Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 44

Of course, Sir Geoffry, when he awoke to the truth--that it was love--ought to have gone away, or have contrived to get his mother to dismiss Miss Layne. He did nothing of the sort. And for this, some people--Duffham for one--held him even more to blame than for anything that happened afterwards. But how could he voluntarily blight his new happiness, and hers? It was so intense as to absorb every other feeling; it took his common sense away from him. And thus they went dreaming on together in that one spring-time (of the heart, not of the weather), and never thought about drifting into shoals and pitfalls.

In the autumn my lady went to the seaside in Cornwall, taking Mary _as her maid_, and escorted by her son. "Will you do for me what I want while I am away? I do not care to be troubled with Picker," she had said; and Mary replied, as in duty bound, that she would. It is inconvenient to treat a maid as a lady, especially in a strange place, and Mary found that during this sojourn Lady Chava.s.se did not attempt it. To all intents and purposes Mary was the maid now; she did not sit with her lady, she took her meals apart; she was, in fact, regarded as the lady's-maid by all, and nothing else. Lady Chava.s.se even took to calling her "Layne." This, the sudden dethroning of her social status, was the third mistake; and this one, as the first, was my lady's. Sir Geoffry had been led to regard her as a companion; now he saw her but as a servant. But, servant or no servant, you cannot put love out of the heart, once it has possession of it.

At the month's end they returned home: and there Mary found that she was to retain this lower station: never again would she be exalted as she had been. Lady Chava.s.se had tired of the new toy, and just carelessly allowed her to find her own level. Except that Miss Layne sat in the garden-parlour, and her meals were served there, she was not very much distinguished from Hester Picker and the other servants; indeed, Picker sometimes sat in the parlour too, when they had lace, or what not, to mend for my lady. Geoffry in his heart was grieved at the changed treatment of Miss Layne; he thought it wrong and unjust; and to make up for the mistake, was with her a great deal himself.

Things were in this position when Lady Chava.s.se was summoned to Bath: her sister, Lady Derreston, was taken ill. Sir Geoffry escorted her thither. Picker was taken, not Miss Layne. In the countess's small household, Mary, in her anomalous position--for she could not be altogether put with the servants--would have been an inconvenience; and my lady bade her make herself happy at the Grange, and left her a lot of fine needlework to get through.

Leaving his mother in Bath, Sir Geoffry went to London, stayed a week or so, and then came back to the Grange. Another week or two, and he returned to Bath to bring his mother home. And so the winter set in, and wore on. And now all that has to be told to the paper's end is taken from diaries, Duffham's and others. But for convenience' sake, I put it as though the words were my own, instead of copying them literally.

Spring came in early. February was not quite at an end, and the trees were beginning to show their green. All the month it had been warm weather; but people said it was too relaxing for the season, and they and the trees should suffer for it later. A good deal of sickness was going about; and, amongst others who had to give in for a time, was Duffham himself. He had inflammation of the lungs. His brother Luke, who was partner in a medical firm elsewhere, came to Church d.y.k.ely for a week or two, to take the patients. Luke was a plain-speaking man of forty, with rough hair and a good heart.

The afternoon after he arrived, an applicant came into the surgery with her daughter. It was Mrs. Layne, but the temporary doctor did not know her. Mrs. Layne never did look like a lady, and he did not mistake her for one: he thought it some respectable countrywoman: she had flung a very ancient cloak over her worn morning gown. She expressed herself disappointed at not seeing Mr. Duffham, but opened the consultation with the brother instead. Mrs. Layne took it for granted she was known, and talked accordingly.

Her daughter, whom she kept calling Mary, and nothing else, had been ailing lately; she, Mrs. Layne, could not think what was the matter with her, unless it was the unusually warm spring. She grew thinner and weaker daily; her cheeks were pale, her eyes seemed to have no life in them: she was very low in spirits; yet, in spite of all this, Mary had kept on saying it was "nothing." My Lady Chava.s.se--returning home from London yesterday, whither she had accompanied her son a week or two ago, and whom she had left there--was so much struck with the change she saw in Mary, who lived with her as humble companion, Mrs. Layne added, in a parenthesis, that she insisted on her seeing Dr. Duffham, that he might prescribe some tonics. And accordingly Mary had walked to her mother's this afternoon.

Mr. Luke Duffham listened to all this with one ear, as it were. He supposed it might be the warm spring, as suggested. However, he took Mary into the patients' room, and examined her; felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, sounded her chest, with all the rest of it that doctors treat their clients to; and asked her this, that, and the other--about five-and-twenty questions, when perhaps five might have done. The upshot of it all was that Mary Layne went off in a dead faint.

"What on earth can be the matter with her?" cried the alarmed mother, when they had brought her round.

Mr. Luke Duffham, going back to the surgery with Mrs. Layne, shut the doors, and told her what he thought it was. It so startled the old lady that she backed against the counter and upset the scales.

"How dare you say so, sir!"

"But I am sure of it," returned Mr. Luke.

"Lord be good to me!" gasped Mrs. Layne, looking like one terrified out of her seven senses. "The worst I feared was that it might be consumption. A sister of mine died of it."

"Where shall I send the medicine to?" inquired the doctor.

"Anywhere. Over the way, if you like," continued Mrs. Layne, in her perturbation.

"Certainly. Where to, over the way?"

"To my house. Don't you know me? I am the widow of your brother's late partner. This unhappy child is the one he was fondest of; she is only nineteen, much younger than the rest."

"Mrs. Layne!" thought Luke Duffham, in surprise, "I wish I had known; I might have hesitated before speaking plainly. But where would have been the good?"

The first thing Mrs. Layne did, was to shut her own door against Mary, and send her back to the Grange in a shower of anger. She was an honest old lady, of most irreproachable character; never needing, as she phrased it, to have had a blush on her cheek, for herself or any one belonging to her. In her indignation, she could have crushed Mary to the earth. Whatever it might be that the poor girl had done, robbed a church, or shot its parson, her mother deemed that she deserved hanging.

Mary Layne walked back to the Grange: where else had she to go?

Broken-hearted, humiliated, weak almost unto death, she was as a reed in her mother's hands, yielding herself to any command given; and only wishing she might die. Lady Chava.s.se, compa.s.sionating her evident suffering, brought her a gla.s.s of wine with her own hand, and inquired what Mr. Duffham said, and whether he was going to give her tonics.

Instead of answering, Mary went into another faint: and my lady thought she had overwalked herself. "I wish I had sent her in the carriage,"

said she kindly. And while the wish was yet upon her lips, Mrs. Layne arrived at the Grange, to request an audience of her ladyship.

Then was commotion. My lady talked and stormed, Mrs. Layne talked and cried. Both were united in one thing--heaping reproaches on Mary. They were in the grand drawing-room--where my lady had been sitting when Mrs.

Layne was shown in. Lady Chava.s.se sat back, furious and scornful, in her pink velvet chair; Mrs. Layne stood; Mary had sunk on the carpet kneeling, her face bent, her clasped hands raised as if imploring mercy.

This group was suddenly broken in upon by Sir Geoffry--who had but then reached the Grange from town. They were too noisy to notice him. Halting in dismay he had the pleasure of catching a sentence or two addressed to the unhappy Mary.

"The best thing you can do is to find refuge in the workhouse," stormed Lady Chava.s.se. "Out of my house you turn this hour."

"The best thing you can do is to go on the tramp, where you won't be known," amended Mrs. Layne, who was nearly beside herself with conflicting emotions. "Never again shall you enter the home that was your poor dead father's. You wicked girl!--and you hardly twenty years old yet! But, my lady, I can but think--though I know we are humble people, as compared with you, and perhaps I've no right to say it--that Sir Geoffry has not behaved like a gentleman."

"Hold your tongue, woman," said her ladyship. "Sir Geoffry----"

"Sir Geoffry is at least enough of a gentleman to take his evil deeds on himself, and not shift them on to others," spoke the baronet, stepping forward--and the unexpected interruption was startling to them all. My lady pointed imperatively to the door, but he stood his ground.

It was no doubt a bitter moment for him; bringing home to him an awful amount of self-humiliation: for throughout his life he had striven to do right instead of wrong. And when these better men yield to temptation instead of fleeing from it, the reacting sting is of the sharpest. The wisest and strongest sometimes fall: and find too late that, though the fall was so easy, the picking-up is of all things most difficult. Sir Geoffry's face was white as death.

"Get up, Mary," he said gently, taking her hand to help her in all respect. "Mrs. Layne," he added, turning to face the others; "my dear mother--if I may dare still to call you so--suffer me to say a word. For all that has taken place, I am alone to blame; on me only must it rest, The fault----"

"Sin, sir," interrupted Mrs. Layne.

"Yes. Thank you. Sin. The sin lies with me, not with Mary. In my presence reproach shall not be visited on her. She has enough trouble to bear without that. I wish to Heaven that I had never--Mrs. Layne, believe me," he resumed, after the pause, "no one can feel this more keenly than I. And, if circ.u.mstances permit me to make reparation, I will make it!"

Sir Geoffry wanted (circ.u.mstances permitting, as he shortly put it) to marry Mary Layne; he _wished_ to do it. Taking his mother into another room he told her this. Lady Chava.s.se simply thought him mad. She grew a little afraid of him, lest he should set her and all high rules of propriety at nought, and do it.

But trouble like this cannot be settled in an hour. Lady Chava.s.se, in her great fear, conciliated just a little: she did not turn Miss Layne out at once, as threatened, but suffered her to remain at the Grange for the night.

"In any case, whatever may be the ending of this, it is not from my family that risk of exposure must come," spoke Sir Geoffry, in a tone of firmness. "It might leave me no alternative."

"No alternative?" repeated Lady Chava.s.se. "How?"

"Between my duty to you, and my duty to her," said Sir Geoffry. And my lady's heart fainted within her at the suggested fear.

They were together in the library at Chava.s.se Grange, Lady Chava.s.se and her only son Geoffry. It was early morning; they had sat in the breakfast-room making a show of partaking of the morning meal, each of them with that bitter trouble at the heart that had been known only--to my lady, at least--since the previous day. But the farce of speaking in monosyllables to one another could not be kept up--the trouble had to be dealt with, and without delay; and when the poor meal could not be prolonged by any artifice, Sir Geoffry held open the door for his mother to pa.s.s through, and crossed the hall with her to the library. Shut within its walls they could discuss the secret in safety; no eye to see them, no ear to hear.

Sir Geoffry mechanically stirred the fire, and placed a chair for his mother near it. The weather appeared to be changing. Instead of the unseasonable relaxing warmth that had been upon the earth up to the previous day, a cold north-east wind had set in, enough to freeze people's marrow. The skies were grey and lowering; the trees shook and moaned: winter was taking up his place again.

So much the better. Blue skies and brightness would hardly have accorded with Sir Geoffry's spirit. He might have to endure many cruel visitations ere he died, but never a one so cruel as this. No evil that Heaven can send upon us, or man inflict, is so hard to bear as self-reproach.

If ever a son had idolized a mother, it had surely been Geoffry Chava.s.se. They had been knit together in the strongest bonds of filial love. His whole thought from his boyhood had been her comfort: to have sacrificed himself for her, if needs must, would have been a cheerful task. When he came of age, not yet so very many months ago, he had resolved that his whole future life should be devoted to promote her happiness--as her life had been devoted to him in the days of his sickly boyhood. Her wishes were his; her word his law; he would have died rather than cause her a moment's pain.

And how had he, even thus early, fulfilled this? Look at him, as he leans against the heavy framework of the window, drawn back from it that the light may not fall on his subdued face. The brow is bent in grievous doubt; the dark-blue eyes, generally so honestly clear, are hot with trouble; the bright hair hangs limp. Yes; he would have died rather than bring his mother pain: that was his true creed and belief; but, like many another whose resolves are made in all good faith, he had signally failed, even while he was thinking it, and brought pain to her in a crushing heap. He hated himself as he looked at her pale countenance; at the traces of tears in her heavy eyes. Never a minute's sleep had she had the previous night, it was plainly to be seen; and, as for him, he had paced his chamber until morning, not attempting to go to rest.

But there was a task close before him, heavier than any that had gone before; heavier even than this silent repentance--the deciding _what_ was to be done in the calamity; and Sir Geoffry knew that his duty to his mother and his duty to another would clash with each other. All the past night he had been earnestly trying to decide which of the two might be evaded with the least sin--and he thought he saw which.

Lady Chava.s.se had taken the chair he placed for her; sitting upright in it, and waiting for him to speak. She knew, as well as he, that this next hour would decide their fate in life: whether they should still be together a loving mother and son; or whether they should become estranged and separate for ever. He crossed to the fireplace and put his elbow on the mantelpiece, shielding his eyes with his hand. Just a few words, he said, of his sense of shame and sorrow; of regret that he should have brought this dishonour on himself and his mother's home; of hope that he might be permitted, by Heaven and circ.u.mstances, to work out his repentance, in endeavouring daily, hourly constantly, to atone to her for it--to her, his greatly-loved mother. And then--lifting his face from the hand that had partially hidden it--he asked her to be patient, and to hear him without interruption a little further. And Lady Chava.s.se bowed her head in acquiescence.

"Nothing remains for me but to marry Miss Layne," he began: and my lady, as she heard the expected avowal, bit her compressed lips "It is the only course open to me; unless I would forfeit every claim to honour, and to the respect of upright men. If you will give your consent to this, the evil may be in a degree repaired; nothing need ever be known; Mary's good name may be saved--mine, too, if it comes to that--and eventually we may be all happy together----"

"Do not try me too much, Geoffry," came the low interruption.

"Mother, you signified that you would hear me to the end. I will not try you more than I can help; but it is necessary that I should speak fully. All last night I was walking about my room in self-commune; deliberating what way was open, if any, that it would be practicable to take--and I saw but this one. Let me marry her. It will be easy of accomplishment--speaking in reference to appearances and the world.

She might go for a week or two to her mother's; for a month or two, if it were thought better and less suspicious; there is no pressing hurry. We could then be married quietly, and go abroad for a year or so, or for longer; and come back together to the Grange, and be your dutiful and loving children always, just as it was intended I and Rachel should be. But that you have liked Mary Layne very much, I might have felt more difficulty in proposing this."