“I do not love thee, Dr. Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this alone I know full well,
I do not love thee, Dr. Fell.”
|Precisely why the house seemed to him so dreary Ralph would have found
it hard to say. It did not usually strike people as anything but a model
English home. Something had, however, given the boy a clue, and already
he vaguely guessed, what no one else suspected, that there was a
skeleton in the cupboard. Little enough had fallen from his father’s
lips during those last days, yet Ralph had gathered an impression that
in some way Sir Matthew was connected with that disastrous speculation
which had ruined his father. He was far too young and ignorant to
understand the matter, and even had he been sure that Mr. Marriott knew
all the facts he could not have asked the old lawyer to explain things
to him, for was not Sir Matthew his godfather? a godfather, moreover,
who had generously undertaken to provide for him till he was grown up?
He was ashamed of himself for not being able to feel more grateful, but
that vague dislike and distrust which he had felt during their first
talk at Whinhaven Rectory, only grew stronger each hour.
When the last guest had departed, Sir Matthew was beset by eager
questions.
“Why did you adopt that horrid little schoolboy, papa?” said Janet,
reproachfully. “You are far too generous.”
“My dear, you forget; he is my godson, and I couldn’t leave him without
a helping hand. His father entrusted him to me.”
“They are all ready to sponge upon you, papa,” said Minnie. “A
reputation for generosity is a terrible thing.”
“For a man’s daughters, eh?” he said, laughingly. “Well, my dear, I
don’t want you to be troubled in the least. The boy will be going to
Winchester in September, and we shall only have him in the holidays. As
for little Evereld, we shall not be keeping her after her first season
unless I’m much mistaken.”
“It’s true she is an heiress,” said Lady Mactavish, critically, “but
I doubt if she will make a very stylish girl. And she’s far too
conscientious to get on well in society.”
“Well, well, we shall see,” said Sir Matthew, easily. “Already she has
one fervent admirer. Bruce Wylie makes himself a perfect fool about the
child.”
“He’s old enough to be her father,” said Janet.
“But she couldn’t have a better husband,” said Sir Matthew, in the voice
that meant that no more was to be said. “Nothing would give me greater
satisfaction than to see poor Ewart’s daughter safely under the
protection of a man like Wylie, before the heiress-hunters have had time
to torment her.”
“You remember that he dines with us this evening?” said Lady Mactavish.
“Yes, to be sure; let me have a list of the guests. And, my dear, remind
me that I promised Lady Mountpleasant to open the bazaar for the Decayed
Gentlefolk’s Aid Society at the Albert Hall next month.”
“We are no sooner off with one bazaar than we are on with another,”
protested Minnie. “Bazaars seem to me the curse of the age.”
“Blessings in disguise, my dear,” replied her father, with a smile. “The
days of simple humdrum giving are over, and nowadays, with great wisdom,
we kill two or more birds with one stone. To my mind, the bazaar is a
most useful institution, and I should be sorry to see it abandoned.”
“Ah, you would ruin yourself with giving, if I allowed you to do
it,” said Lady Mactavish, glancing up at him with an air of pride and
admiration which for the moment made her hard face beautiful.
The words touched him, and as he left the room he stooped and kissed her
forehead. Yet, on the way down to his library, an odd sarcastic smile
played about his lips, and he thought to himself, “They have yet to
learn that, had St. Paul been a man of the world, he would have added
a postscript to his famous chapter, and said, ‘For charity is the best
policy.’”
In the meanwhile the schoolroom party were snugly ensconced in the
window-seat overlooking St. James’s Park. Ralph had been cheered by
the sight of a regiment of Horse Guards, and Miss Ellerbeck had been
beguiled into telling them stories of the Franco-Prussian War and of
her brother’s adventures during the campaign. By and bye, as the evening
advanced, they were interrupted by the appearance of old Geraghty the
butler.
“Sir Matthew would like you to be in the drawing-room before dinner, Miss
Evereld,” he said, “and I was to say there was no need for the young
gentleman to come down. Maybe he’s tired after the journey,” concluded
the Irishman, adding these polite words of his own accord, for Sir
Matthew had curtly remarked, “Not Master Denmead, you understand.”
“That means that Mr. Bruce Wylie is coming!” cried Evereld, joyously.
“He’s such a nice man, and he always brings me chocolate--real French
chocolate. I never go down unless Mr. Wylie is there. You’ll like him,
Ralph; he has such nice kind eyes, and such a soft voice.”
“Well, you must run and dress, my child,” said Miss Ellerbeck; “and I,
too, must be wishing you both goodnight, for I go, as you remember, with
a friend to the Richter concert. We will light the gas for you, Ralph,
and then you must, for a short time, make yourself happy with your
Charles Dickens. Evereld will soon come back to you.”
She bade him a kind good-night, and Ralph took up “The Cricket on the
Hearth” and tried to read. But it would not do; the book had ceased to
appeal to him. He threw it down, lowered the gas, and returned to the
open window, leaning his arms on the sill and looking down through the
bars at the dim road beneath, with its endless succession of cabs and
carriages. For a little while it amused him to count the red and yellow
lamps as they flitted by, but soon his sorrow overwhelmed him once more.
It was the first time he had been alone since that morning hour in the
fir-grove at Whinhaven, and now once more all the misery of his loss
forced itself upon him. He was well fed, well housed, and his immediate
future was provided for, yet, perhaps, in all London, there was not at
that moment a more desolate little fellow. To be violently plucked up
by the roots and for ever banished from that goodly heritage that had
so far been his, was in itself hard enough; but to belong to no one in
particular, to be planted down and expected to grow and thrive among
loveless strangers seemed intolerable, and no ambitious dreams of a
future in India came now to his help! He saw nothing before him but an
endless vista of this same pain and aching loss. Tomorrow would be as
to-day, and all real happiness had, he fancied, gone from him for ever.
There is nothing quite so poignant as a child’s first great grief,
though mercifully, like all acute pain, it cannot last long.
The passing lights down below had long ceased to interest him, but
presently through his tears he happened to notice the pointers and the
Pole Star, and found a sort of comfort in what had for so long been
familiar. At any rate the same sky was over Whinhaven and London,
and the motto which he could remember puzzling over in his childhood,
illuminated in one of the Rectory rooms, returned now to his
mind--“Astra castra, Numen lumen.” It was true that the stars were his
canopy, but was God his light? Had He not plunged his whole life in
darkness, and set him far away from love and help and all that could
keep a boy straight?
The Westminster chimes rang out just then into the night air, startling
him back from his perplexed wondering. Ralph was not of the temperament
that is liable to doubt. He took life very simply, and it would have
been almost impossible seriously to disturb the faith into which he had
grown up; the wave of wretched questioning passed, and he knew in his
heart that just as over the great city with its debates and crimes, its
sorrows and struggles, the bells ring out their message, so heavenly
voices are ringing through the consciences of men, guiding, controlling,
influencing all. Had not his father always said it was mere miserable
cowardice to believe that darkness would triumph over light, that
selfish competition would in the end conquer? Love was to be the victor.
Love was to rule. And the great deep bell as it boomed out the hour
seemed to his fancy to ring--“Love! Love! Love!” over the restless crowd
of hearers.
In the meantime, however, his heart was still aching with the loss of
the man who had been friend and companion, teacher and father in one.
Surely since God loved him He would send some one to comfort him? Some
one whose voice he could hear, whose hand he could grasp. For after all
it was the outward tokens of love and comfort that he craved, as all
beings of a threefold nature must crave them. A spiritual love could not
as yet suffice him.
Now as Ralph leant on the window-sill crying quietly, much as a soldier
slowly bleeds on a battlefield because there is no one to staunch his
wound, the schoolroom door opened. He had expected some one to be sent
to his great need, but had pictured to himself a man. He glanced round
into the dim room and started when he saw, instead, only a little
white-robed figure.
“Of course,” he thought to himself in his disappointment, “I ought to
have known. It is only Evereld come back.”
“Oh, it’s you,” he said, with profound dejection in his voice.
“Are you all in the dark?” said Evereld.
“I’ve been looking at the carriage lamps,” he replied, evasively.
Evereld made no comment, she knew quite well that he had been crying,
and a great shyness stole over her--a terror of not being able to reach
him, and yet a consuming desire somehow to comfort him. She remembered
that in her own grief grown-up people had always tried to soothe her
with the adjuration, “Don’t cry, darling.” She had never found any
comfort in the words, and of course they would vex a boy. Dick would
have hated them.
“Do you know,” she said suddenly, “in some ways you do so remind me of
Dick.”
“Who is he?” asked Ralph, still in the dejected voice.
“Dick is my brother,” said Evereld. “He died last winter. There was
an outbreak of cholera. On the Thursday father and mother died, on the
Friday Dick and I were taken ill, and when I got better they told me
he was gone. I was the only one left.” Her voice quivered a little. She
ended abruptly.
“Oh!” cried Ralph, like one in pain, and instinctively he caught her
hand in his and held it fast. There was a silence. It seemed as if they
did not need words just then.
Ralph had not found the strong man of his dreams; he had found instead
a little girl with griefs greater than his own, and he felt a longing to
comfort her and care for her, and as far as possible to be to her what
Dick would have been.
“Was he older than I am?” was his first question.
“He was thirteen,” said Evereld. “His birthday was in last September--on
the 15th.”
“And I was thirteen in September, too,--on the 9th,” said Ralph.
“Only a week between you--how strange!” said Evereld. “And about
soldiers he was just like you. When you rushed to the window this
afternoon and saw all the little details about the Horse Guards’
uniforms, that I never much noticed before, you made me think of Dick
directly. He was crazy about uniforms, and Bridget used to make them for
him. We’ll get her to make you one.”
“Do you think she would?” said Ralph, forgetting his troubles. “We could
act all sorts of things then, you know. Do you like acting?”
“I love the dressing-up part,” said Evereld, “I don’t much care about
the talking, Dick used to do most of that.”
“I’ll do that part,” said Ralph blithely, for although shy and reserved
with his elders, he was never at a loss for words in a charade, and the
two instantly fell to discussing future plans, forgetting every grief
and care in the bliss of perfect companionship.
“Let us come down now,” said Evereld, presently. “Geraghty promised to
bring us whatever we liked. We’ll sit on the lowest flight of stairs,
you know, and he’ll help us as the dishes come out of the dining-room.
It’s such fun. I always do it when there’s a dinner-party.”
Ralph consented willingly enough, and found something cheering in the
general air of excitement that pervaded the house. They sat cosily on
the rich stair carpet with its soft Eastern colouring, a funny little
pair, he in his deep black, she in her white Indian muslin, watching the
servants as they hurried to and fro, and enjoying what Evereld termed
“that nice sort of late-dinner smell.”
“But it makes one awfully hungry,” said Ralph, and the good-natured
Geraghty, catching the words, murmured a comforting assurance as he
passed by, “I’m coming to you directly, sir,” and in a minute or two
with a beaming face he reappeared with two delicious oyster patties.
“How clever you are, Geraghty,” said the little girl. “You always know
just what will be nicest.” Whether Geraghty had much regard for their
powers of digestion may be doubted, but he took a rare delight in
tempting them with every delicacy, from prawns in aspic, to that curious
dish called “Angels on horseback.” Ralph was half way through a huge
helping of ice pudding when a momentary pang of doubt and reproach
seized him. Ought he to be feasting on the very day of his father’s
funeral? Evereld saw the change in his face, and helped by what she had
lately lived through, was able to read his thoughts. “Dick will be so
glad that I’ve got you,” she said, smiling, though Ralph fancied there
were tears in her eyes. “I somehow think that your father and mine will
be talking together to-night.”
And those few comfortable words were more to the boy than any number of
sermons on the resurrection; all his vague beliefs were freshened into
living parts of his everyday existence, and for the first time he knew
for himself what had been to him hitherto merely things that others told
him.
A sudden lull in the roar of voices from the dining-room now took place,
after which the Babel of many tongues rose once more. “They are just
beginning dessert,” said Evereld. “That was grace, and in a few minutes
the ladies will be coming upstairs. I think we had better go to bed
now.”
So they parted, after having arranged that in the walking hour on the
next morning, they would go together and sail Ralph’s little schooner in
St. James’ Park.