“Fast by the threshold of a door nailed fastThree kittens sat, each kitten looked aghast.”
And just as she had with great excitement—
“Taught him never to come there no more,”
Armine broke in with “Nine times one are nine.”
It was an institution dating from the days when Janet made her first acquaintance with the “Little Busy Bee,” that there should be something, of some sort, said or shown to papa, whenever he was at home or free between dinner and bed-time, and it was considered something between a disgrace and a misfortune to produce nothing.
So when the two little ones had been kissed and sent off to bed, with mamma going with them to hear their prayers, Jock, on being called for, repeated a Greek declension with two mistakes in it, Bobus showed a long sum in decimals, Janet, brought a neat parallelism of the present tense of the verb “to be” in five languages—Greek, Latin, French, German, and English.
“And Allen—reposing on your honours? Eh, my boy?”
Allen looked rather foolish, and said, “I spoilt it, papa, and hadn’t time to begin another.”
“It—I suppose I am not to hear what till it has come to perfection. Is it the same that was in hand last time?”
“No, papa, much better,” said Janet, emphatically.
“What I want to see,” said Dr. Brownlow, “is something finished. I’d rather have that than ever so many magnificent beginnings.”
Here he was seized upon by Robert, with his knitted brow and a book in his hands, demanding aid in making out why, as he said, the tide swelled out on the wrong side of the earth.
His father did his best to disentangle the question, but Bobus was not satisfied till the clock chimed his doom, when he went off with Jock, who was walking on his hands.
“That’s too tough a subject for such a little fellow,” said the grandmother; “so late in the day too!”
“He would have worried his brain with it all night if he had not worked it out,” said his father.
“I’m afraid he will, any way,” said the mother. “Fancy being troubled with dreams of surging oceans rising up the wrong way!”
“Yes, he ought to be running after the tides instead of theorising about them. Carry him off, Mother Carey, and the whole brood, without loss of time.”
“But Joe, why should we not wait for you? You never did send us away all forlorn before!” she said, pleadingly. “We are all quite well, and I can’t bear going without you.”
“I had much rather all the chickens were safe away, Carey,” he said, sitting down by her. “There’s a tendency to epidemic fever in two or three streets, which I don’t like in this hot weather, and I had rather have my mind easy about the young ones.”
“And what do you think of my mind, leaving you in the midst of it?”
“Your mind, being that of a mother bird and a doctor’s wife, ought to have no objection.”
“How soon does Dr. Drew come home?”
“In a fortnight, I believe. He wanted rest terribly, poor old fellow. Don’t grudge him every day.”
“A fortnight!” (as if it was a century). “You can’t come for a fortnight. Well, perhaps it will take a week to fix on a place.”
“Hardly, for see here, I found a letter from Acton when I came in. They have found an unsophisticated elysium at Kyve Clements, and are in raptures which they want us to share—rocks and waves and all.”
“And rooms?”
“Yes, very good rooms, enough for us all,” was the answer, flinging into her lap a letter from his friend, a somewhat noted artist in water-colours, whom, after long patience, Carey’s school friend, Miss Cartwright, had married two years ago.
There was nothing to say against it, only grandmamma observed, “I am too old to catch things; Joe will let me stay and keep house for him.”
“Please, please let me stay with granny,” insisted Janet; “then I shall finish my German classes.”
Janet was granny’s child. She had slept in her room ever since Allen was born, and trotted after her in her “housewifeskep,” and the sense of being protected was passing into the sense of protection. Before she could be answered, however, there was an announcement. Friends were apt to drop in to coffee and talk in the evening, on the understanding that certain days alone were free—people chiefly belonging to a literary, scientific, and artist set, not Bohemian, but with a good deal of quiet ease and absence of formality.
This friend had just returned from Asia Minor, and had brought an exquisite bit of a Greek frieze, of which he had become the happy possessor, knowing that Mrs. Joseph Brownlow would delight to see it, and mayhap to copy it.
For Carey’s powers had been allowed to develop themselves; Mrs. Brownlow having been always housekeeper, she had been fain to go on with the studies that even her preparation for governess-ship had not rendered wearisome, and thus had become a very graceful modeller in clay—her favourite pursuit—when her children’s lessons and other occupations left her free to indulge in it. The history of the travels, and the account of the discovery, were given and heard with all zest, and in the midst others came in—a barrister and his wife to say good-bye before the circuit, a professor with a ticket for the gallery at a scientific dinner, two medical students, who had been made free of the house because they were nice lads with no available friends in town.
It was all over by half-past ten, and the trio were alone together. “How amusing Mr. Leslie is!” said the young Mrs. Brownlow. “He knows how describe as few people do.”
“Did you see Janet listening to him,” said her grandmother, “with her brows pulled down and her eyes sparkling out under them, wanting to devour every word?”
“Yes,” returned the Doctor, “I saw it, and I longed to souse that black head of hers with salt water. I don’t like brains to grow to the contempt of healthful play.”
“People never know when they are well off! I wonder what you would have said if you had had a lot of stupid dolts, boys always being plucked, &c.”
“Don’t plume yourself too soon, Mother Carey; only one chick has gone through the first ordeal.”
“And if Allen did, Bobus will.”
“Allen is quite as clever as Bobus, granny, if—” eagerly said the mother.
“If—” said the father; “there’s the point. If Allen has the stimulus, he will do well. I own I am particularly pleased with his success, because perseverance is his weak point.”
“Carey kept him up to it,” said granny. “I believe his success is quite as much her work as his own.”
“And the question is, how will he get on without his mother to coach him?”
“Now you know you are not one bit uneasy, papa!” cried his wife, indignantly. “But don’t you think we might let Janet have her will for just these ten days? There can’t be any real danger for her with grandmamma, and I should be happier about granny.”
“You don’t trust Joe to take care of me?”
“Not if Joe is to be out all day. There will be nobody to trot up and down stairs for you. Come, it is only what she begs for herself, and she really is perfectly well.”
“As if I could have a child victimised to me,” said granny.
“The little Cockney thinks the victimising would be in going to the deserts with only the boys and me,” laughed Carey; “But I think a week later will be quite time enough to sweep the cobwebs out of her brain.”
“And you can do without her?” inquired Mrs. Brownlow. “You don’t want her to help to keep the boys in order?”
“Thank you, I can do that better without her,” said Carey. “She exasperates them sometimes.”
“I believe granny is thinking whether she is not wanted to keep Mother Carey in order as well as her chickens. Hasn’t mother been taken for your governess, Carey?”
“No, no, Joe, that’s too bad. They asked Janet at the dancing-school whether her sister was not going to join.”
“Her younger sister?”
“No, I tell you, her half-sister. But Clara Acton will do discretion for us, granny; and I promise you we won’t do anything her husband says is very desperate! Don’t be afraid.”
“No,” said grandmamma, smiling as she kissed her daughter-in-law, and rose to take her candle; “I am never afraid of anything a mother can share with her boys.”
“Even if she is nearly a tomboy herself,” laughed the husband, with rather a teasing air, towards his little wife. “Good night, mother. Shall not we be snug with nobody left but Janet, who might be great-grandmother to us both?”
“I really am glad that Janet should stay with granny,” said Carey, when he had shut the door behind the old lady; “she would be left alone so many hours while you are out, and she does need more waiting on than she used to do.”
“You think so? I never see her grow older.”
“Not in the least older in mind or spirits; but she is not so strong, nor so willing to exert herself, and she falls asleep more in the afternoon. One reason for which I am less sorry to go on before, is that I shall be able to judge whether the rooms are comfortable enough for her, and I suppose we may change if they are not.”
“To another place, if you think best.”
“Only you will not let her stay at home altogether. That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“She will only do so on the penalty of keeping me, and you may trust her not to do that,” said Joe, laughing with the confidence of an only son.
“I shall come back and fetch you if you don’t appear under a fortnight. Did you do any more this morning to the great experiment, Magnum Bonum?”
She spoke the words in a proud, shy, exulting semi-whisper, somewhat as Gutenberg’s wife might have asked after his printing-press.
“No. I haven’t had half an hour to myself to-day; at least when I could have attended to it. Don’t be afraid, Carey, I’m not daunted by the doubts of our good friends. I see your eyes reproaching me with that.”
“Oh no, as you said, Sir Matthew Fleet mistrusts anything entirely new, and the professor is never sanguine. I am almost glad they are so stupid, it will make our pleasure all the sweeter.”
“You silly little bird, if you sit on that egg it will be sure to be addled. If it should come to any good, probably it will take longer than our life-time to work into people’s brains.”
“No,” said Carey, “I know the real object is the relieving pain and saving life, and that is what you care for more than the honour and glory. But do you remember the fly on the coach wheel?”
“Well, the coach wheel means to stand still for a little while. I don’t mean to try another experiment till my brains have been turned out to grass, and I can come to it fresh.”
“Ah! ‘tis you that really need the holiday,” said Carey, wistfully; “much more than any of us. Look at this great crow’s foot,” tracing it with her finger.
“Laughing, my dear. That’s the outline of the risible muscle. A Mother Carey and her six ridiculous chickens can’t but wear out furrows with laughing at them.”
“I only know I wish it were you that were going, and I that were staying at home.”
“‘You shall do my work to-day,And I’ll go follow the plough,’”
said her husband, laughing. “There are the notes of my lecture, if you’ll go and give it.”
“Ah! we should not be like that celebrated couple. You would manage the boys much better than I could doctor your patients.”
“I don’t know that. The boys are never so comfortable, when I’ve got them alone. But, considering the hour, I should think the best preliminary would be to put out the lamp and go to bed.”
“I suppose it is time; but I always think this last talk before going upstairs, the best thing in the whole day!” said the happy wife as she took the candle.
Dark house, by which once more I standHere in the long unlovely street.Doors, where my heart was wont to beatSo quickly, waiting for a hand—A hand that can be clasped no more.Behold me, for I cannot sleep.—Tennyson.
“Mother Carey,” to call her by the family name that her husband had given the first day she held a baby in her arms, had a capacity of enjoyment that what she called her exile could not destroy. Even Bobus left theory behind him and became a holiday boy, and the whole six climbed rocks, paddled, boated, hunted sea weeds and sea animals, lived on the beach from morning to night; and were exceedingly amused by the people, who insisted on addressing the senior of the party as “Miss,” and thought them a young girl and her brothers under the charge of Mrs. Acton. She, though really not a year older than her friend, looked like a worn and staid matron by her side, and was by no means disposed to scramble barefoot over slippery seaweed, or to take impromptu a part in the grand defence of the sand and shingle edition of Raglan Castle.
Even to Mrs. Acton it was a continual wonder to see how entirely under control of that little merry mother were those great, lively, spirited boys, who never seemed to think of disobeying her first word, and, while all made fun together, and she was hardly less active and enterprising than they, always considered her comfort and likings.
So went things for a fortnight, during which the coming of the others had been put off by Dr. Drew’s absence. One morning Mr. Acton sought Mrs. Brownlow on the beach, where she was sitting with her brood round her, partly reading from a translation, partly telling them the story of Ulysses.
He called her aside, and told her that her husband had telegraphed to him to bid him to carry her the tidings that good old Mrs. Brownlow had been taken from them suddenly in the night, evidently in her sleep.
Carey turned very white, but said only “Oh! why did I go without them?”
It was such an overwhelming shock as left no room for tears. Her first thought, the only one she seemed to have room for, was to get back to her husband by the next train. She would have taken all the children, but that Mrs. Acton insisted, almost commanded, that they should be left under her charge, and reminded her that their father wished them to be out of London; nor did Allen and Robert show any wish to return to a house of mourning, being just of the age to be so much scared at sorrow as to ignore it. And indeed their mother was equally new to any real grief; her parents had been little more than a name to her, and the only loss she had actually felt was that of a favourite schoolfellow.
She had no time to think or feel till she had reached the train and taken her seat, and even then the first thing she was conscious of was a sense of numbness within, and frivolous observation without, as she found herself trying to read upside down the direction of her opposite neighbour’s parcels, counting the flounces on her dress, and speculating on the meetings and partings at the stations; yet with a terrible weight and soreness on her all the time, though she could not think of the dear grannie, of whom it was no figure of speech to say that she had been indeed a mother. The idea of her absence from home for ever was too strange, too heartrending to be at once embraced, and as she neared the end of her journey on that long day, Carey’s mind was chiefly fixed on the yearning to be with her husband and Janet, who had suffered such a shock without her. She seemed more able to feel through her husband—who was so devoted to his mother, than for herself, and she was every moment more uneasy about her little daughter, who must have been in the room with her grandmother. Comfort them? How, she did not know! The others had always petted and comforted her, and now—No one to go to when the children were ailing or naughty—no one to share little anxieties when Joe was out late—no one to be the backbone she leant on—no dear welcome from the easy chair. That thought nearly set her crying; the tears burnt in her strained eyes, but the sight of the people opposite braced her, and she tried to fix her thoughts on the unseen world, but they only wandered wide as if beyond her own control, and her head was aching enough to confuse her.
At last, late on the long summer day, she was at the terminus, and with a heart beating so fast that she could hardly breathe, found herself in a cab, driving up to her own door, just as the twilight was darkening.
How dark it looked within, with all the blinds down! The servant who opened the door thought Miss Janet was in the drawing-room, but the master was out. It sounded desolate, and Carey ran up stairs, craving and eager for the kiss of her child—the child who must have borne the brunt of the shock.
The room was silent, all dusky and shadowed; the window-frames were traced on the blinds by the gas freshly lighted outside, and moving in the breeze with a monotonous dreariness. Carey stood a moment, and then her eyes getting accustomed to the darkness, she discerned a little heap lying curled up before the ottoman, her head on a great open book, asleep—poor child! quite worn out. Carey moved quietly across and sat down by her, longing but not daring to touch her. The lamp was brought up in a minute or two, and that roused Janet, who sprang up with a sudden start and dazzled eyes, exclaiming “Father! Oh, it’s Mother Carey! Oh, mother, mother, please don’t let him go!”
“And you have been all alone in the house, my poor child,” said Carey, as she felt the girl shuddering in her close embrace.
“Mrs. Lucas came to stay with me, but I didn’t want her,” said Janet, “so I told her she might go home to dinner. It’s father—”
“Where is father?”
“Those horrid people in Tottenham Court Road sent for him just as he had come home,” said Janet.
“He went out as usual?”
“Yes, though he had such a bad cold. He said he could not be spared; and he was out all yesterday till bedtime, or I should have told him grandmamma was not well.”
“You thought so!”
“Yes, she panted and breathed so oddly; but she would not let me say a word to him. She made me promise not, but being anxious about him helped to do it. Dr. Lucas said so.”
There was a strange hardness and yet a trembling in Janet’s voice; nor did she look as if she had shed tears, though her face was pale and her eyes black-ringed, and when old nurse, now very old indeed, tottered in sobbing, she flung herself to the other end of the room. It was more from nurse than from Janet that Carey learnt the particulars, such as they were, namely, that the girl had been half-dressed when she had taken alarm from her grandmother’s unresponsive stillness, and had rushed down to her father’s room. He had found that all had long been over. His friend, old Dr. Lucas, had come immediately, and had pronounced the cause to have been heart complaint.
Nurse said her master had been “very still,” and had merely given the needful orders and written a few letters before going to his patients, for the illness was at its height, and there were cases for which he was very anxious.
The good old woman, who had lived nearly all her life with her mistress, was broken-hearted; but she did not forget to persuade Caroline to take food, telling her she must be ready to cheer up the master when he should come in, and assuring her that the throbbing headache which disgusted her with all thoughts of eating, would be better for the effort. Perhaps it was, but it would not allow her to bring her thoughts into any connection, or to fix them on what she deemed befitting, and when she saw that the book over which Janet had been asleep in the twilight was “The Last of the Mohicans,” she was more scandalised than surprised.
It was past Janet’s bedtime, but though too proud to say so, she manifestly shrank from her first night of loneliness, and her mother, herself unwilling to be alone, came with her to her room, undressed her, and sat with her in the darkness, hoping for some break in the dull reticence, but disappointed, for Janet hid her head in the clothes, and slept, or seemed to sleep.
Perhaps Carey herself had been half dozing, when she heard the well-known sounds of arrival, and darted down stairs, meeting indeed the welcoming eye and smile; but “Ah, here she is!” was said so hoarsely and feebly, that she exclaimed “Oh Joe, you have knocked yourself up!”
“Yes,” said Dr. Lucas, whom she only then perceived. “He must go to bed directly, and then we will see to him. Not another word, Brownlow, till you are there, nor then if you are wise.”
He strove to disobey, but cough and choking forbade; and as he began to ascend the stairs, Caroline turned in dismay to the kind, fatherly old man, who had always been one of the chief intimates of the house, and was now retired from practice, except for very old friends.
He told her that her husband was suffering from a kind of sore throat that sometimes attacked those attending on this fever, though generally not unless there was some predisposition, or unless the system had been unduly lowered. Joe had indeed been over-worked in the absence of several of the regular practitioners and of all those who could give extra help; but this would probably have done little harm, but for a cold caught in a draughty room, and the sudden stroke with which the day had begun. Dr. Lucas had urged him to remain at home, and had undertaken his regular work for the day, but summonses from his patients had been irresistible; he had attended to everyone except himself, and finally, after hours spent over the critical case of the wife of a small tradesman, he had found himself so ill that he had gone to his friend for treatment, and Dr. Lucas had brought him home, intending to stay all night with him.
Since the wife had arrived, the good old man, knowing how much rather they would be alone, consented to sleep in another room, after having done all that was possible for the night, and cautioned against talking.
Indeed, Joe, heavy, stupefied, and struggling for breath, knew too well what it all meant not to give himself all possible chance by silent endurance, lying with his wife’s hand in his, or sometimes smoothing her cheek, but not speaking without necessity. Once he told her that her head was aching, and made her lie down on the bed, but he was too ill for this rest to last long, and the fits of struggling with suffocation prevented all respite save for a few minutes.
With the early light of the long summer morning Dr. Lucas looked in, and would have sent her to bed, but she begged off, and a sign from her husband seemed to settle the matter, for the old physician went away again, perhaps because his eyes were full of tears.
The first words Joe said when they were again alone was “My tablets.” She went in search of them to his dressing-room, and not finding them there, was about to run down to the consulting-room, when Janet came out already dressed, and fetched them for her, as well as a white slate, on which he was accustomed to write memorandums of engagements.
Her father thanked her by a sign, but there was possibility enough of infection to make him wave her back from kissing him, and she took refuge at the foot of the bed, on a sofa shut off by the curtains which had been drawn to exclude the light.
Joe meantime wrote on the slate the words, “Magnum bonum.”
“Magnum bonum?” read his wife, in amazement.
“Papers in bureau,” he wrote; “lock all in my desk. Mention to no one.”
“Am I to put them in your desk?” asked Caroline, bewildered as to his intentions, and finding it hard to read the writing, as he went on—
“No word to anyone!” scoring it under, “not till one of the boys is ready.”
“One of the boys!” in utter amazement.
“Not as a chance for himself,” he wrote, “but as a great trust.”
“I know,” she said, “it is a great trust to make a discovery which will save life. It is my pride to know you are doing it, my own dear Joe.”
“It seems I am not worthy to do it,” was traced by his fingers. “It is not developed enough to be listened to by anyone. Keep it for the fit one of the boys. Religion, morals, brains, balance.”
She read each word aloud, bending her head in assent; and, after a pause, he wrote “Not till his degree. He could not work it out sooner. These is peril to self and others in experimenting—temptation to rashness. It were better unknown than trifled with. Be an honest judge—promise. Say what I want.”
Spellbound, almost mesmerised by his will, Caroline pronounced—“I promise to keep the magnum bonum a secret till the boys are grown up, and then only to confide it to the one that seems fittest, when he has taken his degree, and is a good, religious, wise, able man, with brains and balance, fit to be trusted to work out and apply such an invention, and not make it serve his own advancement, but be a real good and blessing to all.”
He gave her one of his bright, sweet smiles, and, as she sealed her promise by a kiss, he took up the slate again and wrote, “My dear comfort, you have always understood. You are to be trusted. It must be done worthily or not at all.”
That was the burthen of everything; and his approval and affection gave a certain sustaining glow to the wife, who was besides so absorbed in attending to him, as not to look beyond the moment. He wrote presently, after a little more, “You know all my mind for the children. With God’s help you can fill both places to them. I should like you to live at Kenminster, under Robert’s wing.”
After that he only used the tablets for temporary needs, and to show what he wanted Dr. Lucas to undertake for his patients. The husband and wife had little more time for intimate communings, for the strangulation grew worse, more remedies were tried, and one of the greatest physicians of the day was called in, but only to make unavailing efforts.
Colonel Brownlow arrived in the middle of the day, and was thunderstruck at the new and terrible disaster. He was a large, tall man, with a good-humoured, weather-beaten face, and an unwieldy, gouty figure; and he stood, with his eyes brimming over with tears, looking at his brother, and at first unable to read the one word Joe traced for him—for writing had become a great effort—“Carey.”
“We will do our best for her, Ellen and I, my dear fellow. But you’ll soon be better. Horrid things, these quinsies; but they pass off.”
Poor Joe half-smiled at this confident opinion, but he merely wrung his brother’s hand, and only twice more took up the pencil—once to write the name of the clergyman he wished to see, and lastly to put down the initials of all his children: “Love to you all. Let God and your mother be first with you.—J. B.”
The daylight of the second morning had come in before that deadly suffocation had finished its work, and the strong man’s struggles were ended.
When Colonel Brownlow tried to raise his sister-in-law, he found her fainting, and, with Dr. Lucas’s help, carried her to another room, where she lay, utterly exhausted, in a kind of faint stupor, apparently unconscious of anything but violent headache, which made her moan from time to time, if anything stirred her. Dr. Lucas thought this the effect of exhaustion, for she had not slept, and hardly taken any food since her breakfast at Kyve three days ago; and finding poor old nurse too entirely broken down to be of any use, he put his own kind wife in charge of her, and was unwilling to admit anyone else—even Mrs. Robert Brownlow, who arrived in the course of the day. She was a tall, fine-looking person, with an oval face—soft, pleasant brown skin, mild brown eyes, and much tenderness of heart and manner, but not very well known to Caroline; for her periodical visits had been wholly devoted to shopping and sight-seeing. She was exceedingly shocked at the tidings that met her, and gathered Janet into her arms with many tears over the poor orphan girl! It was an effusiveness that overwhelmed Janet, who had a miserable, hard, dried-up feeling of wretchedness, and injury too; for the more other people cried, the less she could cry, and she heard them saying to one another that she was unfeeling.
Still Aunt Ellen’s presence was a sort of relief, for it made the house less empty and dreary, and she took upon her the cares that were greatly needed in the bereaved household, where old nurse had lost her head, and could do nothing, and the most effective maid was away with the children. So Janet wandered about after her aunt, with an adverse feeling at having her home meddled with, but answering questions and giving opinions, called or uncalled for. Her longing was for her brothers, and it was a great blow to find that her uncle had written to both Allen and Mr. Acton that they had better not come home at present. She thought it cruel and unjust both towards them and herself; and in her sickening sense of solitude and injury she had a vague expectation that they were all going to be left wholly orphans, like the children of fiction, dependent on their uncle and aunt, who would be unjust, and prefer their own children; and she had a prevision of the battles she was to fight, and the defensive influence she was to exert.
That brought to her mind the white slate on which her father had been writing, and she hurried to secure it, though she hardly knew where to go or to look; but straying into her father’s dressing-room, she found both it and the tablets among a heap of other small matters that had been, cleared away when the other chamber had been arranged into the solemnity of the death-room. Hastily securing them, she carried them to her own desk in the deserted school-room, feeling as if they were her charge, and thus having no scruple in reading them.
She had heard what passed aloud; and, as the eldest girl, had been so constantly among the seniors, and so often supposed to be intent on her own occupations when they were conversing, that she had already the knowledge that magnum bonum, was the pet home term for some great discovery in medical, science that her father had been pursuing, with many disappointments and much incredulity from the few friends to whom it had been mentioned, but with absolute confidence on his own part. What it was she did, not know, but she had fully taken in the injunction of secrecy and the charge to hand on the task to one of her brothers; only, while her father had spoken of it as a grave trust, she viewed it as an inheritance of glory; and felt a strange longing and repining that it could not be given to her to win and wear the crown of success.
Janet, did not, however, keep the treasure long, for that very evening Mrs. Lucas sought her out to tell her that her mother had been saying something, about a slate, and Dr. Lucas thought it was one on which her father had been writing. If she could find it, they hoped her mother would rest better.
Janet produced it, and, being evidently most unwilling to let it go out of her hands, was allowed to carry it in, and to tell her mother that she had it. There was no need for injunctions to do so softly and cautiously, for she was frightened by her mother’s dull, half-closed eye, and pale, leaden look; but there was a little air of relief as she faltered, “Here’s the slate, dear mother:” and the answer, so faint that she could hardly hear it, was, “Lock it up, my dear, till I can look.”
Mrs. Lucas told Janet she might kiss her, and then sent the girl away. There was need of anxious watch lest fever should set in, and therefore all that was exciting was kept at a distance as the poor young widow verged towards recovery.
Once, when she heard voices on the stairs, she started nervously, and asked Mrs. Lucas, “Is Ellen there?”
“Yes, my dear; she shall not come to you unless you wish it,” seeing her alarm; and she laid her head down again.
The double funeral was accomplished while she was still too ill to hear anything about it, though Mrs. Lucas had no doubt that she knew; and when he came home, Colonel Brownlow called for Janet, and asked her whether she could find her grandmother’s keys and her father’s for him.
“Mother would not like anyone to rummage their things,” said Janet, like a watch-dog.
“My dear,” said her uncle, in a surprised but kind tone, as one who respected yet resented her feeling; “you may trust me not to rummage, as you call it, unnecessarily; but I know that I am executor, if you understand what that means, my dear.”
“Of course,” said Janet, affronted as she always was by being treated as a child.
“To both wills,” continued her uncle; “and it will save your mother much trouble and distress if I can take steps towards acting on them at once; and if you cannot tell where the keys are, I shall have to look for them.”
“Janet ought to obey at once,” said her aunt, not adding to the serenity of Janet’s mind; but she turned on her heel, ungraciously saying, “I’ll get them;” and presently returned with her grandmother’s key-box, full of the housekeeping keys, and a little key, which she gave to her uncle with great dignity, adding, “The key of her desk is the Bramah one; I’ll see for the others.”
“A strange girl, that!” said her uncle, as she marched out of the room.
“I am glad our Jessie has not her temper!” responded his wife; and then they both repaired to old Mrs. Brownlow’s special apartment, the back drawing-room, while Janet quietly dropped downstairs with the key she had taken from her father’s table on her way to the consulting-room. She intended to prevent any search, by herself producing the will from among his papers, for she was in an agony lest her uncle should discover the clue to the magnum bonum, of which she regarded herself the guardian.
Till she had actually unlocked the sloping lid of the old-fashioned bureau, it did not occur to her that she did not know either what the will was like, nor yet the magnum bonum, which was scarcely likely to be so ticketed. She only saw piles of letters and papers, marked, some with people’s names, some with a Greek or Latin word, or one of the curious old Arabic signs, for which her father had always a turn, having, as his mother used to tell him, something of the alchemist in his composition. One of these parcels, fastened with elastic rings, must be magnum bonum, and Janet, though without much chance of distinguishing it, was reading the labels with a strange, sad fascination, when, long before she had expected him, her uncle stood before her, with greatly astonished and displeased looks, and the word “Janet.”
She coloured scarlet, but answered boldly, “There was something that I know father did not want anyone but mother to see.”
“Of course there is much,” said her uncle, gravely—“much that I am fitter to judge, of than any little girl.”
Words cannot express the offence thus given to Janet. Something swelled in her throat as if to suffocate her, but there could be no reply, and to burst out crying would only make him think her younger still; so as he turned to his mournful task, she ensconced herself in a high-backed chair, and watched him from under her dark brows.
She might comfort herself by the perception that he was less likely than even herself to recognise the magnum bonum. He would scarcely have thought it honourable to cast a glance upon the medical papers, and pushing them aside from where she had pulled them forward, searched till he had found a long cartridge-paper envelope, which he laid on the table behind him while he shut up the bureau, and Janet, by cautiously craning up her neck, managed to read that on it was written “Will of Joseph Brownlow, Executors: Mrs. Caroline Otway Brownlow, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Brownlow.”
Her uncle then put both that and the keys in his pocket, either not seeing her, or not choosing to notice her.
But when our father came not here,I thought if we could find the seaWe should be sure to meet him there,And once again might happy be.—Ballad.
“What was Dr. Lucas saying to you?” asked Carey, sitting up in bed after her breakfast.
“He said, my dear, that you were really well now,” said Mrs. Lucas, tenderly; “and that you only wanted rousing.”
She clasped her hands together.
“Yes, I know it. I have been knowing it all yesterday and last night. It hasn’t been right of me, keeping you all this time, and not facing it.”
“I don’t think you could, my dear.”
“Not at first. It seems to me like having been in a whirlpool, and those two went down in it.” She put her hands to her temples. “But I must do it all now, and I will. I’ll get up now. Oh! dear, if they only would let me come down and go about quietly.” Then smiling a piteous smile. “It is very naughty, but of all things I dread the being cried over and fondled by Ellen!”
Mrs. Lucas shook her head, though the tears were in her eyes, and bethought her whether she could caution Mrs. Robert Brownlow not to be too demonstrative; but it was a delicate matter in which to interfere, and after all, whatever she might think beforehand, Caroline might miss these tokens of feeling.
She had sat up for some hours the evening before, so that there was no fear of her not being strong enough to get up as she proposed; but how would it be when she left her room, and beheld all that she could not have realised?
However, matters turned out contrary to all expectation. Mrs. Lucas was in the drawing-room, talking to the Colonel’s wife, and Janet up stairs helping her mother to dress, when there was a sound of feet on the stairs, the door hastily opened for a moment, and two rough-headed, dusty little figures were seen for one moment, startling Mrs. Brownlow with the notion of little beggars; but they vanished in a moment, and were heard chattering up stairs with calls of “Mother! Mother Carey!” And looking out, they beheld at the top of the stairs the two little fellows hanging one on each side of Carey, who was just outside her door, with her hair down, in her white dressing gown, kneeling between them, all the three almost devouring one another.
“Jockie! Armie! my dears! How did you come? Where are the rest?”
“Still at Kyve,” said Jock. “Mother we have done such a thing—we came to tell you of it.”
“We’ve lost the man’s boat,” added Armine, “and we must give him the money for another.”
“What is it? What is it, Caroline?” began her sister-in-law; but Mrs. Lucas touched her arm, and as a mother herself, she saw that mother and sons had best be left to one another, and let them retreat into the bedroom, Carey eagerly scanning her two little boys, who had a battered, worn, unwashed look that puzzled her as much as their sudden appearance, which indeed chimed in with the strange dreamy state in which she had lived ever since that telegram. But their voices did more to restore her to ordinary life than anything else could have done; and their hearts were so full of their own adventure, that they poured it out before remarking anything,—
“How did you come, my dear boys?”
“We walked, after the omnibus set us down at Charing Cross, because we hadn’t any more money,” said Armine. “I’m so tired.” And he nestled into her lap, seeming to quell the beating of her aching heart by his pressure.
“This is it, mother,” said Jock, pulling her other arm round him. “We two went down to the beach yesterday, and we saw a little boat—Peter Lary’s pretty little boat, you know, that is so light—and we got in to rock in her, and then I thought I would pull about in her a little.”
“Oh! Jock, Jock, how could you?”
“I’d often done it with Allen and Young Pete,” said Jock, defensively.
“But by yourselves!” she said in horror.
“Nobody told us not,” said Jock rather defiantly; and Armine, who, with his little sister Barbara, always seemed to live where dreamland and reality bordered on each other, looked up in her face and innocently said—
“Mrs. Acton read us about the Rocky Island, and she said father and granny had brought their boats to the beautiful country, and that we ought to go after them, and there was the bright path along the sea, and I thought we would go too, and that it would be nicer if Jock went with me.”
“I knew it did not mean that,” said Jock, hanging his mischievous black head a little, as he felt her shudder; “but I thought it would be such fun to be Columbus.”
“And then? Oh! my boys, what a fearful thing! Thank God I have you here.”
“I wasn’t frightened,” said Jock, with uplifted head; “we could both row, couldn’t we, Armie? and the tide was going out, and it was so jolly; it seemed to take us just where we wanted to go, out to that great rock, you know, mother, that Bobus called the Asses’ Bridge.”
Carey knew that the current at the mouth of the river did, at high tide, carry much drift to the base of this island, and she could understand how her two boys had been floated thither. Jock went on—
“We had a boat-hook, and I pulled up to the island; I did, mother, and I made fast the boat to a little stick, and we went out to explore the island.”
“It has a crater in the top, mother, and we think it must be an instinct volcano,” said Armine, looking up sleepily.
“And there were such lots of jolly little birds,” went on Jock.
“Never mind that now. What happened?”
“Why, the brute of a boat got away,” said Jock, much injured, “when I’d made her ever so fast. She pulled up the stick, I’m sure she did, for I can tie a knot as well as Pete.”
“So you could not get away?”
“No, and we’d got nothing to eat but chocolate creams and periwinkles, and Armie wouldn’t look at them, and I don’t think I could while they were alive. So I hoisted a signal of distress, made of my tie, for we’d lost our pocket-handkerchiefs. I was afraid they would think we were pirates, and not venture to come near us, for we’d only got black flags, and it was a very, very long time, but at last, just as it got a little darkish, and Armie was crying—poor little chap—that steamer came by that always goes between Porthole and Kyvemouth on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I hailed and I hailed, and they saw or heard, and sent a boat and took us on board. The people all came and looked at us, and one of them said I was a plucky little chap; he did, mother, and that I’d the making of an admiral in me; and a lady gave us such a jolly paper of sandwiches. But you see the steamer was going to Porthole, and the captain said he could not anyhow put back to Kyve, but he must take us on, and we must get back by train.”
Mother Carey understood this, for the direct line ran to Porthole, and there was a small junction station whence a branch ran to Kyvemouth, from which Kyve St. Clements was some three miles distant.
“Were you carried on?” she asked.
“Well, yes, but we meant it,” said Jock. “I remembered the boat. I knew father would say we must buy another, so I asked the captain what was the price of one, for Armine and I had each got half-a-sovereign.”
“How was that?”
“An old gentleman the day before was talking to Mr. Acton. I think he is some great swell, for he has got a yacht, and servants, and a carriage, and lots of things; and he said, ‘What! are those poor Brownlow’s boys? bless me!’ and he tipped us each. Allen and Bobus were to go with Mr. Acton and have a sail in his yacht, but they said we should be too many, so we thought we’d get a new boat, but the Captain—”
“Said your money would go but a little way,” put in Caroline.
“He laughed!” said Jock, as a great offence; “and said that was a matter for our governor, and we had better go home and tell as fast as we could. There was a train just starting when we got in to Porthole, and somebody got our tickets for us, and Armie went fast off to sleep, and I, when I came to think about it, thought we would not get out at the junction, but come on home at once, Mother Carey, and tell you all about it. When Armie woke—why, he’s asleep now—he said he would rather come home than to Kyve.”
“Then you travelled all night?”
“Yes, there was a jolly old woman who made us a bed with her shawl, only I tumbled off three times and bumped myself, and she gave us gooseberries, and cake, and once when we stopped a long time a porter got us a cup of tea. Then when we came to where they take the tickets, I think the man was going to make a row, but the guard came up and told him all about it, and I gave him my two half-sovereigns, and he gave me back fourteen shillings change, for he said we were only half-price and second class. Then when once I was in London,” said Jock, as if his foot was on his native heath, “of course I knew what to be at.”
“Have you had nothing to eat?”
“We had each a bun when we got out at Charing Cross, but I’m awfully hungry, mother!”
“I should think so. Janet, my dear, go and order some breakfast for them.”
“And,” said Janet, “must not the others be dreadfully frightened about them at Kyve?”
That question startled her mother into instant action.
“Of course they must! Poor Clara! poor Allen! They must be in a dreadful state. I must telegraph to them at once.”
She lifted Armine off gently to her bed, scarcely disturbing him, twisted up her hair in summary fashion, and the dress, which her friends had dreaded her seeing, was on, she hardly knew how, as she bade old nurse see to Jock’s washing, dressing, and making himself tidy, and then amazed the other ladies by running into the drawing-room crying breathlessly—
“I must telegraph to the Actons,” and plunging to the depths of a drawer in the davenport.
“Caroline, your cap!”
For it was on the back of the head that had never worn a cap before. And not only then, but for the most part whenever they met, those tears and caresses, that poor Mother Carey so much feared, were checked midway by the instinct that made Aunt Ellen run at her with a great pin and cry—
“Caroline, your cap.”
She was still, after having had it fixed, kneeling down, searching for a form for telegraphing, when the door was opened, and in came Colonel Brownlow, looking very pale and fearfully shocked.
“Ellen!” he began, “how shall I ever tell that poor child? Here is Mr. Acton.”
But at that moment up sprang Mother Carey, and as Mr. Acton entered the room she leapt forward—
“Oh! I was just going to telegraph! They are safe! they are here! Jock, Jock!”
And downstairs came tumbling and rushing that same little imp, while the astonishment of his uncle and aunt only allowed them to utter the one word, “John!”
Mr. Acton drew a long breath, and said, “You have given us a pretty fright, boy.”
“Here’s the paper,” added Carey; “telegraph to Clara at once. Ring the bell, Jock; I’ll send to the office.”
All questions were suspended while Mr. Acton wrote the telegram, and then it appeared that the boat had been picked up empty, with Armine’s pocket-handkerchief full of shells in it, and the boys had been given up for lost, it having been concluded that, if they had been seen, the boat also would have been taken in tow, and not cast loose to tell the tale. The two elder boys were almost broken-hearted, and would have been wild to come back to their mother, had it not been impossible to leave poor little Barbara, who clung fast to them, as the only shreds left to her of home and protection. They would at least be comforted in the space of a quarter of an hour!
Carey was completely herself and full of vigour while Mr. Acton was there, consoling him when he lamented not having taken better care, and refusing when he tried to persuade her to accompany him back to Kyve. Neither would Janet return with him, feeling it impossible to relax such watch as she could keep over the Magnum Bonum papers, even though she much longed for her brothers.
“I should insist on her going,” said Aunt Ellen, “after all she has gone through.”
“I don’t think I can,” said Carey. “You would not send away your Jessie?”
Ellen did not quite say that her pretty, sweet, caressing Jessie was different, but she thought it all the same.
Carey did not fulfil her intentions of going into matters of business with her brother-in-law that day, for little Armine, always delicate, had been so much knocked up by his course of adventures, that he needed her care all the rest of the day. Nor would she have been fit for anything else, for when his aunt recommended a totally different treatment for his ailments, she had no spirit to argue, but only looked pale and determined, being too weary and dejected to produce her arguments.
Jock was sufficiently tired to be quiescent in the nursery, where she kept him with her, feeling, in his wistful eyes, and even in poor little Armine’s childish questions, something less like blank desolation than her recent apathy had been, as if she were waking to thrills of pain after the numbness of a blow.
Urged by a restless night and an instinctive longing for fresh air, she took a long walk in the park before anyone came down the next morning, with only Jock for her companion, and she came to the breakfast table with a freshened look, though with a tremulous faintness in her voice, and she let Janet continue tea maker, scarcely seeming to hear or understand the casual remarks around her; but afterwards she said in a resolute tone, “Robert, I am ready whenever you wish to speak to me.”
So in the drawing-room the Colonel, with the two wills in his hand, found himself face to face with her. He was the more nervous of the two, being, much afraid of upsetting that composure which scandalised his wife, but which he preferred to tears; and as he believed her to be a mere child in perception, he explained down to her supposed level, while she listened in a strange inert way, feeling it hard to fix her attention, yet half-amused by the simplicity of his elucidations. “Would Ellen need to be told what an executor meant?” thought she.
She was left sole guardian of the children, “the greatest proof of confidence a parent can give,” impressively observed the Colonel, wondering at the languor of her acquiescence, and not detecting the thought, “Dear Joe! of course! as if he would have done anything else!”
“Of course,” continued the Colonel, “he never expected that it would have proved more than a nominal matter, a mere precaution. For my own part, I can only say that I shall be always ready to assist you with advice or authority if ever you should find the charge too onerous for you.”
“Thank you,” was all she could bring herself to say at that moment, feeling that her boys were her own, though the next she was recollecting that this was no doubt the reason Joe had bidden her live at Kenminster, and in a pang of self-reproach, was hardly attending to the technicalities of the matters of property which were being explained to her.
Her husband had not been able to save much, but his life insurance was for a considerable sum, and there was also the amount inherited from his parents. A portion of the means which his mother had enjoyed passed to the elder brother, and Mrs. Brownlow had sunk most of her individual property in the purchase of the house in which they lived. By the terms of Joseph’s will, everything was left to Caroline unreservedly, save for a stipulation that all, on her death, should be divided among the children, as she should appoint. The house was not even secured to Allen, so that she could let or sell it as she thought advisable.
“I could not sell it,” said Carey quickly, feeling it her first and only home. “I hope to see Allen practising there some day.”
“It is not in a situation where you could sell it to so much advantage as you would have by letting it to whoever takes the practice.”
She winced, but it was needful to listen, as he told her of the offers that had been made for the house and the good-will of the practice. What he had thought the best offer was, however, rejected by her with vehemence. She was sure that Joe would never stand that man coming in upon his patients, and when asked for her reasons, would only reply, that “None of us could bear him.”
“That is no reason why he should not be a good practitioner and respectable man. He may not be what you like in society, and yet—”
“Ask Dr. Lucas,” hastily interrupted Carey.
“Perhaps that will be the best way,” said the Colonel gravely. “Will you promise to abide by his decision?”
“I don’t know! I mean, if everyone decided against me,nothingshould induce me to letthatVaughan into Joe’s house to meddle with his patients.”
Colonel Brownlow made a sign of displeased acquiescence, so like his brother when Carey was a little impetuous or naughty, that she instantly felt shocked at herself, and faltered, “I beg your pardon.”
He seemed not to notice this, but went on, “As you say, it may be wise to consult Dr. Lucas. Perhaps, putting it up to competition would be the best way.”
“Oh, no,” said Caroline. “Have you a letter from Dr. Drake?”
“No.”
“Then depend upon it he must have too much delicacy to begin about it so soon. I had rather he had it than anyone else.”
“Can he make a fair offer for it? You cannot afford to throw away a substantial benefit for preferences,” said the Colonel. “At the outside, you will not have more than five hundred pounds a year, and I fear you will feel much straitened after what you are used to, with four boys, and such ideas as to their education,” he added smiling.
“I don’t know, but I am sure it is what Joe would wish. He had rather trust his patients to Harry—to Dr. Drake—than to anyone, and he is just going to be married, and wants a practice; I shall write to him. It is so nice of him not to have pressed forward.”
“You will not commit yourself?” said Colonel Brownlow. “Remember that your children’s interests are at stake, and must not be sacrificed to a predilection.”
Again Caroline felt fiery and furious, and less inclined than ever to submit her judgment as she said, “You can inquire, but I know what Joe thought of him.”
“His worthiness is not the point, but whether he can indemnify you.”
“His worthiness not the point!” cried Caroline, indignantly. “I think it all the point.”
“You misunderstand me; you totally misunderstand me,” exclaimed the Colonel trying hard to be gentle. “I never meant to recommend an unworthy man.”
“You wanted Vaughan,” murmured Mother Carey, but he did not regard the words, perhaps did not hear them, for he went on: “My brother in such a case would have taken a reasonable view, and placed the good of his children before any amiable desire to benefit a—a—one unconnected with him. However,” he added, “there is no reason against writing to him, provided you do not commit yourself.”
Caroline hated the word, but endured it, and the rest of the interview was spent upon some needful signatures, and on the question of her residence at Kenminster, an outlook which she contemplated as part of the darkness into which her life seemed to have suddenly dashed forward. One place would be much the same as another to her, and she could only hear with indifference about the three houses, possible, and the rent, garden, and number of rooms.
She was very glad when it was over, and the Colonel, saying he should go and consult Dr. Lucas, gave her back the keys he had taken from Janet, and said that perhaps she would prefer looking over the papers before he himself did so, with a view to accounts; but he should advise all professional records to be destroyed.
It may be feared that the two executors did not respect or like each, other much the better for the interview, which had made the widow feel herself even more desolate and sore-hearted.
She ran, downstairs, locked the door of the consulting room, opened the lid of the bureau, and kneeling down with her head among all the papers, she sobbed with long-drawn, tearless sobs, “O father! O Joe! how could you bid me live there? He makes me worse! They will make me worse and worse, and now you are gone, and Granny is gone, there’s nobody to make me good; and what will become of the children?”
Then she looked drearily on the papers that lay before her, as if his hand-writing at least gave a sort of nearness. There was a memorandum book which had been her birthday present to him, and she felt drawn to open it. The first she saw after her own writing of his name was—
“‘Magnum Bonum. So my sweet wife insists on calling this possibility, of which I will keep the notes in her book.
“‘Magnum Bonum! Whether it so prove, and whether I may be the means of making it known, must be as God may will. May He give me the power of persevering, to win, or to fail, or to lay the foundation for other men, whichever may be the best, with a true heart, heeding His glory, and acting as His servant to reveal His mysteries of science for the good of His children.
“‘And above all, may He give us all to know and feel the true and only Magnum Bonum, the great good, which alone makes success or failure, loss or gain, life or death, alike blessed in Him and through Him.’”
Carey gazed on those words, as she sat in the large arm-chair, whither she had moved on opening the book. She had always known that religion was infinitely more to her husband than ever it had been to herself. She had done what he led her to do, and had a good deal of intellectual and poetical perception and an uprightness, affection, and loyalty of nature that made her anxious to do right, but devotion was duty, and not pleasure to her; she was always glad when it was over, and she was feeling that the thoughts which were said to comfort others were quite unable to reach her grief. There was no disbelief nor rebellion about her, only a dull weariness, and an inclination which she could hardly restrain, even while it shocked her, to thrust aside those religious consolations that were powerless to soothe her. She knew it was not their fault, she did not doubt of their reality; it was she who was not good enough to use them.
These words of Joe were to her as if he were speaking to her again. She laid them on her knee, murmured them over fondly, looked at them, and finally, for she was weak still and had had a bad night, fell fast asleep over them, and only wakened, as shouts of “Mother” were heard over the house.
She locked the bureau in a hurry, and opened the door, calling back to the boys, and then she found that Aunt Ellen had taken all the three out walking, when Jock and Armine, with the remains of their money burning in their pockets, had insisted on buying two little ships, which must necessarily be launched in the Serpentine. Their aunt could by no means endure this, and Janet did not approve, so there seemed to have been a battle royal, in which Jock would have been the victor, if his little brother had not been led off captive between his aunt and sister, when Jock went along on the opposite side of the road, asserting his independence by every sort of monkey trick most trying to his aunt’s rural sense of London propriety.
It was very ridiculous to see the tall, grave, stately Mrs. Robert Brownlow standing there describing the intolerable naughtiness of that imp, who, not a bit abashed, sat astride on the balustrade in the comfortable conviction that he was not hers.
“I hope, at least,” concluded the lady, “that you will make them feel how bad their behaviour has been.”
“Jock,” said Carey mechanically, “I am afraid you have behaved very ill to your aunt.”
“Why, Mother Carey,” said that little wretch, “it is just that she doesn’t know anything about anything in London.”
“Yes,” chimed in little Armine, who was hanging to his mother’s skirts; “she thought she should get to the Park by Duke Street.”
“That did not make it right for you not to be obedient,” said Carey, trying for severity.
“But we couldn’t, mother.”
“Couldn’t?” both echoed.
“No,” said Jock, “or we should be still in Piccadilly. Mother Carey, she told us not to cross till it was safe.”
“And she stood up like the Duke of Bedford in the Square,” added Armine.
Janet caught her mother’s eye, and both felt a spasm of uncontrollable diversion in their throats, making Janet turn her back, and Carey gasp and turn on the boys.
“All that is no reason at all. Go up to the nursery. I wish I could trust you to behave like a gentleman, when your aunt is so kind as to take you out.”
“Idid, mother! I did hand her across the street, and dragged her out from under all the omnibus horses,” said Jock in an injured tone, while Janet could not refrain from a whispered comparison, “Like a little steam-tug,” and this was quite too much for all of them, producing an explosion which made the tall and stately dame look from one to another in such bewildered amazement, that struck the mother and daughter as so comical that the one hid her face in her hands with a sort of hysterical heaving, and the other burst into that painful laughter by which strained spirits assert themselves in the young.
Mrs. Robert Brownlow, in utter astonishment and discomfiture, turned and walked off to her own room. Somehow Carey and Janet felt more on their ordinary terms than they had done all these sad days, in their consternation and a certain sense of guilt.