Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 54

Lady Rachel turned her very light eyes upon her husband: eyes in which there often sat a peevish expression. It was not discernible at the present moment: they were coldly calm.

"Don't you think you shall be quite well by Christmas?"

"I cannot speak with any certainty, Rachel."

She stood a minute or two longer, and then walked round the room before the shelves, in search of some entertaining book. It was quite evident that the state of her husband did not bring real trouble to her heart.

Was the heart too naturally cold?--or was it that as yet no suspicion of the seriousness of the case had penetrated to her? Something of both, perhaps.

Selecting a book, she was leaving the library with it when Sir Geoffry asked if she would not rather stay by the fire to read. But she said she preferred to go to her sofa.

"Are you well, Rachel?" he asked.

"My back feels tired, always. I suppose we are something alike, Geoffry--not over-strong," she concluded, with a smile.

That night Duffham made the annexed entry in his journal.

He does know the critical state he is in. Has known it, it seems, for some time. I suspected he did. Sir Geoffry's one that you may read as a book in his open candour. He would "get well if he could," he says, for his mother's sake. As of course he would, were the result under his own control: a fine young fellow of the upper ten, with every substantial good to make life pleasant, and no evil habits or thoughts to draw him backward, would not close his eyes on this world without a pang, and a struggle to remain a while longer in it.

I cannot do more for him than I am doing. All the faculty combined could not. Neither do I say, as he does, that he will not get better: on the contrary, I think there's just a chance that he _will_: and I honestly told him so. It's just a toss-up. He was always delicate until he grew to manhood: then he seemed to become thoroughly healthy and strong. Query: would this delicacy have come back again had his life been made as happy as it might have been? My lady can debate that point with herself in after-years: it may be that she'll have plenty of time to do it in. Sir Geoffry's is one of those sensitive natures where the mind seems almost wholly to influence the body; and that past trouble was a sharp blow to him. Upright and honourable, he could not well bear the remorse that fell upon him--it has been keenly felt, ay, I verily believe, until this hour: another's life was blighted that his might be aggrandized. _My own opinion is, that had he been allowed to do as he wished, and make reparation, thereby securing his own happiness, he might have thrown off the tendency to delicacy still and always; and lived to be as old as his father, Sir Peter._ Should my lady ever speak to me upon the subject, I shall tell her this. Geoffry Chava.s.se has lived with a weight upon him. It was not so much that his own hopes were gone and his love-dream wrecked, as that he had brought far worse than this upon another. Yes; my lady may thank herself that his life seems to have been wasted. Had there been children he might, in a degree, have forgotten what went before, and the mind would no longer have preyed upon the body. Has the finger of Heaven been in this? My pen ought to have written "_specially_ in this:" for that Finger is in all things.

I hope he will get better. Yes, I _do_, in spite of a nasty doubt that crops up in my mind as I say it. I love him as I did in the old days, and respect him more. _Qui vivra verra_--to borrow a French phrase from young Master Arthur over the way. And now I put up my diary for the night.

Mrs. Layne was dead. Mary lived alone in her house now, with her servants and Arthur.

Never a woman so respected as she; never a lady, high or low, so revered and looked up to as Mary Layne. All the village would fly to her on an emergency; and she had both counsel and help to give. The poor idolized her. A n.o.ble, tender, good gentlewoman, with the characteristic humility in her bearing that had been observable of late years, and the gentle gravity on her thoughtful face. My lady, with all her rank and her show and her condescension, had never been half so much respected as this.

The little boy--in knickerbockers now, and nine years old--was a great favourite; he also got some honour reflected on him through Colonel Layne. There had been a time of trouble in India, and Major Layne had grandly distinguished himself and gained honour and promotion. The public papers proclaimed his bravery and renown; and Arthur received his share of reflected glory. As the boy pa.s.sed on his pony, the blacksmith, Dobbs, would shoot out from his forge to look after him, and say to the stranger whose horse had cast a shoe, "There goes the little son of the brave Colonel Layne: maybe you've heerd of his deeds over in Ingee."

Perhaps the blacksmith considered he had acquired a sort of right in Arthur, since the pony--a sure-footed Welsh animal--was kept in the stable that belonged to his forge, and was groomed by himself or son.

Miss Layne paid him for it; but, as the blacksmith said, it went again'

the grain; he'd ha' been proud to do aught for her and the little gentleman without pay.

And somehow, what with one thing and another, my lady grew to think that if anything removed her from Chava.s.se Grange, Mary would take her place as best and chiefest in Church d.y.k.ely, and she herself would not be missed. But it was odd the thought should dawn upon her. Previsions of coming events steal into the minds of a great many of us; we know not whence they arise, and at first look on them only as idle thoughts, never recognizing them for what they are--advance shadows of the things to be.

One suns.h.i.+ny afternoon, close upon winter, Arthur and Mr. Duffham went out riding. Mary watched them start; the doctor on his old grey horse (that had been her father's), and Arthur on his well-groomed pony. The lad sat well; as brave-looking a little gentleman, with his upright carriage, open face, and nice attire--for Mary was particular there--as had ever gratified a fond aunt's eye, or a blacksmith's heart.

Close by the gates of Chava.s.se Grange, they met Sir Geoffry and his mother strolling forth. Mr. Duffham's hopes had not been fulfilled.

Outwardly there was not much change in the baronet, certainly none for the better; inwardly there was a great deal. He _knew_ now how very certain his fate was, and that it might not be delayed for any great length of time; a few weeks, a few months: as G.o.d should will.

"Lady Rachel is not well," observed Sir Geoffry to the surgeon. "You must see her, Duffham. I suppose you can't come in now?"

"Yes, I can: I'm in no hurry," was the doctor's answer.

"May I come too, and see the peac.o.c.k, Sir Geoffry? I'll wait here, though, if Mr. Duffham thinks I ought."

Of course the boy was told that the peac.o.c.k would take it as a slight if he did not pay him a visit, and they all turned up the avenue. Arthur got off his pony and led it, and talked with Lady Chava.s.se.

"Why did you get off yet?" asked Sir Geoffry, turning to him.

"Lady Chava.s.se is walking," answered the boy, simply.

It spoke volumes for his innate sense of politeness. Sir Geoffry remembered that _he_ had possessed the same when a child.

"Have you heard what papa has done?" asked Arthur, putting the question generally. "It has been in all the newspapers, and he is full colonel now. Did you read it, Sir Geoffry?"

"Yes, I read it, Arthur."

"And the Queen's going to thank papa when he comes to England, and to make him Sir Richard. Everybody says so. Dobbs thinks papa will be made general before he dies."

Dobbs was the blacksmith. They smiled at this. Not at the possibility for Colonel Layne, but at Dobbs.

"And, with it all, Aunt Mary does not want me to be a soldier!" went on the boy in rather an aggrieved tone. "Richard's enough, she says. d.i.c.k gets on well at King's College: he is to go to Woolwich next. I don't see the peac.o.c.k!"

They had neared the house, but the gay plumaged bird, for which Arthur retained his full admiration, was nowhere in sight. Servants came forward and led the horses away. Mr. Duffham went on to see Lady Rachel: Arthur was taken into the garden-parlour by Sir Geoffry.

"And so you would like to be a soldier:" he said, holding the boy before him, and looking down at his bright, happy face.

"Oh, I should: very much. If papa says I'm not to be--or mamma--or Aunt Mary--if they should tell me 'No, no, you _shall not_,' why, it would be at an end, and I'd try and like something else."

"Listen, Arthur," said Sir Geoffry, in a low, earnest tone. "What you are to be, and what you are not to be, lie alike in the will of G.o.d.

He will direct you aright, no doubt, when the time of choice shall come----"

"And that's what Aunt Mary says," interrupted the lad. "She says---- There's the peac.o.c.k!"

He had come round the corner, his tail trailing; the poor peahen following humbly behind him, as usual. Arthur went outside the window.

The peac.o.c.k had a most unsociable habit of stalking away with a harsh scream if approached; Arthur knew this, and stayed where he was, talking still with Sir Geoffry. When Lady Chava.s.se entered, he was deep in a story of the musical box.

"Yes, a wicked boy went into Reuben Noah's, and broke his box for the purpose. Aunt Mary is letting me get it mended for him with some sixpences I had saved up. Reuben is very ill just now--in great pain; and Aunt Mary has let me lend him mine--he says when he can hear the music, his hip does not hurt him so much. You are not angry with me for lending it, are you, Sir Geoffry?"

"My boy, I am pleased."

"Why should Sir Geoffry be angry--what is it to him?" cried Lady Chava.s.se, amused with the chatter.

"Sir Geoffry gave it to me," said Arthur, looking at her with wide-open eyes, in which the great wonder that any one should be ignorant of that fact was expressed. "Reuben wishes he could get here to see the peac.o.c.k: but he can't walk, you know. I painted a beautiful one on paper and took it to him. Aunt Mary said it was not much like a real peac.o.c.k; it was too yellow. Reuben liked it, and hung it up on his wall. Oh!"

For the stately peac.o.c.k, stepping past the window as if the world belonged to him, suddenly threw wide his tail in an access of vanity.

The tail had not long been renewed, and was in full feather. Arthur's face went into a radiant glow. Lady Chava.s.se, smiling at the childish delight, produced some biscuit that the peac.o.c.k was inordinately fond of, and bade him go and feed it.

"Oh, Geoffry," she exclaimed in the impulse of the moment, as the boy vaulted away, "if you only had such a son and heir as that!"

"Ay. It might have been, mother. That child himself might have been Sir Arthur after me, had you so willed it."

"Been Sir Arthur after you!" she exclaimed. "Are you in a dream, Geoffry? _That_ child!"

"I have thought you did not know him, but I never felt quite sure. He pa.s.ses to the world for the son of Colonel Layne--as I trust he may so pa.s.s always. Don't you understand?"

It was so comical a thing, bringing up thoughts so astounding, and the more especially because she had never had the remotest suspicion of it, that Lady Chava.s.se simply stared at her son in silence. All in a moment a fiery resentment rose up in her heart: she could not have told at whom or what.