by Ellen Wood
A piteous cry broke from her. It had to be suppressed. The ungrateful peacock, seeing no more dainty biscuit in store, had fluttered off with a scream, putting his tail down into the smallest possible compass; and Arthur came running back to the room. Mr. Duffham next appeared; his face grave, his account of Lady Rachel evasive. He suspected some latent disease of the spine, but did not wish to say so just yet.
The horse and pony were brought round. Arthur and the doctor mounted; Arthur turning round to lift his cap to Lady Chavasse and Sir Geoffry as he rode away. A noble boy in all his actions; sitting his pony like the young chieftain he ought to have been but for my lady’s adverse will.
But Mr. Duffham was by no means prepared for an inroad on his privacy made that evening by my lady. She surprised him in his shabbiest parlour, when he was taking his tea: the old tin teapot on the Japan tray, and the bread-and-butter plate cracked across. Zuby Noah, Duffham’s factotum, was of a saving turn, and never would bring in the best things except on Sundays. He had a battle with her over it sometimes, but it did no good. Duffham thought Lady Chavasse had come to hear about Lady Rachel, but he was mistaken.
She began with a despairing cry, by way of introduction to the interview; Zuby might have heard it as she went along the kitchen passage, but for her clanking pattens. The man-servant was out that evening, and Zuby was in waiting. Duffham, standing on the old hearthrug, found his arm seized by Lady Chavasse. He had never seen her in agitation like this.
“Is it to be so really? Mr. Duffham, can nothing be done? Is my son to die before my very eyes, and not be saved?”
“Sit down, pray, Lady Chavasse!” cried Duffham, trying to hand her into the chair that had the best-looking cushion on it, and wishing he had been in the other room and had not slipped on his worn, old pepper-and-salt coat.
“He ought not to die — to die and leave no children!” she went on, as if she were a lunatic. “If there were but one little son — but one — to be the heir! Can’t you keep him in life? there may be children yet, if he only lives.”
Her eyes were looking wildly into his; her fingers entwined themselves about the old grey cuffs as lovingly as though they were of silk velvet. No: neither Duffham nor any one else had ever seen her like this. It was as though she thought it lay with Duffham to keep Sir Geoffry in life and to endow Chavasse Grange with heirs.
“Lady Chavasse, I am not in the place of God.”
“Don’t you care for my trouble? Don’t you care for it?”
“I do care. I wish I could cure Sir Geoffry.”
Down sat my lady in front of the fire, in dire tribulation. By the way she stared at it, Duffham thought she must see in it a vision of the future.
“We shall have to quit the Grange, you know, if he should die: I and Lady Rachel. Better that I quitted it in my young life; that I had never had a male child to keep me in it. I thought that would have been a hardship: but oh, it would have been nothing to this.”
“You shall take a cup of tea, Lady Chavasse — if you don’t mind its being poured out of this homely tea-pot,” said Duffham. “Confound that Zuby!” he cried, under his breath.
“Yes, I will take the tea — put nothing in it. My lips and throat are dry with fever and pain. I wish I could die instead of Geoffry! I wish he could have left a little child behind to bless me!”
Duffham, standing up whilst she took the tea, thought it was well that these trials of awful pain did not fall often in a lifetime, or they would wear out alike the frame and the spirit. She grew calm again. As if ashamed of the agitation betrayed, her manner gradually took a sort of hard composure, her face a defiant expression. She turned it on him.
“So, Mr. Duffham! It has been well done of you, to unite with Sir Geoffry in deceiving me! That child over the way has never been Colonel Layne’s.”
And then she went on in a style that put Duffham’s back up. It was not his place to tell her, he answered. At the same time he had had no motive to keep it from her, and if she had ever put the question to him, he should readily have answered it. Unsolicited, unspoken to, of course he had held his peace. As to uniting with Sir Geoffry to deceive her, she deceived herself if she thought anything of the kind. Since the first moment they had spoken together, when the fact had become known to Sir Geoffry, never a syllable relating to it had been mentioned between them. And then, after digesting this for a few minutes in silence, she went back to Sir Geoffry’s illness.
“It is just as though a blight had fallen on him,” she piteously exclaimed, lifting her hand and letting it drop again. “A blight.”
“Well, Lady Chavasse, I suppose something of the kind did fall upon him,” was Duffham’s answer.
And that displeased her. She turned her offended face to the doctor, and inquired what he meant by saying it.
So Duffham set himself to speak out. He had said he would, if ever the opportunity came. Reverting to what had happened some nine or more years ago, he told her that in his opinion Sir Geoffry had never recovered it: that the trouble had so fixed itself upon him as to have worked insensibly upon his bodily health.
“Self-reproach and disappointment were combined, Lady Chavasse; for there’s no doubt that the young lady was very dear to him,” concluded Duffham. “And there are some natures that cannot pick up again after such a blow.”
She was staring at Duffham with open eyes, not understanding.
“You do not mean to say that — that the disappointment about her has killed Sir Geoffry?”
“My goodness, no!” cried Duffham, nearly laughing. “Men are made of tougher stuff than to die of the thing called love, Lady Chavasse. What is it Shakespeare says? ‘Men have died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.’ There is no question but that Sir Geoffry has always had an inherent tendency to delicacy of constitution,” he continued more seriously: “my partner Layne told me so. It was warded off for a time, and he grew into a strong, hearty man: it might perhaps have been warded off for good. But the blight — as you aptly express it, Lady Chavasse — came: and perhaps since then the spirit has not been able to maintain its own proper struggle for existence — in which lies a great deal, mind you; and now that the original weakness has shown itself again, he cannot shake it off.”
“But — according to that — he is dying of the blight?”
“Well — in a sense, yes. If you like to put it so.”
Her lips grew white. There rose before her mind that one hour of bitter agony in her lifetime and her son’s, when he had clasped his pleading hands on hers, and told her in a voice hoarse with its bitter pain and emotion that if she decided against him he could never know happiness again in this world: that to part from one to whom he was bound by sweet endearment, by every tie that ought to bind man to woman, would be like parting with life. Entrenched in her pride, she had turned a deaf ear, and rejected his prayer: and now there had come of it what had come. Yes, as Lady Chavasse sat there, she had the satisfaction of knowing that the work was hers.
“A warmer climate? — would it restore him?” she exclaimed, turning her hot eyes on Mr. Duffham.
“Had it been likely to do so, Lady Chavasse, I should have sent him to one long ago.”
She gathered her mantle of purple velvet about her as she rose up, and went out of the room in silence, giving Duffham her hand in token of friendship.
Duffham opened the front-door, and was confronted by a tall footman — with a gold-headed cane and big white silk calves — who had been waiting in the air for his lady. She took the way to the Grange; the man and his protecting cane stepping grandly after her.
“Sir Geoffry Chavasse.”
Buried in her own reflections by the drawing-room fire, in the coming dusk of the winter’s evening, Miss Layne thought her ears must have deceived her. But no. It was Sir Geoffry who advanced as the servant made the announcement; and she rose to meet him. Strangely her heart fluttered: but she had been learning a lesson in calmness for many years; he had too, perhaps; and th
ey shook hands quietly as other people do. Sir Geoffry threw back his overcoat from his wasted form as he sat down.
Wasted more than ever now. Some weeks have gone on since my lady’s impromptu visit to Mr. Duffham’s tea-table; winter is merging into spring; and the most sanguine could no longer indulge hope for Sir Geoffry.
“You have heard how it is with me?” he began, looking at Mary, after recovering his short breath.
“Yes,” she faintly answered.
“I could not die without seeing you, Mary, and speaking a word of farewell. It was in my mind to ask you to come to the Grange for half-an-hour’s interview; but I scarcely saw how to accomplish it: it might have raised some speculation. So as the day has been fine and mild, I came to you.”
“You should have come earlier,” she murmured. “It is getting late and cold.”
“I did come out earlier. But I have been with Duffham.”
Moving his chair a little nearer to hers, he spoke to her long and earnestly. In all that was said there seemed to be a solemn meaning — as is often the case when the speaker is drawing to the confines of this world and about to enter on the next. He referred a little to the past, and there was some mutual explanation. But it seemed to be of the future that Sir Geoffry had come chiefly to speak — the future of Baby Arthur.
“You will take care of him, Mary? — of his best interests?” And the tears came into Mary Layne’s eyes at the words. He could not really think it necessary to ask it.
“Yes. To the very utmost of my power.”
“I am not able to leave him anything. You know how things are with us at the Grange. My wish would have been good — —”
“It is not necessary,” she interrupted. “All I have will be his, Sir Geoffry.”
“Sir Geoffry! Need you keep up that farce, Mary, in this our last hour? He seems to wish to be a soldier: and I cannot think but that the profession will be as good for him as any other, provided you can like it for him. You will see when the time comes: all that lies in the future. Our lives have been blighted, Mary: and I pray God daily and hourly that, being so, it may have served to expiate the sin — my sin, my love, it was never yours — and that no shame may fall on him.”
“I think it will not,” she softly said, the painful tears dropping fast. “He will always be regarded as Colonel Layne’s son: the very few who know otherwise — Mr. Duffham, Colonel and Mrs. Layne, and Lady Chavasse now — will all be true to the end.”
“Ay. I believe it too. I think the boy may have a bright and honourable career before him: as much so perhaps as though he had been born my heir. I think the regret that he was not — when he so easily might have been — has latterly helped to wear me out, Mary.”
“I wish you could have lived, Geoffry!” she cried from between her blinding tears.
“I have wished it also,” he answered, his tone full of pain. “But it was not to be. When the days shall come that my mother is alone, except for Lady Rachel, and grieving for me, I want you to promise that you will sometimes see her and give her consolation. Something tells me that you can do this, Mary, that she will take it from you — and I know that she will need it sadly. Be kind to her when I am gone.”
“Yes. I promise it.”
“You are the bravest of us all, Mary. And yet upon you has lain the greatest suffering.”
“It is the suffering that has made me brave,” she answered. “Oh, Geoffry, I am getting to realize the truth that it is better to have too much of suffering in this world than too little. It is a truth hard to learn: but once learnt, it brings happiness in enduring.”
Sir Geoffry nodded assent. He had learnt somewhat of it also — too late.
“I have begun a confidential letter to Colonel Layne, Mary, and shall post it before I die. To thank him for — —”
The words were drowned in a gleeful commotion — caused by the entrance of Arthur. The boy came dashing in from his afternoon’s study with the curate, some books under his arm.
“I have not been good, Aunt Mary. He said I gave him no end of trouble; and I’m afraid I did: but, you see, I bought the marbles going along, instead of in coming back, as you told me, and —— Who’s that!”
In letting his books fall on a side-table, he had caught sight of the stranger — then standing up. The fire had burnt low, and just for the moment even the young eyes did not recognize Sir Geoffry Chavasse. Mary stirred the fire into a blaze, and drew the crimson curtains before the window.
“What have you come for?” asked the little lad, as Sir Geoffry took his hand. “Are you any better, sir?”
“I shall never be better in this world, Arthur. And so you gave your tutor trouble this afternoon!”
“Yes; I am very sorry: I told him so. It was all through the marbles. I couldn’t keep my hands out of my pockets. Just look what beauties they are!”
Out came a handful of “beauties” of many colours. But Mary, who was standing by the mantelpiece, her face turned away, bade him put them up again. Arthur began to feel that there was some kind of hush upon the room.
“I have been talking to Miss Layne about your future — for, do you know, Arthur, you are a favourite of mine,” said Sir Geoffry. “Ever since the time when my horse knocked you down — and might have killed you — I have taken a very warm interest in your welfare. I have often wished that you — that you” — he seemed to hesitate in some emotion— “were my own little son and heir to succeed me; but of course that cannot be. I don’t know what profession you will choose, or may be chosen for you — —”
“I should like to be a soldier,” interrupted Arthur, lifting his sparkling eyes to Sir Geoffry’s.
“Your ideas may change before the time for choosing shall come. But a soldier may be as brave a servant of God as of his queen: should you ever become a soldier, will you remember this truth?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, in a whisper, for the grave tones and manner impressed him with some awe.
Sir Geoffry was sitting down and holding Arthur before him. To the latter’s intense surprise, he saw two tears standing on the wasted cheeks. It made him feel a sort of discomfort, and he began, as a relief, to play with the chain and seal that hung on the baronet’s waistcoat. A transparent seal, with a plain device on it.
“Should you like to have them when I am gone, Arthur — and wear them in remembrance of me when you are old enough? I think it must be so: no one can have a better right to them than my little friend who once nearly lost his arm by my carelessness. I will see about it. But I have a better present than that — which I will give you now.”
Taking from his pocket the small Bible that had been his companion for some months, he put it into Arthur’s hands, telling him that he had written his name in it. And the child, turning hastily to the fly-leaf, saw it there: “Arthur Layne. From G. A. C.” Lower down were the words: “Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
“Jesus said that!” cried the boy, simply.
“Jesus Christ. My Saviour and yours — for I am sure you will let Him be yours. Do not part with this Book, Arthur. Use it always: I have marked many passages in it. Should it be your fate ever to encamp on the battle-field, let the Book be with you: your guide and friend. In time you will get to love it better than any book that is to be had in the world.”
The child had a tender heart, and began to cry a little. Sir Geoffry drew him nearer.
“I have prayed to God to bless you, Arthur. But you know, my child, He will only give His best blessing to those who seek it, who love and serve Him. Whatsoever may be your lot in life, strive to do your duty in it, as before God; loving Him, loving and serving your fellow-creatures; trusting ever to Christ’s atonement. These are my last solemn words to you. Do you always remember them.”
His voice faltered a little, and Arthur began to sob. “Oh, Sir Geoffry, must you die?”
Sir Geoffry seemed to be breathing fast, as though agitation were becoming too much for
him. He bent his head and kissed the boy’s face fervently: his brow, his cheeks, his lips, his eyelids — there was not a spot that Sir Geoffry did not leave a kiss upon. It quite seemed as though his heart had been yearning for those kisses, and as though he could not take enough of them.
“And now, Arthur, you must do a little errand for me. Go over to Mr. Duffham, and tell him I am coming. Leave the Bible on the table here.”
Arthur went out of the house with less noise than he had entered it. Sir Geoffry rose.
“It is our turn to part now, Mary. I must be gone.”
Her sweet face was almost distorted with the efforts she had been making to keep down emotion before the child. She burst into tears, as her hand met Sir Geoffry’s.
“God bless you! God bless you always, my darling!” he murmured. “Take my thanks, once for all, for the manner in which you have met the past; there is not another woman living who would have done and borne as you have. This is no doubt our last meeting on earth, Mary; but in eternity we shall be together for ever. God bless you, and love you, and keep you always!”
A lingering hand-pressure, a steady look into each other’s eyes, reading the present anguish there, reading also the future trust, and then their lips met — surely there was no wrong in it! — and a farewell kiss of pain was taken. Sir Geoffry went out, buttoning his overcoat across his chest.
A fly was waiting before Mr. Duffham’s house; the surgeon and Arthur were standing by it on the pavement. Sir Geoffry got inside.
“Good-bye, Sir Geoffry!” cried the little lad, as Mr. Duffham, saying he should be at the Grange in the morning, was about to close the door. “I shall write and tell papa how good you’ve been, to give me your own Bible. I can write small-hand now.”
“And fine small-hand it is!” put in old Duffham in disparagement.
Sir Geoffry laid his hand gently on Arthur’s head, and kept it there for a minute. His lips were moving, but he said nothing aloud. Arthur thought he had not been heard.