low foot-path, flew across the road, and in at the gates. In vain Mary
called: in his glad excitement he did not so much as hear her.
There ensued a noise as of the fleet foot of a horse, and then a crash,
a man's shout, and a child's cry. What harm had been done? In dire fear
Mary Layne ran to see, her legs trembling beneath her.
Just at the sharp turn beyond the lodge, a group stood: Sir Geoffry
Chavasse had Arthur in his arms; his horse, from which he had flung
himself, being held and soothed by a mounted groom. The lodge children
also had come running out to look. She understood it in a moment: Sir
Geoffry must have been riding quickly down from the house, his groom
behind him, when the unfortunate little intruder encountered him just at
the turn, and there was no possibility of pulling up in time. In fact,
the boy had run absolutely on to the horse's legs.
She stood, white, and faint, and sick against the wall of the lodge: not
daring to look into the accident--for Mary Layne was but a true woman,
timid and sensitive; as little daring to encounter Sir Geoffry Chavasse,
whom she had not been close to but for a few months short of seven
years. That it should have occurred!--that this untoward thing should
have occurred!
"I wonder whose child it is?" she heard Sir Geoffry say--and the
well-remembered tones came home to her with a heart-thrill. "Poor
little fellow! could it have been my fault, or his? Dovey"--to the
groom--"ride on at once and get Mr. Duffham here. Never mind my horse;
he's all right now. You can lead him up to the house, Bill, my lad!"
The groom touched his hat, and rode past Mary on his errand. Sir Geoffry
was already carrying the child to the Grange; Bill, the eldest of the
lodge children, following with the horse. All in a minute, a wailing cry
burst from Arthur.
"Aunt Mary! Aunt Mary! Oh, please let her come! I want Aunt Mary."
And then it struck Sir Geoffry Chavasse that a gentleman's child, such
as this one by his appearance evidently was, would not have been out
without an attendant. He turned round, and saw a lady in black standing
by the lodge. The wailing cry began again.
"Aunt Mary! I want Aunt Mary."
There was no help for it. She came on with her agitated face, from which
every drop of blood had faded. Sir Geoffry, occupied with the child, did
not notice her much.
"I am so grieved," he began; "I trust the injury will be found not to be
very serious. My horse----"
He had lifted his eyes then, and knew her instantly. His own face turned
crimson; the words he had been about to say died unspoken on his lips.
For a moment they looked in each other's faces, and might have seen, had
the time been one of less agitation, how markedly sorrow had left its
traces there. The next, they remembered the present time, and what was
due from them.
"I beg your pardon: Miss Layne, I think?" said Sir Geoffry, contriving
to release one hand and raise his hat.
"Yes, sir," she answered, and bowed in return.
He sat down on the bank for a moment to obtain a better hold of the
child. Blood was dripping from one of the little velvet sleeves. Sir
Geoffry, carrying him as gently as was possible, made all haste to the
house. The window of what had been the garden-parlour stood open, and he
took him into it at once. Ah, how they both remembered it. It had been
refurnished and embellished now: but the room was the room still. Sir
Geoffry had returned home that morning. His wife and Lady Chavasse were
not expected for a day or two. Scarcely any servants were as yet in the
house; but the woman who had been left in charge, Hester Picker, came in
with warm water. She curtsied to Miss Layne.
"Dear little fellow!" she exclaimed, her tongue ready as of old. "How
did it happen, sir?"
"My horse knocked him down," replied Sir Geoffry. "Get me some linen,
Picker."
The boy lay on the sofa where he had been put, his hat off, and his
pretty light brown hair falling from his face, pale now. Apparently
there was no injury except to the arm. Sir Geoffry looked at Mary.
"I am a bit of a surgeon," he said. "Will you allow me to examine his
hurt as a surgeon would? Duffham cannot be here just yet."
"Oh yes, certainly," she answered.
"I must cut his velvet sleeve up."
And she bowed in acquiescence to that.
Hester Picker came in with the linen. Before commencing to cut the
sleeve, Sir Geoffry touched the arm here and there, as if testing where
the damage might lie. Arthur cried out.
"That hurts you," said Sir Geoffry.
"Not much," answered the little fellow, trying to be brave. "Papa's a
soldier, and I want to be a soldier, so I won't mind a little hurt."
"Your papa's a soldier? Ah, yes, I think I remember," said Sir Geoffry,
turning to Mary. "It is the little son of Captain Layne."
"My papa is Major Layne now," spoke up Arthur, before she could make any
answer. "He and mamma live in India."
"And so you want to be a soldier, the same as papa?" said Sir Geoffry,
testing the basin of water with his finger, which Picker was holding,
and which had been brought in very hot.
"Yes, I do. Aunt Mary there says No, and grandmamma says No; but--oh,
what's that?"
He had caught sight of the blood for the first time, and broke off with
a shuddering cry. Sir Geoffry was ready now, and had the scissors in his
hand. But before using them he spoke to Miss Layne.
"Will you sit here whilst I look at it?" he asked, putting a chair
with its face to the open window, and its back to the sofa. And she
understood the motive and thanked him: and said she would walk about
outside.
By-and-by, when she was tired of waiting, and all seemed very quiet, she
looked in. Arthur had fainted. Sir Geoffry was bathing his forehead with
eau-de-Cologne; Picker had run for something in a tumbler and wine stood
on the table.
"Was it the pain?--did it hurt him very badly?" asked Mary, supposing
that the arm had been bathed and perhaps dressed.
"I have not done anything to it; I preferred to leave it for Duffham,"
said Sir Geoffry--and at the same moment she caught sight of the velvet
sleeve laid open, and something lying on it that looked like a mass of
linen. Mary turned even whiter than the child.
"Do not be alarmed," said Sir Geoffry. "Your little nephew is only faint
from the loss of blood. Drink this," he added, bringing her a glass of
wine.
But she would not take it. As Sir Geoffry was putting it on the table,
Arthur began to revive. Young children are elastic--ill one minute, well
the next; and he began to talk again.
"Aunt Mary, are you there?"
She moved to the sofa, and took his uninjured hand.
"We must not tell grandmamma, Aunt Mary. It would frighten her."
"Bless his dear little thoughtful heart!" interjected Hester Picker.
"Here comes something."
The something proved to be a fly, and it brought Mr. Duffham. Before the
groom had reached the village, he overtook this said fly and the surgeon
in it, who was then returning home from another accident. Turning round
at the groom's news--"Some little child had run against Sir Geoffry's
horse, and was hurt"--he came up to the Grange.
When Mr. Duffham saw that it was _this_ child, he felt curiously taken
aback. Up the room and down the room looked he; then at Sir Geoffry,
then at Miss Layne, then at Hester Picker, saying nothing. Last of all
he walked up to the sofa and gazed at the white face lying there.
"Well," said he, "and what's this? And how did it happen?"
"It was the peacock," Arthur answered. "I ran away from Aunt Mary to
look at it, and the horse came."
"The dear innocent!" cried Hester Picker. "No wonder he ran. It's a love
of a peacock."
"Don't you think it was very naughty, young sir, to run from your aunt?"
returned Mr. Duffham.
"Yes, very; because she had told me not to. Aunt Mary, I'll never do it
again."
The two gentlemen and Hester Picker remained in the room; Mary again
left it. The arm was crushed rather badly; and Mr. Duffham knew it would
require care and skill to cure it.
"You must send to Worcester for its best surgeon to help you," said the
baronet, when the dressing was over. "I feel that I am responsible to
Major Layne."
Old Duffham nearly closed his eyelids as he glanced at the speaker. "I
don't think it necessary," he said; "no surgeon can do more than I can.
However, it may be satisfactory to Major Layne that we should be on the
safe side, so I'll send."
When the child was ready, Mary got into the fly, which had waited, and
Mr. Duffham put him to lie on her lap.
"I hope, Miss Layne, I may be allowed to call to-morrow and see how
he gets on," said Sir Geoffry, at the same time. And she did not feel
that it was possible for her to say No. Mr. Duffham mounted beside the
driver; to get a sniff, he said, of the evening air.
"How he is changed! He has suffered as I have," murmured Mary Layne
to herself, as her tears fell on Baby Arthur, asleep now. "I am very
thankful that he has no suspicion."
The child had said, "Don't tell grandmamma;" but to keep it from Mrs.
Layne was simply impossible. With the first stopping of the fly at the
door, out came the old lady; she had been marvelling what had become of
them, and was wanting her tea. Mr. Duffham took her in again, and said a
few words, making light of it, before he lifted out Baby Arthur.
A skilful surgeon was at the house the next day, in conjunction with Mr.
Duffham. The arm and its full use would be saved, he said; its cure
effected; but the child and those about him must have patience, for it
might be rather a long job. Arthur said he should like to write to his
papa in India, and tell him that it was his own fault for running away
from Aunt Mary; he could write letters in big text hand. The surgeon
smiled, and told him he must wait until he could use both arms again.
The doctors had not left the house many minutes when Sir Geoffry
Chavasse called, having walked over from the Grange. Miss Layne sent
her mother to receive him, and disappeared herself. The old lady, her
perceptions a little dulled with time and age, and perhaps also her
memory, felt somewhat impressed and flattered at the visit. To her it
almost seemed the honour that it used to be: that one painful episode of
the past seemed to be as much forgotten at the moment as though it had
never had place. She took Sir Geoffry upstairs.
Arthur was lying close to the window, in the strong light of the fine
morning. It was the first clear view Sir Geoffry had obtained of him.
The garden-parlour at the Grange faced the east, so that the room on the
previous evening, being turned from the setting sun, had been shady at
the best, and the sofa was at the far end of it. As Sir Geoffry gazed at
the child now, the face struck him as being like somebody's; he could
not tell whose. The dark blue eyes especially, turned up in all their
eager brightness to his, seemed quite familiar.
"He says I must not write to papa until I get well," said Arthur, who
had begun to look on Sir Geoffry as an old acquaintance.
"Who does?" asked the baronet.
"The gentleman who came with Mr. Duffham."
"He means the doctor from Worcester, Sir Geoffry," put in old Mrs.
Layne. She was sitting in her easy-chair near, as she had been
previously; her spectacles keeping the place between the leaves of the
closed Bible, which she had again taken on her lap; her withered hands,
in their black lace mittens and frilled white ruffles, were crossed
upon the Book. Every now and then she nodded with incipient sleep.
"I am so very sorry this should have happened," Sir Geoffry said,
turning to Mrs. Layne. "The little fellow was running up to get a look
at the peacock, it seems; and I was riding rather fast. I shall never
ride fast round that corner again."
"But, Sir Geoffry, they tell me that the child ran right against you at
the corner: that it was no fault of yours at all, sir."
"It was my fault, grandmamma," said Arthur. "And, Sir Geoffry, that's
why I wanted to write to papa; I want to tell him so."
"I think I had better write for you," said Sir Geoffry, looking down at
the boy with a smile.
"Will you? Shall you tell him it was my fault?"
"No. I shall tell him it was mine."
"But it was not yours. You must not write what is not true. If Aunt Mary
thought I could tell a story, or write one, oh, I don't know what she'd
do. God hears all we say, you know."
Sir Geoffry smiled--a sad smile--at the earnest words, at the eager look
in the bright eyes. Involuntarily the wish came into his mind that _he_
had a brave, fearless-hearted, right-principled son, such as this boy
evidently was.
"Then I think I had better describe how it happened, and let Major Layne
judge for himself whether it was my fast riding or your fast running
that caused the mischief."
"You'll tell about the peacock? It had its tail out."
"Of course I'll tell about the peacock. I shall say to Major Layne that
his little boy--I don't think I have heard your name," broke off Sir
Geoffry. "What is it?"
"It's Arthur. Papa's is Richard. My big brother's is Richard too; he is
at King's College. Which name do you like best?"
"I think I like Arthur best. It is my own name also."
"Yours is Sir Geoffry."
"And Arthur as well."
But at this juncture old Mrs. Layne, having started up from a nod,
interposed to put a summary stop to the chatter, telling Arthur crossly
that Mr. Duffham and the other doctor had forbid him to talk much. And
then she begged pardon of Sir Geoffry for saying it, but thought the
doctors wished the child to be kept quiet and cool. Sir Geoffry took the
opportunity to say adieu to the little patient.
"May I come to see the peacock when I get well, Sir Geoffry?"
"Certainly. You shall come and look at him for a whole day if grandmamma
will allow you to."
Grandmamma gave no motion or word of assent, but Arthur took it for
granted. "Betsy can bring me if Aunt Mary won't; Betsy's my nurse. I
wish I could have him before that window to look at while I lie here to
get well. I like peacocks and musical boxes better than anything in the
world."
"Musical boxes!" exclaimed Sir Geoffry. "Do you care for them?"
"Oh yes; they are beautiful. Do you know the little lame boy who can't
walk, down Piefinch Cut? His father comes to do grandmamma's garden. Do
you know him, Sir Geoffry? His name's Reuben."
"It's Noah, the gardener's son, sir," put in Mrs. Layne aside to Sir
Geoffry. "He was thrown downstairs when a baby, and has been a cripple
ever since."
But the eager, intelligent eyes were still cast up, waiting for the
answer. "Where _have_ I seen them?" mentally debated Sir Geoffry,
alluding to the eyes.
"I know the name?" he answered.
"Well, Reuben has got a musical box, and it plays three tunes. He is
older than I am: he's ten. One of them is 'The Blue Bells of Scotland.'"
Sir Geoffry nodded and went away. He crossed straight over to Mr.
Duffham's, and found him writing a letter in his surgery.
"I hope the child will do well," said the baronet, when he had shaken
hands. "I have just been to see him. What an intelligent, nice little
fellow it is."
"Oh, he will be all right again in time, Sir Geoffry," was the doctor's
reply, as he began to fold his letter.
"He is a pretty boy, too, very. His eyes are strangely like some one's I
have seen, but for the life of me I cannot tell whose!"
"_Really?_--do you mean it?" cried Mr. Duffham, speaking, as it seemed,
in some surprise.
"Mean what?"
"That you cannot tell."
"Indeed I can't. They puzzled me all the while I was there. Do you know?
Say, if you do."
"They are like your own, Sir Geoffry."
"Like my own!"
"They are your own eyes over again. And yours--as poor Layne used to
say, and as the picture in the Grange dining-room shows us also, for the
matter of that--are Sir Peter's. Sir Peter's, yours, and the child's:
they are all the same."
For a long space of time, as it seemed, the two gentlemen gazed at each
other. Mr. Duffham with a questioning and still surprised look: Sir
Geoffry in a kind of bewildered amazement.
"Duffham! you--you---- Surely it is not _that_ child!"
"Yes, it is."
He backed to a chair and stumbled into it, rather than sat down;
somewhat in the same manner that Mrs. Layne had backed against the
counter nearly seven years before and upset the scales. The old lady
seemed to have aged since quicker than she ought to have done: but her
face then had not been whiter than was Geoffry Chavasse's now.
"Good Heavens!"
The dead silence was only broken by these murmured words that fell from
his lips. Mr. Duffham finished folding his note, and directed it.
"Sir Geoffry, I beg your pardon! I beg it a thousand times. If I had had
the smallest notion that you were ignorant of this, I should never have
spoken."
Sir Geoffry took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow. Some moisture
had gathered there.
"How was I to suspect it?" he asked.
"I never supposed but that you must have known it all along."
"All along from when, Duffham?"
"From--from--well, from the time you first knew that a child was over
there."
Sir Geoffry cast his thoughts back. He could not remember anything about
the child's coming to Church Dykely. In point of fact, the Grange had
been empty at the time.
"I understood that the child was one of Captain and Mrs. Layne's," he
rejoined. "Every one said it; and I never had any other thought. Even
yesterday at the Grange you spoke of him as such, Duffham."
"Of course. Miss Layne was present--and Hester Picker--and the child
himself. I did not speak to deceive you, Sir Geoffry. When you said what
you did to me in coming away, about calling in other advice for the
satisfaction of Major Layne, I thought you were merely keeping up
appearances."
"And it _is_ so, then?"
"Oh dear, yes."
Another pause. Mr. Duffham affixed the stamp to his letter, and put the
paper straight in his note-case. Sir Geoffry suddenly lifted his hand,
as one whom some disagreeable reflection overwhelms.
"To think that I was about to write to Major Layne! To think that I
should have stood there, in the old lady's presence, talking boldly with
the child! She must assume that I have the impudence of Satan."
"Mrs. Layne is past that, Sir Geoffry. Her faculties are dulled:
three-parts dead. _That_ need not trouble you."
The baronet put aside his handkerchief and took up his hat to leave. He
began stroking its nap with his coat-sleeve.
"Does my mother know of this, do you think?"
"I am sure she neither knows nor suspects it. No one does, Sir Geoffry:
the secret has been entirely kept."
"The cost of this illness must be mine, you know, Duffham."
"I think not, Sir Geoffry," was the surgeon's answer. "It would not do,
I fear. There's no need, besides: Miss Layne is rich now."
"Rich! How is she rich?"
And Mr. Duffham had to explain. A wealthy gentleman in India, some
connection of the Laynes, had died and left money to Mary Layne. Six or
seven hundred a year; and plenty of ready means. Sir Geoffry Chavasse
went out, pondering upon the world's changes.
He did not call to see the invalid again; but he bought a beautiful
musical box at Worcester, and sent it in to the child by Duffham. It
played six tunes. The boy had never in his life been so delighted.
He returned his love and thanks to Sir Geoffry; and appended several
inquiries touching the welfare of the peacock.
The first news heard by Lady Chavasse and Lady Rachel on their coming
home, was of the accident caused to Major Layne's little son by Sir
Geoffry's horse. Hester Picker and the other servants were full of it.
It happened to be the day that Sir Geoffry had gone to Worcester after
the box, so he could not join in the narrative. A sweet, beautiful boy,
said Hester to my ladies, and had told them he meant to be a soldier
when he grew up, as brave as his papa. Lady Chavasse, having digested
the news, and taken inward counsel with herself, decided to go and see
him: it would be right and neighbourly, she thought. It might be that
she was wishing to bestow some slight mark of her favour upon the old
lady before death should claim her: and she deemed that the honour of a
call would effect this. In her heart she acknowledged that the Laynes
had behaved admirably in regard to the past; never to have troubled her
or her son by word or deed or letter; and in her heart she felt grateful
for it. Some people might have acted differently.
"I think I will go and see him too," said Lady Rachel.
"No, pray don't," dissented Lady Chavasse, hastily. "You already feel
the fatigue of your journey, Rachel: do not attempt to increase it."
And as Lady Rachel really was fatigued and did not care much about it,
one way or the other, she remained at home.
It was one of Mrs. Layne's worst days--one of those when she
seemed three-parts childish--when Lady Chavasse was shown into the
drawing-room. Mary was there. As she turned to receive her visitor, and
heard the maid's announcement "Lady Chavasse," a great astonishment
inwardly stirred her, but her manner remained quiet and self-possessed.
Just a minute's gaze at each other. Lady Chavasse was the same
good-looking woman as of yore; not changed, not aged by so much as a
day. Mary _was_ changed: the shy, inexperienced girl had grown into the
calm, self-contained woman; the woman who had known sorrow, who had its
marks impressed on her face. She had been pretty once, she was gravely
beautiful now. Perhaps Lady Chavasse had not bargained for seeing _her_;
Mary had certainly never thought thus to meet Lady Chavasse: but here
they were, face to face, and each must make the best of it. As they did;
and with easy courtesy, both being gentlewomen. Lady Chavasse held out
her hand, and Mary put hers into it.
After shaking hands with Mrs. Layne--who was too drowsy properly to
respond, and shut her eyes again--my lady spoke a few pleasant words of
regret for the accident, of her wish to see the little patient, of her
hope that Major and Mrs. Layne might not be allowed to think any care on
Sir Geoffry's part could have averted it. Mary went upstairs with her.
Lady Chavasse could only be struck with the improved appearance of the
house, quite suited now to be the abode of gentle-people; and with its
apparently well-appointed if small household.
The child lay asleep: his nurse, Betsy, sat sewing by his side. The girl
confessed that she had allowed him sometimes to run in and take a look
at the peacock. Lady Chavasse would not have him awakened: she bent and
kissed his cheek lightly: and talked to Mary in a whisper. It was just
as though there had been no break in their acquaintanceship, just as
though no painful episode, in which they were antagonistic actors, had
ever occurred between them.
"I hear you have come into a fortune, Miss Layne," she said, as she
shook hands with Mary again in the little hall before departure. For
Hester Picker had told of this.
"Into a great deal of money," replied Mary.
"I am glad to hear it: _glad_," came the parting response, whispered
emphatically in Mary's ear, and it was accompanied by a pressure of the
fingers.
Mr. Duffham was standing at his door, watching my lady's exit from Mrs.
Layne's house, his eyes lost in wonder. Seeing him, she crossed over,
and went in, Mr. Duffham throwing open the door of his sitting-room. She
began speaking of the accident to Major Layne's little son--what a pity
it was, but that she hoped he would do well. Old Duffham replied that he
hoped so too, and thought he would.
"Mrs. Layne seems to be growing very old," went on Lady Chavasse. "She
was as drowsy as she could be this afternoon, and seemed scarcely to
know me."
"Old people are apt to be sleepy after dinner," returned the doctor.
And then there was a pause. Lady Chavasse (as Duffham's diary expresses
it) seemed to be particularly absent in manner, as if she were thinking
to herself, instead of talking to him. Because he had nothing else to
say, he asked after the health of Lady Rachel. That aroused her at once.
"She is not strong. She is not strong. I am sure of it."
"She does not seem to ail much, that I can see," returned Duffham,
who often had to hear this same thing said of Lady Rachel. "She never
requires medical advice."
"I don't care: she is not strong. There are no children," continued
Lady Chavasse, dropping her voice to a whisper; and a kind of piteous,
imploring expression darkened her eyes.
"No."
"Four years married, going on for five, and no signs of any. No signs
of children, Mr. Duffham."
"I can't help it, my lady," returned Duffham.