Life was certainly a much more peaceable thing in the Whittaker
household while Florence was undergoing the process of being "stroked
down" by Mrs Warren at Ashcroft, Ethel and Sybil were much less
perverse and saucy without her, and went their several ways like
rational girls, Ethel looking forward to a clerkship in the post-office,
and Sybil to an apprenticeship to a good dressmaker in Rapley. They
contrived to walk about without staring or being stared at, and as they
behaved with ordinary common sense, the respectability of their superior
home showed, and they were thought well of by their various teachers,
and began to take the lead at their Sunday school in better things than
mischief. Miss Mordaunt found her Bible class comparatively harmless,
and could not honestly feel that she regretted Florence Whittaker;
while, at home, Mattie enjoyed unwonted peace and quiet.
She knew that she had not managed Florrie very well, but the relief of
feeling no longer responsible for her was great. After a longish
interval, Florence had replied to the letter in which she had urged her
to keep in mind the lesson of Harry's misconduct.
The girl could write rather a good letter, and her descriptions of her
life at Ashcroft were amusing. "I should like it very well if there was
anything but trees and live stock about," she said, "but I get on right
enough. Aunt Charlotte ain't made up her mind that I'm going to `harry
her up,' as Aunt Stroud calls it. As for Harry, I remember him well
enough, and there's others that haven't forgotten him neither, and maybe
I'm taking example more than you think."
Mattie could make nothing of this sentence, but it recalled Harry to her
mind; and one evening, when George had come back from his work, she
began to talk about him.
"It seems a bit heartless of us, George," she said, "to think so little
about him. He might be in trouble and poverty, and we so comfortable."
"I expect we should have heard of him if he had been," said George. "Of
course, if he turned up, I should do the right thing by him--after
proper inquiries. But I don't suppose we should be much the better for
him."
"I wonder if father ever frets after him," said Mattie.
"I don't think he does," said George dryly; "he put him out of the way
too much. But Aunt Stroud made a pet of him."
"I wish Aunt Lizzie wouldn't talk so mysterious!" said Mattie
impatiently. "She came down here to-day and talked about bursting
clouds and Providence, till one would have thought she knew something
particular."
"She's a talker, worse than Florrie," said George. "I declare I'll be
off, Mattie--if there isn't Aunt Stroud again!"
George was a worthy and useful young man, and if trouble or poverty had
come upon his sisters he would have done his part by them well. But he
liked his life very well as it was, and he naturally thought that the
scapegrace Harry, though he knew nothing of the jewel story, would come
into it as a disturbing element. Even Mattie, who was much more
tender-hearted, felt afraid of the idea of him, and would have welcomed
him from duty rather than from love. The father, too, was a good,
conscientious, but rather selfish man, whose life consisted in the
routine of his duties. He had been much more comfortable without Harry
than with him. People cannot vanish for years, leaving trouble behind
them, and always find a spontaneous welcome on their return. Neither
Alwyn Cunningham nor Harry Whittaker had left to them in the world the
one friend who would never have forgotten them. Their mothers were
dead. Their places were filled up. Had poor Edgar been the gay young
officer that Alwyn had pictured him, the place his brother held in his
memory would probably have been much smaller, and when Harry Whittaker
walked down the broad road in the middle of the cemetery, no dream had
given notice of his return, nobody had any special desire to see him.
And for himself, he had come home more for the sake of his child than
for that of his family. He recalled them all with an effort, even as he
walked along counting the new tomb-stones that had appeared since he
went away. His Aunt Stroud had arranged to come to the Lodge a few
minutes before him, so as to prepare his family for his arrival.
Suddenly, however, he perceived his father walking towards him by a side
path, with his order-book under his arm, on his way from a meeting of
the Board. A little greyer-haired, elderly middle-aged instead of young
middle-aged, but far less altered than Harry himself, at whom he looked
without any recognition. Harry had to choose between letting him pass
and making himself known; but, before he could resolve what to say, some
agitation in his manner, a look that was not that of the ordinary
passer-by in his face, arrested Mr Whittaker's attention, and he paused
and looked at him.
"I think I'm speaking to Mr Whittaker?" said Harry, in his strong
outspoken voice, which nevertheless shook a little. Then he suddenly
put out his hand.
"Father, do you know me? I've come back to ask your forgiveness and
friendship, and to clear my character as to the past."
"My son Henry!" exclaimed Mr Whittaker. He faced him with a look of
great surprise and of uncertain welcome, and yet, perhaps, he had often
enough wondered whether Henry would come back, not to feel the utter
strangeness of an event never looked forward to.
"It's your place to explain a little, Henry," he said, neither giving
nor withholding a welcome.
"If you are willing to hear me," said Harry.
"Come with me," said Mr Whittaker.
He turned and led the way into the little office where business was
transacted, and where the relatives and friends sometimes waited for
funerals. In this not very cheerful spot Harry's papers and letters
(including one from Mrs Warren) were once more produced, and, under
promise of secrecy for the present, he told his father of the search for
the jewels, and how he would willingly have held back till they were
found, but for his encounter with Florence.
"And," said Harry, "after what passed I was justified, I think, in
holding aloof, while I was a vagabond and times were so hard. And after
I settled down comfortable and got on, thanks to Mr Alwyn's kindness,
I'd made up my mind to forget the old country; but you see, father, I
thought, what if little Georgie, when he grows up, were to keep away
from me for eight years, and live _happy_? Why, let us have quarrelled
as we would, it'd break my heart to think he could forget me so. And
so--and so, father--I hope you'll let me take him his grandfather's
blessing. Mother would have set great store by him if she'd lived to
see him, and he shall be taught to set store by you."
The father and son sat looking at each other for a moment or two in
silence. For the big, half-grown, trouble-town of a boy the father
could not say that his heart had broken; but the thought of the little
grandchild brought back early days, when Harry's rosy face and sandy
curls had been the mother's pride, and when his father's heart would
have nearly broken if he had died in that scarlet fever from which he
had barely recovered. Perhaps he had been too ready to think ill of the
lad, and to cast him upon his own resources.
"If you were wronged about the jewels, Henry," he said, "it's you that
have the advantage of us."
"I'd acted so as to be easy wronged," said Harry, "but I'd be glad to go
back with all fair behind me."
Mr Whittaker put out his hand with something like tears in his shrewd
grey eyes. After all, he had not quite forgotten Harry. Harry gave the
hand a great squeeze and walked over to the window, from which he
presently turned round, saying:
"There's my aunt, father; she was coming to tell you."
Mr Whittaker went out to the door and beckoned Harry after him. There
stood Mrs Stroud, beaming; Mattie, flushed and eager; George by no
means so well pleased; and all the four younger ones eager and excited.
Harry's coolness returned as soon as he had settled matters with his
father, and he greeted them all as composedly as if he had returned from
a short excursion abroad, and presently they all went in to sit down to
supper and take each other's measure as well as they could.
Mrs Stroud at once called for the photograph and Ethel and Sybil
giggled with delight at finding themselves possessed of a nephew, while
Mattie began to think that some of the romance she was so fond of had
found its way into real life.
"And how long do you mean to stay this side of the water, Harry?" asked
his aunt.
"Only till the matter of which I spoke to my father is concluded or
given up. Mr Alwyn and myself could not both be away for long
together, and I think he will not leave his brother again so quickly.
Alberta would be very glad to make your acquaintances. Will you come
back with me and pay us a visit, Mattie?"
"No, Henery," said Mrs Stroud; "if Mattie knows which side her bread's
buttered she'll stay on this side of the ocean. But if you want to do a
brother's part by your own family, you'll take Florrie off their hands.
For there's no room for that girl--not in the High Street of Rapley.
Perhaps there might be in Ameriky."
"Aunt Eliza!" said Mattie indignantly, "Harry only meant so as to make
acquaintance."
"Well, well," said Harry, "we'll talk it all over. But Florence did her
best to get me out of a scrape--"
"Which I make no doubt she got you into," said Mrs Stroud.
Harry's eyes twinkled a little, but he did not betray Florence, and the
suggestion dropped into his mind. He would be glad to do something for
one member of his family, and he rather inclined to the unpopular
Florence, though, of course, he remembered Mattie much better, and felt
pleased when at last she shyly came up to him and said that she was glad
he had come home. But it was all uncomfortable and full of effort, and
Harry felt glad when the time came to say "Good night," and he went off
to catch the last train for London. But, as he walked along at full
speed to the station, the feeling of his father's hand-shake lingered on
his palm, and he felt that he could think of his child with peace and
satisfaction.