Herbert's Victory
And of our scholars let us learn
Our own forgotten lore.--KEBLE
"Joan, Jenny, dearest old Joanie!" It was eagerly spoken, though
the voice was strangely altered that came from behind the flowered
curtain of that big bed, while the fingers drew it back, and Rollo
raised his black muzzle near at hand. "Oh, Jenny! have you come to
me?"
"My dear, dear, poor boy!"
"No kissing--it's not safe," and he burrowed under the sheet.
"As if I did not mean to do more for you than that! Besides, it is
not catching."
"So I said, till it caught me. What a jolly cold hand! You've not
come in cold and hungry though?"
"No, indeed, Rosamond forced me to sit down to a whole spread. As
if one could eat with a knot in one's throat."
"Mind you do, Jenny--it was what did for me. The Rector ordered me
never to go about unfed; but one could not always--and there was
something I have to tell you that drove all the rest out--"
"Dear Herbs! Papa can't talk of what you have done without tears.
He longed to come, but we could not leave mamma without one of us,
and he thought I could do the most for you. I have a note for you."
"Forgiving me?"
"I should _think_ so. It is in my bag--"
"No, not this moment; I like to know it. And mammy--poor mammy--"
"She is as comforted as she can be that you have Cranky and me; and
then papa's being proud of you has cheered her--oh! so much."
"I'm glad they can comfort themselves--"
"But, Herbert, dear, you must be much better; I did not expect to
see you so well."
"I am not so bad between whiles," said Herbert, wearily. "And,
while I can, I've got something to tell you that will make it up to
you, and a great deal more."
"Make it up?" said Jenny, looking with bewildered eyes at the dear
face.
"Yes, I made Gadley consent. The Rector has it in writing, and it
will do quite as well if I die. O, Jenny, woman, think of my never
knowing what you had gone through!"
"Is it about Archie?" said Jenny, beginning to tremble.
"Yes. It will clear him."
"I always knew he was clear."
"Yes, but he can come back now all right. Eh! what an ass I am!
I've begun at the wrong end. He wasn't drowned--it was all a
mistake; Miles saw him in Africa--Cranky, I say, come to her."
"Yes, Master Herbert, you've been talking a great deal too much for
your sister just off a journey. You'll get the fever on again.
Miss Joanna, you ought to know better than to let him run on; I
sha'n't be able to let you do nothing for him if this is the way."
"Was it too sudden, Joan?" said Herbert, wistfully, as she bent to
kiss his brow with trembling lips. "I couldn't let any one tell you
but myself, while I could; but I don't seem able to go on. Is the
Rector there, Cranky?"
"Yes, sir, waiting in the parlour."
"Rector," and Julius hurried in at once, "take her and tell her. I
can't do it after all."
"Is he alive?" whispered Jenny, so much overcome that Julius had to
hold her up for a moment as he led her into the other room.
"Really! She thinks me delirious," said Herbert, rather amused.
"Tell her all, Rector."
"Really, Joan," said Julius, putting her into the great chair, and
holding her trembling hand. "Miles has seen him, has had him in his
ship."
"And you never told me!"
"He made Miles promise not to tell."
"But he told you!"
"Yes, because it was Anne who gave the clue which led to his
discovery; but when he found we all thought him dead, he laid Miles
under the strictest charge to say nothing. He is on an ostrich farm
in Natal, Jenny, well, and all that he ever was, and more too. He
took your photograph from Miles's book."
"And I never knew," moaned Jenny, quite overcome.
"He would not be persuaded that it was not more for your peace not
to know of his life, and when Miles was put on honour, what could we
do? But now it is all changed. Since Herbert's discovery he need
not be a banished man any more." And Julius told Jenny the manner
of the discovery. She listened, evidently gathering all in, and
then she asked: "And what have you done?"
"Nothing as yet."
"Nothing! while there is this blot on Archie's name, and he is
living in exile, and that Moy is revelling in prosperity. Nothing!
Why don't you publish it to every one?"
"My dear Jenny, I have only known it a week, and I have not been
able to find out where Mr. Moy is."
"What, to have him taken up?"
"Taken up, no; I don't imagine he could be prosecuted after this
length of time and on this kind of evidence. No, to give him
warning."
"Warning? To flee away, and never clear Archie! What are you
about, Julius? He ought to be exposed at once, if he cannot be made
to suffer otherwise."
"Nay, Jenny, that would be hard measure."
"Hard measure!" she interrupted; "what has my innocent Archie had?"
"Think of the old man, his wife and daughter, Jenny."
"She's a Proudfoot.--And that girl the scandal of the country! You
want to sacrifice Archie to them, Julius?"
"You are tired and shaken, Jenny, or you would see that all I want
to do is to act with common consideration and honour."
She interrupted again. "What honour do you mean? You are not
making it a secret of the confessional?"
"You are misunderstanding me, Joanna," Julius gently said.
"Herbert's vigil spared me from that difficulty, but--"
"Then you would have sacrificed Archie to this imaginary--"
"Hush, Jenny! I fear he is wandering again. Alas! it is the sad
old refrain!"
As they came to the door together, Herbert's voice, under that
strange change which wandering brings, was heard muttering, "Give an
account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward."
And Mrs. Cranstoun received them, with her head shaking, and tearful
eyes. "It has come on again, sir; I was afraid it would be too much
for him."
Herbert's prayer had been granted, inasmuch as the horrible ravings
that he feared repeating never passed his lips. If he had gone down
to the smoke of Tartarus to restore his sister's lover, none of its
blacks were cleaning to him; but whether conscious or wandering, the
one thought of his wasted year seemed to be crushing him. It was a
curious contrast between poor Mr. Fuller's absence of regret for a
quarter of a century's supineness, and this lad's repentance for
twelve months' idleness. That his follies had been guileless in
themselves might be the very cause that his spirit had such power of
repentance. His admiration of Lady Tyrrell had been burnt out, and
had been fancy, not heart, and no word of it passed his lips, far
less of the mirth with the Strangeways. Habit sometimes brought the
phrases of the cricket-field, but these generally ended in a shudder
of self-recollection and prayer.
The delirium only came with the accesses of fever, and when
sensible, he was very quiet and patient, but always as one weighed
down by sense of failure in a trust. He never seemed to entertain a
hope of surviving. He had watched too many cases not to be aware
that his symptoms were those that had been almost uniformly fatal,
and he noted them as a matter of course. Dr. Easterby came to see
him, and was greatly touched; Herbert was responsive, but it was not
the ordinary form of comfort that he needed, for his sorrow was
neither terror nor despair. His heart was too warm and loving not
to believe that his heavenly Father forgave him as freely as did his
earthly father; but that very hope made him the more grieved and
ashamed of his slurred task, nor did he view his six weeks at
Wil'sbro' as any atonement, knowing it was no outcome of repentance,
but of mere kindliness, and aware, as no one else could be, how his
past negligence had hindered his full usefulness, so that he only
saw his failures. As to his young life, he viewed it as a mortally
wounded soldier does, as a mere casualty of the war, which he was
pledged to disregard. He _did_ perhaps like to think that the fatal
night with Gadley might bring Archie back, and yet Jenny did not
give him the full peace in her happiness which he had promised
himself.
Joanna had suffered terribly, far more than any one knew, and her
mind did not take the revulsion as might have been expected. Her
lighthouse was shining again when she thought it extinguished for
ever, but her spirits could not bear the uncertainty of the spark.
She could not enter into what Miles and Julius both alike told her,
of the impossibility of their mother beginning a prosecution for
money embezzled ten years back, when no living witness existed,
nothing but the scrap of paper written by Herbert, and signed by him
and Margaret Strangeways, authorizing Julius Charnock to use what
had been said by the dying, half-delirious man. What would a jury
say to such evidence? And when Julius said it only freed himself
morally from the secrecy, poor Jenny was bitter against his
scruples, even though he had never said more than that he should
have been perplexed. The most bitter anti-ritualist could hardly
have uttered stronger things than she thought, and sometimes said,
against what seemed to her to be keeping Archie in banishment; while
the brothers' reluctance to expose Mr. Moy, and blast his reputation
and that of his family, was in her present frame of mind an
incomprehensible weakness. People must bear the penalty of their
misdeeds, families and all, and Mrs. and Miss Moy did not deserve
consideration: the pretensions of the mother had always been half
scorn, half thorn, to the old county families, and the fast airs of
the daughter had been offensive enough to destroy all pity for her.
If an action in a Court of Justice were, as Miles and Julius told
her, impossible,--and she would not believe it, except on the word
of a lawyer,--public exposure was the only alternative for righting
Archie, and she could not, or would not, understand that they would
have undergone an action for libel rather than not do their best to
clear their cousin, but that they thought it due to Mr. Moy to give
him the opportunity of doing the thing himself; she thought it
folly, and only giving him time and chance for baffling them.
The strange thing was, that not only when she argued with the two
brothers, but when she brooded and gave way to these thoughts as she
kept her watch, it probably made her less calm--for an access of
restlessness and fever never failed to come on--with Herbert.
Probably she was less calm externally, and the fret of face and
manner communicated itself to him, for the consequences were so
invariable that Cranstoun thought they proved additionally what she
of course believed, that Miss Joan could not be trusted with her
brother. At last Jenny, in her distress and unwillingness to
abandon Herbert to Cranky's closed windows, traced cause and effect,
and made a strong resolution to banish the all-pervading thought,
and indeed his ever-increasing weakness and danger filled her mind
so as to make this easier and easier, so that she might no longer
have to confess to herself that Rollo was a safer companion, since
Herbert, with a hand on that black head, certainly only derived
soothing influences from those longing sympathetic eyes. And he
could not but like the testimony of strong affection that came to
him. The whole parish was in consternation, and inquiries, and very
odd gifts, which he was supposed to 'fancy,' came from all over
Compton as well as from Strawyers, and were continually showering
upon his nurses, so that Mrs. Hornblower and Dilemma spent their
lives in mournful replies over the counter, and fifty times a day he
was pronounced to be 'as bad as he could be to be alive.' Old
servants and keepers made progresses from Strawyers, to see Master
Herbert, and were terribly aggrieved because Miss Bowater kept them
out of his room, as much for their sake as his; and Mrs. Cranstoun
pointed to the open lattice which she believed to be killing him, as
surely as it gave aches to her rheumatic shoulder.
Julius thought almost as much as Jenny could do of the means of
recalling Archie; but it was necessary to wait until he could
communicate with Mr. Moy, and his hands were still over-full, for
though much less fatal, the fever smouldered on, both in Wil'sbro'
and Compton, and as St. Nicholas was a college living which had
hitherto been viewed as a trump card, it might be a long time going
the round of the senior fellows.
Julius had just been at poor Mrs. Fuller's, trying to help her to
put her complicated affairs in order, so as to be ready for a move
as soon as one daughter, who had the fever slightly, could be taken
away, and he was driving home again, when he overtook Mrs. Duncombe
and offered her a lift, for her step was weary. She was indeed
altered, pale, with cheek-bones showing, and all the lustre and
sparkle gone out of her, while her hat was as rigidly dowdy as Miss
Slater's.
She roused herself to ask feebly after the remaining patients.
"Cecil is really getting better at last," he said. "Her father
wants to take her to Portishead next week."
"And young Bowater?"
"No change. His strength seems to be going."
"I wouldn't pity him," sighed Bessie Duncombe; "he has only seen the
best end of life, and has laid it down for something worth! I'm
sure he and your brother are the enviable ones."
"Nay, Mrs. Duncombe, you have much to work for and love in this
life."
"And I must go away from everything just as I had learnt to value
it. Bob has taken a house at Monaco, and writes to me to bring the
children to join him there!"
"At Monaco?"
"At Monaco! Yes, and I know that it is all my own fault. I might
have done anything with him if I had known how. But what could you
expect? I never saw my mother; I never knew a home; I was bred up
at a French school, where if one was not a Roman Catholic there was
not a shred of religion going. I married after my first ball.
Nobody taught me anything; but I could not help having brains, so I
read and caught the tone of the day, and made my own line, while he
went on his."
"And now there is a greater work for you to do, since you have
learnt to do it."
"Ah! learnt too late. When habits are confirmed, and home station
forfeited--What is there left for him or my poor boys to do?"
"A colony perhaps--"
"Damaged goods," she said, smiling sadly.
"Then are you going?"
"As soon as I have seen this fever out, and can dispose of the
things here. I have just been to Moy's office to see about getting
rid of the lease."
"Is Mr. Moy come home?"
"Yes. Have you not heard?"
"What?--Not the fever?"
"No. Worse I should say. Gussie has gone off and got married to
Harry Simmonds."
"The man at the training stables?"
"Yes. They put up their banns at the Union at Brighton, and were
married by the Registrar, then went off to Paris. They say it will
kill her mother. The man is a scoundrel, who played Bob false, and
won largely by that mare. And the girl has had the cheek to write
to me," said Mrs. Duncombe, warming into her old phraseology--"to
_me_!--to thank me for opportunities of meeting, and to tell me she
has followed up the teaching of last year."
"What--the rights of women?"
"Ay. This is a civil marriage--not mocking her with antiquated
servile vows," she says. "Ah, well, it was my doing, I suppose.
Clio Tallboys held forth in private, I believe, to poor Gussie, on
theories that were mere talk in her, but which this poor girl has
taken in earnest."
"Very sad earnest she may find it, I fear. Can I do anything for
you?" as they reached the gate of Aucuba Villa.
"No, thank you, unless to get the house off my hands."
"You are alone. Will you not come and spend the evening with us?"
"That is very kind, but I have too much to do, and besides, Sister
Margaret is coming to spend the night with me."
"I am glad to hear it."
"Yes, Mr. Charnock, I trust I have learnt something in this spell of
work. I've not been for nothing in such scenes with those Sisters
and young Bowater. I'm more ignorant than half the poor things that
I've heard talk of their faith and hope; but I see it is not the
decorous humbug it once looked like. And now that I would have
learnt, here I go to Monaco."
"You will learn. You have a work before you that will teach you."
"My boys are young enough to start with on a different tack," she
said. "You will tell me--no--I'll not hinder you now. I shall see
you again."
Julius was too anxious to get home to refuse to be released, much as
he felt for this brave woman. The day before, Herbert had been
frightfully faint and exhausted by the morning's attack of fever,
but had been so still ever since that there was a shade of hope that
the recurrence might not take place; and this hope grew stronger,
when Jenny came into the outer room to say that the usual time for
the fever was passing so quietly in a sort of sleep that Dr. Worth
seemed to think rally possible, if only there was no fresh access.
They stood over the fire, and Julius asked, "Can't you lie on the
sofa, Jenny? I can stay."
"No," said Jenny, restlessly. "No, I can't. I know you have
something to tell me."
"Moy has come home, Jenny. He is in terrible trouble. His daughter
has eloped with young Simmonds at the training stables."
"The most appropriate end of her bringing up," said Jenny, in the
hard tone it was so difficult to answer--it was so unlike herself--
and her thought was that weak pity and forbearance would hinder
exertions in Archie's cause. "Generous at other folks' expense,"
said she to herself. "Sparing the guilty and leaving the innocent
to exile!"
But a moaning murmur, and Cranstoun's movement at once summoned them
both to the bedside.
Alas! here was the attack that the doctor had evidently apprehended
as likely to be fatal. Hour after hour did sister, nurse, and
friend stand watching, and doing their best, their piteously little
best, while consciousness, if there was any, was far out of their
reach.
Late into the night it went on, and then followed the collapse, with
locked teeth, which could hardly be drawn asunder to put the
stimulus hopelessly between them, and thus came the tardy December
dawn, when the church-bell made Jenny bid Julius not stay, but only
first read the commendatory prayer.
"I thought there was a little more revival just now," he said; "his
hands are warmer, and he really did swallow."
The old nurse shook her head. "That's the way before they go," said
she. "Don't ye wish him, poor lamb, it makes it the harder for
him."
Julius prayed the prayer, and as he tenderly laid his hand on the
brow, he wondered whether he should find the half-closed eyes shut
for ever on his return.
But as he went, there was a quiver of lip and flicker of eyelid, the
lightening, as Cranky called it, was evidently gaining ground.
Herbert's faint whisper was heard again--"Jenny!"
"Dearest!"
"The Lord's Prayer!"
She began,--his fingers tightened on hers. "Pray it for old Moy,"
he said; and as she paused, scarce hearing or understanding, "He--he
wants it," gasped Herbert. "No! One can't pray it, without--"
another pause. "Help me, Jenny. Say it--O Lord, who savedst us--
forgive us. Help us to forgive from our hearts that man his
trespasses. Amen."
Jenny said it. Herbert's voice sank in the Amen. He lay breathing
in long gasps; but he thus breathed still when Julius came back, and
Jenny told him that a few words had passed, adding--
"Julius, I will say nothing bitter again. God help me not to think
it."
Did Herbert hear? Was that the reason of the calm which made the
white wasted face so beautiful, and the strange soft cool hush
throughout the room?