Clarence was not convinced. He said he had never seen our sister look at

either of these as she did when Lawrence came into the room; and there

was no denying that there was a soft and embellishing light on her whole

countenance, and a fresh sweetness in her voice. But then he seemed such

a boy as to make the notion ridiculous; and yet, on reckoning, it proved

that their years were equal. All that could be hoped was that the

sentiment, if it existed, would not discover itself before they parted,

so as to open their eyes to the dreariness of the prospect, and cause our

mother to think we had betrayed our trust in the care of our sister. As

we could do nothing, we were not sorry that this was the last day.

Clarence was to go on board with Frith, see him out of the river, and

come back with the pilot; and we all drove down to the wharf together;

nobody saying much by the way, except the few jerky remarks we brothers

felt bound to originate and reply to.

Emily sat very still, her head bent under her shading bonnet—I think she

was trying to keep back tears for the solitary exile; and Lawrence,

opposite, was unable to help watching her with wistful eyes, which would

have revealed all, if we had not guessed it already. It might be

presumptuous, but it made us very sorry for him.

When the moment of parting came, there was a wringing of hands, and,

‘Thank you, thank you,’ in a low, broken, heartfelt voice, and to Emily,

‘You have made life a new thing to me. I shall never forget,’ and the

showing of a tiny book in his waistcoat pocket.

When the two had disappeared, Emily, no longer restraining her tears,

told me that she had exchanged Prayer-books with him, and they were to

read the Psalms at the same time every day. ‘I thought it might be a

help to him,’ she said simply.

Nor was there any consciousness in her talk as she related to me what he

had told her about his mother and sisters, and his dreary sense of

piteous loneliness, till we had adopted him as a brother—in which

capacity I trusted that she viewed him.

However, Clarence had been the recipient of all the poor lad’s fervent

feelings for Miss Winslow, how she had been a new revelation to his

desolate spirit, and was to be the guiding star of his life, etc., etc.,

all from the bottom of his heart, though he durst not dream of requital,

and was to live, not on hope, but on memory of the angelic kindness of

these three weeks.

It was impossible not to be touched, though we strove to be worldly wise

old bachelors, and assured one another that the best and most probable

thing that could happen to Lawrence Frith would be to have his dream

blown away by the Atlantic breezes, and be left open to the charms of

some Chinese merchant’s daughter.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

TOO LATE.

‘Thus Esau-like, our Father’s blessing miss,

Then wash with fruitless tears our faded crown.’

KEBLE.

AFTER such a rebuff as Martyn had experienced at Beachharbour, he no

longer haunted its neighbourhood, but devoted the long vacation of the

ensuing year to a walking tour in Germany, with one or two congenial

spirits, who shared his delight in scenery, pictures, and architecture.

By and by he wrote to Clarence from Baden Baden—

‘Whom do you think I should find here but Griffith and his bird? I first

spotted the old fellow smoking under a tree in the Grand Platz, but he

looked so seedy and altered altogether that I was not sure enough of him

to speak, especially as he showed no signs of knowing me. (He says it

was my whiskers that stumped him.) I made inquiries and found that they

figured as “Sir Peacock and lady,” but they were entered all right in the

book. He is taking the “Kür”—he looks as if he wanted it—and she is

taking _rouge et noir_. I saw her at the salon, with her neck grown as

long as her namesake’s, but not as pretty, claws to match, thin and

painted, as if the ruling passion was consuming her. Poor old Griff! he

was glad enough to see me, but he is wofully shaky, and nearly came to

tears when he asked after Ted and all at home. They had an upset of

their carriage in Vienna last winter, and he got some twist, or other

damage, which he thought nothing of, but it has never righted itself; I

am sure he is very ill, and ought to be looked after. He has had only

foreign doctoring, and you know he never was strong in languages. I

heard of the medico here inquiring what precise symptom _der Englander_

meant by being “down in zie mout!” Poor Griff is that, whatever else he

is, and Selina does not see it, nor anything else but her _rouge et noir_

table. I am afraid he plays too, when he is up to it, but he can’t stand

much of the stuffiness of the place, and he respects my innocence, poor

old beggar; so he has kept out of it, since we have been here. He seems

glad to have me to look after him, but afraid to let me stay, for fear of

my falling a victim to the place. I can’t well tell him that there is a

perpetual warning to youth in the persons of himself and his Peacock.

His mind might be vastly relieved if I were out of it, but scarcely his

body; and I shall not leave him till I hear from home. Thomson says I am

right. I should like to bring the poor old man home for advice,

especially if my lady could be left behind, and by all appearances she

would not object. Could not you come, or mamma? Speak to papa about it.

It is all so disgusting that I really could not write to him. It is

enough to break one’s heart to see Griff when he hears about home, and

Edward, and Emily. I told him how famously you were getting on, and he

said, “It has been all up, up with him, all down, down with me,” and then

he wanted me to fix my day for leaving Baden, as if it were a sink of

infection. I fancy he thinks me a mere infant still, for he won’t heed a

word of advice about taking care of himself and _will_ do the most

foolish things imaginable for a man in his state, though I can’t make out

what is the matter with him. I tried both French and Latin with his

doctor, equally in vain.’

There was a great consultation over this letter. Our parents would fain

have gone at once to Baden, but my father was far from well; in fact, it

was the beginning of the break-up of his constitution. He had been

ageing ever since his disappointment in Griffith, and though he had so

enjoyed his jaunt with my mother that he had seemed revived for the time,

he had been visibly failing ever since the winter, and my mother durst

not leave him. Indeed she was only too well aware that her presence was

apt to inspire Selina with the spirit of contradiction, and that Clarence

would have a better chance alone. He was to go up to London by the mail

train, see Mr. Castleford, and cross to Ostend.

A valise from the lumber-room was wanted, and at bedtime he went in quest

of it. He came back white and shaken; and I said—

‘You have not seen _her_?’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘It is not her time of year.’

‘No; I was not even thinking of her. There was none of the wailing, but

when I looked up from my rummaging, there was her face as if in a window

or mirror on the wall.’

‘Don’t dwell on it’ was all I could entreat, for the apparition at

unusual times had been mentioned as a note of doom, and not only did it

weigh on me, but it might send Clarence off in a desponding mood.

Tidings were less rapid when telegraphs were not, and railways

incomplete. Clarence did not reach Baden till ten days after the

despatch of Martyn’s letter, and Griffith’s condition had in the meantime

become much more serious. Low fever had set in, and he was confined to

his dreary lodgings, where Martyn was doing his best for him in an

inexperienced, helpless sort of way, while Lady Peacock was at the

_salle_, persisting in her belief that the ailment was a temporary

matter. Martyn afterwards declared that he had never seen anything more

touching than poor Griff’s look of intense rest and relief at Clarence’s

entrance.

On the way through London, by the assistance of Mr. Castleford, Clarence

had ascertained how to procure the best medical advice attainable, and he

was linguist enough to be an adequate interpreter. Alas! all that was

achieved was the discovery that between difficulties of language, Griff’s

own indifference, and his wife’s carelessness, the injury had developed

into fatal disease. An operation _might_ yet save him, if he could rally

enough for it, but the fever was rapidly destroying his remaining

strength. Selina ascribed it to excitement at meeting Martyn, and indeed

he had been subject to such attacks every autumn. Any way, he had no

spirits nor wish for improvement. If his brothers told him he was

better, he smiled and said it was like a condemned criminal trying to

recover enough for the gallows. His only desire was to be let alone and

have Clarence with him. He had ceased to be uneasy as to Martyn’s

exposure to temptation, but he said he could hardly bear to watch that

bright, fresh young manhood, and recollect how few years had passed since

he had been such another, nor did he like to have any nurse save

Clarence. His wife at first acquiesced, holding fast to the theory of

the periodical autumnal fever, and then that the operation would restore

him to health; and as her presence fretted him, and he received her small

attentions peevishly, she persisted in her usual habits, and heard with

petulance his brothers’ assurances of his being in a critical condition,

declaring that it was always thus with these fevers—he was always cross

and low-spirited, and no one could tell what she had undergone with him.

Then came days of positive pain, and nights of delirious, dreary

murmuring about home and all of us, more especially Ellen Fordyce.

Clarence had no time for letters, and Martyn’s became a call for mamma,

with the old childish trust in her healing and comforting powers,

declaring that he would meet her at Cologne, and steer her through the

difficulties of foreign travel.

Hesitation was over now. My father was most anxious to send her, and she

set forth, secure that she could infuse life, energy, and resolution into

her son, when those two poor boys had failed.

It was not, however, Martyn who met her, but his friend Thomson, with the

tidings that the suffering had become so severe as to prevent Martyn from

leaving Baden, not only on his brother’s account, but because Lady

Peacock had at last taken alarm, and was so uncontrollable in her

distress that he was needed to keep her out of the sickroom, where her

presence, poor thing, only did mischief.

She evidently had a certain affection for her husband; and it was the

more piteous that in his present state he only regarded her as the

tempter who had ruined his life—his false Duessa, who had led him away

from Una. On one unhappy evening he had been almost maddened by her

insisting on arguing with him; he called her a hag, declared she had been

the death of his children, the death of that dear one—could she not let

him alone now she had been the death of himself?

When Martyn took her away, she wept bitterly, and told enough to make the

misery of their life apparent, when the gaiety was over, and regrets and

recriminations set in.

However, there came a calmer interval, when the suffering passed off, but

in the manner which made the German doctor intimate that hope was over.

Would life last till his mother came?

His brothers had striven from the first to awaken thoughts of higher

things, and turn remorse into repentance; but every attempt resulted in

strange, sad wanderings about Esau, the birthright, and the blessing.

Indeed, these might not have been entirely wanderings, for once he said,

‘It is better this way, Bill. You don’t know what you wish in trying to

bring me round. Don’t be hard on me. She drove me to it. It is all

right now. The Jews will be disappointed.’

For even at the crisis in London, he had concealed that he had raised

money on _post obits_, so that, had he outlived my father, Chantry House

would have been lost. Lady Peacock’s fortune had been undermined when

she married him; extravagance and gambling had made short work of the

rest.

Why should I speak of such things here, except to mourn over our

much-loved brother, with all his fine qualities and powers wasted and

overthrown? He clung to Clarence’s affection, and submitted to prayers

and psalms, but without response. He showed tender recollection of us

all, but scarcely durst think of his father, and hardly appeared to wish

to see his mother. Clarence’s object soon came to be to obtain

forgiveness for the wife, since bitterness against her seemed the great

obstacle to seeking pardon, peace, or hope; but each attempt only

produced such bitterness against her, and such regrets and mourning for

Ellen, as fearfully shook the failing frame, while he moaned forth

complaints of the blandishments and raillery with which his temptress had

beguiled him. Clarence tried in vain to turn away this idea, but nothing

had any effect till he bethought himself of Ellen’s message, that she

knew even this fatal act had been prompted by generosity of spirit.

There was truth enough in it to touch Griff, but only so far as to cry,

‘What might I not have been with her?’ Still, there was no real

softening till my mother came. He knew her at once, and all the old

childish relations were renewed between them. There was little time left

now, but he was wholly hers. Even Clarence was almost set aside, save

where strength was needed, and the mother seemed to have equal control of

spirit and body. It was she, who, scarcely aware of what had gone

before, caused him to admit Selina.

‘Tell her not to talk,’ he said. ‘But we have each much to forgive one

another.’

She came in, awed and silent, and he let her kiss him, sit near at hand,

and wait on my mother, whose coming had, as it were, insensibly taken the

bitterness away and made him as a little child in her hands. He could

follow prayers in which she led him, as he could not, or did not seem to

do, with any one else, for he was never conscious of the presence of the

clergyman whom Thomson hunted up and brought, and who prayed aloud with

Martyn while the physical agony claimed both my mother and Clarence.

Once Griff looked about him and called out for our father, then

recollecting, muttered, ‘No—the birthright gone—no blessing.’

It grieved us much, it grieves me now, that this was his last distinct

utterance. He _looked_ as if the comforting replies and the appeals to

the Source of all redemption did awaken a response, but he never spoke

articulately again; and only thirty-six hours after my mother’s arrival,

all was over.

Poor Selina went into passions of hysterics and transports of grief,

needing all the firmness of so resolute a woman as my mother to deal with

her. She was wild in self-accusation, and became so ill that the care of

her was a not unwholesome occupation for my mother, who was one of those

with whom sorrow has little immediate outlet, and is therefore the more

enduring.

She would not bring our brother’s coffin home, thinking the agitation

would be hurtful to my father, and anxious to get back to him as soon as

possible. So Griff was buried at Baden, and from time to time some of us

have visited his grave. Of course she proposed Selina’s return to

Chantry House with her; but Mr. Clarkson, the brother, had come out to

the funeral, and took his sister home with him, certainly much to our

relief, though all the sad party at Baden had drawn much nearer together

in these latter days.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

A PURPOSE.

‘It then draws near the season

Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.’

_Hamlet_.

WE had really lost our Griffith long before—our bright, generous,

warm-hearted, promising Griff, the brilliance of our home; but his actual

death made the first breach in a hitherto unbroken family, and was a new

and strange shock. It made my father absolutely an old man; and it also

changed Martyn. His first contact with responsibility, suffering, and

death had demolished the light-hearted boyishness which had lasted in the

youngest of the family through all his high aspirations. Till his return

to Oxford, his chief solace was in getting some one of us alone, going

through all the scenes at Baden, discussing his new impressions of the

trials and perplexities of life, and seeking out passages in the books

that were becoming our oracles. What he had admired externally before,

he was grasping from within; nor can I describe what the _Lyra

Apostolica_, and the two first volumes of _Parochial Sermons preached at

Littlemore_, became to us.

Mr. Clarkson had been rather dry with my brothers at Baden, evidently

considering that poor Griffith had been as fatal to his sister as we

thought Selina had been to our brother. It was hardly just, for there

had been much more to spoil in him than in her; and though she would

hardly have trod a much higher path, there is no saying what he might

have been but for her.

Griffith had said nothing about providing for her, not having forgiven

her till he was past recollecting the need, but her brother had intimated

that something was due from the family, and Clarence had assented—not,

indeed, as to her deserts, poor woman, but her claims and her needs—well

knowing that my father would never suffer Griff’s widow to be in want.

He judged rightly. My father was nervously anxious to arrange for giving

her £500 a year, in the manner most likely to prevent her from making

away with it, and leaving herself destitute. But there had already been

heavy pulls on his funded property, and ways and means had to be

considered, making Clarence realise that he had become the heir.

Somehow, there still remained, especially with my mother and himself, a

sense of his being a failure, and an inferior substitute, although my

father had long come to lean upon him, as never had been the case with

our poor Griff.

The first idea of raising the amount required was by selling an outlying

bit of the estate near the Wattlesea Station, for which an enterprising

builder was making offers, either to purchase or take on a building

lease. My father had received several letters on the subject, and only

hesitated from a feeling against breaking up the estate, especially if

this were part of the original Chantry House property, and not a more

recent acquisition of the Winslows. Moreover, he would do nothing

without Clarence’s participation.

The title-deeds were not in the house, for my father had had too much of

the law to meddle more than he could help with his own affairs, and had

left them in the hands of the family solicitor at Bristol, where Clarence

was to go and look over them. He rejoiced in the opportunity of being

able to see whether anything would throw light on the story of the

mullion chamber; and the certainty that the Wattlesea property had never

been part of the old endowment of the Chantry did not seem nearly so

interesting as a packet of yellow letters tied with faded red tape. Mr.

Ryder made no difficulty in entrusting these to him, and we read them by

our midnight lamp.

Clarence had seen poor Margaret’s will, bequeathing her entire property

to her husband’s son, Philip Winslow, and had noted the date, 1705; also

the copy of the decision in the Court of Probate that there was no

sufficient evidence of entail on the Fordyce family to bar her power of

disposing of it. We eagerly opened the letters, but found them

disappointing, as they were mostly offerings of ‘Felicitations’ to Philip

Winslow on having established his ‘Just Claim,’ and ‘refuted the

malicious Accusations of Calumny.’ They only served to prove the fact

that he had been accused of something, and likewise that he had powerful

friends, and was thought worth being treated with adulation, according to

the fashion of his day. Perhaps it was hardly to be expected that he

should have preserved evidence against himself, but it was baffling to

sift so little out of such a mass of correspondence. If we could have

had access to the Fordyce papers, no doubt they would have given the

other phase of the transaction, but they were unattainable. The only

public record that Clarence could discover was much abbreviated, and

though there was some allusion to intimidation, the decision seemed to

have been fixed by the non-existence of any entail.

Christmas was drawing on, and gathering together what was left of us.

Though Griffith had spent only one Christmas at home in nine years, it

was wonderful how few we seemed, even when Martyn returned. My father

liked to have us about him, and even spoke of Clarence’s giving up his

post as manager at Bristol, and living entirely at home to attend to the

estate; but my mother did not encourage the idea. She could not quite

bear to accept any one in Griff’s place, and rightly thought there was

not occupation enough to justify bringing Clarence home. I was competent

to assist my father through all the landlord’s business that came to him

within doors, and Emily had ridden and walked about enough with him to be

an efficient inspector of crops and repairs, besides that Clarence

himself was within reach.

‘Indeed,’ he said to me, ‘I cannot loose my hold on Frith and Castleford

till I see my way into the future.’

I did not know what he intended either then or when he gave his voice

against dismembering the property by selling the Wattlesea estate, but

arranged for raising Selina’s income otherwise, persuading my father to

let him undertake the building of the required cottages out of his own

resources, on principles much more wholesome than were likely to be

employed by the speculator. Nor did grasp what was in his mind when he

made me look out my ‘ghost journal,’ as we called my record of each

apparition reported in the mullion chamber or the lawn, with marks to

those about which we had no reasonable doubt. Separately there might be

explanation, but conjointly and in connection with the date they had a

remarkable force.

‘I am resolved,’ said Clarence, ‘to see whether that figure can have a

purpose. I have thought of it all those years. It has hitherto had no

fair play. I was too much upset by the sight, and beaten by the utter

incredulity of everybody else; but now I am determined to look into it.’

There was both awe and resolution in his countenance, and I only

stipulated that he should not be alone, or with no more locomotive

companion than myself. Martyn was as old as I had been at our former

vigil, and a person to be relied on.

A few months ago he would have treated the matter as a curious

adventurous enterprise—a concession to superstition or imagination; but

now he took it up with much grave earnestness. He had been discussing

the evidence for such phenomena with friends at Oxford, and the

conclusion had been that they were at times permitted, sometimes as

warnings, sometimes to accomplish the redress of a wrong, sometimes to

teach us the reality of the spiritual world about us; and, likewise, that

some constitutions were more susceptible than others to these influences.

Of course he had adduced all that he knew of his domestic haunted

chamber, but had found himself uncertain as to the amount of direct or

trustworthy evidence. So he eagerly read our jottings, and was very

anxious to keep watch with Clarence, though there were greater

difficulties in the way than when the outer chamber was Griffith’s

sitting-room, and always had a fire lighted.

To our disappointment, likewise, there came an invitation from the

Eastwoods for the evening of the 27th of December, the second of the

recurring days of the phantom’s appearance. My father could not, and my

mother would not go, but they so much wanted my brothers and sister to

accept it that it could not well be declined. It was partly a political

affair, and my father was anxious to put Clarence forward, and make him

take his place as the future squire; and my mother thought depression had

lasted long enough with her children, and did not like to see Martyn so

grave and preoccupied. ‘It was quite right and very nice in him, dear

boy, but it was not natural at his age, though he was to be a clergyman.’

As to Emily, her gentle cheerfulness had helped us all through our time

of sorrow, and just now we had been gratified by the tidings of young

Lawrence Frith. That youth was doing extremely well. There had been

golden reports from manager and chaplain, addressed to Mr. Castleford,

the latter adding that the young man evidently owed much to Mr. Winslow’s

influence. Moreover, Lawrence had turned out an excellent correspondent.

Long letters, worthy of forming a book of travels, came regularly to

Clarence and me, indeed they were thought worth being copied into that

fat clasped MS. book in the study. Writing them must have been a real

solace to the exile, in his island outside the town, whither all the

outer barbarians were relegated. So, no doubt, was the packing of the

gifts that were gradually making Prospect Cottage into a Chinese

exhibition of nodding mandarins, ivory balls, exquisite little cups, and

faggots of tea. Also, a Chinese walking doll was sent humbly as an

offering for the amusement of Miss Winslow’s school children, whom indeed

she astonished beyond measure; and though her wheels are out of order,

and her movements uncertain, she is still a stereotyped incident in the

Christmas entertainments.

There was no question but that these letters and remembrances gave great

pleasure to Emily; but I believe she was not in the least conscious that

though greater in degree, it was not of the same quality as that she felt

when a runaway scholar who had gone to sea presented her in token of

gratitude with a couple of dried sea-horses.

CHAPTER XL.

THE MIDNIGHT CHASE.

‘What human creature in the dead of night

Had coursed, like hunted hare, that cruel distance,

Had sought the door, the window in her flight

Striving for dear existence?’

HOOD.

ON the night of the 26th of December, Clarence and Martyn, well wrapped

in greatcoats, stole into the outer mullion room; but though the usual

sounds were heard, and the mysterious light again appeared, Martyn

perceived nothing else, and even Clarence declared that if there were

anything besides, it was far less distinct to him than it had been

previously. Could it be that his spiritual perceptions were growing

dimmer as he became older, and outgrew the sensitiveness of nerves and

imagination?

We came to the conclusion that it would be best to watch the outside of

the house, rather than within the chamber; and the dinner-party

facilitated this, since it accounted for being up and about nearer to the

hour when the ghost might be expected. Egress could be had through the

little garden door, and I undertook to sit up and keep up the fire.

All three came to my room on their return home, for Emily had become

aware of our scheme, and entreated to be allowed to watch with us.

Clarence had unfastened the alarum bell from my shutters, and taken down

the bar after the curtains had been drawn by the housemaid, and he now

opened them. It was a frosty moonlight night, and the lawn lay white and

crisp, marked with fantastic shadows. The others looked grave and pale,

Emily was in a thick white shawl and hood, with a swan’s down boa over

her black dress, a somewhat ghostly figure herself, but we were in far

too serious a mood for light observations.

There was something of a shudder about Clarence as he went to unbolt the

back door; Martyn kept close to him. We saw them outside, and then Emily

flew after them. From my window I could watch them advancing on the

central gravel walk, Emily standing still between her brothers, clasping

an arm of each. I saw the light near the ruin, and caught some sounds as

of shrieks and of threatening voices, the light flitted towards the gable

of the mullion rooms, and then was the concluding scream. All was over,

and the three came back much agitated, Emily sinking into an armchair,

panting, her hands over her face, and a nervous trembling through her

whole frame, Martyn’s eyes looking wide and scared, Clarence with the

well-known look of terror on his face. He hurried to fetch the tray of

wine and water that was always left on the table when anyone went to a

party at night, but he shivered too much to prevent the glasses from

jingling, and I had to pour out the sherry and administer it to Emily.

‘Oh! poor, poor thing,’ she gasped out.

‘You saw?’ I exclaimed.

‘They did,’ said Martyn; ‘I only saw the light, and heard! That was

enough!’ and he shuddered again.

‘Then Emily did,’ I began, but Clarence cut me short. ‘Don’t ask her

to-night.’

‘Oh! let me tell,’ cried Emily; ‘I can’t go away to bed till I have had

it out.’

Then she gave the details, which were the more notable because she had

not, like Martyn, been studying our jottings, and had heard comparatively

little of the apparition.

‘When I joined the boys,’ she said, ‘I looked toward the mullion rooms; I

saw the windows lighted up, and heard a sobbing and crying inside.’

‘So did I,’ put in Martyn, and Clarence bent his head.

‘Then,’ added Emily, ‘by the moonlight I saw the gable end, not blank,

and covered by the magnolia as it is now, but with stone steps up to the

bricked-up doorway. The door opened, the light spread, and there came

out a lady in black, with a lamp in one hand, and a kind of parcel in the

other, and oh, when she turned her face this way, it was Ellen’s!’

‘So you called out,’ whispered Martyn.

‘Dear Ellen, not as she used to be,’ added Emily, ‘but like what she was

when last I saw her; no, hardly that either, for this was sad, sad,

scared, terrified, with eyes all tears, as Ellen never, never was.’

‘I saw,’ added Clarence, ‘I saw the shape, but not the countenance and

expression as I used to do.’

[Picture: Lady Margaret’s ghost]

‘She came down the steps,’ continued Emily, ‘looking about her as if

making her escape, but, just as she came opposite to us, there was a

sound of tipsy laughing and singing from the gate up by the wood.’

‘I thought it real,’ said Martyn.

‘Then,’ continued Emily, ‘she wavered, then turned and went under an arch

in the ruin—I fancied she was hiding something—then came out and fled

across to the steps; but there were two dark men rushing after her, and

at the stone steps there was a frightful shriek, and then it was all

over, the steps gone, all quiet, and the magnolia leaves glistening in

the moonshine. Oh! what can it all mean?’

‘Went under the arch,’ repeated Clarence. ‘Is it what she hid there that

keeps her from resting?’

‘Then you believe it really happened?’ said Emily, ‘that some terrible

scene is being acted over again. Oh! but can it be the real spirits!’

‘That is one of the great mysteries,’ answered Martyn; ‘but I could tell

you of other instances.’

‘Don’t now,’ I interposed; ‘Emily has had quite enough.’

We reminded her that the ghastly tragedy was over and would not recur

again for another year; but she was greatly shaken, and we were very

sorry for her, when the clock warned her to go to her own room, whither

Martyn escorted her. He lighted every candle he could find, and revived

the fire; but she was sadly overcome by what she had witnessed, she lay

awake all the rest of the night, and in the morning, looked so unwell,

and had so little to tell about the party that my mother thought her

spirits had been too much broken for gaieties.

The real cause could not be confessed, for it would have been ascribed to

some kind of delirium, and have made a commotion for which my father was

unfit. Besides, we had reached an age when, though we would not have

disobeyed, liberty of thought and action had become needful. All our

private confabulations were on this extraordinary scene. We looked for

the arch in the ruin, but there was, as our morning senses told us,

nothing of the kind. She tried to sketch her remembrance of both that

and the gable of the mullion chamber, and Martyn prowled about in search

of some hiding-place. Our antiquarian friend, Mr. Stafford, had made a

conjectural drawing of the Chapel restored, and all the portfolios about

the house were searched for it, disquieting mamma, who suspected Martyn’s

Oxford notions of intending to rebuild it, nor would he say that it ought

not to be done. However, he with his more advanced ecclesiology,

pronounced Mr. Stafford’s reconstruction to be absolutely mistaken and

impossible, and set to work on a fresh plan, which, by the bye, he

derides at present. It afforded, however, an excuse for routing under

the ivy and among the stones, but without much profit. From the

mouldings on the materials and in the stables and the front porch, it was

evident that the chapel had been used as a quarry, and Emily’s arch was

very probably that of the entrance door. In a dry summer, the

foundations of the walls and piers could be traced on the turf, and the

stumps of one or two columns remained, but the rest was only a confused

heap of fragments within which no one could have entered as in that

strange vision.

Another thing became clear. There had once been a wall between the beech

wood and the lawn, with a gate or door in it; Chapman could just remember

its being taken down, in James Winslow’s early married life, when

landscape gardening was the fashion. It must have been through this that

the Winslow brothers were returning, when poor Margaret perhaps expected

them to enter by the front.

We wished we could have consulted Dame Dearlove, but she had died a few

years before, and her school was extinct.

CHAPTER XLI.

WILLS OLD AND NEW.

‘And that to-night thou must watch with me

To win the treasure of the tomb.’

SCOTT.

SOME seasons seem to be peculiarly marked, as if Death did indeed walk

forth in them.

Old Mr. Frith died in the spring of 1841, and it proved that he had shown

his gratitude to Clarence by a legacy of shares in the firm amounting to

about £2000. The rest of his interest therein went to Lawrence Frith,

and his funded property to his sister, Mrs. Stevens, a very fair and

upright disposition of his wealth.

Only six weeks later, my father had a sudden seizure, and there was only

time to summon Clarence from London and Martyn from Oxford, before a

second attack closed his righteous and godly career upon earth.

My mother was very still and calm, hardly shedding a tear, but her whole

demeanour was as if life were over for her, and she had nothing to do

save to wait. She seemed to care very little for tendernesses or

attentions on our part. No doubt she would have been more desolate

without them, but we always had a baffled feeling, as though our

affection were contrasted with her perfect union with her husband. Yet

they had been a singularly undemonstrative couple; I never saw a kiss

pass between them, except as greeting or farewell before or after a

journey; and if my mother could not use the terms papa or your father,

she always said, ‘Mr. Winslow.’ There was a large gathering at the

funeral, including Mr. Fordyce, but he slept at Hillside, and we scarcely

saw him—only for a few kind words and squeezes of the hand. Holy Week

was begun, and he had to hurry back to Beachharbour that very night.

The will had been made on my father’s coming into the inheritance. It

provided a jointure of £800 per annum for my mother, and gave each of the

younger children £3000. A codicil had been added shortly after

Griffith’s death, written in my father’s hand, and witnessed by Mr.

Henderson and Amos Bell. This put Clarence in the position of heir;

secured £500 a year to Griffith’s widow, charged on the estate, and

likewise an additional £200 a year to Emily and to me, hers till

marriage, mine for life, £300 a year to Martyn, until Earlscombe Rectory

should be voided, when it was to be offered to him. The executors had

originally been Mr. Castleford and my mother, but by this codicil,

Clarence was substituted for the former.

The legacies did not come out of the Chantry House property, for my

father had, of course, means of his own besides, and bequests had accrued

to both him and my mother; but Clarence was inheriting the estate much

more burthened than it had been in 1829, having £2000 a year to raise out

of its proceeds.

My mother was quite equal to business, with a sort of outside sense,

which she applied to it when needful. Clarence made it at once evident

to her that she was still mistress of Chantry House, and that it was

still to be our home; and she immediately calculated what each ought to

contribute to the housekeeping. She looked rather blank when she found

that Clarence did not mean to give up business, nor even to become a

sleeping partner; but when she examined into ways and means, she allowed

that he was prudent, and that perhaps it was due to Mr. Castleford not to

deprive him of an efficient helper under present circumstances. Meantime

she was content to do her best for Earlscombe ‘for the present,’ by which

she meant till her son brought home a wife; but we knew that to him the

words bore a different meaning, though he was still in doubt and

uncertainty how to act, and what might be the wrong to be undone.

He was anxious to persuade her to go from home for a short time, and

prevailed on her at last to take Emily and me to Dawlish, while the

repairs went on which had been deferred during my father’s feebleness; at

least that was the excuse. We two, going with great regret, knew that

his real reason was to have an opportunity for a search among the ruins.

It was in June, just as Martyn came back from Oxford, eager to share in

the quest. Those two brothers would trust no one to help them, but one

by one, in the long summer evenings, they moved each of those stones; I

believe the servants thought they were crazed, but they could explain

with some truth that they wanted to clear up the disputed points as to

the architecture, as indeed they succeeded in doing.

They had, however, nearly given up, having reached the original pavement

and disinterred the piscina of the side altar, also a beautiful coffin

lid with a floriated cross; when, in a kind of hollow, Martyn lit upon

the rotten remains of something silken, knotted together. It seemed to

have enclosed a bundle. There were some rags that might have been a

change of clothing, also a Prayer-book, decayed completely except the

leathern covering, inside which was the startling inscription, ‘Margaret

Winslow, her booke; Lord, have mercy on a miserable widow woman.’ There

was also a thick leathern roll, containing needles, pins, and scissors,

entirely corroded, and within these a paper, carefully folded, but almost

destroyed by the action of damp and the rust of the steel, so that only

thus much was visible. ‘I, Margaret Winslow, being of sound mind, do

hereby give and bequeath—’

Then came stains that defaced every line, till the extreme end, where a

seal remained; the date 1707 was legible, and there were some scrawls,

probably the poor lady’s signature, and perhaps that of witnesses.

Clarence and Martyn said very little to one another, but they set out for

Dawlish the next day.

‘Found’ was indicated to us, but no more, for they arrived late, and had

to sleep at the hotel, after an evening when we were delighted to hear my

mother ask so many questions about household and parish affairs. In the

morning she was pleased to send all ‘the children’ out on the beach, then

free from the railway. It was a beautiful day, with the intensely blue

South Devon sea dancing in golden ripples, and breaking on the shore with

the sound Clarence loved so well, as, in the shade of the dark crimson

cliffs, Emily sat at my feet and my brothers unfolded their strange

discoveries into her lap. There was a kind of solemnity in the thing; we

scarcely spoke, except that Emily said, ‘Oh, will she come again,’ and,

as the tears gathered at sight of the pathetic petition in the old book,

‘Was that granted?’

We reconstructed our theory. The poor lady must have repented of the

unjust will forced from her by her stepsons, and contrived to make

another; but she must have been kept a captive until, during their

absence at some Christmas convivialities, she tried to escape; but

hearing sounds betokening their return, she had only time to hide the

bundle in the ruin before she was detected, and in the scuffle received a

fatal blow.

‘But why,’ I objected, ‘did she not remain hidden till her enemies were

safe in the house?’

‘Terrified beyond the use of her senses,’ said Clarence.

‘By all accounts,’ said Martyn, ‘the poor creature must have been rather

a silly woman.’

‘For shame, Martyn,’ cried Emily, ‘how can you tell? They might have

seen her go in, or she might have feared being missed.’

‘Or if you watch next Christmas you may see it all explained.’

To which Emily replied with a shiver that nothing would induce her to go

through it again, and indeed she hoped the spirit would rest since the

discovery had been made.

‘And then?’—one of us said, and there was a silence, and another futile

attempt to read the will.

‘I shall take it to London and see what an expert can do with it,’ said

Clarence. ‘I have heard of wonderful decipherings in the Record Office;

but you will remember that even if it can be made out, it will hardly

invalidate our possession after a hundred and thirty years.’

‘Clarence!’ cried Emily in a horrified voice; and I asked if the date

were not later than that by which we inherited.

‘Three years,’ Clarence said, ‘yes; but as things stand, it is absolutely

impossible for me to make restitution at present.’

‘On account of the burthens on the estate?’ I said.

‘Oh, but we could give up,’ said Emily.

‘I dare say!’ said Clarence, smiling; ‘but to say nothing of poor Selina,

my mother would hardly see it in the same light, nor should I deal

rightly, even if I could make any alterations; I doubt whether my father

would have held himself bound—certainly not while no one can read this

document.’

‘It would simply outrage his legal mind,’ said Martyn.

‘Then what is to be done? Is the injustice to be perpetual?’ asked

Emily.

‘This is what I have thought of,’ said Clarence. ‘We must leave matters

as they are till I can realise enough either to pay off all these

bequests, or to offer Mr. Fordyce the value of the estate.’

‘It is not the whole,’ I said.

‘Not the Wattlesea part. This means Chantry House and the three farms in

the village. £10,000 would cover it.’

‘Is it possible?’ asked Emily.

‘Yes,’ returned Clarence, ‘God helping me. You know our concern is

bringing in good returns, and Mr. Castleford will put me in the way of

doing more with my available capital.’

‘We will save so as to help you!’ added Emily. At which he smiled.

CHAPTER XLII.

ON A SPREE.

‘Her eyes as stars of twilight fair,

Like twilight too, her dusky hair,

But all things else about her drawn

From May-time and the cheerful dawn,

A dancing shape, an image gay,

To haunt, to startle, and waylay.’

WORDSWORTH.

CLARENCE went to London according to his determination, and as he had for

some time been urgent that I should try some newly-invented mechanical

appliances, he took me with him, this being the last expedition of the

ancient yellow chariot. One of his objects was that I should see St.

Paul’s, Knightsbridge, which was then the most distinguished church of

our school of thought, and where there was to be some special preaching.

The Castlefords had a seat there, and I was settled there in good time,

looking at the few bits of stained glass then in the east window, when,

as the clergy came in from the vestry, I beheld a familiar face, and

recognised the fine countenance and bearing of our dear old friend Frank

Fordyce.

Then, looking at the row of ladies in front of me, I beheld for a moment

an outline of a profile recalling many things. No doubt, Anne Fordyce

was there, though instead of barely emulating my stunted stature, she

towered above her companions, looking to my mind most fresh and graceful

in her pretty summer dress; and I knew that Clarence saw her too.

I had never heard Mr. Fordyce preach before, as in his flying visits his

ministrations were due at Hillside; and I certainly should have been

struck with the force and beauty of his sermon if I had never known him

before. It was curious that it was on the 49th Psalm, meant perhaps for

the fashionable congregation, but remarkably chiming in with the feelings

of us, who were conscious of an inheritance of evil from one who had

‘done well unto himself;’ though, no doubt, that was the last thing

honest Parson Frank was thinking of.

When the service was over, and Anne turned, she became aware of us, and

her face beamed all over. It was a charming face, with a general

likeness to dear Ellen’s, but without the fragile ethereal look, and all

health, bloom, and enjoyment recalling her father’s. She was only moving

to let her pew-fellows pass out, and was waiting for him to come for her,

as he did in a few moments, and he too was all pleasure and cordiality.

He told us when we were outside that he had come up to preach, and ‘had

brought Miss Anne up for a spree.’ They were at a hotel, Mrs. Fordyce

was at home, and the Lesters were not in town this season—a matter of

rejoicing to us. Could we not come home and dine with them at once? We

were too much afraid of disappointing Gooch to do so, but they made an

appointment to meet us at the Royal Academy as soon as it was open the

next morning.

There was a fortnight of enjoyment. Parson Frank was like a boy out for

a holiday. He had not spent more than a day or two in town for many

years; Anne had not been there since early childhood, and they adopted

Clarence as their lioniser, going through such a country-cousin course of

delights as in that memorable time with Ellen. They even went down to

Eton and Windsor, Frank Fordyce being an old Etonian. I doubt whether

Clarence ever had a more thoroughly happy time, not even in the north of

Devon, for there was no horse on his mind, and he was not suppressed as

in those days. Indeed, I believe, it is the experience of others besides

ourselves that there is often more unmixed pleasure on casual holidays

like this than in those of early youth; for even if spirits are less high

(which is not always the case), anticipations are less eager, there is

more readiness to accept whatever comes, more matured appreciation, and

less fret and friction at _contretemps_.

I was not much of a drag, for when I could not be with the others, I had

old friends, and the museum was as dear to me as ever, in those recesses

that had been the paradise of my youth; but there was a good deal in

which we could all share, and as usual they were all kind consideration.

Anne overflowed with minute remembrances of her old home, and Clarence so

basked in her sunshine that it began to strike me that here might be the

solution of all the perplexities especially after the first evening, when

he had shown his strange discovery to Mr. Fordyce, who simply laughed and

said we need not trouble ourselves about it. Illegible was it? He was

heartily glad to hear that it was. Even otherwise, forty years’

possession was quite enough, and then he pointed to the grate, and said

that was the best place for such things. There was no fire, but Clarence

could hardly rescue the paper from being torn up.

As to the ghost, he knew much less than his daughter Ellen had done. He

said his old aunt had some stories about Chantry House being haunted, and

had thought it incumbent on her to hate the Winslows, but he had thought

it all nonsense, and such stories were much better forgotten. ‘Would he

not see if there were any letters?’

There might be, perhaps in the solicitor’s office at Bath, but if he ever

got hold of them, he should certainly burn them. What was the use of

being Christians, if such quarrels were to be remembered?

Anne knew nothing. Aunt Peggy had died before she could remember, and

even Martyn had been discreet. Clarence said no more after that one

conversation, and seemed to me engrossed between his necessary business

at the office, and the pleasant expeditions with the Fordyces. Only when

they were on the point of returning home, did he tell me that the will

had been pronounced utterly past deciphering, and that he thought he saw

a way of setting all straight. ‘So do I,’ was my rejoinder, and there

must have been a foolishly sagacious expression about me that made him

colour up, and say, ‘No such thing, Edward. Don’t put that into my

head.’

‘Isn’t it there already?’

‘It ought not to be. It would be mere treachery in these sweet, fresh,

young, innocent, days of hers, knowing too what her mother would think of

it and of me. Didn’t you observe in old Frank’s unguarded way of reading

letters aloud, and then trying to suppress bits, that Mrs. Fordyce was

not at all happy at our being so much about with them, poor woman. No

wonder! the child is too young,’ he added, showing how much, after all,

he was thinking of it. ‘It would be taking a base advantage of them

_now_.’

‘But by and by?’

‘If she should be still free when the great end is achieved and the evil

repaired, then I might dare.’

He broke off with a look of glad hope, and I could see it was forbearance

rather than constitutional diffidence that withheld him from awakening

the maiden’s feelings. He was a very fine looking man, in his

prime—tall, strong, and well made, with a singularly grave, thoughtful

expression, and a rare but most winning smile; and Anne was overflowing

with affectionate gladness at intercourse with one who belonged to the

golden age of her childhood. I could scarcely believe but that in the

friction of the parting the spark would be elicited, and I should even

have liked to kindle it for them myself, being tolerably certain that

warm-hearted, unguarded Parson Frank would forget all about his lady and

blow it with all his might.

We dined with the Fordyces at their hotel, and sat in the twilight with

the windows open, and we made Anne and Clarence sing, as both could do

without notes, but he would not undertake to remember anything with an

atom of sentiment in it, and when Anne did sing, ‘Auld lang syne,’ with

all her heart, he went and got into a dark corner, and barely said,

‘Thank you.’

Not a definite answer could be extracted from him in reply to all the

warm invitations to Beachharbour that were lavished on us by the father,

while the daughter expatiated on its charms; the rocks I might sketch,

the waves and the delicious boating, and above all the fisher children

and the church. Nothing was wanting but to have us all there! Why had

we not brought Mrs. Winslow, and Emily, and Martyn, instead of going to

Dawlish?

Good creatures, they little knew the chill that had been cast upon

Martyn. They even bemoaned the having seen so little of him. And we

knew all the time that they were mice at play in the absence of their

excellent and cautious cat.

‘Now mind you do come!’ said Anne, as we were in the act of taking leave.

‘It would be as good as Hillside to have you by my Lion rock. He has a

nose just like old Chapman’s, and you must sketch it before it crumbles

off. Yes, and I want to show you all the dear old things you made for my

baby-house after the fire, your dear little wardrobe and all.’

She was coming out with us, oblivious that a London hotel was not like

her own free sea-side house. Her father was out at the carriage door,

prepared to help me in, Clarence halted a moment—

‘Please, pray, go back, Anne,’ he said, and his voice trembled. ‘This is

not home you know.’

She started back, but paused. ‘You’ll not forget.’

‘Oh no; no fear of my forgetting.’

And when seated beside me, he leant back with a sigh.

‘How could you help?’ I said.

‘How? Why the perfect, innocent, childish, unconsciousness of the

thing,’ he said, and became silent except for one murmur on the way.

‘Consequences must be borne—’

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE PRICE.

‘With thee, my bark, I’ll swiftly go

Athwart the foaming brine.’

LORD BYRON.

CLARENCE would not tell me his purpose, he said, till he had considered

it more fully; nor could we have much conversation on the way home, as my

mother had arranged that we should bring an old friend of hers back with

us to pay her a visit. So I had to sit inside and make myself agreeable

to Mrs. Wrightson, while Clarence had plenty of leisure for meditation

outside on the box seat. The good lady said much on the desirableness of

marriage for Clarence, and the comfort it would be to my mother to see

Emily settled.

We had heard much in town of railway shares; and the fortunes of Hudson,

the railway king, were under discussion. I suspected Clarence of

cogitating the using his capital in this manner; and hoped that when he

saw his way, he might not think it dishonourable to come into further

contact with Anne, and reveal his hopes. He allowed that he was

considering of such investments, but would not say any more.

My mother and Emily had, in the meantime, been escorted home by Martyn.

The first thing Clarence did was to bespeak Emily’s company in a turn in

the garden. What passed then I never knew nor guessed for years after.

He consulted her whether, in case he were absent from England for five,

seven, or ten years, she would be equal to the care of my mother and me.

Martyn, when ordained, would have duties elsewhere, and could only be

reckoned upon in emergencies. My mother, though vigorous and practical,

had shown symptoms of gout, and if she were ill, I could hardly have done

much for her; and on the other hand, though my health and powers of

moving were at their best, and I was capable of the headwork of the

estate, I was scarcely fit to be the representative member of the family.

Moreover, these good creatures took into consideration that poor mamma

and I would have been rather at a loss as each other’s sole companions.

I could sort shades for her Berlin work, and even solve problems of

intricate knitting, and I could read to her in the evening; but I could

not trot after her to her garden, poultry-yard, and cottages; nor could

she enter into the pursuits that Emily had shared with me for so many

years. Our connecting link, that dear sister, knew how sorely she would

be missed, and she told Clarence that she felt fully competent to

undertake, conjointly with us, all that would be incumbent on Chantry

House, if he really wanted to be absent. For the rest, Clarence believed

my mother would be the happier for being left regent over the estate; and

his scheme broke upon me that very forenoon, when my mother and he were

settling some executor’s business together, and he told her that Mr.

Castleford wished him to go out to Hong Kong, which was then newly ceded

to the English, and where the firm wished to establish a house of

business.

‘You can’t think of it,’ she exclaimed, and the sound fell like a knell

on my ears.

‘I think I must,’ was his answer. ‘We shall be cut out if we do not get

a footing there, and there is no one who can quite answer the purpose.’

‘Not that young Frith—’

‘Ten to one but he is on his way home. Besides, if not, he has his own

work at Canton. We see our way to very considerable advantages, if—’

‘Advantages!’ she interrupted. ‘I hate speculation. I should have

thought you might be contented with your station; but that is the worst

of merchants,—they never know when to stop. I suppose your ambition is

to make this a great overgrown mansion, so that your father would not

know it again.’

‘Certainly not that, mamma,’ said Clarence smiling; ‘it is the last thing

I should think of; but stopping would in this case mean going backward.’

‘Why can’t Mr. Castleford send one of his own sons?’

‘Probably Walter may come out by and by, but he has not experience enough

for this.’

Clarence had not in the least anticipated my mother’s opposition, for he

had come to underestimate her affection for and reliance on him. He had

us all against him, for not only could we not bear to part with him; but

the climate of Hong-Kong was in evil repute, and I had become persuaded

that, with his knowledge of business, railway shares and scrip might be

made to realise the amount needed, but he said, ‘That is what _I_ call

speculation. The other matter is trade in which, with Heaven’s blessing,

I can hope to prosper.’

He explained that Mr. Castleford had received him on his coming to London

with almost a request that he would undertake this expedition; but with

fears whether, in his new position, he could or would do so, although his

presence in China would be very important to the firm at this juncture;

and there would be opportunities which would probably result in very

considerable profits after a few years. If Clarence had been, as before,

a mere younger brother, it would have been thought an excellent chance;

and he would almost have felt bound by his obligations to Mr. Castleford

to undertake the first starting of the enterprise, if it had not been for

our recent loss, and the doubt whether he could he spared from home.

He made light of the dangers of climate. He had never suffered in that

way in his naval days, and scarcely knew what serious illness meant.

Indeed, he had outgrown much of that sensibility of nerve which had made

him so curiously open to spiritual or semi-spiritual impressions.

‘Any way,’ he said, ‘the thing is right to be done, provided my mother

does not make an absolute point of my giving it up; and whether she does

or not depends a good deal on how you others put it to her.’

‘Right on Mr. Castleford’s account?’ I asked.

‘That is one side of it. To refuse would put him in a serious

difficulty; but I could perhaps come home sooner if it were not for this

other matter. I told him so far as that it was an object with me to

raise this sum in a few years, and he showed me how there is every

likelihood of my being able to do so out there. So now I feel in your

hands. If you all, and Edward chiefly, set to and persuade my mother

that this undertaking is a dangerous business, and that I can only be led

to it by inordinate love of riches—’

‘No, no—’

‘That’s what she thinks,’ pursued Clarence, ‘and that I want to be a

grander man than my father. That’s at the bottom of her mind, I see.

Well, if you deplore this, and let her think the place can’t do without

me, she will come out in her strength and make it my duty to stay at

home.’

‘It is very tempting,’ said Emily.

‘We all undertook to give up something.’

‘We never thought it would come in this way!’

‘We never do,’ said Clarence.

‘Tell me,’ said Martyn, ‘is this to content that ghost, poor thing? For

it is very hard to believe in her, except in the mullion room in

December.’

‘Exactly so, Martyn,’ he answered. ‘Impressions fade, and the intellect

fails to accept them. But I do not think that is my motive. We know

that a wicked deed was done by our ancestor, and we hardly have the right

to pray, “Remember not the sins of our forefathers,” unless, now that we

know the crime, we attempt what restitution in us lies.’

There was no resisting after this appeal, and after the first shock, my

mother was ready to admit that as Clarence owed everything to Mr.

Castleford, he could not well desert the firm, if it were really needful

for its welfare that he should go out. We got her to look on Mr.

Castleford as captain of the ship, and Clarence as first lieutenant; and

when she was once convinced that he did not want to aggrandise the

family, but to do his duty, she dropped her objections; and we soon saw

that the occupations that his absence would impose on her would be a

fresh interest in life.

Just as the decision was thus ratified, a packet from Canton arrived for

Clarence from Bristol. It was the first reply of young Frith to the

tidings of the bequest which had changed the poor clerk to a wealthy man,

owning a large proportion of the shares of the prosperous house.

I asked if he were coming home, and Clarence briefly replied that he did

not know,—‘it depended—’

‘Is he going to wed a fair Chinese with lily feet?’ asked Martyn, to

which the reply was an unusually discourteous ‘Bosh,’ as Clarence escaped

with his letter. He was so reticent about it that I required a solemn

assurance that poor Lawrence’s head had not been turned by his fortune,

and that there was nothing wrong with him. Indeed, there was great

stupidity in never guessing the purport of that thick letter, nor that it

contained one for Emily, where Lawrence Frith laid himself, and all that

he had, at her feet, ascribing to her all the resolution with which he

had kept from evil, and entreating permission to come home and endeavour

to win her heart. We lived so constantly together that it is surprising

that Clarence contrived to give the letter to Emily in private. She

implored him to say nothing to us, and brought him the next day her

letter of uncompromising refusal.

He asked whether it would have been the same if he had intended to remain

at home.

‘As if you were a woman, you conceited fellow,’ was all the answer she

vouchsafed him.

Nor could he ascertain, nor perhaps would she herself examine, on which

side lay her heart of hearts. The proof had come whether she would abide

by her pledge to him to accept the care of us in his absence. When he

asked it, it had not occurred to him that it might be a renunciation of

marriage. Now he perceived that so it had been, but she kept her counsel

and so did he. We others never guessed at what was going on between

those two.

CHAPTER XLIV.

PAYING THE COST.

‘But oh! the difference to me.’

WORDSWORTH.

SO Clarence was gone, and our new life begun in its changed aspect.

Emily showed an almost feverish eagerness to make it busy and cheerful,

getting up a sewing class in the village, resuming the study of Greek,

grappling with the natural system in botany, all of which had been

fitfully proposed but hindered by interruptions and my father’s

feebleness.

On a suggestion of Mr. Stafford’s, we set to work on that _History of

Letter Writing_ which, what with collecting materials, and making

translations, lasted us three years altogether, and was a great resource

and pleasure, besides ultimately bringing in a fraction towards the great

purpose. Emily has confessed that she worked away a good deal of vague,

weary depression, and sense of monotony into those Greek choruses: but to

us she was always a sunbeam, with her ever ready attention, and the

playfulness which resumed more of genuine mirth after the first effort

and strain of spirits were over.

Then journal-letters on either side began to bridge the gulf of

separation,—those which, minus all the specially interesting portions,

are to be seen in the volume we culled from them, and which had

considerable success in its day.

Martyn worked in the parish and read with Mr. Henderson till he was old

enough for Ordination, and then took the curacy of St. Wulstan’s, under a

hardworking London vicar, and thenceforth his holidays were our

festivals. Our old London friends pitied us for what they viewed as a

fearfully dull life, and in the visits they occasionally paid us thought

they were doing us a great favour by bringing us new ideas and shooting

our partridges.

We hardly deserved their compassion: our lives were full of interest to

ourselves—that interest which comes of doing ever so feeble a stroke of

work in one great cause; and there was much keen participation in the

general life of the Church in the crisis through which she was passing.

We found that, what with drawing pictures, writing little books,

preparing lessons for teachers, and much besides which is now ready done

by the National Society and Sunday School Institute, we could do a good

deal to assist Martyn in his London work, and our own grew upon us.

For the first year of her widowhood, my mother shrank from society, and

afterwards had only spasmodic fits of doubt whether it were not her duty

to make my sister go out more. So that now and then Emily did go to a

party, or to make a visit of some days or weeks from home, and then we

knew how valuable she was. It would be hard to say whether my mother

were relieved or disappointed when Emily refused James Eastwood, in spite

of many persuasions, not only from himself, but his family. I believe

mamma thought it selfish to be glad, and that it was a failure in duty

not to have performed that weighty matter of marrying her daughter;

feeling in some way inferior to ladies who had disposed of a whole flock

under five and twenty, whereas she had not been able to get rid of a

single one!

Of Clarence’s doings in China I need not speak; you have read of them in

the book for yourselves, and you know how his work prospered, so that the

results more than fulfilled his expectations, and raised the firm to the

pitch of greatness and reputation which it has ever since preserved, and

this without soiling his hands with the miserable opium traffic. Some of

the subordinates were so set on the gains to be thus obtained, that he

and Lawrence Frith had a severe struggle with them to prevent it, and

were forced conjointly to use all their authority as principals to make

it impossible. Those two were the greatest of friends. Their chief

relaxation was one another’s company, and their earnest aim was to

support the Christian mission, and to keep up the tone of their English

dependants, a terribly difficult matter, and one that made the time of

their return somewhat doubtful, even when Walter Castleford was gone out

to relieve them. Their health had kept up so well that we had ceased to

be anxious on that point, and it was through the Castlefords that we

received the first hint that Clarence might not be as well as his absence

of complaint had led us to believe.

In fact he had never been well since a terrible tempest, when he had

worked hard and exposed himself to save life. I never could hear the

particulars, for Lawrence was away, and Clarence could not write about it

himself, having been prostrated by one of those chills so perilous in hot

countries; but from all I have heard, no resident in Hong-Kong would have

believed that Mr. Winslow’s courage could ever have been called in

question. He ought to have come home immediately after that attack of

fever; for the five years were over, and his work nearly done; but there

was need to consolidate his achievements, and a strong man is only too

apt to trifle with his health. We might have guessed something by the

languor and brevity of his letters, but we thought the absence of detail

owing to his expectation of soon seeing us; and had gone on for months

expecting the announcement of a speedy return, when an unexpected shock

fell on us. Our dear mother was still an active woman, with few signs of

age about her, when, in her sixty-seventh year, she was almost suddenly

taken from us by an attack of gout in the stomach.

I feel as if I had not done her justice, and as if she might seem stern,

unsympathising, and lacking in tenderness. Yet nothing could be further

from the truth. She was an old-fashioned mother, who held it her duty to

keep up her authority, and counted over-familiarity and indulgence as

sins. To her ‘the holy spirit of discipline was the beginning of

wisdom,’ and to make her children godly, truthful, and honourable was a

much greater object than to win their love. And their love she had, and

kept to a far higher degree than seems to be the case with those who

court affection by caresses and indulgence. We knew that her approval

was of a generous kind, we prized enthusiastically her rare betrayals of

her motherly tenderness, and we depended on her in a manner we only

realised in the desolation, dreariness, and helplessness that fell upon

us, when we knew that she was gone. She had not, nor had any of us,

understood that she was dying, and she had uttered only a few words that

could imply any such thought. On hearing that there was a letter from

Clarence, she said, ‘Poor Clarence! I should like to have seen him. He

is a good boy after all. I’ve been hard on him, but it will all be right

now. God Almighty bless him!’

That was the only formal blessing she left among us. Indeed, the last

time I saw her was with an ordinary good-night at the foot of the stairs.

Emily said she was glad that I had not to carry with me the remembrance

of those paroxysms of suffering. My dear Emily had alone the whole force

of that trial—or shall I call it privilege? Martyn did not reach home

till some hours after all was over, poor boy.

And in the midst of our desolateness, just as we had let the daylight in

again upon our diminished numbers round the table, came a letter from

Hong-Kong, addressed to me in Lawrence Frith’s writing, and the first

thing I saw was a scrawl, as follows:—

‘DEAREST TED—All is in your hands. You can do _it_. God bless you

all. W. C. W.’

When I came to myself, and could see and hear, Martyn was impressing on

me that where there is life there is hope, though indeed, according to

poor Lawrence’s letter, there was little of either. He feared our

hearing indirectly, and therefore wrote to prepare us.

He had been summoned to Hong-Kong to find Clarence lying desperately ill,

for the most part semi-delirious, holding converse with invisible forms,

or entreating some one to let him alone—he had done his best. In one of

his more lucid intervals he had made Lawrence find that note in a case

that lay near him, and promise to send it; and he had tried to send some

messages, but they had become confused, and he was too weak to speak

further.

The next mail was sure to bring the last tidings of one who had given his

life for right and justice. It was only a reprieve that what it actually

brought was the intelligence that he was still alive, and more sensible,

and had been able to take much pleasure in seeing the friend of his

youth, Captain Coles, who was there with his ship, the _Douro_. Then

there had been a relapse. Captain Coles had brought his doctor to see

him, and it had been pronounced that the best chance of saving him was a

sea-voyage. The _Douro_ had just received orders to return to England,

and Coles had offered to take home both the friends as guests, though

there was evidently little hope that our brother would reach any earthly

home. As we knew afterwards, he had smiled and said it was like

rehabilitation to have the chance of dying on board one of H.M. ships.

And he was held in such respect, and was so entirely one of the leading

men of the little growing colony, and had been known as such a friend to

the naval men, and had so gallantly aided a Queen’s ship in that

hurricane, that his passage home in this manner only seemed a natural

tribute of respect. A few last words from Lawrence told us that he was

safely on board, all unconscious of the silent, almost weeping,

procession that had escorted his litter to the _Douro’s_ boat, only too

much as if it were his bier. In fact, Captain Coles actually promised

him that if he died at sea he should be buried with the old flag.

We could not hope to hear more for at least six weeks, since our letter

had come by overland mail, and the _Douro_ would take her time. It was a

comfort in this waiting time that Martyn could be with us. His rector

had been promoted; there was a general change of curates; and as Martyn

had been working up to the utmost limits of his strength, we had no

scruple in inducing him to remain with us, and undertake nothing fresh

till this crisis was past. Though as to rest, not one Sunday passed

without requests for his assistance from one or more of the neighbouring

clergy.

CHAPTER XLV.

ACHIEVED.

‘And hopes and fears that kindle hope,

An undistinguishable throng,

And gentle wishes long subdued—

Subdued and cherished long.’

S. T. COLERIDGE.

THE first that we did hear of our brother was a letter with a Falmouth

postmark, which we scarcely dared to open. There was not much in it, but

that was enough. ‘D. G.—I shall see you all again. We put in at

Portsmouth.’

There was no staying at home after that. We three lost no time in

starting, for railways had become available, and by the time we had

driven from the station at Portsmouth the _Douro_ had been signalled.

Martyn took a boat and went on board alone, for besides that Emily did

not like to leave me, her dress would have been a revelation that _all_

were no longer there to greet the arrival. The precaution was, however,

unnecessary. There stood Clarence on deck, and after the first greeting,

he laid his hand on Martyn’s arm and said, ‘My mother is gone?’ and on

the wondering assent, ‘I was quite sure of it.’

So they came ashore, Clarence lying in the man-of-war’s boat, in which

his friend insisted on sending him, able now to give a smiling response

and salute to the three cheers with which the crew took leave of him. He

was carried up to our hotel on a stretcher by half-a-dozen blue jackets.

Indeed he was grievously changed, looking so worn and weak, so

hollow-eyed and yellow, and so fearfully wasted, that the very memory is

painful; and able to do nothing but lie on the sofa holding Emily’s hand,

gazing at us with a face full of ineffable peace and gladness. There was

a misgiving upon me that he had only come back to finish his work and bid

us farewell.

Kindly and considerately they had sent him on before with Martyn. In a

quarter of an hour’s time his good doctor came in with Lawrence Frith, a

considerable contrast to our poor Clarence, for the slim gypsy lad had

developed into a strikingly handsome man, still slender and lithe, but

with a fine bearing, and his bronzed complexion suiting well with his

dark shining hair and beautiful eyes. They had brought some of the

luggage, and the doctor insisted that his patient should go to bed

directly, and rest completely before trying to talk.

Then we heard that his condition, though still anxious, was far from

being hopeless, and that after the tropics had been passed, he had been

gradually improving. The kind doctor had got leave to go up to London

with us, and talk over the case with L---, and he hoped Clarence might be

able to bear the journey by the next afternoon.

Presently after came Captain Coles, whom we had not seen since the short

visit when we had idolised the big overgrown midshipman, whom Clarence

exhibited to our respectful and distant admiration nearly twenty years

ago. My mother used to call him a gentlemanly lad, and that was just

what he was still, with a singularly soft gentle manner, gallant officer

and post-captain as he was. He cheered me much, for he made no doubt of

Clarence’s ultimate recovery, and he added that he had found the dear

fellow so valued and valuable, so useful in all good works, and so much

respected by all the English residents, ‘that really,’ said the captain,

‘I did not know whether to deplore that the service should have lost such

a man, or whether to think it had been a good thing for him, though not

for us, that—that he got into such a scrape.’

I said something of our thanks.

‘To tell you the truth,’ said Coles, ‘I had my doubts whether it had not

been a cruel act, for he had a terrible turn after we got him on board,

and all the sounds of a Queen’s ship revived the past associations, and

always of a painful kind in his delirium, till at last, just as I gave

him up, the whole character of his fancies seemed to change, and from

that time he has been gaining every day.’

We kept the captain to dinner, and gathered a good deal more

understanding of the important position to which Clarence had risen by

force of character and rectitude of purpose in that strange little

Anglo-Chinese colony; and afterwards, I was allowed to make a long visit

to Clarence, who, having eaten and slept, was quite ready to talk.

It seemed that the great distress of his illness had been the

recurrence—nay, aggravation—of the strange susceptibility of brain and

nerve that had belonged to his earlier days, and with it either

imagination or perception of the spirit-world. Much that had seemed

delirium had belonged to that double consciousness, and he perfectly

recollected it. As Coles had said, the sights and sounds of the ship had

been a renewal of the saddest time in his life; he could not at night

divest himself of the impression that he was under arrest, and the sins

of his life gathered themselves in fearful and oppressive array, as if to

stifle him, and the phantom of poor Margaret with her lamp—which had

haunted him from the beginning of his illness—seemed to taunt him with

having been too fainthearted and tardy to be worthy to espouse her cause.

The faith to which he tried to cling _would_ seem to fail him in those

awful hours, when he could only cry out mechanical prayers for mercy.

Then there had come a night when he had heard my mother say, ‘All right

now; God Almighty bless him.’ And therewith the clouds cleared from his

mind. The power of _feeling_, as well as believing in, the blotting out

of sin, returned, the sense of pardon and peace calmed him, and from that

time he was fully himself again, ‘though,’ he said, ‘I knew I should not

see my mother here.’

If she could only have seen him come home under the Union Jack, cheered

by sailors, and carried ashore by them, it would have been to her like

restoration. Perhaps Clarence in his dreamy weakness had so felt it, for

certainly no other mode of return to Portsmouth, the very place of his

degradation, could so have soothed him and effaced those memories. The

English sounds were a perfect charm to him, as well as to Lawrence, the

commonest street cry, the very slices of bread and butter, anything that

was not Chinese, was as water to the thirsty! And wasted as was his

face, the quiet rest and joy were ineffable.

Still Portsmouth was not the best place for him, and we were glad that he

was well enough to go up to London in the afternoon; intensely delighting

in the May beauty of the green meadows, and white blossoming hedgerows,

and the Church towers, especially the gray massiveness of Winchester

Cathedral. ‘Christian tokens,’ he said, instead of the gay, gilded

pagodas and quaint crumpled roofs he had left. The soft haze seemed to

be such a rest after the glare of perpetual clearness.

We were all born Londoners, and looked at the blue fog, and the broad,

misty river, and the brooding smoke, with the affection of natives, to

the amazement of Lawrence, who had never been in town without being

browbeaten and miserable. That he hardly was now, as he sat beside Emily

all the way up, though they did not say much to one another.

He told us it was quite a new sensation to walk into the office without

timidity, and to have no fears of a biting, crushing speech about his

parents or himself; but to have the clerks getting up deferentially as

soon as he was known for Mr. Frith. He had hardly ever been allowed by

his old uncle to come across Mr. Castleford, who was of course cordial

and delighted to receive him, and, without loss of time, set forth to see

Clarence.

The consultation with the physician had taken place, and it was not

concealed from us that Clarence’s health was completely shattered, and

his state still very precarious, needing the utmost care to give him any

chance of recovering the effects of the last two years, when he had

persevered, in spite of warning, in his eagerness to complete his

undertaking, and then to secure what he had effected. The upshot of the

advice given him was to spend the summer by the seaside, and if he had by

that time gathered strength, and surmounted the symptoms of disease, to

go abroad, as he was not likely to be able as yet to bear English cold.

Business and cares were to be avoided, and if he had anything necessary

to be done, it had better be got over at once, so as to be off his mind.

Martyn and Frith gathered that the case was thought doubtful, and

entirely dependent on constitution and rallying power. Clarence himself

seemed almost passive, caring only for our presence and the

accomplishment of his task.

We had a blessed thanksgiving for mercies received in the Margaret Street

Chapel, as we called what is now All Saints; but he and I were unfit for

crowds, and on Sunday morning availed ourselves of a friend’s seat in our

old church, which felt so natural and homelike to us elders that Martyn

was scandalised at our taste. But it was the church of our Confirmation

and first Communion, and Clarence rejoiced that it was that of his first

home-coming Eucharist. What a contrast was he now to the shrinking boy,

scarcely tolerated under his stigmatised name. Surely the Angel had led

him all his life through!

How happy we two were in the afternoon, while the others conducted

Lawrence to some more noteworthy church.

‘Now,’ said Clarence, ‘let us go down to Beachharbour. It must be done

at once. I have been trying to write, and I can’t do it,’ and his face

lighted with a quiet smile which I understood.

So we wrote to the principal hotel to secure rooms, and set forth on

Tuesday, leaving Frith to finish with Mr. Castleford what could not be

settled in the one business interview that had been held with Clarence on

the Monday.

CHAPTER XLVI.

RESTITUTION.

‘Ah! well for us all some sweet hope lies

Deeply buried from human eyes.’

WHITTIER.

THINGS always happen in unexpected ways. During the little hesitation

and difficulty that always attend my transits at a station, a voice was

heard to say, ‘Oh! Papa, isn’t that Edward Winslow?’ Martyn gave a

violent start, and Mr. Fordyce was exclaiming, ‘Clarence, my dear fellow,

it isn’t you! I beg your pardon; you have strength enough left nearly to

wring one’s hand off!’

‘I—I wanted very much to see you, sir,’ said Clarence. ‘Could you be so

good as to appoint a time?’

‘See you! We must always be seeing you of course. Let me think. I’ve

got three weddings and a funeral to-morrow, and Simpson coming about the

meeting. Come to luncheon—all of you. Mrs. Fordyce will be delighted,

and so will somebody else.’

There was no doubt about the somebody else, for Anne’s feet were as

nearly dancing round Emily as public propriety allowed, and the radiance

of her face was something to rejoice in. Say what people will,

Englishwomen in a quiet cheerful life are apt to gain rather than lose in

looks up to the borders of middle age. Our Emily at two-and-thirty was

fair and pleasant to look on; while as for Anne Fordyce at twenty-three,

words will hardly tell how lovely were her delicate features, brown eyes,

and carnation cheeks, illuminated by that sunshine brightness of her

father’s, which made one feel better all day for having been beamed upon

by either of them. Clarence certainly did, when the good man turned back

to say, ‘Which hotel? Eh? That’s too far off. You must come nearer. I

would see you in, but I’ve got a woman to see before church time, and I’m

short of a curate, so I must be sharp to the hour.’

‘Can I be of any use?’ eagerly asked Martyn. ‘I’ll follow you as soon as

I have got these fellows to their quarters.’

We had Amos with us, and were soon able to release Martyn, after a few

compliments on my not being as usual _the_ invalid; and by and by he came

back to take Emily to inspect a lodging, recommended by our friends,

close to the beach, and not a stone’s throw from the Rectory built by Mr.

Fordyce. As we two useless beings sat opposite to each other, looking

over the roofs of houses at the blue expanse and feeling the salt breeze,

it was no fancy that Clarence’s cheek looked less wan, and his eyes

clearer, as a smile of content played on his lips. ‘Years sit well on

her,’ he said gaily; and I thought of rewards in store for him.

Then he took this opportunity of consulting me on the chances for Frith,

telling of the original offer, and the quiet constancy of his friend, and

asking whether I thought Emily would relent. And I answered that I

suspected that she would,—‘But you must get well first.’

‘I begin to think that more possible,’ he answered, and my heart bounded

as he added, ‘she would be satisfied since you would always have a home

with _us_.’

Oh, how much was implied in that monosyllable. He knew it, for a little

faint colour came up, as he, shyly, laughed and hesitated, ‘That is—if—’

‘If’ included Mrs. Fordyce’s not being ungracious. Nor was she. Emily

had found her as kind as in the old days at Hillside, and perfectly ready

to bring us into close vicinity. It was not caprice that had made this

change, but all possible doubt and risk of character were over, the old

wound was in some measure healed, and the friendship had been brought

foremost by our recent sorrow and our present anxiety. Anne was in

ecstasies over Emily. ‘It is so odd,’ she said, ‘to have grown as old as

you, whom I used to think so very grown up,’ and she had all her pet

plans to display in the future. Moreover, Martyn had been permitted to

relieve the Rector from the funeral—a privilege which seemed to gratify

him as much as if it had been the liveliest of services.

We were to lunch at the Rectory, and the move of our goods was to be

effected while we were there. We found Mrs. Fordyce looking much older,

but far less of an invalid than in old times, and there was something

more genial and less exclusive in her ways, owing perhaps to the

difference of her life among the many classes with whom she was called on

to associate.

Somersetshire, Beachharbour, and China occupied our tongues by turns, and

we had to begin luncheon without the Rector, who had been hindered by

numerous calls; in fact, as Anne warned us, it was a wonder if he got the

length of the esplanade without being stopped half-a-dozen times.

His welcome was like himself, but he needed a reminder of Clarence’s

request for an interview. Then we repaired to the study, for Clarence

begged that his brothers might be present, and then the beginning was

made. ‘Do you remember my showing you a will that I found in the ruins

at Chantry House?’

‘A horrid old scrap that you chose to call one. Yes; I told you to burn

it.’

‘Sir, we have proved that a great injustice was perpetrated by our

ancestor, Philip Winslow, and that the poor lady who made that will was

cruelly treated, if not murdered. This is no fancy; I have known it for

years past, but it is only now that restitution has become possible.’

‘Restitution? What are you talking about? I never wanted the place nor

coveted it.’

‘No, sir, but the act was our forefather’s. You cannot bid us sit down

under the consciousness of profiting by a crime. I could not do so

before, but I now implore you to let me restore you either Chantry House

and the three farms, or their purchase money, according to the valuation

made at my father’s death. I have it in hand.’

Frank Fordyce walked about the room quite overcome. ‘You foolish

fellow!’ he said, ‘Was it for this that you have been toiling and

throwing away your health in that pestiferous place? Edward, did you

know this?’

‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘Clarence has intended this ever since he found the

will.’

‘As if that was a will! You consented.’

‘We all thought it right.’

He made a gesture of dismay at such folly.

‘I do not think you understand how it was, Mr. Fordyce,’ said Clarence,

who by this time was quivering and trembling as in his boyish days.

‘No, nor ever wish to do so. Such matters ought to be forgotten, and you

don’t look fit to say another word.’

‘Edward will tell you,’ said Clarence, leaning back.

I had the whole written out, and was about to begin, when the person,

with whom there was an appointment, was reported, and we knew that the

rest of the day was mapped out.

‘Look here,’ said Mr. Fordyce, ‘leave that with me; I can’t give any

answer off-hand, except that Don Quixote is come alive again, only too

like himself.’

Which was true, for Clarence took long to rally from the effort, and had

to be kept quiet for some time in the study where we were left. He

examined me on the contents of my paper, and was vexed to hear that I had

mentioned the ghost, which he said would discredit the whole. Never was

the dear fellow so much inclined to be fretful, and when Martyn

restlessly observed that if we did not want him, he might as well go back

to the drawing-room, the reply was quite sharp—‘Oh yes, by all means.’

No wonder there was pain in the tone; for the next words, after some

interval, were, when two happy voices came ringing in from the garden

behind, ‘You see, Edward.’

Somehow I had never thought of Martyn. He had simply seemed to me a boy,

and I had decided that Anne would be the crown of Clarence’s labours. I

answered ‘Nonsense; they are both children together!’

‘The nonsense was elsewhere,’ he said. ‘They always were devoted to each

other. I saw how it was the moment he came into the room.’

‘Don’t give up,’ I said; ‘it is only the old habit. When she knows all,

she must prefer—’

‘Hush!’ he said. ‘An old scarecrow and that beautiful young creature!’

and he laughed.

‘You won’t be an old scarecrow long.’

‘No,’ he said in an ominous way, and cut short the discussion by going

back to Mrs. Fordyce.

He was worn out, had a bad night, and did not get up to breakfast; I was

waiting for it in the sitting-room, when Mr. Fordyce came in after matins

with Emily and Martyn.

‘I feel just like David when they brought him the water of Bethlehem,’ he

said. ‘You know I think this all nonsense, especially this—this ghost

business; and yet, such—such doings as your brother’s can’t go for

nothing.’

His face worked, and the tears were in his eyes; then, as he partook of

our breakfast, he cross-examined us on my statement, and even tried to

persuade us that the phantom in the ruin was Emily; and on her observing

that she could not have seen herself, he talked of the Brocken Spectre

and fog mirages; but we declared the night was clear, and I told him that

all the rational theories I had ever heard were far more improbable than

the appearance herself, at which he laughed. Then he scrupulously

demanded whether this—this (he failed to find a name for it) would be an

impoverishment of our family, and I showed how Clarence had provided that

we should be in as easy circumstances as before. In the midst came in

Clarence himself, having hastened to dress, on hearing that Mr. Fordyce

was in the house, and looking none the better for the exertion.

‘Look here, my dear boy,’ said Frank, taking his hot trembling hand, ‘you

have put me in a great fix. You have done the noblest deed at a terrible

cost, and whatever I may think, it ought not to be thrown away, nor you

be hindered from freeing your soul from this sense of family guilt. But

here, my forefathers had as little right to the Chantry as yours, and

ever since I began to think about such things, I have been thankful it

was none of mine. Let us join in giving it or its value to some good

work for God—pour it out to the Lord, as we may say. Bless me! what have

I done now.’

For Clarence, muttering ‘thank you,’ sank out of his grasp on a chair,

and as nearly as possible fainted; but he was soon smiling and saying it

was all relief, and he felt as if a load he had been bearing had been

suddenly removed.

Frank Fordyce durst stay no longer, but laid his hand on Clarence’s head

and blessed him.

CHAPTER XLVII.

THE FORDYCE STORY.

‘For soon as once the genial plain

Has drunk the life-blood of the slain,

Indelible the spots remain,

And aye for vengeance call.’

EURIPIDES—(_Anstice_).

STILL all was not over, for by the next day our brother was as ill, or

worse, than ever. The doctor who came from London allowed that he had

expected something of the kind, but thought we must have let him exert

himself perilously. Poor innocent Martyn and Anne, they little suspected

that their bright eyes and happy voices had something to do with the

struggle and disappointment, which probably was one cause of the

collapse. As to poor Frank Fordyce, I never saw him so distressed; he

felt as if it were all his own fault, or that of his ancestors, and,

whenever he was not required by his duties, was lingering about for news.

I had little hope, though Clarence seemed to me the very light of my

eyes; it was to me as though, his task being accomplished, and the

earthly reward denied, he must be on his way to the higher one.

His complete quiescence confirmed me in the assurance that he thought so

himself. He was too ill for speech, but Lawrence, who could not stay

away, was struck with the difference from former times. Not only were

there no delusions, but there was no anxiety or uneasiness, as there had

always been in the former attacks, when he was evidently eager to live,

and still more solicitous to be told if he were in a hopeless state. Now

he had plainly resigned himself—

‘Content to live, but not afraid to die;’

and perhaps, dear fellow, it was chiefly for my sake that he was willing

to live. At least, I know that when the worst was over, he announced it

by putting those wasted fingers into mine, and saying—

‘Well, dear old fellow, I believe we shall jog on together, after all.’

That attack, though the most severe of all, brought, either owing to

skilful treatment or to his own calm, the removal of the mischief, and

the beginning of real recovery. Previously he had given himself no time,

but had hurried on to exertions which retarded his cure, so as very

nearly to be fatal; but he was now perfectly submissive to whatever

physicians or nurses desired, and did not seem to find his slow

convalescence in the least tedious, since he was amongst us all again.

It was nearly a month before he was disposed to recur to the subject of

his old solicitude again, and then he asked what Mr. Fordyce had said or

done. Just nothing at all; but on the next visit paid to the sick-room,

Parson Frank yielded to his earnest request to send for any documents

that might throw light on the subject, and after a few days he brought us

a packet of letters from his deed-box. They were written from Hillside

Rectory to the son in the army in Flanders, chiefly by his mother, and

were full of hot, angry invective against our family, and pity for poor,

foolish ‘Madam,’ or ‘Cousin Winslow,’ as she was generally termed, for

having put herself in their power.

The one most to the purpose was an account of the examination of Molly

Cox, the waiting-woman, who had been in attendance on the unfortunate

Margaret, and whose story tallied fairly with Aunt Peggy’s tradition.

She declared that she was sure that her mistress had met with foul play.

She had left her as usual at ten o’clock on the fatal 27th of December

1707, in the inner one of the old chambers; and in the night had heard

the tipsy return home of the gentlemen, followed by shrieks. In the

morning she (the maid) who usually was the first to go to her room, was

met by Mistress Betty Winslow, and told that Madam was ill, and

insensible. The old nurse of the Winslows was called in; and Molly was

never left alone in the sick-room, scarcely permitted to approach the

bed, and never to touch her lady. Once, when emptying out a cup at the

garden-door, she saw a mark of blood on the steps, but Mr. Philip came up

and swore at her for a prying fool. Doctor Tomkins was sent for, but he

barely walked through the room, and ‘all know that he is a mere creature

of Philip Winslow,’ wrote the Mrs. Fordyce of that date to her son. And

presently after, ‘Justice Eastwood declared there is no case for a Grand

Jury; but he is a known Friend and sworn Comrade of the Winslows, and

bound to suppress all evidence against them. Nay, James Dearlove swears

he saw Edward Winslow slip a golden Guinea into his Clerk’s Hand. But as

sure as there is a Heaven above us, Francis, poor Cousin Winslow was

trying to escape to us of her own Kindred, and met with cruel Usage. Her

Blood is on their Heads.’

‘There!’ said Frank Fordyce. ‘This Francis challenged Philip Winslow’s

eldest son, a mere boy, three days after he joined the army before Lille,

and shot him like a dog. I turned over the letter about it in searching

for these. I can’t boast of my ancestors more than you can. But may God

accept this work of yours, and take away the guilt of blood from both of

us.’

‘And have you thought what is best to be done?’ asked Clarence, raising

himself on his cushions.

‘Have you?’ asked the Vicar.

‘Oh yes; I have had my dreams.’

They put their castles together, and they turned out to be for an

orphanage, or rather asylum, not too much hampered with strict rules,

combined with a convalescent home. The battle of sisterhoods was not yet

fought out, and we were not quite prepared for them; but Frank Fordyce

had, as he said, ‘the two best women in the world in his eye’ to make a

beginning.

There was full time to think and discuss the scheme, for our patient was

in no condition to move for many weeks, lying day after day on a couch

just within the window of our sitting-room, which was as nearly as

possible in the sea, so that he constantly had the freshness of its

breezes, the music of its ripple, and the sight of its waves, and seemed

to find endless pleasure in watching the red sails, the puffs of steam,

and the frolics of the children, simple or gentle, on the beach.

Something else was sometimes to be watched. Martyn, all this time, was

doing the work of two curates, and was to be seen walking home with Anne

from church or school, carrying her baskets and bags, and, as we were

given to understand, discussing by turns ecclesiastical questions,

visionary sisterhoods, and naughty children. At first I wished it were

possible to remove Clarence from the perpetual spectacle, but we had one

last talk over the matter, and this was quite satisfactory.

‘It does me no harm,’ he said; ‘I like to see it. Yes, it is quite true

that I do. What was personal and selfish in my fancies seems to have

been worn out in the great lull of my senses under the shadow of death;

and now I can revert with real joy and thankfulness to the old delight of

looking on our dear Ellen as our sister, and watch those two children as

we used when they talked of dolls’ fenders instead of the surplice war.

I have got you, Edward; and you know there is a love “passing the love of

women.”’

A lively young couple passed by the window just then, and with untamed

voices observed—

‘There are those two poor miserable objects! It is enough to make one

melancholy only to look at them.’

Whereat we simultaneously burst out laughing; perhaps because a choking,

very far from misery, was in our throats.

At any rate, Clarence was prepared to be the cordial, fatherly brother,

when Martyn came headlong in upon us with the tidings that utterly

indescribable, unimaginable joy had befallen him. A revelation seemed

simultaneously to have broken upon him and Anne while they were copying

out the Sunday School Registers, that what they had felt for each other

all their lives was love—‘real, true love,’ as Anne said to Emily, ‘that

never could have cared for anybody else.’

Mrs. Fordyce’s sharp eyes had seen what was coming, and accepted the

inevitable, quite as soon as Clarence had. She came and talked it over

with us, saying she was perfectly satisfied and happy. Martyn was all

that could be wished, and she was sincerely glad of the connection with

her old friends. So, in fact, was dear old Frank, but he had been

running about with his head full, and his eyes closed, so that it was

quite a shock to him to find that his little Anne, his boon companion and

playfellow, was actually grown up, and presuming to love and be loved;

and he could hardly believe that she was really seven years older than

her sister had been when the like had begun with her. But if Anne must

be at those tricks, he said, shaking his head at her, he had rather it

was with Martyn than anybody else.

There was no difficulty as to money matters. In truth, Martyn was not so

good a match as an heiress, such as was Anne Fordyce, might have aspired

to, and her Lester kin were sure to be shocked; but even if Clarence

married, the Earlscombe living went for something (though, by the bye, he

has never held it), and the Fordyces only cared that there should be easy

circumstances. The living of Hillside would be resigned in favour of

Martyn in the spring, and meantime he would gain more experience at

Beachharbour, and this would break the separation to the Fordyces.

After all, however, theirs was not to be our first wedding. I have said

little of Emily. The fact was, that after that week of Clarence’s

danger, we said she lived in a kind of dream. She fulfilled all that was

wanted of her, nursing Clarence, waiting on me, ordering dinner, making

the tea, and so forth; but it was quite evident that life began for her

on the Saturdays, when Lawrence came down, and ended on the Mondays, when

he went away. If, in the meantime, she sat down to work, she went off

into a trance; if she was sent out for fresh air, she walked quarter-deck

on the esplanade, neither seeing nor hearing anything, we averred, but

some imaginary Lawrence Frith.

If she had any drawback, good girl, it was the idea of deserting me; but

then, as I could honestly tell her, nobody need fear for my happiness,

since Clarence was given back to me. And she believed, and was ready to

go to China with her Lawrence.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

THE LAST DISCOVERY.

‘Grief will be joy if on its edge

Fall soft that holiest ray,

Joy will be grief, if no faint pledge

Be there of heavenly day.’

KEBLE.

WE did not move from Beachharbour till September, and by that time it had

been decided that Chantry House itself should be given up to the new

scheme. It was too large for us, and Clarence had never lived there

enough to have any strong home feeling for it; but he rather connected it

with disquiet and distress, and had a longing to make actual restitution

thereof, instead of only giving an equivalent, as he did in the case of

the farms. Our feelings about the desecrated chapel were also

considerably changed from the days when we regarded it merely as a

picturesque ruin, and it was to be at once restored both for the benefit

of the orphanage, and for that of the neighbouring households. For

ourselves, a cottage was to be built, suited to our idiosyncrasies; but

that could wait till after the yacht voyage, which we were to make

together for the winter.

Thus it came to pass that the last time we inhabited Chantry House was

when we gave Emily to Lawrence Frith. We would fain have made it a

double wedding, but the Fordyces wished to wait for Easter, when Martyn

would have been inducted to Hillside. They came, however, that Mrs.

Fordyce might act lady of the house, and Anne be bridesmaid, as well as

lay the first stone of St. Cecily’s restored chapel.

It was on the day on which they were expected, when the workmen were

digging foundations, and clearing away rubbish, that the foreman begged

Mr. Winslow to come out to see something they had found. Clarence came

back, very grave and awe-struck. It was an old oak chest, and within lay

a skeleton, together with a few fragments of female clothing, a wedding

ring, and some coins of the later Stewarts, in a rotten leathern purse.

This was ghastly confirmation, though there was nothing else to connect

the bones with poor Margaret. We had some curiosity as to the coffin in

the niche in the family vault which bore her name, but both Clarence and

Mr. Fordyce shrank from investigations which could not be carried out

without publicity, and might perhaps have disturbed other remains.

So on the ensuing night there was a strange, quiet funeral service at

Earlscombe Church. Mr. Henderson officiated, and Chapman acted as clerk.

These, with Amos Bell, alone knew the tradition, or understood what the

discovery meant to the two Fordyces and three Winslows who stood at the

opening of the vault, and prayed that whatever guilt there might be

should be put away from the families so soon to be made one. The coins

were placed with those of Victoria, which the next day Anne laid beneath

the foundation-stone of St. Cecily’s. I need not say that no one has

ever again heard the wailings, nor seen the lady with the lamp.

What more is there to tell? It was of this first half of our lives that

I intended to write, and though many years have since passed, they have

not had the same character of romance and would not interest you. Our

honeymoon, as Mr. Fordyce called the expedition we two brothers made in

the Mediterranean, was a perfect success; and Clarence regained health,

and better spirits than had ever been his; while contriving to show me

all that I was capable of being carried to see. It was complete

enjoyment, and he came home, not as strong as in old times, but with fair

comfort and capability for the work of life, so as to be able to take Mr.

Castleford’s place, when our dear old friend retired from active

direction of the firm.

You all know how the two old bachelors have kept house together in London

and at Earlscombe cottage, and you are all proud of the honoured name

Clarence Winslow has made for himself, foremost in works for the glory of

God and the good of men—as one of those merchant princes of England whose

merchandise has indeed been Holiness unto the Lord.

Thus you must all have felt a shock on finding that he always looked on

that name as blotted, and that one of the last sayings I heard from him

was, ‘O remember not the sins and offences of my youth, but according to

Thy mercy, think upon me, O Lord, for Thy goodness.’

Then he almost smiled, and said, ‘Yes, He has so looked on me, and I am

thankful.’

Thankful, and so am I, for those thirty-four peaceful years we spent

together, or rather for the seventy years of perfect brotherhood that we

have been granted, and though he has left me behind him, I am content to

wait. It cannot be for long. My brothers and sisters, their children,

and my faithful Amos Bell, are very good to me; and in writing up to that

_mezzo termine_ of our lives, I have been living it over again with my

brother of brothers, through the troubles that have become like joys.

REMARKS.

Uncle Edward has not said half enough about his dear old self. I want to

know if he never was unhappy when he was young about being _like that_,

though mother says his face was always nearly as beautiful as it is now.

And it is not only goodness. It _is_ beautiful with his sweet smile and

snowy white hair.

ELLEN WINSLOW.

And I wonder, though perhaps he could not have told, what Aunt Anne would

have done if Uncle Clarence had not been so forbearing before he went to

China.

CLARE FRITH.

The others are highly impertinent questions, but we ought to know what

became of Lady Peacock.

ED. G. W.

REPLY.

Poor woman, she drifted back to London after about ten years, with an

incurable disease. Clarence put her into lodgings near us, and did his

best for her as long as she lived. He had a hard task, but she ended by

saying he was her only friend.

To question No. 2 I have nothing to say; but as to No. 1, with its

extravagant compliment, Nature, or rather God, blessed me with even

spirits, a methodical nature that prefers monotony, and very little

morbid shyness; nor have I ever been devoid of tender care and love. So

that I can only remember three severe fits of depression. One, when I

had just begun to be taken out in the Square Gardens, and Selina Clarkson

was heard to say I was a hideous little monster. It was a revelation,

and must have given frightful pain, for I remember it acutely after

sixty-five years.

The second fit was just after Clarence was gone to sea, and some very

painful experiments had been tried in vain for making me like other

people. For the first time I faced the fact that I was set aside from

all possible careers, and should be, as I remember saying, ‘no better

than a girl.’ I must have been a great trial to all my friends. My

father tried to reason on resignation, and tell me happiness could be

_in_ myself, till he broke down. My mother attempted bracing by reproof.

Miss Newton endeavoured to make me see that this was my cross. Every

word was true, and came round again, but they only made me for the time

more rebellious and wretched. That attack was ended, of all things in

the world, by heraldry. My attention somehow was drawn that way, and the

study filled up time and thought till my misfortunes passed into custom,

and haunted me no more.

My last was a more serious access, after coming into the country, when

improved health and vigour inspired cravings that made me fully sensible

of my blighted existence. I had gone the length of my tether and

overdone myself; I missed London life and Clarence; and the more I blamed

myself, and tried to rouse myself, the more despondent and discontented I

grew.

This time my physician was Mr. Stafford; I had deciphered a bit of old

French and Latin for him, and he was very much pleased. ‘Why, Edward,’

he said, ‘you are a very clever fellow; you can be a distinguished—or

what is better—a useful man.’

Somehow that saying restored the spring of hope, and gave an impulse! I

have not been a distinguished man, but I think in my degree I have been a

fairly useful one, and I am sure I have been a happy one.

E. W.

‘Useful! that you have, dear old fellow. Even if you had done nothing

else, and never been an unconscious backbone to Clarence; your influence

on me and mine has been unspeakably blest. But pray, Mistress Anne, how

about that question of naughty little Clare’s?’

M. W.

‘Don’t you think you had better let alone that question, reverend sir?

Youngest pets are apt to be saucy, especially in these days, but I didn’t

expect it of you! It might have been the worse for you if W. C. W. had

not held his tongue in those days. Just like himself, but I am heartily

glad that so he did.

A. W.’