Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 53

"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 pa.s.sing 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 Chava.s.se, 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 Chava.s.se 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 Chava.s.se's present to him, he took a small book from it and put it into his breast-pocket. Lady Chava.s.se, 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 Chava.s.se 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 pa.s.sed, 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 Chava.s.se. "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 to-day, 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 gla.s.s 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 Chava.s.se 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 cla.s.sically-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."