Johnny Ludlow Third Series Part 25

"You might go and see," spoke Mrs. Knox: "James is not sure to be to time. How _glad_ I shall be when that governess is here to take the trouble of you children off me!" she added, fretfully. Mina did not take the hint about going in: she made off to her sisters instead.

This house had once been a doctor's residence. Soon after Thomas Knox, surgeon and apothecary, set up in practice at Lefford, now five-and-twenty years ago, he married Mary Arnold. Rose Villa was hers, and some money besides, and they came to live at it, Mr. Knox keeping on his surgery in Lefford. They had one son, who was named Arnold. When Arnold was ten years old, his mother died. A year later his father married a second wife, Miss Amelia Carey: after which these five other young ones came to town. Arnold was to be a doctor like his father. His studies were in progress, when one morning a letter came to him in London--where he was walking Bartholomew's Hospital under that clever man, William Lawrence--saying that his father was alarmingly ill. Arnold reached Lefford just in time to see him die. The little one, d.i.c.ky, was a baby then in long-clothes. Arnold was only nineteen. No chance that he could set up in, and keep together the practice, which fell through.

So he went back to London to study on, and pa.s.s, and what not; and by-and-by he came down again Dr. Knox: for he had followed the fas.h.i.+on just then getting common, of taking the M.D. degree. Arnold Knox had his share of good plain sense, and of earnestness too; but example is catching, and he only followed that of his fellow-students in going in thus early for the degree. He arrived at Lefford "Dr. Knox." Mr. Tamlyn laughed at him, before his face and behind his back, asking him what experience he had had that he should hasten to tack on M.D. to his name: why, not more experience than a country apothecary's apprentice. Arnold, feeling half ashamed of himself, for he was very modest, pleaded the new custom. Custom! returned old Tamlyn; in _his_ days medical men had _worked_ for their honours before taking them. Arnold engaged himself as a.s.sistant to Mr. Tamlyn, who had dropped into the best part of Dr.

Knox's practice since that gentleman's death, in addition to his own.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Knox, the widow, had continued to live at Rose Villa.

It belonged to Arnold, having descended to him in right of his mother.

Mr. Knox had bequeathed by will five hundred pounds to Arnold for the completion of his studies; and all the rest of his money to his wife and second family. Lefford talked of it resentfully, saying it was an unjust will: for a good portion of the money had been Mary Arnold's and ought to have gone to her son. It was about three hundred and fifty pounds a-year in all; and Mrs. Knox bewailed and bemoaned her hard fate at having to bring up her children upon so little. She was one of those who _must_ spend; and her extravagance had kept her husband poor, in spite of his good practice.

Never a hint did she offer her step-son of paying him rent for his house; never a word of thanks did she tender for the use of it.

Arnold said nothing: he was thoroughly warm-hearted and generous, considering every one before himself, and he would not have hurt her feelings or cramped her pocket for the world. As long as he did not want the house, she and his half-sisters and brother were welcome to it. When he came back from London he naturally went to it; it was his home; and Mrs. Knox did not at all like the addition he made to her housekeeping expenses: which could not be very much amongst the nine others to provide for. The very day after Arnold's bargain was made with Mr.

Tamlyn, she asked him how much he was going to pay her for his board.

Half his salary, Arnold promptly replied; seventy-five pounds a-year.

And Mrs. Knox would have liked to say it was not enough.

"Seventy-five pounds a-year!" cackled Lefford, when it got hold of the news. "Why, it won't cost her half that. And she using his house and enjoying all the money that was his poor mother's! Well, she has a conscience, that Widow Knox!"

The arrangement had continued until now. Three years had elapsed since then, and Arnold was four-and-twenty. Mrs. Knox found herself often in money difficulties; when she would borrow from Arnold, and never think of repaying him. She was now going to increase expenses by taking a nursery-governess. Awfully tiresome those children were, and Mrs. Knox said they wore her out. She should have managed the little brats better: not indulged and neglected them by turns. One hour she'd let them run wild, the next hour was shrieking at them in words next door to swearing.

The governess engaged was a distant relative of her own, a Miss Janet Carey. She was an orphan, and had for a year or two been teacher in a boys' preparatory school, limited to thirty pupils. Mrs. Knox wrote to offer her twelve pounds a-year and a "very comfortable home at Rose Villa; to be as one of the family." It must have sounded tempting to Miss Carey after the thirty little boys, and she gratefully accepted it.

Mrs. Knox had never seen her; she pictured to herself a tall, bony young woman with weak eyes, for that had been the portrait of her second cousin, Miss Carey's father.

"Crack! crack! Tally-ho! tally-ho!" shouted d.i.c.ky, who had completed his whip, and got up to stamp and smack it. "Yo-ho! Tally-ho, tally-ho!"

"Oh, do for goodness' sake be quiet, d.i.c.k!" screamed Mrs. Knox. "I can't have that noise now: I told you I had a headache. Do you hear me, then!

Mina, come and take away this horrible whip."

Mina came running at the call. Master d.i.c.ky was so much given way to as a general rule, that to thwart him seemed to his sisters something delightful. d.i.c.ky dodged out of harm's way amongst the shrubs; and Mina was about to go after him, when some one came through the open gla.s.s-doors of what was called the garden-room.

"Here's Arnold," she cried.

Dr. Knox was a tall, strongly built, fair man, looking older than his four-and-twenty years. n.o.body could help liking his thin face, for it was a _good_ face, full of sense and thought, but it was not a handsome one. His complexion was sallow, and his light hair had a habit of standing up wild.

"You are home betimes," remarked Mrs. Knox.

"Yes; there was nothing more to do," he answered, sitting down in a rustic garden-chair. "I met James in the pony-chaise: where's he gone?"

"Why, Arnold, don't you know that the governess is coming this evening?"

cried the second girl, Lotty, who was fanning her hot face with a cabbage-leaf. "James has gone to the station for her."

"I forgot all about the governess," said Dr. Knox. "Lotty, what a heat you are in!"

"We have been running races," said the child; "and the sun was blazing."

d.i.c.ky came tearing up. Something had happened to the whip.

"Look at it, Arnold," he said, throwing his arms and the whip on the doctor's knees. "The lash won't stay on."

"And you want me to mend it, I suppose."

"Yes. Do it now."

"Is that the way to ask?"

"Please do it now, Arnold."

"If I can. But I fear I can't, d.i.c.ky."

"No! You can mend arms and legs."

"Sometimes. Have you a strip of leather? Or some twine?"

d.i.c.ky pulled a piece of string out of some unfathomable pocket. He was not promoted to trousers yet, but wore white drawers reaching to the knee and a purple velvet tunic. Dr. Knox took out his penknife.

"What's the matter with that young Tamlyn again?" asked Mrs. Knox in a fretful tone.

"With Bertie?" returned Dr. Knox, rather carelessly, for he was intent on the whip. "It is one of the old attacks."

"Of course! I knew it was nothing more," spoke Mrs Knox in resentment.

"There was to have been a party at Mrs. Green's this evening. Just as I was ready to start for it, her footman came to say it was put off on account of Miss Tamlyn, who could not come because Master Albert was ill."

"Miss Tamlyn would not leave Bertie when he is ill for all the parties in Christendom, mother."

"Miss Tamlyn is welcome to stay with him. But that's no reason why Mrs.

Green should have put the rest of us off. Who's Bessy Tamlyn, that she should be considered before every one?--stupid old maid!"

Mrs. Knox pushed up her lace sleeves in wrath, and jingled her bracelets. Evening parties made the solace of her life.

The wheels of the returning chaise were heard, and the children went rus.h.i.+ng round to the front of the house to look at the new governess.

They brought Janet Carey back to the lawn. Mrs. Knox saw a small, slight young girl with a quiet, nice face and very simple manners. Dr. Knox rose. Mrs. Knox did not rise. Expecting to see a kind of dark strong giantess, she was struck with astonishment and remained sitting.

"You are surely not Matthew Carey's daughter?"

"Yes, madam, I am," was the young lady's answer, as a blush stole into the clear, meek face.

"Dear me! I should never have thought it. Mat Carey was as tall and big as a lamp-post. And--why!--you told me you were twenty-three!"

"I was twenty-three last March."

"Well, I trust you will be found competent to manage my children. I had no idea you were so young-looking."

The tone expressed a huge doubt of it. The ill-trained youngsters stood staring rudely into Miss Carey's face. Dr. Knox, pus.h.i.+ng some of them aside, held out his hand with a smile of welcome.

"I hope you will be able to feel at home here, Miss Carey," he said: "the children must not be allowed to give you too much trouble. Have you had a pleasant journey?"

"Take Miss Carey to her room, Mina," sharply struck in Mrs. Knox, not at all pleased that her step-son should presume to say so much: as if the house were his. And Mina, followed by the shy and shrinking young governess, went indoors and up to the roof, and showed her a little comfortless chamber there.