Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 30

"It is the custom in France, sir, I a.s.sure you. And, besides, I am to you a stranger."

"Not altogether a stranger; I believe I know something of your mother's family," said Dr. Frost. "How came your father to fix upon my school for you?"

"My mother knew of your school, sir: she and my father used to talk of placing me at it. And an English gentleman who came lately to Rouen spoke of it--he said he knew you very well. That again put into my father's head to send me."

It was the same Van Rheyn that they had thought--the son of Miss Emma Aberleigh. She had been dead two years.

"Are you a Protestant or a Roman Catholic?" questioned Dr. Frost.

"I am Protestant, sir: the same that my mother was. We attended the eglise of Monsieur le Pasteur Mons, of the Culte Evangelique."

The doctor asked him if he would take anything before dinner, and he chose a gla.s.s of eau sucree. The mal-de-mer had been rather bad, he said, and he had not been able to eat since.

Evidently Hall did not approve of eau sucree. She had never made eau sucary, she said, when sent to for it. Bringing in the water and sugar, she stood by to watch Van Rheyn mix it, her face sour, her lips drawn in. I am sure it gave her pleasure, when he asked for a few drops of orange-flower water, to be able to say there was not such a thing in the house.

"This young gentleman is the son of the Miss Emma Aberleigh you once knew, Hall," spoke the doctor, with a view no doubt to putting her on good terms with the new pupil.

"Yes, sir," she answered crustily. "He favours his mamma about the eyes."

"She must have had very nice eyes," I put in.

"And so she had," said Van Rheyn, looking at me gratefully. "Thank you for saying so. I wish you could have known her!"

"And might I ask, sir, what has become of the other Miss Aberleigh?"

asked Hall of Van Rheyn. "The young lady who went off to Injee with her husband on the wedding-day."

"You would say my Aunt Margaret," he rejoined. "She is quite well. She and the major and the children will make the voyage to Europe next year."

After the eau sucree came to an end, the doctor turned him over to me, telling me to take care of him till dinner-time, which that day would be early. Van Rheyn said he should like to unpack his box, and we went upstairs together. Growing confidential over the unpacking, he gave me sc.r.a.ps of information touching his home and family, the mention of one item leading to another.

His baptismal name in full, he said, was Charles Jean Aberleigh; his father's was Jean Marie. Their home was a tres joli chateau close to Rouen: in five minutes you could walk there. It was all much changed since his mother died (he seemed to have loved her with a fervent love and to revere her memory); the last thing he did on coming away for England was to take some flowers to her grave. It was thought in Rouen that his father was going to make a second marriage with one of the Demoiselles de Tocqueville, whom his Aunt Claribelle did not like. His Aunt Claribelle, his father's sister, had come to live at the chateau when his mother died; but if that Theresine de Tocqueville came into the house she would quit it. The Demoiselles de Tocqueville had hardly any _dot_,--which would be much against the marriage, Aunt Claribelle thought, and bad for his father; because when he, Charles, should be the age of twenty-one, the money came to him; it had been his mother's, and was so settled: and his father's own property was but small. Of course he should wish his father to keep always as much as he pleased, but Aunt Claribelle thought the English trustees would not allow that. Aunt Claribelle's opinion was, that his father had at length decided to send him to a pension in England while he made the marriage; but he (Charles) knew that his mother had wished him to finish his education in England, and to go to one of the two colleges to which English gentlemen went.

"Here comes old Fontaine," I interrupted at this juncture, seeing his arrival from the window.

Van Rheyn looked up from his s.h.i.+rts, which he was counting. He seemed to have the tidiest ways in the world. "Who is it that you say? Fontaine?"

"Monsieur Fontaine, the French master. You can talk away with him in your native tongue as much as you like, Van Rheyn."

"But I have come here to speak the English tongue, not the French,"

debated he, looking at me seriously. "My father wishes me to speak and read it without any accent; and I wish it also."

"You speak it very well already."

"But you can hear that it is not my native tongue--that I am a foreigner."

"Yes."

"Well, I must learn to speak it without that--as the English do. It will be necessary."

I supposed he might allude to his future life. "What are you to be, Van Rheyn?" I inquired.

"What profession, do you ask? I need not be any: I have enough fortune to be a rentier--I don't know what you call that in English; it means a gentleman who lives on his money. But I wish, myself, to be an English priest."

"An English priest! Do you mean a parson?"

"Yes, I mean that. So you see I must learn the English tongue. My mother used to talk to me about the priests in her land----"

"Parsons, Van Rheyn."

"I beg your pardon: I forget. And I fear I have caught up the French names for things since my mother died. It was neither priest nor parson she used to call the English ministers."

"Clergymen, perhaps."

"That was it. She said the clergymen were good men, and she should like me to be one. In winter, when it was cold, and she had some fire in her chamber, I used to sit up there with her, after coming home from cla.s.se, and we talked together, our two selves. I should have much money, she said, when I grew to be a man, and could lead an idle life. But she would not like that: she wanted me to be a good man, and to go to heaven when I died, where she would be; and she thought if I were a clergyman I should have serious thoughts always. So I wish to be a clergyman."

He said all this with the utmost simplicity and composure, just as he might have spoken of going for a ride. There could be no mistaking that he was of a thoroughly straightforward and simple-minded nature.

"It might involve your living over here, Van Rheyn: once you were in Orders."

"Yes, I know. Papa would not mind. England was mamma's country, and she loved it. There was more peace in England than in France, she thought."

"I say, she must have been a good mother, Van Rheyn."

In a moment his grey eyes were s.h.i.+ning at me through a mist of tears.

"Oh, she was so good, so good! You can never know. If she had lived I should never have had sorrow."

"What did she die of?"

"Ah, I cannot tell. She was well in the morning, and she was dead at night. Not that she was strong ever. It was one Dimanche. We had been to the office, she and I----"

"What office?"

"Oh, pardon--I forget I am speaking English. I mean to church. Monsieur Mons had preached; and we were walking along the street towards home afterwards, mamma talking to me about the sermon, which had been a very holy one, when we met the Aunt Claribelle, who had come into the town for high ma.s.s at St. Ouen. Mamma asked her to come home and dine with us; and she said yes, but she must first go to say bon-jour to old Madame Soubitez. As she parted from us, there was suddenly a great outcry. It was fete at Rouen that Sunday. Some bands of music were to play on the estrade in the public garden, competing for a prize, consequently the streets were crowded. We looked back at the noise, and saw many horses, without riders, galloping along towards us; men were running after them, shouting and calling; and the people, mad with fright, tumbled over one another in the effort to get away. Later, we heard that these horses, frightened by something, had broken out of an hotel post-yard. Well, mamma gave just a cry of fear and held my hand tighter, as we set off to run with the rest, the horses stamping wildly after us. But the people pushed between us, and I lost her. She was at home before me, and was sitting at the side of the fountain, inside the chateau entrance-gate, when I got up, her face all white and blue, and her neck and throat beating, as she clung to the nearest lion with both hands. It alarmed me more than the horses had, for I had never seen her look so. 'Come in, mamma,' I said, 'and take a little gla.s.s of cordial;'

but she could not answer me, she did not stir. I called one of the servants, and by-and-by she got a little breath again, and went into the house, leaning upon both of us, and so up to her chamber. Quite immediately papa came home: he always went into town to his club on the Sunday mornings, and he ran for Monsieur Pet.i.t, the medecin--the doctor.

By seven o'clock in the evening, mamma was dead."

"Oh dear! What was the cause?"

"Papa did not tell me. He and Monsieur Pet.i.t talked about the heart: they said it was feeble. Oh, how we cried, papa and I! He cried for many days. I hope he will not bring home Theresine de Tocqueville!"

The dinner-bell rang out, and we went down. Dr. Frost was putting up the letter which old Fontaine had been translating to him. It was full of directions about Van Rheyn's health. What he was to do, and what not to do. Monsieur Van Rheyn said his son was not strong: he was not to be allowed to do gymnastics or "boxing," or to play at rough games, or take violent exercise of any kind; and a small gla.s.s of milk was to be given him at night when he went to bed. If the clothes sent over with him were not suitable to the school, or in accordance with the English mode, Dr.

Frost was prayed to be at the trouble of procuring him new ones. He was to be brought well on in all the studies necessary to const.i.tute the "gentilhomme," and especially in the speaking and reading of English.

Dr. Frost directed his spectacles to Charles Van Rheyn, examining him from top to toe. The round, red face, and the strongly-built frame appeared to give nothing but indications of robust health. The doctor questioned him in what way he was not strong--whether he was subject to a cough, or to want of appet.i.te, and other such items. But Van Rheyn seemed to know nothing about it, and said he had always been quite well.

"The father fears we should make him into a muscular Englishman, hence these restrictions," thought Dr. Frost.

In the afternoon the fellows began to come in thick and threefold: Tod amongst them, who arrived about tea-time. To describe their amazement when they saw Van Rheyn is quite beyond me. It seemed that they never meant to leave off staring. Some of them gave him a little chaff, even that first night. Van Rheyn was very shy and silent. Entirely at his ease as he had been with me alone, the numbers seemed to daunt him; to strike him and his courage into himself.