had previously quitted it. She did not quit Church Dykely. It seemed
indifferent to her where she settled down; and Lady Rachel Chavasse had
become used to my attendance, and wished to stay. There was a small
white villa to let on this side of the Grange, and they took it. Lady
Rachel lies down more than ever; when she goes out it is in a
Bath-chair. Old John Noah draws it. The spinal complaint is confirmed. I
can do her no good; but I go in once or twice a week, and have a gossip.
She is very fractious: and what with one thing and another, my Lady
Chavasse has a trying life of it. They keep three servants only; no
carriage--except the Bath-chair. What a change! what a change!
If ever there was a disappointed woman in this world, one who feels the
humiliation of her changed position keenly, whose whole life is a long
living repentance, it is Lady Chavasse. The picture of what might have
been is ever in her mind; the reality of what is, lies around her. To
judge by human fallibility, she has a long existence before her: not
quite fifty yet, and her health rude: but in spirit she is a bowed,
broken-down woman.
The Grange is let. Sir Parker Chavasse could not reconcile himself to
living in a rural district, and went back to his ship. At first he shut
the Grange up; now he has let it for a term to Mr. and Mrs. McAlpin,
formerly of Calcutta. They live there with their children; in as good a
style as ever the Chavasses did. Allan McAlpin has given up business,
and spends his large fortune like the gentleman he is. She is Mary
Layne's sister: a dainty and rather haughty woman. My lady looks out
surreptitiously from the corner of her window as Mrs. McAlpin's carriage
bowls along the road beyond the field. Colonel Layne's wife is also here
just now, on a visit at the Grange; her husband, Sir Richard Layne,
K.C.B., has returned to his duties in India. The whole county calls upon
them and seems proud to do it, forgetting perhaps that they were only
the daughters of my predecessor, Layne the apothecary. Yes! there are
strange ups and downs in this world: and Mary Layne, so despised once,
might not now be thought, even by my lady, so very unequal to Sir
Geoffry Chavasse.
_She_ does not go in for grandeur. But the village would like to lay its
hands under her feet. Never was there so good, so unselfish, so sweet
and humble-minded a woman as Mary. In a temporary indisposition that
attacked her a few weeks ago, Mr. Dobbs, struck with consternation,
gave, it as his opinion that Church Dykely "could afford to lose the
whole biling of 'em, better than her." Lady Chavasse has seen her merit
at last; and Mary's frequent presence in their house seems to bring
light to the two lonely women. Arthur goes there too; my lady loves him,
curious though the fact may sound. An incident occurred the other
evening.
Miss Layne and Arthur were at tea there, when I happened to go in with
some medicine. Mary had her work out, and sat talking in a low voice to
Lady Rachel on her sofa; Lady Chavasse was watching Arthur, playing on
the grass-plat. My lady rose up with a sudden cry:
"Take care of the wasp, Sir Arthur! Sir Arthur!"
I saw what painful reverie she had been lost in--the vision of that
which might have been. It is apt to steal on her at sunset. Becoming
conscious of the slip, she flushed slightly, and turned it off. Lady
Rachel laughed; she thought it a good joke. Mary was more silent than
usual that night, as I walked home by her and Arthur's side.
Here ends the history. Mary Layne lives on in her home, training Arthur,
helping the sick and suffering, keeping her face steadily turned to
another world. Never a one is there amidst us so respected as that good,
grave lady, who blighted her life in early womanhood, and who carries
its trace on her sad, sweet countenance, and its never-ceasing shame on
her sorrowing heart.
That's all at last. You must be glad of it. Old Duffham shall not lead
me blindfold into one of his spun-out histories again. The trouble I've
had to cut it down! What with the diaries and letters, it was twice as
long.
And he called it a tale of sin. I, Johnny Ludlow, think it is more like
a tale of suffering.
X.
A DAY OF PLEASURE.
We all liked Captain Sanker; a post-captain in the navy, ages since
on half-pay; who came into Worcestershire, and brought a letter of
introduction to the Squire. He was about a seventeenth cousin of the
Sankers of Wales, and a twenty-seventh of Mrs. Todhetley. The captain
and his wife and family, six children, had lived in Ireland and the
Channel Islands, and other cheap localities, making both ends of their
income meet as well as they could--and nobody need be told how poor is
the half-pay of naval officers, and what a fight and a struggle it is to
rub along. At last, through the death of a relative of Mrs. Sanker, they
dropped into quite a fortune, and came over to settle at Worcester.
A Dr. Teal, who had also recently come to Worcester, and was an old
friend of Captain Sanker, proposed it to them. He wrote a flaming
account of the pretty place that Worcester was, of the loveliness of the
surrounding country; and of the great advantage the college school would
be to the young Sankers, in giving them a free education if they could
be got into it. The prospect of a free education for his boys took with
the captain, and he lost no time in removing to Worcester, the Welsh
Sankers giving him an introduction to us. We grew pretty intimate:
calling on them when we went to Worcester for a day, and having them
over to spend days with us.
All the young Sankers were got into the college school by degrees, and
became four of the forty king's scholars. At that time--it is long past
now--the school was not thought much of, for the boys were taught little
but the classics, so entrance was easy: Latin, Greek, bad writing, and
the first rule in arithmetic: there it ended. Captain Sanker thought the
education first-rate, and had them all enrolled: Frederick, Daniel,
King, and Toby. As to Toby, I fancy his real name was Alfred, but I
never heard him called by it.
They had been in Worcester between one and two years, when Tod and I
went over to them on a visit. The captain had come to spend a summer's
day at Crabb Cot, and in his jolly, open-hearted fashion insisted on
taking us two back with him. He was a short, stout man, with grey hair,
and merry bright blue eyes all alight with smiles. The college school
would be breaking up for its long holidays in a week or so, and it would
have been better for us to have gone then; but the captain always did
things on impulse, and had no more forethought than young Toby. The
holidays were taken late that year, and would be very long, because
the college hall, which was the schoolroom, would be wanted for the
music-meeting in September.
The Sankers' was a funny household, and we pitched down amongst them
without ceremony on either side. The house was at the corner of an open
road, not very far from the cathedral. It was a commodious house as to
size; but all the rooms were in an everlasting litter, so that you could
never find a chair to sit down on. The captain was good-humoured always,
going in and out a hundred times a day. There seemed to be no fixed hour
for meals, and sometimes no meals to eat: Mrs. Sanker would forget
to order them. She was a little lady, who went about as if she were
dreaming, in a white petticoat and loose buff jacket; or else she'd be
sitting aloft in the turret, darning stockings and saying poetry. She
was the least excitable person I ever knew; all events, good and bad,
she took as a matter of course: had the house caught fire she would have
looked on quietly--as Nero did when Rome was burning. Why they called
the room the turret did not appear. It had a great high beam running
through it on the floor: and Mrs. Sanker would sit on that, reading
poetry to us or telling her dreams, her light hair all down.
At seven o'clock the boys had to be in school. Being summer weather,
that was no hardship. At nine they came in again with a rush, wild for
breakfast. If Mrs. Sanker was not down to give it them, the four boys
would begin and eat up the piles of bread-and-butter; upon which Hetta
Sanker would call them tigers, and go to the kitchen to tell the maids
to cut more. Which was the cook of the two servants and which the
housemaid, they did not themselves seem to know: both did the work
indiscriminately. Breakfast over, the boys went out again, Tod and I
with them. At ten they must be in school. At one they came home to
dinner; it might be ready, or it might not: if not, they'd go in and
polish off anything cold that might be in the larder. It didn't seem to
spoil their dinners. Afternoon school again until four o'clock; and then
at liberty for good. Tea was at any time; a scrambling sort of meal that
stayed on the table for hours, and was taken just as we chanced to go in
for it. Jam and boiled eggs would be on the table, with the loaf and
butter _ad libitum_. Sometimes toast and dripping, and there used to
be a scuffle for that. As to dinner, when Mrs. Sanker forgot it, the
servants would bring in a big dish of poached eggs, and we made it up
with bread-and-cheese. Or Dan or Toby would be sent tearing off to High
Street for a lot of penny pork-pies and apple-tarts. At night we had
prayers, which the captain read.
Now I dare say that to people accustomed to a domestic life like
clock-work, this would have been unbearable. I thought it delightful;
as did Tod. It was like a perpetual picnic. But it was from one of
these dinnerless episodes we found out that Captain Sanker had a
temper. Generally speaking, he took disasters with equanimity.
It was on a Thursday. We were to have had four ducks for dinner, which
the captain had bought at market the day before. Fine ducks that he
was proud of: he carried them home himself, and brought them into the
parlour to show us. On this day, Thursday, Tod and I had been into
the Town Hall in the morning, listening to a trial before the
magistrates--some fellow who had stolen his neighbour's clothes-props
and cut them up for firewood. We reached home just as the boys and
their books did, as hungry as they were. There was no cloth laid, and
Fred shouted out for Biddy, asking whether we were to dine to-day
or to-morrow. Biddy heard, and came rushing in with the cloth and
knife-tray.
"What's for dinner besides the four ducks?" asked Dan. "Any pudding?
Have you put plenty of stuffing?"
"Indeed then, and I don't think there's much for dinner," replied Biddy.
"I've been in the turret with the missis all the morning, helping to
stuff a pillow."
She laid the cloth, and Mrs. Sanker came mooning down in the short white
petticoat and buff jacket, darning a sock of Dan's. The dreadful truth
came out--busy over beds and pillows, nobody had thought of dinner,
and the ducks were hanging in the larder, uncooked. Before speechless
tongues could find words, Captain Sanker came in, bringing his friend
Dr. Teal to taste the ducks. All the Teals were as intimate at the house
as we were. Years before, when the captain was a middy, Dr. Teal had
been assistant-surgeon on the same ship.
"They've a cold dinner at Teal's to-day," said the captain to his wife,
as she was shaking hands with the doctor, "so he has come to share ours.
Fine ducks they are, Teal!"
Then the news had to be told. The ducks were not cooked: dinner
altogether had been forgotten.
I saw Captain Sanker's face turn white--quite white; but he did not say
a word. Dr. Teal--a scientific Scotchman, who walked with his nose in
the air and his spectacles turned to the skies, as if always looking for
a lunar rainbow--made the best of it. Laughing, he said he would come in
another day, and went out.
Then it began. Captain Sanker gave vent to passion in a way that
startled me, and made Tod stare. I don't believe he knew for a few
moments what he was doing or saying. Nora, the other servant--both
girls had come with them from Ireland, and were as thoughtless as their
mistress--came in with a dish of some hastily concocted pudding: a sort
of batter. The captain, who still had his stick in his hand, lifted it
and spattered the pudding all about the cloth. Then he stamped out of
the house with a bang.
"Sit down, dears," said Mrs. Sanker, not at all moved, as she began to
collect the pudding with a spoon. "Bring in the cheese, Nora, and do
some eggs. Here's a corner seat for you, Johnny; can you squeeze in?
The captain will have his dinner with the Teals, no doubt. He has been
tasting the doctor's port wine, I think; or he wouldn't have been so
put up."
And somehow we gathered, then or later, that the captain was easy as an
old glove at all times and over all crosses, unless he was a little "put
up" by artificial help. He told us himself one day (not, of course,
alluding to anything of this sort) that he had had naturally an awful
temper, would go into passions of absolute madness for a minute or two,
when he was younger; but that he had by much self-restraint chiefly if
not quite subdued it. It was true; and the temper never need be feared
now unless he took anything to excite him. Dan had the same temper; but
without the good-nature. And they said Hetta had; but we saw nothing of
it in her. Hetta was eighteen, a nice-looking girl, who was governess
to little Ruth, or pretended to be; but Ruth would manage to escape
her lessons five days in the week. It was all the same to Mrs. Sanker
whether she did them or whether she didn't.
At the time of this visit of ours to Worcester, the college school was
in a ferment. Between the Cathedral and St. Peter's Church was situated
a poor, back district called Frog Lane. It had been rechristened Diglis
Street, but was chiefly called by the old name still. Crowded dwellings,
narrow streets, noise and dirt--that's how the place struck me. The
inhabitants were chiefly workmen belonging to the glove and china
manufactories of the town. In this district was the parish school,
always filled with boys, sons of the working-men, and under the
superintendence of Mr. Jones, the portly parish clerk. Now there was
wont to spring up from time to time a tide of animosity between these
boys and the boys of the college school. Captain Sanker said it was the
fault of the college boys: had they let the St. Peter's boys alone, St.
Peter's boys would never have presumed to interfere with them: but the
college boys could be downright contemptuous and overbearing when they
pleased. They scornfully called the St. Peter's boys the Frogs, "charity
boys;" and the Frogs retorted by calling them the College Caws--after
the rooks that had their homes in the old trees of the college green and
kept up a perpetual cawing. The animosity generally ended in a grand
battle; and then hostilities would be dropped for months, perhaps years.
One of these quarrels was going on while we were at Worcester; it had
kept both schools in a ferment for some weeks, and there was every sign
of a culminating fight. Of course we went in heart and soul with the
king's scholars: but the boys on both sides held a code of honour--if
you can call it so--that no stranger must take part in the engagements.
The college boys were only forty, all told; the Frogs seemed to number
four times as many.
Skirmishes took place daily--the scene being the top of Edgar Street.
St. Peter's boys (let out of school at twelve, whereas the others did
not get out till one) would collect in the narrow neck of their district
opening on Edgar Street, and wait for the enemy. As soon as the college
boys' steps were heard racing under the dark gateway of Edgar Tower,
hisses and groans began. "Caw, caw, caw! Hiss, hiss, hiss! How's your
Latin to-day?--what birchings has you had? Call yourselves gents, does
you, you College Caws? You daren't come on fair, and fight it out with
us, you Caws. Caw, caw, caw!" Sometimes the college boys would pass on,
only calling back their contemptuous retorts; sometimes they'd halt, and
a fierce storm of abuse would be interchanged, to the edification of
Edgar Street in general and the clerks in Mr. Clifton's Registry Office.
"You beggarly Frogs! We don't care to soil our hands with you! Had you
been gentlemen, we'd have polished you off long ago, and sent you into
next week. Croak, Frogs! Croak!" Not a third of the college boys need
have taken Edgar Tower on their way home; through the cloisters and out
by St. Michael's churchyard would have been their direct way; but they
chose to meet the Frogs. Once in a way there'd be a single combat; but
as a rule nothing came of it but abuse. When that was exhausted, each
lot would rush home their separate ways: the Frogs back down Frog Lane;
the others up the steps, or onwards down Edgar Street, as their road
might lie, and remain apart till the same hour next day.
I have not said much yet about King Sanker. He was lame: something was
wrong with his knee. Gatherings would come in it, and then he'd be in
bed for weeks together. He was nearly thirteen then; next to Dan: and
Dan was over fourteen. King was a nice little fellow, with mild eyes as
blue as the captain's: Fred would order him to keep "out of the ruck" in
the skirmishes with the Frogs, and he generally did. If it came to a
fight, you see, King might have been hurt; he had no fighting in him,
was frightened at it, and he could not run much. King was just like his
mother in ideas: he would tell us his dreams as she did, and recite
pieces of poetry a mile long. Dan and King slept together in the room
next to ours; it was in the garret, close to the turret-room. King would
keep us awake singing; sometimes chants, sometimes hymns, sometimes
songs. They'd have let him try for the choir, but the head-master of
the college school thought his knee would not do for it.
It was Saturday, and a pouring wet afternoon. Our visit was drawing to
an end; on the following Wednesday we should bid the Sankers good-bye.
Captain Sanker, always trying to find out ways of making folk happy, had
devised a day of pleasure for the last day of our stay, Tuesday. We
were to go to Malvern; a whole lot of us: ourselves, and the Teals, and
the Squire, and Mrs. Todhetley, and take our dinner on the hill. It was
so settled; and the arrangements were planned and made.
But this was yet only Saturday. We dined at twelve: whether for any
one's convenience or that the servants made a mistake in an hour,
I don't remember. It happened to be a saint's day, so the boys had
no school; and, being wet, came home after morning service in the
cathedral. After a jolly dinner of peas and bacon and pancakes, we
looked at the skies for a bit, and then (all but Fred and Hetta) went
up to the turret-room. Dan said the rain had come to spite us; for the
whole school had meant to race to Berwick's Bridge after afternoon
service and hold a mock review in the fields there. It was coming down
in torrents, peppering the roof and the windows. Mrs. Sanker sat in the
middle of the old beam, mending one of Toby's shirts, "Lalla Rookh" open
on her knee, out of which she was singing softly; the floor was strewed
with patches, and scissors, and tapes, and the combs were out of one
side of her hair.
"Read it out loud to us, mamma," cried King.
"I can't spare time to read, King," she said. "Look here"--holding out
the work, all rags and tatters. "If I don't mend this, Toby won't have
a shirt to put on to-morrow."
"I shan't mind about that," said Toby.
"Oh, but, dear, I don't think you could go without a shirt. Has any one
seen my cotton?"
"Then say something over to us that you know, mamma," returned King, as
Toby found the cotton.
"Very well. I can do that and work too. Sit down, all of you."
We sat down, King and Toby on the floor before her, the rest of on the
beam on either side her. Dan, who did not care for poetry, got some
Brazil nuts out of his pocket and cracked them while he listened.
Mrs. Sanker might as well have read "Lalla Rookh." She began to recite
"The Friar of Orders Grey." But what with gazing up at the sky through
the rain to give it due emphasis, and shaking her head at pathetic
parts, the sewing did not get on. She had finished the verse--
"Weep no more, lady, weep no more,
Thy sorrow is in vain;
For violets plucked, the sweetest showers
Will ne'er make grow again,"
when King surprised us by bursting into tears. But as Mrs. Sanker took
no notice, I supposed it was nothing unusual.
"You young donkey!" cried Dan, when the poem was finished. "You'll never
be a man, King."
"It is such a nice verse, Dan," replied young King, meekly. "I whisper
it over sometimes to myself in bed. Mamma, won't you say the 'Barber's
Ghost'? Johnny Ludlow would like to hear that, I know."
We had the "Barber's Ghost," which was humorous, and we had other
things. After that, Mrs. Sanker told a dreadful story about a real
ghost, one that she said haunted her family, and another of a murder
that was discovered by a dream. Some of the young Sankers were the
oddest mixtures of timidity and bravery--personally brave in fighting;
frightfully timid as to being alone in the dark--and I no longer
wondered at it if she brought them up on these ghostly dishes.
"I should not like to have dreams that would tell me of murders," said
King, thoughtfully. "But I do dream very strange dreams sometimes.
When I awake, I lie and wonder what they mean. Once I dreamt I saw
heaven--didn't I, mamma? It was so beautiful."
"Ay; my family have always been dreamers," replied Mrs. Sanker.
Thus, what with ghosts and poetry and talking, the afternoon wore on
unconsciously. Dan suddenly started up with a shout--
"By Jove!"
The sun had come out. Come out, and we had never noticed it. It was
shining as brightly as could be on the slates of all the houses. The
rain had ceased.
"I say, we shall have the review yet!" cried Dan. "And, by Jupiter,
that's the college bell! Make a rush, you fellows, or you'll be marked
late. There's three o'clock striking."
The king's scholars thought it a great shame that they should have to
attend prayers in the cathedral morning and afternoon on saints' days,
instead of wholly benefiting by the holiday. They had to do it, however.
The three went flying out towards the cathedral, and I gave King my arm
to help him after them. Tod and I--intending to take part in the review
at Berwick's Bridge--went to college also, and sat behind the surpliced
king's scholars on the decani side, in the stalls next to the chanter.
But for a little mud, you'd hardly have thought there had been any rain
when we got out again; and the sun was glowing in the blue sky. Not a
single fellow was absent: even King limped along. We took the way by the
Severn, past the boat-house at the end of the college boundaries, and
went leisurely along the towing-path, intending to get into the fields
beyond Diglis Wharf, and so onwards.
I don't believe there was a thought in any one's mind that afternoon
of the enemy. The talk--and a good hubbub it was--turned wholly upon
soldiers and reviews. A regular review of the Worcestershire militia
took place once a year on Kempsey Ham, and some of the boys' heads got
a trifle turned with it. They were envying Lord Ward, now, as they
went along: saying they should like to be him, and look as well as he
did, and sit his horse as proudly.
"Of course he's proud," squeaked out the biggest Teal, whose voice
was uncertain. "Think of his money!--and his horses!--and see how
good-looking he is! If Lord Ward hasn't a right to be proud, I should
like to know who has. Why, he--oh, by George! I say, look here!"
Turning into the first field, we found we had turned into a company of
Frogs. All the whole lot, it seemed. Caws and croaks and hoots and
groans from either side rose at once on the air. Which army commenced
hostilities, I couldn't tell; the one was as eager for it as the other;
and in two minutes the battle had begun--begun in earnest. Up dashed the
senior boy.
"Look here," said he to me and Tod; "you understand our rules. You must
neither of you attempt to meddle in this. Stay and look on, if you
please; but keep at a sufficient distance where it may be seen that you
are simply spectators. These beggars shan't have it to say that we were
helped."
He dashed back again. Tod ground his teeth with the effort it took to
keep himself from going in to pummel some of the Frogs. Being upon
honour, he had to refrain; and he did it somehow.