by Ellen Wood
“None o’ yer gammon here; none o’ yer lies” — and in proportion as I advanced, he retreated. “You’ve got a ambush in that there coppy — all the lot on you a-waiting to be down on me! Just you try it on!”
“I am telling you the truth, Raddy. There’s not a soul in there but the one I speak of. I say I fear he is dying. He is lying helpless. I will pay you to go” — feeling in my pockets to see how much I had there.
Raddy displayed his teeth: it was a trick of his when feeling particularly defiant. “What’ll yer pay me?”
“Sixpence” — showing it to him. “I will give it you when you have taken the message.”
“Give it first.”
Just for a moment I hesitated in my extremity, but I knew it would be only the sixpence thrown away. Paid beforehand, Raddy would no more do the errand than he’d fly. I told him as much.
“Then be dashed if I go!” And he passed off into a round of swearing.
Good Heavens! If I should not be able to persuade him! If Charles Van Rheyn should die for want of help!
“Did you ever have anybody to care for, Raddy? Did you ever have a mother?”
“Her’s sent over the seas, her is; and I be glad on’t. Her beated me, her did: I wasn’t a-going to stand that.”
“If you ever had anybody you cared for the least bit in the world, Raddy; if you ever did anybody a good turn in all your life, you will help this poor fellow now. Come and look at him. See whether I dare leave him.”
“None o’ yer swindles! Ye wants to get me in there, ye does. I warn’t borned yesterday.”
Well, it seemed hopeless. “Will you go for the sixpence, if I give it to you beforehand, Raddy?”
“Give it over, and see. Where the thunder have ye been?” dealing his dog a savage kick, as it came up barking. “Be I to whistle all day?” Another kick.
I had found two sixpences in my pocket; all its store. Bringing forth one, I held it out to him.
“Now listen, Raddy. I give you this sixpence now. You are to run with all your might to the house — and you can run, you know, like the wind. Say that I sent you — you know my name, Johnny Ludlow — sent you to tell them that the French boy is in the coppice dying;” for I thought it best to put it strong. “Dr. Frost, or some of them, must come to him at once, and they must send off for Mr. Featherston. You can remember that. The French boy, mind.”
“I could remember it if I tried.”
“Well, I’ll give you the sixpence. And look here — here’s another sixpence. It is all the money I have. That shall be yours also, when you have done the errand.”
I slipped one of the sixpences back into my pocket, holding out the other. But I have often wondered since that he did not stun me with a blow, and take the two. Perhaps he could not entirely divest himself of that idea of the “ambush.” I did not like the leering look on his false face as he sidled cautiously up towards the sixpence.
“Take a look at him; you can see him from the stile,” I said, closing my hand over the sixpence while I spoke; “convince yourself that he is there, and that no trickery is meant. And, Raddy,” I added, slowly opening the hand again, “perhaps you may want help one of these days yourself in some desperate need. Do this good turn for him, and the like will be done for you.”
I tossed him the sixpence. He stole cautiously to the stile, making a wide circuit round me to do it, glanced at Van Rheyn, and then made straight off in the right direction as fast as his legs would carry him, the dog barking at his heels.
Van Rheyn was better when I got back to him; his breathing easier, the mouth less blue; and his arms were no longer clutching the tree-trunk. Nevertheless, there was that in his face that gave me an awful fear and made my breath for a moment nearly as short as his. I sat down beside him, letting him lean against me, as well as the tree, for better support.
“Are you afraid, Charley? I hope they’ll not be long.”
“I am not afraid with this,” he answered with a happy smile — and, opening his hand, I saw the little cross clasped in it.
Well, that nearly did for me. It was as though he meant to imply he knew he was dying, and was not afraid to die. And he did mean it.
“You do not comprehend?” he added, mistaking the look of my face — which no doubt was desperate. “I have kept the Saviour with me here, and He will keep me with Him there.”
“Oh — but, Charley! You can’t think you are going to die.”
“Yes, I feel so,” he answered quite calmly. “My mother said, that last Sunday, might not be long after her. She drew me close to her, and held my hand, and her tears were falling with mine. It was then she said it.”
“Oh, Charley! how can I help you?” I cried out in my pain and dread. “If I could only do something for you!”
“I would like to give you this,” he said, half opening his hand again, as it rested on his breast, just to show me the cross. “My mother has seen how good you have always been for me: she said she should look down, if permitted, to watch for me till I came. Would you please keep it to my memory?”
The hardest task I’d ever had in my life was to sit there. To sit there quietly — helpless. Dying! And I could do nothing to stay him! Oh, why did they not come? If I could only have run somewhere, or done something!
In a case like this the minutes seem as long as hours. Dr. Frost was up sooner than could have been hoped for by the watch, and Featherston with him. Raddy did his errand well. Chancing to see the surgeon pass down the road as he was delivering the message at the house, he ran and arrested him. He put his ill-looking face over the stile, as they came up, and I flung him the other sixpence, and thanked him too. The French master came running; others came: I hardly saw who they were, for my eyes were troubled.
The first thing that Featherston did was to open Van Rheyn’s things at the throat, spread a coat on the ground and put his head flat down upon it. But oh, there could be no mistake. He was dying: nearly gone. Dr. Frost knelt down, the better to get at him, and said something that we did not catch.
“Thank you, sir,” answered Van Rheyn, panting again and speaking with pain, but smiling faintly his grateful smile. “Do not be sorrowful. I shall see my mother. Sir — if you please — I wish to give my cross to Johnny Ludlow.”
Dr. Frost only nodded in answer. His heart must have been full.
“Johnny Ludlow has been always good for me,” he went on. “He will guard it to my memory: a keepsake. My mother would give it to him — she has seen that Johnny has stood by me ever since that first day.”
Monsieur Fontaine spoke to him in French, and Van Rheyn answered in the same language. While giving a fond message for his father, his voice grew feeble, his face more blue, and the lids slowly closed over his eyes. Dr. Frost said something about removing him to the house, but Featherston shook his head. “Presently, presently.”
“Adieu, sir,” said Van Rheyn faintly to Dr. Frost, and partly opening his eyes again, “Adieu, Monsieur Fontaine. Adieu, all. Johnny, say my very best adieux to the boys; tell them it has been very pleasant lately; say they have been very good comrades; and say that I shall see them all again when they come to heaven. Will you hold my hand?”
Taking his left hand in mine — the other had the gold cross in it — I sat on beside him. The dusk was increasing, so that we could no longer very well see his features in the dark coppice. My tears were dropping fast and thick, just as his tears had dropped that evening when I found him sitting at the foot of his bed.
Well, it was over directly. He gave one long deep sigh, and then another after an interval, and all was over. It seemed like a dream then in the acting; it seems, looking back, like a dream now.
He had died from the running at Hare and Hounds. The violent exercise had been too much for the heart. We heard later that the French family doctor had suspected the heart was not quite sound; and that was the reason of Monsieur Rheyn’s written restrictions on the score of violent exercise. But, as Dr. Frost angrily observed
, why did the father not distinctly warn him against that special danger: how was it to be suspected in a lad of hearty and healthy appearance? Monsieur Van Rheyn came over, and took what remained of Charles back to Rouen, to be laid beside his late wife. It was a great blow to him to lose his only son. And all the property went away from the Van Rheyn family to Mrs. Scott in India.
The school went into a state that night, when we got in from the coppice, and I gave them Van Rheyn’s message. They knew something was up with him, but never suspected it could be death.
“I say, though,” cried Harry Parker, in a great access of remorse, speaking up amidst the general consternation, “we would never have worried him had we foreseen this. Poor Van Rheyn!”
And I have his gold cross by me this day. Sometimes, when looking at it, a fancy comes over me that he, looking down from heaven, sees it too.
VIII.
MRS. TODHETLEY’S EARRINGS.
Again we had been spending the Christmas at Crabb Cot. It was January weather, cold and bright, the sun above and the white snow on the ground. Mrs. Todhetley had been over to Timberdale Court, to the christening of Robert and Jane Ashton’s baby: a year had gone by since their marriage. The mater went to represent Mrs. Coney, who was godmother. Jane was not strong enough to sit out a christening dinner, and that was to be given later. After some mid-day feasting, the party dispersed.
I went out to help Mrs. Todhetley from the carriage when she got back. The Squire was at Pershore for the day. It was only three o’clock, and the sun quite warm in spite of the snow.
“It is so fine, Johnny, that I think I’ll walk to the school,” she said, as she stepped down. “It may not be like this to-morrow, and I must see about those shirts.”
The parish school was making Tod a set of new shirts; and some bother had arisen about them. Orders had been given for large plaits in front, when Tod suddenly announced that he would have the plaits small.
“Only —— Can I go as I am?” cried Mrs. Todhetley, suddenly stopping in indecision, as she remembered her fine clothes: a silver-grey gown that shone like silver, white shawl of china crape, and be-feathered bonnet.
“Why, yes, of course you can go as you are, good mother. And look all the nicer for it.”
“I fear the children will stare! But then — if the shirts get made wrong! Well, will you go with me, Johnny?”
We reached the school-house, I waiting outside while she went in. It was during that time of strike that I have told of before, when Eliza Hoar died of it. The strike was in full swing still; the men looked discontented, the women miserable, the children pinched.
“I don’t know what in the world Joseph will say!” cried Mrs. Todhetley, as we were walking back. “Two of the shirts are finished with the large plaits. I ought to have seen about it earlier; but I did not think they would begin them quite so soon. We’ll just step into Mrs. Coney’s, Johnny, as we go home. I must tell her about the christening.”
For Mrs. Coney was a prisoner from an attack of rheumatism. It had kept her from the festivity. She was asleep, however, when we got in: and Mr. Coney thought she had better not be disturbed, even for the news of the little grandson’s christening, as she had lain awake all the past night in pain; so we left again.
“Why, Johnny! who’s that?”
Leaning against the gate of our house, in the red light of the setting sun, was an elderly woman, dark as a gipsy.
“A tramp,” I whispered, noticing her poor clothes.
“Do you want anything, my good woman?” asked Mrs. Todhetley.
She was half kneeling in the snow, and lifted her face at the words: a sickly face, that somehow I liked now I saw it closer. Her tale was this. She had set out from her home, three miles off, to walk to Worcester, word having been sent her that her daughter, who was in service there, had met with an accident. She had not been strong of late, and a faintness came over her as she was passing the gate. But for leaning on it she must have fallen.
“You should go by train: you should not walk,” said Mrs. Todhetley.
“I had not the money just by me, ma’am,” she answered. “It ‘ud cost two shillings or half-a-crown. My daughter sent word I was to take the train and she’d pay for it: but she did not send the money, and I’d not got it just handy.”
“You live at Islip, you say. What is your name?”
“Nutt’n, ma’am,” said the woman, in the local dialect. Which name I interpreted into Nutten; but Mrs. Todhetley thought she said Nutt.
“I think you are telling me the truth,” said the mater, some hesitation in her voice, though. “If I were assured of it I would advance you half-a-crown for the journey.”
“The good Lord above us knows that I’m telling it,” returned the woman earnestly, turning her face full to the glow of the sun. “It’s more than I could expect you to do, ma’am, and me a stranger; but I’d repay it faithfully.”
Well, the upshot was that she got the half-crown lent her; and I ran in for a drop of warm ale. Molly shrieked out at me for it, refusing to believe that the mistress gave any such order, and saying she was not going to warm ale for parish tramps. So I got the ale and the tin, and warmed it myself. The woman was very grateful, drank it, and disappeared.
“Joseph, I am so very sorry! They have made two of your shirts, and the plaits are the large ones you say you don’t like.”
“Then they’ll just unmake them,” retorted Tod, in a temper.
We were sitting round the table at tea, Mrs. Todhetley having ordered some tea to be made while she went upstairs. She came down without her bonnet, and had changed her best gown for the one she mostly wore at home: it had two shades in it, and shone like the copper tea-kettle. The Squire was not expected home yet, and we were to dine an hour later than usual.
“That Miss Timmens is not worth her salt,” fired Tod, helping himself to some thin bread-and-butter. “What business has she to go and make my shirts wrong?”
“I fear the fault lies with me, Joseph, not with Miss Timmens. I had given her the pattern shirt, which has large plaits, you know, before you said you would prefer —— Oh, we hardly want the lamp yet, Thomas!” broke off the mater, as old Thomas came in with the lighted lamp.
“I’m sure we do, then,” cried Tod. “I can’t see which side’s butter and which bread.”
“And I, not thinking Miss Timmens would put them in hand at once, did not send to her as soon as you spoke, Joseph,” went on the mater, as Thomas settled the lamp on the table. “I am very sorry, my dear; but it is only two. The rest shall be done as you wish.”
Something, apart from the shirts, had put Tod out. I had seen it as soon as we got in. For one thing, he had meant to go to Pershore: and the pater, not knowing it, started without him.
“Let them unmake the two,” growled Tod.
“But it would be a great pity, Joseph. They are very nicely done; the stitching’s beautiful. I really don’t think it will signify.”
“You don’t, perhaps. You may like odd things. A pig with one ear, for example.”
“A what, Joseph?” she asked, not catching the last simile.
“I said a pig with one ear. No doubt you do like it. You are looking like one now, ma’am.”
The words made me gaze at Mrs. Todhetley, for the tone bore some personal meaning, and then I saw what Tod meant: an earring was absent. The lamp-light shone on the flashing diamonds, the bright pink topaz of the one earring; but the other ear was bare and empty.
“You have lost one of your earrings, mother!”
She put her hands to her ears, and started up in alarm. These earrings were very valuable: they had been left to her, when she was a child, in some old lady’s will, and constituted her chief possession in jewellery worth boasting of. Not once in a twelvemonth did she venture to put them on; but she had got them out to-day for the christening.
Whether it was that I had gazed at the earrings when I was a little fellow and sat in her lap, I don’t know; but I never sa
w any that I liked so well. The pink topaz was in a long drop, the slender rim of gold that encircled it being set with diamonds. Mrs. Todhetley said they were worth fifty guineas: and perhaps they were. The glittering white of the diamonds round the pink was beautiful to look upon.
The house went into a commotion. Mrs. Todhetley made for her bedroom, to see whether the earring had dropped on the floor or was lodging inside her bonnet. She shook out her grey dress, hoping it had fallen amidst the folds. Hannah searched the stairs, candle in hand; the two children were made to stand in corners for fear they should tread on it. But the search came to nothing. It seemed clear enough that the earring was not in the house.
“Did you notice, Johnny, whether I had them both in my ears when we went to the school?” the mater asked.
No, I did not. I had seen them sparkling when she got out of the carriage, but had not noticed them after.
I went out to search the garden-path that she had traversed, and the road over to the Coneys’ farm. Tod helped me, forgetting his shirts and his temper. Old Coney said he remarked the earrings while Mrs. Todhetley was talking to him, and thought how beautiful they were. That is, he had remarked one of them; he was sure of that; and he thought if the other had been missing, its absence would have struck him. But that was just saying nothing; for he could not be certain that both were there.
“You may hunt till to-morrow morning, and get ten lanterns to it,” cried Molly, in her tart way, meeting us by the bay-tree, as we went stooping up the path again: “but you’ll be none the nearer finding it. That tramp got’s the earring, Master Joe.”
“What tramp?” demanded Tod, straightening himself.
“A tramp that Master Johnny there must needs give hot ale to,” returned Molly. “I know what them tramps are worth. They’d pull rings out of ears with their own fingers, give ’em the chance: and perhaps this woman did, without the missis seeing her.”
Tod turned to me for an explanation. I gave it, and he burst into a derisive laugh, meant for me and the mater. “To think we could be taken in by such a tale as that!” he cried: “we should never see tramp, or half-crown, or perhaps the earring again.”
