Johnny Ludlow Third Series Part 80

"Then why should he not declare it?"

"Ah, I don't know. There may be various reasons. Her poverty perhaps--for she has nothing but the salary Lady Jenkins pays her. Or, he may not care to marry one who is only a companion: they say he is of good family himself. Another reason, and possibly the most weighty one, may be, that madame does not like him."

"I don't think she does like him."

"I am sure she does not. She gives him angry looks, and she turns away from him with ill-disguised coldness. And so, that's about how the state of affairs lies up there," concluded Dan, shaking hands with me as we reached the door of his lodgings. "Captain Collinson's love is given to Madame St. Vincent, on the one hand, and to Mina's money on the other; and I think he is in a pretty puzzle which of the two to choose.

Good-night, Johnny Ludlow. Be sure to remember this is only between ourselves."

II.

A week or so pa.s.sed on. Janet was up to her eyes in preparations, expecting a visitor. And the visitor was no other than Miss Cattledon--if you have not forgotten her. Being fearfully particular in all ways, and given to fault-finding, as poor Janet only too well remembered, of course it was necessary to have things in apple-pie order.

"I should never hear the last of it as long as Aunt Jemima stayed, if so much as a speck of dust was in any of the rooms, or a chair out of place," said Janet to me laughingly, as she and the maids dusted and scrubbed away.

"What's she coming for, Janet?"

"She invited herself," replied Janet: "and indeed we shall be glad to see her. Miss Deveen is going to visit some friends in Devonshire, and Aunt Jemima takes the opportunity of coming here the while. I am sorry Arnold is so busy just now. He will not have much time to give to her--and she likes attention."

The cause of Dr. Knox's increased occupation, was Mr. Tamlyn's illness.

For the past few days he had had feverish symptoms, and did not go out.

Few medical men would have found the indisposition sufficiently grave to remain at home; but Mr. Tamlyn was an exception. He gave in at the least thing now: and it was nothing at all unusual for Arnold Knox to find all the patients thrown on his own hands.

Amongst the patients so thrown this time was Lady Jenkins. She had caught cold at that soiree I have just told of. Going to the door in her old-fashioned, hospitable way, to speed the departure of the last guests, she had stayed there in the draught, talking, and began at once to sneeze and cough.

"There!" cried Madame St. Vincent, when my lady got back again, "you have gone and caught a chill."

"I think I have," admitted Lady Jenkins. "I'll send for Tamlyn in the morning."

"Oh, my dear Lady Jenkins, we shall not want Tamlyn," dissented madame.

"I'll take care of you myself, and have you well in no time."

But Lady Jenkins, though very much swayed by her kind companion, who was ever anxious for her, chose to have up Mr. Tamlyn, and sent him a private message herself.

He went up at once--evidently taking madame by surprise--and saw his patient. The cold, being promptly treated, turned out to be a mere nothing, though Madame St. Vincent insisted on keeping the sufferer some days in bed. By the time Mr. Tamlyn was ill, she was well again, and there was not much necessity for Dr. Knox to take her: at least, on the score of her cold. But he did it.

One afternoon, when he was going up there late, he asked me if I would like the drive. And, while he paid his visit to Lady Jenkins, I went in to Rose Villa. It was a fine, warm afternoon, almost like summer, and Mrs. Knox and the girls were sitting in the garden. d.i.c.ky was there also. d.i.c.ky was generally at school from eight o'clock till six, but this was a half-holiday. d.i.c.ky, eleven years old now, but very little for his age, was more troublesome than ever. Just now he was at open war with his two younger sisters and Miss Mack, the governess, who had gone indoors to escape him.

Leaning against the trunk of a tree, as he talked to Mrs. Knox, Mina, and Charlotte, stood Captain Collinson, the rays of the sun, now drawing westward, shining full upon him, bringing out the purple gloss of his hair, whiskers, beard, and moustache deeper than usual. Captain Collinson incautiously made much of d.i.c.ky, had told him attractive stories of the glories of war, and promised him a commission when he should be old enough. The result was, that d.i.c.ky had been living in the seventh heaven, had bought himself a tin sword, and wore it strapped to his waist, dangling beneath his jacket. d.i.c.ky, wild to be a soldier, worshipped Captain Collinson as the prince of heroes, and followed him about like a shadow. An inkling of this ambition of d.i.c.ky's, and of Captain Collinson's promise, had only reached Mrs. Knox's ears this very afternoon. It was a ridiculous promise of course, worth nothing, but Mrs. Knox took it up seriously.

"A commission for d.i.c.ky!--get d.i.c.ky a commission!" she exclaimed in a flutter that set her bracelets jangling, just as I arrived on the scene.

"Why, what can you mean, Captain Collinson? Do you think I would have d.i.c.ky made into a soldier--to be shot at? Never. He is my only son. How can you put such ideas into his head?"

"Don't mind her," cried d.i.c.ky, shaking the captain's coat-tails. "I say, captain, don't you mind her."

Captain Collinson turned to young d.i.c.ky, and gave him a rea.s.suring wink.

Upon which, d.i.c.ky went strutting over the gra.s.s-plat, brandishing his sword. I shook hands with Mrs. Knox and the girls, and, turning to salute the captain, found him gone.

"You have frightened him away, Johnny Ludlow," cried Charlotte: but she spoke in jest.

"He was already going," said Mina. "He told me he had an engagement."

"And a good thing too," spoke Mrs. Knox, crossly. "Fancy his giving dangerous notions to d.i.c.ky!"

d.i.c.ky had just discovered our loss. He came shrieking back to know where the captain was. Gone away for good, his mother told him. Upon which young d.i.c.ky plunged into a fit of pa.s.sion and kicking.

"Do you know how Lady Jenkins is to-day?" I asked of Charlotte, when d.i.c.ky's noise had been appeased by a promise of cold apple-pudding for tea.

"Not so well."

"Not so well! I had thought of her as being much better."

"I don't think her so," continued Charlotte. "Madame St. Vincent told Mina this morning that she was all right; but when I went in just now she was in bed and could hardly answer me."

"Is her cold worse?"

"No; I think that is gone, or nearly so. She seemed dazed--stupid, more so than usual."

"I certainly never saw any one alter so greatly as Lady Jenkins has altered in the last few months," spoke Mrs. Knox. "She is not like the same woman."

"I'm sure I wish we had never gone that French journey!" said Mina. "She has never been well since. Oh, here's Arnold!"

Dr. Knox had come straight into the garden from Jenkins House. d.i.c.ky rushed up to besiege his arms and legs; but, as d.i.c.ky was in a state of flour--which he had just put upon himself in the kitchen, or had had put upon him by the maids--the doctor ordered him to keep at arm's-length; and the doctor was the only person who could make himself obeyed by d.i.c.ky.

"You have been to see Lady Jenkins, Arnold," said his step-mother. "How is she?"

"Nothing much to boast of," lightly answered Dr. Knox. "Johnny, are you ready?"

"I am going to be a soldier, Arnold," put in d.i.c.ky, dancing a kind of war-dance round him. "Captain Collinson is going to make me a captain like himself."

"All right," said Arnold. "You must grow a little bigger first."

"And, Arnold, the captain says---- Oh, my!" broke off d.i.c.ky, "what's this? What have I found?"

The boy stooped to pick up something glittering that had caught his eye.

It proved to be a curiously-shaped gold watch-key, with a small compa.s.s in it. Mina and Lotty both called out that it was Captain Collinson's, and must have dropped from his chain during a recent romp with d.i.c.ky.

"I'll take it in to him at Lady Jenkins's," said d.i.c.ky.

"You will do nothing of the sort, sir," corrected his mother, taking the key from him: she had been thoroughly put out by the suggestion of the "commission."

"Should you chance to see the captain when you go out," she added to me, "tell him his watch-key is here."

The phaeton waited outside. It was the oldest thing I ever saw in regard to fashion, and might have been in the firm hundreds of years. Its hood could be screwed up and down at will; just as the perch behind, where Thomas, the groom, generally sat, could be closed or opened. I asked Dr.

Knox whether it had been built later than the year One.

"Just a little, I suppose," he answered, smiling. "This vehicle was Dockett's special aversion. He christened it the 'conveyance,' and we have mostly called it so since."