The days went on; and the dull, heavy pain in the head, complained of by Henry Arkell, increased in intensity. At first his absence from his desk at school, his vacant place at college, excited comment, but in time, as the newness of it wore off, it grew to be no longer noticed. It is so with all things. On the afternoon of the fall, the family surgeon was called in to him: he saw no cause for apprehension, he said; the head only required rest. It might have been better, perhaps, had the head (including the body and brain) been able to take the recommended rest; but it could not. On the Monday morning came the excitement of the medal affair, as related to him by Mr. St. John, and also by many of the school; in the evening there occurred the excitement of that business of the register; the interview with the Prattletons, and subsequently with Mr. Fauntleroy. On the next day he had to appear as a witness; and then came the deanery dinner in the evening and Georgina Beauclerc. All sources of great and unwonted excitement, had he been in his usual state of health: what it was to him now, never could be ascertained.
As the days went on, and the pain grew no better, but worse, and the patient more heavy, it dawned into the surgeon's mind that he possibly did not understand the case, and it might be as well to have the advice of a physician. The most clever the city afforded was summoned, and he did not appear to understand it either. That there was some internal injury to the head, both agreed; but what it might be, it was not so easy to state. And thus more days crept on, and the doctors paid their regular visits, and the pain still grew worse; and then the half-shadowed doubt glided into a certainty which had little shadow about it, but stern substance—that the injury was rapidly running on to a fatal issue.
He did not take to his bed: he would sit at his chamber window in an easy chair, his poor aching-head resting on a pillow. "You would be better in bed," everybody said to him. "No, he thought he was best up," he answered; "it was more change: when he was tired of the chair and the pillow, he could lie down outside the bed." "It is unaccountable his liking to be so much at the window," Mrs. Peter Arkell remarked to Lucy. To them it might be; for how could they know that a sight ofonewho might pass and cast a glance up to him, made his day's happiness?
That considerable commotion was excited by the opinion of the doctors, however cautiously intimated, was only to be expected. Mr. Arkell heard of it, and brought another physician, without saying anything beforehand at Peter's. But it would seem that this gentleman's opinion did not differ in any material degree from that of his brethren.
The Reverend Mr. Wilberforce sat at the head of his dinner-table, eating his own dinner and carving for his pupils. His face looked hot and angry, and his spectacles were pushed to the top of his brow, for if there was one thing more than another that excited the ire of the master, it was that of the boys being unpunctual at meals, and Cookesley had this day chosen to be absent. The second serving of boiled beef was going round when he made his appearance.
"What sort of behaviour do you call this, sir?" was the master's salutation. "Do you expect to get any dinner?"
"I am very sorry to be so late, sir," replied Cookesley, eyeing the boiled beef wishfully, but not daring to take his seat. "I went to see Arkell, and——"
"And who is Arkell, pray, or you either, that you must upset the regulations of my house?" retorted the master. "You should choose your visiting times better, Mr. Cookesley."
"Yes, sir. I heard he was worse; that's the reason I went; and when I got there the dean was with him. I waited, and waited, but I had to come away without seeing Arkell, after all."
"The dean with Arkell!" echoed Mr. Wilberforce, in a disbelieving tone.
"He is there still, sir. Arkell is a great deal worse. They say he will never come to school or college again."
"Who says so, pray?"
"Everybody's saying it now," returned Cookesley. "There's something wrong with his head, sir; some internal injury caused by the fall; but they don't know whether it's an abscess, or what it is. It will kill him, they think."
The master's wrath had faded: truth to say, his anger was generally more fierce in show than in reality. "You may take your seat for this once, Cookesley, but if ever you transgress again——Hallo!" broke off the master, as he cast his eyes on another of his pupils, "what's the matter with you, Lewis junior? Are you choking, sir?"
Lewis junior was choking, or gasping, or something of the sort, for his face was distorted, and his eyes were round with seeming fright. "What is it?" angrily repeated the master.
"It was the piece of meat, sir," gasped Lewis. A ready excuse.
"No it wasn't," put in Vaughan the bright, who sat next to Lewis junior. "Here's the piece of meat you were going to eat; it dropped off the fork on to your plate again; it couldn't be the meat. He's choking at nothing, sir."
"Then, if you must choke, you had better go and choke outside, and come back when it's over," said the master to Lewis. And away Lewis went; none guessing at the fear and horror which had taken possession of him.
The assize week had passed, and the week following it, and still Henry Arkell had not made his appearance in the cathedral or the school. The master could not make it out. Was it likely that the effects of a fall, which broke no bones, bruised no limbs, only told somewhat heavily upon his head, should last all this while, and incapacitate him from his duties? Had it been any other of the king's scholars, no matter which of the whole thirty-nine Mr. Wilberforce would have said that he was skulking, and sent a sharp mandate for him to appear in his place; but he thought he knew better things of Henry Arkell. He did not much like what Cookesley said now—that Arkell might never come out again, though he received the information with disbelief.
Mr. St. John was a daily visitor to the invalid. On the day before this, when he entered, Henry was at his usual post, the window, but standing up, his head resting against the frame, and his eyes strained after some distant object outside. So absorbed was he, that Mr. St. John had to touch his arm to draw his attention, and Henry drew back with a start.
"How are you to-day, Harry? Better?"
"No, thank you. This curious pain in my head gets worse."
"Why do you call it curious?"
"It is not like an ordinary pain. And I cannot tell exactly where it is. I cannot put my hand on any part of my head and say it is here or it is there. It seems to be in the centre of the inside—as if it could not be got at."
"What were you watching so eagerly?"
"I was looking outside," was Henry's evasive reply. "They had Dr. Ware to me this morning; did you know it?"
"I am glad of that!" exclaimed Mr. St. John. "What does he say?"
"I did not hear him say much. He asked me where my head was struck when I fell, but I could not tell him—I did not know at the time, you remember. He and Mr.——"
Henry's voice faltered. A sudden, almost imperceptible, movement of the head nearer the window, and a wild accession of colour to his feverish cheek, betrayed to Mr. St. John that something was passing which bore for him a deep interest. He raised his own head and caught a sufficient glimpse:Georgina Beauclerc.
It told Mr. St. John all: though he had not needed to be told; and Miss Beauclerc's mysterious words, and Henry's past conduct became clear to him. So! the boy's heart had been thus early awakened—and crushed.
"The heart that is soonest awake to the flowersIs always the first to be touched by the thorns,"
"The heart that is soonest awake to the flowersIs always the first to be touched by the thorns,"
whistled Mr. St. John to himself.
Ay, crushing is as sure to follow thatearlyawaking, as that thorns grow on certain rose-trees. But Mr. St. John said nothing more that day.
On the following day, upon going in, he found Henry in bed.
"Like a sensible man as you are," quoth Mr. St. John, by way of salutation. "Now don't rise from it again until you are better."
Henry looked at him, an expression in his eyes that Mr. St. John did not like, and did not understand. "Did they tell you anything downstairs, Mr. St. John?" he inquired.
"I did not see anyone but the servant. I came straight up."
"Mamma is lying down, I dare say; she has been sitting with me part of the night. Then I will tell it you. I shall not be here many days," he whispered, putting his hand within Mr. St. John's.
Mr. St. John did not take the meaning: that the case would have a fatal termination had not yet crossed his mind. "Where shall you be?" cried he, gaily, "up in the moon?"
Henry sighed. "Up somewhere. I am going to die."
"Going to what?" was the angry response.
"I am dying, Mr. St. John."
Mr. St. John's pulses stood still. "Who has been putting that rubbish in your head?" cried he, when he recovered them sufficiently to speak.
"The doctors told my father yesterday evening, that as I went on, like this, from bad to worse, without their being able to discover the true nature of the case, they saw that it must terminate fatally. He knew that they had feared it before. Afterwards mamma came and broke it to me."
"Why did she do so?" involuntarily uttered Mr. St. John, in an accent of reproach. "Though their opinion may be unfavourable—which I don't believe, mind—they had no right to frighten you with it."
"It does not frighten me. Just at first I shrank from the news, but I am quite reconciled to it now. A faint idea that this might be the ending, has been running through my own mind for some days past, though I would not dwell on it sufficiently to give it a form."
"I amastonishedthat Mrs. Arkell should have imparted it to you!" emphatically repeated Mr. St. John. "What could she have been thinking of?"
"Oh, Mr. St. John! mamma has striven to bring us up not to fear death. What would have been the use of her lessons, had she thought I should run in terror from it when it came?"
"She ought not to have told you—she ought not to have told you!" was the continued burden of Mr. St. John's song. "You may get well yet."
"Then there is no harm done. But, with death near, would you have had me, the only one it concerns, left in ignorance to meet it, not knowing it was there? Mamma has not waited herself for death—as she has done, you know, for years—without learning a better creed than that."
Mr. St. John made no reply, and Henry went on: "I have had such a pleasant night with mamma. She read to me parts of the Revelation; and in talking of the glories which I may soon see, will you believe that I almost forgot my pain? She says how thankful she is now, that she has been enabled to train me up more carefully than many boys are trained—to think more of God."
"You are a strange boy," interrupted Sir. St. John.
"In what way am I strange?"
"To anticipate death in that tone of cool ease. Have you no regrets to leave behind you?"
"Many regrets; but they seemed to fade into insignificance last night, while mamma was talking with me. It is best that they should."
"Henry, it strikes me that you have had your griefs and troubles, inexperienced as you are," resumed Mr. St. John.
"Oh yes, I have," he answered, betrayed into an earnestness, incompatible with cautious reserve. "Some of the college boys have not suffered me to lead a pleasant life with them," he continued, more calmly; "and then there has been my father's gradually straitening income."
"I think there must have been some other grief than these," was Mr. St. John's remark.
"What other grief could there have been?"
"I know but of one. And you are over young for that."
"Of course I am; too young," was the eager answer.
"That is enough," quietly returned Mr. St. John; "I did nottellyou to betray yourself. Nay, Henry, don't shrink from me; let me hear it: it will be better and happier for you that I should."
"There is nothing—I don't know what you mean—what are you talking of, Mr. St. John?" was the incoherent answer.
"Harry, my poor boy, I know almost as much as you," he whispered. "I know what it is, and who it is. Georgie Beauclerc. There; you cannot tell me much, you see."
Henry Arkell laid his hand across his face and aching eyes; his chest was heaving with emotion. Mr. St. John leaned over him, not less tenderly than a mother.
"You should not have wasted your love uponher: she is a heartless girl. I expect she drew you on, and then turned round and said she did not mean it."
"Oh yes, she did draw me on," he replied, in a tone full of anguish; "otherwise, I never——But it was my fault also. I ought to have remembered the many barriers that divided us; the——"
"You ought to have remembered that she is an incorrigible flirt, that is what you ought to have remembered," interrupted Mr. St. John.
"Well, well," sighed Henry, "I cannot speak of these things to you: less to you than to any one."
"Is that an enigma? I should think you could best speak of them to me, because I have guessed your secret, and the ice is broken."
Again Henry Arkell sighed. "Speaking of them at all will do no good; and I would now rather think of the future than of the past. My future lies there," he added, pointing to the blue sky, which, as seen from his window, formed a canopy over the cathedral tower. "She has, in all probability, many years before her here: Mr. St. John, if she and you spend those years together, will you sometimes talk of me? I should not like to be quite forgotten by you—or by her."
"Spend them together!" he echoed. "Another enigma. What should bring me spending my years with Georgina Beauclerc?"
Henry withdrew his hands from his eyes, and turned them on Mr. St. John. "Do you think she will never be your wife?"
"She! Georgina Beauclerc! No, thank you."
Henry Arkell's face wore an expression that Mr. St. John understood not. "It was for your sake she treated me so ill. She loves you, Mr. St. John. And I think you know it."
"She is a little simpleton. I would not marry Georgie Beauclerc if there were not another English girl extant. And as to loving her——Harry, I only wish, if we are to lose you, that I loved you but one tenth part as little."
"Sorrow in store for her! sorrow in store for her!" he murmured, as he turned his face to the pillow. "I must send her a message before I die: you will deliver it for me?"
"I won't have you talk about dying," retorted Mr. St. John. "You may get well yet, I tell you."
Henry opened his eyes again to reply, and the calm peace had returned to them. "It maybeverysoon; and it is better to talk of death than to shrink from it." And Mr. St. John grumbled an ungracious acquiescence.
"And there is another thing I wish you would do for me: get Lewis junior here to-day. If I send to him, I know he will not come; but I must see him. Tell him, please, that it is only to shake hands and make friends; that I will not say a word to grieve him. He will understand."
"It's more than I do," said Mr. St. John. "He shall come."
"I should like to see Aultane—but I don't think my head will stand it all. Tell him from me, not to be harsh with the choristers now he is senior——"
"He is not senior yet," interposed Mr. St. John in a husky tone.
"It will not be long first. Give him my love, and tell him, when I sent it, I meant it fully; and that I have no angry feeling towards him."
"Your love?"
"Yes. It is not an ordinary message from one college boy to another," panted the lad, "but I am dying."
After Mr. St. John left the house, he encountered the dean. "Dr. Beauclerc, Henry Arkell is dying."
The dean stared at Mr. St. John. "Dying! Henry Arkell!"
"The inward injury to the head is now pronounced by the doctors to be a fatal one. They told the family last night there was little, if any, more hope. The boy knows it, and seems quite reconciled."
The dean, without another word or question, turned immediately off to Mr. Arkell's, and Westerbury as immediately turned its aristocratic nose up. "The idea of his condescending to enter the house of those poor Arkells! had it been the other branch of the Arkell family, it would not have been quite so lowering. But Dr. Beauclerc never did display the dignity properly pertaining to a dean."
Dr. Beauclerc, forgetful as usual of a dean's dignity, was shown into Mrs. Arkell's parlour, and from thence into Henry Arkell's chamber. The boy's ever lovely face flushed crimson, from its white pillow, when he saw the dean. "Oh, sir! you to come here! how kind!"
"I am sorry for this, my poor lad," said the dean, as he sat down. "I hear you are not so well: I have just met Mr. St. John."
"I shall never be well again, sir. But do not be sorry. I shall be better off; far, far happier than I could be here."
"Do you feel this, genuinely, heartily?" questioned the dean.
"Oh yes, how can I do otherwise than feel it? If it is God's will to take me, I know it must be for my good."
"Say that again," said the dean. "I do not know that I fully caught your meaning."
"I am in God's hands: and if He takes me to Him earlier than I thought to have gone, I know it must be for the best."
"How long have you reposed so firm a trust in God?"
"All my life," answered Henry, with simplicity: "mamma taught me that with my letters. She taught me to take God for my guide; to strive to please Him; implicitly to trust in Him."
"And you have done this?"
"Oh no, sir, I have only tried to do it. But I know that there is One to intercede for me."
"Have you sure and certain trust in Christ?" returned the dean, after a pause.
"I have sure and certain trust in Him," was the boy's reply, spoken fervently: "if I had not, I should not dare to die. I wish I might have received the Sacrament," he whispered; "but I have not been confirmed."
"Henry," said the dean, in his quick manner, "I do believe you are more fitted for it than are some who take it. Would it be a comfort to you?"
"It would indeed, sir."
"Then I will come and administer it. At seven to-night, if that hour will suit your friends. I will ascertain when I go down."
"Oh, sir, you are too good," he exclaimed, in his surprise: "mamma thought of asking Mr. Prattleton. I am but a poor college boy, and you are the Dean of Westerbury."
"Just so. But when the great King of Terrors approaches, as he is now approaching you, it makes us remember that in Christ's kingdom the poor college boy may stand higher than the Dean of Westerbury. Henry, I have watched your conduct more than you are aware of, and I believe you to have been as truly good a boy as it is in human nature to be: I believe that you have continuously striven to please God, in little things as in great."
"If I could but have done it more than I have!" thought the boy.
It was during this interview that Mr. Cookesley arrived; and, as you have seen, nearly lost his dinner. As soon as the boys rose from table, they, full of consternation, trooped down to Arkell's, picking up several more of the king's scholars on their way, who were not boarders at the house of Mr. Wilberforce. The dean had gone then, but Mr. St. John was at the door, having called again to inquire whether there was any change. He cast his eyes on the noisy boys, as they approached the gate, and discerned amongst them Lewis junior. Mr. St. John stepped outside, and pounced upon him, with a view to marshal him in. But Lewis resisted violently; ay, and shook and trembled like a girl.
"I will not go into Arkell's, sir," he panted. "You have no right to force me. I won't! I won't!"
He struggled on to his knees, and clasped a deep-seated stone in the Arkells' garden for support. Mr. St. John, not releasing his collar, looked at him with amazement, and the troop of boys watched the scene over the iron railings.
"Lewis, what is the meaning of this?" cried Mr. St. John. "You are panting like a coward; and a guilty one: What are you afraid of?"
"I'm afraid of nothing, but I won't go into Arkell's. I don't want to see him. Let me go, sir. Though you are Mr. St. John, that's no reason why you should set up for master over the college boys."
"I am master over you just now," was the significant answer. "Listen: I have promised Arkell to take you to him, and I will do it: you may have heard, possibly, that the St. Johns never break their word. But Arkell has sent for you in kindness: he appeared to expect this opposition, and bade me tell it you: he wants to clasp your hand in friendship before he dies. Walk on, Lewis."
"You are not master over us boys," shrieked Lewis again, whose opposition had increased to sobs.
But Mr. St. John proved his mastership. Partly; by coaxing, partly by authoritative force, he conducted Mr. Lewis to the door of Henry's chamber. There Lewis seized his arm in abject terror; he had turned ghastly white, and his teeth chattered.
"I cannot fathom this," said Mr. St. John, wondering much. "Have I not told you there is nothing to fear? What is it that you do fear?"
"No; but does he look very frightful?" chattered Lewis.
"What should make him look frightful? He looks as he has always looked. Be off in; and I'll keep the door, if you want to talk secrets."
Mr. St. John pushed him in, and closed the door upon them. Henry held out his hand, and spoke a few hearty words of love and forgiveness; and Lewis put his face down on the counterpane and began to howl.
"Lewis, take comfort. It was done, I know, in the impulse of the moment, and you never thought it would hurt me seriously. I freely forgive you."
"Are you sure to die?" sobbed Lewis.
"I think I am. The doctors say so."
"O-o-o-o-o-o-h!" howled Lewis; "then I know you'll come back and haunt me with being your murderer: Prattleton junior says you will. He saw it done, so he knows about it. I shall never be able to sleep at night, for fear."
"Now, Lewis, don't be foolish. I shall be too happy where I am, to come back to earth. No one knows how it happened: you say Prattleton does, but he is your friend, and it is safe with him. Take comfort."
"Some of us have been so wicked and malicious to you!" blubbered Lewis. "I, and my brother, and Aultane, and a lot of them."
"It is all over now," sighed Henry, closing his heavy eyes. "You would not, had you foreseen that I should leave you so soon."
"Oh, what a horrid wretch I have been!" sobbed Lewis, rubbing his smeared face on the white bedclothes, in an agony. "And, if it's found out, they might try me next assizes and hang me. And it is such a dreadful thing for you to die!"
"It is ahappything, Lewis; I feel it is, and I have told the dean I feel it. Say good-bye to the fellows for me, Lewis; I am too ill to see them. Tell them how sorry I am to leave them; but we shall meet again in heaven."
Lewis grasped his offered hand, and, with a hasty, sheepish movement, leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek: then turned and burst out of the room, nearly upsetting Mr. St. John, and tore down the stairs. Mr. St. John entered the chamber.
"Well, is the conference satisfactorily over?"
Again Henry reopened his heavy eyes. "Is that you, Mr. St. John?"
"Yes, I am here."
"The dean is coming here this evening at seven, for the sacrament. He said my not being confirmed was no matter in a case like this. Will you come?"
"Henry, no," was the grave answer. "I am not good enough."
"Oh, Mr. St. John!" The ready tears filled his eyes. "I wish you could!" he beseechingly whispered.
"I wish so too. Are you distressed for me, Henry? Do not look upon me as a monster of iniquity: I did not mean to imply it. But I do not yet think sufficiently of serious things to be justified in partaking of that ordinance without preparation."
"It would have seemed like a bond of union between us—a promise that you will some time join me where I am going," pleaded the dying boy.
"I hope I shall: I trust I shall: I will not forget that you are there."
As Mr. St. John left the house, he made his way to the grounds, in a reflective mood: the cathedral bell was then ringing for afternoon service, and, somewhat to his surprise, he saw the dean hurrying from the college; not to it.
"I'm on my way back to Arkell's! I'm on my way back to Arkell's!" he exclaimed, in an impetuous manner; and forthwith he began recounting a history to Mr. St. John; a history of wrong, which filled him, the dean, with indignation.
"I suspected something of the sort," was Mr. St. John's quiet answer; and the dean strode on his way, and Mr. St. John stood looking after him, in painful thought. When the dean came out of Mr. Peter Arkell's again, he was too late for service that afternoon. Although he was in residence!
Just in the unprepared and sudden manner that the news of Henry Arkell's approaching death must have fallen upon my readers, so did it fall upon the town. People could not believe it: his friends could not believe it: the doctors scarcely believed it. The day wore on; and whether there may have lingered any hope in the morning, the evening closed it, for it brought additional agony to his injured head, and the most sanguine saw that he was dying.
All things were prepared for the service, about to take place, and Henry lay flushed, feverish, and restless, lest he should become delirious ere the hour should arrive: he had become so rapidly worse since the forepart of the day. Precisely as the cathedral clock struck seven, the house door was thrown open, and the dean placed his foot on the threshold:
"Peace be unto this house, and to all that dwell within it!"
The dean was attended to the chamber, and there he commenced the office for the Visitation of the Sick, omitting part of the exhortation, but reading the prayer for a soul on the point of departure. Then he proceeded with the Communion.
When the service was over, all, save Mrs. Arkell and the dean, quitted the room. Henry's mind was tranquil now.
"I will not forget your request," whispered the dean.
"Near to the college door, as we enter," was Henry's response.
"It shall be done as you wish, my dear."
"And, sir, you havepromisedto forgive them."
"For your sake. You are suffering much just now," added the dean, as he watched his countenance.
"It gets more intense with every hour. I cannot bear it much longer. Oh, I hope I shall not suffer beyond my strength!" he panted; "I hope I shall be able to bear the agony!"
"Do not fear it. You know where to look for help!" whispered the dean; "you cannot look in vain. Henry, my dear boy, I leave you in peace, do I not?"
"Oh yes, sir, in perfect peace. Thank you greatly for all."
It was the brightest day, though March was not yet out, the first warm, lovely day of spring. Men passed each other in the streets, with a congratulation that the winter weather had gone, and the college boys, penned up in their large schoolroom, gazed aloft through the high windows at the blue sky and the sunshine, and thought what a shame it was that they should be held prisoners on such a days instead of galloping over the country at "Hare and Hounds."
"Third Latin class walk up," cried Mr. Wilberforce.
The third Latin class walked up, and ranged itself in front of the master's desk. "Who's top of this class?" asked he.
"Me, sir," replied the gentleman who owned that distinction.
"Who's 'me' sir?"
"Me, sir."
"Whois'me,' sir?" angrily repeated the master, his spectacles bearing full on his wondering pupil.
"Charles Van Brummel, sir," returned that renowned scholar.
"Then go down to the bottom for saying 'me.'"
Mr. Van Brummel went down, considerably chopfallen, and the master was proceeding to work, when the cathedral bell tolled out heavily, for a soul recently departed.
"What's that?" abruptly ejaculated the master.
"It's the college death-bell, sir," called out the up class, simultaneously, Van Brummel excepted, who had not yet recovered his equanimity.
"I hear what it is as well as you," were all the thanks they got. "But what can it be tolling for? Nobody was ill."
"Nobody," echoed the boys.
"Can it be a member of the Royal Family?" wondered the master—the bishop and the dean he knew were well. "If not, it must be one of the canons."
Of course it must! for the college bell never condescended to toll for any of the profane vulgar. The Royal Family, the bishop, dean, and prebendaries, were the only defunct lights, honoured by the notice of the passing-bell of Westerbury Cathedral.
"Lewis junior," said the master, "go into college, and ask the bedesmen who it is that is dead."
Lewis junior clattered out. When he came back he walked very softly, and looked as white as a sheet.
"Well?" cried Mr. Wilberforce—for Lewis did not speak.
"It's tolling for Henry Arkell, sir."
"Henry Arkell!" uttered the master. "Is he really dead? Are you ill, Lewis junior? What's the matter?"
"Nothing, sir."
"But it is an entirely unprecedented proceeding for the cathedral bell to toll for a college boy," repeated Mr. Wilberforce, revolving the news. "The old bedesmen must be making some mistake. Half of them are deaf, and the other half are stupid. I shall send to inquire: we must have no irregularity about these things. Lewis junior."
"Yes, sir."
"Lewis junior, you are ill, sir," repeated the master, sharply. "Don't say you are not. Sit down, sir."
Lewis junior humbly sat down. He appeared to have the ague.
"Van Brummel, you'll do," continued Mr. Wilberforce. "Go and inquire of the bedesmen whether they have received orders; and, if so, from whom: and whether it is really Arkell that the bell is tolling for."
Van Brummel opened the door and clattered down the stairs, as Lewis junior had done; andheclattered back again.
"The men say, sir, that the dean sent them the orders by his servant. And they think Arkell is to be buried in the cathedral."
"In—deed!" was the master's comment, in a tone of doubt. "Poor fellow!" he added, after a pause, "his has been a sudden and melancholy ending. Boys, if you want to do well, you should imitate Henry Arkell. I can tell you that the best boy who ever trod these boards, as a foundation scholar, has now gone from among us."
"Please, sir, I'm senior of the choir now," interposed Aultane junior, as if fearing the master might not sufficiently remember that important fact.
"And a fine senior you'll make," scornfully retorted Mr. Wilberforce.
It was Mr. St. John who had taken the news of his death to the dean, and the latter immediately sent to order the bell to be tolled. St. John left the deanery, and was passing through the cloisters on his way to Hall-street, when he saw in the distance Mrs. and Miss Beauclerc, just as the cathedral bell rang out. Mrs. Beauclerc was startled, as the head master had been: her fears flew towards her aristocratic clergy friends. She tried the college door, and, finding it open, entered to make inquiries of the bedesmen. Georgina stopped to chatter to Mr. St. John.
"Fancy, if it should be old Ferraday gone off!" cried she. "Won't the boys crow? He has got the influenza, and was sitting by his study fire yesterday in a flannel nightcap."
"It is the death-bell for Henry Arkell, Georgina."
A vivid emotion dyed her face. She was vexed that it should be apparent to Mr. St. John, and would have carried it off under an assumption of indifference.
"When did he die? Did he suffer much?"
"He died at a quarter past eleven; about twenty minutes ago. And he did not suffer so much at the last as was anticipated."
"Well, poor fellow, I hope he is happy."
"That he is," warmly responded Mr. St. John. "He died in perfect peace. May you and I be as peaceful, Georgina, when our time shall come."
"What a blow it must be to Mrs. Arkell!"
"I saw her as I came out of the house just now, and I could not help venturing on a word of entreaty, that she would not grieve his loss too deeply. She raised her beautiful eyes to me, and I cannot describe to you the light, the faith, that shone in them. 'Not lost,' she gently whispered, 'only gone before.'"
Georgina had kept her face turned from the view of Mr. St. John. She was gazing through her glistening eyes at the graveyard, which was enclosed by the cloisters.
"What possesses the college bell to toll for him?" she exclaimed, carelessly, to cover her emotion. "I thought," she added, with a spice of satire in her tone, "that there was an old curfew law, or something as stringent, against its troubling itself for anybody less exalted than a sleek old prebendary."
Mr. St. John saw through the artifice: he approached her, and lowered his voice. "Georgina, he sent you his forgiveness for any unkindness that may have passed. He sent you his love: and he hopes you will sometimes recal him to your remembrance, when you walk over his grave, as you go into college."
Surprise made her turn to Mr. St. John: but she wilfully ignored the first part of the sentence. "Over his grave! I do not understand."
"He is to be buried in the cloisters, near to this entrance-door, near to where we are now standing. There appears to be a vacant space here," cried Mr. St. John, looking down at his feet: "I dare say it will be in this very spot."
"By whose decision is he to be buried in the cloisters?" quickly asked Georgina.
"The dean's, of course. Henry craved it of him."
"I wonder papa did not tell me! What a singular fancy of Henry's!"
"I do not think so. It was natural that he should wish his last resting-place to be amidst old associations, amidst his old companions; and near toyou, Georgina."
"There! I knew what you were driving at," returned Georgina, in a pouting, wilful tone. "You are going to accuse me of breaking his heart, or some such obsolete nonsense: I assure you I never——"
"Stay, Georgina; I do not care to hear this. I have delivered his message to you, and there let it end."
"You are as stupid and fanciful as he was," retorted Miss Beauclerc.
"Not quite so stupid in one respect, for he was blind to your faults; I am not. And never shall be," he added, in a tone of significance which caused the life-blood at Georgina's heart to stand still.
But she could not keep it up—the assumption of indifference, the apparent levity. The death was telling upon her, and she burst into hysterical tears. At that moment, Lewis junior passed them, and swung in at the cathedral door, on the master's errand, meeting Mrs. Beauclerc, who was coming out.
"Tell mamma I'm gone home," whispered Georgina to Mr. St. John, as she disappeared in the opposite direction.
"Arkell is dead, Mr. St. John," observed Mrs. Beauclerc. "The bell is tolling for him. I wonder the dean ordered the bell to toll forhim: it will cause quite a commotion in the city to hear the college death-bell."
"He is to be buried here, in the cloisters, Mrs. Beauclerc."
"Really! Will the dean allow it?"
"The dean has decided it."
"Oh, indeed. I never understand half the dean does."
"So your companion is gone, Lewis junior," observed Mr. St. John, as the boy came stealing out of the college with his information. But Lewis never answered: and though he touched his forehead (he had no cap on) to the dean's wife, he never raised his eyes; but sneaked on, with his ghastly face, and his head bent down.
Those of the college boys who wished it went to see him in his coffin. Georgina Beauclerc also went. She told the dean, in a straightforward manner, that she should like to see Henry Arkell now he lay dead; and the dean saw no reason for refusing. The death had sobered Miss Beauclerc; but whatever feeling of remorse she might be conscious of, was hidden within her.
"You will not be frightened, I suppose, Georgina?" said the dean, in some indecision. "Did you ever see anybody dead?"
"I saw that old gardener of ours that died at the rectory, papa. I was frightened at him; a frightful old yellow scarecrow he looked. Henry Arkell won't look like that. Papa, I wish those wicked college boys who were his enemies could be hung!"
"Do you, Georgina?" gravely returned the dean. "Hedid not wish it; he forgave and prayed for them."
"They were so very——"
She could not finish the sentence. The reference to the schoolboys brought too vividly the past before her, and she rushed away to her own room, bursting with the tears she had to suppress until she got there.
It seemed that her whole heart must burst with grief, too, as she stood in the presence of the corpse. She had asked St. John to go with her; and the two were alone in the room. Save for the ashy paleness, Henry looked just as beautiful as he had been in life: the marble lids were closed over the brilliant eyes, never to open again in this life; the once warm hands lay cold and useless now. Some one—perhaps his mother—had placed in one of the hands a sprig of pink hyacinth; some was also strewed on the breast of the flannel shroud. The perfume came all-powerfully to their senses; and never afterwards did Georgina Beauclerc come near the scent of that flower, death-like enough in itself, but it brought all-forcibly to her memory the death-chamber of Henry Arkell.
She stood, leaning over the side of the coffin, sobbing painfully. The trestles were very low, so that it was much beneath her as she stood. St. John stood opposite, still and calm.
"He loved you very much, Georgina—as few can love in this world. You best know how you requited him."
Perhaps it was a harsh word to say in the midst of her grief; but St. John could not forgive her for the past, whatever Henry had done. She bent her brow down on the coffin, and sobbed wildly.
"Still, you made the sunshine of his life. He would have lived it over again, if he could, because you had been in it. You had become part of his very being; his whole heart was bound up in you. Better, therefore, that he should be lying there, than have lived on to the future, to the pain that it must, of necessity, have brought."
"Don't!" she wailed, amid her choking sobs.
Not another word was spoken. When she grew calm, Mr. St. John quitted the room to descend—for she motioned to him to pass out first. Then—alone—she bent down her lips to the face that could no longer respond; and she felt, in the moment's emotion, as if her heart must break.
"Oh! Henry—my darling! I was very cruel to you! Forgive—forgive me! But I did love you—though not as I lovehim."
Mr. St. John was waiting for her below, on the landing, near the drawing-room door. "You must pardon the family for not receiving you, Georgina. Mrs. Arkell mentioned it to me this morning; but they are overwhelmed with grief. It has been so unexpected, you see. Lucy is the worst. Mrs. Arkell"—he compelled his voice to a lower whisper—"has an idea that she will not be long behind him."
The burial day of Henry Arkell arrived. The dean had commanded a holiday from study, and that the king's scholars should attend the funeral. Just before the hour appointed for it, half-past eleven, some of them took up their station in the cloisters, in silent order, waiting to join the procession when it should come, a bow of black crape being attached to the left shoulder of their surplices. Sixteen of the king's scholars had gone down to the house, as they were appointed to do. Mrs. Beauclerc, her daughter, and the families of the prebendaries were already in the cathedral; with some other spectators, who had got in under the pretext of attending morning prayers, and who, when the prayers were over, had refused to quit their seats again: of course the sextons could not decently turn them out. Half a dozen ladies took up their station in the organ-loft, to the inward wrath of the organist, who, however, had to submit to the invasion with suavity, for one of them was the dean's daughter. It was the best viewing place, commanding full sight of the cathedral body and the nave on one side, and of the choir on the other. The bell tolled at intervals, sending its deep, gloomy boom over the town; and the spectators patiently waited. At length the first slow and solemn note of the organ was sounded, and Georgina Beauclerc shrank into a corner, contriving to see, and yet not be seen.
From the small door, never used but upon the rare occasion of a funeral, at the extremity of the long body of the cathedral, the procession advanced at last. It was headed by the choristers, two and two, the lay clerks, and the masters of the college school. The dean and one of the canons walked next before the coffin, which was borne by eight of the king's scholars, and the pall by eight more. Four mourners followed the coffin—Peter Arkell, his cousin William, Travice, and Mr. St. John; and the long line was brought up by the remainder of the king's scholars. So slow was their advance, as to be almost imperceptible to the spectators, the choir singing:
"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another."
The last time those words were sung in that cathedral, but some three weeks past, it was by him over whom they were now being sung; the thought flashed upon many a mind. At length the choir was reached, and the coffin placed on the trestles; Georgina Beauclerc's eyes—she had now come round to the front of the organ—being blinded with tears as she looked down upon it. Mr. St. John glanced up, from his place by the coffin, and saw her. Both the psalms were sung, and the dean himself read the lessons; and it may as well be here remarked, that at afternoon service the dean desired that Luther's hymn should be sung in place of the usual anthem; some association with the last evening Henry had spent at his house no doubt inducing it.
The procession took its way back to the cloisters, to the grave, Mr. Wilberforce officiating. The spectators followed in the wake. As the coffin was lowered to its final resting-place—earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust—the boys bowed their heads upon their clasped hands, and some of them sobbed audibly; they felt all the worth of Henry Arkell now that he was gone. The grave was made close to the cloister entrance to the cathedral, in the spot where had stood Mr. St. John and Georgina Beauclerc; where had once stood Georgina and Henry Arkell, the day that wretched Lewis had wished him buried there. An awful sort of feeling was upon Lewis now, as he remembered it. A few minutes, and it was over. The dean turned into the chapter-house, the mourners moved away, and the old bedesmen, in their black gowns, began to shovel in the earth upon the coffin. Mr. Wilberforce, before moving, put up his finger to Aultane, and the latter advanced.
"You choristers are not to go back to the vestry now, but to come into the hall in your surplices."
Aultane wondered at the order, but communicated it to those under him. When they entered the college hall, they found the king's scholars ranged in a semicircle, and they fell in with them according to their respective places in the school. The boys' white surplices and the bows of crape presenting a curious contrast.
"What are we stuck out like this for?" whispered one to the other. "For show? What does Wilberforce want? He's sitting still, as if he waited for somebody."
"Be blest if I know," said Lewis junior, whose teeth were chattering. "Unless it is to wind up with a funeral lecture."
However, they soon did know. The dean entered the hall, wearing his surplice, and carrying his official four-cornered cap. Mr. Wilberforce rose to bow the dean into his own seat, but the dean preferred to stand. He looked steadily at the circle before he spoke; sternly, some of them thought; and they did not feel altogether at ease.
"Boys!" began the dean. And there he stopped; and the boys lifted their heads to listen to what might be coming.
"Boys, our doings in this world bear a bias generally to good or to evil, and they bring their consequences with them. Well-doing brings contentment and inward satisfaction; but ill-doing as certainly brings its day of retribution. The present day must be one of retribution to some of you, unless you are so hardened in wickedness as to be callous to conscience. How have——"
The dean was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. St. John and Travice Arkell. They took off their hats; and their streaming hatbands swept the ground, as they advanced and stood by the dean.
"Boys," he resumed, "how have you treated Henry Arkell? I do not speak to all; I speak to some. Lewis senior, does your conscience prick you for having fastened him in St. James's Church, in the dark and lonely night? Aultane junior, does yours sting you for your insubordination to him on Assize Sunday, when you exposed yourself so disgracefully to two of the judges of the land, and for your malicious accusation of him to Miss Beauclerc, followed by your pitiful complaint to me? Prattleton, have you, as senior of the school, winked at the cabal against him?"
The three boys hung their heads and their red ears: to judge by their looks, their consciences were pricking them very sharply.
"Lewis junior," resumed the dean, in a sudden manner, "of what does your conscience accuse you?"
Lewis junior turned sick, and his hair stood on end. He could not have replied, had it been to save him from hanging.
"Do you know that you are the cause of Henry Arkell's death?" continued the dean, in a low but distinct accent, which penetrated the room. "And that you might, in justice, be taken up as a murderer?"
Lewis junior burst into a dismal howl, and fell down on his knees and face, burying his forehead on the ground, and sticking up his surpliced back; something after the manner of an ostrich.
"It was the fall in the choir on Assize Sunday that killed Henry Arkell," said the dean, looking round the hall; "that is, he has died from the effects of the fall. You gentlemen are aware of it, I believe?"
"Certainly they are, Mr. Dean," said the head master, wondering on his own account, and answering the dean because the "gentlemen" did not.
"He was thrown down," resumed the dean; "wilfully thrown down. And that is the one who did it," pointing with his finger at Lewis junior.
Two or three of the boys had been cognisant of the fact, as might be seen from their scarlet faces; the rest wore a look of timid curiosity; while Mr. Wilberforce's amazed spectacles wandered from the dean's finger to the prostrate and howling Lewis.
"Yes," said the dean, answering the various looks, "the author of Henry Arkell's death is Lewis junior. You had better get up, sir."
Lewis junior remained where he was, shaking his back as if it had been a feather-bed, and emitting the most extraordinary groans.
"Get up," cried the dean, sternly.
There was no disobeying the tone, and Lewis raised himself. A pretty object he looked, for the dye from his new black gloves had been washed on to his face.
"He told me he forgave me the day before he died; he said he had never told any one, and never would," howled Lewis. "I didn't mean to hurt him."
"He never did tell," replied the dean: "heborehis injuries, bore them without retaliation. Is there another boy in the school who would do that?"
"No, that there is not," put in Mr. Wilberforce.
"When you locked him in the church, Lewis senior, did he inform against you? When you came to me with your cruel accusation, Aultane, did he revenge himself by telling me of a far worse misdemeanour, which you had been guilty of? Did he ever inform against any who injured him? No; insults, annoyances, he bore all in silence, because he would not bring trouble and punishment upon you. He was a noble boy," warmly continued the dean: "and, what's more, he was a Christian one."
"He said he would not tell of me," choked Lewis junior, "and now he has gone and done it. O-o-o-o-o-o-h!"
"He never told," quietly repeated the dean. "During the last afternoon of his life, it came to my knowledge, subsequent to an interview I had had with him, that Lewis junior had wilfully thrown him down, and I went back to Arkell and taxed him with its being the fact. He could not deny it, but the whole burden of his admission was, 'Oh, sir, forgive him! do not punish him! I am dying, and I pray you to forgive him for my sake! Forgive them all!' Do you think you deserve such clemency?" asked the dean, in an altered tone.
Lewis only howled the louder.
"On his part, I offer you all his full and free forgiveness: Lewis junior, do you hear? his full and free forgiveness. And I believe you have also that of his parents." The dean looked at Travice Arkell, and waited for him to speak.
"A few hours only before Henry died, it came to Mr. Peter Arkell's knowledge——"
"I informed him," interrupted the dean.
"Yes," resumed Travice. "The dean informed Mr. Arkell that Henry's fall had not been accidental. But—as he had prayed the dean, so he prayed his father, to forgive the culprit. Lewis junior, I am here on the part of Mr. Arkell to offer his forgiveness to you."
"I wish I could as easily accord mine," said the dean. "No punishment will be inflicted on you, Lewis junior: not because no punishment, that I or Mr. Wilberforce could command, is adequate to the crime, but that his dying request, for your pardon, shall be complied with. If you have any conscience at all, his fate will lie upon it for the remainder of your life, and you will bear its remembrance about with you."
Lewis bent down his head on the shoulder nearest to him, and his howls changed into sobs.
"One word more, boys," said the dean. "I have observed that not one in the whole school—at least such is my belief—would be capable of acting as Henry Arkell did, in returning good for evil. The ruling principle of his life, and he strove to carry it out in little things as in great, was to do as he would be done by. Now what could have made him so different from you?"
The dean obtained no reply.
"I will tell you.He loved and feared God.He lived always as though God were near him, watching over his words and his actions; he took God for his guide, and strove to do His will: and now God has taken him to his reward. Do you know that his death was a remarkably peaceful one? Yes, I think you have heard so. Holy living, boys, makes holy dying; and it made his dying holy and peaceful. Allow me to ask, if you, who are selfish and wicked and malignant, could meet death so calmly?"
"Arkell's mother is often so ill, sir, that she doesn't know she'll live from one day to another," a senior ventured to remark in the general desperation. "Of course that makes her learn to try not to fear death, and she taught him not to."
"And she now finds her recompense," observed the dean. "A happy thing for you, if your mothers had so taught you. Dismiss the school, Mr. Wilberforce. And I hope," he added, turning round to the boys, as he and the other two gentlemen left the hall, "that you will, every one, go home, not to riot on this solemn holiday, but to meditate on these important thoughts, and resolve to endeavour to become more like Henry Arkell. You will attend service this afternoon."
And that was the ending. And the boy, with his talents, his beauty, and his goodness, was gone; and nothing of him remained but what was mouldering under the cloister gravestone.
Henry Cheveley Arkell.Died March 24th, 18—,Aged 16.Not lost, but gone before.
This is the last part of our history, and you must be prepared for changes, although but little time—not very much more than a year—has gone by.
Death has been busy during that period. Mrs. Peter Arkell survived her son so short a time, that it is already twelve months since she was laid in the churchyard of St. James the Less. It is a twelvemonth also since Mr. Fauntleroy died, and his daughters are the great heiresses of Westerbury.
Westerbury had need of heiresses, or something else substantial, to keep up its consequence; for it was dwindling down lower (speaking of its commercial importance) day by day. The clerical party (in contradistinction to the commercial) rose and flourished; the other fell.
Amidst those with whom it was beginning to be a struggle to keep their heads above water was Mr. Arkell. The hope that times would mend; a hope that had buoyed up for years and years other large manufacturers in Westerbury, was beginning to show itself what it really was—a delusive one. A deplorable gloom hung over the brow of Mr. Arkell, and he most bitterly repented that he had not thrown this hope to the winds long ago, and given up business before so much of his good property was sacrificed. He had in the past year made those retrenchments in his expenditure, which, in point of prudence, ought to have been made before; but his wife had set her face determinately against it, and to a peaceable-dispositioned man like Mr. Arkell, the letting the ruin come is almost preferable to the contention the change involves. Those of my readers who may have had experience of this, will know that I only state what is true. But necessity has no law: and when Mr. Arkell could no longer drain himself to meet these superfluous expenses, the change was made. The close carriage was laid down; the household was reduced to what it had been in his father's time—two maids, and a man for the horse and garden, and he admonished his wife and daughters that they must spend in dress just half what they had spent. But with all the retrenchment, Mr. Arkell saw himself slowly drifting downwards. His manufactory was still kept on; but it had been far better given up. It must surely come to it, and Travice would have to seek a different channel of obtaining a living. Not only Travice: the men who had grown old in William Arkell's service, they must be turned adrift. There's not the least doubt that this last thought helped, more than all else, to keep Mr. Arkell's decision on the balance.
And Peter Arkell? Peter was in worse plight than his cousin. As it had been all their lives, the contrast in their fortunes marked, so it was still; so it would be to the end. William still lived well, and as a gentleman; he had but lopped off superfluities; Peter was a poor, bowed, broken man, obliged to be careful how he laid out money for even the common necessaries of life. But for Mildred's never-ceasing forethought, those necessaries might not always have been bought. The death of his wife, the death of his gifted son, had told seriously upon Peter Arkell: and his health, never too good, had since been ominously breaking up.
His good and gentle daughter, Lucy, had care upon her in many ways. The little petty household economies it was necessary to practise unceasingly, wearied her spirit; the uncertainty of how they were to live, now that her father could no longer teach or write—and his learned books had brought him in a trifle from time to time—chilled her hope. Not yet had she recovered the shock, the terrible heart-blow brought to her by the death of Henry; and her mother's death had followed close upon it. It seemed to have cast a blight upon her young spirit: and there were times when Lucy, good and trusting girl though she was, felt tempted to think that God was making her path one of needless sorrow. The sad, thoughtful look was ever in her countenance now, in her sweet brown eyes; and her fair features, not strictly beautiful, but pleasant to look upon, grew more like what Mildred's were after the blight had fallen upon her. But no heart-blight had as yet come to Lucy.
One evening an old and confidential friend of Peter Arkell's dropped in to sit an hour with him. It was Mr. Palmer, the manager and cashier of the Westerbury bank, and the brother to Mr. Palmer of Heath Hall. As the two friends talked confidentially on this evening, deploring the commercial state of the city, and saying that it would never rise again from its distress, Mr. Palmer dropped a hint that the firm of George Arkell and Son had been effecting another mortgage on their property. Mr. Peter Arkell said nothing then; but Lucy, who went into the room on the departure of their guest, noticed that he remained sunk in melancholy silence; and she could not arouse him from it.
Travice Arkell came in. Travice was in the habit of coming in a great deal more than one of the ruling powers at home had any idea of. Travice would very much have liked to make Lucy his wife; but there were serious impediments in more ways than one, and he was condemned to silence, and to wait and see what an uncertain future might bring forth.
The romance that had been enacted in the early days of William Arkell and Mildred was being re-enacted now. But with a difference. For whereas William, as you have seen, forsook the companion of his boyhood, and cast his love upon a stranger, Travice's whole hopes were concentrated upon Lucy. And Lucy loved him with all the impassioned ideality of a first and powerful passion, with all the fervour of an imaginative and reticent nature. It was impossible but that each should detect, in a degree, the feelings of the other, though they might not be, and had not been, spoken of openly.
Travice reached the chess-board from a side-table where it was kept, took his seat opposite Peter, and began to set out the men. Of the same kind, considerate nature that his father was before him, he compassionated the lonely man's solitary days, and was wont to play a game at chess with him sometimes in an evening, to while away one of his weary hours. But Peter, on this night, put up his hand in token of refusal.
"Not this evening, Travice. I am not equal to it. My spirits are low."
"Do you feel ill?" asked Travice, beginning to put the pieces in the box again.
"I feel low; out of sorts. Mr. Palmer has been here talking of things, and he gives so deplorable a state of private affairs generally, consequent upon the long-continued commercial depression, that it's hard to say who's safe and whose tottering. He has especial means of ascertaining, you know, so there's no doubt he's right."
"Well, what of that?" returned Travice. "It cannot affect you; you are not in business."
"True. I was not thinking of myself."
"A game at chess will divert your thoughts."
"Not to-night, Travice; I'd rather not play to-night."
"Will you have a game, Lucy?"
She looked up from her sewing to smile a negative. "That would be leaving papa quite to his thoughts. I think we had better talk to him."
"Travice," Peter Arkell suddenly said, "I am sure this depression must seriously affect your father."
"Of course it does," was the ready answer. "He has just now had to borrow more money again."
"Then Palmer was right," thought Peter Arkell. "Will he keep on the business?" he asked aloud.
"I should not, were I in his place," said Travice. "He would have given up long ago, I believe, but for thinking what's to become of me. Of course if he does give up, I am thrown on the world, a wandering Arab."
His tone was as much one of jest as of gravity. The young do not see things in the same light as the old. To his father and to Peter Arkell, his being thrown out of the business he had embraced as his own, appeared an almost irrecoverable blight in life; to Travice himself it seemed but a very slight misfortune. The world was before him, and he had honour, education, health, and brains; surely he could win his way in it!
"It is not well to throw down one calling and take up another," observed Peter, thoughtfully. "It does not always answer."
"But if you are forced to it!" argued Travice. "There's no help for it then, and you must do the best you can."
"It is a pity but you had gone to Oxford, Travice, and entered into some profession!"
"I suppose it is, as things seem to be turning out. Thrown out of the manufactory, I should seem a sort of luckless adventurer, not knowing which way to turn to prey upon the public."
"It would be just beginning life again," said Peter, his grave tone bearing in it a sound of reproach to the lighter one.
He rose, and went to the next room—the "Peter's study" of the old days—to get something from his desk there. Travice happened to look at Lucy, and saw her eyes fixed upon him with a troubled, earnest expression. She blushed as he caught their gaze.
"What's the matter, Lucy?"
"I was wondering whatever you would do, if Mr. Arkell does give up."
"I think I should be rather glad of it? I could turn astronomer."
"Turn astronomer! But you don't really mean that, Travice?"
He laughed.
"I should mean it, but for one thing."
"What is that one thing?"
"That it might not find me in bread and cheese. Perhaps they'd make me honorary star-gazer at the observatory royal. The worst is, one must eat and drink; and the essentials necessary for that don't drop from the clouds, as the manna once did of old. Very convenient for some of us if it did."
"I wish you'd be serious," she rejoined, the momentary tears rising to her eyes. She was feeling wretchedly troubled, she could not tell why, and his light mood jarred upon her.
It changed now as he looked at her. Travice Arkell's face changed to an expression of deep, grave meaning, of troubled meaning, and he dropped his voice to a low tone as he rose and stood near Lucy, looking down upon her.
"I wish I could be serious; I have wished it, Lucy, this long while past. Other men at my age are thinking of forming those social ties that man naturally expects to form; of gathering about him a home, and a wife, and children. I must not; for what I can see at present, they must be denied to me for good and all; unless—unless——"
He broke off abruptly. Lucy, suppressing the emotion that had arisen, glanced up at him, as she waited for the conclusion. But the conclusion did not come.
"You see now, Lucy, why I cannot be serious. Perhaps you have seen why before. In the uncertain state that our business is, not knowing but the end of it may be bankruptcy——"
"Oh, Travice!" she involuntarily exclaimed, in the shock that the word brought to her.
"I do assure you it has crossed my mind now and then, that such may be the final ending. It would break my father's heart, I know, and it would half break mine for his sake; but others in the town have succumbed, who were once nearly as rich as we were, and the fate may overtake us. I wish I could be serious; serious to a purpose; but I cannot."
"I wanted to show you a prospectus, Travice, that was left here to-day," interrupted Peter Arkell, coming back to the room. "I wonder what next they'll be getting up a company over? I put it into my desk, but I can't find it. Lucy, look about for it, will you?"
She got up to obey, and Travice caught a sight of the raised face, whose blushes had been hidden from him; blushes called forth by his words and their implied meaning. She had understood it.
But she had not understood the sentence at whose conclusion Travice Arkell had broken down. "That the ties of wife and children must be denied to him for good and all, unless——"
Unless what? Unless he let them sacrifice him, would be the real answer. Unless he sacrificed himself, his dearest hopes, every better feeling that his heart possessed, at a golden shrine. But Travice Arkell would have a desperate fight first.
The Miss Fauntleroys, co-heiresses of the wealthy old lawyer—who might have died worth more but for his own entanglements in early life—had become intimate and more intimate at the house of William Arkell. Ten thousand pounds were settled on each, and there was other money to divide between them, which was not settled. How Lawyer Fauntleroy had scraped together so much, Westerbury could not imagine, considering he had been so hampered with old claims. Strapping, vulgar, good-humoured damsels, these two, as you have before heard; with as little refinement in looks, words, and manner as their father had possessed before them. Their intimacy had grown, I say, with the Arkell family. Mrs. Arkell courted them to her house; the young ladies were quite eager to frequent it without courting; and it had come to be whispered all over the gossiping town, that Mr. Arkell's son and heir might have either of them for the asking.
Perhaps not quite true this, as to the "either," perhaps yes. It was indisputable that both liked him very much; but any hope the younger might have felt disposed to cherish had long been merged in the more recognised claim to him of the elder; recognised by the young ladies only, mind you, in the right, it may be, of her seniorship. Nothing in the world could have been more satisfactory to Mrs. Arkell than this union. She overlooked their want of refinement, and their many other wants of a similar nature—of refinement, indeed, she may have deemed that Travice possessed enough for himself and for a wife too—she thought of the golden hoard in the bank, the firm securities in the three per cent consols, and she pertinaciously cherished the hope and the resolve that Barbara Fauntleroy should become Barbara Arkell.
It is well to say "pertinaciously." That Travice had set his resolve against it, she tacitly understood; and once when she went so far as to put her project before him in a cautious hint, Travice had broken out with the ungallant assertion that he would "as soon marry the deuce." But he might have to give in at last. The constant dropping of water on a stone will wear it away; and the constant, unceasing tongue of a woman has been known to break the iron walls of man's will.
Another suitor had recently sprung up for Miss Lizzie Fauntleroy. No less a personage than Benjamin Carr. The reappearance of Mr. Dundyke upon the scene of the living world had considerably astonished many people; possibly, amidst others, Ben Carr himself. In the great relief it brought to the mind of Mr. Arkell, distorted, you may remember, with a certain unpleasant doubt, he almost forgot to suspect him at all; and he buried the past in silence, and in a measure, took luckless Ben into favour again; that is, he did not forbid him his house.
Ben, in fact, had come out apparently nourishing from all past escapades suspected and unsuspected, and was residing with his father, and dressing like a gentleman. No more was heard of his wish to go abroad. Squire Carr had made him a half promise to put him into a farm; and while Ben waited for this, he paid court to Lizzie Fauntleroy. At first she laughed in his face for an old fool, next she began to giggle at his soft speeches, and now she listened to him. Ben Carr had some attraction yet, in spite of his four-and-forty years.