In the clear old room, with all its familiar features about her, memory
could only have its most painful sway. Her grand old father with his
grand old white hair used to sit where she was sitting; her brothers had
each his appointed place; and she was a lovely bright child amongst
them, petted by all; the sentimental girl with her head as brimful of
romance as ever the other Lucy Ashton's had been, when she went out to
her trysts with the Master of Ravenswood. Which had been the more bitter
fate in after-life--that Lucy's or this one's?
Mrs. Ashton went quietly up, put her arms round Lucy, and kissed her
many times. She untied the bonnet, which Lucy had not done, and gave it
with the shawl to Robert, standing behind. The bright hair fell down in
a shower--the bonnet had caught it--and she put her feeble hand up as if
to feel the extent of the disaster. It made her look so like the sweet
young sister they had all prized, that Robert turned to the window and
gave a few stamps, as if his boots were cold.
How she cried!--tears that came from the very heart. Putting her face
down on the arm of the chair, she let her grief have its way. Jane held
her hand and stroked it lovingly. Robert felt inclined to dash his
arms through the dark window-panes on which the fire-light played, in
imaginary chastisement of the scamp, Bird.
"Could you lend me a shawl of your own, Jane?" she asked, by-and-by,
when Robert said they would have tea in--and she glanced down at her
shabby brown gown. "I don't wish the servants to see me like this."
Jane flew out and brought one. A handsome cashmere of scarlet and
gold-colour, that her mother had given her before the wedding.
"Just for an hour or two, until I leave," said Lucy, as she covered
herself up in it.
"You will not go out of this house to-night, Lucy."
"I must, Robert. You can guess who it was I came to Timberdale to see."
"Of course I can. She is going on all right and getting stronger; so
there's no immediate haste about that. Mr. Bird would not--not come, I
suppose."
Lucy did not answer. Robert was right--Bird would not come: his young
sister might die where she was or be sheltered in the workhouse, for all
the concern he gave himself. For one thing, the man was at his wits' end
for money, and not too sure of his own liberty. But Lucy's conscience
had not let her be still: as soon as she had scraped together the means
for a third-class ticket, she came over.
"The poor girl has lain like a weight upon my mind, since the time when
we abandoned her in London," confessed Lucy.
"Why did you abandon her?"
"It was not my fault," murmured Lucy; and Robert felt vexed to have
asked the hasty question. "I hoped she went home, as I desired her;
but I did not feel sure of it, for Clara was thoughtless. And those
unsuspicious country girls cannot take care of themselves too well.
Robert, whatever has happened I regard as our fault," she added, looking
up at him with some fever in her eyes.
"As Mr. Bird's fault; not yours," corrected Robert--who, strange perhaps
to say, observed courtesy of speech towards Bird when talking with Lucy:
giving him in general a handle to his name. It might have sounded
ironical, but that he couldn't help. "Did you never write to ascertain
what had become of her, Lucy?"
"My husband would not let me. He is often in difficulties: and we never
have a settled home, or address. What will be done with her, Robert?"
"She will stay where she is until she is strong; Jane wishes it; and
then we shall see about the future. Something will turn up for her in
some place or other, I've little doubt."
Jane glanced at her husband and smiled. Robert had given her a promise
to help the girl to an honest living. But, as he frankly told his wife,
had he known it was a sister of Bird's, he might never have done so.
"About yourself, Lucy; that may be the better theme to talk of just
now," he resumed. "Will you remain here for good in your old home?"
The hot tears rushed to her eyes, the hot flush to her cheeks. She
looked deprecatingly at both, as if craving pardon.
"I cannot. You know I cannot."
"Shall I tell you what Bird is, Lucy? And what he most likely will be?"
"To what end, Robert?" she faintly asked. "I know it without."
"Then you ought to leave him--for your own sake. Leave him before you
are compelled to do so."
"Not before, Robert."
"But why?"
"Oh, Robert, don't you see?" she answered, breaking down. "He is my
husband."
And nothing else could they get from her. Though she cried and sobbed,
and did not deny that her life was a fear and a misery, yet she would go
back to him; go back on the morrow; it was her duty. In the moment's
anger Robert Ashton said he would wash his hands of her as well as of
Bird. But Jane and Lucy knew better.
"What can have induced you and Robert to take up this poor Clara in the
way you are doing--and mean to do?" she asked when she was alone with
Jane at the close of the evening.
"I--owe a debt of gratitude; and I thought I could best pay it in this
way," was Mrs. Ashton's timid and rather unwilling answer.
"A debt of gratitude! To Clara?"
"No. To Heaven."
VII.
CHARLES VAN RHEYN.
I shall always say it was a singular thing that I should chance to go
back to school that time the day before the quarter opened. Singular,
because I heard and saw more of the boy I am going to tell of than I
otherwise might have heard and seen. I was present at his arrival; and
I was present at his--well, let us say, at his departure.
The midsummer holidays were nearly up when Hugh was taken ill. Duffham
was uncertain what the illness was going to be: so he pitched upon
scarlatina. Upon that, the Squire and Mrs. Todhetley packed me back to
school there and then. Not from any fear of my taking it; I had had it,
and Tod too (and both of us were well again, I recollect, within a week
or so); but if once the disease had really shown itself, Dr. Frost would
not have liked us to return lest we might convey it to the school. Tod
was in Gloucestershire. He was written to, and told not to return home,
but to go straight to school.
Dr. Frost was surprised to see me. He said my coming back was quite
right; and I am sure he tried to put me at ease and make me comfortable.
Not a single boy had stayed the holidays that summer, and the doctor and
I were alone. The school would open the following day, when masters and
boys were alike expected to return. I had dinner with the doctor--he
usually dined late during the holidays--and we played at chess
afterwards.
Breakfast was just over the next morning when the letters came in.
Amongst them was one from France, bearing the Rouen post-mark. Now the
doctor, learned man though he was in classics and what not, could make
nothing of French. Carrying the letter to the window, turning its pages
over and back again, and staring at it through his spectacles, he at
last brought it to me.
"You are a pretty good French scholar, Johnny; can you read this? I
can't, I confess. But the paper's so thin, and the ink so pale, and the
writing so small, I could scarcely see it if it were English."
And I had to go over it twice before I could make it out. As he
said, the ink was pale, and it was a frightfully small and cramped
handwriting. The letter was dated Rouen, and was signed curtly, "Van
Rheyn," French fashion, without the writer's Christian name. Monsieur
Van Rheyn wrote to say that he was about to consign his son, Charles
Aberleigh Van Rheyn, to Dr. Frost's care, and that he would arrive
quickly after the letter, having already departed on his journey under
the charge of a "gentilhomme Anglais." It added that the son would bring
credentials with him; that he spoke English, and was of partly English
descent, through his mother, the late Madame Van Rheyn, _née_ Aberleigh.
"Rather a summary way of consigning a pupil to my charge," remarked Dr.
Frost. "Aberleigh?--Aberleigh?" he continued, as if trying to recollect
something, and bending his spectacles over the letter. "She must have
been one of the Aberleighs of Upton, I should think. Perhaps Hall knows?
I have heard her mention the Aberleighs."
Ringing the bell, the housekeeper was sent for. Dr. Frost asked her what
she knew of the Aberleighs of Upton.
"There's none of them left now to know, sir," answered Hall. "There
never was but two--after the old mother died: Miss Aberleigh and Miss
Emma Aberleigh. Good fortunes the young ladies had, sir, and both of
them, I remember, married on the same day. Miss Aberleigh to Captain
Scott, and Miss Emma to a French gentleman, Mosseer Van Rheyn."
"I should think, by the name, he was Dutch--or Flemish; not French,"
remarked the doctor.
"Anyway, sir, he was said to be French," returned Hall. "A dark sallow
gentleman who wore a braided coat. The young ladies never came back to
their home after the wedding-day, and the place was sold. Captain Scott
sailed with his wife for Injee, and Mosseer Van Rheyn took Miss Emma off
to his house in France."
"Do you recollect where his home was? In what part of France?"
"No, sir. And if I did, I should never be able to speak the name. Not
long ago I heard it said that poor Miss Emma was dead--Mrs. Van Rheyn
that is. A nice quiet girl, she was."
"Then I conclude the new pupil spoken of to me, must be the son of
Monsieur Van Rheyn and Miss Emma Aberleigh," remarked the doctor, when
Hall was dismissed. "You must help to make things pleasant for him,
Johnny: it will be a change at first from his own home and country. Do
you remember that other French boy we had here?"
I did. And the remembrance made me laugh. He used to lament every day
that he had not a plate of soup for dinner, and to say the meat was
tough.
Strolling out at the front iron gates in the course of the morning,
wondering how long the boys were going to be before some of them put in
an appearance, I caught sight of the first. He was walking up from the
Plough and Harrow Inn, and must have come by the omnibus that plied
backwards and forwards between the inn and the station. The Plough and
Harrow man-of-all-work followed behind, carrying a large trunk.
Of all queer figures that boy looked the queerest. I wondered who he
was, and whether he could really be coming as a pupil. His trousers and
vest were nankeen, his coat was a sort of open blouse, and flew out
behind him; the hat he wore was a tall chimney-pot with a wide brim. Off
went the hat with a bow and a flourish of the arm, as he reached me and
the gates.
"I ask your pardon, sir. This is, I believe, the pension of Dr. Frost?"
The French accent, though that was slight, the French manners, the
French turn of the words, told me who it was. For a minute or two I
really could not answer for staring at him. He seemed to have arrived
with a shaved head, as if just out of gaol, or of brain-fever.
The hair was cut as closely as it could be cut, short of shaving: his
face was red and round and covered with freckles: you could not have put
a pin's point between them. Really and truly it was the most remarkable
figure ever seen out of a picture. I could not guess his age exactly:
something perhaps between twelve and fourteen. He was slender and
upright, and to all appearance strong.
"I think you must be Charles Van Rheyn," I said then, holding out my
hand to welcome him. "Dr. Frost is expecting you."
He put his hand into mine after a moment's hesitation, not seeming quite
to understand that he might: but such a brightness came into his rather
large and honest grey eyes, that I liked him from that hour, in spite of
the clothes and the freckles and the shorn head. He had crossed to
Folkestone by the night boat, he said, had come on to London, and the
gentleman, who was his escort so far, had there put him into an early
train to come on to his destination.
Dr. Frost was at the window, and came to the door. Van Rheyn stood still
when within a yard of him, took his hat off with the most respectful
air, and bowed his head half-way to the ground. He had evidently been
brought up with a reverence for pastors and masters. The doctor shook
hands. The first thing Van Rheyn did on entering the reception-parlour,
was to produce from some inner pocket a large, square letter, sealed
with two flaming red seals and a coat of arms; which he handed to the
doctor. It contained a draft for a good sum of money in advance of the
first three months' payment, and some pages of closely-written matter in
the crabbed hand of Monsieur Van Rheyn. Dr. Frost put the pages aside to
await the arrival of the French master.
"My father was unable to remit the exact amount of money for the
trimestre, sir, not knowing what it would be," said young Van Rheyn.
"And there will be the extra expenses besides. He will arrange that with
you later."
"The end of the term would have been time enough to remit this," said
the doctor, smiling. "It is not our custom to receive payment in
advance."
"It is the custom in France, sir, I assure you. And, besides, I am to
you a stranger."
"Not altogether a stranger; I believe I know something of your mother's
family," said Dr. Frost. "How came your father to fix upon my school for
you?"
"My mother knew of your school, sir: she and my father used to talk of
placing me at it. And an English gentleman who came lately to Rouen
spoke of it--he said he knew you very well. That again put into my
father's head to send me."
It was the same Van Rheyn that they had thought--the son of Miss Emma
Aberleigh. She had been dead two years.
"Are you a Protestant or a Roman Catholic?" questioned Dr. Frost.
"I am Protestant, sir: the same that my mother was. We attended the
église of Monsieur le Pasteur Mons, of the Culte Evangélique."
The doctor asked him if he would take anything before dinner, and he
chose a glass of eau sucrée. The mal-de-mer had been rather bad, he
said, and he had not been able to eat since.
Evidently Hall did not approve of eau sucrée. She had never made eau
sucary, she said, when sent to for it. Bringing in the water and sugar,
she stood by to watch Van Rheyn mix it, her face sour, her lips drawn
in. I am sure it gave her pleasure, when he asked for a few drops of
orange-flower water, to be able to say there was not such a thing in the
house.
"This young gentleman is the son of the Miss Emma Aberleigh you once
knew, Hall," spoke the doctor, with a view no doubt to putting her on
good terms with the new pupil.
"Yes, sir," she answered crustily. "He favours his mamma about the
eyes."
"She must have had very nice eyes," I put in.
"And so she had," said Van Rheyn, looking at me gratefully. "Thank you
for saying so. I wish you could have known her!"
"And might I ask, sir, what has become of the other Miss Aberleigh?"
asked Hall of Van Rheyn. "The young lady who went off to Injee with her
husband on the wedding-day."
"You would say my Aunt Margaret," he rejoined. "She is quite well. She
and the major and the children will make the voyage to Europe next
year."
After the eau sucrée came to an end, the doctor turned him over to me,
telling me to take care of him till dinner-time, which that day would
be early. Van Rheyn said he should like to unpack his box, and we went
upstairs together. Growing confidential over the unpacking, he gave me
scraps of information touching his home and family, the mention of one
item leading to another.
His baptismal name in full, he said, was Charles Jean Aberleigh; his
father's was Jean Marie. Their home was a très joli château close to
Rouen: in five minutes you could walk there. It was all much changed
since his mother died (he seemed to have loved her with a fervent love
and to revere her memory); the last thing he did on coming away for
England was to take some flowers to her grave. It was thought in Rouen
that his father was going to make a second marriage with one of the
Demoiselles de Tocqueville, whom his Aunt Claribelle did not like. His
Aunt Claribelle, his father's sister, had come to live at the château
when his mother died; but if that Thérèsine de Tocqueville came into
the house she would quit it. The Demoiselles de Tocqueville had hardly
any _dot_,--which would be much against the marriage, Aunt Claribelle
thought, and bad for his father; because when he, Charles, should be the
age of twenty-one, the money came to him; it had been his mother's, and
was so settled: and his father's own property was but small. Of course
he should wish his father to keep always as much as he pleased, but Aunt
Claribelle thought the English trustees would not allow that. Aunt
Claribelle's opinion was, that his father had at length decided to send
him to a pension in England while he made the marriage; but he (Charles)
knew that his mother had wished him to finish his education in England,
and to go to one of the two colleges to which English gentlemen went.
"Here comes old Fontaine," I interrupted at this juncture, seeing his
arrival from the window.
Van Rheyn looked up from his shirts, which he was counting. He seemed to
have the tidiest ways in the world. "Who is it that you say? Fontaine?"
"Monsieur Fontaine, the French master. You can talk away with him in
your native tongue as much as you like, Van Rheyn."
"But I have come here to speak the English tongue, not the French,"
debated he, looking at me seriously. "My father wishes me to speak and
read it without any accent; and I wish it also."
"You speak it very well already."
"But you can hear that it is not my native tongue--that I am a
foreigner."
"Yes."
"Well, I must learn to speak it without that--as the English do. It will
be necessary."
I supposed he might allude to his future life. "What are you to be, Van
Rheyn?" I inquired.
"What profession, do you ask? I need not be any: I have enough fortune
to be a rentier--I don't know what you call that in English; it means a
gentleman who lives on his money. But I wish, myself, to be an English
priest."
"An English priest! Do you mean a parson?"
"Yes, I mean that. So you see I must learn the English tongue. My mother
used to talk to me about the priests in her land----"
"Parsons, Van Rheyn."
"I beg your pardon: I forget. And I fear I have caught up the French
names for things since my mother died. It was neither priest nor parson
she used to call the English ministers."
"Clergymen, perhaps."
"That was it. She said the clergymen were good men, and she should like
me to be one. In winter, when it was cold, and she had some fire in her
chamber, I used to sit up there with her, after coming home from classe,
and we talked together, our two selves. I should have much money, she
said, when I grew to be a man, and could lead an idle life. But she
would not like that: she wanted me to be a good man, and to go to heaven
when I died, where she would be; and she thought if I were a clergyman I
should have serious thoughts always. So I wish to be a clergyman."
He said all this with the utmost simplicity and composure, just as he
might have spoken of going for a ride. There could be no mistaking that
he was of a thoroughly straightforward and simple-minded nature.
"It might involve your living over here, Van Rheyn: once you were in
Orders."
"Yes, I know. Papa would not mind. England was mamma's country, and she
loved it. There was more peace in England than in France, she thought."
"I say, she must have been a good mother, Van Rheyn."
In a moment his grey eyes were shining at me through a mist of tears.
"Oh, she was so good, so good! You can never know. If she had lived I
should never have had sorrow."
"What did she die of?"
"Ah, I cannot tell. She was well in the morning, and she was dead at
night. Not that she was strong ever. It was one Dimanche. We had been to
the office, she and I----"
"What office?"
"Oh, pardon--I forget I am speaking English. I mean to church. Monsieur
Mons had preached; and we were walking along the street towards home
afterwards, mamma talking to me about the sermon, which had been a very
holy one, when we met the Aunt Claribelle, who had come into the town
for high mass at St. Ouen. Mamma asked her to come home and dine with
us; and she said yes, but she must first go to say bon-jour to old
Madame Soubitez. As she parted from us, there was suddenly a great
outcry. It was fête at Rouen that Sunday. Some bands of music were
to play on the estrade in the public garden, competing for a prize,
consequently the streets were crowded. We looked back at the noise, and
saw many horses, without riders, galloping along towards us; men were
running after them, shouting and calling; and the people, mad with
fright, tumbled over one another in the effort to get away. Later, we
heard that these horses, frightened by something, had broken out of an
hotel post-yard. Well, mamma gave just a cry of fear and held my hand
tighter, as we set off to run with the rest, the horses stamping wildly
after us. But the people pushed between us, and I lost her. She was at
home before me, and was sitting at the side of the fountain, inside the
château entrance-gate, when I got up, her face all white and blue, and
her neck and throat beating, as she clung to the nearest lion with both
hands. It alarmed me more than the horses had, for I had never seen her
look so. 'Come in, mamma,' I said, 'and take a little glass of cordial;'
but she could not answer me, she did not stir. I called one of the
servants, and by-and-by she got a little breath again, and went into
the house, leaning upon both of us, and so up to her chamber. Quite
immediately papa came home: he always went into town to his club on the
Sunday mornings, and he ran for Monsieur Petit, the médecin--the doctor.
By seven o'clock in the evening, mamma was dead."
"Oh dear! What was the cause?"
"Papa did not tell me. He and Monsieur Petit talked about the heart:
they said it was feeble. Oh, how we cried, papa and I! He cried for
many days. I hope he will not bring home Thérèsine de Tocqueville!"
The dinner-bell rang out, and we went down. Dr. Frost was putting up the
letter which old Fontaine had been translating to him. It was full of
directions about Van Rheyn's health. What he was to do, and what not to
do. Monsieur Van Rheyn said his son was not strong: he was not to be
allowed to do gymnastics or "boxing," or to play at rough games, or take
violent exercise of any kind; and a small glass of milk was to be given
him at night when he went to bed. If the clothes sent over with him were
not suitable to the school, or in accordance with the English mode, Dr.
Frost was prayed to be at the trouble of procuring him new ones. He was
to be brought well on in all the studies necessary to constitute the
"gentilhomme," and especially in the speaking and reading of English.
Dr. Frost directed his spectacles to Charles Van Rheyn, examining him
from top to toe. The round, red face, and the strongly-built frame
appeared to give nothing but indications of robust health. The doctor
questioned him in what way he was not strong--whether he was subject to
a cough, or to want of appetite, and other such items. But Van Rheyn
seemed to know nothing about it, and said he had always been quite
well.
"The father fears we should make him into a muscular Englishman, hence
these restrictions," thought Dr. Frost.
In the afternoon the fellows began to come in thick and threefold: Tod
amongst them, who arrived about tea-time. To describe their amazement
when they saw Van Rheyn is quite beyond me. It seemed that they never
meant to leave off staring. Some of them gave him a little chaff, even
that first night. Van Rheyn was very shy and silent. Entirely at his
ease as he had been with me alone, the numbers seemed to daunt him; to
strike him and his courage into himself.
* * * * *
On the whole, Van Rheyn was not liked. Once let a school set itself
against a new fellow at first--and Van Rheyn's queer appearance had done
that much for him--it takes a long time to bring matters round--if they
ever are brought round at all. When his hair began to sprout, it looked
exactly like pig's bristles. And that was the first nickname he got:
Bristles. The doctor had soon changed his style of coat, and he wore
jackets, as we did.
Charles Van Rheyn did not seem inclined to grow sociable. Shy and silent
as he had shown himself to them that first evening, so he remained.
True, he had no encouragement to be otherwise. The boys continually
threw ridicule on him, making him into an almost perpetual butt. Any
mistake in the pronunciation of an English word--Van Rheyn never made a
mistake as to its _meaning_--they hissed and groaned at. I shall never
forget one occasion. Being asked when that Indian lot intended to arrive
(meaning the Scotts), and whether they would make the voyage in a
palanquin (for the boys plied him with questions purposely) he answered,
"Not in a palanquin, but in a sheep"--meaning ship. The uproar at that
was so loud, that some of the masters looked in to know what was up.