Brandon: "I do not think the Squire would. But you see now what lies
within his power. Therefore I would recommend you to come to terms with
him."
Clement-Pell rubbed his brow with his handkerchief. He was driven into a
corner.
"I have told you truth, Mr. Brandon, in saying that I am not able to
repay the two hundred pounds. I am not. Will he take half of it?"
"I cannot tell. I have no authority for saying that he will."
"Then I suppose he must come up here. As it has come to this, I had
better see him. If he will accept one hundred pounds, and undertake not
to molest me further, I will hand it over to him. It will leave me
almost without means: but you have got me in a hole. Stay a moment--a
thought strikes me. Are there any more of my creditors in the town at
your back, Mr. Brandon?"
"Not that I am aware of. I have seen none."
"On your honour?"
Mr. Brandon opened his little eyes, and took a stare at Pell. "My word
is the same as my honour, sir. Always has been and always will be."
"I beg your pardon. A man, driven to my position, naturally fears an
enemy at every corner. And--if my enemies were to find me out here, they
might be too much for me."
"Of course they would be," assented Mr. Brandon, by way of comfort.
"Will you go for Squire Todhetley? What is done, must be done to-day,
for I shall be away by the first train in the morning."
Shrewd old Brandon considered the matter before speaking. "By the time I
get back here with the Squire you may have already taken your departure,
Mr. Pell."
"No, on my honour. How should I be able to do it? No train leaves the
town before six to-night: the water is low in the harbour and no boat
could get out. As it has come to this, I will see Squire Todhetley: and
the sooner the better."
"I will trust you," said Mr. Brandon.
"Time was when I was deemed more worthy of trust: perhaps was more
worthy of it,"--and tears involuntarily rose to his eyes. "Mr. Brandon,
believe me--no man has suffered by this as I have suffered. Do you think
I did it for pleasure?--or to afford myself wicked gratification! No. I
would have forfeited nearly all my remaining life to prevent the smash.
My affairs got into their awful state by degrees; and I had not the
power to retrieve them. God alone knows what the penalty has been to
me--and what it will be to my life's end."
"Ay. I can picture it pretty tolerably, Mr. Pell."
"No one can picture it," he returned, with emotion. "Look at my ruined
family--the position of my sons and daughters. Not one of them can hold
up their heads in the world again without the consciousness that they
may be pointed at as the children of Clement-Pell the swindler. What is
to be their future?--how are they to get along? You must have heard many
a word of abuse applied to me lately, Mr. Brandon: but there are few men
on this earth more in need of compassion than I--if misery and suffering
can bring the need. When morning breaks, I wish the day was done; when
night comes, I toss and turn and wonder how I shall live through it."
"I am sorry for you," said Mr. Brandon, moved to pity, for he saw how
the man needed it. "Were I you, I would go back home and face my debts.
Face the trouble, and in time you may be able to live it down."
Clement-Pell shook his head hopelessly. Had it been debt alone, he might
never have come away.
* * * * *
The sequel to all this had yet to come. Perhaps some of you may guess
it. Mr. Brandon pounced upon the Squire as he was coming out of church
in the Rue du Temple, and took him back in another coach. Arrived at the
house, they found the door fast. Mathilde appeared presently, arm-in-arm
with her sweetheart--a young man in white boots with ear-rings in his
ears. "Was M. Brown of depart," she repeated, in answer to the Squire's
impulsive question: but no, certainly he was not. And she gave them the
following information.
When she returned after midday, she found M. Brown all impatience,
waiting for her to show him the way to the house of Monsieur Bourgeois,
that he might claim Madame's letter. When they reached the shop, it had
only the fille de boutique in it. Monsieur the patron was out making a
promenade, the fille de boutique said he might be home possibly for the
shutting up at two o'clock.
Upon that, M. Brown decided to make a little promenade himself until two
o'clock; and Mathilde, she made a further promenade on her own account:
and had now come up, before two, to get the door open. Such was her
explanation. If the gentlemans would be at the pains of sitting down in
the salon, without doubt M. Brown would not long retard.
They sat down. The clock struck two. They sat on, and the clock struck
three. Not until then did any thought arise that Clement-Pell might not
keep faith with them. Mathilde's freely expressed opinion was that M.
Brown, being strange to the town, had lost himself. She ran to the
grocer's shop again, and found it shut up: evidently no one was there.
Four o'clock, five o'clock; and no Mr. Brown. They gave him up then; it
seemed quite certain that he had given them the slip. Starving with
hunger, exploding with anger, the Squire took his wrathful way back to
the hotel: Mr. Brandon was calm and sucked his magnesia lozenges.
Clement-Pell was a rogue to the last.
There came to Mr. Brandon the following morning, through the Boulogne
post-office, a note; on which he had to pay five sous. It was from
Clement-Pell, written in pencil. He said that when he made the agreement
with Mr. Brandon never a thought crossed him of not keeping faith: but
that while he was waiting about for the return of the grocer who held
his wife's letter, he saw an Englishman come off the ramparts--a
creditor who knew him well and would be sure to deliver him up, were it
in his power, if he caught sight of him. It struck him, Clement-Pell,
with a panic: he considered that he had only one course left open to
him--and that was to get away from the place at once and in the quietest
manner he was able. There was a message to Mr. Todhetley to the effect
that he would send him the hundred pounds later if he could. Throughout
the whole letter ran a vein of despairing sadness, according with what
he had said to Mr. Brandon; and the Squire's heart was touched.
"After all, Brandon, the fellow _is_ to be pitied. It's a frightful
position: enough to make a man lose heart for good and all. I'm not sure
that I should have taken the hundred pounds from him."
"That's more than probable," returned old Brandon, drily. "It remains
a question, though, in my mind, whether he did see the creditor and
did 'take a panic:' or whether both are not invented to cover his
precipitate departure with the hundred pounds."
How he got away from the town we never knew. The probability was, that
he had walked to the first station after Boulogne on the Paris railroad,
and there taken the evening train. And whether he had presented himself
again at Monsieur Bourgeois's shop, that excellent tradesman, who did
not return home until ten on Sunday night, was unable to say. Any way,
M. Bourgeois held the letter yet in safety. So the chances are, that Mr.
and Mrs. Pell are still dodging about the earth in search of each other,
after the fashion of the Wandering Jew.
And that's a true account of our visit to Boulogne after Clement-Pell.
Mr. Brandon calls it to this hour a wild-goose chase: certainly it
turned out a fruitless one. But we had a good passage back again, the
sea as calm as a mill-pond.
XXVI.
AT WHITNEY HALL.
It has often been in my mind to tell of John Whitney's death. You will
say it is too sad and serious for a paper. But it is well to have
serious thoughts brought before us at certain seasons. This is one of
them: seeing that it's the beginning of a new year, and that every year
takes us nearer to another life whether we are old or whether we are
young.[3]
[3] Written for the January number of _The Argosy_, 1872.
Some of them thought his illness might never have come on but for an
accident that happened. It is quite a mistake. The accident had nothing
to do with the later illness. Sir John and Lady Whitney could tell you
so as well as I. John was always one of those sensitive, thoughtful,
religious boys that somehow don't seem so fit for earth as heaven.
* * * * *
"Now mind, you boys," cried Sir John to us at breakfast. "There's just a
thin coating of ice on the lake and ponds, but it won't bear. Don't any
of you venture on it."
"We will not, sir," replied John, who was the most obedient son living.
There's not much to be done in the way of out-door sports when snow lies
on the ground. Crowding round the children's play-room window later, all
the lot of us, we looked out on a white landscape. Snow lodged on the
trees, hid the grass in the fields, covered the hills in the distance.
"It's an awful sell," cried Bill Whitney and Tod nearly in a breath.
"No hunting, no shooting, and no nothing. The ponds won't bear;
snowballing's common. One might as well lie in bed."
"And what sort of a 'sell' do you suppose it is for the poor men who
are thrown out of work?" asked Sir John, who had come in, reading a
newspaper, and was airing his back at the fire. "Their work and wages
are stopped, and they can't earn bread for their children. You boys are
dreadfully to be pitied, you are!"
He tilted his steel spectacles up on his good old red nose, and nodded
to us. Harry, the pert one of the family, answered.
"Well, papa, and it is a settler for us boys to have our fun spoiled. As
to the working-men--oh, they are used to it."
Sir John stared at him for a full minute. "If I thought you said that
from your heart, Mr. Harry, I'd order you from my presence. No son of
mine shall get into the habit of making unfeeling speeches, even in
jest."
Sir John meant it. We saw that Harry's words had really vexed him. John
broke the silence.
"Papa, if I should live to be ever in your place," he said, in his quiet
voice, that somehow _always_ had a tone of thoughtfulness in it, even
when at play with the rest of us at old Frost's, "I shall make a point
of paying my labourers' wages in full this wintry time, just the same as
though they worked. It is not their fault that they are idle."
Sir John started at _him_ now. "What d'ye mean by 'if you live,' lad?"
John considered. The words had slipped from him without any special
thought at all. People use such figures of speech. It was odd though,
when we came to remember it a long while afterwards, that he should have
said it just that one day.
"I recollect a frost that lasted fourteen weeks, boys," said Sir John.
"That was in 1814. They held a fair on the Thames, we heard, and roasted
an ox whole on it. Get a frost to last all that time, and you'd soon
tire of paying wages for nothing, John."
"But, father, what else could I do--or ought I to do? I could not let
them starve--or break up their poor homes by going into the workhouse. I
should fear that some time, in return, God might break up mine."
Sir John smiled. John was so very earnest always when he took up
a serious matter. Letting the question drop, Sir John lowered his
spectacles, and went out with his newspaper. Presently we saw him going
round to the farm-yard in his great-coat and beaver gaiters. John sat
down near the fire and took up a book he was fond of--"Sintram."
This was Old Christmas Day. Tod and I had come over to Whitney Hall for
a week, and two days of it were already gone. We liked being there, and
the time seemed to fly. Tod and Bill still stood staring and grumbling
at the snow, wishing the frost would get worse, or go. Harry went out
whistling; Helen sat down with a yawn.
"Anna, there's a skein of blue silk in that workbag behind you. Get it
out and hold it for me to wind."
Anna, who was more like John in disposition than any of them, always
good and gentle, got the silk; and they began to wind it. In the midst
of it, Harry burst in with a terrific shout, dressed up as a bear, and
trying to upset every one. In the confusion Anna dropped the silk on the
carpet, and Helen boxed her ears.
John looked up from his book. "You should not do that, Helen."
"What does she drop the silk for, then--careless thing!" retorted Helen,
who was quick in temper. "Once soil that light shade of blue, and it
can't be used. You mind yourself John."
John looked at them both. At Helen, taking up the silk from the floor;
at Anna, who was struggling to keep down her tears under the infliction,
because Tod was present. She wouldn't have minded me. John said no more.
He had a very nice face without much colour in it; dark hair, and large
grey-blue eyes that seemed to be always looking out for something they
did not see. He was sixteen then, upright and slender. All the world
liked John Whitney.
Later on in the day we were running races in the broad walk, that was so
shady in summer. The whole of us. The high laurel hedges on either side
had kept the snow from drifting, and it hardly lay there at all. We gave
the girls a third of the run, and they generally beat us. After an hour
of this, tired and hot, we gave in, and dispersed different ways. John
and I went towards the lake to see whether the ice was getting thicker,
talking of school and school interests as we went along. Old Frost's
grounds were in view, which naturally put us in mind of the past: and
especially of the great event of the half year--the sad fate of Archie
Hearn.
"Poor little Hearn!" he exclaimed. "I did feel his death, and no
mistake. That is, I felt for his mother. I think, Johnny, if I could
have had the chance offered me, I would have died myself to let him
live."
"That's easier said than done--if it came to the offer, Whitney."
"Well, yes it is. She had no one but him, you see. And to think
of her coming into the school that time and saying she forgave the
fellow--whoever it was. I've often wondered whether Barrington had cause
to feel it."
"She is just like her face, Whitney--good. I've hardly ever seen a face
I like as much as Mrs. Hearn's."
John Whitney laughed a little. They all did at my likes and dislikes of
faces. "I was reading a book the other day, Johnny---- See that poor
little robin!" he broke off. "It looks starved, and it must have its
nest somewhere. I have some biscuit in my pocket."
It came into my head, as he dived into his pocket and scattered the
crumbs, that he had brought the supply out for these stray birds. But if
I write for ever I could not make you understand the thoughtfulness of
John Whitney.
"Hark, Johnny! What's that?"
Cries, screams, sobs. We were near the end of the walk then and rushed
out. Anna met us in a dreadful state of agitation. Charley was in the
lake! Whitney caught the truth before I did, and was off like a shot.
The nurse, Willis, was dancing frantically about at the water's edge;
the children roared. Willis said Master Charles had slipped on to the
ice "surrepstitiously" when her back was turned, and had gone souse in.
John Whitney had already plunged in after his little brother; his coat,
jacket, and waistcoat were lying on the bank. William Whitney and Tod,
hearing the noise, came rushing up.
"Mamma sent me to tell nurse they had been out long enough, and were to
come in," sobbed Anna, shaking like a leaf. "While I was giving her the
message, Charley fell in. Oh, what will be done?"
That was just like Anna. Helen would have been cool as a cucumber. Done?
Why, John had already saved him. The ice, not much thicker than a
shilling, and breaking whenever touched, hardly impeded him at all. Bill
and Tod knelt down and lent hands, and they were landed like a couple
of drowned rats, Charley howling with all his might. John, always
thoughtful, wrapped his great-coat round the lad, and the other two went
off with him to the house.
John caught a cold. Not very much of one. He was hot, you see, when he
plunged in; and he had only his jacket to put on over his wet clothes to
walk home in. Not much of a cold, I say; but he never seemed to be quite
the same after that day: and when all was over they would date his
illness back from it. Old Featherstone physicked him; and the days
passed on.
"I can't think why John should be so feverish," Lady Whitney would
remark. His hands would be hot, and his cheeks scarlet, and he did not
eat. Featherstone failed to alter the state of things; so one day Sir
John took him into Worcester to Mr. Carden.
Mr. Carden did not seem to think much of it--as we heard over at Dyke
Manor. There was nothing wrong with the lungs or any other vital part.
He changed the medicine that Featherstone had been giving, and said he
saw no present reason why John should not go back to school. Sir John,
standing by in his old spectacles, listening and looking, caught up the
words "at present" and asked Mr. Carden whether he had any particular
meaning in saying it. But Mr. Carden would not say. Sending his pleasant
blue eyes straight into Sir John's, he assured him that he did not
anticipate mischief, or see reason to fear it. He thought, he hoped,
that, once John was back with his studies and his companions, he would
recover tone and be as well as ever.
And Mr. Carden's physic did good; for when Whitney came back after
the holidays, he seemed himself again. Lady Whitney gave five hundred
directions to Mrs. Frost about the extras he was to eat and drink, Hall
being had in to assist at the conference. The rest of us rather wished
for fevers ourselves, if they entailed beaten-up eggs and wine and jelly
between meals. He did his lessons; and he came out in the playground,
though he did not often join in play, especially rough play: and he
went for walks with us or stayed in as inclination led him, for he
was allowed liberty in all things. By Easter he had grown thinner and
weaker: and yet there was no specific disease. Mr. Carden came over to
Whitney Hall and brought Dr. Hastings, and they could not discover any:
but they said he was not strong and wanted care. It was left to John to
decide whether he would go back to school after Easter, or not: and he
said he should like to go. And so the weeks went on again.
We could not see any change at all in him. It was too gradual, I
suppose. He seemed very quiet, strangely thoughtful always, as though he
were inwardly puzzling over some knotty question hard to solve. Any
quarrel or fight would put him out beyond belief: he'd come up with his
gentle voice, and stretch out his hands to part the disputants, and did
not rest until he had made peace. Wolfe Barrington, with one of his
sneers, said Whitney's nerves were out of joint. Once or twice we saw
him reading a pocket-Bible. It's quite true. And there was something in
his calm face and in his blue-grey eyes that hushed those who would have
ridiculed.
"I say, Whitney, have you heard?" I asked. "The Doctor means to have the
playground enlarged for next half. Part of the field is to be taken in."
"Does he?" returned Whitney. It was the twenty-ninth of May, and a
half-holiday. The rest had gone in for Hare-and-Hounds. I stayed with
Whitney, because he'd be dull alone. We were leaning over the playground
gate.
"Blair let it out this morning at mathematics. By the way, Whitney, you
did not come in to them."
"I did not feel quite up to mathematics to-day, Johnny."
"I am glad it's going to be done, though. Are not you?"
"It won't make much difference to me, I expect. I shall not be here."
"Not here!"
"I don't think so."
His chin rested on his hands above the gate. His eyes were gazing out
straight before him; looking--as I said before--for something they did
not see.
"Do you think you shall be too ill to come next half, Whitney?"
"Yes, I do."
"Are you feeling worse?" I asked after a minute or two, taken up with
staring at the sky.
"That's what they are always asking me indoors?" he remarked. "It's just
this, Johnny; I don't feel worse from day to day; I could not say any
one morning that I feel a shade worse than I did the previous one:
but when I look back a few weeks or months; say, for example, to the
beginning of the half, or at Easter, and remember how very well I was
then, compared with what I am now, I know that I must be a great deal
worse. I could not do now what I did then. Why! I quite believe I might
have gone in for Hare-and-Hounds then, if I had chosen. Fancy my trying
it now!"
"But you don't have any pain."
"None. I'm only weak and tired; always feeling to want to lie down and
rest. Every bit of strength and energy has gone out of me, Johnny."
"You'll get well," I said hastily.
"I'm sure I don't know."
"Don't you want to?" It was his cool answer made me ask it.
"Why, of course I do."
"Well then?"
"I'll tell you, Johnny Ludlow; there is a feeling within me, and I can't
say why it's there or whence it comes, that's always saying to me I
shall _not_ get well. At least, whenever I think about it. It seems just
as though it were telling me that instead of getting well it will be--be
just the opposite."
"What a dreadful thing to have, Whitney! It must be like a fellow going
about with a skeleton!"
"Not at all dreadful. It never frightens me, or worries me. Just as the
rest of you look forward naturally to coming back here, and living out
your lives to be men, and all that, so I seem _not_ to look to it. The
feeling has nothing bad at all about it. If it had, I dare say it would
not be there."
I stood on the small gate and took a swing. It pained me to hear him say
this.
"I suppose you mean, Whitney, that you may be going to die?"
"That's about it, Johnny. I don't know it; I may get well, after all."
"But you don't think you will?"
"No, I don't. Little Hearn first; I next. Another ought to follow, to
make the third."
"You speak as easily as if it were only going out to tea, Whitney!"
"Well, I feel easy. I do, indeed."
"Most of us would be daunted, at any rate."
"Exactly. Because you are not going to die. Johnny Ludlow, I am getting
to _think_ a great deal; to have a sort of insight that I never had
before; and I see how very wisely and kindly all things are ordered."
If he had gone in for a bout of tumbling like the mountebanks, I could
not have been as much surprised as to hear him say this. It was more in
Mrs. Frost's line than in ours. It laid hold on me at once; and from
that moment, I believed that John Whitney would die.
"Look here, Whitney. It is evident by what you say about failing
strength, that you must be getting worse. Why don't you tell them at
home, and go there and be nursed?"
"I don't want to be nursed. I am not ill enough for it. I'm better as I
am: here, amongst you fellows. As to telling them--time enough for that.
And what is there to tell? They see for themselves I am not as strong as
I was: there's nothing else to tell."
"There's this feeling that you say lies upon you."
"What, and alarm them for nothing? I dare say. There _would_ be a
hullabaloo. I should be rattled home in the old family coach, and Carden
would be sent for, post haste, Hastings also, and--well, you are a muff,
Johnny. I've told you this because I like you, and because I thought you
would understand me; which is more than the other fellows would. Mind
you keep counsel."
"Well, you ought to be at home."
"I am better here, while I am as I am. The holidays will be upon us
soon. I expect I shall not come back afterwards."
Now, if you ask me till next week, I could not give a better account of
the earlier part of John Whitney's illness than this. He was ill; and
yet no one could find out why he should be ill, or what was the matter
with him. Just about this time, Featherstone took up the notion that it
was "liver," and dosed him for it. For one thing, he said Whitney must
ride out daily, good hard riding. So a horse would be brought over from
the Hall by the old groom, and they would go out together. During the
Whitsun week, when Sir John was away from Parliament, he came also and
rode with him. But no matter whether they went slow or fast, Whitney
would come back ready to die from the exertion. Upon that, Featherstone
changed his opinion, and said riding must be given up.
By the time the Midsummer holidays came, any one might see the change
in Whitney. It struck Mrs. Frost particularly when he went in to say
good-bye to her.
"For the last time, I think," he said in a low tone, but with a smiling
countenance, as she stood holding his hand.
Mrs. Frost knew what he meant, and her face, always so pale, and
delicate, went red.
"I trust not," she answered. "But--God knows what is best."
"Oh yes, and we do not. Farewell, dear Mrs. Frost. Thank you truly for
all your care and kindness."
The tears stood in her eyes. _She_ was to be the next one to go from us,
after John Whitney.