Johnny Ludlow, First Series
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The Rector was very ill and unable to leave his bed. His intellect was quite gone now. Mrs. Dean sat with him most of the day, leaving Alice to be taken care of by Herbert. They went about together just as always, and were on the best of confidential terms; and came over to the Coneys’, and to us when we were at Crabb Cot.
“Herbert,” said Mrs. Dean one evening when she had all her soft, sugary manner upon her and was making the young parson believe she had no one’s interest at heart in the world but his: “my darling boy, is it not almost time you began to think of marriage? None know the happiness and comfort brought by a good wife, dear, until they experience it.”
Herbert looked taken aback. He turned as red as a school-girl, and glanced half-a-moment at Alice, like a detected thief.
“I must wait until I have a living to think of that, Aunt Dean.”
“Is it necessary, Herbert? I should have thought you might bring a wife home to the Rectory here.”
Herbert turned the subject with a jesting word or two, and got out of his redness. Aunt Dean was eminently satisfied; his confusion and his hasty glance at Alice had told tales; and she knew it was only a question of time.
The Rector died. When the grass was long and the May-flowers were in bloom and the cuckoo was singing in the trees, he passed peacefully to his Rest. Just before death he recovered speech and consciousness; but the chief thing he said was that he left his love to Jack.
After the funeral the will was opened. It had not been touched since that long past year when Jack had gone away to sea. Out of the eight-hundred a year descended from their mother, Jack had a hundred and fifty; Herbert the rest. Aunt Dean made a hideous frown for once in her life; a hundred and fifty pounds a year for Jack, was only, as she looked upon it, so much robbery on Herbert and Alice. Out of the little money saved by the Rector, five hundred pounds were left to his sister, Rebecca Dean; the rest was to be divided equally between Herbert and Jack; and his furniture and effects went to Herbert. On the whole, Aunt Dean was tolerably satisfied.
She was a woman who liked strictly to keep up appearances, and she made a move to leave the young parson at the end of a week or two’s time, and go back to Liverpool. Herbert did not detain her. His own course was uncertain until a fresh Rector should be appointed. The living was in the gift of a neighbouring baronet, and it was fancied by some that he might give it to Herbert. One thing did surprise Mrs. Dean; angered her too: that Herbert had not made his offer to Alice before their departure. Now that he had his own fortune at command, there was no necessity to wait for a living.
News greeted them on their arrival. The Rose of Delhi was on her way home once more, with John Tanerton in command. Captain Druce had been left behind at Calcutta, dangerously ill. Alice’s colour came and went. She looked out for the homeward-bound vessels passing upwards, and felt quite sick with anxiety lest Jack should fail in any way, and never bring home the ship at all.
“The Rose of Delhi, Captain Tanerton.” Alice Dean cast her eyes on the shipping news in the morning paper, and read the announcement amidst the arrivals. Just for an instant her sight left her.
“Mamma,” she presently said, quietly passing over the newspaper, “the Rose of Delhi is in.”
“The Rose of Delhi, Captain Tanerton,” read Mrs. Dean. “The idea of their sticking in Jack’s name as captain! He will have to go down again as soon as Captain Druce returns. A fine captain I dare say he has made!”
“At least he has brought the ship home safely and quickly,” Alice ventured to say. “It must have passed after dark last night.”
“Why after dark?”
Alice did not reply—Because I was watching till daylight faded—which would have been the truth. “Had it passed before, some of us might have seen it, mamma.”
The day was waning before Jack came up. Captain Tanerton. Jack was never to go back again to his chief-mateship, as Aunt Dean had surmised, for the owners had given him permanent command of the Rose of Delhi. The last mail had brought news from Captain Druce that he should never be well enough for the command again, and the owners were only too glad to give it to the younger and more active man. Officers and crew alike reported that never a better master sailed than Jack had proved himself on this homeward voyage.
“Don’t you think I have been very lucky on the whole, Aunt Dean? Fancy a young fellow like me getting such a beautiful ship as that!”
“Oh, very lucky,” returned Aunt Dean.
Jack looked like a captain too. He was broad and manly, with an intelligent, honest, handsome face, and the quick keen eye of a sailor. Jack was particular in his attire too: and some sailors are not so: he dressed as a gentleman when on shore.
“Only a hundred and fifty left to me!” cried Jack, when he was told the news. “Well, perhaps Herbert may require more than I, poor fellow,” he added in his good nature; “he may not get a good living, and then he’ll be glad of it. I shall be sure to do well now I’ve got the ship.”
“You’ll be at sea always, Jack, and will have no use for money,” said Mrs. Dean.
“Oh, I don’t know about having no use for it, Aunt. Anyway, my father thought it right to leave it so, and I am content. I wish I could have said farewell to him before he died!”
A few more days, and Aunt Dean was thrown on her beam-ends at a worse angle than ever the Rose of Delhi hoped to be. Jack and Alice discussed matters between themselves, and the result was disclosed to her. They were going to be married.
It was Alice who told her. Jack had just left, and she and her mother were sitting together in the summer twilight. At first Mrs. Dean thought Alice was joking: she was like a mad woman when she found it true. Her great dream had never foreshadowed this.
“How dare you attempt to think of so monstrous a thing, you wicked girl? Marry your own brother-in-law!—it would be no better. It is Herbert that is to be your husband.”
Alice shook her head with a smile. “Herbert would not have me, mamma; nor would I have him. Herbert will marry Grace Coney.”
“Who?” cried Mrs. Dean.
“Grace Coney. They have been in love with each other ever so many years. I have known it all along. He will marry her as soon as his future is settled. I had promised to be one of the bridesmaids, but I suppose I shall not have the chance now.”
“Grace Coney—that beggarly girl!” shrieked Mrs. Dean. “But for her uncle’s giving her shelter she must have turned out in the world when her father died and earned her living how she could. She is not a lady. She is not Herbert’s equal.”
“Oh yes, she is, mamma. She is a very nice girl and will make him a perfect wife. Herbert would not exchange her for the richest lady in the land.”
“If Herbert chooses to make a spectacle of himself, you never shall!” cried poor Mrs. Dean, all her golden visions fast melting into air. “I would see that wicked Jack Tanerton at the bottom of the sea first.”
“Mother, dear, listen to me. Jack and I have cared for each other for years and years, and we should neither of us marry any one else. There is nothing to wait for; Jack is as well off as he will be for years to come: and—and we have settled it so, and I hope you will not oppose it.”
It was a cruel moment for Aunt Dean. Her love for other people had been all pretence, but she did love her daughter. Besides that, she was ambitious for her.
“I can never let you marry a sailor, Alice. Anything but that.”
“It was you who made Jack a sailor, mother, and there’s no help for it,” said Alice, in low tones. “I would rather he had been anything else in the world. I should have liked him to have had land and farmed it. We should have done well. Jack had his four hundred a year clear, you know. At least, he ought to have had it. Oh, mother, don’t you see that while you have been plotting against Jack you have plotted against me?”
Aunt Dean felt sick with memories that were crowding upon her. The mistake she had made was a frightful one.
“You cannot join your fate to Jack’s, Alice,” she repeated, wringing her hands. “A sailor’s wife is too liable to be made a widow.”
“I know it, mother. I shall share his danger, for I am going out in the Rose of Delhi. The owners have consented, and Jack is fitting up a lovely little cabin for me that is to be my own saloon.”
“My daughter sail over the seas in a merchant ship!” gasped Aunt Dean. “Never!”
“I should be no true wife if I could let my husband sail without me. Mother, it is you alone who have carved out our destiny. Better have left it to God.”
In a startled way, her heart full of remorse, she was beginning to see it; and she sat down, half fainting, on a chair.
“It is a miserable prospect, Alice.”
“Mother, we shall get on. There’s the hundred and fifty a year certain, you know. That we shall put by; and, as long as I sail with him, a good deal more besides. Jack’s pay is settled at twenty pounds a month, and he will make more by commission: perhaps as much again. Have no fear for us on that score. Jack has been unjustly deprived of his birthright; and I think sometimes that perhaps as a recompense Heaven will prosper him.”
“But the danger, Alice! The danger of a sea-life!”
“Do you know what Jack says about the danger, mother? He says God is over us on the sea as well as on land and will take care of those who put their trust in Him. In the wildest storm I will try to let that great truth help me to feel peace.”
Alas for Aunt Dean! Arguments slipped away from her hands just as her plans had slipped from them. In her bitter repentance, she lay on the floor of her room that night and asked God to have pity upon her, for her trouble seemed greater than she could bear.
The morning’s post brought news from Herbert. He was made Rector of Timberdale. Aunt Dean wrote back, telling him what had taken place, and asking, nay, almost commanding, that he should restore an equal share of the property to Jack. Herbert replied that he should abide by his stepfather’s will. The living of Timberdale was not a rich one, and he wished Grace, his future wife, to be comfortable. “Herbert was always intensely selfish,” groaned Aunt Dean. Look on which side she would, there was no comfort.
The Rose of Delhi, Captain Tanerton, sailed out of port again, carrying also with her Mrs. Tanerton, the captain’s wife. And Aunt Dean was left to bemoan her fate, and wish she had never tried to shape out other people’s destinies. Better, as Alice said, that she had left that to God.
VIII.
GOING THROUGH THE TUNNEL
We had to make a rush for it. And making a rush did not suit the Squire, any more than it does other people who have come to an age when the body’s heavy and the breath nowhere. He reached the train, pushed head-foremost into a carriage, and then remembered the tickets. “Bless my heart?” he exclaimed, as he jumped out again, and nearly upset a lady who had a little dog in her arms, and a mass of fashionable hair on her head, that the Squire, in his hurry, mistook for tow.
“Plenty of time, sir,” said a guard who was passing. “Three minutes to spare.”
Instead of saying he was obliged to the man for his civility, or relieved to find the tickets might still be had, the Squire snatched out his old watch, and began abusing the railway clocks for being slow. Had Tod been there he would have told him to his face that the watch was fast, braving all retort, for the Squire believed in his watch as he did in himself, and would rather have been told that he could go wrong than that the watch could. But there was only me: and I wouldn’t have said it for anything.
“Keep two back-seats there, Johnny,” said the Squire.
I put my coat on the corner furthest from the door, and the rug on the one next to it, and followed him into the station. When the Squire was late in starting, he was apt to get into the greatest flurry conceivable; and the first thing I saw was himself blocking up the ticket-place, and undoing his pocket-book with nervous fingers. He had some loose gold about him, silver too, but the pocket-book came to his hand first, so he pulled it out. These flurried moments of the Squire’s amused Tod beyond everything; he was so cool himself.
“Can you change this?” said the Squire, drawing out one from a roll of five-pound notes.
“No, I can’t,” was the answer, in the surly tones put on by ticket-clerks.
How the Squire crumpled up the note again, and searched in his breeches pocket for gold, and came away with the two tickets and the change, I’m sure he never knew. A crowd had gathered round, wanting to take their tickets in turn, and knowing that he was keeping them flurried him all the more. He stood at the back a moment, put the roll of notes into his case, fastened it and returned it to the breast of his over-coat, sent the change down into another pocket without counting it, and went out with the tickets in hand. Not to the carriage; but to stare at the big clock in front.
“Don’t you see, Johnny? exactly four minutes and a half difference,” he cried, holding out his watch to me. “It is a strange thing they can’t keep these railway clocks in order.”
“My watch keeps good time, sir, and mine is with the railway. I think it is right.”
“Hold your tongue, Johnny. How dare you! Right? You send your watch to be regulated the first opportunity, sir; don’t you get into the habit of being too late or too early.”
When we finally went to the carriage there were some people in it, but our seats were left for us. Squire Todhetley sat down by the further door, and settled himself and his coats and his things comfortably, which he had been too flurried to do before. Cool as a cucumber was he, now the bustle was over; cool as Tod could have been. At the other door, with his face to the engine, sat a dark, gentleman-like man of forty, who had made room for us to pass as we got in. He had a large signet-ring on one hand, and a lavender glove on the other. The other three seats opposite to us were vacant. Next to me sat a little man with a fresh colour and gold spectacles, who was already reading; and beyond him, in the corner, face to face with the dark man, was a lunatic. That’s to mention him politely. Of all the restless, fidgety, worrying, hot-tempered passengers that ever put themselves into a carriage to travel with people in their senses, he was the worst. In fifteen moments he had made as many darts; now after his hat-box and things above his head; now calling the guard and the porters to ask senseless questions about his luggage; now treading on our toes, and trying the corner seat opposite the Squire, and then darting back to his own. He wore a wig of a decided green tinge, the effect of keeping, perhaps, and his skin was dry and shrivelled as an Egyptian mummy’s.
A servant, in undress livery, came to the door, and touched his hat, which had a cockade on it, as he spoke to the dark man.
“Your ticket, my lord.”
Lords are not travelled with every day, and some of us looked up. The gentleman took the ticket from the man’s hand and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket.
“You can get me a newspaper, Wilkins. The Times, if it is to be had.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Yes, there’s room here, ma’am,” interrupted the guard, sending the door back for a lady who stood at it. “Make haste, please.”
The lady who stepped in was the same the Squire had bolted against. She sat down in the seat opposite me, and looked at every one of us by turns. There was a sort of violet bloom on her face and some soft white powder, seen plain enough through her veil. She took the longest gaze at the dark gentleman, bending a little forward to do it; for, as he was in a line with her, and also had his head turned from her, her curiosity could only catch a view of his side-face. Mrs. Todhetley might have said she had not put on her company manners. In the midst of this, the man-servant came back again.
“The Times is not here yet, my lord. They are expecting the papers in by the next down-train.”
“Never mind, then. You can get me one at the next station, Wilkins.”
“Very well, my lord.”
Wilkins must certainly have had to scramble for his carriage, for we started before he had well left the door. It was not an express-train, and we should have to stop at several stations. Where the Squire and I had been staying does not matter; it has nothing to do with what I have to tell. It was a long way from our own home, and that’s saying enough.
“Would you mind changing seats with me, sir?”
I looked up, to find the lady’s face close to mine; she had spoken in a half-whisper. The Squire, who carried his old-fashioned notions of politeness with him when he went travelling, at once got up to offer her the corner. But she declined it, saying she was subject to face-ache, and did not care to be next the window. So she took my seat, and I sat down on the one opposite Mr. Todhetley.
“Which of the peers is that?” I heard her ask him in a loud whisper, as the lord put his head out at his window.
“Don’t know at all, ma’am,” said the Squire. “Don’t know many of the peers myself, except those of my own county: Lyttleton, and Beauchamp, and–”
Of all snarling barks, the worst was given that moment in the Squire’s face, suddenly ending the list. The little dog, an ugly, hairy, vile-tempered Scotch terrier, had been kept concealed under the lady’s jacket, and now struggled itself free. The Squire’s look of consternation was good! He had not known any animal was there.
“Be quiet, Wasp. How dare you bark at the gentleman? He will not bite, sir: he–”
“Who has a dog in the carriage?” shrieked the lunatic, starting up in a passion. “Dogs don’t travel with passengers. Here! Guard! Guard!”
To call out for the guard when a train is going at full speed is generally useless. The lunatic had to sit down again; and the lady defied him, so to say, coolly avowing that she had hidden the dog from the guard on purpose, staring him in the face while she said it.
After this there was a lull, and we went speeding along, the lady talking now and again to the Squire. She seemed to want to grow confidential with him; but the Squire did not seem to care for it, though he was quite civil. She held the dog huddled up in her lap, so that nothing but his head peeped out.
“Halloa! How dare they be so negligent? There’s no lamp in this carriage.”
It was the lunatic again, and we all looked at the lamp. It had no light in it; but that it had when we first reached the carriage was certain; for, as the Squire went stumbling in, his head nearly touched the lamp, and I had noticed the flame. It seems the Squire had also.
“They must have put it out while we were getting our tickets,” he said.
“I’ll know the reason why when we stop,” cried the lunatic, fiercely. “After passing the next station, we dash into the long tunnel. The idea of going through it in pitch darkness! It would not be safe.”
“Especially with a dog in the carriage,” spoke the lord, in a chaffing kind of tone, but with a good-natured smile. “We will have the lamp lighted, however.”
As if to reward him for interfering, the dog barked up loudly, and tried to make a spring at him; upon which the lady smothered the animal up, head and all.
Another minute or two, and the train began to slacken speed. It was only an insignificant station, one not likely to be halted at for above a minute. The lunatic twisted his body out of the window, and shouted for the guard long before we were at a standstill.
“Allow me to manage this,” said the lord, quietly putting him down. “They know me on the line. Wilkins!”
The man came rushing up at the call. He must have been out already, though we were not quite at a standstill yet.
“Is it for the Times, my lord? I am going for it.”
“Never mind the Times. This lamp is not lighted, Wilkins. See the guard, and get it done. At once.”
“And ask him what the mischief he means by his carelessness,” roared out the lunatic after Wilkins, who went flying off. “Sending us on our road without a light!—and that dangerous tunnel close at hand.”
The authority laid upon the words “Get it done,” seemed an earnest that the speaker was accustomed to be obeyed, and would be this time. For once the lunatic sat quiet, watching the lamp, and for the light that was to be dropped into it from the top; and so did I, and so did the lady. We were all deceived, however, and the train went puffing on. The lunatic shrieked, the lord put his head out of the carriage and shouted for Wilkins.
No good. Shouting after a train is off never is much good. The lord sat down on his seat again, an angry frown crossing his face, and the lunatic got up and danced with rage.
“I do not know where the blame lies,” observed the lord. “Not with my servant, I think: he is attentive, and has been with me some years.”
“I’ll know where it lies,” retorted the lunatic. “I am a director on the line, though I don’t often travel on it. This is management, this is! A few minutes more and we shall be in the dark tunnel.”
“Of course it would have been satisfactory to have a light; but it is not of so much consequence,” said the nobleman, wishing to soothe him. “There’s no danger in the dark.”
“No danger! No danger, sir! I think there is danger. Who’s to know that dog won’t spring out and bite us? Who’s to know there won’t be an accident in the tunnel? A light is a protection against having our pockets picked, if it’s a protection against nothing else.”
“I fancy our pockets are pretty safe to-day,” said the lord, glancing round at us with a good-natured smile; as much as to say that none of us looked like thieves. “And I certainly trust we shall get through the tunnel safely.”
“And I’ll take care the dog does not bite you in the dark,” spoke up the lady, pushing her head forward to give the lunatic a nod or two that you’d hardly have matched for defying impudence. “You’ll be good, won’t you, Wasp? But I should like the lamp lighted myself. You will perhaps be so kind, my lord, as to see that there’s no mistake made about it at the next station!”
He slightly raised his hat to her and bowed in answer, but did not speak. The lunatic buttoned up his coat with fingers that were either nervous or angry, and then disturbed the little gentleman next him, who had read his big book throughout the whole commotion without once lifting his eyes, by hunting everywhere for his pocket-handkerchief.
“Here’s the tunnel!” he cried out resentfully, as we dashed with a shriek into pitch darkness.
It was all very well for her to say she would take care of the dog, but the first thing the young beast did was to make a spring at me and then at the Squire, barking and yelping frightfully. The Squire pushed it away in a commotion. Though well accustomed to dogs he always fought shy of strange ones. The lady chattered and laughed, and did not seem to try to get hold of him, but we couldn’t see, you know; the Squire hissed at him, the dog snarled and growled; altogether there was noise enough to deafen anything but a tunnel.
“Pitch him out at the window,” cried the lunatic.
“Pitch yourself out,” answered the lady. And whether she propelled the dog, or whether he went of his own accord, the beast sprang to the other end of the carriage, and was seized upon by the nobleman.
“I think, madam, you had better put him under your mantle and keep him there,” said he, bringing the dog back to her and speaking quite civilly, but in the same tone of authority he had used to his servant about the lamp. “I have not the slightest objection to dogs myself, but many people have, and it is not altogether pleasant to have them loose in a railway carriage. I beg your pardon; I cannot see; is this your hand?”
It was her hand, I suppose, for the dog was left with her, and he went back to his seat again. When we emerged out of the tunnel into daylight, the lunatic’s face was blue.
“Ma’am, if that miserable brute had laid hold of me by so much as the corner of my great-coat tail, I’d have had the law of you. It is perfectly monstrous that any one, putting themselves into a first-class carriage, should attempt to outrage railway laws, and upset the comfort of travellers with impunity. I shall complain to the guard.”