The Three Brides
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“Poor lads, I doubt if their life had been such a preparation as yours.”
“Don’t talk of my life. A stewardship I never set myself to contemplate, and so utterly failed in. I’ve got nothing to carry to my God but broken vows and a wasted year.”
“Nothing can be brought but repentance.”
“Yes, but look at others who have tried, felt their duties, and cared for souls; while I thought only of my vows as a restraint, and tried how much pleasure I could get in spite of them. A pretty story of all the ministry I shall ever have.”
“These last weeks!”
“Common humanity—nonsense! I should always have done as much; besides, I was crippled everywhere, not merely by want of power as a priest, but by having made myself such a shallow, thoughtless ass. But that was not what I wanted to say. It was about Gadley and his confession.”
“O, Herbert! I am afraid I was very unkind that night. I did not think of anything but our own trouble, nor see how much it had cost you.”
“Of course not—nonsense. You had enough to think of yourself, and I was only ashamed of having bored you.”
“And when I think of the state of that room, I am afraid it was then you took in the poison.”
“Don’t say afraid. If it was for Jenny, I shall have done some good in the world. But the thing is—is it good? Will it clear Douglas? I suppose what he said to you was under seal of confession?”
“Scarcely so, technically; but when a man unburthens himself on his death-bed, and then, so far from consenting, shows terror and dismay at the notion of his words being taken down as evidence, it seems to me hardly right or honourable to make use of them—though it would right a great wrong. But what did you get from him?”
“I gave Lady Rose the paper. He raved most horribly for an hour or two, as if all the foul talk of his pot-house had got into his brain,” said Herbert, with a shudder. “Rector, Rector, pray for me, that I mayn’t come out with that at any rate. It has haunted me ever since. Well, at last he slept, and woke up sinking but conscious, knew me, and began to ask if this was death, and was frightened, clutching at me, and asking to be held, and what he could do. I told him at least he could undo a wrong, if he would only authorize us to use what he said to clear Douglas; and then, as Sister Margaret had come across, I wrote as well as I could: “George Gadley authorizes what he said to the Rev. Julius Charnock to be used as evidence;” and I suppose he saw us sign it, if he could see at all, for his sight was nearly gone.”
Julius drew a long breath.
“And now, what was it?” said Herbert.
“Well, the trio—Moy, young Proudfoot, and Tom Vivian—detained a letter of my mother’s, with a cheque in it, and threw the blame of it on Archie Douglas. They thought no one was in the office but themselves; but Gadley was a clerk there, and was in the outer room, where he heard all. He came to Moy afterwards, and has been preying on him for hush-money ever since.”
“And this will set things straight?”
“Yes. How to set about the public justification I do not yet see; but with your father, and all the rest, Archie’s innocence will be as plain as it always has been to us.”
“Where is he?”
“On an ostrich farm at Natal.”
“Whew!—we must have him home. Jenny can’t be spared. Poor Jenny, when she hears that, it will make all other things light to her.”
“What is their address?”
“No, don’t write. Mamma has had a fresh cold, and neither my father nor Jenny could leave her. Let them have a little peace till it gets worse. There will be plenty of time, if it is to be a twenty-eight days business like the others. Poor mamma!” and he rolled his head away; then, after some minutes of tossing and shivering, he asked for a prayer out of the little book in his pocket. “I should know it, but my memory is muddled, I think.”
The book—a manual for sick-rooms—was one which Julius had given him new five weeks back. It showed wear already, having been used as often in that time as in six ordinary years of parish work. By the time the hard-pressed doctor came, it was plain that the fever was setting in severely, aggravated no doubt by the dreadful night at the ‘Three Pigeons,’ and the unrelaxed exertions ever since; for he was made to allow that he had come home in the chill morning air, cold, sickened, and exhausted; had not chosen to disturb anybody, and had found no refreshment but a raw apple—the last drop of wine having been bestowed on the sick; had lain down for a short sleep worse than waking, and had neither eaten nor slept since, but worked on by sheer strength of will and muscle. When Julius thought of the cherishing care that he had received himself, he shuddered, with a sort of self-reproach for his neglect; and the doctor, though good-humouredly telling Herbert not to think he knew anything about his own symptoms, did not conceal from Julius that enough harm had been done in these few days to give the fine Bowater constitution a hard struggle.
“Grown careless,” he said. “Regular throwing away of his life.”
Careless Herbert might have been, but Julius wondered whether this might not be losing of the life to find it.
Cranstoun or Cranky arrived, a charming old nurse, much gratified in the midst of her grief, and inclination to scold. She summarily sent off Mungo and Tartar by the conveyance that brought her, and would have sent Rollo away, but that Herbert protested against it, and no power short of an order from him would have taken the dog from his bedside.
And Mr. Bindon returned from Wil’sbro’ in unspeakable surprise. “The heroes of the occasion,” he said, “were Bowater and Mrs. Duncombe! Every sick person I visited, and there were fourteen in all stages, had something to say of one or other. Poor things, how their faces fell when they saw me instead of his bright, honest face! ‘Cheering the very heart of one!’ as a poor woman said; ‘That’s what I calls a true shepherd,’ said an old man. You don’t really mean he was rejected at the Ordination?’”
“Yes, and it will make him the still truer shepherd, if he is only spared!”
“The Sisters can’t say enough of him. They thought him very ill yesterday, and implored him to take care of himself; but he declared he could not leave these two funerals to you. But, after all, he is less amazing to me than Mrs. Duncombe. She has actually been living at the hospital with the Sisters. I should not have known her.”
“Great revolutions have happened in your absence. Much that has drawn out her sterling worth, poor woman.”
“I shall never speak harshly again, I hope. It seems to be a judgment on me that I should have been idling on the mountains, while those two were thus devoting themselves to my Master in His poor.”
“We are thankful enough to have you coming in fresh, instead of breaking down now. Have you a sermon? You will have to take Wil’sbro’ to-morrow. Driver won’t come. He wrote to the churchwardens that he had a cold, and that his agreement was with poor Fuller.”
“And you undertook the Sunday?”
“Yes. They would naturally have no Celebration, and I thought Herbert’s preaching in the midst of his work would be good for them. You never heard such an apology and confession as the boy made to our people the first Sunday here, begging them to bear with him.”
“Then I can’t spare you anything here?”
“Yes, much care and anxiety. The visitation has done its worst in our house. We have got into the lull after the storm, and you need not be anxious about me. There is peace in what I have to do now. It is gathering the salvage after the wreck.”
Then Julius went into his own house, where he found Terry alone, and, as usual, ravenously hungry.
“Is Bowater really ill?” he asked.
“I am afraid there is no believing otherwise, Terry,” said Julius. “You will have to spare Rose to him sometimes, till some one comes to nurse him.”
“I would spare anything to him,” said Terry, fervently. “Julius, it is finer than going into battle!”
“I thought you did not care much for battles, Terry.”
“If it was battles, I should not mind,” said the boy; “it is peaceful soldiering that I have seen too much of. But don’t you bother my father, Julius, I won’t grumble any more; I made up my mind to that.”
“I know you did, my boy; but you did so much futile arithmetic, and so often told us that a+b-c equalled Peter the Great, that Dr. Worth said you must not be put to mathematics for months to come, and I have told your father that if he cannot send you to Oxford, we will manage it.”
A flush of joy lighted up the boy’s face. “Julius, you are a brick of a brother!” he said. “I’ll do my best to get a scholarship.”
“And the best towards that you can do now is to get well as soon as possible.”
“Yes. And you lie down on the sofa there, Julius, and sleep—Rose would say you must. Only I want to say one thing more, please. If I do get to Oxford, and you are so good, I’ve made up my mind to one thing. It’s not only for the learning that I’ll go; but I’ll try to be a soldier in your army and Bowater’s. That’s all that seems to me worth the doing now.”
So Julius dropped asleep, with a thankworthy augury in his ears. It is not triumph, but danger and death that lead generous spirits each to step where his comrade stood!
CHAPTER XXXII
The Salvage
Frank was certainly better. Ever since that sight of Eleonora he had been mending. If he muttered her name, or looked distressed, it was enough to guide his hand to her token, he smiled and slept again; and on the Sunday morning his throat and mouth were so much better, that he could both speak and swallow without nearly so much pain; but one of his earliest sayings was, “Louder, please, I can’t hear. When does she come?”
Mrs. Poynsett raised her voice, Anne tried; but he frowned and sighed, and only when Miles uttered a sea-captain’s call close to his ear, did he smile comprehension, adding, “Were you shouting?” a fact only too evident to those around.
“Then I’m deaf,” he said. And Anne wrote and set before him, “We hope it will pass as you get better.” He looked grateful, but there was little more communication, for his eyes and head were still weak, and signs and looks were the chief currency; however, Julius met Eleonora after morning service, to beg her to renew her visit, after having first prepared her for what she would find. Eleonora was much distressed; then paused a minute, and said, “It does him good to see me?”
“It seems to be the one thing that keeps him up,” said Julius, surprised at the question.
“O, yes! I can’t—I could not stay away,” she said. “It is all so wrong together; yet this last time cannot hurt!”
“Last time?”
“Yes; did you not know that papa has set his heart on going to London to-morrow? Yes, early to-morrow. And it will be for ever. We shall never see Sirenwood again.”
She stood still, almost bent with the agony of suppressed grief.
“I am very sorry; but I do not wonder he wishes for change.”
“He has been in an agony to go these three days. It was all I could do to get him to stay to-day. You don’t think it will do Frank harm? Then I would stay, if I took lodgings in the village; but otherwise—poor papa—I think it is my duty—and he can’t do without me.”
“I think Frank is quite capable of understanding that you are forced to go, and that he need not be the worse for it.”
“And then,” she lowered her voice, “it does a little reconcile me that I don’t think we ought to go further into it till we can understand. I did make that dreadful vow. I know I ought not now; but still I did, in so many words.”
“You mean against a gambler?”
“If it had only been against a gambler; but I was stung, and wanted to guard myself, and made it against any one who had ever betted! If I go on, I must break it, you see, and if I do might it not bring mischief on him? I don’t even feel as if it were true to have come to him on Friday, and now—yet they said it was the only chance for his life.”
“Yes, I think it saved him then, and to disappoint him now might quite possibly bring a relapse,” said Julius. “It seems to me that you can only act as seems right at the moment. When he is his own man again, you will better have the power of judging about this vow, and if it ought to bind you. And so, it may really be well you do not see more of him, and that his weakness does not lead you further than you mean.”
A tottering step, and an almost agonized, though very short sob under the crape veil, proved to Julius that his counsel, though chiming in with her stronger, sterner judgment, was terrible to her, nor would he have given it, if he had not had reason to fear that while she had grown up, Frank had grown down; and that, after this illness, it would have to be proved whether he were indeed worthy of the high-minded girl whom he had himself almost thrown over in a passion.
But there was no room for such misgivings when the electric shock of actual presence was felt—the thin hollow-cheeked face shone with welcome, the liquid brown eyes smiled with thankful sweetness, the fingers, fleshless, but cool and gentle, were held out; and the faint voice said, “My darling! Once try to make me hear.”
And when, with all her efforts, she could only make him give a sort of smile of disappointment, she would have been stonyhearted indeed if she had not let him fondle her hand as he would, while she listened to his mother’s report of his improvement. With those eyes fixed in such content on her face, it seemed absolutely barbarous to falter forth that she could come no more, for her father was taking her away.
“My dear, you must be left with us,” cried Mrs. Poynsett. “He cannot spare you.”
“Ah! but my poor father. He is lost without me. And I came of age on Tuesday, and there are papers to sign.”
“What is it?” murmured Frank, watching their faces.
Mrs. Poynsett gave her the pen, saying, “You must tell him, if it is to be.”
She wrote: “My father takes me to London to-morrow, to meet the lawyers.”
His face fell; but he asked, “Coming back—when?”
She shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears, as she wrote: “Sirenwood is to be put up to auction.”
“Your sister?” began Frank, and then his eye fell on her crape trimmings. He touched her sleeve, and made a low wail. “Oh! is every one dead?”
It was the first perception he had shown of any death, though mourning had been worn in his room. His mother leant down to kiss him, bidding Lena tell him the truth; and she wrote:
“I am left alone with poor papa. Let me go—now you can do without me.”
“Can I?” he asked, again grasping her hand.
She pointed to his mother and Anne; but he repeated, “You—you!”
“When you are better we will see how it is to be,” she wrote.
He looked sadly wistful. “No, I can’t now. Something was very wrong; but it won’t come back. By and by. If you wouldn’t go—”
But his voice was now more weak and weary, tired by the effort, and a little kneeling by him, allowing his tender touch, soothed him, enough to say submissively, “Good-bye, then—I’ll come for you”—wherewith he faltered into slumber.
Rosamond had just seen her off in the pony carriage, and was on the way up-stairs, when she stumbled on a little council, consisting of Dr. Worth, Mr. Charnock, and Grindstone, all in the gallery. “A widow in her twenty-second year. Good heavens!” was the echo she heard; and Grindstone was crying and saying, “She did it for the best, and she could not do it, poor lamb, not if you killed her for it;” and Dr. Worth said, “Perhaps Lady Rosamond can. You see, Lady Rosamond, Mrs. Grindstone, whose care I must say has been devoted, has hitherto staved off the sad question from poor young Mrs. Poynsett, until now it is no longer possible, and she is becoming so excited, that—”
Cecil’s bell rang sharply.
“I cannot—I cannot! In her twenty-second year!” cried her father, wringing his hands.
Grindstone’s face was all tears and contortions; and Rosamond, recollecting her last words with poor Cecil, sprang forward, both men opening a way for her.
Cecil was sitting up in bed, very thin, but with eager eyes and flushed cheeks, as she held out her hands. “Rosamond! Oh! But aren’t you afraid?”
“No, indeed, I’m always in it now,” said Rosamond, kissing her, and laying her down; “it has been everywhere.”
“Ah! then they sent him away—Raymond?” then clutching Rosamond’s hand, and looking at her with searching eyes, “Tell me, has his mother any right! Would you bear it if she kept you apart?”
“Ah! Cecil, it was not her doing.”
“You don’t mean it was his own? Papa is not afraid. You are not afraid. If it had been he, I wouldn’t have feared anything. I would have nursed him day and night till—till I made him care for me.”
“Hush, dear Cecil,” said Rosamond, with great difficulty. “I know you would, and so would he have done for you, only the cruel fever kept you apart.”
“The fever! He had it?”
“Yes, he had it.”
“But he is better. I am better. Let me be taken to him. His mother is not there now. I heard them say she was in Frank’s room. Call papa. He will carry me.”
“Oh! poor, poor Cecil. His mother only went to Frank when he did not need her any more.” And Rosamond hid her face on the bed, afraid to look.
Cecil lay back so white, that Grindstone approached with some drops, but this made her spring up, crying, “No, no, don’t come near me! You never told me! You deceived me!”
“Don’t, don’t, ma’am—my dear Miss Charnock—now. It was all for the best. You would not have been here now.”
“And then I should be with him. Rosamond, send her away, I can’t bear her. She sent him away from me that night. I heard her.”
“My dear Cecil, this will not do. You are making your father dreadfully unhappy. Dear Raymond stayed with you till he really could not sit up any longer, and then he kissed you.”
“Kissed me! Oh, where? Did you see? No, don’t ask Grindstone. She made me think he had left me, and fancy—oh, Rosamond! such—such things! And all the time—”
The moaning became an anguish of distress, unable to weep, like terrible pain, as the poor young thing writhed in Rosamond’s arms. It was well that this one sister understood what had been in Cecil’s heart, and did believe in her love for Raymond. Rosamond, too, had caressing power beyond any other of the family, and thus she could better deal with the sufferer, striving, above all, to bring tears by what she whispered to her as she held her to her bosom. They were a terrible storm at last, but Cecil clung to Rosamond through all, absolutely screaming when Grindstone came near; poor Grindstone who had been so devoted, though mistaken. Weakness, however, after the first violent agitation was soothed, favoured a kind of stunned torpor, and Cecil lay still, except when her maid tried to do anything for her, and then the passion returned. When old Susan Alston came with a message, she was at once recognized and monopolized, and became the only servant whom she would suffer about her.
The inconvenience was great, but relapse was such an imminent danger, that it was needful to give up everything to her; and Mr. Charnock, regarding his daughter’s sufferings as the only ones worth consideration, seemed to pursue Rosamond the instant she had sat down by the still feeble, weary, convalescent Terry, imploring her to return to Cecil with the irresistible force of tearful eyes and piteous descriptions; and as Terry had a week’s start in recovery, and was not a widow under twenty-two, he had to submit, and lie as contentedly as he could in his solitude.
Susan could be better spared to Cecil’s morbid fancy of being waited on by her who had attended her husband, for Miles and Anne were sufficient for Mrs. Poynsett and Frank. The long-sundered husband and wife scarcely saw each other, except over Frank’s bed, and Mr. Charnock was on the Captain’s hands whenever he came beyond it. On the Wednesday, however, Julius, who had only once spoken to his brother alone, came up to the breakfast-table where he and Mr. Charnock were sitting, and hurt the feelings of the latter by first asking for Frank. “He had slept all night, and only half woke when Miles and Anne changed watch and gave him beef-tea. Cecil, very moaning and restless—more fever about her, poor dear. When would Lady Rosamond come up?—she was asking for her.” When she had seen to a few things at home, given her brother his breakfast, and seen to poor Herbert; he had had a dreadful night, and that Cranstoun would shut the window unless some one defended him. Mr. Charnock began to resume his daughter’s symptoms, when Julius, at the first pause, said:
“Have you finished, Miles? Could you speak to me in the library a minute? I beg your pardon, Mr. Charnock, but my time is short.”
“I hope—I quite understand. Do not let me be in your way.” And the brothers repaired to the library, where Julius’s first words were, “Miles, you must make up your mind. They are getting up a requisition to you to stand for Wil’sbro’.”
“To me?”
“You are the most obvious person, and the feeling for dear Raymond is so strong as to prevent any contest. Whitlock told Bindon yesterday that you should have no trouble.”
“I can’t. It is absurd. I know nothing about it. My poor mother bred up Raymond for nothing else. Don’t you remember how she made him read history, volumes upon volumes, while I was learning nothing but the ropes? I declare, Julius, there he goes.”
“Who?”
“Why, that old ass, down to hunt up poor Rosamond; I don’t believe he thinks there’s any one in the world but his daughter. I declare I’ll hail him and stop him.”
“No, no, Miles, Rosamond can take care of herself. She won’t come till she has seen to her patients down there; and, after all, Cecil’s is the saddest case, poor thing. To return. If you don’t take to politics in the end, I think you should let them put you in now, if only as a stop-gap, or we shall get some one whom it may not be easy to get rid of.”
“There’s something in that, but I can’t accept without knowing my position, and I would not utter a word to disturb my mother till it occurs to her of herself.”
“Now that Frank is better?”
“No. It will all come on her soon enough.”
“Would you stand if she made it right for you?”
“I can’t tell. There would be no punishment so great to my poor Anne as to be dragged into society, and I don’t know how she would bear it, even if she had no scruples. We never thought of anything but settling in Glen Fraser, only I wanted her to know you all. If that poor Cecil only had a child we could be free to go back. Poor Anne!”
“Do you think she is still as homesick as at first?”
“Well, not quite, perhaps; but I never can get to talk to her, and I know it is a terrible sacrifice to her to live here at all, and I won’t have her forced into a style of thing against her conscience. If they come to me, I shall tell them to take Mr. Bowater.”
“Poor Mr. Bowater! He will have little heart.”
“Who else is there? That fellow Moy would like it, I suppose.”
“That fellow Moy may have to change his note,” said Julius. “I think we have the means of clearing Archie, when we can see how to use them.”
Miles gave a sort of leap as he stood by the fire. “Tell me. Archie! I had no heart to write to him, poor fellow.”
“Write to him by all means, but say nothing here.” And Julius briefly repeated what Gadley had said.
“I don’t see that the scoundrel Moy deserves any consideration.”
“I don’t know whether he does; but he has a good wife, ailing and sickly, and a daughter. He has lived in good report these many years, and I think it is due to him and to old Proudfoot not to spread the report before giving him warning. In fact, I am not sure whether we could proceed against him as things stand.”
“It is just what Raymond would have known,” said Miles, with a sigh; “but you are right, Julius, one ought to give him fair play. Ah! what’s that, Jenkins?—Note from Lord Belfort? Wait for an answer. Can’t they give one any peace?”
While Miles was reluctantly answering his note, Julius, resolving to act before he was forbidden, mounted to Frank’s room, requested to speak with his mother, and propelled her into the outer room, leaving Anne on guard.