Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 55

"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 peac.o.c.k's mouth, condescendingly held wide to receive them. Lady Chava.s.se 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 peac.o.c.k now, instead of--of--I was going to say--of worse than none."

Lady Chava.s.se 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 peac.o.c.k, instead of only that one on whose birth so cruel a blight had been cast.

"A n.o.ble 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 gra.s.s, his blue eyes were shining.

"He is frightfully greedy and selfish, Lady Chava.s.se. 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 Chava.s.se, 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 Chava.s.se, 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 peac.o.c.k, seeing no more dainty biscuit in store, had fluttered off with a scream, putting his tail down into the smallest possible compa.s.s; 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 Chava.s.se and Sir Geoffry as he rode away. A n.o.ble 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 j.a.pan tray, and the bread-and-b.u.t.ter 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 Chava.s.se 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 pa.s.sage, 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 Chava.s.se. 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 Chava.s.se!" 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 Chava.s.se Grange with heirs.

"Lady Chava.s.se, I am not in the place of G.o.d."

"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 Chava.s.se--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 Chava.s.se, 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 Chava.s.se; 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 Chava.s.se. 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 const.i.tution," 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 Chava.s.se--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 hoa.r.s.e 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 Chava.s.se 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.