Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 28

"Only a hundred and fifty left to me!" cried Jack, when he was told the news. "Well, perhaps Herbert may require more than I, poor fellow," he added in his good nature; "he may not get a good living, and then he'll be glad of it. I shall be sure to do well now I've got the s.h.i.+p."

"You'll be at sea always, Jack, and will have no use for money," said Mrs. Dean.

"Oh, I don't know about having no use for it, Aunt. Anyway, my father thought it right to leave it so, and I am content. I wish I could have said farewell to him before he died!"

A few more days, and Aunt Dean was thrown on her beam-ends at a worse angle than ever the _Rose of Delhi_ hoped to be. Jack and Alice discussed matters between themselves, and the result was disclosed to her. They were going to be married.

It was Alice who told her. Jack had just left, and she and her mother were sitting together in the summer twilight. At first Mrs. Dean thought Alice was joking: she was like a mad woman when she found it true. Her great dream had never foreshadowed this.

"How dare you attempt to think of so monstrous a thing, you wicked girl?

Marry your own brother-in-law!--it would be no better. It is Herbert that is to be your husband."

Alice shook her head with a smile. "Herbert would not have me, mamma; nor would I have him. Herbert will marry Grace Coney."

"Who?" cried Mrs. Dean.

"Grace Coney. They have been in love with each other ever so many years.

I have known it all along. He will marry her as soon as his future is settled. I had promised to be one of the bridesmaids, but I suppose I shall not have the chance now."

"Grace Coney--that beggarly girl!" shrieked Mrs. Dean. "But for her uncle's giving her shelter she must have turned out in the world when her father died and earned her living how she could. She is not a lady.

She is not Herbert's equal."

"Oh yes, she is, mamma. She is a very nice girl and will make him a perfect wife. Herbert would not exchange her for the richest lady in the land."

"If Herbert chooses to make a spectacle of himself, you never shall!"

cried poor Mrs. Dean, all her golden visions fast melting into air. "I would see that wicked Jack Tanerton at the bottom of the sea first."

"Mother, dear, listen to me. Jack and I have cared for each other for years and years, and we should neither of us marry any one else. There is nothing to wait for; Jack is as well off as he will be for years to come: and--and we have settled it so, and I hope you will not oppose it."

It was a cruel moment for Aunt Dean. Her love for other people had been all pretence, but she did love her daughter. Besides that, she was ambitious for her.

"I can never let you marry a sailor, Alice. Anything but that."

"It was you who made Jack a sailor, mother, and there's no help for it,"

said Alice, in low tones. "I would rather he had been anything else in the world. I should have liked him to have had land and farmed it. We should have done well. Jack had his four hundred a year clear, you know.

At least, he ought to have had it. Oh, mother, don't you see that while you have been plotting against Jack you have plotted against me?"

Aunt Dean felt sick with memories that were crowding upon her. The mistake she had made was a frightful one.

"You cannot join your fate to Jack's, Alice," she repeated, wringing her hands. "A sailor's wife is too liable to be made a widow."

"I know it, mother. I shall share his danger, for I am going out in the _Rose of Delhi_. The owners have consented, and Jack is fitting up a lovely little cabin for me that is to be my own saloon."

"My daughter sail over the seas in a merchant s.h.i.+p!" gasped Aunt Dean.

"Never!"

"I should be no true wife if I could let my husband sail without me.

Mother, it is you alone who have carved out our destiny. Better have left it to G.o.d."

In a startled way, her heart full of remorse, she was beginning to see it; and she sat down, half fainting, on a chair.

"It is a miserable prospect, Alice."

"Mother, we shall get on. There's the hundred and fifty a year certain, you know. That we shall put by; and, as long as I sail with him, a good deal more besides. Jack's pay is settled at twenty pounds a month, and he will make more by commission: perhaps as much again. Have no fear for us on that score. Jack has been unjustly deprived of his birthright; and I think sometimes that perhaps as a recompense Heaven will prosper him."

"But the danger, Alice! The danger of a sea-life!"

"Do you know what Jack says about the danger, mother? He says G.o.d is over us on the sea as well as on land and will take care of those who put their trust in Him. In the wildest storm I will try to let that great truth help me to feel peace."

Alas for Aunt Dean! Arguments slipped away from her hands just as her plans had slipped from them. In her bitter repentance, she lay on the floor of her room that night and asked G.o.d to have pity upon her, for her trouble seemed greater than she could bear.

The morning's post brought news from Herbert. He was made Rector of Timberdale. Aunt Dean wrote back, telling him what had taken place, and asking, nay, almost commanding, that he should restore an equal share of the property to Jack. Herbert replied that he should abide by his stepfather's will. The living of Timberdale was not a rich one, and he wished Grace, his future wife, to be comfortable. "Herbert was always intensely selfish," groaned Aunt Dean. Look on which side she would, there was no comfort.

The _Rose of Delhi_, Captain Tanerton, sailed out of port again, carrying also with her Mrs. Tanerton, the captain's wife. And Aunt Dean was left to bemoan her fate, and wish she had never tried to shape out other people's destinies. Better, as Alice said, that she had left that to G.o.d.

VIII.

GOING THROUGH THE TUNNEL.

We had to make a rush for it. And making a rush did not suit the Squire, any more than it does other people who have come to an age when the body's heavy and the breath nowhere. He reached the train, pushed head-foremost into a carriage, and then remembered the tickets. "Bless my heart?" he exclaimed, as he jumped out again, and nearly upset a lady who had a little dog in her arms, and a ma.s.s of fas.h.i.+onable hair on her head, that the Squire, in his hurry, mistook for tow.

"Plenty of time, sir," said a guard who was pa.s.sing. "Three minutes to spare."

Instead of saying he was obliged to the man for his civility, or relieved to find the tickets might still be had, the Squire s.n.a.t.c.hed out his old watch, and began abusing the railway clocks for being slow. Had Tod been there he would have told him to his face that the watch was fast, braving all retort, for the Squire believed in his watch as he did in himself, and would rather have been told that _he_ could go wrong than that the watch could. But there was only me: and I wouldn't have said it for anything.

"Keep two back-seats there, Johnny," said the Squire.

I put my coat on the corner furthest from the door, and the rug on the one next to it, and followed him into the station. When the Squire was late in starting, he was apt to get into the greatest flurry conceivable; and the first thing I saw was himself blocking up the ticket-place, and undoing his pocket-book with nervous fingers. He had some loose gold about him, silver too, but the pocket-book came to his hand first, so he pulled it out. These flurried moments of the Squire's amused Tod beyond everything; he was so cool himself.

"Can you change this?" said the Squire, drawing out one from a roll of five-pound notes.

"No, I can't," was the answer, in the surly tones put on by ticket-clerks.

How the Squire crumpled up the note again, and searched in his breeches pocket for gold, and came away with the two tickets and the change, I'm sure he never knew. A crowd had gathered round, wanting to take their tickets in turn, and knowing that he was keeping them flurried him all the more. He stood at the back a moment, put the roll of notes into his case, fastened it and returned it to the breast of his over-coat, sent the change down into another pocket without counting it, and went out with the tickets in hand. Not to the carriage; but to stare at the big clock in front.

"Don't you see, Johnny? exactly four minutes and a half difference," he cried, holding out his watch to me. "It is a strange thing they can't keep these railway clocks in order."

"My watch keeps good time, sir, and mine is with the railway. I think it is right."

"Hold your tongue, Johnny. How dare you! Right? You send your watch to be regulated the first opportunity, sir; don't _you_ get into the habit of being too late or too early."

When we finally went to the carriage there were some people in it, but our seats were left for us. Squire Todhetley sat down by the further door, and settled himself and his coats and his things comfortably, which he had been too flurried to do before. Cool as a cuc.u.mber was he, now the bustle was over; cool as Tod could have been. At the other door, with his face to the engine, sat a dark, gentleman-like man of forty, who had made room for us to pa.s.s as we got in. He had a large signet-ring on one hand, and a lavender glove on the other. The other three seats opposite to us were vacant. Next to me sat a little man with a fresh colour and gold spectacles, who was already reading; and beyond him, in the corner, face to face with the dark man, was a lunatic.

That's to mention him politely. Of all the restless, fidgety, worrying, hot-tempered pa.s.sengers that ever put themselves into a carriage to travel with people in their senses, he was the worst. In fifteen moments he had made as many darts; now after his hat-box and things above his head; now calling the guard and the porters to ask senseless questions about his luggage; now treading on our toes, and trying the corner seat opposite the Squire, and then darting back to his own. He wore a wig of a decided green tinge, the effect of keeping, perhaps, and his skin was dry and shrivelled as an Egyptian mummy's.