After the apparition of Mr. Prigley, the supper in the long gallery changed its character completely. Until he came it had been one of the merriest of festivals; after he went away, it became one of the dullest. A sense of uncomfortableness and embarrassment oppressed everybody present, and though many attempts were made to give the conversation something of its old liveliness, the guests soon became aware that for that time it was frozen beyond hope of recovery. It had been intended to resume the dancing after supper, but the dancing was not resumed, and the guests who intended to return to Shayton that night became suddenly impressed with so strong a sense of the distance of that place from Wenderholme, that all the pressing hospitality of the Ogdens availed not to retain them.
Notwithstanding the Philistinism of Mrs. Ogden's character, and the external hardness which she had in common with most of her contemporaries in Shayton, she was not without heart; and when she heard that her son had turned old Mrs. Stanburne out of the Cottage, she both felt disapproval and expressed it. "Jacob," she said, "you shouldn't 'ave done so." And she repeated many a time to other people in the room, "Our Jacob shouldn't 'ave done so."
And when the carriages had departed, although there were still many people in the house, Mrs. Ogden put her bonnet on, and had herself conducted to the vicarage.
The situation there might have been embarrassing for somepeople, but Mrs. Ogden was a woman who did not feel embarrassment under any circumstances. She did what was right, or she did what was wrong, in a simple and resolute way, and her very immunity from nervous reflectiveness often enabled her to do the right thing when a self-conscious person would hardly have ventured to do it. So she knocked at Mrs. Prigley's door.
It happened that the person nearest the door at that moment was Edith, who was crossing the passage from one room to another. So Edith opened the door.
Mrs. Ogden walked in at once, and asked very kindly after Mrs. Stanburne. Edith was pleased with the genuine interest in her manner, and showed her into the little sitting-room.
The news was rather more favorable than might have been hoped for. Mrs. Stanburne had had no return of unconsciousness; and though the Doctor still thought she was gradually sinking, he began to be of opinion that her illness might be much longer than was at first anticipated, and thought that she would live to see the Colonel.
"You don't know me," said Mrs. Ogden; "but as you speak of Mrs. Stanburne as your grandmamma, I know who you are. You're Miss Edith. I'm little Jacob's grandmamma—Mrs. Ogden of Milend, whom no doubt you've heard speak of."
Edith bowed slightly, and then there was rather an awkward pause.
"My son Jacob did very wrong about your grandmother in turning her out of her house. I wish we could make amends."
Edith tried to say something polite in acknowledgment of Mrs. Ogden's advance, but it ended in tears. "I'm afraid it is too late," she said, finally.
The young lady's evident love for her grandmother won the heart of Mrs. Ogden, who was herself a grandmother. "Tellme what has been done, my dear. I know nothing about it; I only heard about it to-night. Has Mrs. Stanburne removed her furniture?"
"Not quite all yet. Most of it is here, in Mr. Prigley's out-houses. It was the hurry of the removal that brought on grandmamma's illness."
"Well, my dear," said the old lady, laying her hand upon Edith's, "let us pray to God that she may live. And we'll have all the furniture put back into the Cottage."
"I don't think grandmamma would consent to that."
"But I'll make my son come and beg her pardon. I'll make him come!"
Edith could not resist Mrs. Ogden's earnestness. "I will try to bring grandmamma round, if she lives. You are very kind, Mrs. Ogden."
"Now, if you'd like me to sit up with Mrs. Stanburne, if you and Mrs. Prigley was tired, you know? I'm an old woman, but I'm a strong one, and I can sit up well enough. I've been used to nursing. I nursed our Isaac wife all through her last illness."
"Mrs. Prigley and I can do very well for to-night; but to-morrow, in the day-time, we shall need a little rest, and if you would come we should be much obliged."
"And if there was any thing I could send from the great 'ouse—any jellies or blomonge?"
"Thank you; if we want any thing we will send for it to the Hall."
Mrs. Ogden rose to take her leave, which she did very affectionately. "I am very sorry for you, my dear," she said, "and I am angry at our Jacob. He shouldn't 'ave done so—he shouldn't 'ave done so."
She had no notion of abdicating parental authority—no idea that, because a lad happened to be twenty-one, or thirty-one, or forty-one, he was to be free to do exactly as he liked. And when she got back to the Hall, and the guests were inbed, she treated "our Jacob"en petit garçon, just as if he had been fifteen. She informed him that Mrs. Stanburne's furniture would be reinstated in Wenderholme Cottage immediately, and that if she recovered he would have to go there and eat humble-pie. "An' if who doesn't get better, it'll be thee as has murdered her; and thou'll desarve to be hanged for't, same as Bill o' great John's[27]as shot old Nanny Suthers wi' a pistil."
Mrs. Ogden returned to the vicarage the next day, and found Mrs. Stanburne in the same condition of extreme exhaustion. The Rigton doctor had arrived in the interval, and relieved Dr. Bardly, who returned to Shayton. The two medical men had expressed the same opinion—namely, that the old lady was gradually, but quite surely, sinking.
Mrs. Ogden took her place by the bedside, and relieved Mrs. Prigley and Edith. The patient being perfectly conscious, and in possession of all her mental faculties, Edith had told her about Mrs. Ogden's first visit; and when she came near the bedside, Mrs. Stanburne held out her hand, or rather attempted to do so—for she had not strength to lift it—and it fell upon the counterpane. Then she whispered a few words of thanks and welcome. "My son Jacob shouldn't have done so—he shouldn't have done so," said Mrs. Ogden; and in reply there came faint syllables of forgiveness. Then Mrs. Ogden asked Mrs. Stanburne if she would prove her forgiveness by going back to Wenderholme Cottage.
"If I live, I will."
"Live! why you're sure to live. You're quite a young woman. Look at me, how strong I am, and I'm older than you are. It's nothing but the hurry and worry of leaving your 'ouse that you was accustomed to that's brought you down in this way. You'll get well again—I'm sure you will; only, we must take care of you. Now we've had enoughtalking for the present, and I'll get my sewing; and if you want any thing, I'll fetch it for you."
Then the strong old woman sat down by the bedside of the weaker one, and from that time forth established herself as one of her recognized nurses, and by no means the least efficient. In one essential point she was superior both to Edith and Mrs. Prigley—she was less melancholy and more encouraging. The others could not help crying, and the patient saw that they had been crying, which made her feel as if she were assisting at her own funeral; whereas Mrs. Ogden kept a cheerful countenance, and, though as gentle as a woman could be, had nevertheless a fine firmness and courage which made Mrs. Stanburne feel that she could rely upon her. Another immense advantage was, that in the presence of this hale and active example of a vigorous old age, Mrs. Stanburne altogether ceased to feel the burden of her years, and began to consider herself simply as a sick person in a state of temporary exhaustion, instead of an old woman whose thread of life had come to its inevitable end. Indeed, Mrs. Ogden had not been long with the invalid before both of them had given up the theory that she was gradually sinking, and replaced it by more hopeful views.
Young Jacob's interest in Mrs. Stanburne's health proved to be so strong that he could hardly absent himself from the vicarage; yet though Mrs. Ogden must have been perfectly well aware that he passed a good deal of his time there with Miss Edith, she showed no sign of displeasure, but when she found them together, seemed to consider it perfectly natural, and spoke to Edith always affectionately, calling her "my dear," and putting an unaccustomed tenderness even into the very tones of her voice. The lord of Wenderholme and his remaining guests left for Shayton in the course of the afternoon, but Mrs. Ogden declared her intention of remaining until her patient was out of danger; and though her son had suggested that young Jacob was not absolutely necessary as anurse, Mrs. Ogden asserted that it was "a great comfort" to her to have him near her, and that he should go back to Milend with his grandmother at such times as she might see fit to return thither. Jacob Ogden was a wilful and a mighty man; but either from habit or some genuine filial sentiment, or perhaps because no man can be really happy unless he is governed by a woman of some sort—either a wife, or a mother, or a maiden aunt—this hard and terrible master-spirit submitted to "the old woman" without question, and whatevershewilled was done.
In saying that all Jacob Ogden's guests went back with him to Shayton, an exception must be made in the case of his elder brother. Captain Ogden, as he was now generally called (for the people had gradually got into the habit of giving militia officers their titles), remained at Wenderholme, for reasons of his own. He knew that Colonel Stanburne had been telegraphed for, and wished to see him. Perhaps, too, he thought it might be agreeable to John Stanburne to find a sincere friend in his old place, and that he might be able in some degree to mitigate the painfulness of an unavoidable return to scenes which could not be revisited without awakening many regretful associations.
As all the Prigley children were at school except Conny, now a young lady who was supposed to have "come out," though in fact no such ceremony had taken place, from the want of any society to come out in, the vicarage was able to accommodate a good many guests, and the Prigleys were only too happy to place it at the disposal of the family to whom they owed their recent advancement in the world. It was a pleasant and spacious, though not a very elegant, house; and there was a large garden, and an orchard, and a glebe of two or three fields, with sufficient stabling and out-houses. They had set up a small pony-carriage, or rather continued that which belonged to the late vicar, which they had purchased at the sale, with pony and harness complete, for the moderatesum of nine guineas; and Conny Prigley set off in this machine to await the train by which Lady Helena was expected to arrive. This arrangement was made without Mrs. Ogden's knowledge, and when she came to be aware of it, she exclaimed, "Well, now, I wish I'd known—I do indeed, IwishI'd known—for there's my cayridge at the 'All, which is quite at your service. Our Jacob's gone back with Miss Smethurst, and he's left me my cayridge, which you would have been quite welcome to." But the Prigleys had tact enough to know, that although her ladyship rather liked to be magnificent, she might not particularly care for it to be Mrs. Ogden's magnificence; and that the little green pony-carriage, driven by Conny Prigley, was a more suitable vehicle to bring her ladyship to the vicarage than the sumptuous chariot in which Mrs. Ogden had triumphed the day before.
Lady Helena duly arrived. It did not require much explanation from Edith to make the whole situation quite clear to her perspicuous mind. She went upstairs to see Mrs. Stanburne, who was grateful to her for coming so soon, and the first person she saw in the room was Mrs. Ogden.
There was a little stiffness at first, but it did not last long. Lady Helena and Mrs. Ogden got into conversation about the state of the patient, and then about other matters connected with what might be called the diocese of the Lady of Wenderholme. Had Mrs. Ogden been one of the examples, so numerous in these days, of amazingly refined ladyhood in the middle classes, Lady Helena might have been jealous of her; but how was it possible for her ladyship to feel jealous of a simple old woman like Mrs. Ogden, who spoke broad Lancashire, and in every movement of her body, and every utterance of her lips, proclaimed the humility of her birth? Lady Helena, moreover, had a keen sense of humor, and it was impossible not to feel interested and amused, as soon as the first anxiety about Mrs. Stanburne was at least temporarily tranquillized, by Mrs. Ogden's quaint turns of expression,and her wonderful reliance on her own wisdom and experience. Even Mrs. Stanburne, ill as she was, could not help smiling, as she lay in her bed of sickness, when Mrs. Ogden came out with some of those sayings which were peculiarly her own.
The condition of the invalid had become less distressing and less alarming, though the Doctor still held out no hopes of a recovery. Mrs. Ogden, however, had succeeded in making the patient believe that she would get better because she believed it herself, and she believed it herself because the idea of a person dying of mere weakness at the early age of seventy-two was not admissible to her patriarchal mind. It was a great thing for Mrs. Stanburne to have somebody near her who did not consider that she was used up, and she began to regard Mrs. Ogden with the partiality which human nature always feels for those who preach comfortable doctrine.
As there were so many ladies to nurse Mrs. Stanburne, and as the invalid now gave comparatively little immediate anxiety, Edith easily got Lady Helena to herself for half an hour.
The young lady was firmly resolved upon one thing—namely, that this opportunity for a reconciliation between her father and mother should not be lost through any pusillanimity of hers.
"Mamma," she said boldly, "why did you leave papa when he was ruined?"
"Because he ordered me to leave him; because he turned me out of the house."
"But why did he do so? It is quite contrary to his character to turn anybody out. When he dismissed the servants, he did it very kindly, and only because he could not afford to keep them."
Lady Helena remained silent.
"Do tell me, mamma, why he behaved so. It isn't like him; you know it isn't like him."
"There are people, Edith," said her ladyship, "who commit great follies; and then, when the misfortunes come which they themselves have caused, they cannot endure to hear one word of blame. They must be pitied and sympathized with, and then they are very nice and amiable; but if you express the least censure, they fly into a passion and insult you."
"You mean that you censured papa for his imprudence, and that he got angry."
"I said very little to him. I said a few words which were strictly true. I never scold."
"No, mamma, you never scold; but scolding would be easier to bear than your blame. I see how it all was; you blamed papa in two or three terribly just and severe words, and then, after that, you said nothing to console him in his misery, and he became irritable, and said something hasty."
Lady Helena said nothing to this, but she did not look displeased; and she showed no inclination either to leave the room or to change the subject.
"Dear mamma, I don't think you did wrong in blaming papa's imprudence; but if you had given him one word of kindness afterwards, you would never have lost him."
"Is not this rather"—
"Impertinent from a daughter, you mean to say. You know I don't want to be impertinent, mamma; but I'm old enough to be of some use, and I mean to be, too, whether your ladyship is quite satisfied or not. Are you aware that papa will be here to-morrow?"
"It is natural that he should come here, as his mother is ill."
"And when he comes, we must do what we can to help him to bear his afflictions, I suppose."
"Certainly."
"Well, we won't pass any more votes of censure, mamma, will we? And we shall forgive him his trespasses, shall we not?"
To this Lady Helena made no reply; but her face worea new and a softer expression. This encouraged Edith, who continued:—
"He has suffered enough. He has been living all by himself in a miserable little French town on the Loire. I have a whole heap of his letters. He told me every thing about his situation. Grandpapa has been allowing him three hundred a-year—he has never touched a penny of it; it is paid regularly to grandmamma Stanburne, who does not know that she is ruined, and who fancies that papa has an allowance, and lives abroad for his pleasure. His letters to her are all about amusements, but he writes to me sincerely, andIknow what his life has been. He has got a post as English master in a school, and they pay him twenty-five francs a-week, but he gives lessons in the town, and gets two francs a lesson, only he has not many of these. He isen pensionin an inn. It is a miserably lonely life. I would have gone to him, but I could not leave grandmamma."
Lady Helena's eyes glistened in the firelight. They were brimming with tears. "You should have told me this sooner, Edith," she said, at last.
"Would you have gone to him? Would you have gone to live with him there, in his lodgings, and cheer him after his day's work?"
"I have been less happy, Edith, during these last months, than I should have been with him, wherever he is, however poor he is."
After this avowal of her ladyship, the chances are great, I think, that the Colonel will be agreeably received at the vicarage. Miss Edith communicated as much to the worthy vicar himself, who, though with Anglican discretion he would have avoided intruding in the character of peacemaker, thought it a duty to encourage Lady Helena in the path of charity and forgiveness.
"Forgive him heartily and entirely any thing you may have to forgive. Go to him at once when he comes. All your days will be blessed for this."
In the evening came a telegram from the Colonel, dated from Dover, and announcing his arrival for the following morning. "What a pity it is," said Lady Helena, "that he did not give us a London address! we might have spared him a whole night of anxiety." She was thinking about him just as she used to think about him in their happiest years.
On reference to the time-table, it appeared that the Colonel would arrive at the station at about eight o'clock in the morning. When Captain Ogden heard of this, he said he would go to meet him, and so did young Jacob; and Mrs. Ogden offered her carriage, and, in short, there was a general fuss, to which Lady Helena suddenly put an end by declaring her intention of going to meet him herself in the little pony-carriage that belonged to the vicarage. Mr. Prigley smiled approbation, and assured her ladyship that he would lend her that humble equipage with great pleasure, meaning a great deal more than he said.
So Lady Helena drove off in the little green carriage at six o'clock in the morning; for the station, as the reader may remember, was ten miles from Wenderholme, and it was necessary to bait the pony before he came back. It was a rude little equipage altogether, not very well hung, and by no means elegant in its proportions. The pony, too, in anticipation of winter, was beginning to put on his rough coat, and his harness had long since lost any brilliance it might have once possessed. The morning was cold and raw,and a chilly gray dawn was in the east—an aurora of the least encouraging kind, which one always feels disposed to be angry at for coming and disturbing the more cheerful darkness. Some people at the vicarage were astonished that Mr. Prigley should allow her ladyship to drive off alone in this dreary way at six o'clock in the morning; but then these people did not know all that Mr. Prigley knew. When Lady Helena got into the carriage, the vicar shook hands with her in an uncommonly affectionate manner, just as if she had been leaving him for a very long time, and then he said something to her in a very low tone. "Dear Lady Helena," he said, "God bless you!" and it is my firm belief that if Mrs. Prigley had not been within sight, that vicar would have given Lady Helena a kiss.
Away went the pony through the darkling lanes, with the rattling machine after him. Poor pony! he had often done that long journey to the station, and done it with reasonable celerity, but he had never trotted so fast as he trotted now. Can it be the early morning air that so exhilarates her ladyship? Her face is so bright and cheerful that it conquers the dreariness of the hour, and brings a better sunshine than the gray October dawn. How little we know under what circumstances we shall enjoy the purest and sweetest felicity! This little woman had been in lordly equipages, in all sorts of splendid pleasures and stately ceremonies; she had been drawn by magnificent horses, with a powdered coachman on the box, and a cluster of lacqueys behind; she had gone in diamonds and feathers to St. James's; better still, she had driven through the fairest scenery under cloudless skies, when all nature rejoiced around her. All the luxury that skilled craftsmen can produce in combination had been hers; carriages hung so delicately, and cushioned so softly, that they seemed to float on air; harness that seemed as if its only purpose were to enhance the beauty of the horses which it adorned; liveries, varnish, silver, and the rest of it. Andyet, of all the drives that Lady Helena had ever taken in her whole life,thiswas the most delightful, this drive in the dreary dawn of an October morning in a rattling little carriage with stiff springs, painted like a park paling, and drawn by a shaggy pony at the rate of six miles an hour!
She reached the station half an hour before the train came, and sat a little in the waiting-room, and walked about on the platform, in a state of nervous fidgetiness and anxiety. At length the bell rang, and the engine came round a curve, and grew bigger and bigger, and her heart beat faster and faster. "There he is, poor John, getting out of a third-class carriage!" Lady Helena had been seeking him amongst the well-to-do first-class passengers.
She ran to him, and took his hand in both hers, and said, "She's better, love—a good deal better since yesterday." And the tears ran down her cheeks.
The Colonel looked at her for a moment, and took both her hands, and would have said something, or perhaps gone so far as to give her just one little kiss on the forehead—which is a wonderful thing for an Englishman to achieve in a railway station—but these good intentions were frustrated by the guard, who, in rather a peremptory way, demanded to know whether he had any luggage.
John Stanburne felt like a man in a dream. Going back to Wenderholme, no longer his, with Helena, his own Helena once more! It was not in his nature to cherish the least vindictive feeling, and that one word of his wife had wiped away every evil recollection. When they got into the little pony-carriage, and were out of hearing of the hostler, the Colonel turned to her ladyship, and said,—
"I owe you a great many apologies, dear. I behaved very badly the last time we were together, but I was upset, you know. You are a good woman to come and meet me in this way, and forgive me. I have meant to write to you many a time and say how sorry I was, but I put it off because—because"—
It is well that the pony was quiet, and knew its own way to Wenderholme, for when they got into an uncommonly retired lane, with very high hedges, her ladyship, who was driving, threw the reins down, and embraced the gentleman by her side in an extraordinary manner. Then came passionate tears, and after that she grew calmer.
"What geese we were to fancy we could live separately!" she said.
And then they talked incessantly the whole way. She asked him a thousand questions about his life abroad,—how he passed his evenings, whether he had found any society, and so on. As the Colonel told her about his humble, lonely life, she listened with perfect sympathy; and when he said that some people had been kind to him, and got him pupils, she wanted to know all about them. "I'm getting on famously," said the Colonel. "I'm earning nearly sixty francs a-week, and I pronounce French better than I used to do."
Since we are obliged to leave the vicarage now, the reader must be told the exact truth about Mrs. Stanburne's condition. It continued to give great anxiety for several weeks, and all her friends, even including the doctors, gave her up over and over again, believing that she had not more than an hour or two to live; yet she always passed through these times of danger, and gradually, very gradually, began to feel rather stronger in the month of December. The season of the year was not favorable to her, but Dr. Bardly hoped that if she could be sustained till the return of spring, she would regain her strength, at least in a great measure, and probably have several years of life still before her. She bore the winter better than had been expected, though without quitting her room at the vicarage, and in the month of April entered upon a convalescence which astonished all around her.
The old lady's illness led to very important consequences. Since the period of her danger was protracted, her friends remained near her day after day, and week after week, always believing that they were performing the last duty by a deathbed. A great sadness reigned in the vicarage during all this season of watching, but it was sadness of the kind which is most favorable to sympathy and good feeling. The vicar and his good wife, so far from feeling the presence of the invalid and their other guests a burden, were glad that it was in their power to do any thing for her and for them;and whilst the old lady lay upon her bed of sickness she was producing happier and more important results, simply by throwing certain persons together by invisible bonds of mutual approval and a common anxiety, than she could ever have achieved by an active ingerence in their affairs. Everybody who loved old Mrs. Stanburne was grateful to everybody who gave proof of a real interest in her condition; and the majestic approach of death, whose shadow lay on the vicarage so long, subdued all its inhabitants into a more perfect spiritual harmony than they would ever have attained to amongst the distractions of gayer, though not happier, days. Lady Helena was admirable. There was a tenderness and a simplicity in her manner which pleased the Colonel greatly, and won the warm approval of the vicar. She devoted herself mainly to the care of Mrs. Stanburne, but, saying that exercise was necessary to enable her to do her duty as a nurse, made the Colonel walk out with her every day. These walks were delightful to both of them—for even though the scenery about the village of Wenderholme was full of painful associations, their sense of loss was more than balanced by the sense of a yet larger gain; and the future, though it could not have the external brilliance of the past, promised a deeper and more firm felicity. Sadness and unhappiness are two very different conditions of the mind, and it does not follow that because we are saddened we are incapable of being very happy in a certain quiet and not unenviable way. Indeed, it might even be asserted, that as
"Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought"—
"Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought"—
so it is with life itself, as well as poetry, and that our sweetest hours are far from being our gayest.
It had become tacitly understood that neither Lady Helena nor Mrs. Ogden would offer any opposition to the marriage between Jacob and Edith. Whatever Mrs. Ogden determined to do, she did in a thorough and effectual manner; and as she had resolved that amends ought to be made to the Stanburnesfor her son's conduct to the old lady, she considered that the best way to do this would be to receive Edith kindly into her family. In this resolution she was greatly helped by a genuine approval of the young lady herself. "There's some girls as brings fortunes," she said to young Jacob, "and there's other girls asisa fortune themselves, and I think Miss Stanburne will be as good as a fortune to any one who may marry her." Nor had this opinion been lightly arrived at, for during her frequent visits to the vicarage, Mrs. Ogden had studied Edith, much in the same way as an entomologist studies an insect under a microscope.
One day, when the weather became a little warmer, Lady Helena said to the Colonel, "Don't you think, dear, that we ought to go and call upon that old Mrs. Ogden at the Hall? She has been exceedingly kind in coming to sit with mamma. I would have suggested it sooner, but I was afraid it might be painful for you, dear, to go to the old house again."
So they set out and walked to the Hall together, both of them feeling very strange feelings, indeed, as they passed up the familiar avenue. When they came at last in sight of the great house, John Stanburne paused and gazed upon it for a long time without speaking. It stood just as he had left it—none of the carved Stanburne shields had been removed.
"I'm glad they've altered nothing, Helena," he said.
Then they met their old gardener, who spoke to them with the tears in his eyes. "It's different for us to what it used to be, my lady," he said; "not but what Mrs. Ogden is a good woman, but her son is a hard master."
"We were coming to see Mrs. Ogden," said Lady Helena; "do you know if she is at home?"
"You won't find her in the house, my lady; but if you will come this way, I'll take you to where she is."
Nature always puts some element of comedy into the most touching circumstances, and saves us from morbid feelings by glimpses of the ludicrous side of life. Thus, although thegardener had had tears in his eyes when he saw the Colonel and Lady Helena, there was a smile upon his face as he led them in the direction of the stables.
"Your ladyship will find Mrs. Ogden in that carriage," he said, pointing to the magnificent Ogden chariot, which stood, as if to air itself, without horses, in the middle of the yard. When he had said this, the gardener made his bow and disappeared, smiling with keen satisfaction at what he had just done.
The visitors were much surprised, but, as the gardener well knew, curiosity alone was strong enough to make them go up to the carriage and see whether there was anybody inside it. The Colonel peeped in at the window, and saw Mrs. Ogden sitting in the vehicle, apparently in quite a settled and permanent way, for she had her knitting.
"Eh, well, it's the Colonel and her ladyship, I declare!" cried Mrs. Ogden, opening the carriage-door. "Come and get in—do get in—it's very comfortable. I often come and sit here a bit of an afternoon with my knitting. But what perhaps you'd rather go and sit a bit i' th' 'ouse?"
They got inside the carriage with the old lady, and their amusement at this circumstance quite relieved those feelings of melancholy which had naturally taken possession of them on revisiting Wenderholme. The conversation was quite agreeable and animated, and half an hour passed very rapidly. After that, the callers proposed to depart.
"Nay," said Mrs. Ogden, "you willn't be going away so soon, will you? Come into th' 'ouse, now—docome and have a glass of wine."
Lady Helena promised that they would come to the house another day, but said that she wished to go back to Mrs. Stanburne. On this Mrs. Ogden said, "Well, then, if youwillgo back, sit you still." And she let down the glass and called out in a loud voice for the horses.
The horses were put to the carriage, and the visitors shortly found themselves in motion towards the vicarage, whichproves the advantage of receiving friends in a small drawing-room on four wheels. The incident created a great deal of amusement, and even old Mrs. Stanburne laughed at it very heartily. Very trifling and absurd things are often of great use in putting people in a good temper, and chasing melancholy ideas; and Mrs. Ogden's fancy for sitting in her carriage developed a wonderful amount of kindly humor at the vicarage. Nothing does people more good than laughing at their neighbors, and they love their neighbors all the better for having laughed at them; so Mrs. Ogden's popularity at the vicarage was increased by this incident, and I dare say it accelerated Mrs. Stanburne's recovery in an appreciable, though not ascertainable, degree.
Immediately after the Colonel's return from France, Captain Ogden went back to his solitude at Twistle Farm, but his son spent a good deal of his time with old Mrs. Ogden at Wenderholme. Jacob Ogden, senior, came to Wenderholme frequently to look after the work-people on the estate, but did not mark his disapproval of his nephew's proceedings otherwise than by quietly excluding him from all participation in his affairs. Although the young man passed a great deal more time at Wenderholme than his uncle did, he was never requested, and he never offered, to do any of the duties of an overlooker, and his uncle treated him strictly upon the footing of a visitor—a visitor, not to himself, but to his mother. There is so much firmness in the character of the typical Lancashire man, that he can assume, and maintain for an indefinite length of time, an attitude towards a friend or relation which would be impossible for more mobile temperaments; and young Jacob knew his uncle well enough to be aware that having once decided upon his line of conduct, there was every probability that he would follow it without deviation. Therefore, although young Jacob could have made himself of the greatest use at Wenderholme without interfering either with his amusement of shooting or his dutiful attendance upon Miss Edith; he paid no more attention to the work-people than if they had been employed by some proprietor entirely unknown to him. It is unnecessary to add, that when at Twistle Farm, where he spent aboutone week out of three, he never went near his uncle's factories.
And yet, notwithstanding the apparent indifference with which Jacob Ogden dispensed with his nephew's services, they were more than ever necessary to him. The great factories at Shayton were enough of themselves to absorb the whole time of a very active master; but, in addition to these, Jacob Ogden was now working the calico-printing establishment at Whittlecup, which had formerly belonged to Mr. Joseph Anison, and carrying out extensive improvements, not only upon the Wenderholme estate, but upon many other properties of his, scattered over the neighboring parishes, and often at a considerable distance from his headquarters at Milend. Though his constitution was a strong one, he had always taxed its strength to the utmost; and his powers were not what they had been, nor what he still believed them to be. He might have gone on for many years in the old routine that he had been accustomed to—for a hard-worked man will endure labor that seems beyond his present strength if he merely continues the habits of his better time. But a man already in the decline of life cannotaddto his labor without danger, if it is already excessive, and especially if the new labors require thought and study before they can be fully mastered. The improvements at Wenderholme, to an experienced land-owner like Jacob Ogden, required no new apprenticeship; but that was not the case with the calico-printing business at Whittlecup. It was a new trade that had to be learned, and not a very easy trade—not nearly so simple as cotton-spinning. He applied himself to it with that indomitable will and resolution which had hitherto overcome every obstacle in his career, and he rapidly acquired the new knowledge that he needed. But this effort, in addition to the enormous burden of his daily work—the daily work of a rich man who could not endure to be robbed, and would trust nothing to his agents—began to tell upon hiscerebral system in a peculiar manner; and these effects were the more dangerous that Jacob Ogden had no conception of the terrible nature of the enemy that was invading him, but believed this enemy might be conquered by his will and perseverance, as every other obstacle had been. If he had frankly consulted Dr. Bardly on the appearance of the first symptoms, and followed the advice which Dr. Bardly would have given, the evil would have been checked in time; but he felt a certain hostility to the Doctor, which disinclined him to communications which he did not feel to be immediately necessary; and even if this could have been laid aside, a man so wilful as Jacob Ogden, and so accustomed to look after his own affairs, would scarcely have consented under present circumstances to give up the management of his business to his nephew, and retire to a premature and inglorious repose.
Hitherto he had gone through his work with great energy, in combination with perfect calm. The energy still remained, it even increased; but the calm did not remain—it was succeeded by a perpetual hurry and fever. In a short time after these symptoms first developed themselves, Jacob Ogden could not add up a column of figures without excitement; when he came to the totals his heart beat violently, and he began to make mistakes, which he perceived, and was afterwards nervously anxious to avoid. As his malady increased, he could not open a letter without emotion, or sign a cheque without a strong effort of self-control; in a word, the nervous system was rapidly giving way. And instead of taking rest, which could alone have restored him to health—rest at Wenderholme amongst his own fair fields in the beautiful months of spring—he persisted and persisted, and would not allow himself to be beaten.
The people about him did not know any thing of his condition. He was more irritable, he pushed everybody faster than he had formerly done, and he was constantly movingfrom one place to another; but his determination to control himself was so strong, and his power ofappearingwell still so considerable, that such people as Mrs. Ogden and young Jacob (unaccustomed as they both were to that kind of suffering, and incapable of imagining it) had not the most distant suspicion that he had become unfit for work. Indeed, although an experienced London physician, who had made brain disease his particular study, would no doubt have seen at a glance that this was a case which needed the most watchful care, it may be doubted whether a country practitioner (even so clever, naturally, as Dr. Bardly) would have warned Jacob Ogden in time.
The overtasked brain translated its own dangerous condition byanxiety, and the anxiety was not about health, but, as often happens in such instances, about that subject which had most occupied the patient's mind before the approaches of disease—namely, money. With all his riches, Jacob Ogden grew more nervously anxious about money matters than the poorest laborer on his estate. His mind ran incessantly upon possible causes of loss; and as in the best-regulated property such causes are always infinitely numerous, he found them only too easily. The thousands of details which, when in health, he had carried in his head as lightly as we carry the words of a thoroughly mastered language, began to torment him with the apprehension that they might escape his memory; and whereas, in his better days, no fact troubled him except just at the moment when he wanted it, they now importunately intruded upon his mind when they could only disturb and confuse it.
At length, as his disease advanced towards its sure and terrible development, theanxiety, which was the form it had taken, and the mental hurry and worry which accompanied it, arrived at such a pitch that the least delicate and acute observers remarked it in Jacob Ogden's face. His mother earnestly entreated him not to torment himself so much abouthis affairs, but to take a partner, and allow himself more rest. The advice came too late. The tender cells of the cerebrum were in a state of fevered disturbance, which must now inevitably lead to one of the forms of madness.
It broke out one night at Wenderholme. He toiled till three o'clock in the morning, alone, at his accounts. There was nothing in them which he would not have mastered quite easily when in health, but the condition of his brain had led to many errors, and the attempt to correct these had only increased and multiplied them. He toiled and toiled till his brain could no longer stand the confusion, and he went mad.
First there came a sense of strangeness to every thing about him, and then a wild alarm—aterrorsuch as he had never known! For a few minutes Reason fiercely struggled to keep her seat, and would not be dispossessed. Those minutes were the most fearful the man had ever passed through. He sprang from his place, and paced the room from wall to wall in violent agitation. "I'm very ill," he thought; "I cannot tell what's the matter with me. I believe I'm going to have a fit. No, it isn't that—it isn't that; I know what it is—I know now—I'm going mad!"
No visible external foe can ever be so terrible as the mysterious internal avengers. They come upon us we know not when nor where. They come when the doors are locked, the mansion guarded, and all the household sleeps. They come in their terrible invisibility, like devils taking possession. The strokes of mortal disease are dealt mysteriouslywithin; and who would not rather meet a body of armed savages than invisible apoplexy or paralysis?
For five minutes Ogden wrestled with his invisible enemy. "Iwillnot go mad," he cried aloud—"Iwillnot!"
And a minute afterwards the struggle ceased, and he was another being, mad beyond hope of recovery.
A strange smile came over his face, and he pressed his hand upon his forehead. "I'll dodge them yet," he said;"they aren't as sharp as I am. I'm sharper than the best of them!"
He began to count the money in his purse. It was not much—five pounds eighteen exactly. He counted the sum quite correctly, over and over again; then he looked anxiously about for a place to hide it in. Whilst he was doing this, his mother, who had felt anxious about him all night, and had been unable to sleep, came to his room-door and listened. She heard him walking about and muttering to himself. Then she opened the door and went in.
He concealed his purse cunningly, and placed himself between the intruder and its hiding-place.
"Jacob," she said, "you ought to be in bed; why are you up like that? It's three o'clock in the morning."
He began to talk very rapidly. He knew his mother perfectly well. "Mother," he said, "when bailiffs comes you willn't tell 'em where I have hid my brass; see, I've hidden it here, but you willn't tell 'em, mother?" And then he lifted up a corner of the carpet and showed his little purse.
Mrs. Ogden trembled from head to foot. "Our Jacob's crazed," she said to herself—"our Jacob's gone crazed!"
She felt too weak to remain standing, and sat down, never taking her eyes off him. He put the purse back, and covered it again with great care. Then he took his memorandum-book, and seemed to be making an entry.
"Let me look at that book," Mrs. Ogden said.
It was as she had feared. The entry was a hopelessly illegible jumble of unmeaning lines and figures.
"Hadn't you better go to bed?"
"Go to bed, mother—not if I know it!" He said this with a smile of intense cunning, and then added, confidentially, "The bailiffs are comin' to-morrow, and Baron Rothschild has bought all my property, a large price, a million sterling—a million sterling; it's Baron Rothschild that bought it, mother, for a million sterling!"
The poor old woman burst into tears. "O Jacob!" she said, "I wish you wouldn't talk so!"
"Why, mother," he replied, with an injured air, and a look of intense penetration, "you know well enough what I failed for. I never should have failed if it hadn't been for that Sootythorn Bank; but they came to borrow money of me at Milend, and I took up shares for a hundred thousand, and then the smash came, and I failed. But never you mind, mother. Baron Rothschild bought my estates for a million sterling. That shows I was a millionnaire. Doesn't it, mother? for if I hadn't been worth a million, Baron Rothschild wouldn't have given a million for my property. He willn't give more for property than what it's worth."
"O Jacob! you do make me miserable with talking so."
She did not know what to do with him. Young Jacob and her son Isaac were both at Twistle Farm. At last she thought of Colonel Stanburne, who was staying at Wenderholme Cottage. She left her son for a few minutes, and sent a messenger for the Colonel. On returning to Jacob's room, she found him busy counting his money over again. He had taken the purse from its hiding-place.
The strength of her own nervous system was such that she bore even this appalling event with firmness. She was grieved beyond power of expression, but she was not overcome.
Happily there was no violence in Jacob Ogden's madness; he was not in the least dangerous. He simply kept repeating that story about his supposed failure, which he always attributed to the Sootythorn Bank, and the purchase of his property by Baron Rothschild. When the Colonel came, he told him the same story in the same words.
"You are mistaken on one point," the Colonel said. "It was I, Colonel Stanburne, who was ruined by the failure of the Sootythorn Bank, not you. You were never ruined. You purchased Wenderholme."
Mr. Ogden looked at him with the air of a professional man when a layman has advanced something which he knows to be absurd. Then he shook his head, and repeated the story about Baron Rothschild.
The Colonel kindly remained with him till morning, and bravely watched him through the dreary hours. A messenger had been despatched on horseback to Twistle Farm and to Dr. Bardly. Isaac Ogden and his son were at Wenderholme by breakfast-time, and the Doctor's brougham drove up very shortly afterwards.
Dr. Bardly tried to be encouraging. "He has been working too much," he said, "and made himself too anxious; he may get round again with rest and care. Give him good roast-meat and plenty of physical work."
But about ten o'clock Jacob Ogden became anxious to quit Wenderholme, being full of apprehension about the bailiffs. "Better let him have his own way," said the Doctor; so he was taken to Milend.
At Milend, however, there were other causes of anxiety. The bailiffs tormented him at Wenderholme; the idea of Baron Rothschild haunted him at Milend.
The experiment was tried of showing him the factory and the counting-house, but with most discouraging results. The factory produced a degree of excitement which, if continued, would probably lead to madness of an aggravated and far more dangerous kind.
Specialists were telegraphed for from Manchester and from London, and a consultation was held. They agreed that the patient must be kept out of the way of every thing that might remind him of his former career, recommending extreme tranquillity, good but simple diet, and as much physical exercise as the patient could be induced to take.
These might be had conveniently in Mrs. Ogden's favorite little farm, the Cream-pot. It was situated in a glen or clough, out of sight of the Shayton factory-chimneys.
So the old lady went there to live with her afflicted son. She could manage him better than anybody else, and he was never dangerous.
After a time, a happy discovery was made. He counted the money in his purse several times a-day, and Mrs. Ogden told him that if he would dig their little garden, she would pay him wages. He seized upon this idea with great joy and eagerness, and she paid him a sovereign on the Saturday night. The week following he worked very hard, and counted the days, and spoke of his anticipated earnings with delight. So his mother paid him another sovereign, and ever afterwards this became the rule, and she employed him at a pound a-week.
He kept all the sovereigns in his purse, and they were his joy and treasure. His physical health became excellent, and though his intellect gave no hope of restoration, his days passed not unhappily. His mother tended him with the most touching devotion, and a self-sacrifice so absolute that she ceased to visit her friends, and abandoned all the little amusements and varieties of her life.
The long illness and slow convalescence of Mrs. Stanburne, and the deplorable mental affliction which fell upon Jacob Ogden, and threw a cloud of lasting sadness over the whole Ogden family, produced long delays in the projects of young Jacob and Edith, and were the cause of much indecision on the part of the Colonel and Lady Helena. Mrs. Stanburne returned to Wenderholme Cottage in the earliest days of spring, but the Colonel and his wife had already stayed there for many weeks, being anxious not to abuse the kind hospitality of the vicarage. The vicar's sentiments when they left him were of a mixed kind. He was glad, and he was sorry. In his gladness there was no selfish calculation—the Stanburnes were welcome to every thing he could offer them; but in his warm approval of Lady Helena's conduct towards the Colonel, he had been a little too demonstrative to be quite agreeable to Mrs. Prigley, and therefore Mrs. Prigley had thought it incumbent upon her, as a British matron of unspotted virtue, to make his life as miserable as she could. Mrs. Ogden, too, had inflamed Mrs. Prigley's jealousy in another way by coming and nursing Mrs. Stanburne. What right had one of those "nasty Ogdens" to come and nurse Mrs. Stanburne? Mrs. Prigley looked upon the invalid as exclusively her own property. Edith, being young and insignificant, might sit a little with her grandmother—but Mrs. Ogden!
If Lady Helena had not come just in time to take uponherself a good deal of this now inflamed and awakened jealousy, the consequence would have been that poor Mr. Prigley would have incurred grave suspicions of an amorous intrigue with the old lady of Milend; but as Lady Helena was younger than Mrs. Prigley, and Mrs. Ogden a good deal her senior, the vicaress paid her husband the compliment of believing that he had placed his sinful affections on the more eligible of the two ladies. So soon, therefore, as she had ascertained to her own satisfaction the culpability of the guilty pair (and when the commonest politeness was evidence, proofs were not far to seek), the vicaress treated her ladyship with the haughty coldness which is the proper behavior of a virtuous and injured woman towards her sinful rival, and she treated her husband as his abominable wickedness deserved. In a word, she made life utterly insupportable for Mr. Prigley.
Lady Helena saw the true situation of affairs before the parson did (for he in his masculine simplicity attributed his wife's behavior to any cause but the right one), and she migrated at once to the Cottage with the Colonel. When Mrs. Stanburne was well enough to bear the removal, she was brought back to her old house, and continued steadily to improve. Still her health was far from being strong enough to make the idea of leaving her an admissible one, so the Colonel and Lady Helena remained at Wenderholme a long time. Young Jacob came frequently to see Edith, but the marriage, though now agreed upon by all parties, was indefinitely postponed.
Whilst matters were in this state of suspension, the relation between Mr. Jacob Ogden and his family had to be legally settled. His brother Isaac received the factories and estates, in trust, conjointly with his mother, with the usufruct thereof, £500 a-year being set aside for the patient's maintenance. On account of the urgency of the situation, but much against the grain of his now acquired habits, Mr. Isaac Ogden quittedhis solitude at Twistle Farm, and resumed, at Milend, the life of a cotton-manufacturer, in partnership with his son.
Meanwhile Colonel Stanburne's position was, from the financial point of view, any thing but brilliant. He had no income, after paying the allowance to his mother, except a share in the £300 a-year remaining to his wife. He was anxious to return to France and resume the humble profession which he had found for himself there. Lady Helena said that wherever he went she would go too, and nothing but the slowness of Mrs. Stanburne's recovery prevented them from leaving England.
They were in this state—being, as things in life often are, in a sort of temporary but indefinite lull and calm—when an event occurred which produced the most important changes.
Mr. John Stedman being on a visit to his friend at Stanithburn Peel, took one of his customary long walks amongst the wild rocky hills in that neighborhood, and was caught—not for the first time—in a sudden storm of rain. By the time the storm was over he was wet through, but being interested in the search for a plant, went on wandering till rather late in the evening. If he had kept constantly in movement it is probable that no harm would have resulted from this little imprudence, but unfortunately he found the plant he was in search of, and this led him to do a little botanical anatomy with a microscope which he carried in his pocket. Absorbed in this occupation, he sat down on the bare rock, and forgot the minutes as they passed. He spent more than an hour in this way, and rose from his task with a feeling of chill, and a slight shiver, which, however, disappeared when his pedestrian exercise was resumed. On returning to the Peel he thought no more of the matter, and ate a hearty dinner, sitting rather late afterwards with Philip Stanburne, and drinking more than his usual allowance of brandy-and-water. The next day he did not go out, and towards evening complained of a slight pain or embarrassment in the chest. Thesymptoms gradually became alarming, a doctor was sent for, and Mr. Stedman's illness was discovered to be a congestion of both lungs.
Of this malady he died. In his will, after various legacies, liberal but not excessive, to all the poor people who were his relations, and the relations of his deceased wife, he named "his dear friend and son, Philip Stanburne," residuary legatee, "both in token of his own friendship and gratitude towards the said Philip Stanburne, and also because in making this bequest the testator believes that he is best fulfilling the wishes of his beloved daughter, Alice."
But, notwithstanding John Stedman's affectionate friendship for the man whom Alice had loved, there still remained in him much of the resolution of a stalwart enemy of Rome, and the resolution dictated a certain codicil written not long before his death. In this codicil he provided that, "in case the said Philip Stanburne should enter any order of the Church of Rome, whether secular or ecclesiastical, or endow the said Church of Rome with any portion of his wealth, then the foregoing will and testament should be void, and of none effect. And further, that the said Philip Stanburne should solemnly promise never to give or bequeath to the Church of Rome any portion of this bequest, and in case of his refusal to make such promise," the money should be disposed of as we will now explain.
The testator proceeded to affirm that it was still his desire to leave part of his property in such a manner as to testify his gratitude to Philip Stanburne; and therefore, if the latter took orders in the Church of Rome, Mr. Stedman's bequest should still pass to a person of the name of Stanburne, but professing the Protestant religion—namely, to John Stanburne, formerly of Wenderholme. In this case, however, a large deduction would be made from the legacy in favor of an intimate friend of the testator, Joseph Anison, formerly of Arkwright Lodge, near Whittlecup. All this was set forthwith that minute and tedious detail which is necessary, or is supposed to be necessary, in every legal document.
Now for several years past Philip Stanburne had been firmly resolved, on the death of Mr. Stedman (which would release him from his promise to Alice), to enter a monastic order remarkable for industry and simplicity of life, founded by the celebrated Father Muard, but since affiliated to the Benedictines; and it was a suspicion of this resolve, or perhaps more than a suspicion, which had dictated Mr. Stedman's codicil. The will made no difference in Philip Stanburne's plans, and he was delighted that the Colonel should inherit what would probably turn out to be a fortune. When the question was formally put to him, he affirmed his intention of being a monk ofLa Pierre qui Vire.
In consequence of this declaration, the codicil took effect. The factory in Sootythorn, the house at Chesnut Hill, and a capital sum of £20,000, went to Mr. Joseph Anison; but even after all the legacies to poor relations, there still remained a residue of £35,000, which passed directly to the Colonel. Mr. Stedman had been much richer than any one believed, and his fortune, already considerable in the lifetime of his daughter, had doubled since her death.
Philip Stanburne, who had been occasionally to Wenderholme since the Colonel's return, to inquire after Mrs. Stanburne, and pass an hour or two with an old friend, now proposed to sell him Stanithburn Peel. "It would make me miserable," he said, "to sell it to anybody else, but to you it's different. Buy it, and go to live there."
But he did not really sell the Peel itself. He sold the land, and gave the strong old tower. The place was valued by friends, mutually appointed, who received a hint from Philip that they were not to count the Peel. The Colonel knew nothing about this, but gave £20,000 for the estate, and invested the remainder of his capital in something better than the Sootythorn Bank.
As Mrs. Stanburne was now well enough to be left, the Colonel and Lady Helena set off one fine day for Stanithburn. The Peel had been admirably restored, though with great moderation, in Philip Stanburne's quiet and persevering way, and all its incongruities and anachronisms had been removed. When they came to the front door, who should open it but—Fyser!
"Please, sir," he said, "would you be so kind as to take me on again?"
The Colonel said not a word in answer, but he gave honest Fyser's hand such a shake that it was perfectly natural the tears should come into his eyes. The tears would come into anybody's eyes if his hand was squeezed like that.
Whilst her ladyship went to take her things off, Fyser said, "Would you like to step this way, sir?" The Colonel followed obediently.
"This will be your den, I suppose, sir, unless you would like to have it in another part of the 'ouse."
John Stanburne felt like a man in a dream. There was every scrap of his old den-furniture in the place. Philip Stanburne had bought it all at the Wenderholme sale—every atom of it, even to his old boot-jack. And as Mr. Fyser had had the arrangement of it, you may be sure that it was in the old convenient and accustomed order.
But the Colonel and Lady Helena were still more surprised to find in the principal rooms of the house various cabinets and other things of value which had formerly been at Wenderholme, and especially a museum of family relics which had occupied the centre of the great hall. In these cabinets and cases little plates of silver were discovered, on examination, to be inlaid, and each of these little plates was engraved with the inscription, "Presented to Colonel Stanburne by the Officers of the Twentieth Royal Lancashire Militia."
The regiment happened to be just then up for its annual training under a major-commanding, no new colonel havingas yet been appointed. And one day there came rather a solemn deputation of officers to Stanithburn Peel, all in full uniform.
The spokesman of the deputation was our old acquaintance, Captain Eureton. He began by informing Colonel Stanburne that, although the lieutenant-colonelcy had been offered to the senior major, he had begged the lord-lieutenant to permit him to remain at the head of the regiment as major-commanding; and that now he and all the officers unanimously joined in entreating Colonel Stanburne to withdraw his resignation, and resume his old position amongst them. There was no mistaking the earnestness and sincerity of this petition, and John Stanburne consented. He was received at Sootythorn at a great banquet given by the officers just before the disbanding of the regiment; and at the review which concluded the training, it was John Stanburne who commanded.