The Last Hope

by Henry Seton Merriman

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE LITTLE BOY WHO WAS A KING

  The Reverend Septimus Marvin had lost his wife five years earlier. It wascommonly said that he had never been the same man since. Which wasuntrue. Much that is commonly said will, on investigation, be found to befar from the truth. Septimus Marvin had, so to speak, been the same mansince infancy. He had always looked vaguely at the world throughspectacles; had always been at a loss among his contemporaries--ageneration already tainted by that shallow spirit of haste which is knownto-day as modernity--at a loss for a word; at a loss for a companionsoul.

  He was a scholar and a learned historian. His companions were books, andhe communed in spirit with writers who were dead and gone.

  Had he ever been a different man his circumstances would assuredly havebeen other. His wife, for instance, would in all human probability havebeen alive. His avocation might have been more suited to hiscapabilities. He was not intended for a country parish, and thatpractical, human comprehension of the ultimate value of little dailydetails, without which a pastor never yet understood his flock, was notvouchsafed to him.

  "Passen takes no account o' churchyard," River Andrew had said, andneither he nor any other in Farlingford could account for the specialneglect to which was abandoned that particular corner of the burialground where the late Mrs. Marvin reposed beneath an early Victorianheadstone of singular hideousness.

  Mr. Marvin always went round the other way.

  "Seems as he has forgotten her wonderful quick," commented the women ofFarlingford. But perhaps they were wrong. If he had forgotten, he mightbe expected to go round by the south side of the church by accidentoccasionally, especially as it was the shorter way from the rectory tothe porch. He was an absent-minded man, but he always remembered, asRiver Andrew himself admitted, to go north about. And his wife's gravewas overgrown by salted grass as were the rest.

  Farlingford had accepted him, when his College, having no use for such adreamer elsewhere, gave him the living, not only with resignation, butwith equanimity. This remote parish, cut off from the busier mainland bywide heaths and marshes, sparsely provided with ill-kept roads, had neverlooked for a bustling activity in its rectors. Their forefathers had beencontent with a gentleman, given to sport and the pursuits of a countrysquire, marked on the seventh day by a hearty and robust godliness. Theywould have preferred Parson Marvin to have handled a boat and carried agun. But he had his good qualities. He left them alone. And they are themost independent people in the world.

  When his wife died, his sister, the widow of an Indian officer, bustledeastward, from a fashionable Welsh watering-place, just to satisfyherself, as she explained to her West-country friends, that he would notmarry his cook before six months elapsed. After that period she proposedto wash her hands of him. She was accompanied by her only child, Miriam,who had just left school.

  Six months later Septimus Marvin was called upon to give away his sisterto a youthful brother officer of her late husband, which ceremony heperformed with a sigh of relief audible in the farthest recess of theorgan loft. While the wedding-bells were still ringing, the bride, whowas not dreamy or vague like her brother, gave Septimus to understandthat he had promised to provide Miriam with a home--that he really neededa woman to keep things going at the rectory and to watch over the tenderyears of little Sep--and that Miriam's boxes were packed.

  Septimus had no recollection of the promise. And his sister was quitehurt that he should say such a thing as that on her wedding day and spoileverything. He had no business to make the suggestion if he had notintended to carry it out. So the bride and bridegroom went away in ashower of good wishes and rice to the life of organized idleness, forwhich the gentleman's education and talents eminently befitted him, andMiriam returned to Farlingford with Septimus.

  In those days the railway passed no nearer to Farlingford than Ipswich,and before the arrival of their train at that station Miriam hadthoroughly elucidated the situation. She had discovered that she was notexpected at the rectory, and that Septimus had never offered of his ownfree will the home which he now kindly pressed upon her--two truths whichthe learned historian fondly imagined to be for ever locked up in his ownheart, which was a kind one and the heart of a gentleman.

  Miriam also learned that Septimus was very poor. She did not need to beinformed that he was helpless. Her instinct had told her that long ago.She was only nineteen, but she looked at men and women with thosediscerning grey eyes, in which there seemed to lurk a quiet lightlike the light of stars, and saw right through them. She was womanenough--despite the apparent inconsequence of the schoolroom, which stilllent a vagueness to her thoughts and movements--to fall an easy victim tothe appeal of helplessness. Years, it would appear, are of no account incertain feminine instincts. Miriam had probably been woman enough at tenyears of age to fly to the rescue of the helpless.

  She did not live permanently at the rectory, but visited her mother fromtime to time, either in England, or at one of the foreign resorts of idlepeople. But the visits, as years went by, became shorter and rarer. Attwenty-one Miriam came into a small fortune of her own, left by herfather in the hands of executors, one of whom was that John Turner, theParis banker, who had given Dormer Colville a letter of introduction toSeptimus Marvin. The money was sorely needed at the rectory, and Miriamdrew freely enough on John Turner.

  "You are an extravagant girl," said that astute financier to her, whenthey met at the house of Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, at Royan, in France."I wonder what you spend it on! But I don't trouble my head about it. Youneed not explain, you understand. But you can come to me when you wantadvice or help. You will find me--in the background. I am a fat old man,in the background. Useful enough in my way, perhaps, even to a prettygirl with a sound judgment."

  There were many, who, like Loo Barebone, reflected that there were otherworlds open to Miriam Liston. At first she went into those other worlds,under the flighty wing of her mother, and looked about her there. Captainand Mrs. Duncan belonged to the Anglo-French society, which had sprunginto existence since the downfall of Napoleon I, and was in some degreethe outcome of the part played by Great Britain in the comedy of theBourbon and Orleanist collapse. Captain Duncan had retired from the army,changing his career from one of a chartered to an unchartereduselessness, and he herded with tarnished aristocracy and half-payfailures in the smoking-rooms of Continental clubs.

  Miriam returned, after a short experience of this world, to Farlingford,as to the better part. At first she accepted invitations to some of thecountry houses open to her by her connection with certain great families.But after a time she seemed to fall under the spell of that quiet lifewhich is still understood and lived in a few remote places.

  "What can you find to do all day and to think about all night at thatbleak corner of England?" inquired her friends, themselves restless byday and sleepless by night by reason of the heat of their pursuit of thatwhich is called pleasure.

  "If he wants to marry his cook let him do it and be done with us," wroteher mother from the south of France. "Come and join us at Biarritz. ThePrince President will be here this winter. We shall be very gay.... P.S.We shall not ask you to stay with us as we are hard up this quarter; butto share expenses. Mind come."

  But Miriam remained at Farlingford, and there is nothing to be gained byseeking to define her motive. There are two arguments against seeking awoman's motive. Firstly, she probably has none. Secondly, should she haveone she will certainly have a counterfeit, which she will dangle beforeyour eyes, and you will seize it.

  Dormer Colville might almost be considered to belong to the world ofwhich Captain and Mrs. Duncan were such brilliant ornaments. But he didnot so consider himself. For their world was essentially British,savoured here and there by a French count or so, at whose person andtitle the French aristocracy of undoubted genuineness looked askance.Dormer Colville counted his friends among these latter. In fact, he movedin those royalist circles who thought that there was little to choosebetw
een the Napoleonic and the Orleanist _regime_. He carefully avoidedintimacy with Englishmen whose residence in foreign parts was continuousand in constant need of explanation. Indeed, if a man's life needsexplanation, he must sooner or later find himself face to face with someone who will not listen to him.

  Colville, however, knew all about Captain Duncan, and knew what wasignored by many, namely, that he was nothing worse than foolish. He knewall about Miriam, for he was in the confidence of Mrs. St. PierreLawrence. He knew that that lady wondered why Miriam preferredFarlingford to the high-bred society of her own circle at Royanand in Paris.

  He thought he knew why Loo Barebone showed so little enterprise. And hewas, as Madame de Chantonnay had frequently told him, more than half aFrenchman in the quickness of his intuitions. He picked a flower for hisbuttonhole from the garden of the "Black Sailor," and set forth themorning after his interview with Captain Clubbe toward the rectory. Itwas a cool July morning, with the sun half obscured by a fog-bank drivenin from the sea. Through the dazzling white of that which is known onthese coasts as the water-smoke the sky shone a cloudless blue. The airwas light and thin. It is the lightest and thinnest air in England.Dormer Colville hummed a song under his breath as he walked on the top ofthe dyke. He was a light-hearted man, full of hope and optimism.

  "Am I disturbing your studies?" he asked, with his easy laugh, as he camerather suddenly on Miriam and little Sep in the turf-shelter at thecorner of the rectory garden. "You must say so if I am."

  They had, indeed, their books, and the boy's face wore that abstractedlook which comes from a very earnest desire not to see the manyinteresting things on earth and sea, which always force themselves uponthe attention of the young at the wrong time. Colville had alreadysecured Sep's friendship by the display of a frank ignorance of naturalhistory only equalled by his desire to be taught.

  "We're doing history," replied Sep, frankly, jumping up and shakinghands.

  "Ah, yes. William the Conqueror, ten hundred and sixty-six, and all therest of it. I know. At least I knew once, but I have forgotten."

  "No. We're doing French history. Miriam likes that best, but I hate it."

  "French history," said Colville, thoughtfully. "Yes. That is interesting.Miss Liston likes that best, does she? Or, perhaps, she thinks that it isbest for you to know it. Do you know all about Louis XVI and MarieAntoinette?"

  "Pretty well," admitted Sep, doubtfully.

  "When I was a little chap like you, I knew many people who had seen LouisXVI and Marie Antoinette. That was long, long ago," he added, turning toMiriam to make the admission. "But those are not the things that oneforgets, are they, Miss Liston?"

  "Then I wish Sep could know somebody who would make him remember,"answered Miriam, half closing the book in her hand; for she was veryquick and had seen Colville's affable glance take it in in passing, as ittook in everything within sight.

  "A King, for instance," he said, slowly. "A King of France.Others--prophets and righteous men--have desired to see that, MissListon."

  It seemed, however, that he had seen enough to know the period which theywere studying.

  "I suppose," he said, after a pause, "that in this studious house youtalk and think history, and more especially French history. It must bevery quiet and peaceful. Much more restful than acting in it as my friendde Gemosac has done all his life, as I myself have done in a small way.For France takes her history so much more violently than you do inEngland. France is tossed about by it, while England stands and ishammered on the anvil of Time, as it were, and remains just the sameshape as before."

  He broke off and turned to Sep.

  "Do you know the story of the little boy who was a King?" he asked,abruptly. "They put him in prison and he escaped. He was carried out in aclothes-basket. Funny, is it not? And he escaped from his enemies andreached another country, where he became a sailor. He grew to be a manand he married a woman of that country, and she died, leaving him with alittle boy. And then he died himself and left the little boy, who wastaken care of by his English relations, who never knew that he was aKing. But he was; for his father was a King before him, and hisgrandfathers--far, far back. Back to the beginning of the book that MissListon holds in her hand. The little boy--he was an orphan, yousee--became a sailor. He never knew that he was a King--the Hope of hiscountry, of all the old men and the wise men in it--the holder of thefate of nations. Think of that."

  The story pleased Sep, who sat with open lips and eager eyes, listeningto it.

  "Do you think it is an interesting story? What do you think is the end ofit?"

  "I don't know," answered Sep, gravely.

  "Neither do I. No one knows the end of that story--yet. But if you were aKing--if you were that boy--what would you do? Would you go and be aKing, or would you be afraid?"

  "No. I should go and be a King. And fight battles."

  "But you would have to leave everybody. You would have to leave yourfather."

  "I should not mind that," answered Sep, brutally.

  "You would leave Miss Liston?"

  "I should have to," was the reply, with conviction.

  "Ah, yes," said Colville, with a grave nod of the head. "Yes. I supposeyou would have to if you were anything of a man at all. There would be noalternative--for a real man."

  "Besides," put in Sep, jumping from side to side on his seat witheagerness, "she would make me--wouldn't you, Miriam?"

  Colville had turned away and was looking northward toward the creek,known as Maiden's Grave, running through the marshes to the river. Alarge lug-sail broke the flat line of the horizon, though the boat towhich it belonged was hidden by the raised dyke.

  "Would she?" inquired Colville, absent-mindedly, without taking his eyesfrom the sail which was creeping slowly toward them. "Well--you know MissListon's character better than I do, Sep. And no doubt you are right. Andyou are not that little boy, so it doesn't matter; does it?"

  After a pause he turned and glanced sideways at Miriam, who was lookingstraight in front of her with steady eyes and white cheeks.

  They could hear Loo Barebone singing gaily in the boat, which was hiddenbelow the level of the dyke. And they watched, in a sudden silence, thesail pass down the river toward the quay.