WASTING AWAY.
But though Honour's words certainly aroused Mr. St. John to a sense of
precaution, they did not cause him to act upon it. A doubt lay almost
in his mind as to whether his wife did, or could, like Benja: it was
based upon her unmistakably jealous disposition, and on the blow she
had once given Benja when she was as a mad woman: but with her daily
conduct before him, her love displayed as much for Benja as for her
own child, he could only believe that the boy was safe in her care.
Certainly the words of Honour recalled those unpleasant doubts
forcibly before him; but he suffered the impression to wear away
again. We all know how time, even if you count it only by days or
hours, softens the aspect of things; and before November was out, the
master of Alnwick had made his will, leaving both the children under
the personal guardianship of his wife.
And the winter went on, and George St. John grew weaker and weaker.
Not very perceptibly so to the eyes about him; the decline was too
gentle for that. In February, instead of going up to London when
Parliament met, he resigned his seat, and then people grew sensible of
the change in him, and wondered what was wrong with Mr. Carleton St.
John. Mr. Pym came up constantly, and was more and more testy at every
visit. He sent drugs; he brought other doctors with him; he met a
great physician from the metropolis; but the more he did, the worse
seemed to be the effect upon his patient.
"You'd better give me up for a bad job, Pym, and leave off worrying
yourself," Mr. St. John said to him one day as they were strolling
down the park together--for Mr. St. John liked to go out with the
doctor when he had paid his visits. "I do you no credit."
"It's because you _won't_ do it," gruffly retorted the surgeon. "I
order you to a warm climate, and you won't go."
"No; I won't. I am best here. Send me away to those hot places, and I
should only die the sooner. Pym, dear old fellow"--and Mr. St. John
put his hand into the surgeon's--"you are feeling this for me more
than I feel it for myself. I have settled my business affairs; I have
settled--I humbly hope--other affairs of greater moment; and I can
wait my summons tranquilly."
"Have you made your will?" asked Mr. Pym, after a pause, which seemed
to be chiefly occupied in clearing his throat.
"No end of weeks ago. The chief thing I had to settle was the
guardianship of the children. Of Benja, I may say. George would have
naturally fallen to his mother without a will."
"And you have left him--Benja----?"
"To my wife, just as I have the other. Mr. St. John, of Castle Wafer,
and General Carleton, are the trustees. I thought of my wife's
half-brother, Captain Darling, as one of them; but his regiment will
probably be ordered abroad, and he may be away for years."
They walked on a few steps further in silence, to the spot that Mr.
St. John called his turning-place, for it was there he generally
quitted the surgeon. As they were shaking hands, Mr. Pym retained his
patient's fingers in his, and spoke.
"Will you forgive an old man for his advice? He is double your age,
and has had twenty times the experience. For acquiring good practical
lessons of life, commend me to a doctor."
"I'll take it," said Mr. St. John, "in anything except quitting
Alnwick."
"Don't leave Benja under your wife's charge."
"Why not?" came the question, after a pause of surprise.
"I have my reasons. For one thing, she is not very strong, and the
charge of the two children, with you gone, might be found a heavy
task."
"I think that's nonsense, Pym," quietly replied Mr. St. John. "She has
plenty of servants, and at a proper age Benja will go to school.
George also. You must have some other reason."
"True. But I am not sure that you would like me to mention it."
"Mention what you will, Pym. Say anything."
"Has it occurred to you that it is within the range of possibility
your wife may marry again?"
"My widow may. Yes."
"Then, should this prove the case, and she formed new ties about her,
Benja might find himself neglected. George is her own child, secure in
her love, whatever betide; Benja is different. Have you provided in
any way for the contingency I have mentioned?"
"No. I have left my wife personal and resident guardian at Alnwick
until Benja shall be twenty-one. At that period she must leave it, or
only remain there as Benja's guest. It is right, I believe, that it
should be so. And I have a precedent in my father's will."
"But his widow was your own mother."
Mr. St. John made no immediate reply. The distinction had probably not
occurred to him.
"Take my advice, George St. John," said the surgeon impressively; "do
not leave Benja under the charge of your wife. I would rather not
discuss with you the why and the wherefore; but rely upon it some
other plan will be better both for the boy and for Mrs. St. John."
He went away as he spoke, and George St. John turned slowly back to
the Hall. The conversation recalled to his mind with vivid force the
almost-forgotten words of Honour; and an uncomfortable feeling of
indecision crept into it.
Still he did not see any feasible way of altering the arrangements he
had made. When he died, Alnwick Hall would be Benja's, and must be the
boy's chief home during his minority; he could not turn his wife out
of it, and he could not place any one else in it as Benja's personal
guardian. He had no means of providing a suitable residence for his
widow if she left the Hall: in fact, it was only as the heir's
guardian that he could at all adequately provide for her. Neither, it
must be confessed, did Mr. St. John himself see any great necessity
for separating them: but he was a man amenable to counsel, open to
advice, and the opinion of two friends (surely both may be called so!)
so attached to him as Mr. Pym and Honour, bore weight with him. It had
not been George St. John had he ignored it.
"May God help me to do right!" he murmured, as he entered the house.
He dwelt much upon it during the remainder of the day; he lay awake
part of the night: and only when he came to a decision did he get to
sleep. Early the next morning he rang for his servant; and at eight
o'clock the pony-carriage conveyed him to the railway station at
Alnwick to take the train. As the market people looked at him, passing
them betimes in the fresh February morning, at the bright colour in
his face, the wavy brown hair stirred by the gentle breeze, they said
to themselves, how well Mr. Carleton St. John was looking, though
thin.
He was going over to Castle Wafer. An hour and a-quarter's journey
brought him to a certain town; there he waited twenty minutes, and
took another train. Rather more than another hour and a-quarter of
very quick travelling, for this last was an express, conveyed him to
Lexington, and thence he took a fly to Castle Wafer.
It was one of the most charming houses ever seen, nestling in lovely
grounds, amidst rising trees of many species. A modern house, built by
its present owner, Isaac St. John, who possessed a rare taste for the
beautiful, and had made it exquisite. That house was his hobby in
life; his care was his half-brother, Frederick St. John. The estate of
Castle Wafer was the entailed inheritance of these St. Johns; and
Frederick was heir presumptive: the positive heir, said the world; for
it was beyond the range of probability that its present owner would
ever marry.
They were second-cousins to the St. Johns of Alnwick, and were next in
succession. Of great wealth themselves, far more so than was George
St. John, and of more note in the world, they were yet below him in
succession to what might be called the original family property. That
was not Alnwick. An old baronet of eighty-one, Sir Thomas St. John,
held it; he was childless, and therefore it would come at his death to
George St. John, and to George St. John's sons after him. Had he,
George St. John, also been childless, the whole, including the title,
including Alnwick, would lapse to Isaac St. John.
George St. John had nearly a two-mile drive. He noted the familiar
points on the road and in the fine landscape, as they stood out in the
clear but not very bright February day. The sprinkling of cottages
near Castle Wafer; the solitary public-house, called the Barley Mow,
with its swinging sign-board; and the old-fashioned red-brick house,
Lexington Rectory, which the wiseacres of other days had built nearly
two miles from its church and Lexington proper. It stood close to the
grounds of Castle Wafer; was the only house of any social standing
very near to it; and as George St. John glanced at its windows as he
passed, he remembered that its present possessor had received his
title to orders from a church in the neighbourhood of Alnwick, of
which his father was patron; but he had been a very, very little boy
at the time. The house looked empty now; its windows were nearly all
closed: and he supposed its incumbent, Dr. Beauclerc, Rector of
Lexington and Dean of Westerbury, was away at his deanery.
"Mr. St. John is at home?" he asked, as the woman came out to throw
back the lodge gates.
"Oh yes, sir." And indeed George St. John had little need to ask, for
Mr. St. John rarely, very rarely, was away from Castle Wafer.
A few minutes' turning and winding, and then the front of the house
burst upon George St. John's view, and he was close upon it. The sun
broke out at the moment, and he thought he had never before seen any
place so beautiful; he always did think so, whenever he thus came upon
Castle Wafer. The glistening white front, long rather than high, with
its elaboration of ornament; the green terraces, covered with their
parterres of flowers, already in bloom, and stretching beyond to the
less open grounds; the low French windows, open to the breeze--never
did any dwelling impart so cheerful, so attractive a look as did
Castle Wafer. To a stranger, having no idea of the sort of house he
was going to see, perhaps surprise would be the first feeling; for the
place was as unlike a castle as any place could be. Isaac St. John
said laughingly sometimes that he ought to change its appellation.
There might have been a castle on the lands in the old feudal ages,
but no trace remained of it: and the house, which had been pulled down
to give place to this fairy edifice, had looked like a companion to
the Rectory--red, gaunt, and gloomy.
As the hall-door was thrown open, and the bright colours fell on its
mosaic pavement from the stained-glass windows, gladdening the eye of
George St. John, a tall, portly man, rather solemn and very
respectable, not to say gentlemanly, was crossing it, and turned his
head to see who the visitor might be. Mr. St. John at once stepped
past the footman and greeted him. It was Mr. Brumm, Castle Wafer's
chief and most respected servant; the many years' personal attendant,
and in some respects a confidential one, of its master. George St.
John held out his hand, as affable men will do by these valued
servants, after years of absence.
"How are you, Brumm? I see I have taken you by surprise."
"You have indeed, sir," said Mr. Brumm, in the slow manner natural to
him. "Not more so, I am sure, sir, than you will take my master. It
was only this morning that he was mentioning your name."
"How is he now?"
"Better, sir, than he has been. But he has suffered much of late."
Mr. Brumm was leading the way into an inner hall, one light and
beautiful as the first, with the same soft colours thrown from its
several windows. Opening a door here, he looked in and spoke.
"A visitor, sir--Mr. Carleton St. John."
By a bright fire in this light and charming room--and if you object to
the reiteration of the term, I can only plead in excuse that
everything was light and charming at Castle Wafer--with its few fine
paintings, its glittering mirrors, its luxuriant chairs and sofas, its
scattered books, and its fine harmonium, sat a deformed gentleman. Not
any hideous phase of deformity that repels the eye, but simply with a
hump upon his back: a small hump, the result of an accident in
infancy. He had a pale, wan face, with the sharp chin usually
accompanying these cases; a face that insensibly attracted you by its
look of suffering, and the thoughtful earnestness of its bright,
clear, well-opened hazel eyes. Of nearly middle height, that hump was
the only unsightly point about him; but he was a man of suffering; and
he lived chiefly alone, he and his pain. His hair was dark, silken,
rather scanty; but not a thread of silver could be seen in it, though
he was close on his fiftieth year.
Laying down the book he was reading, Isaac St. John rose at the
mention of the name; and stepped forward in the quiet, undemonstrative
way characteristic of him, a glad smile lighting up his face.
"George! how pleased I am to see you! So you have thought of me at
last?"
"I was half ashamed to come, Mr. St. John, remembering that it is five
years since I came before. But I have met Mrs. St. John repeatedly in
London, and sometimes Frederick; so that I have, as it were, seen you
at second-hand. I have not been well, too."
Suitable, perhaps, to the difference in their ages, it might be
observed that while the elder man called the younger "George," he
himself was addressed as "Mr. St. John." But Mr. St. John had been
almost grown up when George was a baby, and could remember having
nursed him.
"You do not look well, George," he said, scanning the almost
transparent face before him. "And--are you taller? You look so."
"That's because I'm thinner. See!"--opening his coat--"I'm nothing but
a skeleton."
"What is wrong?"
"I can't tell you. I grow thinner and thinner and weaker and weaker,
and that's about all I know. I may pick up as spring comes on, and get
right again; but--it may be the other way."
Isaac St. John did not answer. An unpleasant reminiscence of how this
young man's father had wasted away eight-and-twenty years ago kept him
silent.
"What will you take, George? Have you come to stay with me?"
"I have come to stay with you two hours: I must be home again by
nightfall if I can. And I won't take anything until my business with
you is over; for I confess it is my own selfish affairs that have
brought me here. Let me speak to you first."
"As you will. I am ready."
"Ever ready, ever willing to help us all!" returned George St. John,
warm gratitude in his tone. "It is about the guardianship that I wish
to speak. I thank you for accepting it."
Isaac smiled. "I did not see that I could do otherwise for you."
"Say for my children. Well, listen to me. I have left my wife personal
guardian to my children. She will reside at the Hall until Benja is of
age, and they with her, subject of course to their school and college
intervals. This is absolute with regard to the younger, but in regard
to the elder I wish it to be dependent upon your discretion."
"Upon my discretion?"
George St. John had his hands upon his knees, leaning forward in his
great earnestness; he did not appear to notice the interruption.
"I wish you (when I shall be gone, and the boys have only their
mother) to take means of ascertaining from time to time that Benja is
_happy_ under his stepmother's care, and that she is doing her part
by him in kindness. Should you find occasion to doubt this, or to
think from any other cause that he would be better elsewhere, remove
him from her, and place him with any one you may consider suitable. I
dare not say take him yourself: children are noisy, and your health is
imperfect; but place him where you can be sure that he will be well
done by. Will you undertake this, Mr. St. John?"
"Why do you ask this?" was the reply of Isaac St. John. "Is it a new
thought--a sudden thought?"
"It is a new thought, imparted to me chiefly through a conversation I
had yesterday with Pym, our surgeon and old friend. He does not think
it well that Benja should be left under the absolute control of Mrs.
St. John, as he is not her own child. He said, for one thing, that she
might marry again, and Benja would be as it were isolated amidst new
ties; but when I pressed him for other reasons--for I am sure he had
others--he would not give them; preferred not to discuss it, he said.
He was--I could see that--for having the boy entirely away from her,
but that is not to be thought of. I reflected a good deal on what he
said, and have come to the conclusion that it may be as well there
should be some clause inserted in the will that shall take absolute
power from her, and hence I come to you."
"Your wife is kind to the boy?" asked Mr. St. John. "Pardon me the
question, George."
"Very much so. When George was born, she showed some jealousy of the
oldest boy, but all that has passed away. Benja was nearly drowned
last November, and she was quite hysterical afterwards, crying and
sobbing over him like a child. The nurse, a most faithful woman,
thinks, I know, with Pym, but that's nothing."
"You wish me, in the event of the children being left fatherless, to
ascertain whether the elder is well done by at the Hall, and is happy
there. If not, I am to remove him? This is what you ask, as I
understand it?"
"Precisely so. Should you, in your judgment, deem that Benja would be
better elsewhere, take him away. I shall endow you with full power."
"But how am I to ascertain that?"
"In any way you please. Use any means that may suggest themselves. Go
over and see for yourself, or send some suitable substitute, or
question Honour----"
"Who is Honour?"
"Benja's nurse. She took to him when my poor Caroline died. My present
wife does not seem strong; at least she has had one or two serious
illnesses lately; and Pym says the care of the two boys is more than I
ought to put upon her. Perhaps it would be."
"Why not at once leave Benja under another guardianship?"
"I should not like to do so. The world would regard it as a slight, a
tacit want of confidence in my wife: and besides, in that case I
should be divided as to whether to leave the Hall as a present
residence to her or to Benja. I--mark me, Mr. St. John--I place full
reliance upon my wife; I believe she will do her duty by Benja, and
make him happy; and in that case there is no harm done. I am only
providing for a contingency."
"I see. Well, I accept the charge, George, though it might be well
that you should entrust it to a more active man."
"No, no; you and you only."
They continued talking together for the brief space George St. John
had allotted for his stay. Little more was said on the one subject,
for George quitted it somewhat abruptly, and they had other topics in
common; family matters, news on either side, as is the case when
relatives meet after a prolonged separation. At the appointed time he
was driven back to Lexington in Mr. St. John's carriage, took the
return train, and reached Alnwick about six in the evening.
His wife had sent the close carriage for him, fearing the night air.
George St. John directed the coachman to drive round by Mr. Drake, the
lawyer's; and when that gentleman came out to him he asked him to step
up to the Hall on the morrow, on a little matter of business relative
to an alteration in his recently-made will.
But Mr. St. John of Castle Wafer, pondering on these matters after his
relative's departure, remained puzzled, and could by no means arrive
at a satisfactory conclusion as to whether there was danger that Mrs.
Carleton St. John might be cruel to Benja, after the fashion of the
vindictive uncle of the "Babes in the Wood," or whether it was feared
that she would kill him with kindness.