MAKING THE AMENDE.
There was terrible grief at Farrington Hall when the news came home
of the death of the son and heir. Poor silly Lady Farrington was
quite broken-hearted. Had she had her way Ernest would never have
gone to the wars. Moreover the circumstances under which he left
made matters infinitely worse. He was at home, as we know, when the
regiment got the route, and the orders he received from the Horse
Guards were peremptory that he should rejoin without a moment’s
delay. The young soldier was not over keen about obeying. Life, in
spite of family jars, had just then a peculiar sweetness for him.
He had established Mimie in a pretty little villa at Wimbledon,
where he spent most of his time. His visits to the Hall, and his
stay when he came, were much curtailed, greatly to his mother’s
sorrow. Her ladyship knew of his ‘entanglement,’ but quite as a
secret, and she was discreetly silent on the subject. She only
upbraided her boy for his constant absences.
‘I’th too bad, Ernetht. We thee tho little of you now. You mutht
come and thettle down at home. Marry a nithe wife--’
Which was meant as a gentle womanly hint that she knew what
occupied his thoughts and his time.
Sir Rupert’s line towards Ernest was more plainly marked, and
possibly less judicious. He very soon gave his son to understand
that he knew all about the Gibraltar escapade.
‘I thought it was only a passing act of folly. Young men cannot
always be trusted to behave with judgment and decorum. It is very
deplorable, of course, but no more, after all, than others have
done. What I complain of, Ernest, is that there appears to be no
end to your infatuation. I hear--no matter how--’
‘From Mr. Oozenam, I presume,’ said Ernest, bitterly. ‘I knew he
was dogging my footsteps, but did not think he had been set on by
my father. It’s a disgraceful shame!’
‘I hear,’ went on Sir Rupert, speaking still calmly, but the black
look on his face showed that he was fast growing furious, ‘that
you are continually at a house at Wimbledon, where, I suppose,
this--this person--resides.’
‘Look here, father, you are going too far,’ put in Ernest, hotly.
‘I am quite old enough to----.’
‘To make a fool of yourself? No doubt. You always were that. You’ve
been a fool all your life. But you shall not make a fool of me.’
‘I won’t stay another minute in the house.’
‘If you leave it, you shall not return to it until you have begged
my pardon.’ Sir Rupert was very angry, still he strove to be calm.
‘Be careful, Ernest, how you aggravate me. I am willing to make
allowances for your youth, but you shall not disgrace your name.
Promise me to give up this affair at once and for ever, or, or--’
‘I will do nothing of the kind. I will not be treated as a child,’
cried Ernest, in a loud voice.
‘Then take the consequences, sir,’ shouted Sir Rupert, still
louder. ‘Leave my presence, sir; leave the room, sir; leave the
house, sir; and do not dare to show yourself again, sir, till I ask
you, which will be never, never, sir, so help me----’
Ernest, with a white and rather scared face, got up and quietly
walked away.
His father and he never met again in the flesh.
There were many efforts at reconciliation, but all had fallen
through. Ernest, before leaving the Hall, had gone to his mother
to say good-bye, and there had been a very painful scene. The
poor woman was torn by conflicting emotions. She was passionately
fond of her boy, and desperately afraid of her fierce spouse.
But her maternal instincts carried the day, and she braved her
husband’s anger, seeking to win forgiveness for her son. She
failed utterly. The parties to the quarrel were equally determined,
but in different ways. Ernest was weakly and foolishly obstinate;
Sir Rupert, harsh, implacable, unrelenting. Father insisted upon
submission unconditional and complete; son refused even to admit
that he was wrong. Farrington Hall was a sad house while the
dispute was in progress, and Lady Farrington was a very unhappy
woman. Then, while matters were still unaccommodated, came the
orders for active service, and she was in a paroxysm of despair.
She made piteous appeals to Sir Rupert; she wrote imploring letters
to her son, she besought the Horse Guards to delay embarkation, and
pleaded all sorts of excuses to keep him at home. But fate and the
authorities were inexorable, and Ernest, very much against his own
will too, was compelled to start for the Coast.
He had never revisited the Hall. His father would not ask him,
and he would not offer himself. His mother begged to be allowed
to go to Southampton to bid him a last farewell, but Sir Rupert
positively forbade it; and Ernest left the country with no
one--except broken-hearted Mimie--to bid him adieu.
This was why the news of his death fell so heavily upon them all
at home. Lady Farrington broke down utterly. She was like Rachel,
and refused to be comforted. Sir Rupert, although he was still
outwardly calm and impassive, felt it more than he could say. But
he showed his grief very differently. It was a sort of relief
to him to burst forth into the loudest invectives--not against
himself, although his parental cruelty might well have caused him
the keenest remorse, but against all who might, by the smallest
implication, be deemed to be responsible for Ernest’s untimely
end. Where was Diggle? Why had he allowed the young fellow out of
his sight? And Sir Garnet, what excuse would the general make for
leaving a young officer to be thus out-matched and massacred by the
rascally foe? He even included Mimie Larkins in his reproaches,
although she manifestly was but little to blame. He could not at
first bring himself to think well of Herbert, whose brave act in
trying to save his officer’s life was hailed with enthusiasm in
this country as soon as it became known. What had this sergeant
done? Only his duty. It was the duty of every sergeant or corporal
in the service to lay down his life for a Farrington, of course.
And the young fellow had been amply rewarded--over rewarded, if
anything--for his pains.
But deeper down in Sir Rupert’s heart there was anguish and sharp
regret. As a father he was deeply grieved at the loss of an only
son; but as the proud owner of an old title and wide estates, it
cut him to the heart to think that he must be the last of his line.
Was it for this that he had schemed and manœuvred? For this that
he had caused Lady Farrington to be placed under restraint--had
abandoned her _protégé_ to starve? Then followed a wave of better
feeling towards the gallant young fellow who had heaped coals of
fire on his head. What a fine action it was! How splendidly the
young man had behaved! He half wished that Herbert was really the
heir to the family honours, now that there was no one else to
inherit them.
Upon this point he would have met with some sharp opposition within
his family, had he expressed his opinion. Much as poor Ernest was
regretted by all, there were some who, after the first decorous
mourning, found themselves quite able to reconcile themselves to
his loss. To Mrs. Cavendish-Diggle, Ernest’s death meant a certain
tangible gain. She could never succeed to the baronetcy, certainly,
but there were the broad acres of Farrington which, _faute de
mieux_, would now undoubtedly come to her. Possibly, if Diggle did
but take his proper place in life, and could be persuaded to enter
Parliament, a grateful Government might be brought to continue
the baronetcy through the female branch. Mrs. Cavendish would
have been only too pleased that her infant son should some day
resume the name and arms of the Farrington family, and that the
Diggle-Farringtons should become celebrated as the proprietors of
Farrington Hall. The son was forthcoming, indeed more than one; but
poor Cavendish-Diggle was not himself quite equal to the task which
the ambitious Letitia would have imposed upon him. The Gold Coast
campaign, in fact, had nearly cost him his life, and had left him
almost a wreck. Weeks of low fever upon a miserable sickbed in the
malarious bush, had nearly finished him; and long before the end of
the war he had returned to England more dead than alive. His life
in the long run was spared, but the once smart dandy reappeared
a broken, half-crippled man, one much more fitted to spend the
remainder of his days in European health resorts, drinking the
waters and taking the baths, than in any active struggle for
parliamentary or contested family honours. Before the return of
the Duke’s Own to England he had retired upon half-pay, and took no
further part in regimental affairs.
Herbert’s glorification, however, when he reached England duly
came off, and this without any protest on the part of Mrs.
Cavendish-Diggle. She did not know really that he was, or had ever
been, a competitor for the family estates. Besides which, when he
arrived she and her husband were at Aix; and however calmly she may
have accepted the sad news of Ernest’s death, she could not openly
be otherwise than pleased at the honour done to the man who had
endeavoured to save her brother’s life. Herbert, whether or no, was
invited at once to the Hall, whither he went, not from any love for
Sir Rupert, but simply to see how the land lay, and whether he
could help the poor old dowager, who still languished in her asylum
prison.
Yet it was with a certain strange excitement that he entered the
house which might be, and which somehow he felt ought to be his.
The baronet received him most courteously; poor Lady Farrington
fell upon his neck and wept torrents of tears; he was shown into a
gorgeous guest chamber, a room all blue satin and silver, such as
he had never before seen in all his life; and he was treated with
the most profound respect on every side.
Lady Farrington was not equal to appearing at table, and he dined
with Sir Rupert _tête-à-tête_. His host questioned him closely
upon the events of the campaign. Acutely painful as was one of its
episodes to the baronet, he yet seemed to ignore this, and was only
anxious to give his guest an opportunity of describing what he had
seen. Possibly he was anxious also to keep off dangerous ground,
and to avoid inconvenient questions upon points on which Herbert
was, if anything, far more closely concerned.
Here, however, he counted without his host. The young soldier was
by nature, and still more by his recent rough and ready training,
little disposed to beat about the bush. He had resolved upon coming
to Farrington Hall to ascertain what could be done to release the
old Lady Farrington from durance. He had had already one or two
communications from ‘the Boy’ Hanlon, none of which, however, gave
him much hope of effecting this without the assistance of the
baronet himself. The ‘Boy’ had not seen much of the old lady. She
was, of course, upon the female side of the asylum. But Hanlon was
not to be baulked by any restrictions of sex, and as the rules of
the establishment forbade him from attending upon a female patient,
he made it his business to secure the co-operation of a female
attendant. The person who had especial charge of Lady Farrington
was a middle-aged damsel, to whom the blandishments of ‘the Boy’
were by no means distasteful. Through this impressionable daughter
of Eve, Hanlon had communicated frequently with the old lady. He
had told her of Herbert’s progress; of the young man’s advancement
in the lower walks of the military career; finally of the Ashanti
war, and Herbert’s undoubted success. Had the doctor been within
easy reach, he might have ordered Lady Farrington the usual cooling
regimen, so excited did she become. But she escaped observation,
and under the advice of her attendant, and indeed through her
own native intelligence she managed to preserve a calm exterior,
feeling sure that her Herbert would soon appear to open wide her
prison doors.
That he was most eager to do so was evident from his conversation
with Sir Rupert that first night.
‘I shall be only too glad to meet your wishes in any way,’ the
baronet had said. ‘At the Horse Guards, perhaps, or with Mr.
Cardwell--’
‘I will not ask so much,’ Herbert replied. ‘I have been already
treated most liberally by the authorities. All I want is--to pay a
visit to Greystoke.’
‘To Greystoke?’ Sir Rupert turned rather pale.
‘Yes, and with you. You see I know everything. Why hesitate, Sir
Rupert? There need be no concealment between us. The last time we
met I was a victim--one of your victims--but now I am above all
that, but poor Lady Farrington still suffers.’
‘It would not be safe, I assure you, to set her at large. I have
that on the best authority. She is still quite insane.’
‘I have it on better that she is now perfectly recovered.’
‘May I ask who is your informant?’ Sir Rupert blandly enquired.
‘One of the attendants at the asylum.’
‘A skilled practitioner? A medical man?’
‘Well, no; not exactly. He was, in fact, formerly in the Duke’s
Own.’
‘As a surgeon?’
‘No, in the ranks.’
‘And you would set up his opinion--the opinion of an illiterate,
untrained man--against that of the highest medical authority in
the country? Really, Mr. Larkins--’
‘He’s an honest, straightforward man, Sir Rupert, with plenty of
common sense. His judgment may be at fault, but at any rate his
opinion is certain to be unbiassed and unprejudiced; he assures me
that Lady Farrington is perfectly fit to take care of herself, and
ought to be immediately set at large.’
‘I cannot agree with your friend. I have seen her only within these
last few days, and I think she is as bad as ever.’
‘I shall refer the matter, then, to one of the Lord Chancellor’s
visitors,’ said Herbert, displaying an intimate acquaintance with
procedure which rather surprised Sir Rupert.
‘That is not necessary, I assure you. If the poor lady is capable
of taking care of herself I do not wish to detain her. Far from it.
If it is really your wish to visit Greystoke, Mr. Larkins, we will
go there to-morrow.’
And thus Sir Rupert Farrington consented to a step which could not
but have very serious consequences to himself and all who were
dependent upon him.