Chapter VIII.Roy at OxfordDoctor Halley grew old in his service for Carlotta, ungrudging and without hope of reward. His hair grew white, and the road to Murano became heaviness to him, but he never complained. As soon as the boy was old enough he quietly took over his education, and watched with growing anxiety the change that was taking place in Carlotta.She never referred to the past, but seemed to live only for the child, and would gaze expectantly down the garden path, as though she still held a lingering hope. Her beauty paled, and she was more and more withdrawing herself from the world.Halley grieved in secret, but his devotion was deeper than admiration, and his loyal service continued through these years.Carlotta had written to the lawyers, asking them what would happen to the child in the event of her death, with regard to the allowance. Curtis was dead, and she received a formal answer that the sum paid was a personal grant and would cease at her death.So she lived as simply as possible, that Roy should not go penniless when her time came, and the Doctor was convinced that this fear more than anything else kept her alive.Roy was fifteen, a fine clean looking boy, with his mother’s eyes and his father’s classical beauty, untouched with his sardonic smile. Halley had carefully taught him all he knew, which was wide knowledge. Carlotta had insisted on making Italian his mother tongue, and never spoke English herself—if spoken to in that language, would answer in Italian. She would also write in Italian, and only once broke her self-imposed edict, when she handed a miniature of herself and the boy to Halley, under which she had written “Mother and Roy.” Halley looked at it in surprise, but she simply said, “In case you ever meet him when I am gone.” The curious doubt about her husband’s death distressed him, but seemed to give her a strange comfort.But her time had come; all Halley’s devotion and medical skill availed nothing against her broken heart, though there was no specific disease that he could find. She was merely fading like a flower after the summer is done. She called him to her, while the boy was playing in the garden.“My old and faithful friend, the best friend I ever knew, the end has come, and you know it. Don’t worry, it is all for the best. My loneliness is such a torment, that only your great affection, and Roy’s, could have made me stay so long. I am going to ask of you one more service, as we always do of those who have served only too well, you will look after Roy, won’t you?”The old Doctor’s head was bowed, and he did not dare to show his face, he merely nodded, and kneeling by her side, took her thin hand.“I want you to see that he grows up an English gentleman, as befits his birth,” she raised her head proudly, as if in challenge.“I will devote what remains of my life to him,” said the old man simply.She pressed his hand. “Thank you, I knew I could rely on you, and you must tell him after I have gone—you know—about his father. I could not bear to do it. I should hate to see a look of anger or loathing on his young face. You will understand?”“I will do it, you may trust to me,” he said in a shaking voice.“I am very tired, leave me now, but bring Roy in presently, I must tell him I am going.”Very reverently the Doctor took her hand, and kissed it.“You may kiss me now,” she said dreamily, “it is all that I can give you.”Halley rose from his knees, and the blinding tears fell freely as he bent over that sweet face, which he had loved so dearly without hope of reward. He gently kissed her forehead, as one might a little sleeping child, and hurried from the room, for he knew the time was short. He found the boy in the garden among the roses for which he had all his mother’s passionate affection.“Roy, my boy, you must be very brave as you know an English gentleman should be. Your mother is very ill, and you must go to her at once, I am afraid she will not be very long with us now.”The boy turned pale. “Do you mean she is going to die, Uncle?” he said in an awestruck voice, face to face with the grim terror for the first time in his life.“Yes, I am afraid so, but it is in God’s hands.”“But, you are a Doctor, can’t you do something?” he protested with something of his Father’s fiery impatience.“It is because I am a Doctor that I know,” was the quiet reply, “come we will go to her.”But when they entered the room where she was lying, another visitant had been there first, and on her sweet face was an expression of such peace as neither had seen before. It was as though the long separation were over and a joyful reunion had come.“If ever a woman’s love can save a soul from Hell, she has saved him,” said the Doctor in a choking voice, kneeling reverently by the couch, oblivious of the boy who stared at the face, so quiet and lovely in death.Then realisation came to him, with quick intuition. The Doctor’s attitude and his bowed head showed the truth more than spoken word, and in a passion of grief, he flung himself beside her.“Mother! Mother! Don’t leave me, say something—only speak! Don’t go without a word!”The sound brought their old servant into the room, and she and the Doctor gently led the weeping boy away.It was only after the last sad ceremony had been carried out, and Michael and all the Archangels had been invoked to bear this pure soul to the feet of God, in the beautiful liturgy of the Catholic service, that the two broken hearted mourners came back to the villa, now hateful to both. In time it would acquire a memory like a shrine, but the loss was too near, too sudden, and it was haunted with the dear ghost, which brought a torture of longing. Halley saw this, and realised that to a young boy change was essential. For himself, he would have lingered on, dreaming of her, and hoping that in some twilight evening, in the hush before dark, a dream figure would come down the rose garden, and touch his hand, bidding him come to join her, and the man she had loved so well, in a fairer Garden, where there is no marrying nor giving in marriage, but where they might be as the angels in Heaven.It would never do for the boy to become morbid, and so the broken man set himself to face the future with a brave resolve.“Roy, we must talk of the future. Your dear mother left you in my hands, and I will do what I can to make you a happy, and a good man. I am going to take you to England, and we can look out a good school, where you would like to go, and meet other boys of your age, and play games and win prizes.”With a boy, sorrow can be deep, but not overwhelming, and the thought of doing what he had always longed for, as the Doctor knew, sent a thrill of pleasure through him.“Oh, Uncle, how good of you! I have always longed to see England, and should love to go to one of the great public schools, I have read about. And my father was English, wasn’t he?”The Doctor gave a start, for the boy had never before asked about his father.“How did you know that?” he asked.“Mother told me,” and the tears filled his eyes, “you know when she signed that miniature. She said she wrote in English because he was an English gentleman, and she wanted me to grow up like him.”A grim smile played round the Doctor’s mouth.“Yes, Roy, he was English, and I will tell you something. You are old enough to know now, and your mother asked me to tell you.”The boy stood eagerly waiting, and as the Doctor looked at him, he realised something of what the father must have looked when he too was young, and he sighed.“Your father was Lord Reckavile,” he said slowly.“Lord Reckavile?” exclaimed the boy, “then I am …” and he stopped, for something in the Doctor’s sad old eyes frightened him. “But my mother’s name was Desmond, as mine is?” he exclaimed.“Yes, that was Lord Reckavile’s family name. Oh, you must not think evil of your sainted mother. She married him, thinking he was plain Mr. Desmond.”“And he was Lord Reckavile all the time?” asked the boy.“Yes Roy,” said the old man taking the boy’s hand in his. “But he was married in England before he met your mother. There was a Lady Reckavile. Your poor mother did not know, until he was drowned.”A terrible look came into the boy’s eyes, the Reckavile look.He was not too young to understand.“You mean to tell me that he married my mother when he had another wife alive,” he said slowly. Halley had no wish to shield the man, but the memory of Carlotta’s sweet face made him say:“He loved your mother only, you must not judge your father too harshly. People in his position are sometimes forced to marry, against their wills, but I am sure it was your dear mother he loved.”The boy stiffened, he had suddenly grown up.“He was a villain, and I hate him—hate him! I am glad he died. If he had lived I would have killed him.”Here was a Reckavile indeed. His eyes blazed, and Halley understood why Carlotta had not told him; she knew her son.For a moment he stood with fists clenched, then he collapsed and a bitter flood of tears came.“Go away,” he said fiercely as Halley tried to comfort him. “I want to be left alone.”In the evening when the shadows were stretching over the garden, and a chill mist was coming up from the sea, the boy came in with a set face, hard and proud.“Uncle Halley,” he said firmly, “I want to go to England, let’s go at once, as soon as possible, I want you to let me take your name. If you are looking after me, let me be Roy Halley. Do you mind?”The Doctor understood the proud young heart of the boy.“My dear boy,” he said “nothing would please me better. You were left to me, and I have only you to look after in my old age. You shall bear my name and be my adopted son.”The boy threw his head up.“Then I shall call you ‘Father,’ and I will try and forget the hated name of Desmond, which never was my mother’s. You are the only father I have ever known,” and he came and kissed the old man with the sweet grace of his mother.They went to England, when everything had been settled up.The villa Halley could not bear to let or sell; he arranged for the old servant to live there with a small pension for her needs. Halley paid everything himself, and retained Carlotta’s savings for the boy against his need.Time works miracles with the young, and Roy in the glories and the struggles of life at a public school, soon retained only a hallowed memory of his mother, and refused to let his mind dwell on the other horror.At Oxford his voice and acting first became noticeable. He was much in request for his playing and singing, and was looked upon as a promising amateur actor. His easy grace of manner, and the recklessness of his spending, due not to extravagance, but to the family tradition which spoke loud in him, made him a general favourite, and he was no mean athlete, which in the glorious days of the varsity, counts for more than brains or money.In his third year he was occupying a position which perhaps never comes again to a man. In the little kingdom of his college he was a small god. In after life men hold great positions, but then disillusionment has come and the freshness of youth has gone.In his college team at most games, and playing for his varsity at rugger, as his father had before, if only it had been known, and with a force of character welcomed and admired everywhere, no wonder if he lost himself in the celsitude of his power. But the high gods will not suffer such happiness, and in the middle of the dream came an awakening. A telegram to tell him that Doctor Halley had passed away in his sleep brought him up to reality.In bitter sorrow he went to London where the old man had taken up his residence. From the first he had determined not to commit the mistake of living at Oxford or near it. He wanted the boy to enjoy life there unfettered by visits of a relation, and he chose London, so that the boy should be able to come to him in the ‘vacs,’ and have plenty of amusement. He effaced himself for the son, as he had for the mother. He knew his heart was very weak, but kept the knowledge from Roy, lest he should distress him.And so his peaceful end came, his duty done, and his great chivalrous soul went to join her, whose image was never absent from his mind. Roy’s journey was a terrible ordeal of self-blame. He saw how selfish he had been, how little he had repaid the great debt. He recalled with the acute self-analysis of a sensitive mind all the times when he had studied his own fancies, and left the old man alone, when he should have been with him, looking after him. And now it was too late. More than all remorse filled him when he found that the old man had been meeting all his extravagant expenses, by selling out his own money, and that the sum his mother had saved, not large, but which had grown with the years, was still intact.He went back to his college a changed man. The old gaiety had gone, and a bitter self-scorn had come which brought out something of the old Reckavile spirit. Women he shunned with horror, as the image of the one perfect woman he had known made the others seem hollow, and talkative beyond measure.He plunged into wild ‘rags,’ which brought him before the Warden, and drink to which he had never turned, threatened to make shameful his career.And then the gods relented, and the cloud of War settled on the land. To Roy it was like a call to his own kingdom. Others born of generations of peaceful citizens took arms with sober patriotism, as a duty which must not be shirked, but to him generations of fighters called, with exultant shouting. Death! What did that matter! The only two he had ever loved were on the Other Side, and he wished nothing better than to pass over to them.For glorious years he lived at grips with death, first as a private in the muddy trenches, and later with a commission, known as a reckless patrol leader, and a born fighter. He might have risen high in that Hell’s academy where such qualities mean promotion, but in ’16 he was smashed by a bomb and his wrecked body only mended in time for the final advance.When Peace came, he heard around him the officers joyously discussing a return to civil life, and of all that they were going to do. Some were going to wives or sweethearts, one talked of his job at the bank which he hoped was still open to him. To Roy, it was an end of a mighty adventure. There was nothing to look forward to, but a bare struggle to live. He had no friends, no welcoming smile to greet him.He knew that for the Nation it was a wonderful day of rejoicing, but to him nothing remained.Another year in the wildest parts of Russia kept his spirit cheerful, and then he returned to demobilisation.He had not the heart to go back to Oxford, but sought for some form of employment, where excitement and feverish activity could give forgetfulness.His knowledge of languages, a tuneful voice, and his natural charm secured for him successive jobs in travelling companies in Europe, where in gilt and motley he sung in choruses in grand and comic opera, till fate drove him back to England, and to a small part in a travelling company of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operas. It was all hopeless, and he felt that he had only to wait till a merciful death ended the life which had become distasteful to him.
Doctor Halley grew old in his service for Carlotta, ungrudging and without hope of reward. His hair grew white, and the road to Murano became heaviness to him, but he never complained. As soon as the boy was old enough he quietly took over his education, and watched with growing anxiety the change that was taking place in Carlotta.
She never referred to the past, but seemed to live only for the child, and would gaze expectantly down the garden path, as though she still held a lingering hope. Her beauty paled, and she was more and more withdrawing herself from the world.
Halley grieved in secret, but his devotion was deeper than admiration, and his loyal service continued through these years.
Carlotta had written to the lawyers, asking them what would happen to the child in the event of her death, with regard to the allowance. Curtis was dead, and she received a formal answer that the sum paid was a personal grant and would cease at her death.
So she lived as simply as possible, that Roy should not go penniless when her time came, and the Doctor was convinced that this fear more than anything else kept her alive.
Roy was fifteen, a fine clean looking boy, with his mother’s eyes and his father’s classical beauty, untouched with his sardonic smile. Halley had carefully taught him all he knew, which was wide knowledge. Carlotta had insisted on making Italian his mother tongue, and never spoke English herself—if spoken to in that language, would answer in Italian. She would also write in Italian, and only once broke her self-imposed edict, when she handed a miniature of herself and the boy to Halley, under which she had written “Mother and Roy.” Halley looked at it in surprise, but she simply said, “In case you ever meet him when I am gone.” The curious doubt about her husband’s death distressed him, but seemed to give her a strange comfort.
But her time had come; all Halley’s devotion and medical skill availed nothing against her broken heart, though there was no specific disease that he could find. She was merely fading like a flower after the summer is done. She called him to her, while the boy was playing in the garden.
“My old and faithful friend, the best friend I ever knew, the end has come, and you know it. Don’t worry, it is all for the best. My loneliness is such a torment, that only your great affection, and Roy’s, could have made me stay so long. I am going to ask of you one more service, as we always do of those who have served only too well, you will look after Roy, won’t you?”
The old Doctor’s head was bowed, and he did not dare to show his face, he merely nodded, and kneeling by her side, took her thin hand.
“I want you to see that he grows up an English gentleman, as befits his birth,” she raised her head proudly, as if in challenge.
“I will devote what remains of my life to him,” said the old man simply.
She pressed his hand. “Thank you, I knew I could rely on you, and you must tell him after I have gone—you know—about his father. I could not bear to do it. I should hate to see a look of anger or loathing on his young face. You will understand?”
“I will do it, you may trust to me,” he said in a shaking voice.
“I am very tired, leave me now, but bring Roy in presently, I must tell him I am going.”
Very reverently the Doctor took her hand, and kissed it.
“You may kiss me now,” she said dreamily, “it is all that I can give you.”
Halley rose from his knees, and the blinding tears fell freely as he bent over that sweet face, which he had loved so dearly without hope of reward. He gently kissed her forehead, as one might a little sleeping child, and hurried from the room, for he knew the time was short. He found the boy in the garden among the roses for which he had all his mother’s passionate affection.
“Roy, my boy, you must be very brave as you know an English gentleman should be. Your mother is very ill, and you must go to her at once, I am afraid she will not be very long with us now.”
The boy turned pale. “Do you mean she is going to die, Uncle?” he said in an awestruck voice, face to face with the grim terror for the first time in his life.
“Yes, I am afraid so, but it is in God’s hands.”
“But, you are a Doctor, can’t you do something?” he protested with something of his Father’s fiery impatience.
“It is because I am a Doctor that I know,” was the quiet reply, “come we will go to her.”
But when they entered the room where she was lying, another visitant had been there first, and on her sweet face was an expression of such peace as neither had seen before. It was as though the long separation were over and a joyful reunion had come.
“If ever a woman’s love can save a soul from Hell, she has saved him,” said the Doctor in a choking voice, kneeling reverently by the couch, oblivious of the boy who stared at the face, so quiet and lovely in death.
Then realisation came to him, with quick intuition. The Doctor’s attitude and his bowed head showed the truth more than spoken word, and in a passion of grief, he flung himself beside her.
“Mother! Mother! Don’t leave me, say something—only speak! Don’t go without a word!”
The sound brought their old servant into the room, and she and the Doctor gently led the weeping boy away.
It was only after the last sad ceremony had been carried out, and Michael and all the Archangels had been invoked to bear this pure soul to the feet of God, in the beautiful liturgy of the Catholic service, that the two broken hearted mourners came back to the villa, now hateful to both. In time it would acquire a memory like a shrine, but the loss was too near, too sudden, and it was haunted with the dear ghost, which brought a torture of longing. Halley saw this, and realised that to a young boy change was essential. For himself, he would have lingered on, dreaming of her, and hoping that in some twilight evening, in the hush before dark, a dream figure would come down the rose garden, and touch his hand, bidding him come to join her, and the man she had loved so well, in a fairer Garden, where there is no marrying nor giving in marriage, but where they might be as the angels in Heaven.
It would never do for the boy to become morbid, and so the broken man set himself to face the future with a brave resolve.
“Roy, we must talk of the future. Your dear mother left you in my hands, and I will do what I can to make you a happy, and a good man. I am going to take you to England, and we can look out a good school, where you would like to go, and meet other boys of your age, and play games and win prizes.”
With a boy, sorrow can be deep, but not overwhelming, and the thought of doing what he had always longed for, as the Doctor knew, sent a thrill of pleasure through him.
“Oh, Uncle, how good of you! I have always longed to see England, and should love to go to one of the great public schools, I have read about. And my father was English, wasn’t he?”
The Doctor gave a start, for the boy had never before asked about his father.
“How did you know that?” he asked.
“Mother told me,” and the tears filled his eyes, “you know when she signed that miniature. She said she wrote in English because he was an English gentleman, and she wanted me to grow up like him.”
A grim smile played round the Doctor’s mouth.
“Yes, Roy, he was English, and I will tell you something. You are old enough to know now, and your mother asked me to tell you.”
The boy stood eagerly waiting, and as the Doctor looked at him, he realised something of what the father must have looked when he too was young, and he sighed.
“Your father was Lord Reckavile,” he said slowly.
“Lord Reckavile?” exclaimed the boy, “then I am …” and he stopped, for something in the Doctor’s sad old eyes frightened him. “But my mother’s name was Desmond, as mine is?” he exclaimed.
“Yes, that was Lord Reckavile’s family name. Oh, you must not think evil of your sainted mother. She married him, thinking he was plain Mr. Desmond.”
“And he was Lord Reckavile all the time?” asked the boy.
“Yes Roy,” said the old man taking the boy’s hand in his. “But he was married in England before he met your mother. There was a Lady Reckavile. Your poor mother did not know, until he was drowned.”
A terrible look came into the boy’s eyes, the Reckavile look.
He was not too young to understand.
“You mean to tell me that he married my mother when he had another wife alive,” he said slowly. Halley had no wish to shield the man, but the memory of Carlotta’s sweet face made him say:
“He loved your mother only, you must not judge your father too harshly. People in his position are sometimes forced to marry, against their wills, but I am sure it was your dear mother he loved.”
The boy stiffened, he had suddenly grown up.
“He was a villain, and I hate him—hate him! I am glad he died. If he had lived I would have killed him.”
Here was a Reckavile indeed. His eyes blazed, and Halley understood why Carlotta had not told him; she knew her son.
For a moment he stood with fists clenched, then he collapsed and a bitter flood of tears came.
“Go away,” he said fiercely as Halley tried to comfort him. “I want to be left alone.”
In the evening when the shadows were stretching over the garden, and a chill mist was coming up from the sea, the boy came in with a set face, hard and proud.
“Uncle Halley,” he said firmly, “I want to go to England, let’s go at once, as soon as possible, I want you to let me take your name. If you are looking after me, let me be Roy Halley. Do you mind?”
The Doctor understood the proud young heart of the boy.
“My dear boy,” he said “nothing would please me better. You were left to me, and I have only you to look after in my old age. You shall bear my name and be my adopted son.”
The boy threw his head up.
“Then I shall call you ‘Father,’ and I will try and forget the hated name of Desmond, which never was my mother’s. You are the only father I have ever known,” and he came and kissed the old man with the sweet grace of his mother.
They went to England, when everything had been settled up.
The villa Halley could not bear to let or sell; he arranged for the old servant to live there with a small pension for her needs. Halley paid everything himself, and retained Carlotta’s savings for the boy against his need.
Time works miracles with the young, and Roy in the glories and the struggles of life at a public school, soon retained only a hallowed memory of his mother, and refused to let his mind dwell on the other horror.
At Oxford his voice and acting first became noticeable. He was much in request for his playing and singing, and was looked upon as a promising amateur actor. His easy grace of manner, and the recklessness of his spending, due not to extravagance, but to the family tradition which spoke loud in him, made him a general favourite, and he was no mean athlete, which in the glorious days of the varsity, counts for more than brains or money.
In his third year he was occupying a position which perhaps never comes again to a man. In the little kingdom of his college he was a small god. In after life men hold great positions, but then disillusionment has come and the freshness of youth has gone.
In his college team at most games, and playing for his varsity at rugger, as his father had before, if only it had been known, and with a force of character welcomed and admired everywhere, no wonder if he lost himself in the celsitude of his power. But the high gods will not suffer such happiness, and in the middle of the dream came an awakening. A telegram to tell him that Doctor Halley had passed away in his sleep brought him up to reality.
In bitter sorrow he went to London where the old man had taken up his residence. From the first he had determined not to commit the mistake of living at Oxford or near it. He wanted the boy to enjoy life there unfettered by visits of a relation, and he chose London, so that the boy should be able to come to him in the ‘vacs,’ and have plenty of amusement. He effaced himself for the son, as he had for the mother. He knew his heart was very weak, but kept the knowledge from Roy, lest he should distress him.
And so his peaceful end came, his duty done, and his great chivalrous soul went to join her, whose image was never absent from his mind. Roy’s journey was a terrible ordeal of self-blame. He saw how selfish he had been, how little he had repaid the great debt. He recalled with the acute self-analysis of a sensitive mind all the times when he had studied his own fancies, and left the old man alone, when he should have been with him, looking after him. And now it was too late. More than all remorse filled him when he found that the old man had been meeting all his extravagant expenses, by selling out his own money, and that the sum his mother had saved, not large, but which had grown with the years, was still intact.
He went back to his college a changed man. The old gaiety had gone, and a bitter self-scorn had come which brought out something of the old Reckavile spirit. Women he shunned with horror, as the image of the one perfect woman he had known made the others seem hollow, and talkative beyond measure.
He plunged into wild ‘rags,’ which brought him before the Warden, and drink to which he had never turned, threatened to make shameful his career.
And then the gods relented, and the cloud of War settled on the land. To Roy it was like a call to his own kingdom. Others born of generations of peaceful citizens took arms with sober patriotism, as a duty which must not be shirked, but to him generations of fighters called, with exultant shouting. Death! What did that matter! The only two he had ever loved were on the Other Side, and he wished nothing better than to pass over to them.
For glorious years he lived at grips with death, first as a private in the muddy trenches, and later with a commission, known as a reckless patrol leader, and a born fighter. He might have risen high in that Hell’s academy where such qualities mean promotion, but in ’16 he was smashed by a bomb and his wrecked body only mended in time for the final advance.
When Peace came, he heard around him the officers joyously discussing a return to civil life, and of all that they were going to do. Some were going to wives or sweethearts, one talked of his job at the bank which he hoped was still open to him. To Roy, it was an end of a mighty adventure. There was nothing to look forward to, but a bare struggle to live. He had no friends, no welcoming smile to greet him.
He knew that for the Nation it was a wonderful day of rejoicing, but to him nothing remained.
Another year in the wildest parts of Russia kept his spirit cheerful, and then he returned to demobilisation.
He had not the heart to go back to Oxford, but sought for some form of employment, where excitement and feverish activity could give forgetfulness.
His knowledge of languages, a tuneful voice, and his natural charm secured for him successive jobs in travelling companies in Europe, where in gilt and motley he sung in choruses in grand and comic opera, till fate drove him back to England, and to a small part in a travelling company of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operas. It was all hopeless, and he felt that he had only to wait till a merciful death ended the life which had become distasteful to him.