L'ENVOI.
Away in the pleasant village of Twickenham, at the end of a broad lane
turning out of the high-road, stands, shut in by heavy iron gates and
in the midst of a large and exquisitely-kept garden, a bluff,
red-faced, square-built old-fashioned house. From its windows you look
across a broad level mead to the shining Thames, winding like a silver
thread amongst the rich pasture-grounds, while from the tall elms,
planted with forethought more than a century ago to serve as a screen
against the north-east wind, comes the cawing of a colony of rooks,
who there have established their head-quarters. Over all, house and
garden, river and rookery, mead and landscape, there is an air of
peace and prosperity, wealth and comfort, calm and repose. Far away on
the horizon a lowering gray cloud shows where the great metropolis
seethes and smokes; but so far as freshness and pure air are
concerned, you might be in the very heart of the country.
Creeping down the great staircase, and sliding along the broad open
balustrade, comes a slim elegant little girl of about eight years old,
who slips out through the open dining-room window, and running across
the garden to the iron gates, peers long and earnestly down the lane.
The little girl is disappointed apparently, for when she turns away,
she walks soberly back to the house, and stationing herself at the
bottom of the staircase, calls out, 'There is no sign of him yet,
papa!'
'Well,' cries a cheery voice from the upper floor, 'there's plenty of
time for him to come yet, little Bell! you are such an impatient
little woman.' And with these words, Humphrey Statham walks out on to
the landing in his dressing-gown and with a book in his hand.
Three years have passed away since the occurrences narrated in the
last chapter. They have left but little mark on our old friend; he is
a little more bald, perhaps, and there are, here and there, patches of
gray in the roots of his crisp beard, but his eyes are as bright and
his manner as cheery as ever.
'You are such an impatient little woman,' he repeated, pulling the
child towards him and kissing her forehead.
'No, I am not,' said Bell; 'not impatient generally, poppy, only I want
to see the gentleman, and you never will talk to me when you've got a
book in your hand.'
'Between you and your mamma, what is one to do?' said Humphrey
Statham, laughing. 'Mamma wants me to read to her, you want me to play
with you, and it is impossible to please both at the same time.'
'We both want you, because we're both so fond of you, pappy darling,'
said Bell, putting up her face again to be kissed, 'and you ought to
be pleased at that. There, I declare then I did hear wheels.' And the
child breaks away from Humphrey's grasp, and again rushes to the gate.
She is right this time. A fly is driving away, and the gentleman who
has alighted from it stands waiting for admittance. A man with a thin
face, clean-cut features, and light hair, dressed entirely in black
and with a deep mourning band round his hat. He started violently at
the sight of the child, but recovered himself with an effort.
'You are little Bell?' he said, putting out his hand.
'Yes,' she replied, sliding her little fingers into his, and looking
up fearlessly into his face. 'I am little Bell, and you are Mr.
Gurwood. I know you! Papa and mamma have been expecting you, O, ever
so long.'
The child pulled him gently towards the house, and he had scarcely
crossed the threshold when he was seized in Humphrey Statham's hearty
grasp.
'Martin, my dear old friend--at last. We thought you would never come,
we have waited for you so long.'
'So Bell tells me,' said Martin, returning his friend's pressure; 'but
you see here I am. You're not looking a bit changed, Humphrey! And
your wife?'
'Alice! Here she is to answer for herself.'
Yes, she was there, more lovely than ever, Martin thought, in the
mellowed rounded beauty of her form, and with the innocent trusting
expression in her eyes still unchanged.
Let us, unseen by them, stand by the two old friends as they sit that
evening over their wine, in the broad bay-window looking towards the
sunset, and from their conversation glean our final records.
'And you are very happy, Humphrey?' asked Martin.
'Happy!' cried Humphrey Statham; 'my dear Martin, I never knew what
happiness was before. I rather think,' he continued, with a smile,
'that laziness may have something to do with it. You see, Alice
doesn't care much about my being absent for the whole of the day, as I
should necessarily be if I attended strictly to business; and as,
living as we do, I do not spend anything like my income, I have
knocked off City work to a certain extent, and leave the business in
Mr. Collins's charge. He sees how matters are tending, and has made
overtures to buy it, and shortly I shall let him have it to himself, I
suppose. Not that my life is wholly objectless; there's the garden to
look after, and Bell's education to superintend, and Alice to be read
to; and then at night I potter away at a book on Maritime Law, which I
am compiling, so that I find the twenty-four hours almost too short
for what I have to do.'
'And Alice?'
'I think that I may say she is perfectly happy. I have not a thought
which she does not share, not a wish which is not inspired by her.'
'And little Bell? What a charming child she has grown to be! To go
back, Humphrey, for the first and only time to that conversation which
we had in your chambers, I may say that circumstanced as I am in
regard to that child, I was delighted to notice the fancy she seemed
to take to me to-day.'
'Curiously enough she has had from the first mention of your name an
odd interest about you, and has frequently asked when you were coming
to see us.'
'Does--does Alice know anything about that story?'
'Only so far as I am concerned. I told her of my early attachment to
Emily Mitchell, and the story of how I lost her; but she has not the
least idea of Emily's farther career beyond the fact that Bell is
Emily's child.'
'True to the last, true as steel!' said Martin Gurwood, grasping his
friend's hand.
'And now tell me of yourself; Martin,' said Humphrey Statham; 'what you
are doing, what are your plans?'
'It is soon told,' said Martin Gurwood. 'I wrote you of my poor
mother's death, and told you that she died without making any will. I
am consequently her sole heir, and am a very rich man. The money is no
good to me, Humphrey, but it will be a fine portion for little Bell,
whom I have made my heiress under your guardianship.'
'Time enough to think of that, Martin. What do you intend to do now?'
'To work, old friend, according to my lights, in striving to better
the condition of my fellow men. Yesterday I resigned the Vicarage of
Lullington, and--'
'You don't mean to say you are going to become a missionary?'
'Not as you seem to suspect,' said Martin, with a smile, 'among
savages and cannibals, but among those who perhaps need it not less,
the lower classes of London. In striving to do them good, I purpose to
spend my life and my income, and it will need but a very moderate
amount of success to convince me that I have done rightly.'
'It is not for me to quarrel with the decision, Martin,' said Humphrey
Statham; 'it is boldly conceived, and I know will be thoroughly
carried out. And it will be moreover a satisfaction to me and to Alice
to know that the scene of your labours is so close to us. When you
want temporary rest and change, you will find your home here. You know
that there is no one in the wide world whom it would give my wife and
myself so much pleasure to welcome.'
'I know it,' said Martin, 'and have my greatest pleasure in knowing
it. Now tell me, Humphrey, has anything ever been heard of Madame Du
Tertre, of Pauline?'
'Nothing,' replied Humphrey Statham, shaking his head; 'as you know,
she promised to write to us to tell us of her plans, but she has never
done so, and that, I think, is the one grief of Alice's life. Pauline
was so true a friend to my wife at a time when she most needed such a
friend, that she was most desirous to hear of her again. But it seems
as though that were not to be; her name is one of those which are
"writ in water."'
One more look around ere the curtain falls. See Alice adored by her
husband, happy and contented with all the troubles of the past
obliterated. See Humphrey Statham devoted to his wife, and finding in
her love a recompense for the havoc and the tempest which destroyed
his early hope. See Martin Gurwood labouring manfully, steadfastly,
among the London poor, inculcating both by precept and example the
doctrine to the setting forth of which he has devoted his life. See
him making occasional holiday with his old friends, and watching over
the growth and education of little Bell; thinking of the providence
which has endowed this girl so nobly by the hands of the two men who
what are your plans temptations which come to women with poverty and
friendlessness; how the Yellow Flag will never flaunt over her
beautiful head, a taunt and a warning.
THE END.
LONDON:
ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Yellow Flag, Volume 3 (of 3), by Edmund Yates