by Ellen Wood
“Whew!” interposed the captain, “I can understand it. He is cutting across the country from Chesney Oaks to Great Wennock for a day or two on some political business, and so intends to make a convenience of my house to stay in and to have his letters sent to. Very condescending of him indeed!”
“Papa,” said Lucy somewhat anxiously, “don’t you like Lord Oakburn?”
“Well — yes, I like him well enough, what I know of him; but I hold that I had great grievances against his father. What’s the post-mark, Jane?”
Jane Chesney turned the letter over, and made out the mark to be “Pembury.” It was the post-town in the vicinity of Lord Oakburn’s seat, Chesney Oaks.
“He must have started then, I should think,” remarked Jane. “And this has been sent after him.”
“How did he know our address here, papa?” asked Lucy.
“How did he know our address here!” repeated the captain in choler. “What should hinder his knowing it? Do I live with my head under a bushel, pray? When I changed from Plymouth to this neighbourhood, the family received intimation of it; and didn’t I write to the earl the other day when his wife died? Was I not asked to the funeral, little stupid; and couldn’t go because of that confounded gout?”
“Lucy’s only a child, papa,” soothingly interposed Jane. “She does not reflect before speaking.”
“Then she ought to do so,” said the captain, “and not show herself a simpleton. He’ll be wanting another wife soon, I suppose, so you had better look out, Miss Laura, and set your cap at him when he comes. You wouldn’t make a bad countess.”
The grim sailor spoke in jest. To give him his due, he was not capable of scheming for his daughters in any way. Laura, however, seemed to take the words in earnest. She had sat silent over her nearly untasted breakfast, her face bent; but it was lifted now, flushing with a vivid crimson. Captain Chesney laughed; he thought his random shaft must have struck home to her vanity, exciting visions of a peeress’s coronet, pleasing as they were foolish. But Jane, who had also noticed the blush, attributed it to a different cause, and one that pleased her not.
“Papa,” resumed Lucy, venturing on another question, “how far is it from this to Chesney Oaks?”
“About thirty miles, little mouse.”
“I think I ought to have holiday from my lessons to-day, as Lord Oakburn is coming,” continued the child, glancing at Jane.
“Wait for that until he does come,” said the captain. “He’s as uncertain as the wind; all young men are; and it may be days before he gets here. He may” — the captain drew up his head at the thought— “he may be coming to consult me on business matters connected with the estate, for I am — yes, I am — the next heir, now he’s a single man again. Not that I shall ever inherit; he is twenty-five and I am fifty-nine. Have you a headache this morning, Laura?”
Again came the rush of red to her face. What self-conscious feeling induced it? “No, not this morning, papa. Why?”
“You are as silent and look as down as if you had fifty headaches. Jane,” concluded the captain, as he rose, “we must have soup to-day, in case he arrives.”
Jane acquiesced, with a sigh. Lord Oakburn’s anticipated visit was only an additional care to the many household troubles that oppressed her.
Breakfast over, the captain strolled out. There was a lull in the storm, and the rain had momentarily ceased. He looked up at the skies with his experienced sailor’s eye, and saw that it had not ceased for long. So he did not go beyond the garden, but went strolling about that.
Laura had departed immediately to her room. Jane placed the letter for Lord Oakburn on the mantel-piece and opened the one addressed to herself, which she had not done at breakfast. As she was reading it Captain Chesney came in to ask her for a piece of string to tie up some bush in the garden.
“Is your letter from—”
The captain stopped without concluding the sentence, stopped abruptly, and Jane’s heart fluttered, She believed he had been going to say “from Clarice,” and she felt thankful that the long barrier of silence observed by her father in regard to that name should at length be broken. Nothing of the sort, however, the captain’s obstinacy was unconquerable.
“It is only from Plymouth, papa.”
“Oh,” said the captain indifferently; and, taking the string which she had found for him, he moved away, all unconscious that even in that slight incident she was sparing him pain in her love and duty. The letter was from a creditor at Plymouth, pressing for money on account of some long-standing debt.
Jane settled Lucy to her lessons, and then went up to her sister’s room. Laura had flung herself upon the bed, and lay there with her hands pressed to her temples. It may be questioned which of the two sisters had passed the most unhappy night. The discovery of the previous evening had been one of dire dismay to Jane Chesney, and she had lain awake in her distress, wondering how it was to end, wondering whether Laura could be recalled to a sense of what was right. In her own simple rectitude of feeling, Jane looked on the affair, on Laura’s having allowed herself to meet in secret Mr. Carlton, almost as a crime, certainly as a heavy disgrace. And Laura? Laura could only regard with shrinking fear the step she was about to take. She had tossed on her uneasy bed, asking herself whether she should not yet draw back from it. Even now the conflict was not over, and she lay there in dire perplexity and distress.
“Laura,” began Jane in low tones, as she entered, “this must end.”
Laura sprang off the bed, startled and vexed at having been found there. “I feel tired this morning,” she stammered, with a lame attempt at apology; “I did not sleep well last night.”
“I say, Laura, that this must end,” continued Jane, too agitated with grief to set about her task in any artistic manner. “You have permitted yourself to meet in secret that man — the surgeon, Carlton. Oh, Laura! what strange infatuation can have come over you?” Laura laid her hand upon her chest to still its heavy beating. Found out! In her dismay and perplexity it seemed to her that there was nothing for it but denial. And she stooped to it.
“Who says I have? What will you accuse me of next, Jane?”
“Hush, Laura! falsehood will not mend wrong-doing. Evening after evening you steal out to meet him. Last night I wanted you, and I heard you were outside. I saw you come in, Laura, with the shawl over your head. Laura, my dearest sister, I do not wish to speak harshly, but surely you cannot have reflected on how great is the degradation!”
Strange to say, the effect of the discovery was to harden her. With every moment, now that the first startling shock had passed, Laura’s spirit grew more defiant. She made no reply to her sister.
“I speak only for your own sake,” pleaded Jane; “It is for your sake I beg you to break off all intimacy with Mr. Carlton. Laura, I feel certain that he is not the man to make you happy, even were attendant circumstances favourable to it.”
“It is a strange prejudice that you have taken against Mr. Carlton!” resentfully spoke Laura.
“I am not singular in it; papa dislikes him also. But, Laura, answer me a question: what end do you, can you, propose to yourself in this intimacy with him?”
Laura coloured, hesitated, and then took courage to speak out. But the answer was partly evasive.
“Mr. Carlton speaks of marriage. In time, when all your prejudices shall be overcome.”
“Do not cherish it, do not glance at it,” said Jane with emotion. “Our objections to Mr. Carlton never can be overcome. And I tell you that he would not make you happy.”
“We must see — wait and see. If the worst comes to the worst, and every one remains obdurate, we must then — we must then — join common cause against you for ourselves.”
Laura spoke with agitation, but her agitation was as nothing compared to that which seized upon Jane at the words. It was impossible for her to mistake their hidden meaning. Her lips were white, her throat was working, and she held her sister’s hands in hers.
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��You do not know what you say. Never so speak again; you would not, were you to weigh your words. I pray you — Laura, by the remembrance of our dead mother I pray you — never suffer so mistaken a thought to enter your mind, as that of quitting clandestinely your father’s house to become a wife. A marriage entered upon in disobedience and defiance could not prosper. Laura, I don’t think you are happy.”
Laura burst into a flood of hysterical tears and laid her face down upon the dressing-table almost in abandonment. Never had the conflict between right and wrong been so great as at that moment. Which should she give up? her father, her friends, her duty? — or him whom she loved with that all-impassioned love?
Jane stooped to kiss her. “Let it end from this day,” she whispered. “Do not again forget what is due to yourself and to us by stealing out of the house for any secret interview. It is not seemly; it is not right.”
Jane quitted the room; it was best to leave Laura’s sobs to subside alone. As she descended the stairs and passed the staircase window, she saw her father coming up one of the garden paths. Almost at the same moment, a blow, a crash of glass, and a shriek of terror, sounded from below. Jane flew down the stairs; Judith rushed forth from the kitchen; and Pompey, his great eyes glaring, emerged from some peculiar sanctum of his own, sacred to knives and boots. They stared at each other in the hall.
“Who is it?” exclaimed Jane. “What has happened? I thought it must be you, Pompey, come to harm amidst the bottles.”
“Don’t stand there asking who it is,” burst from the choleric captain, as he came flinging into the hall. “It’s Lucy. She has fallen against the drawing-room window, and perhaps killed herself.” They ran to the drawing-room. Lucy lay on the carpet close to the window, which opened, you know, on the ground. In running carelessly towards it to say something to her father, her foot had slipped and she fell with her arms against the window, breaking two of its panes. The palm of one hand was cut, and the inside of the other wrist. They raised her and placed her in a chair, but the wrist bled dreadfully. Judith grew pale.
“There may be an artery divided, sir,” she whispered to her master. “If so, she may bleed to death.”
“You rascal, to stand there gaping when the child’s dying!” cried the hot captain. “Go along and get help.”
“Is it Misser Carlton I am to get?” asked the unlucky Pompey. Down came the captain’s stick within an inch of Pompey’s head, and Laura, dismayed at the disturbance, came in just in time to hear the captain’s answer.
“That villain Carlton! No, sir, not if the whole house were dying together. Get Mr. Grey here, you useless animal. Not the one who poisoned the lady’s draught, sir, do you hear? He shouldn’t come within a mile of me. Find the other one, and be quick over it.”
Poor, affectionate, well-meaning Pompey would certainly have been as quick as his best legs allowed him, but he was saved the trouble of using them. At the very instant they were speaking, Mr. John Grey was seen driving past in his gig. Judith ran out.
The groom heard her call, and pulled up, and Mr. Grey hastened in with Judith when he found what was the matter. In ten minutes the wounds were washed and strapped together with plaster. Lucy had cried very much with terror.
“Shall I die? Shall I die?” she asked of Mr. Grey, her little heart beating, her hands trembling.
“No, of course not,” he replied. “What made you think of that?”
“I heard them talk about my dying; I am sure I did,” sobbed Lucy, who was of an excitable and also of a timid temperament. “I heard them say that perhaps the artery was divided; does that kill people?”
“Not always,” said Mr. Grey. “Keep your hands still, like a brave little girl.”
“Are you sure I shall not die?”
“Quite sure; you are not in any danger. Look here,” he added, turning up his coat-sleeve and wristband, and exhibiting his wrist to Lucy, while the others stood around, the captain in rather a subdued mood. “Do you see that scar?”
“Yes,” was Lucy’s answer.
“Well, once, when I was younger than you, I fell against a window just as you have done, and cut my wrist. There was danger in my case, and shall I tell you why? — the cut divided the artery. Though who made you so wise about arteries,” added Mr. Grey, smiling, “I don’t know. But you see, Miss Lucy — I think I heard them call you Lucy, and I like the name, it was my mother’s — you see, where there is great danger there is generally great help. My father, a surgeon, was in the room when I did it: he took up the artery immediately, and the danger was past. Now, with this foolish little hurt of yours, although the strappings of diachylon look formidable, there has not been any danger, for the artery is not touched. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” replied Lucy, “and I believe you. I shall not be afraid now. Shall you come and see me again?”
“I will come in this afternoon just to see that the strappings remain in their places. And now, good-bye, and be sure you keep your hands still.”
“I think there must be holiday after this,” said Jane, with a smile.
“Oh, decidedly holiday,” returned Mr. Grey, nodding pleasantly to Lucy. “Nursing to-day, lessons to-morrow.”
Captain Chesney went out with him, and linked his arm within his. A rare condescension for the captain, and one that proved he had taken a fancy to Mr. Grey.
“She will do well, Captain Chesney, and I am glad I happened to be passing. It might have been an awkward accident.”
“Sir, I thank you,” said the captain; “and, sir, I see that you are a gentleman, and a man to be esteemed. And I can only regret one thing.”
“What is that?” inquired Mr. Grey.
“That I ever took up with that fool of a Carlton. I dislike him, sir, and he shall never darken my doors again: he has proved himself anything but a gentleman. He’s not fit to tie your shoes, socially, Mr. Grey, I can tell you that; and I don’t suppose he is, professionally.” John Grey laughed, said a word to the captain to set him right as to Mr. Carlton’s professional skill, which was really superior, ascended his gig in the pelting rain, and drove away.
The day went on. The evening post brought another letter for the Earl of Oakburn, though the day had failed to bring the earl himself. They dined at five, as usual, and afterwards Captain Chesney went into the town to meet the omnibus from Great Wennock, thinking it might possibly bring the earl, or news of him. It was after his departure that this second letter arrived, and Jane saw that it bore the London post-mark. Mr. John Grey, who had not been able to get up before, called in towards dusk.
As he stood at the table, talking to Jane, Lucy sitting in an easy-chair at the fire, his eye happened to fall on the letter that lay there, directed to the Earl of Oakburn.
“Do you know the earl?” he exclaimed, the remark appearing to escape him involuntarily.
“Yes,” replied Jane; “we are related to him.”
“Then perhaps you can tell me how he is?”
“I suppose he is well. We have been expecting him here all day.”
“Expecting him here all day!” repeated Mr. Grey in an accent of astonishment. “I beg your pardon, Miss Chesney; I believe I cannot have caught your meaning.”
“We have been expecting Lord Oakburn here since this morning,” resumed Jane, “and we still expect him here to sleep. This letter and another have come to await him.”
“You must, I fancy, be labouring under an error,” returned Mr. Grey, in tones that seemed to say he did not fully comprehend Miss Chesney. “Lord Oakburn is dangerously ill; ill almost to death. Two days ago, very slight hopes indeed were entertained of him.”
“What is the matter with him?” exclaimed Jane, thinking that the letters must contradict Mr. Grey’s assertion. “Is he at Chesney Oaks?”
“He is lying at Chesney Oaks, ill of typhus fever. I know it in this way. The day-before yesterday I had to go fifteen miles from this, to meet a physician from Pembury: we were to meet half-way. He did not come, but sen
t a friend, another medical man, who explained to me that the first was detained by the alarming illness of Lord Oakburn. He has been staying at Chesney Oaks since the funeral of the countess, went into a house where the fever was raging, and caught it. On the day I met this gentleman, he told me that a few hours would probably terminate his life.”
Jane was silent, silent from positive bewilderment. Lucy spoke up from her chair.
“But, Mr. Grey, if Lord Oakburn should not be coming, why should he have his letters sent here?” Lucy felt disappointed: she had been anticipating great pleasure from the visit of Lord Oakburn.
“That is what I am thinking about,” said Jane. “It is not only one letter, it is two; the one is from Pembury, the other from London. Unless Lord Oakburn should be intending to come here, why, as Lucy says, should letters be sent to meet him?”
“You may rely upon it that the Lord Oakburn who was lying ill at Chesney Oaks is not intending to come here at present, Miss Chesney. Probably you may know the next heir?”
“Papa is the next heir,” said Jane.
“Captain Chesney is the next heir to the earldom of Oakburn?” quickly repeated Mr. Grey.
“Yes, he is.”
“Then, my dear young lady, it is explained, I fear,” returned Mr. Grey, after a grave pause. “Rely upon it, the young earl is dead: and that these letters are addressed to your father as Earl of Oakburn.”
CHAPTER XX.
DISAPPEARANCE.
JANE CHESNEY sat in the darkening twilight gazing at the two letters which had caused them so much speculation. The conviction was gradually forcing itself upon her, that the view taken of the case by Mr. John Grey was the only one that offered any reasonable solution to the mystery; for if the young Earl of Oakburn was lying ill of fever at Chesney Oaks, it was out of the range of probability to suppose that letters would be sent to him to Captain Chesney’s house at South Wennock.
Lucy’s voice broke the stillness of the long pause that had followed on Mr. Grey’s departure. The little girl, gifted with much sensitive feeling, had not liked to speak before, and even now her tones were low and timid.
