I
I think it must have been the illness he had in the summer that tended
to finally break down Valentine Chandler. He had been whirling along all
kinds of doubtful ways before, but when a sort of low fever attacked
him, and he had to lie by for weeks, he was about done for.
That's how we found it when we got to Crabb Cot in October. Valentine,
what with illness, his wild ways and his ill-luck, had come to grief and
was about to emigrate to Canada. His once flourishing practice had run
away from him; no prospect seemed left to him in the old country.
"It is an awful pity!" I remarked to Mrs. Cramp, having overtaken her in
the Islip Road, as she was walking towards home.
"Ay, it is that, Johnny Ludlow," she said, turning her comely face to
me, the strings of her black bonnet tied in a big bow under her chin.
"Not much else was to be expected, taking all things into consideration.
George Chandler, Tom's brother, makes a right good thing of it in
Canada, farming, and Val is going to him."
"We hear that Val's mother is leaving North Villa."
"She can't afford to stay in it now," returned Mrs. Cramp, "so has let
it to the Miss Dennets, and taken a pretty little place for herself in
Crabb. Georgiana has gone out as a governess."
"Will she like that?"
"Ah, Master Johnny! There are odd moments throughout all our lives when
we have to do things we don't like any more than we like poison--I hate
to look at the place," cried Mrs. Cramp, energetically. "When I think of
Mrs. Jacob's having to turn out of it, and all through Val's folly, it
gives me the creeps."
This applied to North Villa, of which we then were abreast. Mrs. Cramp
turned her face from it, and went on sideways, like a crab.
"Why, here's Jane Preen!"
She was coming along quietly in the afternoon sunshine. I thought her
altered. The once pretty blush-rose of her dimpled cheeks had faded;
in her soft blue eyes, so like Oliver's, lay a look of sadness. He had
been dead about a year now. But the blush came back again, and the eyes
lighted up with smiles as I took her hand. Mrs. Cramp went on; she was
in a hurry to reach her home, which lay between Islip and Crabb. Jane
rang the bell at North Villa.
"Shall I take a run over to Duck Brook to-morrow, Jane, and sit with you
in the Inlets, and we'll have a spell of gossip together?"
"I never sit in the Inlets now," she said, in a half whisper, turning
her face away.
"Forgive me, Jane," I cried, repenting my thoughtlessness; and she
disappeared up the garden path.
Susan opened the door. Her mistress was out, she said, but Miss
Clementina was at home. It was Clementina that Jane wanted to see.
Valentine, still weak, was lying on the sofa in the parlour when Jane
entered. He got up, all excitement at seeing her, and they sat down
together.
"I brought this for Clementina," she said, placing a paper parcel on
the table. "It is a pattern which she asked me for. Are you growing
stronger?"
"Clementina is about somewhere," he observed; "the others are out. Yes,
I am growing stronger; but it seems to me that I am a long while about
it."
They sat on in silence, side by side, neither speaking. Valentine took
Jane's hand and held it within his own, which rested on his knee. It
seemed that they had lost their tongues--as we say to the children.
"Is it all decided?" asked Jane presently. "Quite decided?"
"Quite, Jane. Nothing else is left for me."
She caught her breath with one of those long sighs that tell of inward
tribulation.
"I should have been over to see you before this, Jane, but that my legs
would not carry me to Duck Brook and back again without sitting down by
the wayside. And you--you hardly ever come here now."
A deep flush passed swiftly over Jane's face. She had not liked to call
at the troubled house. And she very rarely came so far as Crabb now:
there seemed to be no plea for it.
"What will be the end, Val?" she whispered.
Valentine groaned. "I try not to think of it, my dear. When I cannot put
all thought of the future from me, it gives me more torment than I know
how to bear. If only----"
The door opened, and in came Clementina, arresting what he had been
about to say.
"This is the pattern you asked me for, Clementina," Jane said, rising
to depart on her return home. For she would not risk passing the Inlets
after sunset.
* * * * *
A week or two went by, and the time of Valentine Chandler's departure
arrived. He had grown well and strong apparently, and went about to say
Good-bye to people in a subdued fashion. The Squire took him apart when
Val came for that purpose to us, and talked to him in private. Tod
called it a "Curtain Lecture." Valentine was to leave Crabb at daybreak
on the Saturday morning for London, and go at once on board the ship
lying in the docks about to steam away for Quebec.
It perhaps surprised none of us who knew the Chandler girls that they
should be seen tearing over the parish on the Friday afternoon to invite
people to tea. "It will be miserably dull this last evening, you know,
Johnny," they said to me in their flying visit; "we couldn't stand it
alone. Be sure to come in early: and leave word that Joseph Todhetley is
to join us as soon as he gets back again." For Tod had gone out.
According to orders, I was at North Villa betimes: and, just as on that
other afternoon, I met Jane Preen at the gate. She had walked in from
Duck Brook.
"You are going to spend the evening here, Jane?"
"Yes, it is the last evening," she sighed. "Valentine wished it."
"The girls have been to invite me; wouldn't let me say No. There's to
be quite a party."
"A party!" exclaimed Jane, in surprise.
"If they could manage to get one up."
"I am sure Valentine did not know that this morning."
"I daresay not. I asked the girls if Valentine wanted a crowd there on
his last evening, and they exclaimed that Valentine never knew what was
good for him."
"As you are here, Johnny," she went on, after a silence, "I wonder if
you would mind my asking you to do me a favour? It is to walk home with
me after tea. I shall not be late this evening."
"Of course I will, Jane."
"I _cannot_ go past the Inlets alone after dark," she whispered. "I
never do so by daylight but a dreadful shiver seizes me. I--I'm afraid
of seeing something."
"Have you ever seen it since that first evening, Jane?"
"Never since. Never once. I do not suppose that I shall ever see it
again; but the fear lies upon me."
She went on to explain that the gig could not be sent for her that
evening, as Mr. Preen had gone to Alcester in it and taken Sam. Her mode
and voice seemed strangely subdued, as if all spirit had left her for
ever.
In spite of their efforts, the Miss Chandlers met with little luck. One
of the Letsom girls and Tom Coney were all the recruits they were able
to pick up. They came dashing in close upon our heels. In the hall stood
Valentine's luggage locked and corded, ready for conveyance to the
station.
There's not much to relate of that evening: I hardly know why I allude
to it at all--only that these painful records sometimes bring a sad sort
of soothing to the weary heart, causing it to look forward to that other
life where will be no sorrow and no parting.
Tod came in after tea. He and Coney kept the girls alive, if one might
judge by the laughter that echoed from the other room. Tea remained on
the table for anyone else who might arrive, but Mrs. Jacob Chandler had
turned from it to put her feet on the fender. She kept me by her, asking
about a slight accident which had happened to one of our servants.
Valentine and Jane were standing at the doors of the open window in
silence, as if they wanted to take in a view of the garden. And that
state of things continued, as it seemed to me, for a good half-hour.
It was a wild night, but very warm for November. White clouds scudded
across the face of the sky; moonlight streamed into the room. The fire
was low, and the green shade had been placed over the lamp, so that
there seemed to be no light but that of the moon.
"Won't you sing a song for the last time, Valentine?" I heard Jane ask
him with half a sob.
"Not to-night; I'm not equal to it. But, yes, I will; one song," he
added, turning round. "Night and day that one song has been ever
haunting me, Jane."
He was sitting down to the piano when Mrs. Cramp came in. She said she
would go up to take her bonnet off, and Mrs. Chandler went with her.
This left me alone at the fire. I should have made a start for the next
room where the laughing was, but that I did not like to disturb the song
then begun. Jane stood listening just outside the open window, her hands
covering her bent face.
Whether the circumstances and surroundings made an undue impression on
me, I know not, but the song struck me as being the most plaintive one
I had ever heard and singularly appropriate to that present hour. The
singer was departing beyond seas, leaving one he loved hopelessly behind
him.
"Remember me, though rolling ocean place its bounds 'twixt thee
and me,
Remember me with fond emotion, and believe I'll think of thee."
So it began; and I wish I could recollect how it went on, but I can't;
only a line here and there. I think it was set to the tune of Weber's
Last Waltz, but I'm not sure. There came a line, "My lingering look from
thine will sever only with an aching heart;" there came another bit
towards the end: "But fail not to remember me."
Nothing in themselves, you will say, these lines; their charm lay in the
singing. To listen to their mournful pathos brought with it a strange
intensity of pain. Valentine sang them as very few can sing. That his
heart was aching, aching with a bitterness which can never be pictured
except by those who have felt it; that Jane's heart was aching as she
listened, was all too evident. You could feel the anguish of their
souls. It was in truth a ballad singularly applicable to the time and
place.
The song ceased; the music died away. Jane moved from the piano with
a sob that could no longer be suppressed. Valentine sat still and
motionless. As to me, I made a quiet glide of it into the other room,
just as Mrs. Cramp and Mrs. Jacob Chandler were coming in for some tea.
Julietta seized me on one side and Fanny Letsom on the other; they were
going in for forfeits.
* * * * *
Valentine Chandler left the piano and went out, looking for Jane. Not
seeing her, he followed on down the garden path, treading on its dry,
dead leaves. The wind, sighing and moaning, played amidst the branches
of the trees, nearly bare now; every other minute the moon was obscured
by the flying clouds. Warm though the night was, and grand in its
aspect, signs might be detected of the approaching winter.
Jane Preen was standing near the old garden arbour, from which could be
seen by daylight the long chain of the Malvern Hills. Valentine drew
Jane within, and seated her by his side.
"Our last meeting; our last parting, Jane!" he whispered from the depth
of his full heart.
"Will it be for ever?" she wailed.
He took time to answer. "I would willingly say No; I would _promise_ it
to you, Jane, but that I doubt myself. I know that it lies with me; and
I know that if God will help me, I may be able to----"
He broke down. He could not go on. Jane bent her head towards him.
Drawing it to his shoulder, he continued:
"I have not been able to pull up here, despite the resolutions I have
made from time to time. I was one of a fast set of men at Islip,
and--somehow--they were stronger than I was. In Canada it may be
different. I promise you, my darling, that I will strive to make it so.
Do you think this is no lesson to me?"
"If not----"
"If not, we may never see each other again in this world."
"Oh, Valentine!"
"Only in Heaven. The mistakes we make here may be righted there."
"And will it be _nothing_ to you, never to see me again here?--no sorrow
or pain?"
"_No sorrow or pain!_" Valentine echoed the words out of the very depths
of woe. Even then the pain within him was almost greater than he could
bear.
They sat on in silence, with their aching hearts. Words fail in an
hour of anguish such as this. An hour that comes perhaps but once in
a lifetime; to some of us, never. Jane's face lay nestled against his
shoulder; her hand was in his clasp. Val's tears were falling; he was
weak yet from his recent illness; Jane's despair was beyond tears.
* * * * *
We were in the height and swing of forfeits when Valentine and Jane came
in. They could not remain in the arbour all night, you see, romantic and
lovely though it might be to sit in the moonlight. Jane said she must be
going home; her mother had charged her not to be late.
When she came down with her things on, I, remembering what she had asked
me, took my hat and waited for her in the hall. But Valentine came out
with her.
"Thank you all the same, Johnny," she said to me. And I went back to the
forfeits.
They went off together, Jane's arm within his--their last walk, perhaps,
in this world. But it seemed that they could not talk any more than they
did in the garden, and went along for the most part in silence. Just
before turning into Brook Lane they met Tom Chandler--he who was doing
so much for Valentine in this emigration matter. He had come from Islip
to spend a last hour with his cousin.
"Go on, Tom; you'll find them all at home," said Valentine. "I shall not
be very long after you."
Upon coming to the Inlets, Jane clung closer to Valentine's arm. It was
here that she had seen her unfortunate brother Oliver standing, after
his death. Valentine hastily passed his arm round her to impart a sense
of protection.
At the gate they parted, taking their farewell hand-shake, their last
kiss. "God help you, my dear!" breathed Valentine. "And if--if we never
meet again, believe that no other will ever love you as I have loved."
He turned back on the road he had come, and Jane went in to her desolate
home.