FAREWELLS.
What yet is there that I should do,
Lingering in this darksome vale?
Proud and mighty, fair to view,
Are our schemes, and yet they fail,
Like the sand before the wind,
That no power of man can bind.
ARNDT, Lyra Germanica.
Dynevor Terrace was said to have dark, damp kitchens, but by none who
had ever been in No. 5, when the little compact fire was compressed to
one glowing red crater of cinders, their smile laughing ruddily back
from the bright array on the dresser, the drugget laid down, the round
oaken table brought forward, and Jane Beckett, in afternoon trim,
tending her geraniums, the offspring of the parting Cheveleigh nosegay,
or gauffreing her mistress's caps. No wonder that on raw evenings,
Master James, Miss Clara, or my young Lord, had often been found
gossiping with Jane, toasting their own cheeks as well as the bread, or
pinching their fingers in her gauffreing machine.
Yet, poor little Charlotte Arnold learnt that the kitchen could be
dreary, when Mrs. Beckett had been summoned to nurse Lord Fitzjocelyn,
and she remained in sole charge, under Mrs. Martha's occasional
supervision. She found herself, her household cares over all too soon,
on a cold light March afternoon, with the clock ticking loud enough for
midnight, the smoke-jack indulging in supernatural groans, and the
whole lonely house full of undefined terrors, with an unlimited space
of the like solitude before her. She would even have been glad to be
sure of an evening of Mrs. Martha's good advice, and of darning
stockings! She sat down by the round table to Mr. James's wristbands;
but every creak or crack of the furniture made her start, and think of
death-watches. She might have learnt to contemn superstition, but that
did not prevent it from affecting her nerves.
She spread her favourite study, The Old English Baron, on the table
before her; but the hero had some connexion in her mind with Tom
Madison, for whom she had always coveted a battle-field in France. What
would he feel when he heard how he had filled up his course of evil,
being well-nigh the death of his benefactor! If any one ought to be
haunted, it would assuredly be no other than Tom!
Chills running over her at the thought, she turned to the fire as the
thing nearest life, but at the moment started at a hollow call of her
own name. A face was looking in at her through the geraniums! She
shrieked aloud, and clasped her hands over her eyes.
'Don't make a row. Open the door!'
It was such a relief to hear something unghostly, that she sprang to
the door; but as she undid it, all her scruples seized her, and she
tried to hold it, saying, 'Don't come in! You unfortunate boy, do you
know what you have done?'
But Tom Madison was in a mood to which her female nature cowered. He
pushed the door open, saying authoritatively, 'Tell me how he is!'
'He is as ill as he can be to be alive,' said Charlotte, actuated at
once by the importance of being the repository of such tidings, and by
the excitement of communicating them to one so deeply concerned. 'Mr.
Poynings came in to fetch Mrs. Beckett--he would have no one else to
nurse him--and he says the old Lord and Missus have never had their
clothes off these two nights.'
'Then, was it along of them stones?' asked the lad, hoarsely.
'Yourself should know best!' returned Charlotte. 'Mr. Poynings says
'twas a piece of rock as big as that warming-pan as crushed his ankle!
and you know--'
'I know nothing,' said Tom. 'Master kept me in all day yesterday, and
I only heard just now at Little Northwold, where I've been to take home
some knives of Squire Calcott's. Master may blow me up if he likes,
but I couldn't come till I'd heard the rights of it. Is he so very
bad?'
'They've sent up to London for a doctor,' pursued Charlotte. 'Mr.
Walby don't give but little hope of him. Poor young gentleman, I'm
sure he had a good word from high and low!'
'Well! I'm gone!' cried Tom, vehemently. 'Goodbye to you, Charlotte
Arnold! You'll never see me in these parts more!'
'Gone! Oh, Tom! what do you mean!'
'D'ye think I'll stay here to have this here cast in my face? Such a
one as won't never walk the earth again!' and he burst out into
passionate tears. 'I wish I was dead!'
'Oh, hush, Tom!--that is wicked!'
'May be so! I am all that's wicked, and you all turn against me!'
'I don't turn against you,' sobbed Charlotte, moved to the bottom of
her gentle heart.
'You! you turned against me long ago. You've been too proud to cast
one look at me these three months; and he forgot me; and that's what
drew me on, when who cared what became of me--nor I neither now.'
'Don't speak that way! Don't say 'twas pride. Oh no! but I had to
behave proper, and how should I keep up acquaintance when they said you
went on--unsteady--'
'Aye, aye! I know how it is,' said poor Tom, with broken-down
humility: 'I was not fit for you then, and I'm next thing to a murderer
now; and you're like a white dove that the very fingers of me would
grime. I'll take myself out of your way; but, let what will come of
me, I'll never forget you, Charlotte.'
'Oh, wait, Tom! If I could but say it right!--Oh! I know there's
something about biding patiently, and getting a blessing--if you'd only
stop while I recollect it.'
'I thought I heard voices!' exclaimed Mrs. Martha, suddenly descending
on them. 'I wonder you aren't ashamed of yourselves, and the family in
such trouble! Downright owdacious!'
'Be this your house?' said Tom, stepping before Charlotte, his
dejection giving way instantly to rude independence.
'Oh, very well,' said Martha, with dignity. 'I know what to expect
from such sort of people. The house and young woman is in my charge,
sir; and if you don't be off, I'll call the police.'
'Never trouble your old bones!' retorted Tom.
'Good-bye to you, Charlotte;' and, as in defiance of Martha, he took
her passive hand. 'You'll remember one as loved you true and faithful,
but was drove desperate! Good-bye! I'll not trouble no one no more!'
The three concluding negatives with which he dashed out of the house
utterly overwhelmed Charlotte, and made her perfectly insensible to
Mrs. Martha's objurgations. She believed in the most horrible and
desperate intentions, and sobbed herself into such violent hysterics
that Miss Mercy came in to assist--imagined that the rude boy had
terrified her, misunderstood her shamefaced attempts at explanation,
and left her lying on her bed, crying quietly over her secret terrors,
and over that first, strangely-made declaration of love. The white
dove! she did not deserve it, but it was so poetical! and poor Tom was
so unhappy! She had not time even to think what was become of her own
character for wisdom and prudence.
The next morning, between monition and triumph, Martha announced that
the good-for-nothing chap was off with a valuable parcel of Mr.
Calcott's, and the police were after him; with much more about his
former idle habits,--frequenting of democratic oratory, public-houses,
and fondness for bad company and strolling actors. Meek and easily
cowed, Charlotte only opened her lips to say she knew that he had taken
home Mr. Calcott's parcel. But this brought down a storm on her for
being impertinent enough to defend him, and she sat trembling till it
had subsided; and Martha retreating, left her to weep unrestrainedly
over her wild fancies, and the world's cruelty and injustice towards
one whom, as she was now ready to declare, she loved with her whole
heart.
The bell rang sharply, knocks rattled at the front door! She was sure
that Tom had been just taken out of the river! But instinct to answer
the bell awoke at the second furious clattering and double pealing,
which allowed no time for her to compose her tear-streaked, swollen
face, especially as the hasty sounds suggested 'Mr. James.'
Mr. James it was, but the expected rebuke for keeping him waiting was
not spoken. As he saw her sorrowful looks, he only said, low and
softly, 'Is it so, Charlotte?' In his eyes, there could be but one
cause for grief, and Charlotte's heart smote her for hypocrisy, when
she could barely command her voice to reply, 'No, sir; my Lord has had
a little better night.'
He spoke with unusual gentleness, as he made more inquiries than she
could answer; and when, after a few minutes, he turned to walk on to
Ormersfield, he said, kindly, 'Good-bye, Charlotte; I'll send you word
if I find him better:' and the tears rose in his eyes at the thought
how every one loved the patient.
He was not wrong. There was everywhere great affection and sympathy
for the bright, fantastic being whom all laughed at and liked, and
Northwold and the neighbourhood felt that they could have better spared
something more valuable.
The danger was hardly exaggerated even by Charlotte. The chill of the
long exposure had brought on high fever; and besides the crushed ankle,
there had been severe contusions, which had resulted in an acute pain
in the side, hitherto untouched by remedies, and beyond the
comprehension of the old Northwold surgeon, Mr. Walby. As yet,
however, the idea of peril had not presented itself to Louis, though he
was perfectly sensible. Severe pain and illness were new to him; and
though not fretful nor impatient, he had not the stoicism either of
pride or of physical indifference, put little restraint on the
expression of suffering, and was to an almost childish degree absorbed
in the present. He was always considerate and grateful; and his fond
affection for his Aunt Catharine, and for good old Jane, never failed
to show itself whenever they did anything for his relief; and they were
the best of nurses.
Poor Lord Ormersfield longed to be equally effective; but he was
neither handy nor ready, and could only sit hour after hour beside his
son, never moving except to help the nurses, or to try to catch the
slightest accent of the sufferer. Look up when Louis would, he always
saw the same bowed head, and earnest eyes, which, as Mrs. Ponsonby told
her daughter, looked as they did when Louisa was dying.
The coming of the London surgeon was an era to which Louis evidently
looked anxiously, with the iteration of sickness, often reckoning the
hours till he could arrive; and when at last he came, there was an
evident effort to command attention.
When the visit was over, and the surgeon was taking leave after the
consultation, Fitzjocelyn calmly desired to know his opinion, and kept
his eyes steadily fixed on his face, weighing the import of each word.
All depended on the subduing the inflammatory action, in the side; and
there was every reason to hope that he would have strength for the
severe treatment necessary. There was no reason to despond.
'I understand--thank you,' said Louis.
He shut his eyes, and lay so still that Mrs. Frost trusted that he
slept; but when his father came in, they were open, and Lord
Ormersfield, bending over him, hoped he was in less pain.
'Thank you, there is not much difference.' But the plaintive sound was
gone, the suffering was not the sole thought.
'Walby is coming with the leeches at two o'clock,' said Lord
Ormersfield: 'I reckon much on them.'
'Thank you.' Silence again, but his face spoke a wish, and his aunt
Catharine said, 'What, my dear?'
'I should like to see Mr. Holdsworth,' said Louis, with eyes appealing
to his father.
'He has been here to inquire every day,' said the Earl, choosing
neither to refuse nor understand. 'Whenever it is not too much for
you--'
'It must be quickly, before I am weaker,' said Louis. 'Let it be
before Walby returns, father.'
'Whatever you wish, my dear--' and Lord Ormersfield, turning towards
the table, wrote a note, which Mrs. Frost offered to despatch, thinking
that her presence oppressed her elder nephew, who looked bowed down by
the intensity of grief, which, unexpressed, seemed to pervade the whole
man and weigh him to the earth: and perhaps this also struck Louis for
the first time, for, after having lain silent for some minutes, he
softly said, 'Father!'
The Earl was instantly beside him, but, instead of speaking, Louis
gazed in his face, and sighed, as he murmured, 'I was meant to have
been a comfort to you.'
'My dear boy--' began Lord Ormersfield, but he could not trust his
voice, as he saw Louis's eyes moist with tears.
'I wish I had!' he continued; 'but I have never been anything but a
care and vexation, and I see it all too late.'
'Nay, Louis,' said his father, trying to assume his usual tone of
authority, as if to prove his security, 'you must not give way to
feelings of illness. It is weak to despond.'
'It is best to face it,' said the young man, with slow and feeble
utterance, but with no quailing of eye or voice. 'But oh, father! I
did not think you would feel it so much. I am not worth it.'
For the Earl could neither speak nor breathe, as if smothered by one
mighty unuttered sob, and holding his son's hand between both his own,
pressed it convulsively.
'I am glad Mrs. Ponsonby is here,' said Louis; 'and you will soon find
what a nice fellow Edward Fitzjocelyn is, whom you may make just what--'
'Louis, my own boy, hush! I cannot bear this,' cried his father, in an
accent wrung from him by excess of grief.
'I may recover,' said Louis, finding it his turn to comfort, 'and I
should like to be longer with you, to try to make up--'
'You will. The leeches must relieve you. Only keep up your spirits:
you have many years before you of happiness and success.'
The words brought a look of oppression over Louis's face, but it
cleared as he said, 'I am more willing to be spared those years!'
His father positively started. 'Louis, my poor boy,' he said, 'is it
really so? I know I have seemed a cold, severe father.'
'Oh, do not say so!' exclaimed Louis; 'I have deserved far less-idle,
ungrateful, careless of your wishes. I did not know I could pain you
so much, or I would not have done it. You have forgiven often, say you
forgive now.'
'You have far more to forgive than I,' said the Earl.
'If I could tell you the half-waywardness, discontent, neglect, levity,
wasted time--my treatment of you only three days back. Everything
purposed--nothing done! Oh! what a life to bring before the Judge!'
And he covered his face, but his father heard long-drawn sobs.
'Compose yourself, my dear boy,' he exclaimed, exceedingly grieved and
perplexed. 'You know there is no cause to despond; and even--even if
there were, you have no reason to distress yourself. I can say, from
the bottom of my heart, that you have never given me cause for real
anxiety, your conduct has been exemplary, and I never saw such
attention to religion in any young man. These are mere trifles--'
'Oh, hush, father!' exclaimed Louis. 'You are only making it worse;
you little know what I am! If Mr. Holdsworth would come!'
'He could only tell you the same,' said his father. 'You may take
every comfort in thinking how blameless you have been, keeping so clear
of all the faults of your age. I may not have esteemed you as you
deserved, my poor Louis; but, be assured that very few can have so
little to reproach themselves with as you have.'
Louis almost smiled. 'Poor comfort that,' he said, 'even if it were
true; but oh, father!' and there was a light in his eye, 'I had thought
of 'He hath blotted out like a cloud thy transgressions.''
'That is right. One like you must find comfort in thinking.'
'There is comfort ineffable,' said Louis; 'but if I knew what I may
dare to take home to myself! It is all so dim and confused. This pain
will not let anything come connectedly. Would you give me that little
manuscript book!'
It was given; and as the many loose leaves fell under Louis's weak
hand, his father was amazed at the mass of copies of prayers, texts,
and meditations that he had brought together; the earlier pages
containing childish prayers written in Aunt Catharine's hand. Louis's
cheeks coloured at the revelation of his hidden life, as his father put
them together for him.
'It is of no use,' he said, sadly; 'I cannot read. Perhaps my aunt
would come and read this to me.'
'Let me,' said his father; and Louis looked pleased.
Lord Ormersfield read what was pointed out. To him it was a glimpse of
a very new world of contrition, faith, hope, and prayer; but he saw the
uneasy expression on Louis's face give place to serenity, as one
already at home in that sphere.
'Thank you,' he said. 'That was what I wanted. Mr. Holdsworth will
soon come, and then I don't want to say much more. Only don't take
this too much to heart--I am not worth it; and but for you and the dear
Terrace home, I can be very glad. If I may hope, the hope is so
bright! Here there are so many ways of going wrong, and all I do
always fails; and yet I always tried to do Him service. Oh, to have
all perfect!--no failure--no inconsistency--no self! Can it be?'
'I always tried to do Him service!' Sadly and dejectedly as the words
were spoken--mournful as was the contrast between the will and the
result, this was the true cause that there was peace with Louis.
Unstable, negligent, impetuous, and weak as he had been, the one
earnest purpose had been his, guarding the heart, though not yet
controlling the judgment. His soul was awake to the unseen, and thus
the sense of the reality of bliss ineffable, and power to take comfort
in the one great Sacrifice, came with no novelty nor strangeness. It
was a more solemn, more painful preparation, but such as he had
habitually made, only now it was for a more perfect Festival.
His father, as much awestruck by his hopes as distressed by his
penitence, still gave himself credit for having soothed him, and went
to meet and forewarn the Vicar that poor Fitzjocelyn was inclined to
despond, and was attaching such importance to the merest, foibles in a
most innocent life, that he required the most tender and careful
encouragement. He spoke in his usual tone of authoritative courtesy;
and then, finding that his son wished to be left alone with Mr.
Holdsworth, he went to the library to seek the only person to whom he
could bear to talk.
'Mary,' he said, 'you were right. I have done so little to make that
poor boy of mine happy, that he does not wish for life.'
Mrs. Ponsonby looked up surprised. 'Are you sure of what he meant?'
she said. 'Was it not that this life has nothing to compare with that
which is to come?'
'But what can be more unnatural?' said the Earl. 'At his age, with
everything before him, nothing but what he felt as my harshness could
so have checked hope and enjoyment. My poor Louis!' And, though eye
and voice were steady and tearless, no words could express the anguish
of his under-tone.
Mrs. Ponsonby adduced instances showing that, to early youth, with
heart still untainted by the world, the joys of the Life Everlasting
have often so beamed out as to efface all that earth could promise, but
he could not be argued out of self-reproach for his own want of
sympathy, and spoke mournfully of his cold manner, sternness to small
faults, and denial of gratifications.
Mary the younger could not help rising from her corner to say, 'Indeed,
Louis said the other day that you never had denied him any personal
indulgence.'
'My dear, he never asked for personal indulgences,' said the Earl. His
further speech was interrupted by a quick step, a slow opening of the
door, and the entrance of James Frost, who grasped his outstretched
hand with a breathless inquiry.
'He is very ill--' Lord Ormersfield paused, too much oppressed to say
more.
'No better? What did the London surgeon say? what?'
'He says there is no time to be lost in attacking the inflammation. If
we can subdue that, he may recover; but the state of the ankle weakens
him severely. I believe myself that he is going fast,' said the Earl,
with the same despairing calmness; and James, after gazing at him to
collect his meaning, dropped into a chair, covered his face with his
hands, and sobbed aloud.
Lord Ormersfield looked on as if he almost envied the relief of the
outburst, but James's first movement was to turn on him, as if he were
neglecting his son, sharply demanding, 'Who is with him?'
'He wished to be left with Mr. Holdsworth.'
'Is it come to this!' cried James. 'Oh, why did I not come down with
him? I might have prevented all this!'
'You could not have acted otherwise,' said the Earl, kindly. 'Your
engagement was already formed.'
'I could!' said James. 'I would not. I thought it one of your excuses
for helping us.'
'It is vain to lament these things now,' said Lord Ormersfield. 'It is
very kind in you to have come down, and it will give him great pleasure
if he be able to see you.'
'If!' James stammered between consternation and anger at the doubt,
and treated the Earl with a kind of implied resentment as if for
injustice suffered by Louis, but it was affecting to see his petulance
received with patience, almost with gratitude, as a proof of his
affection for Louis. The Earl stood upright and motionless before the
fire, answering steadily, but in an almost inward voice, all the
detailed questions put by James, who, seated on one chair, with his
hands locked on the back of the other, looked keenly up to him with his
sharp black eyes, often overflowing with tears, and his voice broken by
grief. When he had elicited that Louis had been much excited and
distressed by the thought of his failings, he burst out, 'Whatever you
may think, Lord Ormersfield, no one ever had less on his conscience!'
'I am sure of it.'
'I know of no one who would have given up his own way again and again
without a murmur, only to be called fickle.'
'Yes, it has often been so,' meekly said Lord Ormersfield.
'Fickle!' repeated James, warming with the topic, and pouring out what
had been boiling within for years. 'He was only fickle because his
standard was too high to be reached! You thought him weak!'
'There may be weakness by nature strengthened by principle,' said Mrs.
Ponsonby.
'True,' cried Jem, who, having taken no previous notice of her, had at
first on her speaking bent his brows on her as if to extend to her the
storm he was inflicting on poor, defenceless Lord Ormersfield, 'he is
thought soft because of his easy way; but come to the point where harm
displays itself, you can't move him a step farther--though he hangs
back in such a quiet, careless fashion, that it seems as if he was only
tired of the whole concern, and so it goes down again as
changeableness.'
'You always did him justice,' said Lord Ormersfield, laying his hand on
his cousin's shoulder, but James retreated ungraciously.
'I suppose, where he saw evil, he actually took a dislike,' said Mrs.
Ponsonby.
'It is an absolute repugnance to anything bad. You,' turning again on
the Earl, 'had an idea of his being too ready to run into all sorts of
company; but I told you there was no danger.'
'You told me I might trust to his disgust to anything unrefined or
dissipated. You knew him best.'
'There is that about him which men, not otherwise particular, respect
as they might a woman or a child. They never show themselves in their
true colours, and I have known him uphold them because he has never
seen their worst side!'
'I have always thought he learnt that peculiar refinement from your
grandmother.'
'I think,' said Mrs. Ponsonby, softly, 'that it is purity of heart
which makes him see heaven so bright.'
'Sydney Calcott walked part of the way with me,' continued Jem, 'and
showed more feeling than I thought was in him. He said just what I do,
that he never saw any one to whom evil seemed so unable to cling. He
spoke of him at school--said he was the friend of all the juniors, but
too dreamy and uncertain for fellows of his own standing. He said, at
first they did not know what to make of him, with his soft looks and
cool ways--they could not make him understand bullying, for he could
not be frightened nor put in a passion. Only once, one great lout
tried forcing bad language on him, and then Fitzjocelyn struck him,
fought him, and was thoroughly licked, to be sure: but Calcott said it
was a moral victory--no one tried the like again--'
James was interrupted by Mr. Holdsworth's entrance. He said a few
words apart to the Earl, who answered, with alarm, 'Not now; he has
gone through enough.'
'I told him so, but he is very anxious, and begged me to return in the
evening.'
'Thank you. You had better join us at dinner.'
The Vicar understood Lord Ormersfield better than did James, and said,
pressing his hand, 'My Lord, it is heart-breaking, but the blessedness
is more than we can feel.'
Mrs. Ponsonby and Mary were left to try to pacify James, who was half
mad at his exclusion from the sickroom, and very angry with every hint
of resignation--abusing the treatment of the doctors, calling Mr. Walby
an old woman, and vehemently bent on prophesying the well-doing of the
patient. Keenly sensitive, grief and suspense made him unusually
irritable; and he seemed to have no power of waiting patiently, and
trusting the event to wiser Hands.
Mrs. Ponsonby dared not entertain any such ardent wishes. Life had not
afforded her so much joy that she should deem it the greatest good, and
all that she had heard gave her the impression that Louis was too soft
and gentle for the world's hard encounter,--most pure and innocent,
sincere and loving at present, but rather with the qualities of
childhood than of manhood, with little strength or perseverance, so
that the very dread of taint or wear made it almost a relief to think
of his freshness and sweetness being secured for ever. Even when she
thought of his father, and shrank from such grief for him, she could
not but see a hope that this affliction might soften the heart closed
up by the first and far worse sorrow, and detach it from the interests
that had absorbed it too exclusively. All this was her food for silent
meditation. Mary sat reading or working beside her, paler perhaps than
her wont, and betraying that her ear caught every sound on the stairs,
but venturing no word except the most matter-of-fact remark, quietly
giving force to the more favourable symptoms.
Not till after Mr. Walby's second visit, when there was a little
respite in the hard life-and-death contest between the remedies and the
inflammation, could Mrs. Frost spare a few moments for her grandson.
She met him on the stairs--threw her arms round his neck, called him
her poor Jemmy, and hastily told him that he must not make her cry. He
looked anxiously in her face, and told her that he must take her place,
for she was worn out.'
'No, thank you, my dear, I can rest by-and-by.'
It sounded very hopeless.
'Come, granny, you always take the bright side.'
'Who knows which is the bright side?' she said. 'Such as he are always
the first. But there, dear Jem, I told you not to make too much of
granny--' and hastily withdrawing her hand, she gave a parting caress
to his hair as he stood on the step below her, and returned to her
charge.
It would have been an inexpressible comfort to James to have had some
one to reproach. His own wretchedness was like a personal injury, and
an offence that he could resent would have been a positive relief. He
was forced to get out of the way of Frampton coming up with a tray of
lemonade, and glared at him, as if even a station on the stairs were
denied, then dashed out of doors, and paced the garden, goaded by every
association the scene recalled. It seemed a mere barbarity to deprive
him of what he now esteemed as the charm of his life--the cousin who
had been as a brother, ever seeking his sympathy, never offended by his
sharp, imperious temper, and though often slighted or tyrannized over,
meeting all in his own debonnaire fashion, and never forsaking the
poor, hard-working student, so that he might well feel that the world
could not offer him aught like Louis Fitzjocelyn.
He stood in the midst of the botanical garden, and, with almost
triumphant satisfaction, prognosticated that now there would be regret
that Louis's schemes had been neglected or sneered at, and when too
late, his father might feel as much sorrow as he had time for. It was
the bitterness, not the softness of grief, in which he looked forth
into the dull blue east-windy haze deepening in the twilight, and
presently beheld something dark moving along under the orchard bank
beneath. 'Hollo! who's there?' he exclaimed, and the form, rearing
itself, disclosed young Madison, never a favourite with him, and
though, as a persecuted protege of Louis, having claims which at
another time might have softened him, coming forward at an unlucky
moment, when his irritation only wanted an object on which to discharge
itself. It was plain that one who came skulking in the private grounds
could intend no good, and James greeted him, harshly, with 'You've no
business here!'
'I'm doing no harm,' said the boy, doggedly, for his temper was as
stubborn as James's was excitable.
'No harm! lurking here in that fashion in the dark! You'll not make me
believe that! Let me hear what brings you here! The truth, mind!'
'I came to hear how Lord Fitzjocelyn is,' said Tom, with brief
bluntness and defiance.
'A likely story! What, you came to ask the apple-trees?' and James
scornfully laughed. 'There was no back-door, I suppose! I could
forgive you anything but such a barefaced falsehood, when you know it
was your own intolerable carelessness that was the only cause of the
accident!'
'Better say 'twas yourself!' cried Tom, hoarse with passion and shaking
all over.
The provocation was intense enough to bring back James's real principle
and self-restraint, and he spoke with more dignity. 'You seem to be
beside yourself, Madison,' he said, 'you had better go at once, before
any one finds you here. Lord Fitzjocelyn cared for you so much, that I
should not wish for you to meet your deserts under present
circumstances. Go! I wish to have no more of your tongue!'
The boy was bounding off, while James walked slowly after to see him
beyond the grounds, and finding Warren the keeper, desired him to be on
the look-out. Warren replied with the tidings that Madison had run
away from his place, and that the police were looking out for him on
the suspicion of having stolen Mr. Calcott's parcel, moralizing further
on the depravity of such doings when my young Lord was so ill, but
accounting for the whole by pronouncing poaching to be bred in the bone
of the Marksedge people.
This little scene had done Jem a great deal of good, both by the
exhalation of bitterness and by the final exertion of forbearance. He
had, indeed, been under two great fallacies on this day,--soothing
Charlotte for the grief that was not caused by Fitzjocelyn's illness,
and driving to extremity the lad brimming over with sorrow not inferior
to his own. Little did he know what a gentle word might have done for
that poor, wild, tempestuous spirit!
Yet, James's heart smote him that evening, when, according to Louis's
earnest wish, Mr. Holdsworth came again, and they all were admitted to
the room, and he saw the feeble sign and summons to the Vicar to bend
down and listen. 'Tell poor Madison, it was wrong in me not to go to
see him. Give him one of my books, and tell him to go on well!'
That day had been one of rapid change, and the remedies and suffering
had so exhausted Louis that he could scarcely speak, and seemed hardly
conscious who was present. All his faculties were absorbed in the one
wish, which late in the evening was granted. The scene was like an
epitome of his life--the large irregular room, cumbered with the
disorderly apparatus of all his multifarious pursuits, while there he
lay on his little narrow iron bed, his features so fair and colourless
as to be strangely like his mother's marble effigy--his eyes closed,
and his brows often contracted with pain, so that there was a doubt how
far his attention was free, but still with a calm, pure sweetness, that
settled down more and more, as if he were being lulled into a sleep.
'He is asleep,' Mrs. Frost said, as they all rose up.
They felt what that sleep might become.
'We might as well wish to detain a snow-wreath,' thought Mr. Holdsworth.