Johnny Ludlow, Second Series

“It is such an undertaking, Tod.”

“It is not your undertaking.”

“Of course it is a tremendous bargain; and it is a beautiful little place to have. But I can’t think what the pater will say to it.”

“I can,” said Tod. “When he hears of it—but that will not be yet awhile—he will come off here post-haste to blow me up; and end by falling in love with the roses. He always says that there is no rose like a cabbage-rose.”

“He will never forgive you, Tod; or me either. He will say the world’s coming to an end.”

“If you are afraid of him, Johnny, you can take yourself off. Hold up your plate for some more lamb, and hold your tongue.”

There was no help for it; anything I could say would have no more weight with Tod than so much wasted water; so I did as he bade me, and held my tongue. Down he went to Captain Copperas ere his dinner was well swallowed, and told him he would take the house. The Captain said he would have a short agreement drawn up; and Tod took out his cheque-book, to give a cheque for the money there and then. But the Captain, like an honest man, refused to receive it until the agreement was executed; and, if all the same, he would prefer money down to a cheque. Cheques were all very good, no doubt, he said; but sailors did not much understand them. Oh, of course, Tod answered, shaking him by the hand; he would get the money.

Inquiring of our landlady for the nearest bank, Tod was directed to a town called St. Ann’s, three miles off; and we started for it at once, pelting along the hot and dusty road. The bank found—a small one, with a glazed bow-window, Tod presented a cheque for a hundred and fifty pounds, twenty-five of it being for himself, and asked the clerk to cash it.

The clerk looked at the cheque then looked at Tod, and then at me. “This is not one of our cheques,” he said. “We have no account in this name.”

“Can’t you read?” asked Tod. “The cheque is upon the Worcester Old Bank. You know it well by reputation, I presume?”

The clerk whisked into a small kind of box, divided from the office by glass, where sat a bald-headed gentleman writing at a desk full of pigeon-holes. A short conference, and then the latter came to us, holding the cheque in his hand.

“We will send and present this at Worcester,” he said; “and shall get an answer the day after to-morrow. No doubt we shall then be able to give you the money.”

“Why can’t you give it me now?” asked Tod, in rather a fiery tone.

“Well, sir, we should be happy to do it; but it is not our custom to cash cheques for strangers.”

“Do you fear the cheque will not be honoured?” flashed Tod. “Why, I have five hundred pounds lying there! Do you suppose I want to cheat you?”

“Oh, certainly not,” said the banker, with suavity. “Only, you see, we cannot break through our standing rules. Call upon us the day after to-morrow, and doubtless the money will be ready.”

Tod came away swearing. “The infamous upstarts!” cried he. “To refuse to cash my cheque! Johnny, it’s my belief they take us for a couple of adventurers.”

The money came in due course. After receiving it from the cautious banker, we went straight to Rose Lodge, pelting back from St. Ann’s at a fine pace. Tod signed the agreement, and paid the cash in good Bank of England notes. Captain Copperas brought out a bottle of champagne, which tasted uncommonly good to our thirsty throats. He was to leave Cray Bay that night on his way to Liverpool to take possession of his ship; Miss Copperas would leave on the morrow, and then we should go in. And Elizabeth, the grenadier, was to remain with us as servant. Miss Copperas recommended her, hearing Tod say he did not know where to look for one. We bargained with her to keep up a good supply of pies, and to pay her twenty shillings a month.

“Will you allow me to leave one or two of my boxes for a few days?” asked Miss Copperas of Tod, when we went down on the following morning, and found her equipped for departure. “This has been so hurried a removal that I have not had time to pack all my things, and must leave it for Elizabeth to do.”

“Leave anything you like, Miss Copperas,” replied Tod, as he shook hands. “Do what you please. I’m sure the house seems more like yours than mine.”

She thanked him, wished us both good-bye, and set off to walk to the coach-office, attended by the grenadier, and a boy wheeling her luggage. And we were in possession of our new home.

It was just delightful. The weather was charming, though precious hot, and the new feeling of being in a house of our own, with not as much as a mouse to control us and our movements, was satisfactory in the highest degree. We passed our days sailing about with old Druff, and came home to the feasts prepared by the grenadier, and to sit among the roses. Altogether we had never had a time like it. Tod took the best chamber, facing the sea; I had the smaller one over the dining-room, looking up coastwards.

“I shall go fishing to-morrow, Johnny,” Tod said to me one evening. “We’ll bring home some trout for supper.”

He was stretched on three chairs before the open window; coat off, pipe in mouth. I turned round from the piano. It was not much of an instrument. Miss Copperas had said, when I hinted so to her on first trying it, that it wanted “age.”

“Shall you? All right,” I answered, sitting down by him. The stars were shining on the calm blue water; here and there lights, looking like stars also, twinkled from some vessels at anchor.

“If I thought they wouldn’t quite die of the shock, Johnny, I’d send the pater and madam an invitation to come off here and pay us a visit. They would fall in love with the place at once.”

“Oh, Tod, I wish you would!” I cried, eagerly seizing on the words. “They could have your room, and you have mine, and I would go into the little one at the back.”

“I dare say! I was only joking, lad.”

The last words and their tone destroyed my hopes. It is inconvenient to possess a conscience. Advantageous though the bargain was that Tod had made, and delightfully though our days were passing, I could not feel easy until they knew of it at home.

“I wish you would let me write and tell them, Tod.”

“No,” said he. “I don’t want the pater to whirl himself off here and spoil our peace—for that’s what would come of it.”

“He thinks we are in some way with the Temples. His letter implied it.”

“The best thing he can think.”

“But I want to write to the mother, Tod. She must be wondering why we don’t.”

“Wondering won’t give her the fever, lad. Understand me, Mr. Johnny: you are not to write.”

Breakfast over in the morning, we crossed the meadows to the trout stream, with the fishing-tackle and a basket of frogs. Tod complained of the intense heat. The dark blue sky was cloudless; the sun beat down upon our heads.

“I’ll tell you what, Johnny,” he said, when we had borne the blaze for an hour on the banks, the fish refusing to bite: “we should be all the cooler for our umbrellas. You’ll have a sunstroke, if you don’t look out.”

“It strikes me you won’t catch any fish to-day.”

“Does it? You be off and get the parapluies.”

The low front window stood open when I reached home. It was the readiest way of entering; and I passed on to the passage to the umbrella-stand. The grenadier came dashing out of her kitchen, looking frightened.

“Oh!” said she, “it’s you!”

“I have come back for the umbrellas, Elizabeth; the sun’s like a furnace. Why! what have you got there?”

The kitchen was strewed with clothes from one end of it to the other. On the floor stood the two boxes left by Miss Copperas.

“I am only putting up Miss Copperas’s things,” returned Elizabeth, in her surly way. “It’s time they were sent off.”

“What a heap she must have left behind!” I remarked, and left the grenadier to her work.

We got home in the evening, tired out. The grenadier had a choice supper ready; and, in answer to me, said the trunks of Miss Copperas were packed and gone. When bed-time came, Tod was asleep at the window, and wouldn’t awake. The grenadier had gone to her room ages ago; I wanted to go to mine.

“Tod, then! Do please wake up: it is past ten.”

A low growl answered me. And in that same moment I became aware of some mysterious stir outside the front-gate. People seemed to be trying it. The grenadier always locked it at night.

“Tod! Tod! There are people at the gate—trying to get in.”

The tone and the words aroused him. “Eh? What do you say, Johnny? People are trying the gate?”

“Listen! They are whispering to one another. They are trying the fastenings.”

“What on earth does anybody want at this time of night?” growled Tod. “And why can’t they ring like decent people? What’s your business?” he roared out from the window. “Who the dickens are you?”

“Hush, Tod! It—it can’t be the Squire, can it? Come down here to look after us.”

The suggestion silenced him for a moment.

“I—I don’t think so, Johnny,” he slowly said. “No, it’s not the Squire: he would be letting off at us already at the top of his voice; he wouldn’t wait to come in to do it. Let’s go and see. Come along.”

Two young men stood at the gate. One of them turned the handle impatiently as we went down the path.

“What do you want?” demanded Tod.

“I wish to see Captain Copperas.”

“Then you can’t see him,” answered Tod, woefully cross after being startled out of his sleep. “Captain Copperas does not live here.”

“Not live here!” repeated the man. “That’s gammon. I know he does live here.”

“I tell you he does not,” haughtily repeated Tod. “Do you doubt my word?”

“Who does live here, then?” asked the man, in a different tone, evidently impressed.

“Mr. Todhetley.”

“I can take my oath that Captain Copperas lived here ten days ago.”

“What of that? He is gone, and Mr. Todhetley’s come.”

“Can I see Mr. Todhetley?”

“You see him now. I am he. Will you tell me your business?”

“Captain Copperas owes me a small account, and I want it settled.”

The avowal put Tod in a rage; and he showed it. “A small account! Is this a proper time to come bothering gentlemen for your small accounts—when folks are gone to bed, or going?”

“Last time I came in the afternoon. Perhaps that was the wrong time? Any way, Captain Copperas put me off, saying I was to call some evening, and he’d pay it.”

“And I’ll thank you to betake yourself off again now. How dare you disturb people at this unearthly hour! As to Captain Copperas, I tell you that he is no longer here.”

“Then I should say that Captain Copperas was a swindler.”

Tod turned on his heel at the last words, and the men went away, their retreating footsteps echoing on the road. I thought I heard the grenadier’s window being shut, so the noise must have disturbed her.

“Swindlers themselves!” cried Tod, as he fastened the house-door. “I’ll lay you a guinea, Johnny, they were two loose fellows trying to sneak inside and see what they could pick up.”

Nevertheless, in the morning he asked the grenadier whether it was true that such men had come there after any small account. And the grenadier resented the supposition indignantly. Captain Copperas owed no “small accounts” that she knew of, she said; and she had lived with him and Miss C. ever since they came to Cray Bay. She only wished she had seen the men herself last night; she would have answered them. And when, upon this, I said I thought I had heard her shut her window down, and supposed she had been listening, she denied it, and accused me of being fanciful.

“Impudent wretches!” ejaculated Tod; “to come here and asperse a man of honour like Copperas.”

That day passed off quietly, and to our thorough enjoyment; but the next one was fated to bring us some events. Some words of Tod’s, as I was pouring out the breakfast coffee, startled me.

“Oh, by Jupiter! How have they found us out here?”

Looking up, I saw the postman entering the gate with a letter. The same thought struck us both—that it was some terrible mandate from the Squire. Tod went to the window and held out his hand.

“For Elizabeth, at Captain Copperas’s,” read out the man, as he handed it to Tod. It was a relief, and Tod sent me with it to the grenadier.

But in less than one minute afterwards she came into the room, bathed in tears. The letter was to tell her that her mother was lying ill at their home, some unpronounceable place in Wales, and begging earnestly to see her.

“I’m sorry to leave you at a pinch; but I must go,” sobbed the grenadier. “I can’t help myself; I shall start by the afternoon coach.”

Well, of course there was nothing to be said against it. A mother was a mother. But Tod began to wonder what on earth we should do: as did I, for the matter of that. The grenadier offered to cook our luncheon before starting, which we looked upon as a concession.

“Let’s go for a sail, Johnny, and leave perplexities to right themselves.”

And a glorious sail we had! Upon getting back at one o’clock, we found a huge meat pie upon the luncheon-table, and the grenadier with her bonnet on. Tod handed her five shillings; the sum, as she computed, that was due to her.

We heard the bumping of her boxes on the stairs. At the gate stood the boy with the truck, ready to wheel them to the coach-office, as he had wheeled those of Miss Copperas. Tod was helping himself to some more pie, when the grenadier threw open the door.

“My boxes are here, gentlemen. Will you like to look at them?”

“Look at them for what?” asked Tod, after staring a minute.

“To see that I’m taking none of your property away inside them.”

At last Tod understood what she meant, and felt inclined to throw the dish at her head. “Shut the door, and don’t be a fool,” said he. “And I hope you’ll find your mother better,” I called out after her.

“And now, Johnny, what are we to do?” cried he, when lunch was over and there was no one to take it away. “This is like a second edition of Robinson Crusoe.”

We left it where it was, and went off to the shops and the Whistling Wind, asking if they could tell us of a servant. But servants seemed not to be forthcoming at a pinch; and we told our troubles to old Druff.

“My missis shall come in and see a bit to things for ye,” said he. “She can light the fire in the morning, anyway, and boil the kettle.”

And with the aid of Mother Druff—an ancient dame who went about in clogs—we got on till after breakfast in the morning, when a damsel came after the place. She wore a pink gauze bonnet, smart and tawdry, and had a pert manner.

“Can you cook?” asked Tod.

The substance of her answer was, that she could do everything under the sun, provided she were not “tanked” after. Her late missis was for ever a-tanking. Would there be any washing to do?—because washing didn’t agree with her: and how often could she go out, and what was the wages?

Tod looked at me in doubt, and I slightly shook my head. It struck me that she would not do at any price. “I think you won’t suit,” said he to her.

“Oh,” returned she, all impertinence. “I can go then where I shall suit: and so, good-morning, gentlemen. There’s no call for you to be so uppish. I didn’t come after your forks and spoons.”

“The impudent young huzzy!” cried Tod, as she slammed the gate after her. “But she might do better than nobody, Johnny.”

“I don’t like her, Tod. If it rested with me, I’d rather live upon bread-and-cheese than take her.”

“Bread-and-cheese!” he echoed. “It is not a question of only bread-and-cheese. We must get our beds made and the knives cleaned.”

It seemed rather a blue look-out. Tod said he would go up again to the Whistling Wind, and tell Mother Jones she must find us some one. Picking a rose as he went down the path, he met a cleanly-looking elderly woman who was entering. She wore a dark apron, and old-fashioned white cap, and said she had come after the place.

“What can you do?” began Tod. “Cook?”

“Cook and clean too, sir,” she answered. And I liked the woman the moment I saw her.

“Oh, I don’t know that there’s much cleaning to do, beyond the knives,” remarked Tod. “We want our dinners cooked, you know, and the beds made. That’s about all.”

The woman smiled at that, as if she thought he knew little about it. “I have been living at the grocer’s, up yonder, sir, and they can give me a good character, though I say it. I’m not afraid of doing all you can want done, and of giving satisfaction, if you’d please to try me.”

“You’ll do,” said Tod, after glancing at me. “Can you come in at once?”

“As soon as you like, sir. When would you please to go for my character?”

“Oh, bother that!” said he. “I’ve no doubt you are all right. Can you make pigeon pies?”

“That I can, sir.”

“You’ll do then. What is your name?”

“Elizabeth Ho–”

“Elizabeth?” he interrupted, not giving her time to finish. “Why, the one just gone was Elizabeth. A grenadier, six feet high.”

“I’ve been mostly called Betty, sir.”

“Then we’ll call you Betty too.”

She went away, saying that she’d come back with her aprons. Tod looked after her.

“You like her, don’t you, Johnny?”

“That I do. She’s a good sort; honest as can be. You did not ask her about wages.”

“Oh, time enough for that,” said he.

And Betty turned out to be good as gold. Her history was a curious one; she told it to me one evening in the kitchen; in her small way she had been somewhat of a martyr. But God had been with her always, she said; through more trouble than the world knew of.

We had a letter from Mrs. Todhetley, redirected on from Sanbury. The chief piece of news it contained was, that the Squire and old Jacobson had gone off to Great Yarmouth for a fortnight.

“That’s good,” said Tod. “Johnny lad, you may write home now.”

“And tell about Rose Lodge?”

“Tell all you like. I don’t mind madam. She’ll have leisure to digest it against the pater returns.”

I wrote a long letter, and told everything, going into the minute details that she liked to hear, about the servants, and all else. Rose Lodge was the most wonderful bargain, I said, and we were both as happy as the days were long.

The church was a little primitive edifice near the sands. We went to service on Sunday morning; and upon getting home afterwards, found the cloth not laid. Tod had ordered dinner to be on the table. He sent me to the kitchen to blow up Betty.

“It is quite ready and waiting to be served; but I can’t find a clean tablecloth,” said Betty.

“Why, I told you where the tablecloths were,” shouted Tod, who heard the answer. “In the cupboard at the top of the stairs.”

“But there are no tablecloths there, sir,” cried she. “Nor anything else either, except a towel or two.”

Tod went upstairs in a passion, bidding her follow him, and flung the cupboard door open. He thought she had looked in the wrong place.

But Betty was right. With the exception of two or three old towels and some stacks of newspapers, the cupboard was empty.

“By Jove!” cried Tod. “Johnny, that grenadier must have walked off with all the linen!”

Whether she had, or had not, none to speak of could be found now. Tod talked of sending the police after her, and wrote an account of her delinquencies to Captain Copperas, addressing the letter to the captain’s brokers in Liverpool.

“But,” I debated, not quite making matters out to my own satisfaction, “the grenadier wanted us to examine her boxes, you know.”

“All for a blind, Johnny.”

It was the morning following this day, Monday, that, upon looking from my window, something struck me as being the matter with the garden. What was it? Why, all the roses were gone! Down I rushed, half dressed, burst out at the back-door, and gazed about me.

It was a scene of desolation. The rose-trees had been stripped; every individual rose was clipped neatly off from every tree. Two or three trees were left untouched before the front window; all the rest were rifled.

“What the mischief is the matter, Johnny?” called out Tod, as I was hastily questioning Betty. “You are making enough noise for ten, lad.”

“We have had robbers here, Tod. Thieves. All the roses are stolen.”

He made a worse noise than I did. Down he came, full rush, and stamped about the garden like any one wild. Old Druff and his wife heard him, and came up to the palings. Betty, busy in her kitchen, had not noticed the disaster.

“I see Tasker’s people here betimes this morning,” observed Druff. “A lot of ’em came. ’Twas a pity, I thought, to slice off all them nice big blows.”

“Saw who?—saw what?” roared Tod, turning his anger upon Druff. “You mean to confess to me that you saw these rose-trees rifled, and did not stop it?”

“Nay, master,” said Druff, “how could I interfere with Tasker’s people? Their business ain’t mine.”

“Who are Tasker’s people?” foamed Tod. “Who is Tasker?”

“Tasker? Oh, Tasker’s that there man at the white cottage on t’other side the village. Got a big garden round it.”

“Is he a poacher? Is he a robber?”

“Bless ye, master, Tasker’s no robber.”

“And yet you saw him take my roses?”

“I see him for certain. I see him busy with the baskets as the men filled ’em.”

Dragging me after him, Tod went striding off to Tasker’s. We knew the man by sight; had once spoken to him about his garden. He was a kind of nurseryman. Tasker was standing near his greenhouse.

“Why did I come and steal your roses?” he quietly repeated, when he could understand Tod’s fierce demands. “I didn’t steal ’em, sir; I picked ’em.”

“And how dared you do it? Who gave you leave to do it?” foamed Tod, turning green and purple.

“I did it because they were mine.”

“Yours! Are you mad?”

“Yes, sir, mine. I bought ’em and paid for ’em.”

Tod did think him mad at the moment; I could see it in his face. “Of whom, pray, did you buy them?”

“Of Captain Copperas. I had ’em from the garden last year and the year afore: other folks lived in the place then. Three pounds I gave for ’em this time. The captain sold ’em to me a month ago, and I was to take my own time for gathering them.”

I don’t think Tod had ever felt so floored in all his life. He stood back against the pales and stared. A month ago we had not known Captain Copperas.

“I might have took all the lot: ’twas in the agreement; but I left you a few before the front winder,” said Tasker, in an injured tone. “And you come and attack me like this!”

“But what do you want with them? What are they taken for?”

“To make otter of roses,” answered Tasker. “I sell ’em to the distillers.”

“At any rate, though it be as you say, I would have taken them openly,” contended Tod. “Not come like a thief in the night.”

“But then I had to get ’em afore the sun was powerful,” calmly answered Tasker.

Tod was silent all the way home. I had not spoken a word, good or bad. Betty brought in the coffee.

“Pour it out,” said he to me. “But, Johnny,” he presently added, as he stirred his cup slowly round, “I can’t think how it was that Copperas forget to tell me he had sold the roses.”

“Do you suppose he did forget?”

“Why, of course he forgot. Would an honest man like Copperas conceal such a thing if he did not forget it? You will be insinuating next, Johnny Ludlow, that he is as bad as Tasker.”

I must say we were rather in the dumps that day. Tod went off fishing; I carried the basket and things. I did wish I had not said so much about the roses to Mrs. Todhetley. What I wrote was, that they were brighter and sweeter and better than those other roses by Bendemeer’s stream.

I thought of the affair all day long. I thought of it when I was going to bed at night. Putting out the candle, I leaned from my window and looked down on the desolate garden. The roses had made its beauty.

“Johnny! Johnny lad! Are you in bed?”

The cautious whisper came from Tod. Bringing my head inside the room, I saw him at the door in his slippers and braces.

“Come into my room,” he whispered. “Those fellows who disturbed us the other night are at the gate again.”

Tod’s light was out and his window open. We could see a man bending down outside the gate, fumbling with the lock. Presently the bell was pulled very gently, as if the ringer thought the house might be asleep and he did not want to awaken it. There was something quite ghostly to the imagination in being disturbed at night like this.