“You have done four out of the fifteen; you have only eleven of the fifteen before you now. You have got over seven altogether up to this. Not so bad. You’re not tired, youngster?”
“Not the least.”
“That’s right. You’re a good soldier. Now come, we’ll stand close under this hedge and eat a bit.”
They supped very heartily on great slices of bread and corned beef, which bore ample traces of the greens in which it had been served when hot.
“And now, boy, you must get on to Hatherton by yourself, for I’m known about here, and there’s a fair there in the morning, and there will be people on the way before light. You must go a mile beyond the town, to the George public. Mrs. Gumford keeps it, and there I’ll meet you.” Then he detailed the route and the landmarks for the boy’s guidance. “Take a drink of this,” said he, pulling a soda-water bottle full of milk out of his coat pocket.
And when he had done —
“Take a mouthful of this, my hero, it will keep you warm.”
And he placed a flask of brandy to the boy’s lips, and made him swallow a little.
“And here’s a bit more bread, if you should be hungry. Good night, and remember.”
After about an hour’s solitary walking, the boy began to grow alarmed. Tom’s landmarks failed him, and he began to fear that he had lost his way. In half an hour more he was sure that he was quite out of his reckoning, and as his spirits sank he began to feel the cold wind and drenching rain more and more.
And now he found himself entering a town not at all answering Tom’s description of Hatherton.
The little town was silent, its doors and windows shut, and all except a few oldfashioned oil-lamps dark.
After walking listlessly about — afraid to knock and ask anywhere for shelter — worn out, he sat down on a doorstep. He leaned back and soon fell fast asleep.
A shake by the shoulder roused him. A policeman was stooping over him.
“I say, get up out o’ that,” said the imperious voice of the policeman.
The boy was not half awake; he stared at him, his big face and leather-bound chimney-pot looked like a dream.
“I say,” he continued, shaking him, but not violently, “you must get up out o’ that. You’re not to be making yourself comfortable there all night. Come, be lively.”
Comfortable! Lively! — all comparative — all a question of degrees.
The boy got up as quickly as the cold and stiffness of his joints would let him.
Very dutifully he got up, and stood drenched, pale, and shivering in the moonlight.
The policeman looked down not unkindly now, at the little wayfarer. There was something piteous, I dare say. He looked a grave, thoughtful man, of more than fifty, and he put his hand on the child’s shoulder.
“Ye see, boy, that was no place to sleep in.”
“No, sir, I’ll never do it again, sir, please.”
“You’re cold; you’d get pains in your bones.”
“I’ll not any more, sir, please.”
“Come with me, my boy, it’s only a step.”
He brought the boy into his house down the lane close by.
“There’s a fire. You warm yourself. There’s my little one in fever, so you can’t stop long. Sit down, child, and warm yourself.”
He gave him a drink of hot milk and a piece of bread.
“You don’t get up, you know; there’s no need,” he added.
I think he was afraid of his pewter spoons. He kept the little fellow nearly half an hour, and he lent him an old bottomless sack to wrap about his shoulders, and charged him to bring it back in the morning. I think the man thought he might be a thief. He was a kind man — there was a balancing of great pity and suspicion.
The boy returned the sack with many thanks, in the first faint twilight of morning, and set forth again for Hatherton. It was, the fellow who directed him said, still five miles on.
At about a mile from Hatherton, cold and wet, and fearing to be too early at the George Inn, the rendezvous agreed on, the tired little fellow crept in, cold and wet, to a roadside pot-house.
At the fire of the ale-house three fellows were drinking beer. Says one who had now and then had his eye on the boy —
“That boy there has run away from school.”
I cannot describe the terror with which the little fellow heard those words. The other two looked at him. One was a fat fellow in breeches and top boots, and a red cloth waistcoat, and a ruddy goodhumoured face; and after a look they returned to their talk; and in a little while the lean man, who seemed to find it hard to take his eyes off him, said, “That’s a runaway, that chap; we ought to tell the police and send him back to school.”
“Well, that’s no business of ours; can’t you let him be?” said the red waistcoat.
“Come here,” said the lean man, beckoning him over with his hard eye on him.
He rose and slowly approached under that dreadful command.
I can’t say that there was anything malevolent in that man’s face. Somewhat sharp and stern, with a lean inflexibility of duty. To the boy at this moment no face could have been imagined more terrific; his only hope was in his fat companion. He turned, I am sure, an imploring look upon him.
“Come, Irons, let the boy alone, unless ye mean to quarrel wi’ me; d — me ye shall let him alone! And get him his breakfast of something hot, and be lively,” he called to the people; “and score it up to me.”
So, thanks to that good Samaritan in top boots and red waistcoat, the dejected little man pursued his way comforted.
As he walked through Hatherton he was looking into a shop window listlessly, when he distinctly saw, reflected in the plate glass, that which appalled him so that he thought he should have fainted.
It was the marble, blue-chinned face of the Sergeant-Major looking over his shoulder, with his icy gray eyes, into the same window.
He was utterly powerless to move. His great eyes were fixed on that dreadful shadow. He was actually touching his shoulder as he leaned over. Happily the Sergeant did not examine the reflection, which he would have been sure to recognise. The bird fascinated by the cold eye of a snake, and expecting momentarily, with palpitating heart, the spring of the reptile, may feel, when, withdrawing the spell, it glides harmlessly away, as the boy did when he saw that dreaded man turn away and walk with measured tread up the street. For a moment his terror was renewed, for Bion, that yellow namesake of the philosopher, recognising him, stood against the boy’s leg, and scratched repeatedly, and gave him a shove with his nose, and whimpered. The boy turned quickly, and walking away the dog left him, and ran after his master, and took his place at his side.
CONCLUSION.
At the George Inn, a little way out of Hatherton, the boy, to his inexpressible delight, at last found Tom Orange.
He told Tom at once of his adventure at the shop window, and the occurrence darkened Tom’s countenance. He peeped out and took a long look toward Hatherton.
“Put the horse to the fly and bring it round at once,” said Tom, who put his hand in his pocket and drew forth a rather showy handful of silver.
I don’t pretend to say, when Tom was out of regular employment, from what pursuits exactly he drew his revenue. They had rather improved than otherwise; but I dare say there were anxious compensations.
The boy had eaten his breakfast before he reached Hatherton. So much the better; for the apparition of the Sergeant-Major would have left him totally without appetite. As it was, he was in an agony to be gone, every moment expecting to see him approach the little inn to arrest him and Tom.
Tom Orange was uneasy, I am sure, and very fidgety till the fly came round.
“You know Squire Fairfield of Wyvern?” said the hostess, while they were waiting.
“Ay,” said Tom.
“Did you hear the news?”
“What is it?”
“Shot the night before last in a row with poachers. Gentlemen should leave that s
ort o’ work to their keepers; but they was always a fightin’ wild lot, them Fairfields; and he’s lyin’ now a dead man — all the same — gave over by Doctor Willett and another — wi’ a whole charge o’ duck-shot lodged under his shoulder.”
“And that’s the news?” said Tom, raising his eyes and looking through the door. He had been looking down on the ground as Mrs. Gumford of the George told her story.
“There’s sharp fellows poachers round there, I’m told,” he said, “next time he’d a’ been out himself with the keepers to take ‘em dead or alive. I suppose that wouldn’t answer them.”
“’Tis a wicked world, said the lady.
“D — d wicked,” said Tom. “Here’s the fly.”
In they got and drove off.
Tom was gloomy, and very silent.
“Tom, where are we going to?” asked the boy at last.
“All right,” said Tom. “All right, my young master. You’ll find it’s to none but good friends. And, say now — Haven’t I been a good friend to you, Master Harry, all your days, sir? Many a mile that you know nothing about has Tom Orange walked on your business, and down to the cottage and back again; and where would you or her have been if it wasn’t for poor Tom Orange?”
“Yes, indeed, Tom, and I love you, Tom.”
“And now, I’ve took you away from that fellow, and I’m told I’m likely to be hanged for it. Well, no matter.”
“Oh, Tom; poor Tom! Oh! no, no, no!” and he threw his arms round Tom’s neck in a paroxysm of agonised affection, and, in spite of the jolting, kissed Tom; sometimes on the cheek, on the eyebrow, on the chin, and in a great jolt violently on the rim of his hat, and it rolled over his shoulder under their feet.
“Well, that is gratifyin’,” said Tom, drying his eyes. “There is some reward for principle after all, and if you come to be a great man some o’ these days, you’ll not forget poor Tom Orange, that would have spent his last bob and spilt his heart’s blood, without fee or reward, in your service.”
Another explosion of friendship from the boy assured Tom of his eternal gratitude.
“Do you know this place, sir?” asked Tom, with a return of his old manner, as making a sudden turn the little carriage drove through an open gate, and up to a large oldfashioned house. A carriage was waiting at the door.
There could be no mistake. How delightful! and who was that? Mammy! at the hall door, and in an instant they were locked in one another’s arms, and “Oh! the darlin’,” and “Mammy, mammy, mammy!” were the only words audible, half stifled in sobs and kisses.
In a minute more there came into the hall — smiling, weeping, and with hands extended toward him, the pretty lady dressed in black, and her weeping grew into a wild cry, as coming quickly she caught him to her heart. “My darling, my child, my blessed boy, you’re the image — Oh! darling, I loved you the moment I saw you, and now I know it all.”
The boy was worn out. His march, including his divergence from his intended route, had not been much less than thirty miles, and all in chill and wet.
They got him to his bed and made him thoroughly comfortable, and with mammy at his bedside, and her hand, to make quite sure of her, fast in his, he fell into a deep sleep.
Alice had already heard enough to convince her of the boy’s identity, but an urgent message from Harry, who was dying, determined her to go at once to Wyvern to see him, as he desired. So, leaving the boy in charge of “mammy,” she was soon on her way to the old seat of the Fairfields.
If Harry had not known that he was dying, no power could ever have made him confess the story he had to tell.
There were two points on which he greatly insisted.
The first was, that believing that his brother was really married to Bertha Velderkaust, he was justified in holding that his nephew had no legal right to succeed.
The second was, that he had resolved, although he might have wavered lately a little, never to marry, and to educate the boy better than ever he was educated himself, and finally to make him heir to Wyvern, pretending him to be an illegitimate son of his own.
Whether the Sergeant-Major knew more than he was ordered or undertook to know, he never gave the smallest ground to conjecture. He stated exactly what had passed between him and Harry Fairfield. By him he was told that the child which was conveyed to Marjory Trevellian’s care was his own unacknowledged son.
On the very same evening, and when old Mildred Tarnley was in the house at Twyford, was a child taken, with the seeds of consumption already active in it, from a workhouse in another part of England and placed there as the son of Charles Fairfield and Alice. It was when, contrary to all assurances, this child appeared for a few days to rally, and the situation consequent on its growing up the reputed heir to Wyvern alarmed Harry, that he went over, in his panic, to the Grange, and there opened his case, that the child at Twyford was a changeling, and not his brother’s son.
When, however, the child began to sink, and its approaching death could no longer be doubtful, he became, as we have seen, once more quite clear that the baby was the same which he had taken away from Carwell Grange.
Dr. Willett’s seeing the child so often at Twyford, also prevented suspicion, though illogically enough, for had they reflected they might easily have remembered that the doctor had hardly seen the child twice after its birth while at the Grange, and that, like every one else, he took its identity for granted when he saw it at Twyford.
Alice returned greatly agitated late that evening. No difficulty any longer remained, and the boy, with ample proof to sustain his claim, was accepted as the undoubted heir to Wyvern, and the representative of the ancient family of Fairfield.
The boy, Henry Fairfield, was as happy as mortal can be, henceforward. His little playmate, the pretty little girl whom Alice had adopted, who called her “mamma,” and yet was the daughter of a distant cousin only, has now grown up, and is as a girl even more beautiful than she was as a child. Henry will be of age in a few months, and they are then to be married. They now reside at Wyvern. The estate, which has long been at nurse, is now clear, and has funded money beside.
Everything promises a happy and a prosperous reign for the young Fairfield.
Mildred Tarnley, very old, is made comfortable at Carwell Grange.
Good old Dulcibella is still living, very happy, and very kind, but grown a little huffy, being perhaps a little over petted. In all other respects, the effect of years being allowed for, she is just what she always was.
Tom Orange, with a very handsome sum presented by those whom he had served, preferred Australia to the old country.
Harry Fairfield had asserted, in his vehement way, while lying in his last hours at Wyvern, that the fellow with the handkerchief over his face who shot him was, he could all but swear, his old friend Tom Orange.
Tom swore that had he lived he would have prosecuted him for slander. As it is, that eccentric genius has prospered as the proprietor of a monster tavern at Melbourne, where there is comic and sentimental singing, and some dramatic buffooneries, and excellent devilled kidneys and brandy.
Marjory Trevellian lives with the family at Wyvern, and I think if kind old Lady Wyndale were still living the consolations of Alice would be nearly full.
THE END
CHECKMATE
First published in three volumes by Hurst and Blackett in 1871, Checkmate is Le Fanu’s attempt to rewrite the basic plot of his first novel, The Cock and Anchor, in the style of the sensation thriller, so fashionable during the mid-Victorian period. The plot once more surrounds the tribulations of a young lady who finds herself pressured into marrying against her wishes, this time to the unsavoury Walter Longcluse – the disfigured villain at the heart of the novel’s central mystery.
The original frontispiece image
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
/> CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CHAPTER XL.
CHAPTER XLI.
CHAPTER XLII.
CHAPTER XLIII.
CHAPTER XLIV.
CHAPTER XLV.
CHAPTER XLVI.
CHAPTER XLVII.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
CHAPTER XLIX.
CHAPTER L.
CHAPTER LI.
CHAPTER LII.
CHAPTER LIII.
CHAPTER LIV.
CHAPTER LV.
CHAPTER LVI.
CHAPTER LVII.
CHAPTER LVIII.
CHAPTER LIX.
CHAPTER LX.
CHAPTER LXI.
CHAPTER LXII.
CHAPTER LXIII.
CHAPTER LXIV.
CHAPTER LXV.
CHAPTER LXVI.
CHAPTER LXVII.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
CHAPTER LXIX.
CHAPTER LXX.
CHAPTER LXXI.
CHAPTER LXXII.
CHAPTER LXXIII.
CHAPTER LXXIV.
CHAPTER LXXV.
CHAPTER LXXVI.
CHAPTER LXXVII.
CHAPTER LXXVIII.
CHAPTER LXXIX.
CHAPTER LXXX.
CHAPTER LXXXI.
CHAPTER LXXXII.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 518
