the advanced scholar had gone to college early. Aunt Dean spent quite
half her time at Timberdale, from Easter till autumn, and the parson
never rose up against it. She let her house during her absence: it was
situated on the banks of the river a little way from Liverpool, near
the place they call New Brighton now. It might have been called New
Brighton then for all I know. One family always took the house for the
summer months, glad to get out of hot Liverpool.
As to Jack, nothing had been decided in regard to his future, for
opinions about it differed. A little Latin and a little history and a
great deal of geography (for he liked that) had been drilled into him:
and there his education ended. But he was the best climber and walker
and leaper, and withal the best-hearted young fellow that Timberdale
could boast: and he knew about land thoroughly, and possessed a great
stock of general and useful and practical information. Many a day when
some of the poorer farmers were in a desperate hurry to get in their
hay or carry their wheat on account of threatening weather, had Jack
Tanerton turned out to help, and toiled as hard and as long as any of
the labourers. He was hail-fellow-well-met with everyone, rich and poor.
Mrs. Dean had worked on always to accomplish her ends. Slowly and
imperceptibly, but surely; Herbert must be the heir; John must shift for
himself. The parson had had this dinned into him so often now, in her
apparently frank and reasoning way, that he began to lend an ear to it.
What with his strict sense of justice, and his habit of yielding to his
sister's views, he felt for the most part in a kind of dilemma. But Mrs.
Dean had come over this time determined to get something settled, one
way or the other.
She arrived before Easter this year. The interminable Jack (as she often
called him in her heart) was at home; Herbert was not. Jack and Alice
did not seem to miss him, but went out on their rambles together as they
did when children. The morning before Herbert was expected, a letter
came from him to his stepfather, saying he had been invited by a
fellow-student to spend the Easter holidays at his home near London and
had accepted it.
Mr. Lewis took it as a matter of course in his easy way; but it
disagreed with Aunt Dean. She said all manner of things to the parson,
and incited him to write for Herbert to return at once. Herbert's answer
to this was a courteous intimation that he could not alter his plans;
and he hoped his father, on consideration, would fail to see any good
reason why he should do so. Herbert Tanerton had a will of his own.
"Neither do I see any reason, good or bad, why he should not pay the
visit, Rebecca," confessed the Rector. "I'm afraid it was foolish of me
to object at all. Perhaps I have not the right to deny him, either, if I
wished it. He is getting on for nineteen, and I am not his own father."
So Aunt Dean had to make the best and the worst of it; but she felt as
cross as two sticks.
One day when the parson was abroad on parish matters, and the Rectory
empty, she went out for a stroll, and reached the high steep bank where
the primroses and violets grew. Looking over, she saw Jack and Alice
seated below; Jack's arm round her waist.
"You are to be my wife, you know, Alice, when we are grown up. Mind
that."
There was no answer, but Aunt Dean certainly thought she heard the sound
of a kiss. Peeping over again, she saw Jack taking another.
"And if you don't object to my being a farmer, Alice, I should like it
best of all. We'll keep two jolly ponies and ride about together. Won't
it be good?"
"I don't object to farming, Jack. Anything you like. A successful
farmer's home is a very pleasant one."
Aunt Dean drew away with noiseless steps. She was too calm and callous a
woman to turn white; but she did turn angry, and registered a vow in her
heart. That presuming, upstart Jack! They were only two little fools,
it's true; no better than children; but the nonsense must be stopped in
time.
Herbert went back to Oxford without coming home. Alice, to her own
infinite astonishment, was despatched to school until midsummer. The
parson and his sister and Jack were left alone; and Aunt Dean, with her
soft smooth manner and her false expressions of endearment, ruled all
things; her brother's better nature amidst the rest.
Jack was asked what he would be. A farmer, he answered. But Aunt Dean
had somehow caught up the most bitter notions possible against farming
in general; and Mr. Lewis, not much liking the thing himself, and
yielding to the undercurrent ever gently flowing, told Jack he must fix
on something else.
"There's nothing I shall do so well at as farming, father,"
remonstrated Jack. "You can put me for three or four years to some
good agriculturist, and I'll be bound at the end of the time I should
be fit to manage the largest and best farm in the country. Why, I am
a better farmer now than some of them are."
"Jack, my boy, you must not be self-willed. I cannot let you be a
farmer."
"Then send me to sea, father, and make a sailor of me," returned Jack,
with undisturbed good humour.
But this startled the parson. He liked Jack, and he had a horror of the
sea. "Not that, Jack, my boy. Anything but that."
"I'm not sure but I should like the sea better than farming," went on
Jack, the idea full in his head. "Aunt Dean lent me 'Peter Simple' one
day. I know I should make a first-rate sailor."
"Jack, don't talk so. Your poor mother would not have liked it, and I
don't like it; and I shall never let you go."
"Some fellows run away to sea," said Jack, laughing.
The parson felt as though a bucket of cold water had been thrown down
his back. Did Jack mean that as a threat?
"John," said he, in as solemn a way as he had ever spoken, "disobedience
to parents sometimes brings a curse with it. You must promise me that
you will never go to sea."
"I'll not promise that, off-hand," said Jack. "But I will promise never
to go without your consent. Think it well over, father; there's no
hurry."
It was on the tip of Mr. Lewis's tongue to withdraw his objection to the
farming scheme then and there: in comparison with the other it looked
quite fair and bright. But he thought he might compromise his judgment
to yield thus instantly: and, as easy Jack said, there was no hurry.
So Jack went rushing out of doors again to the uttermost bounds of the
parish, and the parson was left to Aunt Dean. When he told her he meant
to let Jack be a farmer, she laughed till the tears came into her eyes,
and begged him to leave matters to her. _She_ knew how to manage boys,
without appearing directly to cross them: there was this kind of trouble
with most boys, she had observed, before they settled satisfactorily in
life, but it all came right in the end.
So the parson said no more about farming: but Jack talked a great deal
about the sea. Mr. Lewis went over in his gig to Worcester, and bought a
book he had heard of, "Two Years before the Mast." He wrote Jack's name
in it and gave it him, hoping its contents might serve to sicken him of
the sea.
The next morning the book was missing. Jack looked high and low for
it, but it was gone. He had left it on the sitting-room table when he
went up to bed, and it mysteriously disappeared during the night. The
servants had not seen it, and declared it was not on the table in the
morning.
"It could not--I suppose--have been the cat," observed Aunt Dean, in a
doubtful manner, her eyes full of wonder as to where the book could have
got to. "I have heard of cats doing strange things."
"I don't think the cat would make away with a book of that size,
Rebecca," said the parson. And if he had not been the least suspicious
parson in all the Worcester Diocese, he might have asked his sister
whether _she_ had been the cat, and secured the book lest it should
dissipate Jack's fancy for the sea.
The next thing she did was to carry Jack off to Liverpool. The parson
objected at first: Liverpool was a seaport town, and might put Jack more
in mind of the sea than ever. Aunt Dean replied that she meant him to
see the worst sides of sea life, the dirty boats in the Mersey, the
wretchedness of the crews, and the real discomfort and misery of a
sailor's existence. That would cure him, she said: what he had in his
head now was the romance picked up from books. The parson thought there
was reason in this, and yielded. He was dreadfully anxious about Jack.
She went straight to her house near New Brighton, Jack with her, and a
substantial sum in her pocket from the Rector to pay for Jack's keep.
The old servant, Peggy, who took care of it, was thunderstruck to see
her mistress come in. It was not yet occupied by the Liverpool people,
and Mrs. Dean sent them word they could not have it this year: at least
not for the present. While she put matters straight, she supplied Jack
with all Captain Marryat's novels to read. The house looked on the
river, and Jack would watch the fine vessels starting on their long
voyages, their white sails trim and fair in the sunshine, or hear the
joyous shouts from the sailors of a homeward-bound ship as Liverpool
hove in view; and he grew to think there was no sight so pleasant to the
eye as these wonderful ships; no fate so desirable as to sail in them.
But Aunt Dean had changed her tactics. Instead of sending Jack on to the
dirtiest and worst managed boats in the docks, where the living was hard
and the sailors were discontented, she allowed him to roam at will on
the finest ships, and make acquaintance with their enthusiastic young
officers, especially with those who were going to sea for the first time
with just such notions as Jack's. Before Midsummer came, Jack Tanerton
had grown to think that he could never be happy on land.
There was a new ship just launched, the _Rose of Delhi_; a magnificent
vessel. Jack took rare interest in her. He was for ever on board; was
for ever saying to her owners--friends of Aunt Dean's, to whom she had
introduced him--how much he should like to sail in her. The owners
thought it would be an advantageous thing to get so active, open,
and ready a lad into their service, although he was somewhat old
for entering, and they offered to article him for four years, as
"midshipman" on the _Rose of Delhi_. Jack went home with his tale, his
eyes glowing; and Aunt Dean neither checked him nor helped him.
Not _then_. Later, when the ship was all but ready to sail, she told
Jack she washed her hands of it, and recommended him to write and ask
his stepfather whether he might sail in her, or not.
Now Jack was no letter writer; neither, truth to tell, was the parson.
He had not once written home; but had contented himself with sending
affectionate messages in Aunt Dean's letters. Consequently, Mr. Lewis
only knew what Aunt Dean had chosen to tell him, and had no idea that
Jack was getting the real sea fever upon him. But at her suggestion Jack
sat down now and wrote a long letter.
Its purport was this. That he was longing and hoping to go to sea; was
sure he should never like anything else in the world so well; that the
_Rose of Delhi_, Captain Druce, was the most magnificent ship ever
launched; that the owners bore the best character in Liverpool for
liberality, and Captain Druce for kindness to his middies; and that he
hoped, oh he hoped, his father would let him go; but that if he still
refused, he (Jack) would do his best to be content to stay on shore, for
he did not forget his promise of never sailing without his consent.
"Would you like to see the letter, Aunt Dean, before I close it?" he
asked.
Aunt Dean, who had been sitting by, took the letter, and privately
thought it was as good a letter and as much to the purpose as the best
scribe in the land could have written. She disliked it, for all that.
"Jack, dear, I think you had better put a postscript," she said. "Your
father detests writing, as you know. Tell him that if he consents he
need not write any answer: you will know what it means--that you may
go--and it will save him trouble."
"But, Aunt Dean, I should like him to wish me good-bye and God speed."
"He will be sure to do the one in his heart and the other in his
prayers, my boy. Write your postscript."
Jack did as he was bid: he was as docile as his stepfather. Exactly as
Mrs. Dean suggested, wrote he: and he added that if no answer arrived
within two posts, he should take it for granted that he was to go, and
should see about his outfit. There was no time to lose, for the ship
would sail in three or four days.
"I will post it for you, Jack," she said, when it was ready. "I am going
out."
"Thank you, Aunt Dean, but I can post it myself. I'd rather: and then I
shall know it's off. Oh, shan't I be on thorns till the time for an
answer comes and goes!"
He snatched his cap and vaulted off with the letter before he could be
stopped. Aunt Dean had a curious look on her face, and sat biting her
lips. She had not intended the letter to go.
The first post that could possibly bring an answer brought one. Jack was
not at home. Aunt Dean had sent him out on an early commission, watched
for the postman, and hastened to the door herself to receive what he
might bring. He brought two letters--as it chanced. One from the Rector
of Timberdale; one from Alice Dean. Mrs. Dean locked up the one in her
private drawer upstairs: the other she left on the breakfast-table.
"Peggy says the postman has been here, aunt!" cried the boy, all
excitement, as he ran in.
"Yes, dear. He brought a letter from Alice."
"And nothing from Timberdale?"
"Well, I don't know that you could quite expect it by this post, Jack.
Your father might like to take a little time for consideration. You may
read Alice's letter, my boy: she comes home this day week for the summer
holidays."
"Not till this day week!" cried Jack, frightfully disappointed. "Why, I
shall have sailed then, if I go, Aunt Dean! I shall not see her."
"Well, dear, you will see her when you come home again."
Aunt Dean had no more commissions for Jack after that, and each time the
postman was expected, he placed himself outside the door to wait for
him. The man brought no other letter. The reasonable time for an answer
went by, and none came.
"Aunt Dean, I suppose I may get my outfit now," said Jack, only half
satisfied. "But I wish I had told him to write in any case: just a
line."
"According to what you said, you know, Jack, silence must be taken for
consent."
"Yes, I know. I'd rather have had a word, though, and made certain. I
wish there was time for me just to run over to Timberdale and see him!"
"But there's not, Jack, more's the pity: you would lose the ship. Get a
piece of paper and make out a list of the articles the second mate told
you you would want."
The _Rose of Delhi_ sailed out of port for Calcutta, and John Tanerton
with her, having signed articles to serve in her for four years. The
night before his departure he wrote a short letter of farewell to his
stepfather, thanking him for his tacit consent, and promising to do his
best to get on, concluding it with love to himself and to Herbert, and
to the Rectory servants. Which letter somehow got put into Aunt Dean's
kitchen fire, and never reached Timberdale.
Aunt Dean watched the _Rose of Delhi_ sail by; Jack, in his bran-new
uniform, waving his last farewell to her with his gold-banded cap. The
sigh of relief she heaved when the fine vessel was out of sight seemed
to do her good. Then she bolted herself into her chamber, and opened Mr.
Lewis's letter, which had lain untouched till then. As she expected, it
contained a positive interdiction, written half sternly, half lovingly,
for John to sail in the _Rose of Delhi_, or to think more of the sea.
Moreover, it commanded him to come home at once, and it contained a
promise that he should be placed to learn the farming without delay.
Aunt Dean tripped down to Peggy's fire and burnt that too.
There was a dreadful fuss when Jack's departure became known at
Timberdale. It fell upon the parson like a thunderbolt. He came striding
through the ravine to Crabb Cot, and actually burst out crying while
telling the news to the Squire. He feared he had failed somehow in
bringing John up, he said, or he never would have repaid him with this
base disobedience and ingratitude. For, you see, the poor man thought
Jack had received his letter, and gone off in defiance of it. The Squire
agreed with him that Jack deserved the cat-o'-nine tails, as did all
other boys who traitorously decamped to sea.
Before the hay was all in, Aunt Dean was back at Timberdale, bringing
Alice with her and the bills for the outfit. She let the parson think
what he would about Jack, ignoring all knowledge of the letter, and
affecting to believe that Jack could not have had it. But the parson
argued that Jack must have had it, and did have it, or it would have
come back to him. The only one to say a good word for Jack was Alice.
She persisted in an opinion that Jack could not be either disobedient
or ungrateful, and that there must have been some strange mistake
somewhere.
Aunt Dean's work was not all done. She took the poor parson under her
wing, and proved to him that he had no resource now but to disinherit
Jack, and made Herbert the heir. To leave money to Jack would be wanton
waste, she urged, for he would be sure to squander it: better bequeath
all to Herbert, who would of course look after his brother in later
life, and help him if he needed help. So Mr. Hill, one of the Worcester
solicitors, was sent for to Timberdale to receive instructions for
making the parson's will in Herbert's favour, and to cut Jack off with
a shilling.
That night, after Mr. Hill had gone back again, was one of the worst the
parson had ever spent. He was a just man and a kind one, and he felt
racked with fear lest he had taken too severe a measure, and one that
his late wife, the true owner of the money and John's mother, would
never have sanctioned. His bed was fevered, his pillow a torment; up he
got, and walked the room in his night-shirt.
"My Lord and God knoweth that I would do what is right," he groaned. "I
am sorely troubled. Youth is vain and desperately thoughtless; perhaps
the boy, in his love of adventure, never looked at the step in the light
of ingratitude. I cannot cut him quite off; I should never again find
peace of mind if I did it. He shall have a little; and perhaps if he
grows into a steady fellow and comes back what he ought to be, I may
alter the will later and leave them equal inheritors."
The next day the parson wrote privately to Mr. Hill, saying he had
reconsidered his determination and would let Jack inherit to the extent
of a hundred and fifty pounds a year.
Herbert came home for the long vacation; and he and Alice were together
as they had been before that upstart Jack stepped in. They often came to
the Squire's and oftener to the Coneys'. Grace Coney, a niece of old
Coney, had come to live at the farm; she was a nice girl, and she and
Alice liked each other. You might see them with Herbert strolling about
the fields any hour in the day. At home Alice and Herbert seemed never
to care to separate. Mrs. Dean watched them quietly, and thought how
beautifully her plans had worked.
Aunt Dean did not go home till October. After she left, the parson had
a stroke of paralysis. Charles Ashton, then just ordained to priest's
orders, took the duty. Mrs. Dean came back again for Christmas. As if
she would let Alice stay away from the Parsonage when Herbert was at
home!
The _Rose of Delhi_ did not come back for nearly two years. She was what
is called a free ship, and took charters for any place she could make
money by. One day Alice Dean was leaning out of the windows of her
mother's house, gazing wistfully on the sparkling sea, when a grand and
stately vessel came sailing homewards, and some brown-faced young fellow
on the quarter deck set on to swing his cap violently by way of hailing
her. She looked to the flag which happened to be flying, and read the
name there, "_The Rose of Delhi_." It must be Jack who was saluting.
Alice burst into tears of emotion.
He came up from the docks the same day. A great, brown, handsome fellow
with the old single-hearted, open manners. And he clasped Alice in his
arms and kissed her ever so many times before she could get free. Being
a grown-up young lady now, she did not approve of unceremonious kissing,
and told Jack so. Aunt Dean was not present, or she might have told him
so more to the purpose.
Jack had given satisfaction, and was getting on. He told Alice privately
that he did not like the sea so much as he anticipated, and could not
believe how any other fellow did like it; but as he had chosen it as
his calling, he meant to stand by it. He went to Timberdale, in spite
of Aunt Dean's advice and efforts to keep him away. Herbert was absent,
she said; the Rector ill and childish. Jack found it all too true. Mr.
Lewis's mind had failed and his health was breaking. He knew Jack and
was very affectionate with him, but seemed not to remember anything of
the past. So never a word did Jack hear of his own disobedience, or of
any missing letters.
One person alone questioned him; and that was Alice. It was after he
got back from Timberdale. She asked him to tell her the history of
his sailing in the _Rose of Delhi_, and he gave it in detail, without
reserve. When he spoke of the postscript that Aunt Dean had bade him
add to his letter, arranging that silence should be taken for consent,
and that as no answer had come, he of course had so taken it, the girl
turned sick and faint. She saw the treachery that had been at work and
where it had lain; but for her mother's sake she hushed it up and let
the matter pass. Alice had not lived with her mother so many years
without detecting her propensity for deceit.
Some years passed by. Jack got on well. He served as third mate on the
_Rose of Delhi_ long before he could pass, by law, for second. He was
made second mate as soon as he had passed for it. The _Rose of Delhi_
came in and went out, and Jack stayed by her, and passed for first mate
in course of time. He was not sent back in any of his examinations,
as most young sailors are, and the board once went the length of
complimenting him on his answers. The fact was, Jack held to his word
of doing his best; he got into no mischief and was the smartest sailor
afloat. He was in consequence a favourite with the owners, and Captain
Druce took pains with him and brought him on in seamanship and
navigation, and showed him how to take observations, and all the rest
of it. There's no end of difference in merchant-captains in this
respect: some teach their junior officers nothing. Jack finally passed
triumphantly for master, and hoped his time would come to receive a
command. Meanwhile he went out again as first mate on the _Rose of
Delhi_.
One spring morning there came news to Mrs. Dean from Timberdale. The
Rector had had another stroke and was thought to be near his end. She
started off at once, with Alice. Charles Ashton had had a living given
to him; and Herbert Tanerton was now his stepfather's curate. Herbert
had passed as shiningly in mods and divinity and all the rest of it as
Jack had passed before the Marine Board. He was a steady, thoughtful,
serious young man, did his duty well in the parish, and preached better
sermons than ever the Rector had. Mrs. Dean, who looked upon him as
Alice's husband as surely as though they were married, was as proud of
his success as though it had been her own.
The Rector was very ill and unable to leave his bed. His intellect was
quite gone now. Mrs. Dean sat with him most of the day, leaving Alice to
be taken care of by Herbert. They went about together just as always,
and were on the best of confidential terms; and came over to the
Coneys', and to us when we were at Crabb Cot.
"Herbert," said Mrs. Dean one evening when she had all her soft, sugary
manner upon her and was making the young parson believe she had no
one's interest at heart in the world but his: "my darling boy, is it not
almost time you began to think of marriage? None know the happiness and
comfort brought by a good wife, dear, until they experience it."
Herbert looked taken aback. He turned as red as a school-girl, and
glanced half-a-moment at Alice, like a detected thief.
"I must wait until I have a living to think of that, Aunt Dean."
"Is it necessary, Herbert? I should have thought you might bring a wife
home to the Rectory here."
Herbert turned the subject with a jesting word or two, and got out
of his redness. Aunt Dean was eminently satisfied; his confusion and
his hasty glance at Alice had told tales; and she knew it was only a
question of time.