Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 73

"Better of this cough, perhaps: I don't know: but not better yet of my true illness that I think most of--the overtaxed nerves and brain. Oh, if I could only have taken a sufficient rest in time!"

"Mr. Todhetley said you ought to have stayed with us for three months.

He says it often still."

"I believe," he said, solemnly lifting his hand, "that if I could have had entire rest then for two or three months, it would have set me up for life. Heaven hears me say it."

And what a dreadful thing it now seemed that he had not!

"I don't repine. My lot seems a hard one, and I sometimes feel sick and weary when I dwell upon it. I have tried to do my duty: I could but keep on and work, as G.o.d knows. There was no other course open to me."

I supposed there was not.

"I am no worse off than many others, Johnny. There are men breaking down every day from incessant application and want of needful rest. Well for them if their hearts don't break with it!"

And, to judge by the tone he spoke in, it was as much as to say that his heart had broken.

"I am beginning to dwell less on it now," he went on. "Perhaps it is that I am too weak to feel so keenly. Or that Christ's words are being indeed realized to me: 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' G.o.d does not forsake us in our trouble, Johnny, once we have learnt to turn to Him."

Mrs. Marks came into the room with the cup of arrowroot. The boy had run down to tell her I was there. She was very pleasant and cheerful: you could be at home with her at once. While he was waiting for the arrowroot to cool, he leant back in his chair and dropped into a doze.

"It must have been a frightful cold that he caught," I whispered to her.

"It was caught the day he went into the City to tell Mr. Brown he must give up his situation," she answered. "There's an old saying, of being penny wise and pound foolish, and that's what poor James was that day.

It was a fine morning when he started; but rain set in, and when he left Mr. Brown it was pouring, and the streets were wet. He ought to have taken a cab, but did not, and waited for an omnibus. The first that pa.s.sed was full; by the time another came he had got wet and his feet were soaking. That brought on a return of the illness he had had in January."

"I hope he will get well."

"It lies with G.o.d," she answered.

They made me promise to go again. "Soon, Johnny, soon," said Mr. Marks with an eagerness that was suggestive. "Come in the afternoon and have some tea with me."

I had meant to obey literally and go in a day or two; but one thing or other kept intervening, and a week or ten days pa.s.sed. One Wednesday Miss Deveen was engaged to a dinner-party, and I took the opportunity to go to Pimlico. It was a stormy afternoon, blowing great guns one minute, pouring cats and dogs the next. Mrs. Marks was alone in the parlour, the tea-things on the table before her.

"We thought you had forgotten us," she said in a half-whisper, shaking hands. "But this is the best time you could have come; for a kind neighbour has invited all the children in for the evening, and we shall be quiet. James is worse."

"Worse!"

"At least, weaker. He cannot sit up long now without great fatigue. He lay down on the bed an hour ago and has dropped asleep," she added, indicating the next room. "I am waiting for him to awake before I make the tea."

He awoke then: the cough betrayed it. She went into the room, and presently he came back with her. No doubt he was worse! my heart sank at seeing him. If he had looked like a skeleton before, he was like a skeleton's ghost now.

"Ah, Johnny! I knew you would come."

I told him how it was I had not been able to come before, going into details. It seemed to amuse him to hear of the engagements, and I described Helen Whitney's Court dress as well as I could--and Lady Whitney's--and the servants' great bouquets--and the ball at night. He ate one bit of thin toast and drank three big cups of tea. Mrs. Marks said he was always thirsty.

After tea he had a violent fit of coughing and thought he must lie down to rest for a bit. Mrs. Marks came back and sat with me.

"I hope he will get well," I could not help saying to her.

She shook her head. "I fear he has not much hope of it himself," she answered. "Only yesterday I heard him tell w.i.l.l.y--that--that G.o.d would take care of them when he was gone."

She could hardly speak the last words, and broke down with a sob. I wished I had not said anything.

"He has great trust, but things trouble him very much," she resumed.

"Nothing else can be expected, for he knows that our means are almost spent."

"It must trouble you also, Mrs. Marks."

"I seem to have so much to trouble me that I dare not dwell upon it. I pray not to, every hour of the day. If I gave way, what would become of them?"

At dark she lighted the candles and drew down the blinds. Just after that, there came a tremendous knock at the front-door, loud and long.

"Naughty children," she exclaimed. "It must be they."

"I'll go; don't you stir, Mrs. Marks."

I opened the door, and a rush of wind and rain seemed to blow in an old gentleman. He never said a word to me, but went banging into the parlour and sank down on a chair out of breath.

"Papa!" exclaimed Mrs. Marks. "Papa!"

"Wait till I get up my speech, my dear," said the old gentleman. "She is gone."

"Who is gone!" cried Mrs. Marks.

"_She._ I don't want to say too much against her now she's gone, Caroline; but she _is_ gone. She had a bad fall downstairs in a tipsy fit some days ago, striking her head on the flags, and the doctors could do nothing for her. She died this morning, poor soul; and I am coming to live with you and James, if you will have me. We shall all be so comfortable together, my dear."

Perhaps Mrs. Marks remembered at once what it implied--that the pressure of poverty was suddenly lifted and she and those dear ones would be at ease for the future. She bent her head in her hands for a minute or two, keeping silence.

"Your husband shall have rest now, my dear, and all that he needs. So will you, Caroline."

It had come too late. James Marks died in May.

It was about three or four years afterwards that we saw the death of Mr.

Brown in the _Times_. The newspapers made a flourish of trumpets over him; saying he had died worth two hundred thousand pounds.

"There must be something wrong somewhere, Johnny," remarked the Squire, in a puzzle. "_I_ should not like to die worth all that money, and know that I had worked my clerks to the bone to get it together. I wonder how he will like meeting poor Marks in the next world?"

XVIII.

REALITY OR DELUSION?

This is a ghost story. Every word of it is true. And I don't mind confessing that for ages afterwards some of us did not care to pa.s.s the spot alone at night. Some people do not care to pa.s.s it yet.

It was autumn, and we were at Crabb Cot. Lena had been ailing; and in October Mrs. Todhetley proposed to the Squire that they should remove with her there, to see if the change would do her good.