“Ill is that angel which erst fell from heaven,
But not more ill than he, nor in worse case,
Who hides a traitorous mind with smiling face,
And with a dove’s white feather masks a raven,
Each sin some colour hath it to adorn.
Hypocrisy, Almighty God doth scorn.”
Wm. Drummond, 1616.
|Dinner proved a trying meal that evening, although Sir Matthew and Mr.
Marriott exerted themselves to talk, and were both of them very kind to
their small companion. Afterwards they adjourned once more to the study
where for the sake of the old lawyer a fire had been lighted.
“The nights are still cold,” he said drawing a chair towards the hearth,
and warming his thin white hands; “May is but a treacherous month in
spite of the good things the poets say of it. I understand that your
father’s illness was caused by a chill,” he added, glancing kindly at
Ralph.
“He caught cold one night when they sent for him down in the village,”
said Ralph, tears starting to his eyes. “He was called up at two o’clock
to see a man who was dying: there was an east wind, he said it seemed to
go right through him. But then you know he had been very much troubled
because of his losses; for the last ten days he had scarcely eaten
anything, and had slept badly.”
Sir Matthew paced the room restlessly, but when he spoke his voice was
bland and calm.
“A noble end!” he said, “dying in harness like that; carrying comfort to
the dying and then lying down upon his own death-bed; a very noble end.”
Something in the tone of this speech grated on Ralph, he shrank a little
closer to the lawyer.
“Why do I hate him?” thought the boy. “He’s going to send me to
Winchester with his own money, I ought to like him, but I
can’t--I can’t!”
At that moment old Mrs. Grice appeared at the door asking to speak with
Mr. Marriott. He followed her into the hall returning in a minute or two
and approaching Ralph.
“My boy,” he said, laying a kindly hand on his shoulder, “if you want to
see your father’s face again it must be now.”
Together they went up the dimly lighted staircase to the room overhead,
Sir Matthew following slowly and with reluctance, a strange expression
lurking about the corners of his mouth. Many thoughts passed through
his mind as he stood looking down upon the still features of his dead
friend; if the pale lips could have spoken he well knew they might have
reproached him; and yet it was less painful to him to look at the stern
face of the dead, than to watch the grief of the little lad as, through
fast falling tears he gazed for the last time on his father’s face. It
was a relief to him when the old lawyer drew the boy gently away, and
persuaded him to return to the study fire.
“I will be good to his son,” thought Sir Matthew as he looked once
more at the silent form. “I will make it up to Ralph. He shall have the
education his father would have given him. And then he must shift for
himself, I shall have done my duty, and he must sink or swim. The
very sight of him annoys me, but it will be only for a few years, and,
meantime, I must put up with it.”
So Ralph for the last time slept in the only home he had ever known,
and woke the next day to endure as best he might all the last painful
ceremonies through which it was necessary that he should bear his part.
When the funeral was over he left Sir John Tresidder to talk with the
lawyer and Sir Matthew, and drew Mab away into a sheltered nook of the
walled kitchen garden where stood a rabbit-hutch.
“These are the only things left,” he said, mournfully. “Should you care
to have them, Mab? I should like them to be at Westbrook for I know
you would be good to them. Rabbi Ben Ezra is the best rabbit that ever
lived, and he’ll soon get to care for you. Sarah Jane is rather dull,
but I suppose he likes her, and she doesn’t eat her little ones or do
anything horrid of that sort like some rabbits.”
“I will take no end of care of them,” said Mab; “but it seems a pity that
you should leave them. Could you not take them with you?”
“If I were going to live with Mr. Marriott I wouldn’t mind asking
leave,” said Ralph, “but there’s something about Sir Matthew--I don’t
know what it is--but one can’t ask a favour of him. I’d far rather give
up the rabbits.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said Mab. “And by the bye Ralph, let me have
your new address, you are to live with your guardian are you not?”
“They say Sir Matthew is not exactly my guardian. But father’s will was
made many years ago and he was named as sole executor, and father wrote
to him the day before he died asking him to see to me. Here comes the
man to say your carriage is ready.”
“Very well,” said Mab. “And tell Mrs. Grice I will send over for the
rabbits. Good-bye, dear old boy. Don’t forget us all.”
She stooped down, and for the first time in her life kissed him, and
Ralph having watched at the gate till the carriage was out of sight,
suddenly felt a horrible wave of desolation sweep over him, and knew
that he could not keep up one minute longer. Running down the road he
fled through the churchyard never stopping till he found himself in a
lovely sheltered fir grove--his favourite nook in the whole park; and
here, while the nightingales, and the cuckoos, and the thrushes sang
joyously overhead, he threw himself down at full length on the slippery
pine needles that covered the warm dry ground, and sobbed as though
his heart would break. They had always called this particular nook the
“Goodly Heritage,” because whenever friends had been brought to see it
they had always said to the Rector: “Ah, Denmead, your lines are fallen
in pleasant places.” Poor Ralph felt that this saying was no longer
true, he thought that the pleasantness had forever vanished from his
life, and the prospect of going forth into the world dependent for every
penny upon a man whom he vaguely disliked was almost more than he could
endure. The boy had a keenly sensitive artistic temperament, but luckily
his father’s strenuous endeavours had taught him self-control; he did
not long abandon himself to that passion of grief but pulled himself
together and began to pace slowly through the grove crushing into
his hand as he walked a rough hard fir-cone. And then gradually as he
breathed the soft pine scented air, and watched the sunbeams streaking
with light the dark fir trunks, and glorifying the silvery birch trees
in a distant glade which sloped steeply down to a little murmuring
brook, he realised that the past was his goodly heritage, his possession
of which no man could rob him, and in thankfulness for the home which
had been so happy for thirteen years he set his face bravely towards the
dark future.
“Waterloo, first single, a child’s ticket,” said Sir Matthew Mactavish
entering the booking-office an hour or two later.
“But I am thirteen,” said Ralph quickly.
“Then he must have a whole ticket,” said the official, and Sir Matthew
frowned but was obliged to comply.
“You are so absurdly small,” he said glancing with annoyance at his
charge as they passed out on to the platform, “you might very well have
passed for under twelve.”
Ralph felt hot all over, partly because no boy likes to be told that he
is small, partly because he was angry at being reproved for not standing
calmly by to see the railway company cheated. How could it be that a man
as wealthy as Sir Matthew could stoop to do a thing which his father
in spite of narrow means would never have thought of doing? He could
as soon have imagined him stealing goods from a shop as attempting
to defraud in this meaner, because less risky, fashion. However, Mr.
Marriott happily diverted his thoughts just then.
“Are you fond of Dickens?” he said kindly. “Have you read his ‘Tale of
Two Cities,’ or his ‘Christmas Tales?’”
Ralph had read neither, and was soon leaning back in his corner of
the railway carriage, forgetful of all his wretchedness, cheered
and fascinated, amused and filled with kind thoughts by the story of
Scrooge, and Marley’s ghost, and Tiny Tim, and the Christmas turkey.
It was with a pang of regret that he bade old Mr. Marriott farewell when
they reached London, and illogically yet naturally enough he felt far
more grateful for the parting sovereign and the kindly glance which the
lawyer bestowed on him, than for his adoption by Sir Matthew. A sense
of utter desolation stole over him as Mr. Marriott disappeared, and he
followed his guardian into a hansom and found himself for the first time
in the heart of London. To his country eyes the crowded thoroughfares,
the grim houses, the bustle and confusion, and the sordid misery seemed
absolutely hateful; it was not until they happened to pass a theatre,
and he caught sight of the name of a well known actor that his face
brightened and his tongue was unloosed.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, “does Washington act there? Is that his own
theatre?”
“Yes, to be sure,” said Sir Matthew; “you shall go some night and see
him.”
“Oh, thank you!” said Ralph rapturously; “how awfully good of you.
Father took me once to hear him at Southampton, he was playing in ‘The
Bells’ one Saturday afternoon. It was splendid; there was the dream you
know, you saw it all before you. He dreamt of the court of justice, and
all the time it was his own conscience that was killing him, and his
remorse for having murdered the traveller in the sleigh. I thought I
should have choked at the end when he believed they were hanging him; he
just says, you know, in a sort of gasp, ‘Take the rope off my neck!’ and
then he falls back dead, and the play ends. It felt so jolly to get out
of the dark theatre into the street, and to find the sun shining, and
everything as jolly as usual, and to know that all that dreadful misery
wasn’t really true.”
“Not true?” said Sir Matthew reflectively. “H’m!” He looked with a sort
of envy at the boy’s clear innocent eyes, then he turned away; whether
he were absorbed in his own thoughts or in the observation of the dingy
crowd, it would have been hard to say.
They paused at a house in Bow Street where he had to make some inquiry,
and Ralph fell into a happy dream about his latest hero the great actor,
returning with a pang to the uncomfortable present when the hansom at
length drew up at a house in Queen Anne’s Gate.
Feeling very small and desolate he followed his guardian up the broad
steps and into the imposing entrance hall.
“Wipe your shoes,” said Sir Matthew, in his brisk authoritative tone.
Ralph obediently complied, and saw somewhat to his amusement that the
same command was printed in large black letters on the mat.
“When I have a house of my own,” he reflected, “there shall be a doormat
with SALVE on it. Then the chaps will know I’m awfully glad to see them,
and that I’m not thinking first of my carpets.”
Sir Matthew, meantime, had been talking to a greyheaded butler; Ralph
only caught the closing remark: “And let someone show Master Denmead up
to the school-room.”
The butler looked at the small lonely boy in his black suit. “Fraulein
and Miss Evereld are out, sir,” he replied unwilling to send this
sad-faced little lad into the utter solitude of the upper regions.
“Oh, very well, then you had better come with me, Ralph,” said Sir
Matthew, and he led the way upstairs. The boy glanced nervously round
as they entered. This was not one of the homelike, comfortable, used
drawing-rooms such as he had grown to love at Westbrook Hall, but a
great saloon upholstered in the best style of a well-known firm, and as
lacking in soul and individuality as a Parisian doll.
There were several people present. Lady Mactavish a peevish-looking
woman with small suspicious blue eyes and a nervous manner, shook hands
with him and looked him over in a dissatisfied way as though mentally
reflecting what in the world she was to do with him.
“Janet,” she called turning to her elder daughter, “this is poor Mr.
Denmead’s son.”
Janet, a somewhat sharp-featured clever-looking girl of four-and-twenty,
came up and shook hands with him, but her cold light eyes beneath the
fringe of red hair, looked to him unfriendly. She just passed him on to
her younger sister who was enjoying a comfortable little flirtation at
the other side of the room with a middle-aged officer.
“This is Ralph Denmead, Minnie,” she said, returning to her former
place, and resuming the interrupted conversation with a lady caller.
Minnie, who was also redhaired, had a more friendly expression, she
smiled at him as she shook hands.
“Fraulein has taken Evereld to her French class, but they will soon be
home, and then they will look after you,” she said, motioning him to
a chair at some little distance from herself and the Major. It was a
modern imitation of an antique chair, very hard in the seat, very high
from the ground, and with rich carving all over the back which made any
sort of comfort impossible. As he sat on it with his legs uncomfortably
dangling, he saw the lady who was talking to Janet put up her
long-handled eye-glass, and inspect him critically as if he had been
some strange animal at the Zoological Gardens. However small schoolboys
were not interesting, she soon put down the eye-glass and turned to Miss
Mactavish with a question which arrested Ralph’s attention.
“By the bye, have you read ‘The Marriage of Melissa’? It is the book of
the season, you must get it my dear at once, everyone is talking of it,
and it is an open secret that Sir Algernon Wyte and Mrs. Hereward Lyne
wrote it, though of course it appeared anonymously.”
“What is it? A society novel?”
“Yes, and such a plot! There’s a tremendous run upon it they say, and
wherever you go you hear people discussing it.”
Then followed a graphic account of the chief characters, and the most
difficult situations; it was a plot which made the boy’s ears tingle. He
wriggled round in his chair and tried to become interested in the vapid
talk of Major Gillot and Minnie, it was doubtless very interesting to
them, but to him it seemed the most insane interchange of bantering
compliments and teasing replies that he had ever heard. Was this love
making? he wondered. If so, they did it much better in books. It was not
in this fashion that Frank Osbaldistone wooed Di Vernon, or that John
Kidd made love to Lorna Doone.
He looked wearily across to the hearthrug where Sir Matthew was shouting
unintelligible jargon about the money market into the ear of a deaf
old Scotsman; then in desperation tried to listen to Lady Mactavish’s
grumbling voice as she related her difficulties to a soothing and
sympathetic friend.
“You are always burdening yourself with other people’s affairs,” said
the purring voice of the adept in flattery.
“Well,” said Lady Mactavish, “you see my husband is one of those men who
inspire confidence. They all turn to him naturally. And I do assure you
he has a perfect passion for adopting children. There’s this boy to-day.
To-morrow it will be some other sad case. A little while ago it was
Evereld Ewart, poor Sir Richard Ewart’s little girl. You must see her
by and bye. Yes, we have taken her in and her nurse and her German
governess. It’s been a very great anxiety to me, a great responsibility,
though I make no complaint of the child. Still one likes to have one’s
house to oneself.”
“And dear Sir Matthew,” remarked the friend, “is fast turning it into an
orphan asylum. But there it’s just like him! so noble-minded! So ready
to give and glad to distribute!”
There came a little interlude with the tea. Ralph handed about cups and
hot scones which looked very tempting he thought. But there was no cup
for him; evidently boys of his age were not supposed to feed in the
drawing-room. He returned to the mock antique chair with its bony
back and thought wistfully of the drawing-room at Westbrook Hall, and
wondered whether Mab was at this very moment finishing that particularly
good Buzzard cake to which she had so lavishly helped him yesterday. At
lunch he had been too miserable to eat, but now he was ravenous, and to
be at once hungry and lonely and unhappy was a sensation he had never
before experienced. How was he to bear this detestable new life? How was
he to take root in this uncongenial soil?
His dismal reverie was interrupted by Lady Mactavish’s voice: “Just
ring the bell, Ralph. By this time she must surely be in.” Then as the
butler appeared, the welcome news came that Miss Evereld was at that
moment on the stairs. Orders were given that she should come in at once.
Ralph looked eagerly towards the open door, and watched the entrance
of a little girl who was apparently about a year or two younger than
himself. She was dressed in a short black frock trimmed with crape, but
nothing else about her was mournful, her nut-brown hair seemed full
of golden sunbeams, her rosy face was dimpled and smiling; she seemed
neither shy nor forward, but stood patiently listening to the remarks
of Lady Mactavish, and old Lady Mountpleasant, as long as was necessary,
then having received a warm greeting from Sir Matthew, who appeared to
be genuinely fond of her, she caught sight of Ralph and crossing the
room shook hands with him in an eager friendly way. The tide of general
conversation rolled on, but the two children stood silently looking at
each other for a minute or two. At last Evereld had a happy intuition.
“Are you not hungry?” she said.
“Yes, starving,” said Ralph, with a pathetic glance at the scones.
“It’s no good,” said Evereld, noting the look. “We never have anything
down here, but we’ll try and slip away quietly. No one really wants us
you see. And I’ll beg Bridget to make us some hot buttered toast. She is
the dearest old thing in the world.”
“Does she live here?” said Ralph, as though he doubted whether anything
superlatively good would be found beneath Sir Matthew’s roof.
“She is my nurse,” said Evereld. “We came from India you know last
February. Her husband was a soldier but he died, and then she came to be
our servant. Look, some more callers are coming in, now is our time to
slip out.”
Ralph gladly followed the little girl as she glided dexterously from the
room, and it was with a sense of mingled triumph and relief that they
found themselves outside on the staircase.
“Fraulein Ellerbeck and I have been talking all day about your coming,”
said Evereld, as they toiled up to the top of the house. “The telegram
only came at breakfast.”
“They must all have thought it an awful bore to have me,” said Ralph,
remembering Lady Mactavish’s preference for having her house to herself.
“We schoolroom people didn’t think it a bore,” said Evereld, gaily. “You
can’t think how dull it is to have no one to play with. I could hardly
do my French this afternoon for wondering about you, and once when the
master asked me something about the difference between _connaître_
and _savoir_, I said, by mistake, ‘Ralph Denmead.’ It was dreadful!
Everyone laughed.” She laughed herself at the remembrance. “But, you
see, I had been thinking how well we should get to know each other.”
A comforting sense of comradeship crept into Ralph’s sore heart; he
forgot his troubles for a while as he looked at the merry face beside
him. It was what he would have called an “awfully jolly” little face,
with soft curves and a dainty little mouth and chin, a rounded forehead
from which the hair was unfashionably thrown back, and a pair of clear
blue eyes that made him think of speedwell blossoms.
Evereld led him in triumph to the schoolroom to introduce him to her
governess, and Miss Ellerbeck’s warm German greeting, so unlike the
chilly reception he had met with in the drawing-room, at once set him
at his ease. Bridget, too, accorded him a hearty welcome, and brought
in enough toast even to satisfy a hungry schoolboy. She was a motherly
person, with one of those rather melancholy dark faces of almost Spanish
outline which one meets with among the Mayo peasants. But not all her
wanderings or her troubles as a soldier’s wife and widow had robbed her
of that delicious quaint humour which brightens many a desolate Irish
cabin, and which brightened some parts of this great desolate London
house.