Works of Ellen Wood, page 1148
“But — he will take it!”
“Yes, I suppose he will, because of me; but it will go against the grain, I fancy. I do think one may have too strict a conscience.”
It was past one o’clock when we reached Worcester. Lady Whitney complained in the train of having started too late. First of all there was luncheon to be taken at the Star: that brought it to past two. Then various other things had to be done: see the cathedral, and stay the afternoon service, go over the china works at Diglis, and buy a bundle of articles at the linen-draper’s. All these duties over, they meant to invade Mr. Leafchild’s lodgings in Paradise Row.
They took the draper’s to begin with, the whole of them trooping in, one after another, like sheep into a pen: and I vow that they only came out again when the bell was going for three-o’clock service. Helen was not in a genial mood: at this rate there would not be much time left for visiting the curate.
“It was Aunt Ann’s fault,” she grumbled to me— “and mamma’s. They were a good half-hour looking at the stuff for the children’s winter frocks. Aunt Ann maintained that cashmere was best, mamma held to merino. All the shelves they had taken down! I would not be a linen-draper’s shopman for the world.”
Just in time, were we, to get into our seats before the procession of clergy and choristers came in. The chanter that afternoon was Mr. Leafchild’s rector: I knew him to speak to. But there’s no space to linger upon details.
A small knot of people, ourselves and others, had collected in the transept after service, waiting for one of the old bedesmen to do the honours of the cathedral, when the chanter came down the steps of the south aisle, after disrobing in the vestry.
“Do you know who he is?” I said to Helen, who was standing with me a little apart.
“No — how should I know? Except that he must be one of the minor canons.”
“He is Mr. Leafchild’s rector.”
“Is he?” she eagerly cried, the colour coming into her face. And just then he chanced to look our way, and nodded to me. I went up to him to speak.
“This is a terrible thing about Leafchild,” he exclaimed in a minute or two.
“What is it?” I asked, my breath stopping.
Helen, who had slowly paced after me on the white flags, stood stock still and turned as pale as you please.
“Have you not heard of his illness? Perhaps not, though: it has been so sudden. A few days ago he was apparently as well as I am now. But it was only last night that the doctors began to apprehend danger.”
“Is it fever?”
“Yes. A species of typhoid, I believe. Whether caught in his ministrations or not, I don’t know. Though I suppose it must have been. He is lying at his lodgings in Paradise Row. Leafchild has not seemed in good condition lately,” continued the clergyman. “He is most unremitting in his work, fags himself from morning till night, and lives anyhow: so perhaps he was not fortified to resist the attack of an enemy. He is very ill: and since last night he has been unconscious.”
“He is dangerously ill, did you say?” spoke poor Helen, biting her lips to hide their tremor.
“Almost more than dangerous: I fear there is little hope left,” he answered, never of course suspecting who Helen was. “Good-afternoon.”
She followed him with her eyes as he turned to the cloister-door: and then moved away towards the north entrance, looking as one dazed.
“Helen, where are you going?”
“To see him.”
“Oh, but it won’t do. It won’t, indeed, Helen.”
“I am going to see him,” she answered, in her most wilful tone. “Don’t you hear that he is dying? I know he is; I feel it instinctively as a sure and certain fact. If you have a spark of goodness you’ll come with me, Johnny Ludlow. It’s all the same — whether you do or not.”
I looked around for our party. They had disappeared up the other aisle under convoy of the bedesman, leaving Helen and myself to follow at our leisure; or perhaps not noticing our absence. Helen, marching away with quick steps, passed out at the grand entrance.
“It is not safe for you to go, Helen,” I remonstrated, as we went round the graveyard and so up High Street. “You would catch the fever from him.”
“I shall catch no fever.”
“He caught it.”
“I wish you’d be quiet. Can’t you see what I am suffering?”
The sweetest sight to me just then would have been Lady Whitney, or any one else holding authority over Helen. I seemed responsible for any ill that might ensue: and yet, what could I do?
“Helen, pray listen to a word of reason! See the position you put me in. A fever is not a light thing to risk.”
“I don’t believe that typhoid fever is catching. He did not say typhus.”
“Of course it’s catching.”
“Are you afraid of it?”
“I don’t know that I am afraid. But I should not run into it by choice. And I’m sure you ought not to.”
We were just then passing that large druggist’s shop that the Squire always called Featherstonhaugh’s — just because Mr. Featherstonhaugh once kept it. Helen darted across the street and into it.
“A pound of camphor,” said she, to the young man behind the right-hand counter.
“A pound of camphor!” he echoed. “Did you say a pound, ma’am?”
“Is it too much?” asked Helen. “I want some to put about me: I am going to see some one who is ill.”
It ended in his giving her two ounces. As we left the shop she handed part of it to me, stowing the rest about herself. And whether it was thanks to the camphor, I don’t know, but neither of us took any harm.
“There. You can’t grumble now, Johnny Ludlow.”
Paradise Row, as every one knows, is right at the other end of the town, past the Tything. We had nearly reached the house when a gentleman, who looked like a doctor, came out of it.
“I beg your pardon,” said Helen, accosting him as he met us, and coughing to hide her agitation, “but we think — seeing you come out of the house — that you may be attending Mr. Leafchild. Is he better?”
The doctor looked at us both, and shook his head as he answered —
“Better in one sense of the word, in so far as that he is now conscious; worse in another. He is sinking fast.”
A tremor shook Helen from head to foot. She turned away to hide it. I spoke.
“Do you mean — dying?”
“I fear so.”
“Are his friends with him?”
“Not any of them. His father was sent to yesterday, but he has not yet come. We did not write before, not having anticipated danger.”
“Why don’t they have Henry Carden to him?” cried Helen in passionate agitation as the doctor walked away. “He could have cured him.”
“No, no, Helen; don’t think that. Other men are just as clever as Henry Carden. They have only one treatment for fever.”
A servant-girl answered the door, and asked us into the parlour. She took us for the relations from the north. Mr. Leafchild was lying in a room near — a comfortable bed-chamber. Three doctors were attending him, she said; but just now the nurse was alone with him. Would we like to go in? she added: we had been expected all day.
“Come with me, Johnny,” whispered Helen.
He was lying in bed, white and still, his eyes wide open. The nurse, a stout old woman in light print gown and full white apron, stood at a round table in the corner, noiselessly washing a wine-glass. She turned her head, curtsied, and bustled out of the room.
But wasn’t he weak, as his poor thin hands clasped Helen’s! His voice was hollow as he tried to speak to her. The bitter tears, running down her checks, were dropping on to the bed-clothes.
“You should not have come”, he managed to say. “My love, my love!”
“Is there no hope?” she sobbed. “Oh, Charles, is there no hope?”
“May God soothe it to you! May He have you always in His good keeping!”
“And is it no trouble to you to die?” she went on, reproach in her anguished tone. “Have you no regret for the world, and — and for those you leave behind?”
“It is God’s will,” he breathed. “To myself it is no trouble, for He has mercifully taken the trouble from me. I regret you, my Helen, I regret the world. Or, rather, I should regret it, but that I know I am going to one brighter and better. You will come to me there, my dear one, and we shall live together for ever.”
Helen knelt down by the bed; he was lying close on the edge of it; and laid her wet face against his. He held her to him for a moment, kissed her fervently, and then motioned to me to take her away.
“For your own sake, my dear,” he whispered. “You are in danger here. Give my dear love to them all.”
Helen just waved her hand back at me, as much as to say, Don’t you interfere. But at that moment the fat old nurse bustled in again, with the announcement that two of the doctors and Mr. Leafchild’s rector were crossing the road. That aroused Helen.
One minute’s close embrace, her tears bedewing his dying cheeks, one lingering hand-clasp of pain, and they parted. Parted for all time. But not for eternity.
“God be with you ever!” he breathed, giving her his solemn blessing. “Farewell, dear Johnny Ludlow!”
“I am so sorry! If you could but get well!” I cried, my eyes not much dryer than Helen’s.
“I shall soon be well: soon,” he answered with a sweet faint smile, his feeble clasp releasing my hand, which he had taken. “But not here. Fare you well.”
Helen hid herself in a turn of the passage till the doctors had gone in, and then we walked down the street together, she crying softly. Just opposite Salt Lane, a fly passed at a gallop. Dr. Leafchild sat in it muffled in coats, a cloud of sorrow on his generally pompous face.
And that was the abrupt end of poor Charles Leafchild, for he died at midnight, full of peace. God’s ways are not as our ways; or we might feel tempted to ask why so good and useful a servant should have been taken.
And so, you perceive, there was another marriage of Helen Whitney frustrated. Fortune seemed to be against her.
JELLICO’S PACK.
I.
The shop was not at all in a good part of Evesham. The street was narrow and dirty, the shop the same. Over the door might be seen written “Tobias Jellico, Linen-draper and Huckster.” One Monday — which is market-day at Evesham, as the world knows — in going past it with Tod and little Hugh, the child trod on his bootlace and broke it, and we turned in to get another. It was a stuffy shop, filled with bundles as well as wares, and behind the counter stood Mr. Jellico himself, a good-looking, dark man of forty, with deep-set blue eyes, that seemed to meet at the nose, so close were they together.
The lace was a penny, he said, and Tod laid down sixpence. Jellico handed the sixpence to a younger man who was serving lower down, and began showing us all kinds of articles — neckties, handkerchiefs, fishing-lines, cigar-lights, for he seemed to deal in varieties. Hugh had put in his bootlace, but we could not get away.
“I tell you we don’t want anything of this,” said Tod, in his haughty way, for the persistent fellow had tired him out. “Give me my change.”
The other man brought the change wrapped up in paper, and we went on to the inn. Tod had ordered the pony to be put in the chaise, and it stood ready in the yard. Just then a white-haired, feeble old man came into the yard, and begged. Tod opened the paper of half-pence.
“The miserable cheat,” he called out. “If you’ll believe me, Johnny, that fellow has only given me fourpence in change. If I had time I’d go back to him. Sam, do you know anything of one Jellico, who keeps a fancy shop?” asked he of the ostler.
“A fancy shop, sir?” echoed Sam, considering.
“Sells calico and lucifer-matches.”
“Oh, I know Mr. Jellico!” broke forth Sam, his recollection coming to him. “He has got a cousin with him, sir.”
“No doubt. It was the cousin that cheated me. Mistakes are mistakes, and the best of us are liable to them; but if that was a mistake, I’ll eat the lot.”
“It’s as much of a leaving-shop as a draper’s, sir. Leastways, it’s said that women can take things in and borrow money on them.”
“Oh!” said Tod. “Borrow a shilling on a Dutch oven to-day, and pay two shillings to-morrow to get it out.”
“Anyway, Mr. Jellico does a fine trade, for he gives credit,” concluded Sam.
But the wrong change might have been a mistake.
In driving home, Tod pulled up at George Reed’s cottage. Every one must remember hearing where that was, and of Reed’s being put into prison by Major Parrifer. “Get down, Johnny,” said he, “and see if Reed’s there. He must have left work.”
I went up the path where Reed’s children were playing, and opened the cottage door. Mrs. Reed and two neighbours stood holding out something that looked like a gown-piece. With a start and a grab, Mrs. Reed caught the stuff, and hid it under her apron, and the two others looked round at me with scared faces.
“Reed here? No, sir,” she answered, in a sort of flurry. “He had to go over to Alcester after work. I don’t expect him home much afore ten to-night.”
I shut the door, thinking nothing. Reed was a handy man at many things, and Tod wanted him to help with some alteration in the pheasantry at the Manor. It was Tod who had set it up — a long, narrow place enclosed with green trellised work, and some gold and silver pheasants running about in it. The Squire had been against it at first, and told Tod he wouldn’t have workmen bothering about the place. So Tod got Reed to come in of an evening after his day’s work, and in a fortnight the thing was up. Now he wanted him again to alter it: he had found out it was too narrow. That was one of Tod’s failings. If he took a thing into his head it must be done off-hand. The Squire railed at him for his hot-headed impatience: but in point of fact he was of just the same impatient turn himself. Tod had been over to Bill Whitney’s and found their pheasantry was twice as wide as his.
“Confound Alcester,” cried Tod in his vexation, as he drove on home. “If Reed could have come up now and seen what it is I want done, he might have begun upon it to-morrow evening.”
“The pater says it is quite wide enough as it is, Tod.”
“You shut up, Johnny. If I pay Reed out of my own pocket, it’s nothing to anybody.”
On Tuesday he sent me to Reed’s again. It was a nice spring afternoon, but I’m not sure that I thanked him for giving me that walk. Especially when upon lifting the latch of the cottage door, I found it fastened. Down I sat on the low bench outside the open window to wait — where Cathy had sat many a time in the days gone by, making believe to nurse the children, and that foolish young Parrifer would be leaning against the pear-tree on the other side the path. I had to leave my message with Mrs. Reed; I supposed she had only stepped into a neighbour’s, and might be back directly, for the two little girls were playing at “shop” in the garden.
Buzz, buzz: hum, hum. Why, those voices were in the kitchen! The lower part of the casement was level with the top of my head; I turned round and raised my eyes to look.
Well! surprises, it is said, are the lot of man. It was his face, unless my sight deceived itself. The same blue eyes that were in the shop at Evesham the day before, were inside Mrs. Reed’s kitchen now: Mr. Tobias Jellico’s. The place seemed to be crowded with women. He was smiling and talking to them in the most persuasive manner imaginable, his hands waving an accompaniment, on one of which glittered a ring with a yellow stone in it, a persuasive look on his rather well-featured face.
They were a great deal too agreeably engrossed to see me, and I looked on at leisure. A sort of pack, open, rested on the floor; the table was covered with all kinds of things for women’s dress; silks, cottons, ribbons, mantles; which Mrs. Reed and the others were leaning over and fingering.
“Silks ain’t for the like of us; I’d never have the cheek to put one on,” cried a voice that I knew at once for shrill Peggy Dickon’s. Next to her stood Ann Dovey, the blacksmith’s wife; who was very pretty, and vain accordingly.
“What kind o’ stuff d’ye call this, master?” Ann Dovey asked.
“That’s called laine,” answered Jellico. “It’s all pure wool.”
“It’s a’most as shiny as silk. I say, Mrs. Reed, d’ye think this ‘ud wear?”
“It would wear for ever,” put in Jellico. “Ten yards of it would make as good a gown as ever went on a lady’s back; and the cost is but two shillings a yard.”
“Two shillings! Let’s see — what ‘ud that come to? Why, twenty, wouldn’t it? My patience, I shouldn’t never dare to run up that score for one gownd.”
Jellico laughed pleasantly. “You take it, Mrs. Dovey. It just suits your bright cheeks. Pay me when you can, and how you can: sixpence a-week, or a shilling a-week, or two shillings, as you can make it easy. It’s like getting a gown for nothing.”
“So it is,” cried Ann Dovey, in a glow of delight. And by the tone, Mr. Jellico no doubt knew that she had as good as yielded to the temptation. He got out his yard measure.
“Ten yards?” said he.
“I’m a’most afeard. Will you promise, sir, not to bother me for the money faster than I can pay it?”
“You needn’t fear no bothering from me; only just keep up the trifle you’ve got to pay off weekly.”
He measured off the necessary length. “You’ll want some ribbon to trim it with, won’t you?” said he.
“Ribbin — well, I dun know. Dovey might say ribbin were too smart for me.”
“Not a bit on’t, Ann Dovey,” spoke up another woman — and she was our carter’s wife, Susan Potter. “It wouldn’t look nothing without some ribbin. That there narrer grass-green satin ‘ud be nice upon’t.”
“And that grass-green ribbon’s dirt cheap,” said Jellico. “You’d get four or five yards of it for a shilling or two. Won’t you be tempted now?” he added to Susan Potter. She laughed.
“Not with them things. I shouldn’t never hear the last on’t if Potter found out I went on tick for finery. He’s rough, sir, and might beat me. I’d like a check apron, and a yard o’ calico.”
