“When we ourselves can our demission makeWith a bare bodkin.”
“When we ourselves can our demission makeWith a bare bodkin.”
“When we ourselves can our demission makeWith a bare bodkin.”
And we can scarcely say that it was, like Hamlet, the fear of something after death that restrained him. It was a stronger sentiment still. It was the feeling that to give one’s self one’s dismissal is quite a different thing. It is a flight—it is a running away; all the arguments against the selfishness of desiring to leave his wife and children to a struggle from which he had escaped came into action against that. What would be well if accomplished by the grace of God would be miserable if done by the will of the man who might be mistaken in his estimate of the good it would do. And then another practical thought, more tragical than any in its extreme materialism and matter-of-fact character, it would vitiate the insurances! If the children were to gain nothing by his death, then it would certainly be better for them that he should live. On that score there could be no doubt. This made suicide as completely out of the questionfrom a physical point of view as it was already from a spiritual. He could not discharge himself from God’s service on earth, though he should be very thankful if God would discharge him; and he could not do anything to endanger the precious provision he had made for his family. It can scarcely be said that Mr. Sandford considered this case at leisure or with comparison of the arguments for and against, for his decision was instinctive and immediate; nevertheless the idea floated uppermost sometimes in the surging and whirl up and down of many thoughts, but always to be dismissed in the same way.
Two or three weeks had passed in this way when one evening Mr. Sandford received a letter from Daniells, the dealer, inviting him to join a party on the Yorkshire moors. Daniells was well enough off to be able to deny himself nothing. He was not a gentleman, yet the sports that gentlemen love were within reach of his wealth, and gentlemen not so well off as he showed much willingness to share in his good things. Some fine people whose names it was a pleasure to read were on his list, and some painters who were celebrated enough to eclipse the fine people. That all these shouldbe gathered together by a man who was as ignorant as a pig, and not much better bred, was wonderful; but so it was. Perhaps the fact that Daniells was really at heart a good fellow had something to do with it: but even had this not been the case, it is probable that he could still have found guests to shoot on his moor, and eat the birds they had shot. Mr. Sandford was no sportsman, and at first he had little inclination to accept. It was his wife who urged him to do so.
“You are not enjoying Broadbeach as you usually do,” she said; “you are bored by it. Oh, don’t tell me, Edward, I can see it in your eyes.”
“If you think so, my dear, no denial of mine——”
“No,” she said, shaking her head; “nothing you say will change my opinion. I am dreadfully sorry, for I am fond of the place; but I have made up my mind already never to come here again: for you are bored—it is as plain as possible: you want a change: you must go.”
“It is not much of a change to visit Daniells,” said Mr. Sandford.
“Oh, it isn’t Daniells; it’s the company, and the distance, and all you will find there. I have no objection to Mr. Daniells, Edward.”
“Nor I; he is a good fellow in spite of his ’h’s.’”
“I don’t care about his ’h’s.’ He’s very hospitable and very friendly, and all the nice people go to him. I saw in the papers that Lord Okeham was there. You might be able to speak a word for Harry.”
Mr. Sandford smiled. “I am to go, then, as a business speculation,” he said; but his smile faded away very soon, for he reflected that Lord Okeham was the first to give him that sensation of being wanted no longer, of having nobody to employ him, which had risen to such a tragic height since then.
“Don’t laugh,” said his wife. “I do think indeed it is your duty—anything that may help on the children; and you do like Mr. Daniells, Edward.”
“Yes, I do like Daniells; he is a very good fellow.”
“And the change will do you good. You must go.”
It was arranged so almost without any voluntary action on his part. His wife’s anxiety that he should “speak a word for Harry” seemed to him half-pathetic, half-ridiculous in what he knew to bethe position of affairs; but then she did not know. It can scarcely be said that it was other than a relief to him to leave his family to their own light-hearted devices, or that the young ones were not at least half-pleased when he went away. “Papa was not a bit like himself,” they said; probably it was because the heat was too much for him (he preferred cold weather), and the freshness of the moors would put him all right. Mrs. Sandford was by no means willing to confess to herself that she, too, was relieved by her husband’s departure. It was the first time she had ever been conscious of that feeling in thirty years of married life; but she, too, said that he would be the better of the freshness of the moors, and they all gave themselves up to “fun” with a new rush of pleasure when his grave countenance was away.
“I am sure he did not mean it,” said Lizzie, “but I could not help feeling that it was poor Lance that was the cause.”
“Nothing of the sort, my dear,” said Mrs. Sandford. “Your father would have told you if he had any objections. No; I know what it is; he is very anxious about the boys—and so am I.”
No one, however, who had seen her among themcould have believed that Mrs. Sandford was very anxious. She was so glad that they should enjoy themselves. Afterwards, when the holidays were over, when they were all back in town again, then something, no doubt, must be done about Harry. He was very thoughtless, to be sure; he took no trouble about what was going to happen to him. Mrs. Sandford threw off any shade of distress, however, by saying to herself that now his father was fully roused to the necessity of doing something, now that he was about to meet Lord Okeham and other influential people, somethingmustbe found for Harry, and then all would go well. But the look in her husband’s eyes haunted her, nevertheless, for the rest of the day. She had gone to the railway with him to see him off, as she always did, and when the train was just moving, he looked at her, waving his hand to her. The look in his eyes was so strange and so sad, that Mrs. Sandford felt disposed to rush after her husband by the next train. Failing that, she drew her veil over her face as she turned away and shed tears, she could not tell why, as if he had been going away never to return. How ridiculous! how absurd! when he was only a little out of sorts andsure to be set right by the freshness of the moors. The impression very soon wore out, and the young people had already organised a little impromptu dance for the evening, which gave Mrs. Sandford plenty to do.
“It looks a little like taking advantage of your father’s absence—as if you were glad he was gone.”
“Not at all,” they all cried. “What a dreadful idea! The only thing is that it would have bored him horribly; otherwise,” added Harry, “we are always glad of my father’s company,” with an air of protection and patronage which made the others laugh. And Mrs. Sandford keenly enjoyed the dance, and felt it better that her husband’s face, never so grave before, should not be there to over-shadow the evening’s entertainment. He would be so much more in his element discussing light and shade with the other R.A.s, or talking a little moderate politics with Lord Okeham, or breathing in the freshness of the moors.
And he did like the freshness of the moors, and the talk of his brother artists, and the discussions among the men. It was entirely a man’s party, and perhaps a very domestic man like Mr. Sandford, a little neglected amid the exuberancesof a young family, his very wife drawn away from him by the exigencies of their amusements, is specially open to the occasional refreshment of a party of his fellows, when congenial pursuits and matured views, and something of a like experience—at all events something which is a real experience of life—draw individuals together. The “sport” of the painters was apt to be interrupted by realisations of the “effects” about them, and by discussions on various artistic-scientific points which only masters in the art could settle; and that semi-professional flavour of the party was extremely interesting to the other men, the public personages and society magnates, who found it very piquant to be thrown amid the painters, and who were inspired thereby to talk their best, and tell their most entertaining stories. No atmosphere of failure accompanied Mr. Sandford into this circle, which was kept hilarious by the host’s jovialities and social mistakes. If anybody knew that Daniells kept in his inner room three “Sandfords” which he could not sell, there was no hint of that knowledge in anything that was said, or in the manner of the other painters towards their fellow, to whom all appealed as toas great an authority as could be found on all questions of art. He was restored, thus, to the position which, indeed, nobody could take from him, though he should never sell a picture again. It soothed him to feel and see that, to all his brethren, he was as much as ever one of the first painters of his time, and to give his opinion and sustain it with the experience of his long professional life, and much experiment in art. A forlorn hope had been in his mind that Daniells might have some good news for him; that he might say some day, “That was all a false alarm, old man—I’ve sold the pictures;” but this unfortunately did not come to pass. Daniells never said it was a false alarm; he even said some things in his rough but not unkindly way which to Mr. Sandford’s ear, quickened by trouble, confirmed the disaster; but perhaps Daniells, who had no particular delicacy of perception, did not intend this.
The change, however, did Mr. Sandford a great deal of good: though sometimes, when he found himself alone, the settled shadow of calamity which had closed upon his life, and which must soon be known to all, came over him with almost greater force than at first. It was but seldom thathe was alone, when he was indoors: yet now and then he would find himself on the moors in the sun-setting, when the western sky was still one blaze of yellow or orange light, varied by bands of cloudy red, with the low hills and sweeps of moor standing black against that waning brightness which, magnificent as it was, sent out little light. Mr. Sandford did not compare his own going out of practical life and possibility, yet preservation of a glow of fame which neither warmed nor enlightened, with that show in the west. People seldom see allegories of their own disaster. But as he strayed along with the sense of dreariness in his heart which the dead and spectral aspect of hill and tree was so well calculated to give, his own circumstances came back to him in tragic glimpses. He thought of the gay group he had left behind, the heedless young creatures singing and dancing on the edge of the precipice, and of the peaceful home lying silent awaiting them, to which they had no doubt of returning, with all its security of comfort and peace, but on the edge of the precipice too. And he thought of Jack’s fee, his two guineas, which they had all taken as the best joke in the world, and of Lizzie, who was to have fiftypounds a year from her father, and of Harry, quite happy and content on his schoolboy allowance; and all this going on as if it were the course of nature, unchangeable as the stars or the pillars of the earth. These things glided before him as he looked over all the inequalities of the moor standing black against the western sky. They were the true facts about him, notwithstanding that in the shelter of this momentary pause he only felt them as at a distance, and less strongly than before realised the ease it would bring if by the grace of God something happened—before——
It was the time of the year when there are various race meetings in the north, and Mr. Daniells had planned to carry his party to the most famous of them. He had his landau and a brake, royally charged with provisions, and filled with his guests. Mr. Sandford had done his best to get off this unnecessary festivity, for which he had little taste. But all his friends, who by this time had begun to perceive that his spirits were not in their usual equable state, resisted and protested. He must come, they said: to leave one behind would spoil the party; he was not to be left alone with all the moorland effects to steala march upon the other painters. And he had not sufficient energy to stand against their remonstrances. It was easier to yield, and he yielded. The race was not unamusing. Even with all his preoccupation, he took a little pleasure in it, more or less, as most Englishmen do: though it glanced across his mind that somebody might say afterwards, “Sandford was there, amusing himself on the edge of the precipice.” These vague voices and glimpses of things were not enough to stand against the remonstrances and banter of his friends: and after all, what did it matter? The plunge over the precipice is not less terrible because you may have performed a dance of despair on the edge. It was about sunset on a lovely September evening when the party set out on their return home. They were merry; not that there had been any excess or indulgence unbecoming of English gentlemen. Daniells, it is true, who was not a gentleman, had, perhaps, a little more champagne under his belt than was good for him. But his guests were only merry, talking a little more loudly than usual about the events of the day and the exploits of the favourite, and settling some moderate bets which neither harmed nor elated any one. Mr. Sandford,who had not betted, was the most silent of party; the lively talk of the others left him free to retire to his own thoughts. He had got rather into a tangle of dim calculations about his insurances, and how the money would be divided, when somebody suddenly called out “Hallo! we’ve got off the road!”
For some time Mr. Sandford was the only one who paid any attention to this statement. Looking out with a little start, he saw the same scene against which his musings had taken form on previous nights. A sky glowing with a stormy splendour, deep burning orange on the horizon rising through zones of yellow to the daffodil sky above, every object standing out black in the absence of light; not the hedgerows and white line of the road alone, but the blunt inequalities of the moor, here a lump of gorse or gnarled hawthorn bush, there a treacherous hollow with a gleam of water gathered as in a cup. The coachman and grooms had not been so prudent as their masters; their potations had been heavier than champagne. How they had left the road and got upon the moor could never be discovered. It was partly the perplexing glow above and blackness below, partlythe fumes of a long day’s successive drinkings in their brains; partly, perhaps, as one of the passengers thought, something else. The horses had taken the unusual obstacles on their path with wonderful steadiness at first, but by the time the attention of the gentlemen was fully attracted to what was happening, the coachman had altogether lost control of the kicking and plunging animals. The man was not too far gone to have driven home by the road, but his brain was incapable of any effort to meet such an emergency. He began to flog the horses wildly, to swear at them, to pull savagely at the reins. The groom jumped down to rush to their heads, and in doing so, as they made a plunge at the moment, fell on the roadside, and in a moment more was left behind as the terrified horses dashed on. By this time everybody was roused, and the danger was evident. Mr. Sandford sat quite still; he was not learned about horses, while many of his companions were. One of them got on to the box beside the terrified coachman to try what could be done, the others gave startled and sometimes contradictory suggestions and directions. He was quite calm in the tumult of alarm and eager preparation for any event. Hewas sensible, profoundly sensible, of the wonderful effect of the scene: the orange glow which no pigments in the world could reproduce, the blackness of the indistinguishable objects which stood up against it like low dark billows of a motionless sea. The shocks of the jolting carriage affected him little, any more than the shouts of the alarmed and excited men. He did not even remark, then, that some sprang off and that others held themselves ready to follow. His sensations were those of perfect calm. He thought of the precipice no more, nor even of the insurances. Some one shook him by the shoulder, but it did not disturb him. The effect was wonderful; the orange growing intense, darker, the yellow light pervading the illuminated sky. And then a sudden wild whirl, a shock of sudden sensation, and he saw or felt no more.
Presentlythe light came back to Mr. Sandford’s eyes. He was lying upon the dry heather on the side of the moor, the brown seed-pods nestling against his cheek, the yellow glow in the west, to which his eyes instinctively turned, having scarcely faded at all since he had looked at it from the carriage. A confused sound of noises, loud speaking, and moans of pain reached him where he lay, but scarcely moved him to curiosity. His first sensation was one of curious ease and security. He did not attempt to budge, but lay quite peacefully smiling at the sunset, like a child. His head was confused, but there was in it a vague sense of danger escaped, and of some kind of puzzled deliverance from he knew not what, which gave the strangest feeling of soothing and rest. He felt no temptation to jump up hastily, to go to the help of the people who were moaning, or to inquire into the accident, as in another case he would have done. He lay still, quite at his ease, hearing thesevoices as if he heard them not, and smiling with a confused pleasure at the glow of orange light in the sky.
He did not know how long it was till some one knelt down and spoke to him anxiously. “Sandford, are you badly hurt? Sandford, my dear fellow, do you know me? Can you speak to me?”
He burst into a laugh at this address.
“Speak to you? Know you? What nonsense! I am not hurt at all. I am quite comfortable.”
“Thank God!” said the other. “Duncan, I fear, has a broken leg, and the coachman is—— It was his fault, the unfortunate wretch. Give me your hand, and I’ll help you to get up.”
To get up? That was quite a different matter. He did not feel the least desire to try. He felt, before trying and without any sense of alarm, that he could not get up; then said to himself that this was nonsense too, and that to lie there, however comfortably, when he might be helping the others, was not to be thought of. He gave his hand accordingly to his friend, and made an effort to rise. But it would have been as easy (he said to himself) for a log of wood to attempt to rise. Hefelt rather like that, as if his legs had turned to wood—not stone, for that would have been cold and uncomfortable. “I don’t know how it is,” he said, still smiling, “but I can’t budge. There’s nothing the matter with me, I’m quite easy and comfortable, but I can’t move a limb. I’ll be all right in a few minutes. Look after the others. Never mind me.” He thought the face of the man who was bending over him looked strangely scared, but nothing more was said. A rug was put over him and one of the cushions of the carriage under his head, and there he lay, vaguely hearing the groans of the man whose leg was broken as (apparently) they moved him, and all the exclamations and questions and directions given by one and another. What was more wonderful was the dying out of that wild orange light in the sky. It paled gradually, as if it had been glowing metal, and the cold night air breathing on it had paled and dwindled that ineffectual fire. A hundred lessening tints and tones of colour—yellows and faint greens, with shades of purple and creamy whiteness breaking the edges—melted and shimmered in the distance. It was like an exhibition got up for him alone, relieved by that black underground,now traversed by gigantic ebony figures of a horse and man, moving irregularly across the moor. A star came out with a keen blue sparkle, like some power of heaven triumphant over that illumination of earth. What a spectacle it was! And all for him alone!
The next thing he was conscious of was two or three figures about him—one the doctor, whose professional touch he soon discovered on his pulse and his limbs. “We are going to lift you. Don’t take any trouble; it will give you no pain,” some one said. And before he could protest, which he was about to do good-humouredly, that there was no occasion, he found himself softly raised upon some flat and even surface, more comfortable, after all, than the lumps of the heather. Then there was a curious interval of motion along the road, no doubt, though all he saw was the sky with the stars coming gradually out; neither the road nor his bearers, except now and then a dark outline coming within the line of his vision; but always the deep blue of the mid sky shining above. The world seemed to have concentrated in that, and it was not this world, but another world.
He remembered little more, except by snatches;an unknown face—probably the doctor’s—looking exceedingly grave, bending over him; then Daniells’ usually jovial countenance with all the lines drooping and the colour blanched out of it, and a sound of low voices talking something over, of which he could only make out the words “Telegraph at once;” then, “Too late! It must not be too late. She must come at once.” He wondered vaguely who this was, and why there should be such a hurry. And then, all at once, it seemed to him that it was daylight and his wife was standing by his bedside. He had just woke up from what seemed a very long, confused, and feverish night—how long he never knew. But when he woke everything was clear to him. Unless, by the grace of God, something were to happen—— Something was about to happen, by the grace of God.
“Mary!” he cried, with a flush of joy. “You here!”
“Of course, my dearest,” she said, with a cheerful look, “as soon as I heard there had been an accident.”
He took her hand between his and drew her to him. “This was all I wanted,” he said. “God is very good; He gives me everything.”
“Oh, Edward!” This pitiful protest, remonstrance, appeal to heaven and earth—for all these were in her cry—came from her unawares.
“Yes,” he said, “my dear, everything has happened as I desired. I understand it all now. I thought I was not hurt; now I see. I am not hurt, I am killed, like the boy—don’t you remember?—in Browning’s ballad. Don’t be shocked, dear. Why shouldn’t I be cheerful? I am not—sorry.”
“Oh, Edward!” she cried again, the passion of her trouble exasperated by his composure; “not to leave—us all?”
He held her hand between his, smiling at her. “It was what I wanted,” he said—“not to leave you; but don’t you believe, my darling, there must be something about that leaving which is not so dreadful, which is made easy to the man who goes away? Certainly, I don’t want to leave you; but it’s so much for your good—for the children’s good——”
“Oh, never, Edward, never!”
“Yes; it’s new to you, but I’ve been thinking about it a long time—so much that I once thought it would almost have been worth the while, but for the insurances, to have——”
“Edward!” She looked at him with an agonised cry.
“No, dear—nothing of the kind. I never would, I never could have done it. It would have been contrary to nature. The accident—was without any will or action of mine. By the grace of God——”
“Edward, Edward! Oh, don’t say that; by His hand, heavy, heavy upon us!”
“It is you that should not say that, Mary. If you only knew, my dear. I want you to understand so long as I am here to tell you——”
“He must not talk so much,” said the voice of the doctor behind; “his strength must be husbanded. Mrs. Sandford, you must not allow him to exhaust himself.”
“Doctor,” said Mr. Sandford, “I take it for granted you’re a man of sense. What can you do for me? Spin out my life by a few more feeble hours. Which would you rather have yourself? That, or the power of saying everything to the person you love best in the world?”
“Let him talk,” said the doctor, turning away; “I have no answer to make. Give him a little of this if he turns faint. And send for me if you want me, Mrs. Sandford.”
“Thanks, doctor. That is a man of sense, Mary. I feel quite well, quite able to tell you everything.”
“Oh, Edward, when that is the case, things cannot be so bad! If you will only take care, only try to save your strength, to keep up. Oh, my dear! The will to get well does so much! Try! try! Edward, for the love of God.”
“My own Mary: always believing that everything’s to be done by an effort, as all women do. I am glad it is out of my power. If I were in any pain there might be some hope for you, but I’m in no pain. There’s nothing the matter with me but dying. And I have long felt that was the only way.”
“Dying?—not when you were with us at the sea?”
“Most of all then,” he said, with a smile.
“Oh, Edward, Edward! and I full of amusements, of pleasure, leaving you alone.”
“It was better so. I am glad of every hour’s respite you have had. And now you’ll be able easily to break up the house, which would have been a hard thing and a bitter downfall in my lifetime. It will be quite natural now. They willgive you a pension, and there will be the insurance money.”
“I cannot bear it,” she cried wildly. “I cannot have you speak like this.”
“Not when it is the utmost ease to my mind—the utmost comfort——”
She clasped her hands firmly together. “Say anything you wish, Edward.”
“Yes, my poor dear.” He was very, very sorry for his wife. It burst upon her without preparation, without a word of warning. Oh, he was sorry for her! But for himself it was a supreme consolation to pour it all forth, to tell her everything. “If I were going to be left behind,” he said, soothingly, “my heart would be broken: but it is softened somehow to those that are going away. I can’t tell you how. It is, though; it is all so vague and soft. I know I’ll lose you, Mary, as you will lose me, but I don’t feel it. My dearest, I had not a commission, not one. And there are three pictures of mine unsold in Daniells’ inner shop. He’ll tell you if you ask him. The three last. That one of the little Queen and her little Maries, that our little Mary sat for, that you liked so much, you remember? It’s standing in Daniells’room; three of them. I think I see them against the wall.”
“Edward!”
“Oh no, my head is not going. I onlythinkI see them. And it was the merest chance that the ‘Black Prince’ sold; and not a commission, not a commission. Think of that, Mary. It is true such a thing has happened before, but I never was sixty before. Do you forget I am an old man, and my day is over?”
“No, no, no,” she cried with passion; “it is not so.”
“Oh yes; facts are stubborn things—it is so. And what should we have done if our income had stopped in a moment, as it would have done? A precipice before our feet, and nothing, nothing beyond. Now for you, my darling, it will be far easier. You can sell the house and all that is in it. And they will give you a pension, and the children will have something to begin upon.”
“Oh, the children!” she cried, taking his hand into hers, bowing down her face upon it. “Oh, Edward, what are the children between you and me?” She cast them away in that suprememoment; the young creatures all so well, so gay, so hopeful. In her despair and passion she flung their crowding images from her—those images which had forced her husband from her heart.
He laughed a low, quiet laugh. “God bless them,” he said; “but I like to have you all to myself, you and me only, for the last moment, Mary. You have been always the best wife that ever was—nay, I won’t say have been—you are my dear, my wife. We don’t understand anything about widows, you and I. Death’s nothing, I think. It looks dreadful when you’re not going. But God manages all that so well. It is as if it were nothing to me. Mary, where are you?”
“Here, Edward, holding your hand. Oh, my dear, don’t you see me?”
“Yes, yes,” he said, with a faint laugh, as if ashamed at some mistake he had made, and put his other hand over hers with a slight groping movement. “It’s getting late,” he said; “it’s getting rather dark. What time is it? Seven o’clock? You’ll not go down to dinner, Mary? Stay with me. They can bring you something upstairs.”
“Go down? Oh, no, no. Do you think I would leave you, Edward?” She had made a little pause of terror before she spoke, for, indeed, it was broad day, the full afternoon sunshine still bright outside, and nothing to suggest the twilight. He sighed again—a soft, pleasurable sigh.
“If you don’t mind just sitting by me a little. I see your dear face in glimpses, sometimes as if you had wings and were hovering over me. My head’s swimming a little. Don’t light the candles. I like the half-light; you know I always did. So long as I can see you by it, Mary. Is that a comfortable chair? Then sit down, my love, and let me keep your hand, and I think I’ll get a little sleep.”
“It will do you good,” said the poor wife.
“Who knows?” he said, with another smile. “But don’t let them light the candles.”
Light the candles! She could see, where she sat there, the red sunshine falling in a blaze upon a ruddy heathery hill, and beating upon the dark firs which stood out like ink against that background. There is perhaps nothing that so wrings the heart of the watcher as this pathetic mistake of day for night which betrays the eyes from whichall light is failing. He lay within the shadow of the curtain, always holding her hand fast, and fell asleep—a sleep which, for a time, was soft and quiet enough, but afterwards got a little disturbed. She sat quite still, not moving, scarcely breathing, that she might not disturb him; not a tear in her eye, her whole being wound up into an external calm which was so strangely unlike the tumult within. And she had forsaken him—left him to meet calamity without her support, without sympathy or aid! She had been immersed in the pleasures of the children, their expeditions, their amusements. She remembered, with a shudder, that it had been a little relief to get him away, to have their dance undisturbed. Their dance! Her heart swelled as if it would burst. She had been his faithful wife since she was little more than a child. All her life was his—she had no thought, no wish, apart from him. And yet she had left him to bear this worst of evils alone!
Mrs. Sandford dared not break the sacred calm by a sob or a sigh. She dared not even let the tears come to her eyes, lest he should wake and be troubled by the sight of them. What thoughts went through her mind as she sat there, notmoving! Her past life all over, which, until that telegram came, had seemed the easy tenor of every day; and the future, so dark, so awful, so unknown—a world which she did not understand without him.
After an interval he began to speak again, but so that she saw he was either asleep still or wandering in those vague regions between consciousness and nothingness. “All against the wall—with the faces turned,” he said. “Three—all the last ones: the one my wife liked so. In the inner room: Daniells is a good fellow. He spared me the sight of them outside. Three—that’s one of the perfect numbers—that’s—I could always see them: on the road and on the moor, and at the races: then—I wonder—all the way up—on the road to heaven? no, no. One of the angels—would come and turn them round—turn them round. Nothing like that in the presence of God. It would be disrespectful—disrespectful. Turn them round—with their faces——” He paused; his eyes were closed, an ineffable smile came over his mouth. “He—will see what’s best in them,” he said.
After this for a time silence reigned, broken only now and then by a word sometimes unintelligible.Once his wife thought she caught something about the “four square walls in the new Jerusalem,” sometimes tender words about herself, but nothing clear. It was not till night that he woke, surprising them with an outcry as to the light, as he had previously spoken about the darkness.
“You need not,” he said, “light such an illumination for me—al giornoas the Italians say; but I like it—I like it. Daniells—has the soul of a prince.” Then he put out his hands feebly, calling “Mary! Mary!” and drew her closer to him, and whispered a long, earnest communication; but what it was the poor lady never knew. She listened intently, but she could not make out a word. What was it? What was it? Whatever it was, to have said it was an infinite satisfaction to him. He dropped back upon his pillows with an air of content indescribable, and silent pleasure. He had done everything, he had said everything. And in this mood slept again, and woke no more.
Mr. Sandford’s previsions were all justified. The house was sold to advantage, at what the agent called a fancy price, because it had been his house—with its best furniture undisturbed. Everythingwas miserable enough indeed, but there was no humiliation in the breaking up of the establishment, which was evidently too costly for the widow. She got her pension at once, and a satisfactory one, and retired with her younger children to a small house, which was more suited to her circumstances. And Lord Okeham, touched by the fact that Sandford’s death had taken place under the same roof, in a room next to his own (though that, to be sure, in an age of competition and personal merit was nothing), found somehow, as a Cabinet Minister no doubt can if he will, a post for Harry, in which he got on just as well as other young men, and settled down into a very good servant of the State. And Jack, being thus suddenly sobered and called back to himself, and eager to get rid of the intolerable thought that he, too, had weighed upon his father’s mind, and made his latter days more sad, took to his profession with zeal, and got on, as no doubt any determined man does when he adopts one line and holds by it. The others settled down with their mother in a humbler way of living, yet did not lose their friends, as it is common to say people do. Perhaps they were not asked any longer to the occasional “smart” parties to which thepretty daughters and well-bred sons of Sandford the famous painter, who could dispense tickets for Academy soirées and private views, were invited, more or less on sufferance. These failed them, their names falling out of the invitation books; but what did that matter, seeing they had never been but outsiders, flattered by the cards of a countess, but never really penetrating beyond the threshold?
Mrs. Sandford believed that she could not live when her husband was thus taken from her. The remembrance of that brief but dreadful time when she had abandoned him, when the children and their amusements had stolen her heart away, was heavy upon her, and though she steeled herself to carry out all his wishes, and to arrange everything as he would have had it done, yet she did all with a sense that the time was short, and that when her duty was thus accomplished she would follow him. This softened everything to her in the most wonderful way. She felt herself to be acting as his deputy through all these changes, glad that he should be saved the trouble, and that humiliation and confession of downfall which was not now involved in any alteration of life she could make,and fully confident that when all was completed she would receive her dismissal and join him where he was. But she was a very natural woman, with all the springs of life in her unimpaired. And by-and-by, with much surprise, with a pang of disappointment, and yet a rising of her heart to the new inevitable solitary life which was so different, which was not solitary at all, but full of the stir and hum of living, yet all silent in the most intimate and closest circle, Mrs. Sandford recognised that she was not to die. It was a strange thing, yet one which happens often: for we neither live nor die according to our own will and previsions—save sometimes in such a case as that of our painter, to whom, as to his beloved, God accorded sleep.
And more—the coming true of everything that he had believed. After doing his best for his own, and for all who depended upon him in his life, he did better still, as he had foreseen, by dying. Daniells sold the three pictures at prices higher than he had dreamed of, for a Sandford was now a thing with a settled value, it being sure that no new flood of them would ever come into the market. And all went well. Perhaps with someof us, too, that dying which it is a terror to look forward to, seeing that it means the destruction of a home, may prove, like the painter’s, a better thing than living even for those who love us best. But it is not to every one that it is given to die at the right moment, as Mr. Sandford had the happiness to do.
Itwas a September night, rather chilly and dreary, as the evening often becomes at that season, even when the day has been beautiful. There was a little cold wailing wind about, like the ghost of an autumn breeze, which came in puffs of air, only strong enough to dislodge a fluttering yellow leaf or two, and sometimes with a few drops of rain upon it, which it dashed in your face with an elfish moan—not a night to walk in the garden for pleasure. It was, however, a custom with Mr. Dalyell to smoke his cigar out-of-doors after dinner in all weathers, and Fred, who was his eldest son, was proud to be his father’s companion and share this indulgence—too proud to make any oppositionto the chill of the night or the occasional dash of rain. All that was visible from the windows of the Yalton drawing-room, across which now and then a white figure would flutter, with a glance out were the red fire-tips of the two cigars, moving now quickly, now slowly, stopping altogether for a moment, going on with renewed rapidity—which was papa’s way.
You could not see a prettier old house than Yalton in all the eastern shires. It had the mixture of French with native Scotch architecture which distinguishes a period in history. There were turrets, which the profane called pepper-boxes, at the corners, and lines of many windows in the commodious, comfortablecorps de logis, now shining through the night with cheerful lights. Two terraces stood between the altitude of the house and the walk in which the father and son were, with lines of stone balustrades all overgrown by creeping plants and adorned with great vases in which the garish flowers of autumn were still fully blooming, though they were unseen in the darkness. On the lower level was the little temple of a fountain, which was reduced to a small and broken jet by age and negligence. The scent of themignonette in the borders, the faint dripping of the water in the fountain, communicated to the atmosphere a little half-artificial speciality of character, like the terraces and great vases, not altogether natural to the locality, yet not uncongenial in its quaint double nationality. The two dark figures walking up and down, made visible by those red points, were yet undistinguishable, save by the fact that one was slim and slight, a boyish figure, and the other round and solid in the complete development of the man. The lad had been unfolding to his father the many novelties and wonders of his first year at the University, with that delightful force of conviction that such pleasant and wonderful experiences had never happened to anybody before which is the perennial belief of the young: while the father listened with that half-amused, half-pensive sympathy, made up of recollections fond and familiar, and the half-provoked, half-pleased sensation of amazement at finding those experiences re-embodied in the person of his son, which is habitual to the old. But, indeed, to say old is merely to express a comparative quality, for Mr. Dalyell of Yalton was a man under fifty, in the full force and vigour of life.
“Ah, yes,” he said, “Fred, it’s fine times for you now, my boy. But you must remember that life is not made up of bumps and bump-suppers, and that there are worse things than a proctor waiting for you, perhaps, round the next corner. I don’t want you not to play—but you must learn to work a little, too.”
“All right, father,” said Fred; “I’ll pull through. I sha’n’t disgrace the old house.”
“No,” said Mr. Dalyell. “I don’t suppose you will: but you might perhaps go a little farther than that.”
“I didn’t think,” said Fred, surprised, “that you intended me to do more than a good pass. I never supposed there was—any need for hard work.”
“Need? I never said there was need: but it does a young fellow good to be thought to work: even if it does no more it does that. It’s well for you to be thought to work, Fred.”
“If that’s all,” said the young man, “I don’t fancy I want to get a reputation in that way.”
“Then you’re a silly boy,” said his father. “It’s a capital thing to have a good reputation. You don’t know what it might do for you.”
“Well,” said the lad, with a laugh, “I don’t fancy that matters so much, so long as you do everything for me, father.”
“That’s just the point, Fred. That’s what I wanted to show you. I sha’n’t always be here to do everything for you.”
“Why,” said Fred, “you’re almost as young as I am!”
“I’m not particularly old: but no man’s life is secure, however young he may be; it’s not to be lippened to, as old Janet says. You ought to contemplate what your position would be if I were taken away. Think what happens to many a young fellow, Fred, whose father dies—perhaps just when he is where you are: and he has to stop all his pleasant ways and turn to, perhaps to work for his mother and the rest, perhaps only to look after them and take care of them—but at all events to be the head of the family instead of a careless boy.” Mr. Dalyell had stopped in his walk to enforce what he said, which was a way he had. “I’ve known a boy of your age,” he said, “that had to give up everything, and go into an office, and work like a slave: instead of your bump-suppers, Fred.”
“I’ve heard of such a thing myself,” said Fred; “though you don’t think much of my experience, father. It happened to Surtees of New, a fellow a little senior to me. It was awfully hard upon him. He would have been in the ‘eight’ if he had stayed another year. What he felt most was leaving the ‘Varsity without getting his blue. But,” added the lad, “if it matters about what people think, as you were saying, he was thought no end of for it. He went abroad, I think, to look after some business there.”
“And dropped, I suppose, never to be heard of more—among his old chums at least?”
“It was awfully hard upon him,” said Fred, regretfully.
“Well,” said Mr. Dalyell, “that’s what may happen to any one of you whose fathers are in business. You ought to remember that such a contingency is always on the cards.”
“Why, father——!” cried Fred. The boy was unwilling to make any application, to seem to think that there could be anything in their own circumstances to suggest this conversation: but he threw an involuntary glance at the house behind him with all its cheerful lights, and at the darkclouds of trees all round in the distance, which marked the great extent of the park and woods of Yalton. He did not add a word, and indeed the whole movement was involuntary—a sort of appeal from the lugubrious remarks on one side to all these unending signs of wealth on the other.
“You mean to say there’s Yalton; and though I’m in business, I’m not all in business,” said Mr. Dalyell with a laugh. “I was not speaking of ourselves, my boy; but of the vicissitudes of life. I hope there will be Dalyells of Yalton as long as Edinburgh Castle stands upon a rock; and one can’t say more than that. Still, there are wonderful changes in life, and I’d like to think—if you force me to an application—that you were up to anything that might happen. You’d have to take the command, you know, Fred,” he added after a moment, knocking the ash off his cigar against the balustrade of the terrace, with another curious laugh. “Your dear mother has never been used to anything but to be taken care of. You had better not bother her by asking advice from her if you should ever be in that position.”
“I wish you would not say such dreadful things,” said Fred petulantly. “Why should wetalk of what I hope to heaven will never happen?—you make me quite uncomfortable, papa.”
“Well, my dear boy,” said Mr. Dalyell, “that’s the penalty, don’t you know, of being grown up—like shaving, and other disadvantages. You rather like the shaving—which implies an imaginary beard: but you don’t like to hear of the much more important responsibilities.”
“Shaving’s inevitable,” said Fred, giving a little furtive twirl to an almost imaginary moustache.
“Oh, is it?” said his father, with a more cheerful laugh. “Not for years yet; don’t flatter yourself. When do you start for your ball to-morrow? It’s fine to be an eligible young man, and sought after for all the dances. That’s a pleasant consequence of being a ‘Varsity man, and heir of Yalton, eh?”
“Well, father,” said Fred, “seeing I’ve known the Scrymgeours all my life, we needn’t put it on that ground. Whatever I was—if I was heir to nothing—it would be the same to them.”
“Let’s hope so,” said Mr. Dalyell, and he breathed a sigh, which somehow got mingled with the little wail of the wind, and echoed into Fred’s heart with a poignant suggestion. There was noreason to fear anything, and he was angry with himself. It was childish and superstitious to shiver as he did, as if the cold had caught him. There was no occasion in the world for anything of the sort. He was not a fellow to catch cold, he said to himself indignantly, nor to have presentiments, both of which things were equally absurd. There was nothing but prosperity and peace known in Yalton, and his father had the constitution of an elephant. But the night was eerie, the horizon had a sort of weird clearness upon it in the far distance, like a light showing through the openings of the clouds. The trees stood up black in billows of half-distinguishable shade, and the hills beyond them marked out their outlines wistfully against the clearness in the west. It was cold, and the air breathed of coming winter. A leaf drifting on the wind caught him on the cheek like a soft blow. Altogether the night was eerie, wild, full of possibilities. There was no ghost at Yalton; but sometimes old Janet said there was a sound in the avenue that meant trouble, like a horseman riding up to the house who never arrived. Fred involuntarily listened, as if he might have heard that horseman, which was as good as inviting trouble,but he did not think of that. However, there was no sound, nor ghost of a sound, except what was purely natural—the wild bitter wind wailing, driving a few leaves about, and bending, with a soft swish of the dark unseen foliage, the light branches of the trees.
“Come, let’s go in, Fred; I’ve finished my cigar,” said Mr. Dalyell; and then, as though a brain wave, as scientific people say, had passed from one to another—Fred’s unspoken thought of old Janet suggested her to his father’s mind. They were going up one of the sets of stone steps which led from one terrace to the other, when Mr. Dalyell suddenly put his hand on his son’s arm:
“You’ll laugh,” he said, but not himself in a laughing tone, “at what I’m going to say. But if you should be in any difficulty what to do in case of my absence, or—or anything of that sort—do you know, Fred, whom I’d advise you to consult? The last person you would think of, probably, by yourself—old Janet! You know she’s been about Yalton all her life. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do for any of us—and she’s an extraordinarily sensible old woman, full of resource, and with a head on her shoulders——”
“I’m not fond of old Janet,” said Fred sturdily.
“No, none of you are. Your mother never could be got to like her. It’s a prejudice. She’s been invaluable to me.”
“If it’s all the same to you, father,” said Fred stiffly, “I’d rather not turn to an old wife for advice, an old nurse. What can she know? Of course your good opinion goes a very long way——”
“For or against? I’m afraid, so far as your mother is concerned, it is rather against. However, we need say no more about it. But, remember! as King Charles said.”
They had paused on the landing between two flights of stairs. A great trail of yellow nasturtium, dropping from the vase at the corner, showed even in the dark a ghost of colour, and thrust its pungent odour into Fred’s nostril. The faint billows of the trees stretched out dark and darker over the landscape below, and the cold clear light in the sky seemed to look on like a spectator who knows far more than the actors what is and is going to be. Fred once more gave a little shiver, and elevated his shoulders to his ears.
“You’d better go and take some camphor, boy. You’ve caught cold,” his father said.
The drawing-room of Yalton was on the first floor, unlike the generality of country houses, which gave it a great advantage in respect to the landscape. On the ground floor a great deal of space was taken up with the hall, which opened into a large portico, and was scarcely light enough to be made much use of, in a climate where there is seldom too much sun. It happened, fortunately, that Mrs. Dalyell, who was a nervous and somewhat fantastic woman, was fond of a great deal of light, so that the large windows, which made the turreted Scotch house like a wing of the Louvre, were not displeasing to her. The curtains were but partially drawn over the central windows even now, so that it was possible to turn at any moment from the light and warmth of the interior to the wide landscape out-of-doors, with its wild breadth of sky and wailing winds. But within it was exceedingly bright with a number of lamps and candles and that pleasant blaze of a fire which it is an agreeable tradition in Scotch country houses to keep up in the evening, whether it is wanted or not. In September it is generally wanted; but it cannot be said there was any necessity for it on this particular night. Thecompany in the drawing-room consisted of Mrs. Dalyell, her two daughters, and a gentleman of middle age and manners very ingratiating and friendly, if a little formal—Mr. Patrick Wedderburn, than whom no man was more respected in Edinburgh, a W.S. of the first eminence, learned in the law, and a favourite everywhere. He belonged, it need scarcely be said, to a good Scotch family, and was any man’s equal in Scotland, though he acted as a “man of business” to many of his friends. He was one of the dearest friends of Robert Dalyell of Yalton, and was a more constant visitor than any other of the many familiar associates who called the laird of Yalton “Bob,” and knew him and his affairs to the finger-points. Pat Wedderburn, as the visitor was commonly called, was an old bachelor, and therefore had no family to call him to a fireside centre of his own. He was as much in Yalton as he was in his own handsome but dull house in Ainslie Place, where, except when he had a dinner-party, the rooms were so silent, the solitude so serious. Neither the girls nor their mother made “company” of Mr. Wedderburn. He was seated in a deep chair, reading the papers whilethey talked, as if he were an uncle at the least, and he did not hesitate to interrupt their conversation now and then by reading out a bit of news or making a remark. He did not hesitate to correct Susie, who sometimes ventured upon a big word with which she was not familiar, and used it wrongly, or to tell Alice that she was a fidget, and could not keep still for five minutes; and as this was done from behind the newspaper, in the most accidental manner, it deepened still more the impression that nowhere could Mr. Wedderburn have been more perfectly at home. The papers, it may be added—that is to say, the London papers—arrived in Edinburgh in the evening. The conversation which was going on when Mr. Dalyell came into the drawing-room was, however, confined to the young people, and was chiefly on the subject of the Scrymgeour ball, to which Fred was going next day.
“I think they might have asked me,” said Susie in an aggrieved tone. “I am just the same age as Lucy Scrymgeour. It isn’t my fault mother, that you’ve never taken me out yet. I am seventeen andpast, as everybody knows.”
“No, it’s not your fault. I am sure you have badgered me enough about it,” said Mrs. Dalyell; “but though you think you can do anything you like with me, I have my opinions about some things. And one of them is that a girl should not go out too soon. People are quite capable of saying, ten or twenty years hence, ‘Oh, Susie Dalyell, I can tell you her age to a day! She came out in such a year, and she must have been nineteen at the least.’ That is exactly how people talk.”
“And if they did,” cries Susie, “what would it matter? Farmer thinks I look quite eighteen when I have my hair nicely dressed.”
“That is all very well now, my dear; but wait till you are thirty or thirty-five. You would like to put on a year or two now, but you will like to take them off at the other end.”
“Let’s hope,” said Mr. Wedderburn from behind his paper, “that she’ll not be Susie Dalyell then.”
“What difference will that make?” said Susie scornfully. “If I were forty I should never make a mystery about it. What is the use of trying to hide it, if you do have one foot in the grave?”
“Mother’s forty—or more,” said Alice, “and nobody would say she had one foot in the grave.”
“Oh, what does it matter,” cried Susie again, “at that time of life, when you are medeval and antediluvious? It is now that one minds.”
“Susie, don’t call mamma such dreadful names.”
“Mediæval and antediluvian, Susie”—from behind the paper, in an undertone.
“I suppose,” said Mrs. Dalyell tartly, “that Mr. Wedderburn thinks that quite appropriate. Gentlemen always think a girl’s impertinence is amusing when it’s directed against her mother; but you ought to know better, Susie, than to hold me up to ridicule. I am sure, whatever else I may be, I have been a careful mother to you.”
“Oh, mamma! As if I meant anything like that,” cried Susie petulantly, flinging herself upon her mother. “I only mean you don’t care now. It’s nothing to you to think of Lucy dancing all night in billows of tulle, like the girls in the novels, and me going to bed at ten o’clock. They will only just have begun then. And to think they should have asked Fred! and me Lucy’s greatest friend and contemporaneous, and friends with Davie all my life—and that they never thought of askingme—never even tried! Perhaps if they had asked me—and it’s such an opportunity and such old friends—you would have let me go.”
“I’ll tell you what, Susie,” said Fred, who had just come in; “I’ll ride over to-morrow morning first thing and ask them to ask you. I dare say they will for my sake.”
Susie looked at him for a moment with a flush of hope, and then her face clouded. “For your sake!” she said, with a sister’s frank contempt. “If it’s only for your sake, I’ll stay at home. I am not a nobody like that. I’m Lucy Scrymgeour’s oldest friend. If she doesn’t of her own account—and Davie too,” cried the girl with an access of indignation—“it’s more than any one can bear!”
“I would never speak to one of them again,” said Alice, “if it was me.”
“And what good would that do?” cried Susie, with the tear still in her eye, turning upon her sister. “Lose the ball and a friend too! I suppose they had some reason. Perhaps there were too many girls already—else why should they ask Fred? Or, perhaps—— Yes, I’ll speak to Lucy again, the first time I see her; but I shallbe very dignified, and pretend that I didn’t care a bit.”
“But you couldn’t if you tried; dignified, my dear—that would be rather difficult.”
“Is there anything in the paper, Pat?” said Mr. Dalyell.
“Not much. But it’s ill talking between a full man and a fasting. I’ve seen what there is, and you’ve not. Here’s theTimes. Munro’s in for that place in the North.”
“Bless my soul! and you call that nothing? Another firebrand, and as good as two lost in our majority. That’s bad, Pat; that’s bad.”
“I never think anything of a bye-election. They’re all in the nature of accidents. There’s a good speech of Gladstone’s at one of the Lancaster towns, and John Bright flaming on the side of peace like a house on fire.”
“And he says there’s nothing in the paper!” said Mr. Dalyell, as he dropped into an easy-chair in his turn with the great broad-sheet of theTimesin his hand.
“When gentlemen begin talking politics,” said Mrs. Dalyell, “I always think it is time for the ladies to retire. But you have begun early to-night.Are you going into town at your usual hour to-morrow, Robert? I hope you’ll be home early, for, with Fred away, there will be no man but only the servants in the house.”
“And what the worse will you be for that, Amelia? There are plenty to protect you, I hope, if I were never to be seen again.”
“Robert! that’s not a thing to joke about. I never feel safe, you know, in this big, rambling old house when you’re not here—if it was only the rats——”
“What could the rats do to you, mother?”
“Hold your peace, Fred!” said Mrs. Dalyell. “I sometimes think of Bishop Hatto in that poem you used all to be so fond of—and those in the Pied Piper. If you just heard some of old Janet Macalister’s stories, they would make your hair stand on end.”
“You’ll be back in time, Bob, not to keep her uneasy,” said Mr. Wedderburn behind theStandard, which he had just taken up, to his friend behind theTimes.
Dalyell answered carelessly, “Yes, yes. Why shouldn’t I be back in time?” Then, with a laugh, to his wife, “You should never mind old Janet. Idare say you were interfering with some hiding-holes of hers that she did not want disturbed. She’s a kind of familiar spirit of the house, that old woman. She knows it better than any of us; and there’s all sorts of uncanny corners about this house. It would be to keep you out of the secret chamber that she told you daft stories about the rats.”
“I don’t believe in any nonsense about secret chambers,” said Mrs. Dalyell. “That’s all very well in Glamis, and such places: but Yalton’s not good enough for that.”
“Yalton’s good enough for anything, mamma,” cried Susie, indignant. “I heard the horseman in the avenue a week ago, as clear as——”
“What’s that you’re saying, Susie?” said Mr. Dalyell sharply.
“Oh!” said the girl tremulously, “I mean the rain pattering in that place, you know.”
“Susie is always hearing some nonsense,” said her mother. “Gather up your work and things, children, for it is time you were going to your beds.”
Mr. Wedderburnwent into Edinburgh by the early train, the train which conveyed all the gentlemen who were business men. But Mr. Dalyell, who was not exactly a man in business, went in later. He had a great deal to do with that busy world, but he was not actually in harness with an office which claimed his daily attention. He was a director of a railway company, and he had something to do with a great insurance office, and there were other more speculative concerns in which he was believed to have an interest: and there were few days in the week in which he did not go “in,” as everybody said, to Edinburgh; but still it was not a matter of necessity. He was up earlier than his wont that morning—for Yalton was not an early house in general—and “pottered about,” as his wife said fretfully, from his dressing-room to the library and from the library back to his dressing-room, disturbing her morning’s rest. He seemed to have a quantity of little things to do. Even after thebreakfast bell had rung he ran twice into the library for something which he said he had forgotten. “You seem to have as many things to remember as if you were the Prime Minister,” said Mrs. Dalyell, who had already poured out his coffee, and who was more annoyed when he left his breakfast to get cold than by any other of his peccadilloes. “Robert!” she cried from the door in a tone of exasperation, “there will be nothing fit to eat!” “I am coming, I am coming!” he cried. The curious thing was that he did not mind if his bacon was cold: but his wife minded for him and fumed and fretted. “What is the use of trying to get anything comfortable for your father?” she would say complainingly, “Well, mother, I like my kidneys hot,” said Fred; “so they’re not thrown away at least.” Mrs. Dalyell looked at her son as if his tastes were a matter of much indifference, but softened when she met the lad’s good-humoured blue eyes. He was not remarkable in appearance, but like dozens of other Scotch lads all about—light-brown hair, curling so strongly that it was difficult sometimes to comb it out; nice eyes, with a smile in them; tolerable features, the nose turned up a little; not a giantby any means, but well developed, well set up—a natural, pleasant boy of twenty, not without his failings, and perhaps a little careless, a little superficial, having had no occasion as yet to fathom any of the depths of life. He nodded at her over the dish of kidneys with a smile which was contagious. Mrs. Dalyell was by no means a light-hearted person. She was easily put out. She did not like anybody to have a different way of thinking from her own on the points that interested her. To let your tea stand till it was cold was an offence to Mrs. Dalyell. As for more serious matters she did not much interfere with them. That was the gentlemen’s part of the business. To have breakfast in good condition and attend to the comfort of the house was hers, which perhaps is a view of the question which will commend itself to many. In return for this she expected to have a great deal of the trouble of life taken off her shoulders. She declared constantly that she knew nothing of business. She preferred to get her money just when she wanted it, instead of having a banking account of her own, as most ladies like to have nowadays, or a settled allowance. In short, Mrs. Dalyell was a woman whose veryexistence necessitated a husband behind her to do the rough work and see to the supplies. Within these limits there could not be a better mistress of a household. And she was exceedingly annoyed when her husband allowed his breakfast to get cold. It was a trick of his, of which it was her constant effort to mend him; but he was seldom so bad as this day.
“Go and tell your father,” she said at last, “that it is almost time for the train. And to let him go without his breakfast is what I will not do. So just tell him, once for all, if he does not come at once he must just give up all thoughts of going in to Edinburgh to-day.”
“Here I am—here I am, Amelia,” said Mr. Dalyell, running in and taking his seat at table. “What have you got there, Fred? Kidneys!—and this is bacon.”
“All just as cold as chucky-stones,” said the lady of the house solemnly.
“You know I don’t mind, my dear. I’ll have a little of that kidney—and a cup of coffee with plenty of milk. How often am I to tell you you should never mind me?”
“Just as often as I tell you I will mind you,Robert. Who should be minded if it’s not the master of the house?”
He cast upon her a look—which Fred, who had nearly but not quite forgotten the conversation of last night, caught and wondered at with a vague sense of pain, though his mother did not remark it. There was a great deal of affection and tenderness in the glance; but something else that puzzled him. There was trouble in it—but what trouble could there be in his father’s eyes looking at his mother? There was something in it which made him say quite inconsequently, looking up from his plateful of devilled kidney, “You’re not going away anywhere, are you, father?”
Then his father’s eyes fixed on himself with a startled glance: “Away?” he said. “Where should I be going? and what’s put that into your head?”
Fred replied with the familiar subterfuge of youth: “Oh, nothing!” But his mind was not satisfied; for that was no answer. And there passed through his thoughts a vague idea that if, later in the day, there came a telegram saying that Mr. Dalyell had been obliged to go to London on business, he would not be surprised.
“Where indeed!” said Mrs. Dalyell. “It’s not the time for business, which is a comfort: for you can’t be running up to London at a moment’s notice, as you did in the spring. You would find nobody there.”
“That is just it,” said Mr. Dalyell. And after he had made this unquestioned observation, he added, “I shall perhaps run down to Portobello and get a swim. Nothing puts a man right like the sea. I’ll just take a plunge and be back by the four o’clock train.”
“I hope you’ll have somebody with you; and don’t you be too venturesome with your plunging and your swimming.”
“Too venturesome on Portobello sands! I’ll get Pat Wedderburn to come and look after me,” said Mr. Dalyell with a laugh. He laughed with his lips, but his eyes were quite grave—which was all the more remarkable since he had laughing eyes, with humorous puckers all about them, exceedingly ready to light up at such a joke as that of being taken care of by Pat Wedderburn. He had still half-a-dozen things which kept him running out and in before he was ready to start, which his way, but always a source of exasperationto his orderly wife. Finally, when there was hardly time to catch the train, he dashed upstairs three steps at a time, explaining that he had forgotten something. Mrs. Dalyell stood wringing her hands at the open door.
“I wish you had ordered the dog-cart, Fred. He’ll never catch the train. You should remember your father’s ways, and that this is always what happens: and then he’ll just fly and get out of breath and over-heated—the very worst things for him. Dear, dear me! I might have had more sense. I might have ordered the dog-cart myself, there’s only ten minutes——”
“If he does lose the train I suppose it won’t matter so much,” said easy-minded Fred.