THE LAST OF THE HOLLY ARBOUR.
TOM GRIGSON was still staying at his brother's—yet not altogether
there, for he and the younger Tom, his first-born, pretty equally
divided their time between the Manor House and the Mumbles, where the
elder Elliston continued to sway the sceptre—an old man now, but as
sharp-witted and fond of having his own way as ever he had been.
It was the more to be wondered at that the active man of business, such
as we have seen John's old friend had become, should have taken so long
a holiday, seeing that there was neither hunting nor shooting to be
indulged in at this particular time. To be sure, he had the pleasure of
Tincroft's company; and his presence, in like manner, reconciled John
to his prolonged absence from home.
But there was another reason—one closely connected with the future
family arrangements of Mr. Tom Grigson—which made divers consultations
at headquarters thought to be necessary—the headquarters in this case
being Mumbleton on the one hand, and the Manor House on the other.
On the same day as that on which, so far-away, his Sarah and the young
Helen were holding their confabulation under the beech tree, and on
which, also, so much nearer to him, the brother and sister were talking
together on their way to and in the holly arbour at High Beech, John
Tincroft was invited by his friend Tom to take a drive with him over to
the Mumbles. On this occasion John did not decline the invitation as he
did a former one, some twenty years before. Accordingly the dog-cart
was got out, and the gentlemen took their seats.
"I want a bit of a talk with you, John, and I want your advice as
well," said Tom, when the vehicle was in motion.
But in order to prepare for this "bit of talk," some few words of
explanation are necessary.
We have seen in a former part of our history, how Tom Grigson's soul
revolted from the contamination of trade, which, no doubt, he would
have called low, mean, degrading, demoralising, and a dozen other
"ings," if he could have readily laid his tongue to them; and which
strong aversion nothing but his love for the fair Kate could have
induced him to overcome. We have also seen how, after a time, this
aversion gradually changed to something like affection; that, at any
rate, the golden result of his enforced connection with trade a good
deal more than modified his opinions. More than modified! Why, there
was not a man within the sound of Bow Bells who could discourse more
warmly and eloquently on the dignity of trade and commerce, and of the
great advantages they conferred on a country.
"Talk of our being a nation of shopkeepers," said he; "granted, so we
are, and it is the shopkeepers that can beat all the world!"
There was no sham about this, either. Tom Grigson believed in
himself, and always had done. And here he had the advantage of
some shams and humbugs who are to be met with, even in high places
sometimes, and of whom you and I, reader, may happen to know or see
somewhat occasionally, who do not believe in themselves, and in whom
nobody believes. Tom was more like some who are to be met with in
this changeable world, who undergo a sort of natural and gradual
transformation in the course of their lives.
As, for instance, one who, from being a red-hot Radical in his teens,
has subsided in his riper years into a steady-going Conservative, not
to say a determined Tory. And so the case might be reversed, or the
principle applied to other instances in polemics, or even in habits of
everyday life. Conviction sometimes, sometimes experience, necessarily
partial in its operation, and oftentimes interest, are the several, or
the combined, powers made instrumental in this change of thought.
It was so, at least, with Tom Grigson. He had begun with a silly,
ignorant prejudice against trade and tradesmen, and any thing or person
connected with these abominations, as he would have termed them. He
ended with a prejudice equally absurd against almost all other classes
of the community. All honour to Tom; he was, as I have said, sincere.
If he had been a farmer, he would have stood up as sincerely for the
farming interest; if a lawyer or an artist, he would have exalted
the profession he belonged to the skies; if a— But I must rein in my
Pegasus.
Much as Tom reined in his, just as he and John got into the road
turning out of Richard Grigson's lawn, and high bred and fed Peg
(Richard Grigson's blood mare) first of all shied at a heap of stones
by the roadside, and would then fairly have bolted with the dog-cart
and its passengers, but for the judicious action of the curb for
restraint, and of the whip for punishment. This little episode over,
and Peg subsiding into a more sober pace, Tom began:
"I want to talk to you about my boy; you have seen something of him
during the last month. What do you think of him?"
"Think? He is a fine young fellow," said John, thoughtfully.
"Oh, fine! Ah yes; that is to say, he stands five feet eight in
his stockings already, and will mount up to six feet, I daresay,
before he has done growing. Fine! Well, he is something like me in
figure and face, they say, with his mother's dark eyes and arched
eyebrows superadded; so he must be fine, I suppose." Tom said this
half-jokingly, but rather proudly also, no doubt; and then he added—
"But I wasn't thinking of this; it isn't what I meant. What about his
mental fit-out? You have had some talk with him, you know."
"He is very modest," said John, "which is a sign of grace. But for all,
he doesn't say much, he is a lad of first-rate abilities—easy to see
that; and he has made good use of his opportunities. He has had a good
education, you know."
"Ought to have had; cost money enough, I know that. Well?"
"Well, what more do you wish me to say?" asked puzzled John.
"Anything and everything."
"He is rather quiet," returned John, thus urged on; "he is altogether a
nice, amiable lad. I like him very much. I think you ought to be proud
of him, Tom; and I have no doubt you are."
"Oh, proud! Well, as to that, everybody's own geese are swans, you
know, John; and that's why I want your opinion, he not being a goose of
your incubation, you know. But I have got something more to say. Do you
know Tom has given me a good deal of anxiety lately?"
"Has he? I am sorry for that. I wasn't at all aware of any difference
between him and you."
"No, there is no difference—in one way of looking at it, at least, but
there is in another."
"Dear me!" quoth John, quite concerned. "Why, you seem always to get
on so well together. I am sure your Tom has a very strong affection,
as well as a high respect for you. A difference! I should never have
guessed it, nor yet that he was giving you any trouble in any way,
Tom." John said this very earnestly, and sorrowfully too.
"'Tis nothing much in one way of looking at it, but in another it is a
good deal; and the truth is, I want to hear what you have to say about
it. Perhaps you can help me out of the difficulty, John."
"Not likely that I can, Tom; but what is it, my dear friend?"
"Well, the case is this. Tom has had a good education, and made good
use of it, you say. So far good. But what is to come next? His school
days are over now, and lads must do something after they have left
school, you know—lads that have got to make their way in the world, at
any rate."
"No doubt that's true," said John; "but your Tom is not likely to give
you trouble in that way, I hope. He isn't idle, is he?"
"No, not a bit of it," replied the father. "But here's the point. I
want to make a business man of him, and Tom doesn't want, or hasn't
wanted, to be made a business man of."
"Oh," said John; "but he doesn't rebel, does he?"
"No; rebellion is no word for my Tom. The boy never rebelled in his
life. But somehow he has got hold of some queer notions that I never
knew of till a few weeks ago. He had always thought, he said, that I
meant to send him to Oxford."
"And did you not? I fancy I remember your saying something of that sort
once when you and he were down at my place, and we were talking over
our old Oxford days."
"Yes, very likely some nonsense or other of that sort was spoken, and
that shows how foolish it is to say much before our boys and girls. The
fact is, I hadn't made up my mind then about what I should do. But it
seems that the boy was fired with the idea of going to college, and has
been working hard—I will say that for him—to prepare himself for it.
And now, poor lad, he is woefully disappointed that I don't like the
thought of his throwing himself away, as I call it."
"Are you sure it would be throwing himself away?" asked Tincroft,
naturally enough.
"Something like it, when you come to compare it with what lies before
him in the other direction."
"You hadn't always such a high opinion of trade, Tom," said Tincroft,
gently.
"No, I hadn't; but that was when I didn't know anything about it. I
tell you what, John, a parcel of ignoramuses get their heads stuffed
with Latin and Greek—"
"As you and I did once, Tom."
"Yes, as you and I did; and then they fancy that if a man can't spout
Homer and Virgil, and the rest of the glorious old classics, as they
call them, he is good-for-nothing. And they pretend to look down on
men three times better than themselves, and ten times of more use in
the world, because they are not up—or fancy they are not up—to the old
heathenish morality, and disguised immorality, that is to be found in—"
"Hush, hush, Tom!"
"Ah yes, you say 'hush, hush,' but you know 'tis true; and I haven't
patience with their pedantic vanity and pride of heart. However, that
is not to the present purpose. The question is about young Tom."
"Is he set upon having his own way?" John interrogated:
"'A clerk condemned his father's soul to cross,
Who penned a stanza when he should engross'"?
"Or summing up accounts in daybook and ledger, initiating himself in
the sublime mysteries of single and double entry?"
"No, that isn't it. Instead of this, the lad (and you don't know how I
love him, John) won't hear of going against my plans. And so, when I
was trying to make myself willing to send him to Oxford, he turns round
and insists on the counting-house, though I know it will half break
his heart—not because he is going into trading business, I don't mean
that, but because his mind has so long been fixed on other, I won't say
higher, pursuits. Now, what am I to do?"
"I think," said John, sagely, "when it comes to such an amiable
discussion as that between father and son, it won't be long in
adjusting itself without an arbitrator. But as you ask my advice (not
that anything I can say will be worth much, but as you do), I should
recommend his trying the counting-house for a year or two. Anyhow, he
is too young for college yet, and he can keep up his school learning
during that time, in case you and he should see fit to alter your plans
then."
"I never thought of such a compromise as that," said Grigson, "and I
thank you for suggesting it. It will do famously."
Then, as having disburdened himself of some great trouble, he touched
up the mare he was driving into a more lively pace, and in a few
minutes they were at their destination.
John Tincroft knew no more of the Mumbles, nor of the dwellers
thereat, than his friend had at various times told him. He was
prepared, however, to find a tolerably grand house, to which his own
modest home could bear no comparison, and a somewhat peremptory but
hospitable old gentleman as its master. He was not mistaken in either
of these anticipations, and, in addition to old Mr. Elliston, John was
introduced by Grigson to his sister-in-law, who, in single blessedness,
still presided over her father's household. Besides these, there were
visitors at the Mumbles, of whom John had not been told, though it
seemed as though his friend Tom half expected to meet them. These were
the wife and daughter of Grigson's partner, Elliston—the first a rather
fine lady of a certain or uncertain age, the second a young person
probably about eighteen years old, just released from boarding school
life apparently—"slight in figure, pallid in countenance, plain in
features, and affected in manner," thought John, when he had been ten
minutes in her company.
Our friend was hospitably welcomed by the host; but that some one else
had been expected with Tom, either instead of, or in addition to,
himself, was evident from one of the earliest questions put to his
friend after the first salutations and introductions.
"Where is your son, Mr. Grigson? How is it he is not with you?"
"He will come over to-morrow, sir. He begged to be excused to-day.
He is going out with his uncle, I believe. Indeed, we were not quite
sure—" and Tom glanced at the lady visitors opposite.
"Umph!" seemed to rise in the host's throat, but he stifled it in its
birth. "Let me have five minutes with you, Grigson," he substituted
instead, and the two disappeared.
Thus left alone with the ladies, John Tincroft exerted himself, so far
as his awkwardness would permit, to entertain them. Whether or not he
succeeded, he was not sorry when, after the lapse of a quarter of an
hour, his friend reappeared, and proposed returning. In a few minutes,
therefore, after payment of adieux in the customary form, the dog-cart
was remounted, and our two friends were on the way back to the Manor
House.
Tom was unusually taciturn, John thought, until they had left the
precincts of the Mumbles; then he broke silence.
"You saw that young lady, my niece, Blanche Elliston, of course?"
Yes, John had seen her.
"I won't ask you what you think of her, because first impressions are
sometimes very erroneous, and I don't care to hear Blanche disparaged.
She is my Tom's intended."
"I beg pardon—your Tom's what?" returned John, quickly. And he may be
pardoned if he thought he had heard imperfectly and incorrectly.
"Tom's intended," repeated Grigson.
"Intended wife, do you mean, Tom?" John asked so earnestly, and with
such a look of gaunt surprise, that his friend broke out into a laugh;
but he suddenly checked himself with—
"I don't know why I should laugh, for it is no laughing matter. Yes,
Blanche Elliston is young Tom's intended wife."
"Young Tom's wife! Why, he is only a mere boy yet!" exclaimed Tincroft.
"True, John; but he will be a man some day, it is to be hoped."
"Time enough then to be choosing a wife," John had on his tongue's end
to say, but a look checked him, and all he said was, "Well, but I don't
understand it a bit, Tom. I always was dull of comprehension, you know,
so you must bear with me, and explain a little more fully."
"To be sure I will," said Grigson.
And then he went on to explain that the arrangement had been made
between the parents on either side at the instance of the grandfather,
and when the boy and girl were mere children, that they should yoke
together when they became man and woman.
"You see," continued Tom Grigson, "there's a good deal of property
involved, and the business firm to be kept up, and it isn't wanted to
go out of the family."
"And your brother Richard—Tom's uncle—what does he say to this bargain?
Is he a party to it?" asked John.
"No, he won't have anything to do with it, he says, being an old
bachelor himself."
"And what do your Tom and his cousin think of this convenient
arrangement?" John wanted to know.
"Oh, they are agreeable enough. The girl is willing to have Tom for a
husband, she says; and strange if she were not, for he is the right
sort of fellow to make a good husband, and good enough looking, into
the bargain. As to young Tom, he is agreeable, he says, if he must
marry, though he doesn't see any occasion for it; but if he must,
Blanche Elliston will do as well as any other. That's what he says.
The worst of it is, his cousin is a couple of years older than he; but
that can't be helped; and perhaps she hasn't the sweetest temper in the
world. But we all have something to put up with, you know, John."
"Please don't say any more about it, Tom," said Tincroft, quietly. "You
know your own business best, dear friend, and how to bring up a family.
How, indeed, should I know anything at all about it?" pondered John,
with a sigh.
Perhaps Grigson was not unwilling to let the subject drop, for he
turned the conversation. But during the rest of the drive home, John
was uncommonly silent, and on reaching the gate of the Manor House, he
alighted.
"The dinner-bell won't ring yet for an hour," said he; "I have to make
arrangements with Walter Wilson about our coming journey. So I'll take
a stroll to Low Beech before turning in."
Considerably disturbed in his mind, our friend walked slowly from the
Manor House gates, and proceeded on his way to Low Beech. To tell the
truth, his heart was heavy with what he had heard; and if he had put
his thoughts into words, it would have been in something like the
following soliloquy:
"I could never have thought it of Tom! What can have possessed him to
barter away his own flesh and blood like that? It can't be the money.
I'll never believe that he is turned covetous and money-loving. I think
it must be because he is ambitious and proud. He always was proud,
was Tom Grigson, and I used rather to admire him for it. He was proud
of his family and his ancestry then, and now he has turned the other
way, and is proud of his connection with trade, and is ambitious of
being among the first and foremost of London's citizens, of credit and
renown, as John Gilpin—I beg pardon, William Cowper—has it."
"That's all very well, I mean if it pleases him, but he need not
be—Poor young Tom! So he is to go a-wooing, and to have a wife, whether
he likes it or no, is he? No, I never could have thought it of Tom
Grigson—the Tom I knew twenty years ago. And I don't think he seems
over-satisfied with it himself."
"'Tis bad enough," we may suppose John going on, "bad enough to do
mischief to our neighbours without intending it; but to be brewing a
bitter brewst for one's own flesh and blood, with one's eyes open, is
worse still, I think."
And so, grumbling to himself, as he would have said, John Tincroft
presently arrived at Low Beech Farm, to find that Walter Wilson had
walked out with his sister—intending to go to High Beech, to take leave
of George's wife, Mm. Matthew thought. And they had been a mortal while
gone, she added, grumblingly, thinking no doubt that Elizabeth's time
was being grievously wasted.
"I'll go on thither," said John; "perhaps I may meet them on their
return."
But he didn't meet them, and so he quietly and ruminatingly took the
path which led from the Low to the High, and which so many, many years
ago he had traversed to and fro, dreaming of things possible and
impossible.
At length he arrived at High Beech Farm; but here again he was at
fault. Neither Walter nor Elizabeth had been seen there that day.
Invited to enter and rest in the parlour, John shied (remembering the
knobby chairs, perhaps) and pleaded haste, also anxiety to find his
friend Walter.
"Perhaps they have slipped into the garden," said Mrs. George,
indifferently, for she and Elizabeth were not very dear friends; and
as to Walter, whom she had never known till of late, there was no
particular reason why she should love him.
"I'll go and look in the garden," said John; and he went—passing
through the wicket-gate, and slowly walking up the filbert alley, with
a comical kind of feeling, remembering the last time he was there, as
recorded in these present memoirs.
"They may be in the arbour," said John to himself, as looking round, he
saw nothing of his friend and his friend's sister.
"I won't disturb them," he added, considerately; "but I may as well let
them know that I am here."
So saying, he walked on, and with a previous considerate premonitory
little cough, presented himself at the entrance of the arbour.
"Good afternoon, Miss Wilson," said he, as he discovered the objects of
his search, seated as we have described. "I do not come to disturb you;
but I wanted a few words with Walter, and not finding him at Low Beech—"
"Hush!" said Elizabeth, looking up from the needlework on which her
attention had been occupied. "Walter is asleep," she whispered; "and I
shouldn't like him to be woke up. He has had such a nice, long, quiet
sleep, without his cough disturbing him as it does of nights. And it
will be so good for him."
While Elizabeth was speaking, Tincroft's attention was principally
directed towards the sleeper on the opposite side of the arbour, who
was quietly resting, with his eyes closed, and one arm loosely hanging
down by his side, while his sister's shawl, folded round him, somewhat
shaded the lower half of his countenance.
"I wrapped him up in my shawl," continued Elizabeth, in the same
guarded tones, "for fear he should get chilled."
"Yes, I see, I see," said John, still scrutinising the sleeper. Then he
entered the arbour, and gently glided to his side.
"You won't wake him, please," said Elizabeth, softly.
"No, no, I won't wake him," responded John; but, nevertheless, he
ventured to take the nerveless hand in his own. It was deadly cold, he
thought, as he loosened it, and it dropped helplessly into its former
position. Then he laid his hand on the sleeper's temple, and looked
more closely into his face, before he turned to the anxiously watching
and now alarmed sister, who gasped—
"Oh, Mr. Tincroft, what is it?"
"Your brother is in a dead faint," he said; "you had better call for
help."
And then he busied himself, in his ordinary awkward way, no doubt,
in loosening his poor friend's neck-gear, gently placing a loving
arm around him for support, while Elizabeth sprang forward with a
hysterical cry of:
"Walter, Walter! Brother Walter! Dear brother!"
We shift the scene to a bedchamber in High Beech farmhouse. Walter
Wilson had been conveyed thither, and tenderly laid down by
rough-handed, but kindly-hearted farm labourers, when he had recovered
consciousness sufficiently to admit of removal from the holly arbour.
It had been his cousin Sarah's bedroom of old, and was little altered
from what it then was. The apartment had been yielded, not very
willingly, by Mrs. George Wilson, on the representation that her
husband's brother could not, in his present state, be removed to his
father's house at Low Beech.
At his side were John Tincroft and Elizabeth Wilson, lovingly tending
him, and obeying the directions of a neighbouring surgeon who had been
hastily summoned.
When all that skill could suggest had been done, John drew the doctor
aside.
"Is the case serious?" he asked.
"He will live forty-eight hours—perhaps twice forty-eight, possibly a
week; but he will never rise from that bed except by a miracle," was
the reply.
There was no returning to the Manor House to dine that day; and a
message was sent by John Tincroft to that effect, stating the reason
why.
But later in the evening, he made his appearance there hurriedly.
In a few words he explained his haste and his errand. Walter had
passionately besought him to send for Helen, that he might see and
embrace her once more before he died; for he knew now that death was
rapidly approaching. To use the figurative and expressive language of
Scripture, "the silver cord was loosed," and "the golden bowl" was
"broken." Walter knew that he was dying.
Tincroft was charged with another message also. Walter must see his
London lawyer, he said, and John must send him down, to take his dying
client's instructions, whatever they might be.
"I must go at once," said John, in great agitation, "if you, Mr.
Grigson, will be kind enough to let your groom drive me to the town."
"I will do anything you ask me. Or rather, I will drive you over
myself. But what will you do when you get there? You will be too late
for the night coach."
"But not for the rail from X—. I have laid my plans, and mean to post
on to X—, take the first train to London, and then, after seeing the
lawyer, post down to Trotbury."
It was in the early days of railways. As already stated, the London and
Trotbury line had not been opened; but two others had, one westward
and the other northward. Which of these was to be patronised on this
occasion is no matter. It is as well to say, however, that our friend,
like a good many other slow-going, prudent personages of that day, had
steadily set his face against this new mode of travelling, declaring
it a tempting of Providence, and an overturning of all preconceived
and preordained modes of locomotion, to make boiling water do the work
of horses, and at such an increased pace, too! No wonder, then, that,
grave as was the occasion, a smile of surprise and incredulity flitted
for a moment across the face of his host.
"You travel by steam, John!"
"Ah, I thought you would say so. But poor dear Helen! I think I would
travel in a balloon if it would bring her all the sooner to her
father's bedside."
There was nothing more to be said after this; and when, under
compulsion, John had partaken of some refreshment, and hastily packed
up a small valise, the chaise was brought to the door, and the squire
and his guest drove rapidly away.
We need not accompany Tincroft on his anxious journey. It is enough to
say that he performed it in what would then have been considered an
almost incredibly short space of time, and alarmed the members of his
household by a sudden and unexpected inbreak upon them during the small
hours of a summer morning.
How he discharged his mournful errand, telling it first to his wife;
how Sarah, after a copious flood of tears, composed herself and broken
the sorrowful news to the young Helen; how a few hasty preparations
were made; and how Sarah, at Helen's mute entreaty and John's express
desire, decided on accompanying the sorrow-stricken girl on the
journey, need no more words to tell.
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