Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “May I come to see the peacock when I get well, Sir Geoffry?”

  “Certainly. You shall come and look at him for a whole day if grandmamma will allow you to.”

  Grandmamma gave no motion or word of assent, but Arthur took it for granted. “Betsy can bring me if Aunt Mary won’t; Betsy’s my nurse. I wish I could have him before that window to look at while I lie here to get well. I like peacocks and musical boxes better than anything in the world.”

  “Musical boxes!” exclaimed Sir Geoffry. “Do you care for them?”

  “Oh yes; they are beautiful. Do you know the little lame boy who can’t walk, down Piefinch Cut? His father comes to do grandmamma’s garden. Do you know him, Sir Geoffry? His name’s Reuben.”

  “It’s Noah, the gardener’s son, sir,” put in Mrs. Layne aside to Sir Geoffry. “He was thrown downstairs when a baby, and has been a cripple ever since.”

  But the eager, intelligent eyes were still cast up, waiting for the answer. “Where have I seen them?” mentally debated Sir Geoffry, alluding to the eyes.

  “I know the name?” he answered.

  “Well, Reuben has got a musical box, and it plays three tunes. He is older than I am: he’s ten. One of them is ‘The Blue Bells of Scotland.’”

  Sir Geoffry nodded and went away. He crossed straight over to Mr. Duffham’s, and found him writing a letter in his surgery.

  “I hope the child will do well,” said the baronet, when he had shaken hands. “I have just been to see him. What an intelligent, nice little fellow it is.”

  “Oh, he will be all right again in time, Sir Geoffry,” was the doctor’s reply, as he began to fold his letter.

  “He is a pretty boy, too, very. His eyes are strangely like some one’s I have seen, but for the life of me I cannot tell whose!”

  “Really? — do you mean it?” cried Mr. Duffham, speaking, as it seemed, in some surprise.

  “Mean what?”

  “That you cannot tell.”

  “Indeed I can’t. They puzzled me all the while I was there. Do you know? Say, if you do.”

  “They are like your own, Sir Geoffry.”

  “Like my own!”

  “They are your own eyes over again. And yours — as poor Layne used to say, and as the picture in the Grange dining-room shows us also, for the matter of that — are Sir Peter’s. Sir Peter’s, yours, and the child’s: they are all the same.”

  For a long space of time, as it seemed, the two gentlemen gazed at each other. Mr. Duffham with a questioning and still surprised look: Sir Geoffry in a kind of bewildered amazement.

  “Duffham! you — you —— Surely it is not that child!”

  “Yes, it is.”

  He backed to a chair and stumbled into it, rather than sat down; somewhat in the same manner that Mrs. Layne had backed against the counter nearly seven years before and upset the scales. The old lady seemed to have aged since quicker than she ought to have done: but her face then had not been whiter than was Geoffry Chavasse’s now.

  “Good Heavens!”

  The dead silence was only broken by these murmured words that fell from his lips. Mr. Duffham finished folding his note, and directed it.

  “Sir Geoffry, I beg your pardon! I beg it a thousand times. If I had had the smallest notion that you were ignorant of this, I should never have spoken.”

  Sir Geoffry took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow. Some moisture had gathered there.

  “How was I to suspect it?” he asked.

  “I never supposed but that you must have known it all along.”

  “All along from when, Duffham?”

  “From — from — well, from the time you first knew that a child was over there.”

  Sir Geoffry cast his thoughts back. He could not remember anything about the child’s coming to Church Dykely. In point of fact, the Grange had been empty at the time.

  “I understood that the child was one of Captain and Mrs. Layne’s,” he rejoined. “Every one said it; and I never had any other thought. Even yesterday at the Grange you spoke of him as such, Duffham.”

  “Of course. Miss Layne was present — and Hester Picker — and the child himself. I did not speak to deceive you, Sir Geoffry. When you said what you did to me in coming away, about calling in other advice for the satisfaction of Major Layne, I thought you were merely keeping up appearances.”

  “And it is so, then?”

  “Oh dear, yes.”

  Another pause. Mr. Duffham affixed the stamp to his letter, and put the paper straight in his note-case. Sir Geoffry suddenly lifted his hand, as one whom some disagreeable reflection overwhelms.

  “To think that I was about to write to Major Layne! To think that I should have stood there, in the old lady’s presence, talking boldly with the child! She must assume that I have the impudence of Satan.”

  “Mrs. Layne is past that, Sir Geoffry. Her faculties are dulled: three-parts dead. That need not trouble you.”

  The baronet put aside his handkerchief and took up his hat to leave. He began stroking its nap with his coat-sleeve.

  “Does my mother know of this, do you think?”

  “I am sure she neither knows nor suspects it. No one does, Sir Geoffry: the secret has been entirely kept.”

  “The cost of this illness must be mine, you know, Duffham.”

  “I think not, Sir Geoffry,” was the surgeon’s answer. “It would not do, I fear. There’s no need, besides: Miss Layne is rich now.”

  “Rich! How is she rich?”

  And Mr. Duffham had to explain. A wealthy gentleman in India, some connection of the Laynes, had died and left money to Mary Layne. Six or seven hundred a year; and plenty of ready means. Sir Geoffry Chavasse went out, pondering upon the world’s changes.

  He did not call to see the invalid again; but he bought a beautiful musical box at Worcester, and sent it in to the child by Duffham. It played six tunes. The boy had never in his life been so delighted. He returned his love and thanks to Sir Geoffry; and appended several inquiries touching the welfare of the peacock.

  The first news heard by Lady Chavasse and Lady Rachel on their coming home, was of the accident caused to Major Layne’s little son by Sir Geoffry’s horse. Hester Picker and the other servants were full of it. It happened to be the day that Sir Geoffry had gone to Worcester after the box, so he could not join in the narrative. A sweet, beautiful boy, said Hester to my ladies, and had told them he meant to be a soldier when he grew up, as brave as his papa. Lady Chavasse, having digested the news, and taken inward counsel with herself, decided to go and see him: it would be right and neighbourly, she thought. It might be that she was wishing to bestow some slight mark of her favour upon the old lady before death should claim her: and she deemed that the honour of a call would effect this. In her heart she acknowledged that the Laynes had behaved admirably in regard to the past; never to have troubled her or her son by word or deed or letter; and in her heart she felt grateful for it. Some people might have acted differently.

  “I think I will go and see him too,” said Lady Rachel.

  “No, pray don’t,” dissented Lady Chavasse, hastily. “You already feel the fatigue of your journey, Rachel: do not attempt to increase it.”

  And as Lady Rachel really was fatigued and did not care much about it, one way or the other, she remained at home.

  It was one of Mrs. Layne’s worst days — one of those when she seemed three-parts childish — when Lady Chavasse was shown into the drawing-room. Mary was there. As she turned to receive her visitor, and heard the maid’s announcement “Lady Chavasse,” a great astonishment inwardly stirred her, but her manner remained quiet and self-possessed. Just a minute’s gaze at each other. Lady Chavasse was the same good-looking woman as of yore; not changed, not aged by so much as a day. Mary was changed: the shy, inexperienced girl had grown into the calm, self-contained woman; the woman who had known sorrow, who had its marks impressed on her face. She had been pretty once, she was gravely beautiful now
. Perhaps Lady Chavasse had not bargained for seeing her; Mary had certainly never thought thus to meet Lady Chavasse: but here they were, face to face, and each must make the best of it. As they did; and with easy courtesy, both being gentlewomen. Lady Chavasse held out her hand, and Mary put hers into it.

  After shaking hands with Mrs. Layne — who was too drowsy properly to respond, and shut her eyes again — my lady spoke a few pleasant words of regret for the accident, of her wish to see the little patient, of her hope that Major and Mrs. Layne might not be allowed to think any care on Sir Geoffry’s part could have averted it. Mary went upstairs with her. Lady Chavasse could only be struck with the improved appearance of the house, quite suited now to be the abode of gentle-people; and with its apparently well-appointed if small household.

  The child lay asleep: his nurse, Betsy, sat sewing by his side. The girl confessed that she had allowed him sometimes to run in and take a look at the peacock. Lady Chavasse would not have him awakened: she bent and kissed his cheek lightly: and talked to Mary in a whisper. It was just as though there had been no break in their acquaintanceship, just as though no painful episode, in which they were antagonistic actors, had ever occurred between them.

  “I hear you have come into a fortune, Miss Layne,” she said, as she shook hands with Mary again in the little hall before departure. For Hester Picker had told of this.

  “Into a great deal of money,” replied Mary.

  “I am glad to hear it: glad,” came the parting response, whispered emphatically in Mary’s ear, and it was accompanied by a pressure of the fingers.

  Mr. Duffham was standing at his door, watching my lady’s exit from Mrs. Layne’s house, his eyes lost in wonder. Seeing him, she crossed over, and went in, Mr. Duffham throwing open the door of his sitting-room. She began speaking of the accident to Major Layne’s little son — what a pity it was, but that she hoped he would do well. Old Duffham replied that he hoped so too, and thought he would.

  “Mrs. Layne seems to be growing very old,” went on Lady Chavasse. “She was as drowsy as she could be this afternoon, and seemed scarcely to know me.”

  “Old people are apt to be sleepy after dinner,” returned the doctor.

  And then there was a pause. Lady Chavasse (as Duffham’s diary expresses it) seemed to be particularly absent in manner, as if she were thinking to herself, instead of talking to him. Because he had nothing else to say, he asked after the health of Lady Rachel. That aroused her at once.

  “She is not strong. She is not strong. I am sure of it.”

  “She does not seem to ail much, that I can see,” returned Duffham, who often had to hear this same thing said of Lady Rachel. “She never requires medical advice.”

  “I don’t care: she is not strong. There are no children,” continued Lady Chavasse, dropping her voice to a whisper; and a kind of piteous, imploring expression darkened her eyes.

  “No.”

  “Four years married, going on for five, and no signs of any. No signs of children, Mr. Duffham.”

  “I can’t help it, my lady,” returned Duffham.

  “Nobody can help it. But it is an awful misfortune. It is beginning to be a great trouble in my life. As the weeks and months and years pass on — the years, Mr. Duffham — and bring no hope, my very spirit seems to fail. ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.’”

  “True.”

  “It has been the one great desire of my later years,” continued Lady Chavasse, too much in earnest to be reticent, “and it does not come. I wonder which is the worst to be borne; some weighty misfortune that falls and crushes, or a longed-for boon that we watch and pray for in vain? The want of it, the eager daily strain of disappointment, has become to me worse than a nightmare.”

  Little Arthur Layne, attended by Betsy, spent a day at the Grange on his recovery, invited to meet the peacock. The ladies were very kind to him: they could but admire his gentle manners, his fearless bearing. Sir Geoffry played a game at ninepins with him on the lawn — which set of ninepins had been his own when a child, and had been lying by ever since. Betsy was told she might carry them home for Master Layne: Sir Geoffry gave them to him.

  After that, the intercourse dropped again, and they became strangers as before. Except that Lady Chavasse would bow from her carriage if she saw Mrs. or Miss Layne, and Sir Geoffry raise his hat. The little boy had more notice: when they met him out, and were walking themselves, they would, one and all, stop and speak to him.

  So this episode of the accident seemed to fade into the past, as other things had faded: and the time went on.

  Part the Fourth.

  Autumn leaves were strewing the ground, autumn skies were overhead. A ray of the sun came slanting into the library, passing right across the face of Sir Geoffry Chavasse. The face had an older expression on it than his thirty years would justify. It looked worn and weary, and the bright hair, with its golden tinge, was less carefully arranged than it used to be, as if exertion were becoming a burden, or that vanity no longer troubled him; and his frame was almost painfully thin; and a low hacking cough took him at intervals. It might have been thought that Sir Geoffry was a little out of health, and wanted a change. Lady Chavasse, his mother, had begun to admit a long-repressed doubt whether any change would benefit him.

  A common desk of stained walnut-wood was open on the table before him: he had been reading over and putting straight some papers it contained — notes and diaries, and so forth. Two or three of these he tore across and threw into the fire. Out of a bit of tissue paper, he took a curl of bright brown hair, recalling the day and hour when he had surreptitiously cut it off, and refused to give it up again to its blushing owner. Recalling also the happy feelings of that time — surreptitiously still, as might be said, for what business had he with them now? Holding the hair to his lips for a brief interval, he folded it up again, and took out another bit of paper. This contained a lady’s ring of chased gold set with a beautiful and costly emerald. In those bygone years he had bought the ring, thinking to give it in payment of the stolen hair; but the young lady in her shyness had refused so valuable a present. Sir Geoffry held the ring so that its brightness glittered in the sun, and then wrapped it up again. Next he unfolded a diary, kept at that past period, and for a short time afterwards: then it was abruptly broken off, and had never since been written in. He smiled to himself as he read a page here and there — but the smile was full of sadness.

  Lady Chavasse came into the room rather abruptly: Sir Geoffry shut up the diary, and prepared to close and lock the desk. There was a disturbed, restless, anxious look on my lady’s face: there was a far more anxious and bitter pain ever making havoc with her heart.

  “Why, Geoffry! have you got out that old desk?”

  Sir Geoffry smiled as he carried it to its obscure place in a dark corner of the library. When he was about twelve years old, and they were passing through London, he went to the Lowther Arcade and bought this desk, for which he had been saving up his shillings.

  “I don’t believe any lad ever had so valuable a prize as I thought I had purchased in that desk, mother,” was his laughing remark.

  “I dare say it has a great deal of old rubbish in it,” said Lady Chavasse, slightingly.

  “Not much else — for all the good it can ever be. I was only glancing over the rubbish — foolish mementoes of foolish days. These days are weary; and I hardly know how to make their hours fly.”

  Lady Chavasse sighed at the words. He used to go shooting in the autumn — fishing — hunting once in a way, in the later season: he had not strength for these sports now.

  Opening the desk he commonly used, a very handsome one that had been Lady Chavasse’s present to him, he took a small book from it and put it into his breast-pocket. Lady Chavasse, watching all his movements, as she had grown accustomed to do, saw and knew what the book was — a Bible. Perhaps nothing had struck so much on my lady’s fears as the habit he had fallen into of often reading the Bible. She had come upon
him doing it in all kinds of odd places. Out amidst the rocks at the seaside where they had recently been staying — and should have stayed longer but that he grew tired and wanted to come home; out in the seats of this garden, amidst the roses, or where the roses had him with this small Bible. He always slipped it away when she or any one else approached: but the habit was casting on her spirit a very ominous shadow. It seemed to show her that he knew he must be drawing near to the world that the Bible tells of, and was making ready for his journey. How her heart ached, ached always, Lady Chavasse would not have liked to avow.

  “Where’s Rachel?” he asked.

  “On her sofa, upstairs.”

  Sir Geoffry stirred the fire mechanically, his thoughts elsewhere — just as he had stirred it in a memorable interview of the days gone by. Unconsciously they had taken up the same position as on that unhappy morning: he with his elbow on the mantelpiece, and his face partly turned from his mother; she in the same chair, and on the same red square of the Turkey carpet. The future had been before them then: it lay in their own hands, so to say, to choose the path for good or for ill. Sir Geoffry had pointed out which was the right one to take, and said that it would bring them happiness. But my lady had negatived it, and he could only bow to her decree. And so, the turning tide was passed, not seized upon, and they had been sailing on a sea tolerably smooth, but without depth in it or sunshine on it. What had the voyage brought forth? Not much. And it seemed, so far as one was concerned, nearly at an end now.

  “I fancy Rachel cannot be well, mother,” observed Sir Geoffry, “She would not lie down so much if she were.”

  “A little inertness, Geoffry, nothing more. About Christmas?” continued Lady Chavasse. “Shall you be well enough to go to the Derrestons’, do you think?”

  “I think we had better let Christmas draw nearer before laying out any plans for it,” he answered.

  “Yes, that’s all very well: but I am going to write to Lady Derreston to-day, and she will expect me to mention it. Shall you like to go?”