Englefield Grange Part 50

Henry took it nervously. The mystery of the carpet bag still haunted him, and seemed ominous of evil. He glanced hurriedly over the account, which ran as follows:--

"DANGEROUS ACCIDENT.--On Friday afternoon a gentleman, in attempting to cross a plank from the sh.o.r.e near London Bridge to reach a distant steamer, lost his footing and fell into the water. With great difficulty he was brought to land by the activity and energy of those around him.

He was immediately taken in a cab to Guy's Hospital, but recovering animation before he reached there, he showed by evident signs that he must have been under the influence of incipient brain fever, for he called frantically for his carpet bag, which had fallen with him into the river. He is now lying in a very precarious state at the hospital.

We understand from good authority that the gentleman who has had such a narrow escape from drowning is Mr. Arthur Franklyn, whose wife died suddenly in a railway carriage a few weeks since. His present state, and the accident that preceded it, may therefore be easily accounted for under such painful circ.u.mstances."

"It is no more than I expected," said Kate, as her cousin threw down the paper. "Arthur has looked dreadfully ill since poor Louisa's death. Do you know, Henry, I fear he has no claim on her property after all."

"What makes you think so?" asked Henry, in surprise.

"Oh, the remark he made to me on the day he started for London after you left. I understood him to say that he had taken no steps to ascertain his position with regard to his wife's property before his marriage."

"I had some suspicions that such was the case," replied Henry, "when he asked me to recommend him a lawyer; and I believe he had been with Mrs.

Franklyn to call on Mr. Norton for the purpose of arranging for him to witness certain signatures on the day of her sudden death. It certainly will be a disappointment to Arthur if his second wife's property is all lost to him; but from his own account of his position and means I do not suppose he will feel it much--at all events we must hope so."

Kate made no reply. She had seen more of Arthur Franklyn during his visit than her cousin, and she could not get rid of the idea that a great deal of the uneasy and perturbed state of mind so evident in his manner and appearance was caused by anxiety about money.

George Longford, according to his promise, brought to Englefield Grange daily accounts of Arthur Franklyn's state--at times alarming, at others hopeful.

More than once Henry visited the hospital to obtain personally the opinion of the surgeons, yet nearly a week pa.s.sed before his brother-in-law was able in a lucid interval to recognise him.

But this recognition was attended with painful results. For a few minutes the sick man spoke calmly to Henry, and listened to his kind and hopeful words. Suddenly, as if stung by some painful recollection, he exclaimed--

"Go, go; you are come to reproach me! O f.a.n.n.y, f.a.n.n.y, what have I done!

My children, my children! Don't revenge yourself on them, Henry, by letting them starve!"

Poor Henry was hurried away, and returned home agonised by the thought, not only that his presence at the hospital might have hastened his brother-in-law's death, but also by the terrible fear which his words had suggested. What, oh! what had poor Arthur done?

Nothing now remained but patience and hope, yet as week after week pa.s.sed by all hope seemed to die in the hearts of his children and the loving friends in whose care they were placed.

Not till the second week in July could Arthur Franklyn be p.r.o.nounced out of danger; and in this hopeful condition we will leave him, to return to our friends at Kilburn.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

CHARLES HERBERT GIVES HIS OPINION.

Mrs. Armstrong had seen very little of her eldest sister for years, nor of Mrs. Herbert since Mary's visit to Park Lane. Sir James Elstone, the old admiral, still resided with his wife in the south of France. He was, as we know from Mrs. Lake's information to Edward Armstrong before his marriage, more than thirty years older than Louisa St. Clair, and was now eighty years of age. Louisa, although she bore the t.i.tle of Lady Elstone, performed the office of a kind and faithful nurse to her aged husband, who was fast sinking into the grave.

Her sister Helen, Mrs. Herbert, possessed the good health and sunny temper which made her society always welcome at the homes of her two sisters. Maria had a family to care for, and she was naturally a home bird; and besides, she had a sweet companion and comforter in her daughter Mary.

Mrs. Herbert, while her son was away, had no home ties, and the colonel, who had spent more than half his life in India, preferred the beautiful climate of the Mediterranean to the fogs and uncertain weather of England. All these facts were turned into arguments in favour of her request by Lady Elstone when she wrote and asked her sister Helen and the colonel to join them at their _chateau_ on the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean. This invitation arrived soon after Mary's visit to Park Lane, and a year had elapsed since Mrs. Armstrong had seen her sister Helen, who, however, kept up a constant correspondence with Mary.

On the Tuesday morning, at the time when Kate Franklyn placed Monday's _Times_ in the hands of her cousin, Henry Halford, Mary sat reading to her mother a letter of many pages from her favourite aunt. She had already on the previous day read and commented upon the paragraph referred to with earnest sympathy. Not even her mother could guess the longing in her daughter's heart to be able to show that sympathy to the children of the suffering father, and the nieces and nephews of Henry Halford. But another subject occupied her now. Charles Herbert's regiment was on its way to England from Canada, and Mrs. Herbert in her letter stated that they hoped to be in Park Lane to receive their son before the end of July, and that Mrs. Armstrong and her daughter were to expect a very speedy visit to Lime Grove after their arrival.

"We were sorry to leave poor Aunt Louisa just at this time," wrote Mrs.

Herbert, "for the old admiral cannot last long. However, your uncle has promised to go to her at a moment's notice, for at her husband's death there will be too much for a woman to manage, especially with lawyers."

All Mary's pity for her aunt Louisa could not serve to control her pleasure at the prospect of seeing her aunt and uncle and cousin Charles.

"O mamma!" she said, as she refolded the crinkly sheets of foreign paper, "is not this delightful news--at least all excepting that about poor Aunt and Uncle Elstone? but Aunt Louisa is a much greater stranger to me than Aunt Helen, she has lived abroad so long with uncle. But I shall count the days till Aunt Helen comes; are you not pleased, mamma?"

"Indeed I am," said Mrs. Armstrong; "but, Mary, if you are invited again to Park Lane, are you prepared to accept the invitation?"

"Not for longer than a day or two, mamma, and I don't think Aunt Helen will ask me; she was too much annoyed about the consequences of my visit last year; you remember what she said about it."

"Yes, Mary; but, my child, you will be one-and-twenty next month; have you made up your mind to remain single all your life?"

"Yes, mamma," said Mary, with a merry laugh; "_I_ mean to be a useful old maid, attending to my dear mother, and that 'blessing to mothers,' a kind maiden aunt to the children of my brothers when they are married----"

"Unless----" said Mrs. Armstrong, with a smile.

"Unless what, mamma? An impossibility?"

"What is impossible, Mary?"

"Why, for papa to change his mind. After he has once made a resolve he adheres to it, even when he has been convinced that he is in error."

"He considers that adherence to his resolve is a manly firmness of purpose," said her mother.

"Well, mamma, this firmness of purpose puzzles me sometimes, for a great writer has said that the man who changes an erroneous opinion after being convinced that it is wrong proves that he is wiser when he changes it than he was when he formed it."

"A little bit of philosophy, Mary," said her mother, smiling; "and so I suppose you consider the _unless_ an impossibility?"

"Indeed I do, mamma, so we will not talk about it;" and rising hastily as if to strengthen her determination, she seated herself at the piano, and commenced practising a somewhat difficult sonato of Beethoven's.

The weeks pa.s.sed away, and the morning of the 15th of July dawned in summer glory, giving a promise that for once St. Swithin would be propitious. There was a strange sense of happiness in Mary's heart as she entered the dining-room, and looked out upon the distant hills of Highgate and Harrow, which appeared almost transparent beneath the purple haze that rested upon them.

The source of Mary's happiness was a slight one, it is true, but it augured better things, and was therefore tinted with the rainbow hues of hope. She had driven her puny carriage to the station the evening before to meet her father, who, having encountered Mr. Drummond on the platform, invited him to take a seat in the carriage as far as the Limes.

The offer was accepted, and Mr. Drummond, quite unaware that he was touching on dangerous ground, remarked, as soon as the carriage started--

"What a narrow escape from death that young man, Arthur Franklyn, has had! but he is so much better to-day, that they are going to remove him to the Isle of Wight on Tuesday or Wednesday. I am heartily glad of it, for the sake of those poor motherless children."

"Yes, indeed, it would be a great burden and expense to their grandfather to have to provide for four children, which I suppose he can ill afford."

"I don't know that, Armstrong, even if their father was not in a position to make provision for their maintenance. Of course it would add to his expenses, but not beyond his means. What made you think otherwise?"

"Oh!" replied Mr. Armstrong, who already began to regret having offered his friend a lift, "well, schoolmasters are always poor as a rule, and in some cases half-educated; but," he continued hastily, "Dr. Halford is certainly an exception to the latter a.s.sumption."

"Schoolmasters in provincial towns and villages are not as a rule men of education; it was especially so when we were boys," said Mr. Drummond, firing a shot at a venture, which made Mr. Armstrong wince; "but my friend Dr. Halford is also an exception to your first a.s.sertion. Why, he gave his daughter 1000_l._ on her wedding-day, and I know it has cost him nearly another thousand to educate his son for the Church."

"Was not that a waste of money, if he intended him to be a schoolmaster as he now is?"

"No, certainly not; with a university education, a man who has been accustomed from his boyhood to teaching and school routine is beyond all others most suitable to conduct a school. And besides," continued Mr.

Drummond, "what are the head masters of Eton and Harrow, or Rugby, but schoolmasters and gentlemen? and how often have the masters of these schools been chosen for the office of bishop! and some eventually have attained to the position of Archbishop of Canterbury."