Works of Ellen Wood, page 458
“A noble spirit, I’m sure,” she murmured, “in spite of his half-brained words. I wonder if Mr. Carlton will bring him to punishment for them. I should, were so unjustifiable an accusation made against me. Boys will be boys.”
CHAPTER XXXVI.
AN OLD ENEMY.
SO Stephen Grey could not struggle with the fate which seemed to be working against him, and he quitted his home of years, and betook himself to London. John Grey found a suitable partner in Mr. Charles Lycett, the brother of the curate of St. Mark’s, who was seeking a practice for himself, and Frederick Grey remained with his uncle in South Wennock to pursue his medical studies.
Mr. John Grey’s advice to his brother was this: — Establish yourself well wherever you settle down, whether in London or elsewhere. Spend money in doing so, and the probability is that you will have it returned to you with interest; but if you begin in a small way, it’s ten chances to one if you ever get on. Stephen took the advice; and circumstances favoured him. At the very time of his removal to London, a physician died suddenly in Savile Row. Stephen Grey stepped in, secured the lease of the house at the cost of a trifling outlay, and the practice came flowing in almost without exertion or solicitation on his part. Then he took his doctor’s degree; and in a few months after he had left South Wennock, he found he was gaining a much larger income than he and his brother had made together.
Nearly a twelvemonth had elapsed subsequent to the return of Lady Jane Chesney to South Wennock, and September was come round again. The past year had brought little that was eventful in its wake. An infant, born to Lady Laura Carlton, had died at its birth, and she was one of the gay South Wennock world again. Mr. Carlton’s practice was a very good one now, for fresh people were ever coming to the new buildings springing up around South Wennock, and he was obliged to take an assistant. No further tilt at arms had occurred between him and Frederick Grey. He had, perhaps wisely, overlooked the boy’s dangerous insolence; and since then they had passed each other in the street without speaking. Frederick Grey’s dislike to Mr. Carlton was made a sort of joke of in the Grey family; none of them (save his mother, and she was away now) knew its origin: and South Wennock set the dislike down to Mr. Carlton’s somewhat underhand conduct towards Stephen Grey.
Thus nearly a twelvemonth rolled on with but little to mark it.
On the state bed which Jane Chesney had lovingly chosen for her father when the newly-taken house was being furnished in Portland Place, lay Eliza, Countess of Oakburn, an infant cradled by her side. The old saying runs that “After a wedding comes a burying;” but it more frequently happens that after a wedding comes a christening. Buryings, however, do follow all too surely when their turn comes, and one was not far off that house now.
There had been as little that was eventful to mark during the past twelvemonth in the Earl of Oakburn’s house, as there had been in South Wennock. Lady Oakburn had made him a good wife; she had been as solicitous for his comfort as Jane could have been. She made an excellent mistress of his household, a judicious and kind step-mother to Lucy, and the little girl had learnt to love her.
But all her anxious care had not been able to keep the earl’s old enemy, gout, from him. He lay in the room above, suffering under an aggravated attack; an attack which threatened danger.
Two days only had the little fellow in the cradle by the countess’s bed seen the light; he was the young heir. Lucy Chesney sat near, touching now and again the wonderful little red face as she talked to her step-mother.
“It is very good of you to let me come in, mamma. What shall his name be?” They were thinking of the christening, you see.
“Francis, of course, Lucy.”
“But I have heard papa say that the heir should be John. It has been — oh, for ages, ‘John, Earl of Oakburn.’”
“Papa shall decide, dear,”
“We can’t ask him to-day, he is so much worse. He—”
“Worse?” echoed the countess in startled tones, whilst an attendant, sitting in the room, raised her finger with a warning gesture.
Lucy coloured in contrition; she saw that she had said more than she ought.
“Nurse, you told me the earl was better this morning!”
The woman rose. “My lady, there was not much difference; he was better, if anything,” she responded, endeavouring to put all sound of evasion from her voice. “My lord is in pain, and that’s why Lady Lucy may call him worse; but it is in the nature of gout to be painful.”
“Lucy, tell me the truth. I ask you in your father’s name. I see that he is worse, and they are keeping it from me. How much worse?”
Lucy stood in distress, not knowing what to do; blaming herself for her incaution. The eyes of fear are quick, and Lady Oakburn saw her dilemma.
“Child,” she continued, her emotion rising, “you remember the day, three months ago, when your papa was thrown from his horse in the park, and they sent on here a vague account of the accident, so that we could not tell whether he was much or little hurt, whether he was alive or dead? Do you recollect that hour? — the dreadful suspense? — how we prayed to know the worst, rather than to be kept from it?”
“Oh, mamma,” interrupted Lucy, placing her hand on her eyes, as if she would shut out some unwelcome sight, “do not talk of it.
I never could bear to think of it, but that papa came home, after all, only a little bruised. That was suspense!”
“Lucy, dear child, you are keeping me in the same suspense now,” spoke the countess. “I cannot bear it; I can bear certain evil, but not suspense. Now tell me the truth.”
Lucy thought she saw her way plain before her; anything was better than suspense, now that fear had been alarmed.
“I will tell you all I know, mamma. Papa is worse, but I do not think he is so much worse as to cause uneasiness. I have often known him in as much pain as this, before — before” — Lucy in her delicacy of feeling scarcely knew how to word the phrase— “before you came here.”
“Lucy, should your papa become worse, and danger arise, you will let me know. Mind! I rely upon you. No” — for Lucy was drawing away her hand—” you cannot go until you have promised.”
“I do promise, mamma,” was Lucy’s honest answer. And Lady Oakburn gave a relieved sigh.
Of course the nurse had now to plot and plan to counteract this promise, and she sought out Miss Snow. For Miss Snow was in the house still, Lucy’s governess. Lord Oakburn had not allowed his wife to take full charge of Lucy’s education, so Miss Snow was retained; but the countess superintended all.
“My Lady Lucy must not be allowed to know that his lordship is in danger, ma’am,” grumbled the nurse. “She comes tattling everything to my lady, and it won’t do. A pretty thing to have her worried!” she concluded, indignantly.
“Is the earl in danger?” quickly asked Miss Snow.
“He’s in awful pain, if that’s danger,” was the answer. “I’m not a sick nurse, ma’am; only a monthly: but if ever I saw gout in the stomach, he has it.”
“Why, that is certain death,” uttered Miss Snow in an accent of alarm.
“Oh no, it’s not; not always. The worst sign, they say, is that all my lord’s snappishness has gone out of him!”
“Who says so? Who says it has?”
“The attendants. That black fellow does nothing but stand behind the bed and cry and sob. He’d like his master to rave at him as usual. But you’ll keep things from Lady Lucy, please. I’ll speak to the servants.”
Miss Snow nodded, and the nurse, having warned the rest of the household, took her way back to Lady Oakburn’s chamber.
The day closed; night drew on, and the earl’s state was ominous.’ Agonies of pain, awful pain, lasted him throughout it: and but for the well-built walls and good floors, Lady Oakburn must have heard his groans.
With the morning he was calmer, easier; nevertheless, three physicians went in to him. The two in regular attendance had sent for another.
“The ship’s sinking,” said the earl to them. “No more splicing the timbers; they are rotten, and won’t bear it.”
The earl was right, and the doctors knew it; but they would not admit, in so many words, that he was dying. The earl, in his blunt way, blunt still, told them of their crafthood.
“It’s all in your day’s work to go about deceiving people,” cried he; “telling them they are getting their sea-legs again, while all the time you know that before the next eight-bells strike they’ll have gone down to Davy Jones’s locker. It may be the right sort of steering for some patients, delicate women and children, perhaps, but it’s not for me, and you are a long way out of your reckoning.”
The earl’s voice grew faint. They administered some drops in a glass, and wiped his brow.
“I am an old sailor, sirs,” he continued, “and I have turned into my hammock night after night for the best part of my life, knowing there was only a plank between me and eternity. D’ye think, then, I have not learnt to face death — that you should be afraid to acknowledge it to me, now it’s come? If I had not made up my accounts with my Maker before, there wouldn’t be much time for it now. I have been headstrong and irritable, giving my tongue the reins, but the Great Commander knows that poor Jack Tar acquires that in his hard life at sea. He looks to the heart, and He is merciful to a slipped word or two. Pompey!”
The man came forward and threw himself by the bedside; his whole attitude expressing the keenest grief and affection.
“Pompey, tell them, though I have made you fly at my voice, whether I have been a bad master. What sort of master have I been?”
Poor Pompey! his sobs nearly choked him as he knelt and covered the earl’s hand with his tears and kisses.
“Never a better massa! never a better massa! Pompey like to go with him.”
“You’d keep it from me that my voyage is run, sirs! We seamen have a Saviour as well as you. He chose fishermen for His friends; d’ye think, then, He’d reject a poor knocked-about sailor, who goes to Him hat in hand and lays his sins at His feet? No! He’ll steer our boat through the last quicksands, and be on shore to receive us, as He once received His own fishermen, and had a fire of coals ready for them, and fish laid thereon, and bread. And that was after He had suffered! Never be backward again in telling a tired sailor that he’s nearing port. Shall I last the day out?”
More than that, they thought.
“One of you will send a despatch for my daughter, and — I suppose my wife cannot come to me.”
Lady Oakburn’s medical attendant was in the room, one of those round the earl, and he pronounced it “Impossible.” Neither must her ladyship be suffered to know of the danger, he added. For a day or two at all events it must be kept from her, or he would not answer for the consequences. The young Lady Lucy must not be allowed to learn it, or she would carry the tidings to her.
The earl listened, and nodded his head. “Very good,” he said. And he dictated a message to his daughter Jane.
As the medical men went out they encountered Lucy. She was sitting on the stairs waiting for them, deeply anxious. Summoning the third doctor had caused commotion in the house, and Lucy did not know what to think. Gliding up to the one who attended Lady Oakburn, whom she knew best, she eagerly questioned him. But Dr. James, upon his guard, told Lucy the pain had left her papa, and she might go in for a minute to see him.
The delighted child went in. The earl stroked her head and kissed her; told her to take a kiss to mamma and to the “young blue-jacket,” and to say that his voyage was going on to a prosperous ending. Then, mindful of what the medical men had said about its being kept from his wife, or it might cost her her life, and afraid of a chance word on his own part, he dismissed the child, telling her he was to remain very quiet all day. Lucy flew to the countess’s chamber, encountering the angry nurse at the door, who looked ready for a pitched battle.
“It’s quite impossible that you can enter, my lady.”
Lucy pleaded. And the nurse found that the child had only come to bring glad news, and to talk of the little “blue-jacket so she allowed her to go in.
And when Dr. James came to pay his morning visit to the countess, his answers to her inquiries were full of reassurance, calculated to give ease to her mind. No idea did they impart that the earl was dying; indeed, Lady Oakburn rather gathered from them that he might be taking a renewed lease of life.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
GOING OUT WITH THE TIDE.
LADY JANE CHESNEY was seated at breakfast in her house, at South Wennock, when a man on horseback, wearing the uniform of the telegraph office at Great Wennock, came galloping up to the gate. Jane saw him hand in a despatch, and her heart fluttered strangely. Imagination took a wide range and settled upon Clarice. When Judith entered she saw that her mistress’s very lips were white.
“I’m afraid to open it, Judith,” spoke poor Jane, as the girl held it out to her. “It may bring bad news.”
“Nay, my lady, I should hope the contrary,” was Judith’s answer. “It’s known there was a young heir expected: perhaps this is to tell that he is born.”
The colour came into Jane’s face again. Of course it was nothing else! How could she have been so forgetful? No; no chance of its being from the unhappy Clarice: she seemed lost for good. With fingers that burned — burned at the thought of who the young heir’s mother was, and who she had been — Jane Chesney tore open the despatch.
“London. Eight thirty, am.
“RICHARD JAMES, M.D., TO THE LADY JANE CHESNEY.
“The Earl of Oakburn is dangerously ill: come at once, if you would see him alive. He says bring Lady Laura.”
The despatch fell from her hand, and she burst into tears. All her old affection for her father had returned in that one moment.
What was to be thought of first? Lady Jane took a minute for reflection, and then her plans were formed. She wrote a line in pencil to Laura, explaining the matter, and telling her she would call for her in a fly. The servant was to leave the note at Mr. Carlton’s, and then go on to the Red Lion, order the fly, and come back in it. Meanwhile, Lady Jane and Judith prepared themselves, and were ready when the fly arrived. Jane got into it, and drove to her sister’s. Mr. Carlton came forth. Jane bowed coldly, but vouchsafed to him no other greeting.
“Is Lady Laura not ready?” she asked.
“Laura is absent,” he replied. “The twisted note you sent was not sealed, and I opened it. She has gone to spend a few days at Pembury with Colonel and Mrs. Marden,”
Jane was rather nonplused for a moment. “This opportunity for a reconciliation with the earl should not be lost,” she resumed at length. “Lady Laura must be telegraphed to.” Lady Laura! Not to him, though he was the husband, would she speak the simple name. “I will telegraph to her myself as I pass Great Wennock Station,” continued Jane, as she signalled to drive on. “Good morning.”
“Thank you,” returned Mr. Carlton; “if you will take the trouble. Good morning, Lady Jane. I sincerely hope you will find the earl better on your arrival.”
A hasty journey to the station; a hasty telegraphic message, despatched to Lady Laura Carlton at Colonel Marden’s; and Lady Jane and Judith were seated in an express train, whirling away towards London.
They reached Portland Place early in the afternoon. A change for the worse had taken place in the earl; he was rapidly sinking. Lady Jane was shown immediately to his chamber. She remembered the large handsome bedroom which had been his, and was turning to it of her own accord.
“Not there, my lady,” whispered the servant; “higher up.”
“Higher up?” repeated Jane, with displeased emphasis.
“The countess is lying in that room. My lord is upstairs.”
Jane resented the news in her heart. He to be put out of his room for a Miss Lethwait! The words seemed to imply that she was ill, but Jane would not inquire. In the corridor, Lucy (who in spite of Miss Snow’s watchfulness had not been quite cured of her propensity for looking over balustrades) flew down to her, in delight and surprise.
“Oh, Jane!” she uttered, clinging round her neck, “is it really you? How came you to come?”
Miss Snow would have found fault with the wording of the sentence. Jane only clasped her sister.
“I have come to see papa, Lucy. Is there no hope?”
“No hope!” echoed the child, staring at her sister. “Why, Jane, what made you think that? He is as much better as he can be. He is nearly well. The pain is almost gone: and you know he always got well as soon as the pain left him.”
Jane was staggered. The message had been ominous; the servant, now showing her up, had just told her there was no hope; what, then, did Lucy mean? But Dr. James was standing beside them, having emerged from the earl’s room. He heard Lucy’s words and saw Jane’s perplexed countenance. He hastened to interfere, willing to prevent any imprudent explanation.
“Lady Jane Chesney, I presume. But — allow me a moment, Lady Lucy: this is against orders. You were not to come to this corridor at all to-day: the earl must not be disturbed.”
“Oh, Dr. James! I was obliged just to come when I saw my sister. But I’ll go back to Miss Snow now. Jane, you will come into the study when you have seen papa?”
Jane promised.
“Oh, and Jane, there’s a new baby. Do you know it? He is such a darling little fellow, and papa calls him ‘young blue-jacket.’ He is three days old.”
“Is there?” responded Jane, and Lucy went back again. Jane turned inquiringly to the physician.
“The earl, I grieve to say, is sinking,” he whispered. “We keep the fact from the child that it may not reach the ears of the countess; she would immediately go and tell her.”
“Is it right to keep it from the countess?” asked Jane, her tone as she put the question, betraying that she thought it was wrong.
Dr. James raised his physicianly hands and eyes.
