Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 42

"Why, here's Lady Chava.s.se's name in it!" I exclaimed, glancing over the papers. "Is it about _her_?"

"You'll see who it's about and who it's not about, Johnny," he answered, rolling them up again. "I should like you to retain the t.i.tle I have put to it."

"What is the t.i.tle?"

Duffham undid the first sheet, and held it in silence for me to read. "A Tale of Sin." It took me aback. Sundry considerations naturally struck me.

"I say, Mr. Duffham, if it is about sin, and the people are still living, how will they like to see it talked about in print?"

"You leave the responsibility to me," he said; "I'll take it on my own shoulders. All you have to do is to put it into s.h.i.+p-shape, Johnny. That is a matter of course."

And so I took the papers. But the tale is Duffham's; not mine.

To begin with, and make it explainable, we have to go ever so many years back: but it won't be for long.

Duffham's predecessor as general pract.i.tioner at Church d.y.k.ely was a Mr.

Layne. Some of the poor would spell it without the "y," "Lane," but the other was the proper way. This Mr. Layne was of rather good family, whilst his wife was only a small working farmer's daughter. Mr. Layne lived in a pretty red-brick house, opposite to Duffham's present residence. It stood a yard or two back from the path, and had woodbines and jessamine creeping up its walls; the door was in the middle, a window on each side; and there was a side-door round the little garden-path, that opened into the surgery. The house was his own.

Nearly a mile beyond the village, along the straight highway, stood the gates and lodge of a fine place called Chava.s.se Grange, belonging to Sir Peter Chava.s.se. He remained an old bachelor up to nearly the end of his life. And then, when it seemed to be getting time for him to prepare for the grave, he suddenly got married. The young lady was a Miss Gertrude Cust: as might have been read in the newspapers of the day, announcing the wedding.

But, when Sir Peter brought her home, the wonder to the neighbourhood was, what could have induced the young lady to have him; for she turned out to be a mere child in years, and very beautiful. It was whispered that her family, high, poor, and haughty, had wished her to make a different match; to a broken-down old n.o.bleman, ten times richer than Sir Peter; but that she hated the man. Sir Peter had five thousand a-year, and his baronetcy was not of ancient creation. The new lady was found to be very pleasant: she went into the village often, and made acquaintance with everybody.

It was just about eight months after the marriage that Sir Peter died.

The death was sudden. Mr. Layne was sent for in haste to the Grange, and found he was too late. Too late for Sir Peter: but Lady Chava.s.se, overcome with grief and terror, was in great need of his services.

There was a baby expected at the Grange. Not yet: in three or four months to come. And, until this child should be born, the baronetcy had to lie in abeyance. If it proved to be a boy, he would take his father's t.i.tle and fortune; if a girl, both t.i.tle and fortune would lapse to some distant cousin; a young man, compared with Sir Peter; who was in the navy, and was called Parker Chava.s.se.

And now we must give a line or two from one of the diaries I spoke of.

It is Mr. Layne's: and it appears to have been partly kept as a professional note-book, partly as a private journal. At this time Mr.

Layne was a middle-aged man, with three young children, girls; he had married later than some men do.

[_From an Old Note-book of Mr. Layne's._]

_May 18th._--Have had a fatiguing day. Upon getting home from my visit to Lady Chava.s.se, there were five different messages waiting for me. It never rains but it pours. Ten o'clock P.M., and I am dead tired; but I must write my notes before going to bed.

I wish I could get some strength and spirit into Lady Chava.s.se. This listlessness tells sadly against her. Over and over again it has been on the tip of my tongue to say it may go hard with her unless she uses more exertion; but I don't like to frighten her. Nearly four months now since Sir Peter died, and she has never been out but to church--and to that she goes in the pony-carriage. "My lady, you ought to walk; my lady, you must walk," say I. And it is just as though I spoke to the post at the lodge-gates.

I was much surprised by what she told me to-day--that there was no settlement made on her at her marriage. "Do you think my baby will be a boy, Mr. Layne?" she asked--as if it were possible for me to tell! "If it is not," she went on, "I shall have to turn out of my home here, and I have not another to go to in the wide world." And then it was, seeing my surprise, that she said there had been no settlement. "It was not my husband's intentional fault," she continued, "and I will never have him blamed, come what will. Things were unpleasant at my home, and we hurried on the marriage, he and I, so that he might take me out of it, and there was no time to get a settlement drawn up, even had we, either of us, thought of it, which we did not." Listening to this, the notion struck me that it must have been something like a runaway marriage; but I said nothing, only bade her take heart and hope for a boy. "I cannot imagine any lot in life now so delightful as this would be--that I and my baby-boy should live on in this charming place together--I training him always for good," she continued--and a faint pink came into her delicate cheek as she said it, a yearning look into her hazel eyes. "You would help me to keep him in health and make him strong, would you not, Mr. Layne?" I answered that I would do my best. Poor thing! she was only eighteen yesterday, she told me. I hope she'll be able to keep the place; I hope it won't go over her head to rough Parker Chava.s.se. And a rough-mannered man he is: I saw him once.

Coming home I met Thompson. The lawyer stopped, ever ready for a chat. I spoke about this expected child, and the changes its arrival might make.

"It's quite true that Lady Chava.s.se would have to turn out," said he.

"Every individual s.h.i.+lling is entailed. Books, plate, carriages--it all goes with the t.i.tle. I'm not sure but Sir Peter's old clothes have to be thrown in too, so strict is the entail. No settlement on her, you say, Layne? My good fellow, old Peter had nothing to settle. He had spent his income regularly, and there lay nothing beyond it. I've heard that that was one of the reasons why the Custs objected to the match." Well, it seemed a curious position: I thought so as Thompson went off; but I don't understand law, and can take his word for it. And now to bed.

If----

What's that? A carriage drawing up to the house, and the night-bell! I am wanted somewhere as sure as a gun, and my night's rest is stopped, I suppose. Who'd be a doctor? Listen! There's my wife opening the street-door. What does she call out to me? Lady Chava.s.se not well? A carriage waiting to take me to the Grange? Thank fortune at least that I have not to walk there.

_May 22nd._--Four days, and nothing noted down. But I have been very busy, what with Lady Chava.s.se and other patients. The doubt is over, and over well. The little child is a boy, and a nice little fellow, too; healthy, and likely to live. He was born on the 20th. Lady Chava.s.se, in her gladness, says she shall get well all one way. I think she will: the mind strangely influences the body. But my lady is a little hard--what some might call unforgiving. Her mother came very many miles, posting across country, to see her and be reconciled, and Lady Chava.s.se refused to receive her. Mrs. Cust had to go back again as she came. I should not like to see my wife treat her mother so.

_May 30th._--The child is to be named Geoffry Arthur. Sir Peter had a dislike to his own name, and had said he hoped never to call a boy of his by the same. Lady Chava.s.se, mindful of his every wish, has fixed on the other two. I asked her if they were the names of relatives: she laughed and said, No; she chose them because she thought them both nice-sounding and n.o.ble names.

The above is all that need be copied from Mr. Layne: one has to be chary of s.p.a.ce. Little Sir Geoffry grew and thrived: and it was a pleasure, people say, to see how happy his mother and he were, and how she devoted herself to him. He had come to her in the midst of her desolation, when she had nothing else to care for in life. It was already seen that he would be much like his father, who had been a very good-looking man in his day. Little Geoffry had Sir Peter's fair complexion and his dark-blue eyes. He was a sweet, tractable child; and Lady Chava.s.se thought him just an angel come down from heaven.

Time went on. When Geoffry was about seven years old--and a very pretty boy, with fair curls--he went out surrept.i.tiously on a fis.h.i.+ng expedition, fell into the pond, and was nearly drowned. It left a severe cold upon him, which his nurse, Wilkins, said served him right. However, from that time he seemed to be less strong; and at length Lady Chava.s.se took him to London to show him to the doctors. The doctors told her he ought to be, for a time, in a warmer climate: and she went with him into Devons.h.i.+re. But he still kept delicate. And the upshot was that Lady Chava.s.se let the Grange for a long term to the Goldingham family, and went away.

And so, many years pa.s.sed. The Goldinghams lived on at the Grange: and Lady Chava.s.se nearly slipped out of remembrance. Mr. Layne fell into ill health as he grew older, and advertised for a partner. It was Duffham who answered it (a youngish man then) and they went into arrangements.

It is necessary to say something of Mr. Layne's children. There were four of them, girls. The eldest, Susan, married a Lieutenant Layne (some distant relative, who came from the West Indies), and went with him to India, where his regiment was serving, taking also her next sister, Eleanor. The third, Elizabeth, was at home; the young one, Mary, born several years after the others, was in a school as governess-pupil, or under-teacher. It is not often that village pract.i.tioners can save money, let alone make a fortune.

The next thing was, that Mr. Layne died. His death made all the difference to his family. Mr. Duffham succeeded to the practice; by arrangement he was to pay something yearly for five years to Mrs. Layne; and she had a small income of her own. She would not quit the house; it was hers now her husband was gone. Mr. Duffham took one opposite: a tall house, with a bow-window to the parlour: before that, he had been in apartments. Mary Layne came home about this time, and stayed there for some weeks. She had been much overworked in the school, and Mrs. Layne thought she required rest. She was a pleasing girl, with soft brown eyes and a nice face, and was very good and gentle; thinking always of others, never of self. Old Duffham may choose to deny it now he's grown older, but he thought her superior then to the whole world.

Matters were in this state when news spread that the Goldinghams had received notice to quit the Grange: Sir Geoffry, who would be of age the following year, was coming home to it with his mother. Accordingly the Goldinghams departed; and the place was re-embellished and put in order for the rightful owner. He arrived in April with Lady Chava.s.se: and I'll copy for you what Duffham says about it. Mr. Layne had then been dead about two years.

[_From Mr. Duffham's Diary._]

_April 29th._--The new people--or I suppose I ought to say the old people--reached the Grange yesterday, and I was called in to-day to the lady's-maid--Wilkins. My lady I don't like; Sir Geoffry I do. He is a good-looking, slight young man of middle height, with a fair refined face and honest eyes, blue as they tell me Sir Peter's used to be.

An honourable, well-intentioned young fellow I am sure; affable and considerate as his mother is haughty. Poor Layne used to cry her up; he thought great things of her. I do not. It may be that power has made her selfish, and foreign travel imperious; but she's both selfish and imperious now. She is nice-looking still; and though she wants but a year of forty, and her son is only one-and-twenty, they are almost like brother and sister. Or would be, but for Sir Geoffry's exceeding consideration for his mother; his love and deference for her are a pattern to the young men of the present day. She has trained him to be obedient, that's certain, and to love her too: and so I suppose she has done her duty by him well. He came down the broad walk with me from the hall-door, talking of his mother: I had happened to say that the place must seem quite strange to Lady Chava.s.se. "Yes, it must," he answered.

"She has exiled herself from it for my sake. Mr. Duffham," he continued warmly, "you cannot imagine what an admirable mother mine has been! She resigned ease, rest, society, to devote herself to me. She gave me a home-tutor, that she might herself watch over and train me; she went to and fro between England and foreign places with me everlastingly; even when I was at Oxford, she took a house a mile or two out, that we might not be quite separated. I pray Heaven constantly that I may never cross her in thought, word, or deed: but live only to repay her love." Rather Utopian this: but I honour the young fellow for it. I've only seen him for an hour at most, and am already wis.h.i.+ng there were more like him in the world. If his mother has faults, he does not see them; he will never honour any other woman as he honours her. A contrast, this, to the contempt, ingrat.i.tude, and disrespect that some sons think it manly to show their best and truest earthly parent.

My lady is vexed, I can see, at this inopportune illness of her maid's; for the Grange is all upside down with the preparations for the grand _fete_ to be held on the 20th of next month, when Sir Geoffry will come of age. Wilkins has been in the family for many years: she was originally the boy's nurse: and is quite the right hand of Lady Chava.s.se, so far as household management goes. Her illness just now _is_ inopportune.

[_End, for the present, of Mr. Duffham's Diary._]

Nothing was talked of, in the village or out of it, but the grand doings that were to usher in the majority of Sir Geoffry. As to Lady Chava.s.se, few people had seen her. Her maid's illness, as was supposed, kept her indoors; and some of the guests were already arriving at the Grange.

One morning, when it wanted about a week to the 20th, Mrs. Layne, making a pillow-case at her parlour window, in her widow's cap and spectacles, with the Venetian blind open to get all the light she could, was startled by seeing Lady Chava.s.se's barouche draw up to her door, and Lady Chava.s.se preparing to descend from it. Mrs. Layne instinctively rose, as to a superior, and took her gla.s.ses off: it has been said she was of a humble turn: and upon Lady Chava.s.se fixing her eyes upon her in what seemed some surprise, dropped a curtsy, and thought to herself how fortunate it was she happened to have put a clean new cap on. With that, Lady Chava.s.se said something to the footman, who banged the carriage-door to, and ordered the coachman across the road. Mrs. Layne understood it at once: she had come to the house in mistake for Duffham's. Of course, with that grand carriage to look at opposite, and the gorgeous servants, and my lady, in a violet velvet mantle trimmed with ermine, alighting and stepping in to Duffham's, Mrs. Layne let fall her pillow-case, and did no more of it. But she was not prepared, when Lady Chava.s.se came out again with Mr. Duffham, to see him escort her over the road to her gate. Mrs. Layne had just time to open her parlour-door, and say to the servant, "In the other room: show her ladys.h.i.+p into the other room," before she went off into complete bewilderment, and ran away with the pillow-case.

The other room was the best room. Mary Layne sat there at the old piano, practising. She had seen and heard nothing of all this; and rose in astonishment when the invasion took place. A beautiful lady, whom Mary did not know or recognize, was holding out a delicately-gloved hand to her, and saying that she resembled her father. It was Mary Layne's first meeting with Lady Chava.s.se: she had just come home again from some heavy place of teaching, finding her strength unequal to it.

"I should have known you, I think, for a daughter of Mr. Layne's had I met you in the street," said Lady Chava.s.se, graciously.

Mary was blus.h.i.+ng like anything. Lady Chava.s.se thought her an elegant girl, in spite of the shabby black silk she was dressed in: very pretty too. At least, it was a nice countenance; and my lady quite took to it.

Mrs. Layne, having collected her wits, and taken off her ap.r.o.n, came in then: and Mary, who was humble-minded also, though not exactly in the same way that her mother was, modestly retired.

My lady was all graciousness: just as much so that morning as she used to be. Perhaps the sight of Mrs. Layne put her in mind of the old days when she was herself suffering trouble in a widow's cap, and not knowing how matters would turn out for her, or how they would not. She told Mrs.

Layne that she had, unthinkingly, bid her servants that morning drive to _Mr. Layne's!_ and it was only when she saw Mrs. Layne at the window in her widow's cap, that she remembered the mistake. She talked of her son Geoffry, praising his worth and his goodness; she bade Mrs. Layne to the _fete_ on the 20th, saying she must come and bring her two daughters, and she would take no denial. And Mrs. Layne, curtsying again--which did not become her, for she was short and stout--opened the front-door to her ladys.h.i.+p with her own hands, and stood there curtsying until the carriage had dashed away.

"We'll go on the 20th," she said to her daughters. "I didn't like to say nay to her ladys.h.i.+p; and I should be glad to see what the young heir's like. He was as pretty a boy as you'd wish to see. There'll no doubt be some people there of our own condition that we can mix with, and it will be in the open air: so we shan't feel strange."

But when the day arrived, and they had reached the Grange, it seemed that they felt very strange. Whether amidst the crowds they did not find any of their "own condition," or that none were there, Mrs. Layne did not know. Once, they came near Lady Chava.s.se. Lady Chava.s.se, surrounded by a bevy of people that Mrs. Layne took to be lords and ladies--and perhaps she was right--bowed distantly, and waved her hand, as much as to say, "Make yourselves at home, but don't trouble me:" and Mrs. Layne curtsyed herself to a respectful distance. It was a fine bright day, very warm; and she sat on a bench in the park with her daughters, listening to the band, looking at the company, and wondering which was the heir. Some hours seemed to pa.s.s in this way, and gradually the grounds grew deserted. People were eating and drinking in a distant tent--the lords and ladies Mrs. Layne supposed, and she did not presume to venture amongst them. Presently a young man approached, who had observed from a distance the solitary group. A fat old lady in widow's mourning; and the younger ones in pretty white bonnets and new black silks.

"Will you allow me to take you where you will find some refreshment?" he said, raising his hat, and addressing Mrs. Layne.