"Forbes of Merton: Whitney has been about with him. And I suppose a few
others. We noticed a skiff or two waiting. Perhaps one was yours."
I spoke indifferently, determined he should not know I was put out.
Seeing him there--I was going to say on the sly--with that beguiling
syren, who was to foretell what pitfalls she might charm him into? He
took Madame Sophie on his arm again to continue their promenade, and I
lost sight of them.
I did not like it. It was not satisfactory. He had rowed her up--or
perhaps driven her up--and was marching about with her tête-à-tête under
the sweet spring sunshine. No great harm in itself this pastime: but
he might grow too fond of it. That she had reacquired all her strong
influence over Tod's heart was clear as the stars on a frosty night.
Whitney called out to me that it was time to think of going back. I got
into the boat with him, saying nothing.
Charley told me where he lived--"Up Stagg's Entry"--for I said I would
call to see him. Just for a day or two there seemed to be no time; but
I got there one evening when Tod had gone to the syren's. It was a
dark, dusky place, this Stagg's Entry, and, I think, is done away with
now, with several houses crowded into it. Asking for Charles Tasson,
of a tidy, motherly woman on the stairs, she went before me, and threw
open a door.
"Here's a gentleman to see you, Mr. Charley."
He was lying in a bed at the end of the room near the fire, under the
lean-to roof. If I had been shocked at seeing him in the open air, in
the glad sunshine, I was doubly so now in the dim light of the tallow
candle. He rose in bed.
"It's very kind of you to come here, sir! I'm sure I didn't expect you
to remember it."
"Are you worse, Charley?"
"I caught a fresh cold, sir, that day at Godstowe. And I'm as weak as a
rat too--hardly able to creep out of bed. Nanny, bring a chair for this
gentleman."
One of the handiest little girls I ever saw, with the same shining blue
eyes that he had, and plump, pretty cheeks, laid hold of a chair. I took
it from her and sat down.
"Is this your sister, Charley?"
"Yes, sir. There's only us two left together. We were eight of us once.
Three went abroad, and one is in London, and two dead."
"What doctor sees you?"
"One comes in now and then, sir. My illness is not much in a doctor's
way. There's nothing he could do: nothing for me but to wait patiently
for summer weather."
"What have you had to eat to-day?"
"He had two eggs for his dinner: I boiled them," said little Nanny. "And
Mrs. Cann brought us in six herrings, and I cooked one for tea; and
he'll have some ale and bread-and-butter for supper."
She spoke like a little important housekeeper. But I wondered whether
Charley was badly off.
Mrs. Cann, the same woman who had spoken to me, came out of her room
opposite as I was going away. She followed me downstairs, and began to
talk in an undertone. "A sad thing, ain't it, sir, to see him a-lying
there so helpless; and to know that it has laid hold of him for good and
all. He caught it from his mother."
"How do you mean?"
"She died here in that room, just as the winter come in, with the same
complaint--decline they call it; and he waited on her and nursed her,
and must have caught it of her. A good son he was. They were well off
once, sir, but the father just brought 'em to beggary; and Charley--he
had a good education of his own--came down from London when his mother
got ill, and looked out for something to do here that he might stay
with her. At first he couldn't find anything; and when he was at a
sore pinch, he took a place at Christchurch College as scout's helper.
He had to pocket his pride: but there was Nanny as well as his mother."
"I see."
"He'd been teacher in a school up in London, sir, by day, and in the
evenings he used to help some young clergyman as scripture-reader to the
poor in one of them crowded parishes we hear tell of: he was always one
for trying to do what good he could. Naturally he'd be disheartened at
falling to be a bed-maker in a college, and I'm afraid the work was too
hard for him: but, as I say, he was a good son. The mother settled in
Oxford after her misfortunes."
"How is he supported now? And the little girl?"
"It's not over much of a support," said Mrs. Cann with disparagement.
"Not for him, that's a-craving for meat and drink every hour. The eldest
brother is in business in London, sir, and he sends them what they
have. Perhaps he's not able to do more."
It was not late. I thought I would, for once, pay Mrs. Everty a visit.
A run of three minutes, and I was at her door.
They were there--the usual set. Tod, and Richardson, and Lord Gaiton,
and the two men from Magdalen, and--well, it's no use enumerating--seven
or eight in all. Richardson and another were quarrelling at écarté, four
were at whist; Tod was sitting apart with Sophie Chalk.
She was got up like a fairy at the play, in a cloud of thin white
muslin; her hair hanging around and sparkling with gold dust, and little
gleams of gold ornaments shining about her. If ever Joseph Todhetley had
need to pray against falling into temptation, it was during the weeks of
that unlucky term.
"This is quite an honour, Johnny Ludlow," said Madame Sophie, rising to
meet me, her eyes sparkling with what might have been taken for the most
hearty welcome. "It is not often you honour my poor little room, sir."
"It is not often I can find the time for it, Mrs. Everty. Tod, I came in
to see whether you were ready to go in."
He looked at his watch hastily, fearing it might be later than it was;
and answered curtly and coolly.
"Ready?--no. I have not had my revenge yet at écarté."
Approaching the écarté table, he sat down. Mrs. Everty drew a chair
behind Lord Gaiton, and looked over his hand.
The days passed. I had two cares on my mind, and they bothered me. The
one was Tod and his dangerous infatuation; the other, poor dying Charley
Tasson. Tod was losing frightfully at those card-tables. Night after
night it went on. Tod's steps were drawn thither by a fascination
irresistible: and whether the cards or their mistress were the more
subtle potion for him, or what was to be the ending of it all, no
living being could tell.
As to Stagg's Entry, my visits to it had grown nearly as much into a
habit as Tod's had to High Street. When I stayed away for a night,
little Nanny would whisper to me the next that Charley had not taken
his eyes off the door. Sick people always like to see visitors.
"Don't let him want for anything, Johnny," said Tod. "The pater would
blow us up."
The time ran on, and the sands of Charley's life ran with it. One
Wednesday evening upon going in late, and not having many minutes to
stay, I found him on the bed in a dead faint, and the candle guttering
in the socket. Nanny was nowhere. I went across the passage to Mrs.
Cann's, and she was nowhere. It was an awkward situation; for I declare
that for the moment I thought he was gone.
Knowing most of Nanny's household secrets, I looked in the candle-box
for a fresh candle. Charley was stirring then, and I gave him some
wine. He had had a similar fainting-fit at mid-day, he said, which had
frightened them, and Nanny had fetched the doctor. She was gone now, he
supposed, to fetch some medicine.
"Is this the end, sir?"
He asked it quite calmly. I could not tell: but to judge by his wan face
I thought it might be. And my time was up and more than up: and neither
Nanny nor Mrs. Cann came. The wine revived him and he seemed better;
quite well again: well, for him. But I did not like to leave him alone.
"Would you mind reading to me, sir?" he asked.
"What shall I read, Charley?"
"It may be for the last time, sir. I'd like to hear the service for the
burial of the dead."
So I read it every word, the long lesson, and all. Nanny came in before
it was finished, medicine in hand, and sat down in silence with her
bonnet on. She had been kept at the doctor's. Mrs. Cann was the next to
make her appearance, having been abroad on some business of her own: and
I got away when it was close upon midnight.
"Your name and college, sir."
"Ludlow. Christchurch."
It was the proctor. He had pounced full upon me as I was racing home.
And the clocks were striking twelve!
"Ludlow--Christchurch," he repeated, nodding his head.
"I am sorry to be out so late, sir, against rules, but I could not help
it. I have been sitting with a sick man."
"Very good," said he blandly; "you can tell that to-morrow to the dean.
Home to your quarters now, if you please, Mr. Ludlow."
And I knew he believed me just as much as he would had I told him I'd
been up in a balloon.
"You are a nice lot, Master Johnny!"
The salutation was Tod's. He and Bill Whitney were sitting over the fire
in our room.
"I couldn't help being late."
"Of course not! As to late--it's only midnight. Next time you'll come in
with the milk."
"Don't jest. I've been with that poor Charley, and I think he's dying.
The worst of it is, the proctor has just dropped upon me."
"No!" It sobered them both, and they put aside their mockery. Bill, who
had the tongs in his hand, let them go down with a crash.
"It's a thousand pities, Johnny. Not one of us has been before the dean
yet."
"I can only tell the dean the truth."
"As if he'd believe you! By Jupiter! Once get one of our names up, and
those proctors will track every step of the ground we tread on. They
watch a marked man as a starving cat watches a mouse."
With the morning came in the requisition for me to attend before the
dean. When I got there, who should be stealing out of the room quite
sheepishly, his face down and his ears red, but Gaiton.
"Is it your turn, Ludlow!" he cried, closing the room-door as softly as
though the dean had been asleep inside.
"What have you been had up for, Gaiton?"
"Oh, nothing. I got knocking about a bit last night, for Mrs. Everty did
not receive, and came across that confounded proctor."
"Is the dean in a hard humour?"
"Hard enough, and be hanged to him! It's not the dean: he's ill, or
something; perhaps been making a night of it himself: and Applerigg's on
duty for him. Dry old scarecrow! For two pins, Ludlow, I'd take my name
off the books, and be free of the lot."
Dr. Applerigg had the reputation of being one of the strictest of
college dons. He was like a maypole, just as tall and thin, with a long,
sallow face, and enough learning to set up the reputations of three
archbishops for life. The doctor was marching up and down the room in
his college-cap, and turned his spectacles on me.
"Shut the door, sir."
While I did as I was bid, he sat down at an open desk near the fire and
looked at a paper that had some writing on it.
"What age may you be, Mr. Ludlow?" he sternly asked, when a question or
two had passed. And I told him my age.
"Oh! And don't you think it a very disreputable thing, a great
_discredit_, sir, for a young fellow of your years to be found abroad by
your proctor at midnight?"
"But I could not help being late, sir, last night; and I was not abroad
for any purpose of pleasure. I had been staying with a poor fellow who
is sick; dying, in fact: and--and it was not my fault, sir."
"Take care, young man," said he, glaring through his spectacles.
"There's one thing I can never forgive if deliberately told me, and
that's a lie."
"I should be sorry to tell a lie, sir," I answered: and by the annoyance
so visible in his looks and tones, it was impossible to help fancying he
had found out, or thought he had found out, Gaiton in one. "What I have
said is truth."
"Go over again what you did say," cried he, very shortly, after looking
at his paper again and then hard at me. And I went over it.
"_What_ do you say the man's name is?"
"Charles Tasson, sir. He was our scout until he fell ill."
"Pray do you make a point, Mr. Ludlow, of visiting all the scouts and
their friends who may happen to fall sick?"
"No, sir," I said, uneasily, for there was ridicule in his tone, and
I knew he did not believe a word. "I don't suppose I should ever have
thought of visiting Tasson, but for seeing him look so ill one afternoon
up at Godstowe."
"He must be very ill to be at Godstowe!" cried Dr. Applerigg. "Very!"
"He was so ill, sir, that I thought he was dying then. Some flyman he
knew had driven him to Godstowe for the sake of the air."
"But what's your _motive_, may I ask, for going to sit with him?" He had
a way of laying emphasis on certain of his words.
"There's no motive, sir: except that he is lonely and dying."
The doctor looked at me for what seemed ten minutes. "What is this sick
man's address, pray?"
I told him the address in Stagg's Entry; and he wrote it down, telling
me to present myself again before him the following morning.
That day, I met Sophie Chalk; her husband was with her. She nodded and
seemed gay as air: he looked dark and sullen as he took off his hat. I
carried the news into college.
"Sophie Chalk has her husband down, Tod."
"Queen Anne's dead," retorted he.
"Oh, you knew it!" And I might have guessed that he did by his not
having spent the past evening in High Street, but in a fellow's rooms at
Oriel. And he was as cross as two sticks.
"What a _fool_ she must have been to go and throw herself away upon that
low fellow Everty!" he exclaimed, putting his shoulders against the
mantelpiece and stamping on the carpet with one heel.
"Throw herself away! Well, Tod, opinions vary. _I_ think she was lucky
to get him. As to his being low, we don't know that he is. Putting aside
that one mysterious episode of his being down at our place in hiding,
which I suppose we shall never come to the bottom of, we know nothing of
what Everty has, or has not been."
"You shut up, Johnny. Common sense is common sense."
"Everty's being here--we can't associate with him, you know,
Tod--affords a good opportunity for breaking off the visits to High
Street."
"Who wants to break off the visits to High Street?"
"I do, for one. Madame Sophie's is a dangerous atmosphere."
"Dangerous for you, Johnny?"
"Not a bit of it. _You_ know. Be wise in time, old fellow."
"Of all the muffs living, Johnny, you are about the greatest. In the old
days you feared I might go in for marrying Sophie Chalk. I don't see
what you can fear now. Do you suppose I should run away with another
man's wife?"
"Nonsense, Tod!"
"Well, what else is it? Come! Out with it."
"Do you think our people or the Whitneys would like it if they knew we
are intimate with her?"
"They'd not die of it, I expect."
"I don't like her, Tod. It is not a nice thing of her to allow the
play and the betting, and to have all those fellows there when they
choose to go."
Tod took his shoulder from the mantelpiece, and sat down to his
imposition: one he had to write for having missed chapel.
"You mean well, Johnny, though you are a muff."
Later in the day I met Dr. Applerigg. He signed to me to stop. "Mr.
Ludlow, I find that what you told me this morning was true. And I
withdraw every word of condemnation that I spoke. I wish I had never
greater cause to find fault than I have with you, in regard to this
matter. Not that I can sanction your being out so late, although the
plea of excuse _be_ a dying man. You understand?"
"Yes, sir. It shall not occur again."
Down at the house in Stagg's Entry, that evening, Mrs. Cann met me on
the stairs. "One of the great college doctors was here to-day, sir. He
came up asking all manner of questions about you--whether you'd been
here till a'most midnight yesterday, and what you'd stayed so late for,
and--and all about it."