It is strange how often our fortunes and misfortunes, which we are so
apt to suppose depend on our own successes or failures, turn out to have
fallen into hands we least expected, and to have been depending on
trains of circumstances utterly beyond our range of imagination.
Who, for instance, would have guessed that a meeting of half a dozen
business men in a first-floor room of a New York office could have any
bearing on the fate of the Cruden family? Or that an accident to Major
Lambert's horse while clearing a fence at one of the --shire hunts
should also affect their prospects in life?
But so it was.
While Reginald, tenderly nursed by his old school friend, was slowly
recovering from his illness in Liverpool, and while Mrs Cruden and
Horace, in their shabby London lodging, were breaking into their last
hundred pounds, and wondering how, even with the boy's improved wages
and promise of literary success, they should be able to keep a
comfortable home for their scattered but shortly to be reunited family--
at this very time a few of the leading creditors of the Wishwash and
Longstop Railway assembled in the old office of that bankrupt
undertaking, and decided to accept an offer from the Grand Roundabout
Railway to buy up their undertaking at half-price, and add its few
hundred miles of line to their own few thousand.
A very important decision this for the little Dull Street family. For
among the English creditors of this same Wishwash and Longstop Railway
Mr Cruden had been one of the most considerable--so considerable that
the shares he held in it had amounted to about half his fortune.
And when the division of the proceeds of the sale of the railway came to
be divided it turned out that Mr Cruden's administrators, heirs, and
assigns were entitled to about a third of the value of that gentleman's
shares, or in other words, something like a sixth of their old property,
which little windfall, after a good deal of wandering about and search
for an owner, came finally under the notice of Mr Richmond's
successors, who in turn passed it over to Mrs Cruden with a very neat
little note of congratulation on the good fortune which had made her and
her sons the joint proprietors of a snug little income of from £300 to
£400 a year.
Of course the sagacious reader will remark on this that it is only
natural that towards the end of my story something of this sort should
happen, in order to finish up with the remark that "they lived happily
ever after." And his opinion of me will, I fear, be considerably
lowered when he finds that instead of Reginald dying in the smallpox
hospital, and Mrs Cruden and Horace ending their days in the workhouse,
things looked up a little for them towards the finish, and promised a
rather more comfortable future than one had been led to expect.
It is sad, of course, to lose any one's good esteem, but as things
really did look up for the Crudens--as Reginald really did recover, as
Mrs Cruden and Horace really did not go to the workhouse, and as the
Grand Roundabout Railway really was spirited enough to buy up the
Wishwash and Longstop Railway at half-price, I cannot help saying so,
whatever the consequences may be.
But several weeks before Mr Richmond's successors announced this
windfall to their clients, the accident to Major Lambert's horse had
resulted in comfort to the Crudens of another kind, which, if truth must
be told, they expected quite as little and valued quite as much.
That worthy Nimrod, once an acquaintance and neighbour of the Garden
Vale family in the days of their prosperity, was never known to miss a
winter's hunting in his own county if he could possibly help it, and
during the present season had actually come all the way from Malta,
where his regiment was stationed, on short leave, for the sake of two or
three days of his favourite sport in the old country.
Such enthusiasm was worthy of a happier fate than that which befell him.
For on his first ride out his horse came to grief, as we have said,
over a hedge, and left the gallant major somewhat knocked about himself,
with nothing to do for half a day but to saunter disconsolately up and
down the country lanes and pay afternoon calls on some of his old
comrades.
Among others, he knocked at the door of an elderly dowager named Osborn,
who was very sympathetic with him in his misfortunes, and did her best
to comfort him with afternoon tea and gossip.
The latter lasted a good deal longer than the former. One after another
the major's old friends were mentioned and discussed and talked about as
only folk can be talked about over afternoon tea.
"By the way," said the caller, "I hear poor Cruden didn't leave much
behind him after all. Is Mrs Cruden still at Garden Vale?"
"No, indeed," said the lady; "it's a sad story altogether. Mr Cruden
left nothing behind him, and Garden Vale had to be sold, and the family
went to London, so I was told, in very poor circumstances."
"Bless me!" said the honest major, "haven't you looked them up? Cruden
was a good sort of a fellow, you know."
"Well, I've always intended to try and find out where they are living,
but really, major, you have no idea how one's time gets filled up."
"I've a very good idea," said the major with a groan. "I have to sail
in a week, and there's not much spare time between now and then, I can
tell you. Still, I'd like to call and pay my respects to Mrs Cruden if
I knew where she lived."
"I daresay you could find out. But I was going to say that only
yesterday I saw something in the paper which will hardly make Mrs
Cruden anxious to see any of her old friends at present. The eldest
son, I fear, has turned out badly."
"Who? young--what was his name?--Reginald? Can't believe it. He always
seemed one of the right sort. A bit of a prig perhaps, but straight
enough. What has he been up to?"
"You'd better see for yourself, major," said the lady, extracting a
newspaper from a heap under the dinner-waggon. "He seems to have been
mixed up in a rather discreditable affair, as far as I could make out,
but I didn't read the report through."
The major took the paper, and read a short report of the proceedings at
the Liverpool Police-Court.
"You didn't read it through, you say," observed he, when he had
finished; "you saw he was let off?"
"Yes, but I'm afraid--well, it's very sad for them all."
"Of course it is," blurted out the soldier, "especially when none of
their old friends seem to care anything about them. Excuse me, Mrs
Osborn," added he, seeing that the lady coloured. "I wasn't meaning
you, but myself. Cruden was on old comrade, who did me more than one
good turn. I must certainly take a day in town on my way back and find
them out. As for the boy, I don't believe he's got it in him to be a
blackleg."
The major was as good as his word. He sacrificed a day of his loved
pastime to look for his old friend's widow in London.
After a good deal of hunting he discovered her address, and presented
himself, with not a little wonderment at the shabbiness of her quarters,
at Dull Street.
Barely convalescent, and still in the agony of suspense as to Reginald's
fate, Mrs Cruden was able to see no one. But the major was not thus to
be baulked of his friendly intentions. Before he left the house he
wrote a letter, which in due time lay in the widow's hands and brought
tears to her eyes.
"Dear Mrs Cruden,--I am on my way back to Malta, and sorry not to see
you. We all have our troubles, but you seem to have had more than your
share; and what I should have liked would be to see whether there was
anything an old friend of your husband could do to serve you. I trust
you will not resent the liberty I take when I say I have instructed my
agent, whose address is enclosed, to put himself at your disposal in any
emergency when you may need either advice or any other sort of aid. He
is a good fellow, and understands any service you may require (and
emergencies often do arise) is to be rendered on my account. As to your
eldest son, about whom I read a paragraph in the papers the other day,
nothing will make me believe he is anything but his honest father's
honest son. My brother-in-law, whom you will remember, is likely
shortly to have an opportunity of introducing a young fellow into an
East India house in the City. I may mention this because, should you
think well to tell Reginald of it, I believe there would not be much
difficulty in his getting the post. But you will hear about this from
my brother-in-law, whom I have asked to write to you. I don't expect to
get leave again, for eighteen months; but I hope then to find you all
well.
"Believe me, dear Mrs Cruden,--
"Yours truly,--
"Thomas Lambert."
This simple warm-hearted letter came to Mrs Cruden as the first gleam
of better things on the troubled waters of her life. Things were just
then at their worst. Reginald lost, Horace away in search of him,
herself slowly recovering from a sad illness into a still more sad life,
with little prospect either of happiness or competency, nothing to look
forward to but a renewal of the old struggles, possibly single-handed.
At such a time Major Lambert's letter came to revive her drooping
spirits and remind her of a Providence that never sleeps less than when
we are ready to consider ourselves forgotten.
All she could do was to write a grateful reply back, and then await news
from Horace, trusting meanwhile it would not be necessary to draw on the
major's offered help. A few days later Horace was home again, jubilant
at having found his brother, but anxious both as to his immediate
recovery and the state of mind in which restored health would find him.
"He told me lots about the past, mother," said he. "No one can conceive
what a terrible three months he has had since he left us, or how
heroically he has borne it. He doesn't think so himself, and is awfully
depressed about his trial and the way in which the magistrate spoke to
him--the brute!"
"Poor boy! he is the very last to bear that sort of thing well."
"He's got a sort of idea he's a branded man, and is to be dragged down
all his life by it. Perhaps when he hears that an old friend like Major
Lambert believes in him, he may pick up. You know, mother, I believe
his heart is in the grave where that little office-boy of his lies, and
that he would have been thankful if--well, perhaps not so bad as that--
but just at present he can't speak or even think of the boy without
breaking down."
"According to the letter from Major Lambert's brother-in-law, the post
that is offered him is one he will like, I think," said Mrs Cruden. "I
do hope he will take it. To have nothing to do would be the worst thing
that could happen to him."
"To say nothing of the necessity of it for you, mother," said Horace;
"for there's to be no more copying out manuscripts, mind, even if we all
go to the workhouse."
Mrs Cruden sighed. She knew her son was right, but the wolf was at the
door, and she shrank from becoming a useless burden on her boys'
shoulders.
"I wonder, Horace," said she, presently, "whether we could possibly find
less expensive quarters than these. They are--"
"Hullo, there's the postman!" said Horace, who had been looking from the
window; "ten to one there's a line from Harker."
And he flew down the stairs, just in time to see the servant-girl take a
letter from the box and put it in her pocket.
"None for us?" said he.
The girl, who till this moment was not aware of his presence, turned
round and coloured very violently, but said nothing.
"Show me the letter you put into your pocket just now," said Horace, who
had had experience before now in predicaments of this kind.
The girl made no reply, but tried to go back to the kitchen. Horace,
however, stopped her.
"Be quick!" said he. "You've a letter for me in your pocket, and if I
don't have it before I count twenty I'll give you in charge;" and he
proceeded to count.
Before he had reached ten the girl broke out into tears, and took from
her pocket not only the letter in question, but three or four others.
"There you are; that's all of them. I've done with it!" sobbed she.
Horace glanced over them in bewilderment. One was in Reginald's
writing, written three weeks ago; two were from himself to his mother,
written last week, and the last was from Harker, written yesterday.
"Why," exclaimed he, too much taken aback almost to find words, "what
does it mean? How do you come--"
"Oh, I'll tell you," said the girl; "I don't care what they do to me.
I'd sooner be sent to prison than go on at it. He told me to do it, and
threatened me all sorts of things if I didn't. Oh dear! oh dear!"
"Who told you?"
"Why, Mr Shuckleford. He said Mr Reginald was a convict, or
something, and if I didn't mind every letter that came to the house from
Liverpool I'd get sent to prison too for abetting him. I'm sure I don't
want to abet no one, and I can't help if they do lock me up."
"You mean to say Mr Shuckleford told you to do this?" said--or rather
roared--Horace.
"Yes, he did; and he had them all before that one," said the girl,
pointing to the letter from Reginald. "But he's never been for these,
and I didn't dare not to keep them for him. Please, sir, look over it
this time."
Horace was too agitated to heed her tears or entreaties. He rushed from
the house with the letters in his hand, and made straight for the
Shucklefords' door. But, with his hand on the bell, he hesitated. Mrs
Shuckleford and her daughter had been good to his mother; he could not
relieve his mind to Samuel in their presence. So he resolved to
postpone that pleasure till he could find the young lawyer alone, and
meanwhile hurried back to his mother and rejoiced her heart with the
good news of Reginald contained in Harker's letter.
How and when Horace and Shuckleford settled accounts no one exactly
knew, but one evening, about a week afterwards, the latter came home
looking very scared and uncomfortable, and announced that he was getting
tired of London, the air of which did not agree with his constitution.
He intended to close with an offer he had received some time ago from a
firm in the country to act as their clerk; and although the sacrifice
was considerable, still the country air and change of scene he felt
would do him good.
So he went, much lamented by his mother and sister and club. But of all
his acquaintances there was only one who knew the exact reason why, just
at that particular time, the country air promised to be so beneficial
for his constitution.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Three weeks passed, and then one afternoon a cab rolled slowly up to the
door of Number 6, Dull Street. Horace was away at the office, and Mrs
Cruden herself was out taking a walk.
So the two young men who alighted from the cab found themselves monarchs
of all they surveyed, and proceeded upstairs to the parlour with no one
to ask what their business was.
"Now, old man," said the sturdier of the two, "I won't stay. I've
brought you safe home, and you needn't pretend you'll be sorry to see my
back."
"I won't pretend," said the other, with a smile on his pale face, "but
if you're not back very soon, in an hour or two, I shall be very very
sorry."
"Never fear, I'll be back."
And he went.
The pale youth sat down, and looked with a strange mixture of sadness
and eagerness round the little room. He had seen it before, and yet he
seemed hardly to recognise it. He got up and glanced at a few envelopes
lying on the mantel-piece. He took into his hands a piece of knitting
that lay on one of the chairs and examined it. He turned over the
leaves of a stray book, and read the name on the title-page. It all
seemed so strange--yet so familiar. Then he crept silently to the half-
open door of a little bedroom and peeped in, and his heart beat
strangely as he recognised a photograph on the dressing-table, and by
its side a letter written in his own handwriting. From this room he
turned to another still smaller and more roughly furnished. A walking-
stick stood in the corner that he knew well, and there was a cap on the
peg behind the door, the sight of which sent a thrill through him.
Yet he felt he dared touch nothing--that he scarcely dare let his foot
be heard as he paced across the room, or venture even to stir the little
fire that was dying out in the grate.
The slight flush which the excitement of his first arrival had called up
faded from his cheeks as the minutes wore on.
Presently his ears caught a light footfall on the pavement outside, and
his heart almost stood still as it halted and the bell rang below.
It was one of those occasions when a man may live a lifetime in a
minute. With a mighty rush his thoughts flew back to the last time he
had heard that step. What goodness, what hope, what love did it not
bring back to his life! He had taken it all for granted, and thought so
little of it; but now, after months of loveless, cheerless drudgery and
disappointment, that light step fell with a music which flooded his
whole soul.
He sat almost spell-bound as the street-door closed and the steps
ascended the stairs. The room seemed to swim round him, and to his
broken nerves it seemed for a moment as though he dreaded rather than
longed for what was coming. But as the door opened the spell broke and
all the mists vanished; he was his own self once more--nothing but the
long-lost boy springing to the arms of the long-lost mother.
"Mother!"
"My boy!"
That was all they said. And in those few words Reginald Cruden's life
entered on a new era.
When Horace half an hour later came flying on to the scene they still
sat there hand in hand, trying to realise it all, but not succeeding.
Horace, however, helped them back to speech, and far into the night they
talked. About ten o'clock Harker looked in for a moment, and after them
young Gedge, unable to wait till the morning. But they stayed only a
moment, and scarcely interrupted the little family reunion.
What those three talked about it would be hard for me to say. What they
did not talk about in the past, the present, and the future would be
almost easier to set down. And when at last Mrs Cruden rose, and in
her old familiar tones said,--
"It's time to go to bed, boys," the boys obeyed, as in the days long
ago, and came up to her and kissed her, and then went off like children,
and slept, like those who never knew what care was, all the happy night.