Englefield Grange Part 26

"Very faithfully yours,

"HENRY HALFORD."

When Mr. Armstrong had read this letter hastily through, words cannot describe the angry pa.s.sions that raged in his breast. What! the schoolmaster's son, an usher, a curate _in futuro_, with perhaps 80_l._ or 100_l._ a year to live upon! "What!" he thought, "give up my precious daughter to be a schoolmaster's wife, or rather drudge!--making rice puddings, mending stockings and shirts, and slaving for other people's children, and getting no thanks for it! Or perhaps in paltry comfortless apartments waiting upon her husband the curate, for whom she is often obliged to cook a dinner fit for him to eat, because the food obtained with such difficulty is spoiled by the lodging-house cooking. I've heard the misery of a curate's home described," continued the angry man, "less wages than a mechanic, and yet husband, wife, and children have to struggle to keep up appearances and to live in genteel poverty because the husband is a clergyman!"

Mr. Armstrong drew his desk towards him, and dashed off a coa.r.s.e insulting letter to the daring aspirant for his daughter's hand, and with the effort the fierceness of his anger evaporated, conscience made itself heard. "Why should you insult this young man for acting as you did yourself?" said the stern voice; "he is a well-born, well-bred, intelligent gentleman, which you were not when you married Maria St.

Clair." "But I had money," replied self, "and he has by his own account nothing to call his own." "He or his father must have had money to pay for a university education," suggested conscience; "besides, half of the boasted fortune you talk of giving your daughter would establish these young people for life, and make them happy if they love each other."

"I don't believe they do," was the next suggestion, "or at least there is no love on Mary's side. She is not one to give her affections so easily; the young man's letter proves that he is not sure of her, for he asks to be allowed to try and win her. Perhaps if the girl really loved him, I might be inclined to give up some of the fortune in store for her to make them happy. There's no harm done as yet on his own account, so I'll say nothing at home about his letter, but I wont send this," and he took up the sheet containing expressions of which in his cooler moments Mr. Armstrong felt thoroughly ashamed, and tore it into minute shreds; then lighting a taper, he reduced them to ashes in the fireplace. After this he seated himself and wrote as follows:--

"Dover Street, July 4th, 18--.

"SIR,--I have received your letter, and beg to thank you for your kind and complimentary opinion of my daughter, but I cannot favour your proposals. You are young to think of marriage, especially as you have not yet completed the profession which you intend to follow.

"I do not approve of long courtships, and therefore the idea of waiting an indefinite number of years for a living is out of the question. Added to these objections, I have other plans in view for my daughter, which I cannot set aside.

"Thanking you for the honour you have done our family by your proposal,

"I remain, Sir,

"Yours faithfully,

"EDWARD ARMSTRONG."

Mr. Armstrong sealed and addressed this letter with great inward satisfaction. He had effectually put a stop to any farther trouble on the part of Mr. Halford, who, he felt a.s.sured, was too honourable to act in opposition to the wishes of Mary's father.

Only one fear would at times during that day disturb Mr. Armstrong's equanimity: "Was he sure about the state of Mary's affections. They had been a week together at Oxford, had any unintentional word or look revealed the secret to each other?" He could not answer his own question satisfactorily, but he quieted his conscience by saying, "Ah, well, if there is a little pa.s.sing fancy for this young man in Mary's heart, it will soon wear off; she has too much pride to encourage it when she finds he keeps away, as I know he will after my letter." Mr. Armstrong returned home in great good-humour, and made himself so agreeable that Mrs. Armstrong and Mary were quite ready to forget the roughness of the preceding evening.

No reference of any kind was made to Mr. Henry Halford in Mary's presence, but when Mr. Armstrong and his wife were alone, he said quietly and gently, but with a firmness she well knew she could not gainsay--

"Maria, my dear, I should like to send Freddy to school with his brothers next quarter; he is getting quite well and strong enough to be with older boys. I may as well tell you the truth," he added; "I don't wish him to continue at Dr. Halford's, for many reasons which I need not explain."

CHAPTER XX.

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

"Mamma, you will be better and more quiet here than in that noisy Bourke Street. I am so glad papa has taken such a pleasant house for us, and I know you will soon get well." And little Mabel as she spoke shook and arranged her mother's pillow and drew up the blind, that she might look out upon the pleasant view over the waters of the Yarra.

Mr. Franklyn had taken a house in a suburb of Melbourne noted for its beautiful scenery and wild and picturesque landscapes.

In this suburb at a walking distance, or reached easily by train from Melbourne, are situated the Botanical Gardens, laid out in park-like luxuriance. A beautiful stone bridge crosses the dark, deep waters of the Yarra, while painted skiffs and gaudy pleasure-boats skim over its smooth surface and add brightness to the scene.

The country beyond resembles the south of France and the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean; vines trained on poles, grapes hanging from verandahs, the blue sky, the pure clear air, and the bright sunshine remind the traveller of beautiful Italy.

Added to this, at the spot we describe, grow trees that retain their verdure during the whole year, white and green parrots and other birds of gaudy plumage flit from branch to branch. Sunrise also in Australia presents a sky of splendour never seen in England; even the colours of the sea-weed which the Yarra brings inland in its course are rich and varied.

Not far from the window opening to the ground on a verandah, near to which Mrs. Franklyn's couch had been drawn, spread what appeared to be a large lake, nine miles in circ.u.mference, surrounded by pleasant walks and shady trees.

To strangers it has the appearance of an artificial lake, and they are much surprised to hear that it is merely the reservoir from which the city of Melbourne and the surrounding neighbourhoods are supplied with water.

Altogether this suburb of Melbourne on the banks of the Yarra is one of the most beautiful spots in Australia.

To the pale invalid in her chair, however, all earthly spots had lost their charm, excepting one little island in the Atlantic, in which stood the home of her youth; and as she looked out on the beauty of an approaching Australian summer, and thought of the home she might never see again, she answered her little daughter's words with a sigh.

"Are you unhappy here, mamma?" asked the child.

"No, darling," she replied, "it was merely a longing for home that made me sigh. I know that heaven is the home on which my heart should rest, and yet I should like to see your uncle Henry and my dear parents once more."

"Mamma," said the child, "I heard the doctor tell papa that if you got stronger in this beautiful place, he could take you to England in March, and then you would have no winter, for when we arrived in England it would be midsummer."

Mrs. Franklyn smiled at the prospect described by her child. Her husband had mentioned this opinion of the doctor to her, and in his usual sanguine way he had promised to make early arrangements for them to leave in March. But she knew also that more than one of his speculations had failed, and therefore, unless "something would turn up," as he termed a successful speculation, he would be too much involved in debt to attempt to leave Melbourne.

A feeling of resignation had at length been granted to Dr. Halford's daughter, only disturbed now and then by old memories which could not be quite overcome, more especially as now, when the beauty of Australian scenery was spoken of in her presence, her thoughts would revert to a lovely English landscape--hill and dale, field and meadow, flowers and foliage, which could be seen from the windows of her own dear home in England.

But f.a.n.n.y Franklyn, as she now lay helpless on the couch, knew well that for her was prepared a home in the skies, and that the dear friends for whose presence she longed could only expect to meet her there. She looked very lovely even now that Death had set his seal on those delicate features. The dark eyes, though sunken, were still large and bright; the pale face looked fairer by contrast to the dark pencilled eyebrows and eyelashes; and the hectic flush on the cheek would have reminded her brother Henry of some words of the great preacher Henry Melvill.

He had heard him once when quite a youth preach a sermon at a church in London on behalf of the Brompton Hospital for diseases of the lungs, in which the preacher, during one of his eloquent bursts of oratory, exclaimed, "And consumption, that flings its brilliant mockery in the mother's eyes."

Poor mother, she had indeed heard of her daughter's serious illness, and yearned with all a mother's love to be near her to tend to her slightest wish. But half the globe stretched between them, and Mrs. Halford consoled herself with the thought that f.a.n.n.y had a kind husband and loving children, who must be able to supply the place of a mother. But Mrs. Halford did not know all. f.a.n.n.y, while able to write, had concealed from her mother the real nature of the disease which left no hope of recovery. Yes, her husband was kind, gentle, loving, and earnest in his endeavours to provide for all her wants; yet, as we know, there was in his character a weakness of principle, and want of attention to steadiness of purpose, which made his position always precarious. At the birth of her youngest boy, eighteen months before the time of which we write, he had made a venture in the mercantile world which had failed, and for a time ruin stared them in the face.

The anxiety f.a.n.n.y suffered in her then delicate state of health, added to a cold which attacked her at the time, was too much for a frame already weakened by the relaxing climate of Melbourne. For with all its bright skies and its clear atmosphere, Australian air is not suited to those who require a bracing climate. It has its periods of scorching heat, and the fair faces of Australian girls lack the roses which adorn the cheeks of their sisters in England.

Perhaps if f.a.n.n.y Franklyn could have visited her home during the first appearance of failing health her life might have been spared, but this was not to be; and at last her husband had been aroused to the fact that, although he could not spare her to go alone to her home in England, he must spare her to G.o.d.

Now that it was too late, Arthur Franklyn, acting as usual on impulse, expressed to the doctor his eager anxiety to take his dying wife to England.

"Cannot I take her home before the autumn, doctor?" he said; "we should arrive in England about April or May, just as the summer is beginning. I could start next week even, if you think she is strong enough for the voyage."

"Too soon, my dear sir; Mrs. Franklyn must not be in England before May at the earliest, and it is now the commencement of November. We must try and help her through the Australian summer if we can, and then if all is well you can start for England in February or March."

But as the doctor left Mr. Franklyn, he said to himself, almost angrily--

"What is the use of talking about going to England now? she'll never live to see March again, or even February, it's too late. What's the man been about not to see his wife's danger? I'm afraid he's got too many irons in the fire to do much good."

And yet when he now entered the drawing-room, and with gentle step approached the couch, no voice could be more subdued, no words kinder.

"I have been talking to Dr. Moore about taking you to England in the autumn, darling; he says we can leave here in February so as to arrive there about May. Does not the prospect make you feel better already?"

f.a.n.n.y raised her eyes to his and smiled, but she shook her head and said faintly--

"I never expect to see England again."

"Nonsense, dear! why, you are looking more like yourself to-day than I have seen you for weeks. You must not give up, and Dr. Moore seems to have greater hopes than ever. This is certainly a very pleasant spot,"

he continued, turning to the window, quite unconscious that this sudden announcement respecting a visit to England had agitated his wife. Her thoughts went back to the old days at Kilburn, when, a bright and happy girl, she had been wooed and won by one of her father's old pupils.