Johnny Ludlow Fourth Series Part 93

"We should be so glad if you would come," I added, after giving the message. "Mrs. Todhetley says you make yourself too much of a stranger.

Will you come this evening?"

He shook his head slightly, clasping my hand the while, his own feeling like a burning coal, and smiling the sweetest and saddest smile.

"You are all too good for me; too considerate; better far than I deserve. No, I cannot come to you this evening, Johnny: I have not the spirits for it; hardly the strength. But I will come one evening if I can. Thank them all, Johnny, for me."

And he did come. But he could not speak much above a whisper, so weak and hollow had his voice grown. And of all the humble-minded, kindly-spirited individuals that ever sat at our tea-table, the chiefest was Hyde Stockhausen.

"I fear he is going the way of all the Stockhausens," said Mrs.

Todhetley afterwards. "But what a beautiful frame of mind he is in!"

"Beautiful, you call it!" cried the pater. "The man seems to me to be eating his heart out in some impossible atonement. Had I set fire to the church and burnt up all the congregation, I don't think it could have subdued me to that extent."

Of all places, where should I next meet Hyde but at Worcester races! We knew that he had been worse lately, that his mother had come to Virginia Cottage to be with him at the last, and that there was no further hope.

Therefore, to see Hyde this afternoon, perched on a tall horse on Pitchcroft, looked more like magic than reality.

"_You_ at the races, Hyde!"

"Yes; but not for pleasure," he answered, smiling faintly; and looking so shadowy and weak that it was a marvel how he could stick on the horse. "I am in search of one who is growing too fond of these scenes.

I want to find him--and to say a few last words to him."

"If you mean Jim Ma.s.sock"--for I thought it could be n.o.body but young Jim--"I saw him yonder, down by the shows. He was drinking porter outside a booth. How are you, Hyde?"

"Oh, getting on slowly," he said, with a peculiar smile.

"Getting on! It looks to me to be the other way."

Turning his horse quickly round, after nodding to me, in the direction of the shows and drinking booths, he nearly turned it upon a tall, gaunt skeleton in a red cloak--Ketira the gipsy. She must have sprung out of the crowd.

But oh, how ill she looked! Hyde was strangely altered; but not as she was. The yellow face was shrivelled and shrunken, the fire had left her eyes. Hyde checked his horse; but the animal turned restive. He controlled it with his hand, and sat still before Ketira.

"Yes, look at me," she burst forth. "_For the last time._ The end is close at hand both for you and for me. We shall meet Kettie where we are going."

He leaned from his horse to speak to her: his voice a low sad wail, his words apparently those of deprecating prayer. Ketira heard him quietly to the end, gazing into his face, and then slowly turned away.

"Fare you well, Hyde Stockhausen. Farewell for ever."

Before leaving the course Hyde had an accident. While talking to Jim Ma.s.sock, some drums and trumpets struck up their noise at a neighbouring show; the horse started violently, and Hyde was thrown. He thought he was not much hurt and mounted again.

"What else could you expect?" demanded Duffham, when Hyde got back to Virginia Cottage. "You have not strength to sit a donkey, and you must go careering off to Worcester races on a fiery horse!"

But the fall had done Hyde some inward damage, and it hastened the end.

He died that day week.

"Some men's sins go before them to Judgment, and some follow after,"

solemnly said Mr. Holland the next Sunday from the pulpit. "He who is gone from among us had taken his to his Saviour--and he is now at rest."

"All chance and coincidence," p.r.o.nounced Duffham, talking over the strange threat of Ketira the gipsy and its stranger working out. "Yes; chance, I say, each of the three times. The woman, happening to be at hand, must have known by common report that the child was in peril; she may have learnt at Malvern that the wife was dying; and any goose with eyes in its head might have read coming death on _his_ face that afternoon on Pitchcroft. That's all about it, Johnny."

Very probably. The reader can exercise his own judgment. I only know it all happened.

THE CURATE OF ST. MATTHEW'S.

I.

"No, Johnny Ludlow, I shall not stay at home, and have the deeds sent up and down by post. I know what lawyers are; so will you, some time: this letter to be read and answered to-day; that paper to be digested and despatched back to-morrow--anything to enchance their bill of costs. I intend to be in London, on the spot; and so will you be, Mr. Johnny."

So said Mr. Brandon to me, as we sat in the bay-window at Crabb Cot, at which place we were staying. _I_ was willing enough to go to London; liked the prospect beyond everything; but he was not well, and I thought of the trouble to him.

"Of course, sir, if you consider it necessary we should be there.

But----"

"Now, Johnny Ludlow, I have told you my decision," he interrupted, cutting me short in all the determination of his squeaky little voice.

"You go with me to London, sir, and we start on Monday morning next; and I dare say we shall be kept there a week. I know what lawyers are."

This happened when I came of age, twenty-one; but I should not be of age as to my property for four more years: until then, Mr. Brandon remained my arbitrary guardian and trustee, just as strictly as he had been.

Arbitrary so far as doing the right thing as trustee went, not suffering me, or any one else, to squander a shilling. One small bit of property fell to me now; a farm; and old Brandon was making as much legal commotion over the transfer of it from his custody to mine, as though it had been veined with gold. For this purpose, to execute the deeds of transfer, he meant to take up his quarters in London, to be on the spot with the lawyers who had it in hand, and to carry me up with him.

And what great events trivial chances bring about! Chances, as they are called. These "chances" are all in the hands of one Divine Ruler, who is ever shaping them to further His own wise ends. But for my going to London that time and staying there--however, I'll not let the cat out of the bag.

He stayed with us at Crabb Cot until the Monday, when we started for London; the Squire and Tod coming to the station to see us off. Mr.

Brandon wore a nankeen suit, and had a green veil in readiness. A green veil, if you'll believe me! The sun was under a cloud just then; had been for the best part of the morning; but if it came out fiercely--Tod threw up his arms behind old Brandon's back, and gave me a grin and a whisper.

"I wouldn't be you for something, Johnny; he'll be taken for a lunatic."

"And mind you take care of yourself, sir," put in the Squire, to me.

"London is a dreadful place; full of temptations; and you are but an inexperienced boy, Johnny. Be cautious and watchful, lad; don't pick up any strange acquaintances in the streets; sharpers are on the watch to get you into conversation, and then swindle you out of all the money in your pockets. Be sure don't forget the little hamper for Miss Deveen; and----"

The puffing of the engine, as we started, drowned the rest. We reached Paddington, smoothly and safely--and old Brandon did not once put on the veil. He took a cab to the Tavistock Hotel, and I another cab to Miss Deveen's.

For she had asked me to stay with her. Hearing of my probable visit to town through a letter of Helen Whitney's, she, ever kind, wrote at once, saying, if I did go, I must make her house my home for the time, and that it would be a most delightful relief to the stagnation she and Miss Cattledon had been lately enjoying. Of course that was just her pleasant way of putting it.

The house looked just as it used to look; the cl.u.s.tering trees of the north-western suburb were as green and grateful to the tired eye as of yore; and Miss Deveen, in grey satin, received me with the same glad smile. I knew I was a favourite of hers; she once said there were few people in the world she liked as well as she liked me--which made me feel proud and grateful. "I should leave you a fortune, Johnny," she said to me that same day, "but that I know you have plenty of your own."

And I begged her not to do anything of the kind; not to think of it: she must know a great many people to whom her money would be a G.o.dsend.

She laughed at my earnestness, and told me I should be unselfish to the end.

We spent a quiet evening. The grey-haired curate, Mr. Lake, who had come in the first evening I ever spent at Miss Deveen's, years ago, came in again by invitation. "He is so modest," she had said to me, in those long-past years, "he never comes without being invited:" and he was modest still. His hair had been chestnut-coloured once; it was half grey and half chestnut now; and his face and voice were gentle, and his manners kindly. Cattledon was displaying her most gracious behaviour, and thinnest waist; one of the roses I had brought up with the strawberries was sticking out of the body of her green silk gown.

For at least half-a-dozen years she had been setting her cap at the curate--and I think she must have been endowed with supreme patience.

"If you do not particularly want me this morning, Miss Deveen, I think I will go over to service."

It was the next morning, and after breakfast. Cattledon had been downstairs, giving the orders for dinner--and said this on her return.