Wenderholme Part 9

"One person must be told about this," said Dr. Bardly, "and that's Lady Helena. Go and tell her now. Ask her to get up and come here, and warn her not to rouse any of the servants."

Her ladyship made her appearance in a few minutes in a dressing-gown.

"Lady Helena," said the Doctor, "you're wanted as a nurse. This child requires great care for the next twenty-four hours, and you must do every thing for him with your own hands. Is there a place in the house where he can be lodged out of the way of the servants?"

Lady Helena had no boys of her own. She had had one little girl at the beginning of her married life, who had lived, and was now at Wenderholme, comfortably sleeping in the prettiest of little beds, in a large and healthy nursery in the left wing of the building. She had had two little boys since, but _they_ were both sleeping in Wenderholme churchyard. When she saw little Jacob in his tub, the tears came into her eyes, and she was ready to be his nurse as long as ever he might have need of her.

"I'll tell you all about him, Lady Helena, when we've put him to bed."

Little Jacob sat in his tub looking at the kind, strange lady, and feeling himself in a state of unrealizable bliss. "You must be very tired and very hungry, my poor child," she said. Little Jacob said he was very hungry, but he didn't feel tired now. He had felt tired in the wood, but he didn't feel tired now in the tub.

The boy being fairly put to bed, female curiosity could not wait till the next day, and she sought out the Doctor, who was still with the Colonel in his study. "I beg to be excused, gentlemen," she said, "for intruding in this room in an unauthorized manner, but I want to know all about that little boy."

The Doctor told his history very minutely, and the history of his father. Then he added, "I believe the only possible chance of saving his father from killing himself with drinking is to leave him for some time under the impression that the boy, having been driven away by his cruelty, has died from exposure on the moor. This may give him a horror of drinking, and may effect a permanent cure. There is another thing to be considered, the child's own safety. If we send him back to his father, I will not answer for his life. The father is already in a state of hirritability bordering on insanity--in fact he is partially insane; and if the child is put under his power before there has been time to work a thorough cure, it is likely that he will beat him frequently and severely--he may even kill him in some paroxysm of rage. If Isaac Ogden knew that the child were here, and claimed him to-morrow, I believe it would be your duty not to give him up, and I should urge his uncle to inst.i.tute legal proceedings to deprive the father of the guardianship. A man in Isaac Ogden's state is not fit to have a child in his power. He has beaten him very terribly already,--his body is all bruises; and now if we send him back, he will beat him again for having run away."

These reasons certainly had great weight, but both the Colonel and Lady Helena foresaw much difficulty in keeping the child at Wenderholme without his presence there becoming immediately known. His disappearance would make a noise, not only at Shayton, but at Sootythorn, and everywhere in the neighborhood. The relations of the child were in easy circ.u.mstances, and a heavy reward would probably be offered, which the servants at Wenderholme Hall could scarcely be expected to resist, still less the villagers in the neighboring hamlet. It would be necessary to find some very solitary person, living in great obscurity, to whose care little Jacob might be safely confided--at any rate, for a few days. Lady Helena suggested two old women who lived together in a sort of almshouse of hers on the estate, but the Colonel said they were too fond of gossip, and received too many visitors, to be trusted. At last the Doctor's countenance suddenly brightened, and he said that he knew where to hide little Jacob, but where that was he positively refused to tell.

All he asked for was, that the child should be kept a close prisoner in the Colonel's sanctum for the next twenty-four hours, and that the Colonel would lend him a horse and gig--_not_ a tandem.

CHAPTER X.

CHRISTMAS AT MILEND.

It is quite unnecessary to inform the reader where Dr. Bardly had determined to hide little Jacob. His resolution being decidedly taken, the Colonel and he waited till the next night at half-past twelve, and then, without the help of a single servant, they harnessed a fast-trotting mare to a roomy dog-cart. Little Jacob and Feorach were put where the dogs were kept on shooting expeditions. And both fell asleep together. It was six o'clock in the morning when the Doctor arrived at his destination.

Mr. Isaac Ogden, whose wretchedness the reader pities perhaps as much as the Doctor did, continued his researches for some weeks in a discouraged and desultory way, but little Jacob was perfectly well hidden. Mrs.

Ogden had been admitted into the secret by the Doctor, and approved of his policy of concealment. Under pretext of a journey to Manchester with Dr. Bardly, to consult an eminent physician there, she absented herself two days from Milend and went to visit her grandson. The truth was also known to Jacob Ogden, senior, who supported his mother's resolution, which would certainly have broken down without him. It pained her to see her son Isaac in the misery of a bereavement which he supposed to be eternal. The Doctor took a physiological view of the case, and argued that time was a necessary condition of success. "We aren't sure of having saved him yet," said the Doctor: "we must persevere till his const.i.tution has got past the point of craving for strong drink altogether."

Matters remained in this state until Christmas Eve. Periodical festivals are highly agreeable inst.i.tutions for happy people, who have the springs of merriment within them, ready to gush forth on any pretext, or on the strength of simple permission to gush forth; but it is difficult for a man oppressed by a persistent weight of sorrow to throw it off because the almanac has brought itself to a certain date, and it is precisely at the times of general festivity that such a man feels his burden heaviest. It may be observed also, that as a man, or a society of men, approaches the stage of maturity and reflection, the events of life appear more and more to acquire the power of coloring the whole of existence; so that the faculty of being merry at appointed times, and its converse, the faculty of weeping at appointed times, both give place to a continual but quiet sadness, from which we never really escape, even for an hour, though we may still be capable of a manly fort.i.tude, and retain a certain elasticity, or the appearance of it. In a word, our happiness and misery are no longer alternative and acute, but coexist in a chronic form, so that it has ceased to be natural for men to wear sackcloth and heap ashes on their heads, and sit in the dust in their wretchedness; and it has also ceased to be natural for them to crown themselves with flowers, and anoint themselves with the oil of gladness, and clothe themselves in the radiance of purple and cloth-of-gold. No hour of life is quite miserable enough or hopeless enough for the sackcloth and the ashes--no hour of life is brilliant enough for the glorious vesture and the flowery coronal.

A year before, Isaac Ogden would have welcomed the Christmas festivities as a legitimate occasion for indulgence in his favorite vice, without much meditation (and in this perhaps he may have resembled some other very regular observers of the festival) on the history of the Founder of Christianity. But as it was no longer his desire to celebrate either this or any other festival of the Church by exposing himself to a temptation which, for him, was the strongest and most dangerous of all temptations--and as the idea of a purely spiritual celebration was an idea so utterly foreign to the whole tenor of his thoughts and habits as never even to suggest itself to him--he had felt strongly disposed to shun Christmas altogether,--that is, to escape from the outward and visible Christmas to some place where the days might pa.s.s as merely natural days, undistinguished by any sign of national or ecclesiastical commemoration. He had determined, therefore, to go back to Twistle Farm, from which it seemed to him that he had been too long absent, and had announced this intention to the Doctor. But when the Doctor repeated it to Mrs. Ogden, she would not hear of any such violation of the customs and traditions of the family. Her sons had always spent Christmas Eve together; and so long as she lived, she was firmly resolved that they always should. The pertinacity with which a determined woman will uphold a custom that she cherishes is simply irresistible--that is, unless the rebel makes up his mind to incur her perpetual enmity; and Isaac Ogden was less than ever in a condition of mind either to brave the hostility of his mother or wound her tenderer feelings. So it came to pa.s.s that on Christmas Eve he went to Milend to tea.

Now on the tea-table there were some little cakes, and Mrs. Ogden, who had not the remotest notion of the sort of delicacy that avoids a subject because it may be painful to somebody present, and who always simply gave utterance to her thoughts as they came to her, observed that these little cakes were of her own making, and actually added, "They're such as I used makin' for little Jacob--he was so fond on 'em."

Isaac Ogden's feelings were not very sensitive, and he could bear a great deal; but he could not bear this. He set down his cup of tea untasted, gazed for a few seconds at the plateful of little cakes, and left the room.

The Doctor was there, but he said nothing. Jacob Ogden did not feel under any obligation to be so reticent. "Mother," he said, "I think you needn't have mentioned little Jacob--our Isaac cannot bear it; he knows no other but what th' little un's dead, and he's as sore as sore."

This want of delicacy in Mrs. Ogden arose from an all but total lack of imagination. She could sympathize with others if she suffered along with them--an expression which might be criticised as tautological, but the reader will understand what is meant by it. If Mrs. Ogden had had the toothache, she would have sympathized with the sufferings of another person similarly afflicted so long as her own pangs lasted; but if a drop of creosote or other powerful remedy proved efficacious in her own case, and released her from the torturing pain, she would have looked upon her fellow-sufferer as pusillanimous, if after that she continued to exhibit the outward signs of torment. Therefore, as she herself knew that little Jacob was safe it was now incomprehensible by her that his father should not feel equally at ease about him, though, as a matter of fact, she was perfectly well aware that he supposed the child to be irrecoverably lost. Mrs. Ogden, therefore, received her son Jacob's rebuke with unfeigned surprise. She had said nothing to hurt Isaac that she knew of--she "had only said that little Jacob used being fond o'

them cakes, and it was quite true."

Isaac did not return to the little party, and they began to wonder what had become of him. After waiting some time in silence, Mrs. Ogden left her place at the tea-tray, and went to a little sitting-room adjoining--a room the men were more accustomed to than any other in the house, and where indeed they did every thing but eat and sleep. Mr.

Ogden had gone there from habit, as his mother expected, and there she found him sitting in a large rocking-chair, and gazing abstractedly into the fire. The chair rocked regularly but gently, and its occupant seemed wholly unconscious--not only of its motion, but of every other material circ.u.mstance that surrounded him.

Mrs. Ogden laid her hand upon his shoulder, and said, "Isaac, willn't ye come to your tea? we 're all waiting for you."

The spell was broken, and Ogden suddenly started to his feet. "Give me my hat," he said, "and let me go to my own house. I'm not fit to keep Christmas this year. How is a man to care about tea and cakes when he's murdered his own son? I'm best by myself; let me go up to Twistle Farm.

D 'ye expect me to sing songs at supper, and drink rum-punch?"

"There'll be no songs, and you needn't drink unless you like, but just come and sit with us, my lad--you always used spendin' Christmas Eve at Milend, and Christmas Day too."

"It signifies nought what I used doin'. Isaac Ogden isn't same as he used to be. He'd have done better, I reckon, if he'd altered a month or two sooner. There'd have been a little lad here then to make Christmas merry for us all."

"Well, Isaac, I'm very sorry for little Jacob; but it cannot be helped now, you know, and it's no use frettin' so much over it."

"Mother," said Isaac Ogden, sternly, "it seems to me that _you're_ not likely to spoil your health by frettin' over my little lad. You take it very easy it seems to me, and my brother takes it easy too, and so does Dr. Bardly--but then Dr. Bardly was nothing akin to him. Folk says that grandmothers care more for chilther than their own parents does; but you go on more like a stepmother nor a grandmother."

This was hard for Mrs. Ogden to bear, and she was strongly tempted to reveal the truth, but she forebore and remained silent. Ogden resumed,--

"I cannot tell how you could find in your heart to bake them little cakes when th' child isn't here to eat 'em."

The effort to restrain herself was now almost too much for Mrs. Ogden, since it was the fact that she had baked the said little cakes, or others exactly like them, and prepared various other dainties, for the especial enjoyment of Master Jacob, who at that very minute was regaling himself therewith in the privacy of his hiding-place. Still she kept silent.

After another pause, a great paroxysm of pa.s.sionate regret seized Ogden--one of those paroxysms to which he was subject at intervals, but which in the presence of witnesses he had hitherto been able to contend against or postpone. "Oh, my little lad!" he cried aloud, "oh, my little innocent lad, that I drove away from me to perish! I'd give all I'm worth to see thee again, little 'un!" He suddenly stopped, and as the tears ran down his cheeks, he looked out of the window into the black night. "If I did but know," he said, slowly, and with inexpressible sadness--"mother, mother, if I did but know where his bits o' bones are lying!"

It was not possible to witness this misery any longer. All Dr. Bardly's solemn injunctions, all dread of a possible relapse into the terrible habit, were forgotten. The mother had borne bitter reproaches, but she could not bear this agony of grief. "Isaac," she said, "Isaac, my son, listen to me: thy little lad is alive--he's alive and he's well, Isaac."

Ogden did not seem to realize or understand this communication. At last he said, "I know what you mean, mother, and I believe it. He's alive in heaven, and he can ail nothing, and want nothing, there."

"I hope he'll go there when he's an old man, but a good while after we go there ourselves, Isaac."

A great change spread over Ogden's face, and he began to tremble from head to foot. He laid his hand on his mother's arm with a grasp of iron.

His eyes dilated, the room swam round him, his heart suspended its action, and in a low hissing whisper, he said, "Mother, have they found him?"

"Yes--and he's both safe and well."

Ogden rushed out of the house, and paced the garden-walk hurriedly from end to end. The intensity of his excitement produced a commotion in the brain that needed the counter-stimulus of violent physical movement. It seemed as if the roof of his skull must be lifted off, and for a few minutes there was a great crisis of the whole nervous system, to which probably his former habits may have more especially exposed him. When this was over, he came back into the house, feeling unusually weak, but incredibly calm and happy. Mrs. Ogden had told the Doctor and Mr. Jacob what had pa.s.sed, and the Doctor without hesitation set off at once for his own house, where he ordered his gig, and drove away rapidly on the Sootythorn road.

"Mother," said Isaac, when he came in, "give me a cup of tea, will you?"

"A gla.s.s of brandy would do you more good."

"Nay, mother, we've had enough of brandy, it will not do to begin again now."

He sat down in evident exhaustion and drank the tea slowly, looking rather vacantly before him. Then he laid his head back upon the chair and closed his eyes. The lips moved, and two or three tears ran slowly down the cheeks. At last he started suddenly, and, looking sharply round him, said, "Where is he, where is he, mother? where is little Jacob, my little lad, my lad, my lad?"

"Be quiet, Isaac--try to compose yourself a little; Dr. Bardly's gone to fetch him. He'll be with us very soon."

Mr. Ogden remained quietly seated for some minutes without speaking, and then, as his mind began to clear after the shock of the great emotion it had pa.s.sed through, he asked who had found his boy, and where they had found him, and when.

These questions were, of course, somewhat embarra.s.sing to his mother, and she would probably have sheltered herself behind some clumsy invention, but her son Jacob interposed.

"The fact is, Isaac, the loss of your little 'un seemed to be doin' you such a power o' good 'at it seemed a pity to spoil it by tellin' you.

And it's my opinion as mother's let th' cat out o' th' bag three week too soon as it is."

"Do you mean to tell me," said Isaac, "that you knew the child was found, and hid him from his own father?"