Johnny Ludlow, Second Series

XII.

MARGARET RYMER

They had gone through the snow to evening service at North Crabb, the Squire, Mrs. Todhetley, and Tod, leaving me at home with one of my splitting headaches. Thomas had come in to ask if I would have the lamp, but I told him I would rather be without it. So there I sat on alone, beside the fire, listening to Hannah putting the children to bed upstairs, and looking sleepily out at the snowy landscape.

As the fire became dim, sending the room into gloom, the light outside grew stronger. The moon was high; clear and bright as crystal; what with that, and the perfectly white snow that lay on everything, the night seemed nearly as light as day. The grass plat outside was a smooth white plain, the clustering shrubs beyond it being also white.

I knew the fire wanted replenishing: I knew that if I sat on much longer, I should fall asleep; but sit on I did, letting the fire go, too listless to move. My eyes were fixed dreamily on the plain of snow, with the still moonlight lying across it. The room grew darker, the landscape lighter.

And asleep, in another minute, I should inevitably have been, but for a circumstance that suddenly arose. All in a moment—I saw not how or whence it came—a dark figure appeared on the grass plat, close before the bank of shrubs, right in front of me; the figure of a man, wrapped in a big great-coat. He was standing still and gazing fixedly at the house. Gazing, as it seemed (though that was impossible) at me. I was wide awake at once, and sitting bolt upright in the chair.

Yes, there could be no mistake; and it was no delusion. The man appeared to be a tall man, strong and muscular, with a mass of hair on his face. What could he want? Was it a robber reconnoitring the premises; peering and peeping to ascertain whether all the world was at church, before he broke in to rifle the house?

No one, void of such an experience, can imagine how dark he looked standing there, amidst the whiteness of all the scene around. In one sense, he stood out plainer than he could have done by daylight, because the contrast was greater. But this sort of light did not show his features, which were shrouded in obscurity.

Presently he moved. Looking to right and left, he took a step forward. Evidently he was trying to see whether the parlour where I sat was empty or occupied. Should I go out to him? Or should I fling up the window and ask what he wanted? I was not frightened: don’t let any one think that: but watching him brought rather a creepy kind of sensation.

And, just then, as I left the chair quietly to open the window, I heard the catch of the garden-gate, and some one came whistling up the path. The man vanished as if by magic. Whilst I looked, he was gone. It seemed to me that I did not take my eyes off him; but where he went to, or what became of him, I knew not.

“Anybody at home?” called out Tom Coney, as he broke off his whistling and opened the hall-door.

“All right, Tom. Come along.”

And, to tell the truth, I was not sorry to see Tom’s hearty face. He had stayed away from evening service to sit with his mother.

“I say, Tom, did you see any fellow on the snow there, as you came in?”

“On the snow where?” asked Tom.

“There; just before the shrubs.” And I pointed the spot out to him, and told him what had happened. Tom, one of the most practical fellows living, more so, I think, than even Tod, and with less imagination than an ostrich, received the account with incredulity.

“You dropped asleep, Johnny, and fancied it.”

“I did not drop asleep, and I did not fancy it. When you came into the garden I was about to open the window and call to him.”

“Those headaches are downright stupefying things, Johnny. Jane has them, you know. One day I remember she fell asleep with a bad one, and woke up and said the sofa was on fire.”

“Tom, I tell you the man was there. A tall, strong-looking fellow, with a beard. He was staring at the house with all his might, at this room, as it seemed to me, wanting to come forward, I think, but afraid to. He kept close to the laurels, as if he did not wish to be seen, forgetting perhaps that they were white and betrayed him. When you opened the gate, he was there.”

“It’s odd, then, where he could have put himself,” said Tom Coney, not giving in an inch. “I’ll vow not a soul was there, man or woman, when I came up the path.”

“That’s true. He vanished in a moment. Whilst I was looking at him he disappeared.”

“Vanished! Disappeared! You talk as though you thought it a ghost, Johnny.”

“Ghost be hanged! It was some ill-doing tramp, I expect, trying to look if he might steal into the house.”

“Much you know of the ways of tramps, Johnny Ludlow! Tramps don’t come showing themselves on snow-lighted, open lawns, in the face and eyes of the front windows: they hide themselves in obscure hedges and byways. It’s a case of headachy sleep, young man, and nothing else.”

“Look here, Tom. If the man was there, his footprints will be there; if he was not, as you say, the snow will be smooth and level: come out and see.”

We went out at once, Tom catching up a stick in the hall, and crossed the lawn. I was right, and Tom wrong. Sure enough, there were the footprints, plenty of them, indented in the deep snow. Tom gave in then.

“I wish to goodness I had seen him! The fellow should not have got off scot-free, I can tell him that. What tremendous feet he must have! Just look at the size, Johnny. Regular crushers.”

“Don’t you go and say again I was asleep! He must have stepped back and got away through these laurels; yes, here are the marks. I say, Tom”—dropping my voice to a whisper—“perhaps he’s here now.”

“We’ll soon see that,” said Tom Coney, plunging amidst the laurels with a crash, and beating about with the stick.

But there was no trace of him. Tom came out presently, covered with the beaten snow, and we went indoors; he veering round partly to his first opinion, and a little incredulous, in spite of the footprints.

“If any man was there, Johnny, how did he get away? I don’t see, for my part, what he could possibly want. A thief would have gone to work in a different manner.”

“Well, let it be so. I shall say nothing about it to them when they come home. Mrs. Todhetley’s timid, you know, she would fancy the man was outside still, and be lying awake all night, listening for the smashing in of doors and windows.”

Cracking the fire into a blaze; as much of a blaze, that is, as its dilapidated state allowed; I called Thomas to light the lamp and shut the shutters. When I told him of the affair, bidding him not mention it, he took a different view of it altogether, and put it down to the score of one of the younger maid-servants.

“They’ve got sweethearts, Master Johnny, the huzzies have; lots of sweethearts. One or the t’other of ’em is always a sidling sheepfaced up to the house, as though he didn’t dare to say his soul was his own.”

They came in from church before the fire had burnt up, and the Squire scolded me for letting it go so low. The coal we get in Worcestershire is the Staffordshire coal; it does not burn up in a minute as London coal does, but must have time.

Nothing of course was said about the man; I and Tom Coney—who stayed supper—held our tongues, as agreed upon. But I told Tod in going up to bed. He was sleepy, and did not think much of it. The fact was, as I could plainly perceive, that to any of them, when related, it did not seem to be much. They had not seen it as I had.

Timberdale Rectory, a cosy, old-fashioned house, its front walls covered with ivy, stood by itself amidst pasture-land, a field’s length from the church. Mrs. Todhetley sent me there on the Monday morning, to invite the Rector, Herbert Tanerton, and his wife to dine with us the next evening, for we had a prime codfish sent as a present from London. The Squire and Tod had gone out shooting. It was January weather; cold and bright, with a frosty sky. Icicles drooped from the trees, and the snow in Crabb Ravine was above my ankles. The mater had said to me, “I should go the road way, Johnny;” but I did not mind the snow.

In Timberdale I met Margaret Rymer. She had her black cloak on, and her natty little black bonnet; and the gentle and refined face under it, with its mild brown eyes, put me more than ever in mind of her dead father.

Does any one remember her? I told something about her and her people early in this volume. When Thomas Rymer died, partly of a broken heart, Benjamin had again gone off, and Margaret continued to keep the business going. She understood the drugs thoroughly. During all the months that had elapsed since, the son had not made his appearance at home. Timberdale would say, “Why does not Benjamin come back to carry on affairs in his father’s place?” but it had no satisfactory answer. Latterly, Timberdale had let Benjamin alone, and busied itself with Margaret.

Six months ago, the Reverend Isaac Sale had come to Timberdale as curate. He was a plain, dark little man of sterling worth, and some thirty years of age—older than the Rector. Margaret Rymer met him at the Sunday School, where she taught regularly, and he fell desperately in love with her—if it’s not wrong to say that of a parson. As a rule, men and women like contrasts; and perhaps the somewhat abrupt-mannered man with the plain and rugged features had been irresistibly attracted by the delicate face of Margaret, and by her singularly gentle ways. In position she was not his equal; but Mr. Sale made no secret of his attachment, or that he wanted Margaret to be his wife. Mrs. Rymer entirely opposed it: how was the business to be kept going without Margaret, she demanded; or herself, either?

Mr. Sale had taken the curacy as a temporary thing. He was waiting for some expected appointment abroad. When it fell to him, Margaret Rymer would have to choose between sailing with him as his wife, or staying at home and giving him up for good. So said Timberdale.

After standing to talk a bit with Margaret, who had come out on an errand for her mother, I ran on to the Rectory. Mr. Tanerton and his wife were in the snug little bow-windowed front-room. He, spare and colourless, young yet, with cold grey eyes and thin light whiskers, sat by the blazing fire of wood and coal, that went roaring and sparkling up the chimney. Somehow Herbert Tanerton gave you the idea of being always in a chill. Well meaning, and kind in the main, he was yet severe, taking too much note of offences, and expecting all the world, and especially his own flock, to be better than gold.

His wife, kind, genial, and open-hearted, sat at the window, stitching a wristband for one of her husband’s new shirts—he was as particular over them as he was over the parish sins—and glancing cheerfully out between whiles at the snowy landscape. When she was Grace Coney, and niece at the farm, we were very intimate; a nice, merry-hearted, capable girl, rather tall and slender, with bright dark hazel eyes, and a wide mouth that seemed always to be smiling to show its pretty white teeth. Seeing me coming, she ran to open the porch-door. As yet, she and Herbert had no children.

“Come in, Johnny! Is it not a lovely day? Herbert thinks it the coldest morning we have had; but I tell him that is because he does not feel very well. And he has been put out a little.”

“What about?” I asked, as the Rector turned in his chair to shake hands with me. For she had said all that in his hearing.

“Oh, there are one or two things. Sam Mullett–”

“Where’s the use of talking of the stupid old man, Grace?” cried the parson, crossly. “He is getting too old for his place.”

“And Mr. Sale is going to leave,” added Mrs. Tanerton, as I sat down by the table, after delivering the invitation. “The appointment he expected has been offered to him; it is a chaplaincy at the Bahama Islands. Mr. Sale has known of it for a week, and never told Herbert until yesterday.”

“He spoke to me in the vestry after morning service,” said the Rector, in an injured tone. “And he said at the same time that he was not sure he should accept it; it did not quite depend upon himself. I saw as clearly what he meant to imply as though he had avowed it; that it depended upon that girl, Margaret Rymer. It is a preposterous thing. The idea of a clergyman and a gentleman wanting to marry her! She keeps a chemist’s shop!”

“It was her father who kept it,” I said eagerly, for I liked Margaret Rymer, and did not care to hear her disparaged. “And he was a gentleman born.”

“What has that to do with it?” retorted the parson, who was in one of his most touchy humours. “Had her grandfather been a duke, it would make no difference to what she is. Look at the mother!”

“Margaret is a lady in mind, in looks, and in manners,” I persisted. “If I loved Margaret Rymer, I would marry her, though I were an archdeacon.”

“That’s just like you, Johnny Ludlow! you have no more sense than a child in some things,” said the parson, crustily. Grace glanced up from her work and laughed; and looked as if she would like to take part with me.

“I never could have suspected Sale of such folly,” went on the Rector, warming his hands over the blaze. “Grace, do you think that soup’s ready?”

“I will see,” answered Grace, putting the wristband on the little work-table; and she touched my shoulder playfully in passing.

Herbert Tanerton sat in silence; knitting his brow into lines. I took the chair on the other side the fireplace opposite to him, thinking of this and that, and fingering the tongs to help me: a habit I was often scolded for at home—that of fingering things.

“Look here, Mr. Tanerton. If they go all the way out to settle at the Bahamas, it will not signify there who Margaret has been here. Whether she may have helped in her father’s business, or whether she may have been—as you said—a duke’s granddaughter, and brought up accordingly, it will be all one to the Bahamas. Mr. Sale need not say to the Bahamas, ‘My wife used to sell pennyworths of rhubarb and magnesia.’”

“It is not that,” crossly responded the Rector—“what people will think or say; it is for Sale’s own sake that I object. He cannot like the connection. A clergyman should marry in his own sphere.”

“I suppose men are differently constituted, clergymen as well as others,” said I, with deprecation, remembering that I was a plain, inexperienced lad, and he was the Rector of Timberdale. “Some persons don’t care for social distinctions as others do, don’t even see them: perhaps Mr. Sale is one.”

“He cares for probity and honour—he would not choose to ally himself to crime, to disgrace,” sternly spoke the Rector. “And he would do that in marrying Margaret Rymer. Remember what the son did, that ill-doing Benjamin,” added he, dropping his voice. “You know all about it, Johnny. The affair of the bank-note, I mean.”

And if Herbert Tanerton had said to me the affair of the moon and planets, I could not have been more surprised. “How did you get to know of it?” I asked, when speech came to me.

“Mr. Rymer told me on his death-bed. I was attending him spiritually. Of course, I have never spoken of it, even to my wife—I should not think of speaking of it; but I consider that it lies in my duty to disclose the facts to Mr. Sale.”

“Oh no, don’t—don’t, please, Mr. Tanerton!” I cried out, starting up in a sort of distress, for the words seemed to take hold of me. “No one knows of it: no one but the Squire, and I, as you say, and Mrs. Rymer, and you, and Ben himself; Jelf’s dead, you know. It need never be brought up again in this world; and I dare say it never will be. Pray don’t tell Mr. Sale—for Margaret’s sake.”

“But I have said that I consider it my duty to tell him,” replied the parson, steadily. “Here he comes!”

I turned to the window, and saw Sale trudging up to the parsonage through the snowy field pathway, his black hair and red rugged face presenting a sort of contrast to the white glare around. Ugly, he might be called; but it was a face to be liked, for all that. And the ring of his voice was true and earnest.