on a fine afternoon in august—and the month was now drawing towards its close—the 2.25 train from london steamed into the station at helstonleigh, eight minutes behind time, and came to a standstill. amongst the passengers who alighted, was a gentleman of middle age, as it is called—in point of fact, he had entered his fiftieth year, as the peerage would have told any curious inquirer. as he stepped out of a first-class carriage, several eyes were drawn towards him, for he was of notable height, towering above every one; even above roland yorke, who was of good height himself, and stood on the platform waiting for him.
it was the earl of carrick, brother to lady augusta yorke, and much resembling her—a pleasant, high cheek-boned, easy face, betraying more of good humour than of high or keen intellect, and nothing of pride. the pride of the young yorkes was sometimes talked of in helstonleigh, but it came from their father’s side, not from lady augusta’s. the earl spoke with a slight brogue, and shook both roland’s hands heartily, as soon as he found that it was to roland they belonged.
“sure then! but i didn’t know ye, roland! if ye had twenty years more on to ye’re head, i should have thought it was ye’re father.”
“have i grown like him, uncle carrick?”
“ye’ve grown out of knowledge, me boy. and how’s ye’re mother, and how are the rest of ye?”
“stunning,” responded roland. “they are all outside. she would bring up the whole caravan. the last time the lot came to the station, the two young ones got upon the line to dance a hornpipe on the rails; so she has kept them by her, and is making gerald and tod look after them. where’s your luggage, uncle carrick? have you brought a servant?”
“not i,” replied the earl. “servants are only troubles in other folk’s houses, and me bit of luggage isn’t so much but i can look after it meself. i hope they put it in,” he continued, looking about amid the boxes and portmanteaus, and unable to see his own.
the luggage was found at last, and given in charge of a porter; and lord carrick went out to meet his relatives. there were enough of them to meet—the whole caravan, as roland had expressed it. lady augusta sat in her barouche—her two daughters and constance and annabel channing with her. little percy and frank, two most troublesome children, were darting in and out amidst the carriages, flys, and omnibuses; and gerald and tod had enough to do to keep them out of danger. it was so like lady augusta—bringing them all to the station to welcome their uncle! warm-hearted and impulsive, she had little more judgment than a child. constance had in vain protested against herself and annabel being pressed into the company; but her ladyship looked upon it as a sort of triumphal expedition, and was deaf to remonstrances.
the earl, warm-hearted and impulsive also, kissed them all, constance included. she could not help herself; before she was aware of the honour intended her, the kiss was given—a hearty smack, as all the rest had. the well-meaning, simple-minded irishman could not have been made to understand why he should not give a kiss of greeting to constance as readily as he gave it to his sister, or his sister’s daughters. he protested that he remembered constance and annabel well. it may be questioned whether there was not more of irish politeness than of truth in the assertion, though he had seen them occasionally, during his visit of three years ago.
how were they all to get home? in and on the barouche, as all, except roland, had come, to the gratification of the curious town? lord carrick wished to walk; his long legs were cramped: but lady augusta would not hear of it, and pulled him into the carriage, gerald, percy, and frank were fighting for places on the box beside the driver, tod intending to hang on behind, as he had done in coming, when the deep-toned college bell struck out a quarter to three, and the sound came distinctly to their ears, borne from the distance. it put a stop to the competition, so far as gerald was concerned. he and tod, startled half out of their senses, for they had not observed the lapse of time, set off on foot as hard as they could go.
meanwhile, roland, putting aside the two young ones with his strong hand, chose to mount the box himself; at which they both began to shriek and roar. matters were compromised after a while; percy was taken up by roland, and frank was, by some process of packing, stowed away inside. then the cargo started! lady augusta happy as a princess, with her newly-met brother and her unruly children, and not caring in the least for the gaze of the people who stood in the street, or came rushing to their windows and doors to criticise the load.
crowded as the carriage was, it was pleasanter to be in it, on that genial day, than to be at work in close rooms, dark shops, or dull offices. amongst others, who were so confined and hard at work, was jenkins at mr. galloway’s. poor jenkins had not improved in health during the week or two that had elapsed since you last saw him. his cough was more troublesome still, and he was thinner and weaker. but jenkins, humble and conscientious, thinking himself one who was not worth thinking of at all in comparison with others, would have died at his post rather than give in. certainly, arthur channing had been discharged at a most inopportune moment, for mr. galloway, as steward to the dean and chapter, had more to do about michaelmas, than at any other time of the year. from that epoch until november, when the yearly audit took place, there was a good deal of business to be gone through.
on this afternoon, jenkins was particularly busy. mr. galloway was away from home for a day or two—on business connected with that scapegrace cousin of his, roland yorke proclaimed; though whether mr. roland had any foundation for the assertion, except his own fancy, may be doubted—and jenkins had it all upon his own shoulders. jenkins, unobtrusive and meek though he was, was perfectly competent to manage, and mr. galloway left him with entire trust. but it is one thing to be competent to manage, and another thing to be able to do two persons’ work in one person’s time; and, that, jenkins was finding this afternoon. he had letters to write; he had callers to answer; he had the general business of the office to attend to; he had the regular deeds to prepare and copy. the copying of those deeds was the work belonging to roland yorke. roland did not seem to be in a hurry to come to them. jenkins cast towards them an anxious eye, but jenkins could do no more, for his own work could not be neglected. he felt very unwell that afternoon—oppressed, hot, unable to breathe. he wiped the moisture from his brow three or four times, and then thought he might be the better for a little air, and opened the window. but the breeze, gentle as it was, made him cough, and he shut it again.
of course, no one, knowing mr. roland yorke, could be surprised at his starting to the station to meet lord carrick, instead of to the office to do his work. he had gone home at one o’clock that day, as usual. not that there was any necessity for his doing so, for the dinner hour was postponed until later, and it would have furthered the business of the office had he remained for once at his post. had any one suggested to roland to do so, he would have thought he was going to be worked to death. about twenty minutes past three he came clattering in.
“i say, jenkins, i want a holiday this afternoon.”
jenkins, albeit the most accommodating spirit in the world, looked dubious, and cast a glance at the papers on roland’s desk. “yes, sir. but what is to be done about the uphill farm leases?”
“now, jenkins, it’s not a bit of good for you to begin to croak! if i gave in to you, you’d get as bad as galloway. when i have my mind off work, i can’t settle to it again, and it’s of no use trying. those uphill deeds are not wanted before to-morrow.”
“but they are wanted by eleven o’clock, sir, so that they must be finished, or nearly finished, to-night. you know, sir, there has been a fuss about them, and early to-morrow, is the very latest time they must be sent in.”
“i’ll get up, and be here in good time and finish them,” said roland. “just put it to yourself, jenkins, if you had an uncle that you’d not seen for seventeen ages, whether you’d like to leave him the minute he puts his foot over the door-sill.”
“i dare say i should not, sir,” said good-natured jenkins, turning about in his mind how he could make time to do roland’s work. “his lordship is come, then, mr. roland?”
“his lordship’s come, bag and baggage,” returned roland. “i say, jenkins, what a thousand shames it is that he’s not rich! he is the best-natured fellow alive, and would do anything in the world for us, if he only had the tin.”
“is he not rich, sir?”
“why, of course he’s not,” confidentially returned roland. “every one knows the embarrassments of lord carrick. when he came into the estates, they had been mortgaged three deep by the last peer, my grandfather—an old guy in a velvet skull-cap, i remember, who took snuff incessantly—and my uncle, on his part, had mortgaged them three deep again, which made six. how carrick manages to live nobody knows. sometimes he’s in ireland, in the tumble-down old homestead, with just a couple of servants to wait upon him; and sometimes he’s on the continent, en gar?on—if you know what that means. now and then he gets a windfall when any of his tenants can be brought to pay up; but he is the easiest-going coach in life, and won’t press them. wouldn’t i!”
“some of those irish tenants are very poor, sir, i have heard.”
“poor be hanged! what is a man’s own, ought to be his own. carrick says there are some years that he does not draw two thousand pounds, all told.”
“indeed, sir! that is not much for a peer.”
“it’s not much for a commoner, let alone a peer,” said roland, growing fierce. “if i were no better off than carrick, i’d drop the title; that’s what i’d do. why, if he could live as a peer ought, do you suppose we should be in the position we are? one a soldier; one (and that’s me) lowered to be a common old proctor; one a parson; and all the rest of it! if carrick could be as other earls are, and have interest with the government, and that, we should stand a chance of getting properly provided for. of course he can make interest with nobody while his estates bring him in next door to nothing.”
“are there no means of improving his estates, mr. roland?” asked jenkins.
“if there were, he’s not the one to do it. and i don’t know that it would do him any material good, after all,” acknowledged roland. “if he gets one thousand a year, he spends two; and if he had twenty thousand, he’d spend forty. it might come to the same in the long run, so far as he goes: we might be the better for it, and should be. it’s a shame, though, that we should need to be the better for other folk’s money; if this were not the most unjust world going, everybody would have fortunes of their own.”
after this friendly little bit of confidence touching his uncle’s affairs, roland prepared to depart. “i’ll be sure to come in good time nn the morning, jenkins, and set to it like a brick,” was his parting salutation.
away he went. jenkins, with his aching head and his harassing cough, applied himself diligently, as he ever did, to the afternoon’s work, and got through it by six o’clock, which was later than usual. there then remained the copying, which mr. roland yorke ought to have done. knowing the value of roland’s promises, and knowing also that if he kept this promise ever so strictly, the amount of copying was more than could be completed in time, if left to the morning, jenkins did as he had been aware he must do, when talking with roland—took it home with him.
the parchments under his arm, he set out on his walk. what could be the matter with him, that he felt so weak, he asked himself as he went along. it must be, he believed, having gone without his dinner. jenkins generally went home to dinner at twelve, and returned at one; occasionally, however, he did not go until two, according to the exigencies of the office; this day, he had not gone at all, but had cut a sandwich at breakfast-time and brought it with him in his pocket.
he had proceeded as far as the elm trees in the boundaries—for jenkins generally chose the quiet cloister way for his road home—when he saw arthur channing advancing towards him. with the ever-ready, respectful, cordial smile with which he was wont to greet arthur whenever he saw him, jenkins quickened his steps. but suddenly the smile seemed to fix itself upon his lips; and the parchments fell from his arm, and he staggered against the palings. but that arthur was at hand to support him, he might have fallen to the ground.
“why, what is it, jenkins?” asked arthur, kindly, when jenkins was beginning to recover himself.
“thank you, sir; i don’t know what it could have been. just as i was looking at you, a mist seemed to come before my eyes, and i felt giddy. i suppose it was a sort of faintness that came over me. i had been thinking that i felt weary. thank you very much, sir.”
“take my arm, jenkins,” said arthur, as he picked up the parchments, and took possession of them. “i’ll see you home.”
“oh no, sir, indeed,” protested simple-hearted jenkins; “i’d not think of such a thing. i should feel quite ashamed, sir, at the thought of your being seen arm-in-arm with me in the street. i can go quite well alone; i can, indeed, sir.”
arthur burst out laughing. “i wish you wouldn’t be such an old duffer, jenkins—as the college boys have it! do you suppose i should let you go home by yourself? come along.”
drawing jenkins’s arm within his own, arthur turned with him. jenkins really did not like it. sensitive to a degree was he: and, to his humble mind, it seemed that arthur was out of place, walking familiarly with him.
“you must have been doing something to tire yourself,” said arthur as they went along.
“it has been a pretty busy day, sir, now mr. galloway’s away. i did not go home to dinner, for one thing.”
“and mr. roland yorke absent for another, i suppose?”
“only this afternoon, sir. his uncle, lord carrick, has arrived. oh, sir!” broke off jenkins, stopping in a panic, “here’s his lordship the bishop coming along! whatever shall you do?”
“do!” returned arthur, scarcely understanding him. “what should i do?”
“to think that he should see you thus with the like of me!”
it amused arthur exceedingly. poor, lowly-minded jenkins! the bishop appeared to divine the state of the case, for he stopped when he came up. possibly he was struck by the wan hue which overspread jenkins’s face.
“you look ill, jenkins,” he said, nodding to arthur channing. “keep your hat on, jenkins—keep your hat on.”
“thank you, my lord,” replied jenkins, disregarding the injunction touching his hat. “a sort of faintness came over me just now under the elm trees, and this gentleman insisted upon walking home with me, in spite of my protestations to—”
jenkins was stopped by a fit of coughing—a long, violent fit, sounding hollow as the grave. the bishop watched him till it was over. arthur watched him.
“i think you should take better care of yourself, jenkins,” remarked his lordship. “is any physician attending you?”
“oh, my lord, i am not ill enough yet for that. my wife made me go to mr. hurst the other day, my lord, and he gave me a bottle of something. but he said it was not medicine that i wanted.”
“i should advise you to go to a physician, jenkins. a stitch in time saves nine, you know,” the bishop added, in his free good humour.
“so it does, my lord. thank your lordship for thinking of me,” added jenkins, as the bishop said good afternoon, and pursued his way. and then, and not till then, did jenkins put on his hat again.
“mr. arthur, would you be so kind as not to say anything to my wife about my being poorly?” asked jenkins, as they drew near to his home. “she’d be perhaps, for saying i should not go again yet to the office; and a pretty dilemma that would put me in, mr. galloway being absent. she’d get so fidgety, too: she kills me with kindness, if she thinks i am ill. the broth and arrowroot, and other messes, sir, that she makes me swallow, are untellable.”
“all right,” said arthur.
but the intention was frustrated. who should be standing at the shop-door but mrs. jenkins herself. she saw them before they saw her, and she saw that her husband looked like a ghost, and was supported by arthur. of course, she drew her own conclusions; and mrs. jenkins was one who did not allow her conclusions to be set aside. when jenkins found that he was seen and suspected, he held out no longer, but honestly confessed the worst—that he had been taken with a giddiness.
“of course,” said mrs. jenkins, as she pushed a chair here and another there, partly in temper, partly to free the narrow passage through the shop to the parlour. “i have been expecting nothing less all day. every group of footsteps slower than usual, i have thought it was a shutter arriving and you on it, dropped dead from exhaustion. would you believe”—turning short round on arthur channing—“that he has been such a donkey as to fast from breakfast time? and with that cough upon him!”
“not quite so fast, my dear,” deprecated jenkins. “i ate the paper of sandwiches.”
“paper of rubbish!” retorted mrs. jenkins. “what good do sandwiches do a weakly man? you might eat a ton-load, and be none the better for it. well, jenkins, you may take your leave of having your own way.”
poor jenkins might have deferentially intimated that he never did have it. mrs. jenkins resumed:
“he said he’d carry a sandwich with him this morning, instead of coming home to dinner. i said, ‘no.’ and afterwards i was such a simpleton as to yield! and here’s the effects of it! sit yourself down in the easy-chair,” she added, taking jenkins by the arms and pushing him into it. “and i’ll make the tea now,” concluded she, turning to the table where the tea-things were set out. “there’s some broiled fowl coming up for you.”
“i don’t feel as if i could eat this evening,” jenkins ventured to say.
“not eat!” she repeated with emphasis. “you had better eat—that’s all. i don’t want to have you falling down exhausted here, as you did in the boundaries.”
“and as soon as you have had your tea, you should go to bed,” put in arthur.
“i can’t, sir. i have three or four hours’ work at that deed. it must be done.”
“at this?” returned arthur, opening the papers he had carried home. “oh, i see; it is a lease. i’ll copy this for you, jenkins. i have nothing to do to-night. you take your ease, and go to bed.”
and in spite of their calls, jenkins’s protestations against taking up his time and trouble, and mrs. jenkins’s proffered invitation to partake of tea and broiled fowl, arthur departed carrying off the work.
