It may be supposed what the sight of Theo all bound up and bleeding was
to the family in the Warren. He had not at all the look of a benevolent
deliverer, suffering sweetly from a wound received in the service of
mankind. He had a very pale and angry countenance, and snorted indignant
breath from his dilated nostrils. "It's nothing; a little water will
make it all right," he answered to the eager questions of his mother and
sisters. "Has the brat got here?"
"The brat? What brat? Oh, Theo! You've been knocked down; your coat is
covered with dust. Run for a basin, Chatty, and some lint. You've been
fighting, or something." These cries rose from the different voices
round him, while old Joseph, who had seen from a window the plight in
which his master was, stood gazing, somewhat cynical and very curious,
in the background. The scene was the hall, which has been already
described, and into which all the rooms opened.
"Well," said Theo angrily, "I never said I hadn't. Where's the boy? Little
fool! and his mother will be distracted. Oh, don't bother me with your
bathing. I must go and see after the boy."
"Let me see what is wrong," pleaded Mrs. Warrender. "The boy? Who is it?
Little Markland? Has he run away? Oh, Theo, have patience a moment.
Joseph will run and see. Minnie will put on her hat."
"Running don't suit these legs o' mine," grumbled Joseph, looking at his
thin shanks.
"And what am I to put on my hat for?" cried Minnie. "Let Theo explain.
How can we tell what he wants, if he won't explain?"
"I'll run," said Chatty, who had already brought her basin, and who flew
forth in most illogical readiness, eager to satisfy her brother, though
she did not know what he wanted. Good-will, however, is often its own
reward, and in this instance it was emphatically so, for Chatty almost
ran into a little group advancing through the shrubbery,--Mrs. Bagley,
with her best bonnet hastily put on, and holding little Geoff Markland
by the hand. The little boy was in advance, dragging his guardian forward,
and Mrs. Bagley panted with the effort. "Oh, Miss Chatty," she cried,
"I'm so thankful to see you! The little gentleman, he's in such a hurry.
The little gentleman----"
Geoff left go in a moment of the old lady's hand, nearly throwing her
off her balance; but he was full of his own affairs, as was natural. "It
is me," he said to Chatty. "I came to see Theo; but I had an accident
and he had an accident. And they wanted to take me to that tall house,
but I wouldn't. Has Theo come back? and where is pony? This old lady has
to be paid for the bread and butter. She was very kind, and took care of
me when I ran away."
"Oh," cried Chatty, "did you run away? And Lady Markland will be so
unhappy."
No one paid attention to Mrs. Bagley declaring that she wanted no payment
for her bread and butter; and Geoff, very full of the importance of
the position, hurried Chatty back to the house. "Can I go in?" he said,
breathless; "and will you send me home, and find pony for me? Oh, here
is Theo. Was it the horse that tipped you on the head?" He came forward
with great gravity, and watched the bathing of Warrender's head, which
was going on partly against his will. Geoff approached without further
ceremony, and stood by the side of the table, and looked on. "Did he
catch you with his forefoot?" said the boy. "I thought it was only the
back feet that were dangerous. What a lot of blood! and oh, are they
going to cut off your hair? When I got a knock on the head, mamma sent
for the doctor for me."
"Dear Theo, be still, and let me do it. How could you get such a blow?"
"I will tell you, Mrs. Warrender," said the little boy, drawing closer
and closer, and watching everything with his little grave face. "Pony
threw me, and the big bays were coming down to crush my head. I saw them
waving in the air, like that, over me! and Theo laid hold of me _here_
and tore me, and they crushed him instead."
"What is all this about a pony and the bays? Theo, tell me."
"He tore me all here, look, in the back of my knickerbockers," said
Geoff, putting his hand to the place; "but I'd rather have that than a
knock on my head. Theo, does it hurt? Theo, what a lot you have bled!
Were you obliged to tear my knickerbockers? I say, Theo, the lady was
pretty, but I didn't much like her, after all."
Theo, though his head was over the basin, put out his hand and seized
the child by the shoulders. "What did you run away for, you little----?
Do you know your mother will be wretched about you?--your mother, who is
worth a hundred of you." This was said through his teeth, with a twist
of Geoff's shoulder which was almost savage.
"I say!" cried the child; then he added indignantly, "I never ran away,
I came to see you, because you are going to be my tutor. I didn't think
it was such a long way. And pony got hungry. And so was I."
"Going to be his tutor!" It was Minnie's voice that said this so sharply
that the air tingled with the words: and even Mrs. Warrender started a
little; but it was not a moment at which any more could be said. The
bathing was done, and Theo's wound had now to be brought together by
plaster and bound up. It was not very serious. A hoof had touched him,
but that was all, and fortunately not on a dangerous place.
"Take him away and give him something to eat," said the patient, but not
in a hospitable voice.
"I want to see it all done," said Geoff, pressing closer. "Is that how
you do it? Don't you want another piece of plaster? Will you have to
take it off again, or will it stay till it is all well? Oh, look, that
corner isn't fast. Press it there, a little farther. Oh, Theo, she has
done it so nicely. You can't see a bit of the bad place. It is all
covered with plaster, like that, and then like this. I wish now it had
been me, just to know how it feels."
"Take him away, mother, for Heaven's sake!" cried Warrender under his
breath.
"My dear, you must not worry Theo. He is going to lie down now, and be
quiet for a little. Go with Minnie, and have something to eat."
"I am not so hungry now," said the boy, "but very much interested. When
you are interested you don't feel hungry: and the old woman gave me
something to eat. Would you pay her, please? Won't you tie something on,
Mrs. Warrender, to hide the plaster? It doesn't look very nice like
that."
"Come," said Chatty, taking him by the hand. The elder sister had thrown
herself into a chair at the mention of the tutorship, and seemed unable
for further exertion.
"Oh yes, I am coming; but I am most interested about Theo. Theo, you
have got a stain upon your cheek; and your coat is torn, too, as bad as
my---- Well, but he did tear my knickerbockers. Look! I felt the cold
wind, though I did not say anything; not upon the open road, but when we
got among your trees. It is so dark among your trees. Theo!"
"Come, come; I want you to come with me," Chatty said, hurrying Geoff
away; and perhaps the sight of the table in the dining-room, and the
tray which Joseph, not without a grumble, was placing upon it, became
about this time as interesting as Theo's wound.
"We ought to send and tell his mother that the child is here."
"Or send him back," said Minnie sharply, "and get rid of him. A little
story-teller! Theo his tutor! If I were his mother, I should whip him,
till he learned what lies mean!"
Mrs. Warrender looked with some anxiety at her son. "Children," she
said, "make such strange misrepresentations of what they hear. But we
should send----"
"I have sent already," said Theo. "She will probably come and fetch him:
and, mother----"
"My dear, keep still, and don't disturb yourself. There might be a
little fever."
"Oh, rubbish, fever! I shall not disturb myself, if you don't disturb
me. Look here. It is quite true; I've offered myself to be his tutor."
"His tutor!" cried Minnie once more, in a voice which was like the
report of a pistol. Mrs. Warrender said nothing, but looked at him with
a boundless pity in her eyes, slightly shaking her head.
"Well! and what have you to say against it?" cried Theo, facing his
sister, with a glow of anger mounting to the face which had been almost
ghastly with loss of blood.
"This is not a moment for discussion. Go and see to the child, Minnie.
Theo, my dear boy, if you care so much for Geoff as that--; at another
time you must tell us all about it."
"There is nothing to tell you, save that I have made up my mind to it,"
he said, looking at her with that prompt defiance which forestalls
remark. "Geoff! Do you think it is for Geoff? But neither at this time
nor at any other time is there more to say."
He looked at her so severely that Mrs. Warrender's eyes fell. He felt no
shame, but pride, in his self-sacrifice, and determination to stand by
it and uphold his right to do it in the face of all the world. But this
very determination, and a consciousness of all that would be said on
the subject, gave Warrender a double intolerance in respect to Geoff
himself. To imagine that it was for the boy's sake was, he already felt,
the most unbearable offence. For the boy's sake! The boy would have been
swept away before now if thought could have done it. From the first
hour he had been impatient of the boy. The way in which he clung to his
mother had been a personal offence. And his mother!--ah no, she could do
no wrong. Not even in this matter, which sometimes tortured him, could
he blame Lady Markland. But that she or any one should imagine for a
moment that he was ready to sacrifice his time, his independence, so
much of his life, for the sake of Geoff! That was a misconception which
Warrender could not bear. "Don't let that little---- come near me," he
said to his mother, as he finally went off, somewhat feebly, to the old
library, where he could be sure of quiet. "Make the girls take care of
him and amuse him. She will probably come and fetch him, and I will
rest--till then."--That little---- Warrender did not add any epithet;
the adjective was enough.
"Till then,--till she comes! Is that all your thought?" said his mother.
"Oh, my poor boy!"
He met her eyes with a pride which scorned concealment. Yes, he would own
it here, where it would be in vain to deny it. He would not disavow the
secret of his heart. Mothers have keen eyes, but hers were not keen, they
were pitying,--more sad than tears. She looked at him, and once more
softly shook her head. The blood had rushed again to his face, dyeing
it crimson for a moment, and he held his head high as he made his
confession. "Yes, mother, that is all my thought." And then he walked
away, tingling with the first avowal he had ever made to mortal ears.
As for Mrs. Warrender, she stood looking after him with so mingled an
expression that scarcely the most delicate of casuists could have
divined the meaning in her. She was so sorry for him, so proud of him.
He was so young, not more than a boy, yet man enough to give all his
heart and his life--to sacrifice everything, even his pride--for the
sake of the woman he loved. His mother, who had never before come within
speaking distance of a passion like this, felt her heart glow and swell
with pride in him, with tender admiration beyond words. She had neither
loved nor been loved after this sort; and yet it was no romance of the
poets, but had a real existence, and was here, here by her side, in the
monotonous little world which had never been touched by such a presence
before. She said to herself that it would never come to anything but
misery and pain; yet even misery was better than nothingness, and he who
had loved had lived. To think that a quiet, middle-aged Englishwoman,
a pattern of domestic duty, should think thus, and exult in her son's
inconceivable and, as she believed, unhappy passion, is almost too much
to be credible. Yet so it was.
Geoff's absence was not discovered until two o'clock, when Lady
Markland, at the end of a long and troublesome consultation over matters
only partially understood, suggested luncheon to her man of business.
"Geoff will be waiting and very impatient," she said, with a smile. Mr.
Longstaffe was not anxious to see Geoff, nor disturbed that the little
boy's midday meal should have been postponed to business, though this
disturbed Geoff's mother, who had been in the habit of thinking his
comfort the rule of her life. She was much startled not to find him in
the dining-room, and to hear that he had not come back. "Not come back!
and it is two o'clock! But Black will take good care of him," she said,
with a forced smile, to Mr. Longstaffe, "and I must not keep you waiting."
"If you please, my lady," said the butler, "Black's not gone with him."
At this Lady Markland stared at the man, the colour dying out of her
face. "You have let him go out alone!" "I had nothing to do with it, my
lady. The colt's lame, and Black----" "Oh," she cried, stamping her
foot, "don't talk to me of excuses, but go, go, and look for my child!"
Then she was told that Black had gone some time since, and was scouring
all the roads about; that he had come back once, having seen nothing;
and that now the coachman and gardener were gone too. From this time
until the hasty messenger arrived with Theo's hurried note, Lady
Markland spent the time in such distraction as only mothers know,
representing to herself a hundred dangers, which reason told her were
unlikely, but which imagination, more strong than reason, placed again
and again before her eyes, till she felt a certainty that they were
true. All those stories of kidnapping, which people in their senses
laugh at, Lady Markland as much as any, being when in her right mind a
very sensible woman--came before her now as possible, likely, almost
certain. And she saw Geoff, with his little foot caught in the stirrup,
dragged at the pony's frightened heels, the stones on the road tearing
him, his head knocking against every obstacle; and she saw him lying by
the roadside, white and lifeless. She saw everything that could and
could not happen, and accused herself for not having sent him to school,
out of danger,--for not having kept him by her side night and day.
Mr. Longstaffe naturally looked on at all this anguish with a mixture
of contempt and pity. He was not at all alarmed for Geoff. "The young
gentleman will have gone to visit one of his friends; he will have gone
farther than he intended. He may, if he doesn't know the country very
well, have missed his way: but we don't live in a country of brigands
and bandits, my dear lady; somebody will be sure to direct him safely
back." He managed to eat his luncheon by himself, after she had begged
him not to mind her absence, and had left him undisturbed to confide to
the butler his regret that Lady Markland should be so much upset, and
his conviction that the little boy was quite safe. "He'll be all right,
sir," the butler said. "He is as sharp as a needle, is Mr. Geoff. I did
ought to say his little lordship, but it's hard to get into new ways."
They said this, each with an indulgent smile at her weakness, in Lady
Markland's absence. The lawyer had a great respect for her, and the
butler venerated his mistress who was very capable in her own house, but
they smiled at her womanish exaggeration, all the same.
Warrender had been quite right in thinking she would come at once for
Geoff. She had almost harnessed the horses herself, so eager was she,
and they flew along the country roads at a pace very unlike their
ordinary calm. Evening had fallen when she rushed into the hall at the
Warren, in her garden hat, with a shawl wrapped about her shoulders, the
first she had found. Terrible recollections of the former occasion when
she had been summoned to this house were in her mind, and it was with
a fantastic terror which she could scarcely overcome that she found
herself once more, by the same waning light, in the place where she had
been sent for to see her husband die. If she had been deceived. If the
child should be gone, like his father! She had not, however, a second
moment in which to indulge this panic, for Geoff's voice, somewhat
raised, met her ears at once. Geoff was in very great feather, seated
among the ladies, expounding to them his views on things in general.
"Our trees at Markland are not like your trees," he was saying. "They
are just as young as me, mamma says. When I am as old as you are, or as
Theo, perhaps they will be grown. But I should not like them so big as
yours. When Theo is my tutor I shall tell him what I think; it will be a
fine opportunity. Why, mamma!"
She had him in her arms, kissing and sobbing over him for a moment, till
she could overcome that hysterical impulse. Theo had come from his room
at the sound of the wheels, and the party was all collected in the
drawing-room, the door of which stood open. There was little light,
so that they could scarcely see each other, but Minnie had full time
to remark with horror that Lady Markland did not even wear a widow's
bonnet, or a crape veil, for decency, but had on a mere _hat_,--a straw
hat, with a black ribbon. She put her hand on her heart in the pang of
this discovery, but nobody else took any notice. And, indeed, in the
outburst of the poor lady's thanks and questions, there was no room for
any one else to speak.
"Oh, it was all right," said Geoff, who was in high excitement, the
chief spokesman, and extremely eager to tell his own story before any
one could interfere. "I knew the way quite well. I wanted to see Theo,
you know, to ask him if he really meant it. I wanted to speak to him all
by himself; for Theo is never the same, mamma, when you are there. I
knew which turn to take as well as any one. I wasn't in a hurry; it was
such a nice day. But pony was not interested about Theo, like me, and
he remembered that it was dinner-time. That was all about it. And then
those people in the phaeton gave him a start. It was nothing. I just
popped over his head. There was no danger except that the bays might
have given me a kick; but horses never kick with their forefeet."
Here Lady Markland gave a shriek, and clutched her boy again. "You fell
off, Geoff, among the horses' feet!"
"Oh, it didn't matter, mamma; it didn't matter a bit, Theo caught me,
and tore my knickerbockers (but they're mended now). He bled a great
deal, and I helped Mrs. Warrender to plaster up the cut; but I wasn't
hurt,--not a bit; and my knickerbockers----"
It was Geoff's turn now to pause in surprise, for his mother left
him, and flew to Theo, and, taking his hands, tried to kiss them, and,
between laughing and crying, said, "God bless you! God bless you! You
have saved my boy's life!"
Geoff was confounded by this desertion, by the interruption, by the
sudden cry. He put his hand up to the place where Warrender's cut was,
dimly realising that it might have been in his own head but for Theo.
"Was that what it was?" he said, wondering and unobserved in the midst
of the new commotion, which for the moment left Geoff altogether, and
rose around Warrender, as if he had been the hero of the day.