearth-rug, who seemed anxious to get away, was b.u.t.toning his fur coat, and holding his hands to the fire for a last warm. They were very kind. They were not jocose with him, as is the horrible way of some elder persons with childhood's troubles. The old doctor who came daily put his hand on his shoulder and told him Mr. Goodwin had been very ill, but that he was going to get better, going to be quite well and strong again presently.

John said nothing. He was convinced there was something in the background.

"Twelve o'clock to-morrow, then," said the man who was in a hurry, and he took up his hat and went out.

"I have two boys about the same age as you," said the old doctor, patting John's shoulder. "Tom and Edward. They are making a little model steam-engine. I expect you are fond of engines, aren't you?"

"Not just now, thank you," said John. "I am sometimes."

"I wish you would come and see it to-morrow," continued the doctor.

"They would like to show it you, I know. I could send you back in the carriage when it has set me down here about--shall we say twelve? Do come and see it."

"Thank you," said John almost inaudibly, "you are very kind, but--I am engaged."

Miss Fane always said she was engaged when she did not want to accept an invitation, and John supposed it was a polite way of saying he would rather not go. The other doctor laughed, but not unkindly, and the father of Tom and Edward absently drew on his gloves, as if turning over something in his mind.

"Have you seen the new lion, and the birds that fly under water at the Zoo?" he inquired slowly, "and the snakes being fed?"

"No," said John.

"Ah! That's the thing to see," he said thoughtfully. "Tom and Edward have been. Dear me! How they enjoyed it! They went at feeding time, mid-day. And my nephew, Harry Austin, who is twenty-one and at college, went with them, and said he would not have missed it for anything. You go and see that, with that nice man who answers the bell. I will send you two tickets to-night."

"Thank you," said John.

The two doctors shook hands with him and departed.

"You may as well keep your tickets," said the younger one as they went downstairs. "He does not mean going."

"He is a queer little devil," said Tom's and Edward's father. "But I like him. There's grit in him, and he watches outside that room like a dog. I wish I could have got him out of the house to-morrow, poor little beggar."

John stood quite still in the middle of the long, empty drawing-room when they were gone. A nameless foreboding of some horrible calamity was upon him. And yet--and yet--they had said he was going to get better, to be quite strong again. He waylaid the trained nurse for the twentieth time, and she said the same.

He suffered himself to be taken out for a walk, after hearing from her that Mr. Goodwin wished it; and in the afternoon he consented to go with George, Miss Fane's cheerful, good-natured young footman, to the "Christian Minstrels." But he lay awake all night, and in the morning after breakfast he crept noiselessly back to the stairs. It was a foggy morning, and the gas was lit. Jessie, the stout, silly housemaid, always in a perspiration or tears, was sweeping the landing just above him, sniffing audibly as she did so.

"Poor young gentleman," she was saying below her breath to her colleague. "I can't a-bear the thought of the operation. It seems to turn my inside clean upside down."

John clutched hold of the banisters. His heart gave one throb, and then stood quite still.

"Coleman says as both 'is 'ands must go," said the other maid also in a whisper. "She told me herself. She says she's never seen such a case all her born days. They've been trying all along to save one, but they can't. They're to be took hoff to-day."

John understood at last.

He slipped downstairs again, and stood a moment in hesitation where to go: not to the little back-room on the ground-floor, which had been set apart for his use by his aunt. He might be found there. George might come in to see if he would fancy a game of battledore and shuttle-c.o.c.k, or the cook might step up with a little cake, or the butler himself might bring him a comic paper. The servants were always kind. But he felt that he could not bear any kindness just now. He must be somewhere alone by himself.

The drawing-room door was locked, but the key was on the outside. He turned it cautiously and went in. The room was dark and fiercely cold.

Bands of yellow fog peered in over the tops of the shutters. The room had been prepared the day before for the consultation, but now it had returned to its former shuttered, m.u.f.fled state. John took the key from the outside and locked himself in.

Then he flung himself on his face on to one of the m.u.f.fled settees and stuffed the dust-sheet into his mouth. Anything not to scream--a low strangled cry was wrenched out of him; another and another, and another, but the dust sheet told no tales. He dragged it down with him on to the floor and bit into the wet, cobwebby material. And by degrees the paroxysm pa.s.sed. The power to keep silence returned. At last John sat up and looked round him, breathing hard. A clock ticked in the darkness, and presently struck a single chime. Half-past something--half-past eleven it must be--and they were coming at twelve.

Was there no help?

"G.o.d," said John suddenly, in a low, distinct voice in the darkness. "Do something. If you don't stop it n.o.body else will. You know you can if you like. You divided the Red Sea. Remember all your plagues. Oh, G.o.d!

G.o.d! make something happen. There's half an hour still. Think of him.

Both hands. And all the clever books he was going to write, and all the things he was going to do. Oh, G.o.d! G.o.d! and _such_ a cricketer!"

There was a short silence. John felt absolutely certain G.o.d would answer. He waited a long time, but no one spoke. The fog deepened outside. The quarter struck faintly from the church in the next street.

"I give up one hand," said John, stretching out both of his. "I only ask for one now. Let him keep one--the other one. He is so clever, he could soon learn to write with his left, and perhaps hooks don't hurt after the first. Oh, G.o.d! I dare say he could manage with one, but not both, not both."

John repeated the last words over and over again in an agony of supplication. He would _make_ G.o.d hear.

It was growing very dark. The link-boys were crying in the streets: a carriage stopped at the door.

"Oh, G.o.d! They're coming. Not both; not both!" gasped John, and the sweat broke from his forehead.

Two more carriages--lowered voices in the pa.s.sage, and quiet footfalls going upstairs. John prayed without ceasing. The house had become very silent. At last the silence awed him, and an overmastering longing to know seized upon him. He stole out of the drawing-room, and sped swiftly upstairs. On the landing opposite Mr. Goodwin's room the butler was standing listening. Everything was quite still. John could hear the gas burning. There was a can of hot water just outside the door. The steam curled upwards out of the spout. As he reached the landing the door was softly opened, and the nurse raised the heavy can and lifted it into the room.

Through the open door came a hoa.r.s.e inarticulate sound, which seemed to pierce into John's brain.

"Courage," said a gentle voice, and the door was closed again. The butler breathed heavily, and there was a whimper from the upper landing.

Trembling from head to foot John fled down the stairs again unperceived into the drawing-room, and crouched down on the floor near the open door, turning his face to the wall. Every now and then a strong shudder pa.s.sed over him, and he beat his little black head dumbly against the wall. But he did not move until at last the doctors came down. He let the first two pa.s.s, he could not speak to them; and it was a long time before the father of Tom and Edward appeared. John came suddenly out upon him at the turn of the stairs.

"Is it both?" he said, clutching his coat.

"Both what, my boy?" said the doctor, puzzled by the sudden onslaught, and looking down at the blackened convulsed face and s.h.a.ggy hair.

"Both _hands_."

The doctor hesitated.

"Yes," he said gravely. "I am grieved to say it is." John flung up his arms.