autumn leaves were strewing the ground, autumn skies were overhead. a ray of the sun came slanting into the library, passing right across the face of sir geoffry chavasse. the face had an older expression on it than his thirty years would justify. it looked worn and weary, and the bright hair, with its golden tinge, was less carefully arranged than it used to be, as if exertion were becoming a burden, or that vanity no longer troubled him; and his frame was almost painfully thin; and a low hacking cough took him at intervals. it might have been thought that sir geoffry was a little out of health, and wanted a change. lady chavasse, his mother, had begun to admit a long-repressed doubt whether any change would benefit him.
a common desk of stained walnut-wood was open on the table before him: he had been reading over and putting straight some papers it contained — notes and diaries, and so forth. two or three of these he tore across and threw into the fire. out of a bit of tissue paper, he took a curl of bright brown hair, recalling the day and hour when he had surreptitiously cut it off, and refused to give it up again to its blushing owner. recalling also the happy feelings of that time — surreptitiously still, as might be said, for what business had he with them now? holding the hair to his lips for a brief interval, he folded it up again, and took out another bit of paper. this contained a lady’s ring of chased gold set with a beautiful and costly emerald. in those bygone years he had bought the ring, thinking to give it in payment of the stolen hair; but the young lady in her shyness had refused so valuable a present. sir geoffry held the ring so that its brightness glittered in the sun, and then wrapped it up again. next he unfolded a diary, kept at that past period, and for a short time afterwards: then it was abruptly broken off, and had never since been written in. he smiled to himself as he read a page here and there — but the smile was full of sadness.
lady chavasse came into the room rather abruptly: sir geoffry shut up the diary, and prepared to close and lock the desk. there was a disturbed, restless, anxious look on my lady’s face: there was a far more anxious and bitter pain ever making havoc with her heart.
“why, geoffry! have you got out that old desk?”
sir geoffry smiled as he carried it to its obscure place in a dark corner of the library. when he was about twelve years old, and they were passing through london, he went to the lowther arcade and bought this desk, for which he had been saving up his shillings.
“i don’t believe any lad ever had so valuable a prize as i thought i had purchased in that desk, mother,” was his laughing remark.
“i dare say it has a great deal of old rubbish in it,” said lady chavasse, slightingly.
“not much else — for all the good it can ever be. i was only glancing over the rubbish — foolish mementoes of foolish days. these days are weary; and i hardly know how to make their hours fly.”
lady chavasse sighed at the words. he used to go shooting in the autumn — fishing — hunting once in a way, in the later season: he had not strength for these sports now.
opening the desk he commonly used, a very handsome one that had been lady chavasse’s present to him, he took a small book from it and put it into his breast-pocket. lady chavasse, watching all his movements, as she had grown accustomed to do, saw and knew what the book was — a bible. perhaps nothing had struck so much on my lady’s fears as the habit he had fallen into of often reading the bible. she had come upon him doing it in all kinds of odd places. out amidst the rocks at the seaside where they had recently been staying — and should have stayed longer but that he grew tired and wanted to come home; out in the seats of this garden, amidst the roses, or where the roses had him with this small bible. he always slipped it away when she or any one else approached: but the habit was casting on her spirit a very ominous shadow. it seemed to show her that he knew he must be drawing near to the world that the bible tells of, and was making ready for his journey. how her heart ached, ached always, lady chavasse would not have liked to avow.
“where’s rachel?” he asked.
“on her sofa, upstairs.”
sir geoffry stirred the fire mechanically, his thoughts elsewhere — just as he had stirred it in a memorable interview of the days gone by. unconsciously they had taken up the same position as on that unhappy morning: he with his elbow on the mantelpiece, and his face partly turned from his mother; she in the same chair, and on the same red square of the turkey carpet. the future had been before them then: it lay in their own hands, so to say, to choose the path for good or for ill. sir geoffry had pointed out which was the right one to take, and said that it would bring them happiness. but my lady had negatived it, and he could only bow to her decree. and so, the turning tide was passed, not seized upon, and they had been sailing on a sea tolerably smooth, but without depth in it or sunshine on it. what had the voyage brought forth? not much. and it seemed, so far as one was concerned, nearly at an end now.
“i fancy rachel cannot be well, mother,” observed sir geoffry, “she would not lie down so much if she were.”
“a little inertness, geoffry, nothing more. about christmas?” continued lady chavasse. “shall you be well enough to go to the derrestons’, do you think?”
“i think we had better let christmas draw nearer before laying out any plans for it,” he answered.
“yes, that’s all very well: but i am going to write to lady derreston today, and she will expect me to mention it. shall you like to go?”
a moment’s pause, and then he turned to her: his clear, dark-blue eyes, ever kind and gentle, looking straight into hers; his voice low and tender.
“i do not suppose i shall ever go away from the grange again.”
she turned quite white. was it coming so near as that? a kind of terror took possession of her.
“geoffry! geoffry!”
“my darling mother, i will stay with you if i can; you know that. but the fiat does not lie with you or with me.”
sir geoffry went behind her chair, and put his arms round her playfully, kissing her with a strange tenderness of heart that he sought to hide.
“it may be all well yet, mother. don’t let it trouble you before the time.”
she could not make any rejoinder, could not speak, and quitted the room to hide her emotion.
in the after-part of the day the surgeon, duffham, bustled in. his visit was later than usual.
“and how are you, sir geoffry?” he asked, as they sat alone, facing each other between the table and the fire.
“much the same, duffham.”
“look here, sir geoffry — you should rally both yourself and your spirits. it’s of no use giving way to illness. there’s a certain listlessness upon you; i’ve seen it for some time. shake it off.”
“willingly — if you will give me the power to do so,” was sir geoffry’s reply. “the listlessness you speak of proceeds from the fact that my health and energies fail me. as to my spirits, there’s nothing the matter with them.”
mr. duffham turned over with his fingers a glass paper-weight that happened to lie on the table, as if he wanted to see the fishing-boats on the sea that its landscape represented, and then he glanced at sir geoffry.
“of course you wish to get well?”— with a slight emphasis on the “wish.”
“most certainly i wish to get well. for my mother’s sake — and of course also for my wife’s, as well as for my own. i don’t expect to, though, duffham.”
“well, that’s saying a great deal,” retorted duffham, pretending to make a mockery of it.
“i’ve not been strong for some time — as you may have seen, perhaps: but since the beginning of may, when the intensely hot weather came in, i have felt as — as ——”
“as what, sir geoffry?”
“as though i should never live to see another may, hot or cold.”
“unreasonable heat has that effect on some people, sir geoffry. tries their nerves.”
“i am not aware that it tries mine. my nerves are as sound as need be. the insurance offices won’t take my life at any price, duffham,” he resumed.
“have you tried them?”
“two of the best in london. when i began to grow somewhat doubtful about myself in the spring, i thought of the future of those near and dear to me, and would have insured my life for their benefit. the doctors refused to certify. since then i have felt nearly sure in my own mind that what must be will be. and, day by day, i have watched the shadow drawing nearer.”
the doctor leaned forward and spoke a few earnest words of encouragement, before departing. sir geoffry was only too willing to receive them — in spite of the inward conviction that lay upon him, lady rachel chavasse entered the library in the course of the afternoon. she wore a sweeping silk, the colour of lilac, and gold ornaments. her face had not changed: with its classically-carved contour and its pale coldness.
“does duffham think you are better, geoffry?”
“not much, i fancy.”
“suppose we were to try another change — germany, or somewhere?” she calmly suggested.
“i would rather be here than anywhere, rachel.”
“i should like you to get well, you know, geoffry.”
“i should like it too, my dear.”
“mamma has written to ask us to go into somersetshire for christmas,” continued lady rachel, putting her foot, encased in its black satin shoe and white silk stocking, on the fender.
“ay. my mother was talking about it just now. well, we shall see between now and christmas, rachel. perhaps they can come to us instead.”
lady rachel turned her very light eyes upon her husband: eyes in which there often sat a peevish expression. it was not discernible at the present moment: they were coldly calm.
“don’t you think you shall be quite well by christmas?”
“i cannot speak with any certainty, rachel.”
she stood a minute or two longer, and then walked round the room before the shelves, in search of some entertaining book. it was quite evident that the state of her husband did not bring real trouble to her heart. was the heart too naturally cold? — or was it that as yet no suspicion of the seriousness of the case had penetrated to her? something of both, perhaps.
selecting a book, she was leaving the library with it when sir geoffry asked if she would not rather stay by the fire to read. but she said she preferred to go to her sofa.
“are you well, rachel?” he asked.
“my back feels tired, always. i suppose we are something alike, geoffry — not over-strong,” she concluded, with a smile.
that night duffham made the annexed entry in his journal.
he does know the critical state he is in. has known it, it seems, for some time. i suspected he did. sir geoffry’s one that you may read as a book in his open candour. he would “get well if he could,” he says, for his mother’s sake. as of course he would, were the result under his own control: a fine young fellow of the upper ten, with every substantial good to make life pleasant, and no evil habits or thoughts to draw him backward, would not close his eyes on this world without a pang, and a struggle to remain a while longer in it.
i cannot do more for him than i am doing. all the faculty combined could not. neither do i say, as he does, that he will not get better: on the contrary, i think there’s just a chance that he will: and i honestly told him so. it’s just a toss-up. he was always delicate until he grew to manhood: then he seemed to become thoroughly healthy and strong. query: would this delicacy have come back again had his life been made as happy as it might have been? my lady can debate that point with herself in after-years: it may be that she’ll have plenty of time to do it in. sir geoffry’s is one of those sensitive natures where the mind seems almost wholly to influence the body; and that past trouble was a sharp blow to him. upright and honourable, he could not well bear the remorse that fell upon him — it has been keenly felt, ay, i verily believe, until this hour: another’s life was blighted that his might be aggrandized. my own opinion is, that had he been allowed to do as he wished, and make reparation, thereby securing his own happiness, he might have thrown off the tendency to delicacy still and always; and lived to be as old as his father, sir peter. should my lady ever speak to me upon the subject, i shall tell her this. geoffry chavasse has lived with a weight upon him. it was not so much that his own hopes were gone and his love-dream wrecked, as that he had brought far worse than this upon another. yes; my lady may thank herself that his life seems to have been wasted. had there been children he might, in a degree, have forgotten what went before, and the mind would no longer have preyed upon the body. has the finger of heaven been in this? my pen ought to have written “specially in this:” for that finger is in all things.
i hope he will get better. yes, i do, in spite of a nasty doubt that crops up in my mind as i say it. i love him as i did in the old days, and respect him more. qui vivra verra— to borrow a french phrase from young master arthur over the way. and now i put up my diary for the night.
mrs. layne was dead. mary lived alone in her house now, with her servants and arthur.
never a woman so respected as she; never a lady, high or low, so revered and looked up to as mary layne. all the village would fly to her on an emergency; and she had both counsel and help to give. the poor idolized her. a noble, tender, good gentlewoman, with the characteristic humility in her bearing that had been observable of late years, and the gentle gravity on her thoughtful face. my lady, with all her rank and her show and her condescension, had never been half so much respected as this. the little boy — in knickerbockers now, and nine years old — was a great favourite; he also got some honour reflected on him through colonel layne. there had been a time of trouble in india, and major layne had grandly distinguished himself and gained honour and promotion. the public papers proclaimed his bravery and renown; and arthur received his share of reflected glory. as the boy passed on his pony, the blacksmith, dobbs, would shoot out from his forge to look after him, and say to the stranger whose horse had cast a shoe, “there goes the little son of the brave colonel layne: maybe you’ve heerd of his deeds over in ingee.” perhaps the blacksmith considered he had acquired a sort of right in arthur, since the pony — a sure-footed welsh animal — was kept in the stable that belonged to his forge, and was groomed by himself or son. miss layne paid him for it; but, as the blacksmith said, it went again’ the grain; he’d ha’ been proud to do aught for her and the little gentleman without pay.
and somehow, what with one thing and another, my lady grew to think that if anything removed her from chavasse grange, mary would take her place as best and chiefest in church dykely, and she herself would not be missed. but it was odd the thought should dawn upon her. previsions of coming events steal into the minds of a great many of us; we know not whence they arise, and at first look on them only as idle thoughts, never recognizing them for what they are — advance shadows of the things to be.
one sunshiny afternoon, close upon winter, arthur and mr. duffham went out riding. mary watched them start; the doctor on his old grey horse (that had been her father’s), and arthur on his well-groomed pony. the lad sat well; as brave-looking a little gentleman, with his upright carriage, open face, and nice attire — for mary was particular there — as had ever gratified a fond aunt’s eye, or a blacksmith’s heart.
close by the gates of chavasse grange, they met sir geoffry and his mother strolling forth. mr. duffham’s hopes had not been fulfilled. outwardly there was not much change in the baronet, certainly none for the better; inwardly there was a great deal. he knew now how very certain his fate was, and that it might not be delayed for any great length of time; a few weeks, a few months: as god should will.
“lady rachel is not well,” observed sir geoffry to the surgeon. “you must see her, duffham. i suppose you can’t come in now?”
“yes, i can: i’m in no hurry,” was the doctor’s answer.
“may i come too, and see the peacock, sir geoffry? i’ll wait here, though, if mr. duffham thinks i ought.”
of course the boy was told that the peacock would take it as a slight if he did not pay him a visit, and they all turned up the avenue. arthur got off his pony and led it, and talked with lady chavasse.
“why did you get off yet?” asked sir geoffry, turning to him.
“lady chavasse is walking,” answered the boy, simply.
it spoke volumes for his innate sense of politeness. sir geoffry remembered that he had possessed the same when a child.
“have you heard what papa has done?” asked arthur, putting the question generally. “it has been in all the newspapers, and he is full colonel now. did you read it, sir geoffry?”
“yes, i read it, arthur.”
“and the queen’s going to thank papa when he comes to england, and to make him sir richard. everybody says so. dobbs thinks papa will be made general before he dies.”
dobbs was the blacksmith. they smiled at this. not at the possibility for colonel layne, but at dobbs.
“and, with it all, aunt mary does not want me to be a soldier!” went on the boy in rather an aggrieved tone. “richard’s enough, she says. dick gets on well at king’s college: he is to go to woolwich next. i don’t see the peacock!”
they had neared the house, but the gay plumaged bird, for which arthur retained his full admiration, was nowhere in sight. servants came forward and led the horses away. mr. duffham went on to see lady rachel: arthur was taken into the garden-parlour by sir geoffry.
“and so you would like to be a soldier:” he said, holding the boy before him, and looking down at his bright, happy face.
“oh, i should: very much. if papa says i’m not to be-or mamma — or aunt mary — if they should tell me ‘no, no, you shall not,’ why, it would be at an end, and i’d try and like something else.”
“listen, arthur,” said sir geoffry, in a low, earnest tone. “what you are to be, and what you are not to be, lie alike in the will of god. he will direct you aright, no doubt, when the time of choice shall come ——”
“and that’s what aunt mary says,” interrupted the lad. “she says —— there’s the peacock!”
he had come round the corner, his tail trailing; the poor peahen following humbly behind him, as usual. arthur went outside the window. the peacock had a most unsociable habit of stalking away with a harsh scream if approached; arthur knew this, and stayed where he was, talking still with sir geoffry. when lady chavasse entered, he was deep in a story of the musical box.
“yes, a wicked boy went into reuben noah’s, and broke his box for the purpose. aunt mary is letting me get it mended for him with some sixpences i had saved up. reuben is very ill just now — in great pain; and aunt mary has let me lend him mine — he says when he can hear the music, his hip does not hurt him so much. you are not angry with me for lending it, are you, sir geoffry?”
“my boy, i am pleased.”
“why should sir geoffry be angry — what is it to him?” cried lady chavasse, amused with the chatter.
“sir geoffry gave it to me,” said arthur, looking at her with wide-open eyes, in which the great wonder that any one should be ignorant of that fact was expressed. “reuben wishes he could get here to see the peacock: but he can’t walk, you know. i painted a beautiful one on paper and took it to him. aunt mary said it was not much like a real peacock; it was too yellow. reuben liked it, and hung it up on his wall. oh!”
for the stately peacock, stepping past the window as if the world belonged to him, suddenly threw wide his tail in an access of vanity. the tail had not long been renewed, and was in full feather. arthur’s face went into a radiant glow. lady chavasse, smiling at the childish delight, produced some biscuit that the peacock was inordinately fond of, and bade him go and feed it.
“oh, geoffry,” she exclaimed in the impulse of the moment, as the boy vaulted away, “if you only had such a son and heir as that!”
“ay. it might have been, mother. that child himself might have been sir arthur after me, had you so willed it.”
“been sir arthur after you!” she exclaimed. “are you in a dream, geoffry? that child!”
“i have thought you did not know him, but i never felt quite sure. he passes to the world for the son of colonel layne — as i trust he may so pass always. don’t you understand?”
it was so comical a thing, bringing up thoughts so astounding, and the more especially because she had never had the remotest suspicion of it, that lady chavasse simply stared at her son in silence. all in a moment a fiery resentment rose up in her heart: she could not have told at whom or what.
“i will never believe it, geoffry. it cannot be.”
“it is, mother.”
he was leaning against the embrasure of the window as he stood, watching the boy in the distance throwing morsels of biscuit right into the peacock’s mouth, condescendingly held wide to receive them. lady chavasse caught the strange sadness glistening in her son’s eyes, and somehow a portion of her hot anger died away.
“yes: there was nothing to prevent it,” sighed sir geoffry. “had you allowed it, mother, the boy might have been born my lawful son, my veritable heir. other sons might have followed him: the probability is, there would have been half-a-dozen of them feeding the peacock now, instead of — of — i was going to say — of worse than none.”
lady chavasse looked out at the boy with eager, devouring eyes: and whether there was more of longing in their depths, or of haughty anger, a spectator could not have told. in that same moment a vision, so vivid as to be almost like reality, stole before her mental sight — of the half-dozen brave boys crowding round the peacock, instead of only that one on whose birth so cruel a blight had been cast.
“a noble heir he would have made us, mother; one of whom our free land might have been proud,” spoke sir geoffry, in a low tone of yearning that was mixed with hopeless despair. “he bears my name, arthur. i would give my right hand — ay, and the left too — if he could be sir arthur after me!”
arthur turned round. his cap was on the grass, his blue eyes were shining.
“he is frightfully greedy and selfish, lady chavasse. he will not let the peahen have a bit.”
“a beautiful face,” murmured sir geoffry. “and a little like what mine must have been at his age, i fancy. sometimes i have thought that you would see the likeness, and that it might impart its clue.”
“since when have you known him? — known this?”
“since the day after the accident, when my horse threw him down. duffham dropped an unintentional word, and it enlightened me. some nights ago i dreamt that the little lad was my true heir,” added sir geoffry. “i saw you kiss him in the dream.”
“you must have been letting your thoughts run on it very much,” retorted lady chavasse, rather sharply.
“they are often running on it, mother: the regret for what might have been and for what is, never seems to leave me,” was his reply. “for some moments after i awoke from that dream i thought it was reality: i believe i called out ‘arthur.’ rachel started, and inquired between sleeping and waking what the matter was. to find it was only a dream — to remember that what is can never be changed or redeemed in this world, was the worst pain of all.”
“you may have children yet,” said lady chavasse, after a pause. “it is not impossible.”
“well, i suppose not impossible,” was the hesitating rejoinder. “but ——”
“but you don’t think it. say it out, geoffry.”
“i do not think it. my darling mother, don’t you see how it is with me?” he added, in an impulse of emotion —“that i am not to live. a very short time now, and i shall be lying with my father.”
a piteous cry broke from her. it had to be suppressed. the ungrateful peacock, seeing no more dainty biscuit in store, had fluttered off with a scream, putting his tail down into the smallest possible compass; and arthur came running back to the room. mr. duffham next appeared; his face grave, his account of lady rachel evasive. he suspected some latent disease of the spine, but did not wish to say so just yet.
the horse and pony were brought round. arthur and the doctor mounted; arthur turning round to lift his cap to lady chavasse and sir geoffry as he rode away. a noble boy in all his actions; sitting his pony like the young chieftain he ought to have been but for my lady’s adverse will.
but mr. duffham was by no means prepared for an inroad on his privacy made that evening by my lady. she surprised him in his shabbiest parlour, when he was taking his tea: the old tin teapot on the japan tray, and the bread-and-butter plate cracked across. zuby noah, duffham’s factotum, was of a saving turn, and never would bring in the best things except on sundays. he had a battle with her over it sometimes, but it did no good. duffham thought lady chavasse had come to hear about lady rachel, but he was mistaken.
she began with a despairing cry, by way of introduction to the interview; zuby might have heard it as she went along the kitchen passage, but for her clanking pattens. the man-servant was out that evening, and zuby was in waiting. duffham, standing on the old hearthrug, found his arm seized by lady chavasse. he had never seen her in agitation like this.
“is it to be so really? mr. duffham, can nothing be done? is my son to die before my very eyes, and not be saved?”
“sit down, pray, lady chavasse!” cried duffham, trying to hand her into the chair that had the best-looking cushion on it, and wishing he had been in the other room and had not slipped on his worn, old pepper-and-salt coat.
“he ought not to die — to die and leave no children!” she went on, as if she were a lunatic. “if there were but one little son — but one — to be the heir! can’t you keep him in life? there may be children yet, if he only lives.”
her eyes were looking wildly into his; her fingers entwined themselves about the old grey cuffs as lovingly as though they were of silk velvet. no: neither duffham nor any one else had ever seen her like this. it was as though she thought it lay with duffham to keep sir geoffry in life and to endow chavasse grange with heirs.
“lady chavasse, i am not in the place of god.”
“don’t you care for my trouble? don’t you care for it?”
“i do care. i wish i could cure sir geoffry.”
down sat my lady in front of the fire, in dire tribulation. by the way she stared at it, duffham thought she must see in it a vision of the future.
“we shall have to quit the grange, you know, if he should die: i and lady rachel. better that i quitted it in my young life; that i had never had a male child to keep me in it. i thought that would have been a hardship: but oh, it would have been nothing to this.”
“you shall take a cup of tea, lady chavasse — if you don’t mind its being poured out of this homely tea-pot,” said duffham. “confound that zuby!” he cried, under his breath.
“yes, i will take the tea — put nothing in it. my lips and throat are dry with fever and pain. i wish i could die instead of geoffry! i wish he could have left a little child behind to bless me!”
duffham, standing up whilst she took the tea, thought it was well that these trials of awful pain did not fall often in a lifetime, or they would wear out alike the frame and the spirit. she grew calm again. as if ashamed of the agitation betrayed, her manner gradually took a sort of hard composure, her face a defiant expression. she turned it on him.
“so, mr. duffham! it has been well done of you, to unite with sir geoffry in deceiving me! that child over the way has never been colonel layne’s.”
and then she went on in a style that put duffham’s back up. it was not his place to tell her, he answered. at the same time he had had no motive to keep it from her, and if she had ever put the question to him, he should readily have answered it. unsolicited, unspoken to, of course he had held his peace. as to uniting with sir geoffry to deceive her, she deceived herself if she thought anything of the kind. since the first moment they had spoken together, when the fact had become known to sir geoffry, never a syllable relating to it had been mentioned between them. and then, after digesting this for a few minutes in silence, she went back to sir geoffry’s illness.
“it is just as though a blight had fallen on him,” she piteously exclaimed, lifting her hand and letting it drop again. “a blight.”
“well, lady chavasse, i suppose something of the kind did fall upon him,” was duffham’s answer.
and that displeased her. she turned her offended face to the doctor, and inquired what he meant by saying it.
so duffham set himself to speak out. he had said he would, if ever the opportunity came. reverting to what had happened some nine or more years ago, he told her that in his opinion sir geoffry had never recovered it: that the trouble had so fixed itself upon him as to have worked insensibly upon his bodily health.
“self-reproach and disappointment were combined, lady chavasse; for there’s no doubt that the young lady was very dear to him,” concluded duffham. “and there are some natures that cannot pick up again after such a blow.”
she was staring at duffham with open eyes, not understanding.
“you do not mean to say that — that the disappointment about her has killed sir geoffry?”
“my goodness, no!” cried duffham, nearly laughing. “men are made of tougher stuff than to die of the thing called love, lady chavasse. what is it shakespeare says? ‘men have died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.’ there is no question but that sir geoffry has always had an inherent tendency to delicacy of constitution,” he continued more seriously: “my partner layne told me so. it was warded off for a time, and he grew into a strong, hearty man: it might perhaps have been warded off for good. but the blight — as you aptly express it, lady chavasse — came: and perhaps since then the spirit has not been able to maintain its own proper struggle for existence — in which lies a great deal, mind you; and now that the original weakness has shown itself again, he cannot shake it off.”
“but — according to that — he is dying of the blight?”
“well — in a sense, yes. if you like to put it so.”
her lips grew white. there rose before her mind that one hour of bitter agony in her lifetime and her son’s, when he had clasped his pleading hands on hers, and told her in a voice hoarse with its bitter pain and emotion that if she decided against him he could never know happiness again in this world: that to part from one to whom he was bound by sweet endearment, by every tie that ought to bind man to woman, would be like parting with life. entrenched in her pride, she had turned a deaf ear, and rejected his prayer: and now there had come of it what had come. yes, as lady chavasse sat there, she had the satisfaction of knowing that the work was hers.
“a warmer climate? — would it restore him?” she exclaimed, turning her hot eyes on mr. duffham.
“had it been likely to do so, lady chavasse, i should have sent him to one long ago.”
she gathered her mantle of purple velvet about her as she rose up, and went out of the room in silence, giving duffham her hand in token of friendship.
duffham opened the front-door, and was confronted by a tall footman — with a gold-headed cane and big white silk calves — who had been waiting in the air for his lady. she took the way to the grange; the man and his protecting cane stepping grandly after her.
“sir geoffry chavasse.”
buried in her own reflections by the drawing-room fire, in the coming dusk of the winter’s evening, miss layne thought her ears must have deceived her. but no. it was sir geoffry who advanced as the servant made the announcement; and she rose to meet him. strangely her heart fluttered: but she had been learning a lesson in calmness for many years; he had too, perhaps; and they shook hands quietly as other people do. sir geoffry threw back his overcoat from his wasted form as he sat down.
wasted more than ever now. some weeks have gone on since my lady’s impromptu visit to mr. duffham’s tea-table; winter is merging into spring; and the most sanguine could no longer indulge hope for sir geoffry.
“you have heard how it is with me?” he began, looking at mary, after recovering his short breath.
“yes,” she faintly answered.
“i could not die without seeing you, mary, and speaking a word of farewell. it was in my mind to ask you to come to the grange for half-an-hour’s interview; but i scarcely saw how to accomplish it: it might have raised some speculation. so as the day has been fine and mild, i came to you.”
“you should have come earlier,” she murmured. “it is getting late and cold.”
“i did come out earlier. but i have been with duffham.”
moving his chair a little nearer to hers, he spoke to her long and earnestly. in all that was said there seemed to be a solemn meaning — as is often the case when the speaker is drawing to the confines of this world and about to enter on the next. he referred a little to the past, and there was some mutual explanation. but it seemed to be of the future that sir geoffry had come chiefly to speak — the future of baby arthur.
“you will take care of him, mary? — of his best interests?” and the tears came into mary layne’s eyes at the words. he could not really think it necessary to ask it.
“yes. to the very utmost of my power.”
“i am not able to leave him anything. you know how things are with us at the grange. my wish would have been good ——”
“it is not necessary,” she interrupted. “all i have will be his, sir geoffry.”
“sir geoffry! need you keep up that farce, mary, in this our last hour? he seems to wish to be a soldier: and i cannot think but that the profession will be as good for him as any other, provided you can like it for him. you will see when the time comes: all that lies in the future. our lives have been blighted, mary: and i pray god daily and hourly that, being so, it may have served to expiate the sin — my sin, my love, it was never yours — and that no shame may fall on him.”
“i think it will not,” she softly said, the painful tears dropping fast. “he will always be regarded as colonel layne’s son: the very few who know otherwise — mr. duffham, colonel and mrs. layne, and lady chavasse now — will all be true to the end.”
“ay. i believe it too. i think the boy may have a bright and honourable career before him: as much so perhaps as though he had been born my heir. i think the regret that he was not — when he so easily might have been — has latterly helped to wear me out, mary.”
“i wish you could have lived, geoffry!” she cried from between her blinding tears.
“i have wished it also,” he answered, his tone full of pain. “but it was not to be. when the days shall come that my mother is alone, except for lady rachel, and grieving for me, i want you to promise that you will sometimes see her and give her consolation. something tells me that you can do this, mary, that she will take it from you — and i know that she will need it sadly. be kind to her when i am gone.”
“yes. i promise it.”
“you are the bravest of us all, mary. and yet upon you has lain the greatest suffering.”
“it is the suffering that has made me brave,” she answered. “oh, geoffry, i am getting to realize the truth that it is better to have too much of suffering in this world than too little. it is a truth hard to learn: but once learnt, it brings happiness in enduring.”
sir geoffry nodded assent. he had learnt somewhat of it also — too late.
“i have begun a confidential letter to colonel layne, mary, and shall post it before i die. to thank him for ——”
the words were drowned in a gleeful commotion — caused by the entrance of arthur. the boy came dashing in from his afternoon’s study with the curate, some books under his arm.
“i have not been good, aunt mary. he said i gave him no end of trouble; and i’m afraid i did: but, you see, i bought the marbles going along, instead of in coming back, as you told me, and —— who’s that!”
in letting his books fall on a side-table, he had caught sight of the stranger — then standing up. the fire had burnt low, and just for the moment even the young eyes did not recognize sir geoffry chavasse. mary stirred the fire into a blaze, and drew the crimson curtains before the window.
“what have you come for?” asked the little lad, as sir geoffry took his hand. “are you any better, sir?”
“i shall never be better in this world, arthur. and so you gave your tutor trouble this afternoon!”
“yes; i am very sorry: i told him so. it was all through the marbles. i couldn’t keep my hands out of my pockets. just look what beauties they are!”
out came a handful of “beauties” of many colours. but mary, who was standing by the mantelpiece, her face turned away, bade him put them up again. arthur began to feel that there was some kind of hush upon the room.
“i have been talking to miss layne about your future — for, do you know, arthur, you are a favourite of mine,” said sir geoffry. “ever since the time when my horse knocked you down — and might have killed you — i have taken a very warm interest in your welfare. i have often wished that you — that you”— he seemed to hesitate in some emotion —“were my own little son and heir to succeed me; but of course that cannot be. i don’t know what profession you will choose, or may be chosen for you ——”
“i should like to be a soldier,” interrupted arthur, lifting his sparkling eyes to sir geoffry’s.
“your ideas may change before the time for choosing shall come. but a soldier may be as brave a servant of god as of his queen: should you ever become a soldier, will you remember this truth?”
“yes,” said arthur, in a whisper, for the grave tones and manner impressed him with some awe.
sir geoffry was sitting down and holding arthur before him. to the latter’s intense surprise, he saw two tears standing on the wasted cheeks. it made him feel a sort of discomfort, and he began, as a relief, to play with the chain and seal that hung on the baronet’s waistcoat. a transparent seal, with a plain device on it.
“should you like to have them when i am gone, arthur — and wear them in remembrance of me when you are old enough? i think it must be so: no one can have a better right to them than my little friend who once nearly lost his arm by my carelessness. i will see about it. but i have a better present than that — which i will give you now.”
taking from his pocket the small bible that had been his companion for some months, he put it into arthur’s hands, telling him that he had written his name in it. and the child, turning hastily to the fly-leaf, saw it there: “arthur layne. from g. a. c.” lower down were the words: “come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and i will give you rest.”
“jesus said that!” cried the boy, simply.
“jesus christ. my saviour and yours — for i am sure you will let him be yours. do not part with this book, arthur. use it always: i have marked many passages in it. should it be your fate ever to encamp on the battle-field, let the book be with you: your guide and friend. in time you will get to love it better than any book that is to be had in the world.”
the child had a tender heart, and began to cry a little. sir geoffry drew him nearer.
“i have prayed to god to bless you, arthur. but you know, my child, he will only give his best blessing to those who seek it, who love and serve him. whatsoever may be your lot in life, strive to do your duty in it, as before god; loving him, loving and serving your fellow-creatures; trusting ever to christ’s atonement. these are my last solemn words to you. do you always remember them.”
his voice faltered a little, and arthur began to sob. “oh, sir geoffry, must you die?”
sir geoffry seemed to be breathing fast, as though agitation were becoming too much for him. he bent his head and kissed the boy’s face fervently: his brow, his cheeks, his lips, his eyelids — there was not a spot that sir geoffry did not leave a kiss upon. it quite seemed as though his heart had been yearning for those kisses, and as though he could not take enough of them.
“and now, arthur, you must do a little errand for me. go over to mr. duffham, and tell him i am coming. leave the bible on the table here.”
arthur went out of the house with less noise than he had entered it. sir geoffry rose.
“it is our turn to part now, mary. i must be gone.”
her sweet face was almost distorted with the efforts she had been making to keep down emotion before the child. she burst into tears, as her hand met sir geoffry’s.
“god bless you! god bless you always, my darling!” he murmured. “take my thanks, once for all, for the manner in which you have met the past; there is not another woman living who would have done and borne as you have. this is no doubt our last meeting on earth, mary; but in eternity we shall be together for ever. god bless you, and love you, and keep you always!”
a lingering hand-pressure, a steady look into each other’s eyes, reading the present anguish there, reading also the future trust, and then their lips met — surely there was no wrong in it! — and a farewell kiss of pain was taken. sir geoffry went out, buttoning his overcoat across his chest.
a fly was waiting before mr. duffham’s house; the surgeon and arthur were standing by it on the pavement. sir geoffry got inside.
“good-bye, sir geoffry!” cried the little lad, as mr. duffham, saying he should be at the grange in the morning, was about to close the door. “i shall write and tell papa how good you’ve been, to give me your own bible. i can write small-hand now.”
“and fine small-hand it is!” put in old duffham in disparagement.
sir geoffry laid his hand gently on arthur’s head, and kept it there for a minute. his lips were moving, but he said nothing aloud. arthur thought he had not been heard.
“good-bye, sir geoffry,” he repeated.
“good-bye, my child.”
sir geoffry lay back in an easy-chair in front of the fire in his library. the end was near at hand now, but he was bearing up quite well to the last. lady chavasse, worn almost to a shadow with grief and uncertainty — for there were times yet when she actually entertained a sort of hope — sat away in the shade; her eyes watching every change in his countenance, her heart feeling ever its bitter repentance and despair.
repentance? yes, and plenty of it. for she saw too surely what might have been and what was — and knew that it was herself, herself only, who had worked out this state of things. her self-reproach was terrible; her days and nights were one long dream of agony. lady rachel was not with them very much. she lay down more than ever in her own room; and lady chavasse had begun to learn that this almost continuous lying was not caused by inert idleness, but of necessity. the grange was a sad homestead now.
the blaze from the fire flickered on sir geoffry’s wasted face. hers was kept in the shadow, or it might have betrayed the bitterness of her aching heart. he had been speaking of things that touched her conscience.
“yes, it was a sin, mother. but it might have been repaired; and, if it had been, i believe god would have blessed us all. as it is — well, we did not repair it, you and i; and so — and so, as i take it, there has not been much of real blessing given to us here; certainly not of heartfelt comfort. i seem to see all things clearly now — if it be not wrong to say it.”
lady chavasse saw them too — though perhaps not exactly in the way he meant. never was the vision, of what might have been, more vividly before her than now as he spoke. she saw him, a hale happy man; his wife mary, their children, a goodly flock, all at the grange, and herself first amongst them, reigning paramount, rejoicing in her good and dutiful daughter-in-law. oh, what a contrast between that vision and reality! a repressed groan escaped her lips; she coughed to smother it.
“mother!”
“well, geoffry?”
“you need not have suppressed my last letter to mary — the letter of explanation i wrote when i quitted her and the grange. you might have been sure of me — that i would be true to my word to you.”
no answer. there was a great deal that she would not suppress, besides the letter, if the time had to come over again. the log sparkled and crackled and threw its jets of flame upwards; but no other noise disturbed the room’s stillness.
“mother!”
“well, geoffry?”
“i should like the child, little arthur, to have my watch and its appendages. have you any objection?”
“none.”
“it will be looked upon, you know, as a token of remembrance to the little fellow who had so sharp an illness through my horse.”
“yes.”
“and — i have two desks, you know. the old one of common stained wood i wish sent to miss layne, locked as it is. the key i will enclose in a note. let them be sent to her when i am dead.”
“it shall be done, geoffry.”
“there’s not much in the desk. just a few odds and ends of papers; mementoes of the short period when i was happy — though i ought not to have been. nothing of value; except a ring that i bought for her at worcester at the time, and which she would not take.”
“i promise it, geoffry. i will do all you wish.”
“thank you. you have ever been my loving friend, mother.”
“ever, geoffry?”
“well — you did for the best there, mother; though it was a mistake. you acted for what you thought my welfare.”
“would you not like to see her, geoffry?”
“i have seen her and bidden her farewell. it was the afternoon i went to duffham’s and you said that i stayed out too late. and now i think i’ll lie down on the sofa, and get, if i can, a bit of sleep; i feel tired. to-morrow i will talk about you and rachel — and what will be best for you both. i wish to my heart, for your sake and hers, that rachel had borne a son; i am thinking of you both daily, and of what you will do when i am gone.”
“i shall never know pleasure in life again, geoffry,” she cried, with a heartbroken sob. “life for me will be, henceforth, one of mortification and misery.”
“but it will not last for ever. oh, mother! how merciful god is! — to give us the blessed hope of an eternal life of perfect happiness, after all the mistakes and tribulations and disappointments of this! my darling mother! we shall all be there in sweet companionship for ever.”
they buried sir geoffry chavasse by the side of his father — and any one who likes to go there may see his tomb against the graveyard wall of church dykely. my lady chavasse arranged the funeral. the earl of derreston and a major chavasse were chief mourners, with other grand people. duffham’s diary gives the particulars, but there is no space here to record them. duffham was bidden to it; and brought arthur layne in his hand to the grange, in obedience to a private word of my lady’s — for she knew the dead, if he could look out of his coffin, would like to see arthur following. so the procession started, a long line; the village gazing in admiration as it passed; and dobbs the blacksmith felt as proud as ever was the grange peacock, when he saw colonel layne’s little son in a coach, amidst the gentlefolks. ’twere out of respect to the colonel’s bravery, you might be sure, he told a select audience: and p’r’aps a bit because o’ that back accident to the child hisself. and so, amidst pomps, and coaches, and comments, geoffry chavasse was left in his last home.
[final matters extracted from duffham’s diary.]
it is eighteen months now since sir geoffry died; and strange changes have taken place. the world is always witnessing such: you go up, and i go down.
admiral chavasse came home and took possession of the grange. my lady had previously quitted it. she did not quit church dykely. it seemed indifferent to her where she settled down; and lady rachel chavasse had become used to my attendance, and wished to stay. there was a small white villa to let on this side of the grange, and they took it. lady rachel lies down more than ever; when she goes out it is in a bath-chair. old john noah draws it. the spinal complaint is confirmed. i can do her no good; but i go in once or twice a week, and have a gossip. she is very fractious: and what with one thing and another, my lady chavasse has a trying life of it. they keep three servants only; no carriage — except the bath-chair. what a change! what a change!
if ever there was a disappointed woman in this world, one who feels the humiliation of her changed position keenly, whose whole life is a long living repentance, it is lady chavasse. the picture of what might have been is ever in her mind; the reality of what is, lies around her. to judge by human fallibility, she has a long existence before her: not quite fifty yet, and her health rude: but in spirit she is a bowed, broken-down woman.
the grange is let. sir parker chavasse could not reconcile himself to living in a rural district, and went back to his ship. at first he shut the grange up; now he has let it for a term to mr. and mrs. mcalpin, formerly of calcutta. they live there with their children; in as good a style as ever the chavasses did. allan mcalpin has given up business, and spends his large fortune like the gentleman he is. she is mary layne’s sister: a dainty and rather haughty woman. my lady looks out surreptitiously from the corner of her window as mrs. mcalpin’s carriage bowls along the road beyond the field. colonel layne’s wife is also here just now, on a visit at the grange; her husband, sir richard layne, k.c.b., has returned to his duties in india. the whole county calls upon them and seems proud to do it, forgetting perhaps that they were only the daughters of my predecessor, layne the apothecary. yes! there are strange ups and downs in this world: and mary layne, so despised once, might not now be thought, even by my lady, so very unequal to sir geoffry chavasse.
she does not go in for grandeur. but the village would like to lay its hands under her feet. never was there so good, so unselfish, so sweet and humble-minded a woman as mary. in a temporary indisposition that attacked her a few weeks ago, mr. dobbs, struck with consternation, gave, it as his opinion that church dykely “could afford to lose the whole biling of ’em, better than her.” lady chavasse has seen her merit at last; and mary’s frequent presence in their house seems to bring light to the two lonely women. arthur goes there too; my lady loves him, curious though the fact may sound. an incident occurred the other evening.
miss layne and arthur were at tea there, when i happened to go in with some medicine. mary had her work out, and sat talking in a low voice to lady rachel on her sofa; lady chavasse was watching arthur, playing on the grass-plat. my lady rose up with a sudden cry:
“take care of the wasp, sir arthur! sir arthur!”
i saw what painful reverie she had been lost in-the vision of that which might have been. it is apt to steal on her at sunset. becoming conscious of the slip, she flushed slightly, and turned it off. lady rachel laughed; she thought it a good joke. mary was more silent than usual that night, as i walked home by her and arthur’s side.
here ends the history. mary layne lives on in her home, training arthur, helping the sick and suffering, keeping her face steadily turned to another world. never a one is there amidst us so respected as that good, grave lady, who blighted her life in early womanhood, and who carries its trace on her sad, sweet countenance, and its never-ceasing shame on her sorrowing heart.
that’s all at last. you must be glad of it. old duffham shall not lead me blindfold into one of his spun-out histories again. the trouble i’ve had to cut it down! what with the diaries and letters, it was twice as long.
and he called it a tale of sin. i, johnny ludlow, think it is more like a tale of suffering.
