Читать книгу: «Chantry House», страница 22
CHAPTER XLVI
RESTITUTION
‘Ah! well for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes.’
Whittier.
Things always happen in unexpected ways. During the little hesitation and difficulty that always attend my transits at a station, a voice was heard to say, ‘Oh! Papa, isn’t that Edward Winslow?’ Martyn gave a violent start, and Mr. Fordyce was exclaiming, ‘Clarence, my dear fellow, it isn’t you! I beg your pardon; you have strength enough left nearly to wring one’s hand off!’
‘I—I wanted very much to see you, sir,’ said Clarence. ‘Could you be so good as to appoint a time?’
‘See you! We must always be seeing you of course. Let me think. I’ve got three weddings and a funeral to-morrow, and Simpson coming about the meeting. Come to luncheon—all of you. Mrs. Fordyce will be delighted, and so will somebody else.’
There was no doubt about the somebody else, for Anne’s feet were as nearly dancing round Emily as public propriety allowed, and the radiance of her face was something to rejoice in. Say what people will, Englishwomen in a quiet cheerful life are apt to gain rather than lose in looks up to the borders of middle age. Our Emily at two-and-thirty was fair and pleasant to look on; while as for Anne Fordyce at twenty-three, words will hardly tell how lovely were her delicate features, brown eyes, and carnation cheeks, illuminated by that sunshine brightness of her father’s, which made one feel better all day for having been beamed upon by either of them. Clarence certainly did, when the good man turned back to say, ‘Which hotel? Eh? That’s too far off. You must come nearer. I would see you in, but I’ve got a woman to see before church time, and I’m short of a curate, so I must be sharp to the hour.’
‘Can I be of any use?’ eagerly asked Martyn. ‘I’ll follow you as soon as I have got these fellows to their quarters.’
We had Amos with us, and were soon able to release Martyn, after a few compliments on my not being as usual the invalid; and by and by he came back to take Emily to inspect a lodging, recommended by our friends, close to the beach, and not a stone’s throw from the Rectory built by Mr. Fordyce. As we two useless beings sat opposite to each other, looking over the roofs of houses at the blue expanse and feeling the salt breeze, it was no fancy that Clarence’s cheek looked less wan, and his eyes clearer, as a smile of content played on his lips. ‘Years sit well on her,’ he said gaily; and I thought of rewards in store for him.
Then he took this opportunity of consulting me on the chances for Frith, telling of the original offer, and the quiet constancy of his friend, and asking whether I thought Emily would relent. And I answered that I suspected that she would,—‘But you must get well first.’
‘I begin to think that more possible,’ he answered, and my heart bounded as he added, ‘she would be satisfied since you would always have a home with us.’
Oh, how much was implied in that monosyllable. He knew it, for a little faint colour came up, as he, shyly, laughed and hesitated, ‘That is—if—’
‘If’ included Mrs. Fordyce’s not being ungracious. Nor was she. Emily had found her as kind as in the old days at Hillside, and perfectly ready to bring us into close vicinity. It was not caprice that had made this change, but all possible doubt and risk of character were over, the old wound was in some measure healed, and the friendship had been brought foremost by our recent sorrow and our present anxiety. Anne was in ecstasies over Emily. ‘It is so odd,’ she said, ‘to have grown as old as you, whom I used to think so very grown up,’ and she had all her pet plans to display in the future. Moreover, Martyn had been permitted to relieve the Rector from the funeral—a privilege which seemed to gratify him as much as if it had been the liveliest of services.
We were to lunch at the Rectory, and the move of our goods was to be effected while we were there. We found Mrs. Fordyce looking much older, but far less of an invalid than in old times, and there was something more genial and less exclusive in her ways, owing perhaps to the difference of her life among the many classes with whom she was called on to associate.
Somersetshire, Beachharbour, and China occupied our tongues by turns, and we had to begin luncheon without the Rector, who had been hindered by numerous calls; in fact, as Anne warned us, it was a wonder if he got the length of the esplanade without being stopped half-a-dozen times.
His welcome was like himself, but he needed a reminder of Clarence’s request for an interview. Then we repaired to the study, for Clarence begged that his brothers might be present, and then the beginning was made. ‘Do you remember my showing you a will that I found in the ruins at Chantry House?’
‘A horrid old scrap that you chose to call one. Yes; I told you to burn it.’
‘Sir, we have proved that a great injustice was perpetrated by our ancestor, Philip Winslow, and that the poor lady who made that will was cruelly treated, if not murdered. This is no fancy; I have known it for years past, but it is only now that restitution has become possible.’
‘Restitution? What are you talking about? I never wanted the place nor coveted it.’
‘No, sir, but the act was our forefather’s. You cannot bid us sit down under the consciousness of profiting by a crime. I could not do so before, but I now implore you to let me restore you either Chantry House and the three farms, or their purchase money, according to the valuation made at my father’s death. I have it in hand.’
Frank Fordyce walked about the room quite overcome. ‘You foolish fellow!’ he said, ‘Was it for this that you have been toiling and throwing away your health in that pestiferous place? Edward, did you know this?’
‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘Clarence has intended this ever since he found the will.’
‘As if that was a will! You consented.’
‘We all thought it right.’
He made a gesture of dismay at such folly.
‘I do not think you understand how it was, Mr. Fordyce,’ said Clarence, who by this time was quivering and trembling as in his boyish days.
‘No, nor ever wish to do so. Such matters ought to be forgotten, and you don’t look fit to say another word.’
‘Edward will tell you,’ said Clarence, leaning back.
I had the whole written out, and was about to begin, when the person, with whom there was an appointment, was reported, and we knew that the rest of the day was mapped out.
‘Look here,’ said Mr. Fordyce, ‘leave that with me; I can’t give any answer off-hand, except that Don Quixote is come alive again, only too like himself.’
Which was true, for Clarence took long to rally from the effort, and had to be kept quiet for some time in the study where we were left. He examined me on the contents of my paper, and was vexed to hear that I had mentioned the ghost, which he said would discredit the whole. Never was the dear fellow so much inclined to be fretful, and when Martyn restlessly observed that if we did not want him, he might as well go back to the drawing-room, the reply was quite sharp—‘Oh yes, by all means.’
No wonder there was pain in the tone; for the next words, after some interval, were, when two happy voices came ringing in from the garden behind, ‘You see, Edward.’
Somehow I had never thought of Martyn. He had simply seemed to me a boy, and I had decided that Anne would be the crown of Clarence’s labours. I answered ‘Nonsense; they are both children together!’
‘The nonsense was elsewhere,’ he said. ‘They always were devoted to each other. I saw how it was the moment he came into the room.’
‘Don’t give up,’ I said; ‘it is only the old habit. When she knows all, she must prefer—’
‘Hush!’ he said. ‘An old scarecrow and that beautiful young creature!’ and he laughed.
‘You won’t be an old scarecrow long.’
‘No,’ he said in an ominous way, and cut short the discussion by going back to Mrs. Fordyce.
He was worn out, had a bad night, and did not get up to breakfast; I was waiting for it in the sitting-room, when Mr. Fordyce came in after matins with Emily and Martyn.
‘I feel just like David when they brought him the water of Bethlehem,’ he said. ‘You know I think this all nonsense, especially this—this ghost business; and yet, such—such doings as your brother’s can’t go for nothing.’
His face worked, and the tears were in his eyes; then, as he partook of our breakfast, he cross-examined us on my statement, and even tried to persuade us that the phantom in the ruin was Emily; and on her observing that she could not have seen herself, he talked of the Brocken Spectre and fog mirages; but we declared the night was clear, and I told him that all the rational theories I had ever heard were far more improbable than the appearance herself, at which he laughed. Then he scrupulously demanded whether this—this (he failed to find a name for it) would be an impoverishment of our family, and I showed how Clarence had provided that we should be in as easy circumstances as before. In the midst came in Clarence himself, having hastened to dress, on hearing that Mr. Fordyce was in the house, and looking none the better for the exertion.
‘Look here, my dear boy,’ said Frank, taking his hot trembling hand, ‘you have put me in a great fix. You have done the noblest deed at a terrible cost, and whatever I may think, it ought not to be thrown away, nor you be hindered from freeing your soul from this sense of family guilt. But here, my forefathers had as little right to the Chantry as yours, and ever since I began to think about such things, I have been thankful it was none of mine. Let us join in giving it or its value to some good work for God—pour it out to the Lord, as we may say. Bless me! what have I done now.’
For Clarence, muttering ‘thank you,’ sank out of his grasp on a chair, and as nearly as possible fainted; but he was soon smiling and saying it was all relief, and he felt as if a load he had been bearing had been suddenly removed.
Frank Fordyce durst stay no longer, but laid his hand on Clarence’s head and blessed him.
CHAPTER XLVII
THE FORDYCE STORY
‘For soon as once the genial plain
Has drunk the life-blood of the slain,
Indelible the spots remain,
And aye for vengeance call.’
Euripides—(Anstice).
Still all was not over, for by the next day our brother was as ill, or worse, than ever. The doctor who came from London allowed that he had expected something of the kind, but thought we must have let him exert himself perilously. Poor innocent Martyn and Anne, they little suspected that their bright eyes and happy voices had something to do with the struggle and disappointment, which probably was one cause of the collapse. As to poor Frank Fordyce, I never saw him so distressed; he felt as if it were all his own fault, or that of his ancestors, and, whenever he was not required by his duties, was lingering about for news. I had little hope, though Clarence seemed to me the very light of my eyes; it was to me as though, his task being accomplished, and the earthly reward denied, he must be on his way to the higher one.
His complete quiescence confirmed me in the assurance that he thought so himself. He was too ill for speech, but Lawrence, who could not stay away, was struck with the difference from former times. Not only were there no delusions, but there was no anxiety or uneasiness, as there had always been in the former attacks, when he was evidently eager to live, and still more solicitous to be told if he were in a hopeless state. Now he had plainly resigned himself—
‘Content to live, but not afraid to die;’
and perhaps, dear fellow, it was chiefly for my sake that he was willing to live. At least, I know that when the worst was over, he announced it by putting those wasted fingers into mine, and saying—
‘Well, dear old fellow, I believe we shall jog on together, after all.’
That attack, though the most severe of all, brought, either owing to skilful treatment or to his own calm, the removal of the mischief, and the beginning of real recovery. Previously he had given himself no time, but had hurried on to exertions which retarded his cure, so as very nearly to be fatal; but he was now perfectly submissive to whatever physicians or nurses desired, and did not seem to find his slow convalescence in the least tedious, since he was amongst us all again.
It was nearly a month before he was disposed to recur to the subject of his old solicitude again, and then he asked what Mr. Fordyce had said or done. Just nothing at all; but on the next visit paid to the sick-room, Parson Frank yielded to his earnest request to send for any documents that might throw light on the subject, and after a few days he brought us a packet of letters from his deed-box. They were written from Hillside Rectory to the son in the army in Flanders, chiefly by his mother, and were full of hot, angry invective against our family, and pity for poor, foolish ‘Madam,’ or ‘Cousin Winslow,’ as she was generally termed, for having put herself in their power.
The one most to the purpose was an account of the examination of Molly Cox, the waiting-woman, who had been in attendance on the unfortunate Margaret, and whose story tallied fairly with Aunt Peggy’s tradition. She declared that she was sure that her mistress had met with foul play. She had left her as usual at ten o’clock on the fatal 27th of December 1707, in the inner one of the old chambers; and in the night had heard the tipsy return home of the gentlemen, followed by shrieks. In the morning she (the maid) who usually was the first to go to her room, was met by Mistress Betty Winslow, and told that Madam was ill, and insensible. The old nurse of the Winslows was called in; and Molly was never left alone in the sick-room, scarcely permitted to approach the bed, and never to touch her lady. Once, when emptying out a cup at the garden-door, she saw a mark of blood on the steps, but Mr. Philip came up and swore at her for a prying fool. Doctor Tomkins was sent for, but he barely walked through the room, and ‘all know that he is a mere creature of Philip Winslow,’ wrote the Mrs. Fordyce of that date to her son. And presently after, ‘Justice Eastwood declared there is no case for a Grand Jury; but he is a known Friend and sworn Comrade of the Winslows, and bound to suppress all evidence against them. Nay, James Dearlove swears he saw Edward Winslow slip a golden Guinea into his Clerk’s Hand. But as sure as there is a Heaven above us, Francis, poor Cousin Winslow was trying to escape to us of her own Kindred, and met with cruel Usage. Her Blood is on their Heads.’
‘There!’ said Frank Fordyce. ‘This Francis challenged Philip Winslow’s eldest son, a mere boy, three days after he joined the army before Lille, and shot him like a dog. I turned over the letter about it in searching for these. I can’t boast of my ancestors more than you can. But may God accept this work of yours, and take away the guilt of blood from both of us.’
‘And have you thought what is best to be done?’ asked Clarence, raising himself on his cushions.
‘Have you?’ asked the Vicar.
‘Oh yes; I have had my dreams.’
They put their castles together, and they turned out to be for an orphanage, or rather asylum, not too much hampered with strict rules, combined with a convalescent home. The battle of sisterhoods was not yet fought out, and we were not quite prepared for them; but Frank Fordyce had, as he said, ‘the two best women in the world in his eye’ to make a beginning.
There was full time to think and discuss the scheme, for our patient was in no condition to move for many weeks, lying day after day on a couch just within the window of our sitting-room, which was as nearly as possible in the sea, so that he constantly had the freshness of its breezes, the music of its ripple, and the sight of its waves, and seemed to find endless pleasure in watching the red sails, the puffs of steam, and the frolics of the children, simple or gentle, on the beach.
Something else was sometimes to be watched. Martyn, all this time, was doing the work of two curates, and was to be seen walking home with Anne from church or school, carrying her baskets and bags, and, as we were given to understand, discussing by turns ecclesiastical questions, visionary sisterhoods, and naughty children. At first I wished it were possible to remove Clarence from the perpetual spectacle, but we had one last talk over the matter, and this was quite satisfactory.
‘It does me no harm,’ he said; ‘I like to see it. Yes, it is quite true that I do. What was personal and selfish in my fancies seems to have been worn out in the great lull of my senses under the shadow of death; and now I can revert with real joy and thankfulness to the old delight of looking on our dear Ellen as our sister, and watch those two children as we used when they talked of dolls’ fenders instead of the surplice war. I have got you, Edward; and you know there is a love “passing the love of women.”’
A lively young couple passed by the window just then, and with untamed voices observed—
‘There are those two poor miserable objects! It is enough to make one melancholy only to look at them.’
Whereat we simultaneously burst out laughing; perhaps because a choking, very far from misery, was in our throats.
At any rate, Clarence was prepared to be the cordial, fatherly brother, when Martyn came headlong in upon us with the tidings that utterly indescribable, unimaginable joy had befallen him. A revelation seemed simultaneously to have broken upon him and Anne while they were copying out the Sunday School Registers, that what they had felt for each other all their lives was love—‘real, true love,’ as Anne said to Emily, ‘that never could have cared for anybody else.’
Mrs. Fordyce’s sharp eyes had seen what was coming, and accepted the inevitable, quite as soon as Clarence had. She came and talked it over with us, saying she was perfectly satisfied and happy. Martyn was all that could be wished, and she was sincerely glad of the connection with her old friends. So, in fact, was dear old Frank, but he had been running about with his head full, and his eyes closed, so that it was quite a shock to him to find that his little Anne, his boon companion and playfellow, was actually grown up, and presuming to love and be loved; and he could hardly believe that she was really seven years older than her sister had been when the like had begun with her. But if Anne must be at those tricks, he said, shaking his head at her, he had rather it was with Martyn than anybody else.
There was no difficulty as to money matters. In truth, Martyn was not so good a match as an heiress, such as was Anne Fordyce, might have aspired to, and her Lester kin were sure to be shocked; but even if Clarence married, the Earlscombe living went for something (though, by the bye, he has never held it), and the Fordyces only cared that there should be easy circumstances. The living of Hillside would be resigned in favour of Martyn in the spring, and meantime he would gain more experience at Beachharbour, and this would break the separation to the Fordyces.
After all, however, theirs was not to be our first wedding. I have said little of Emily. The fact was, that after that week of Clarence’s danger, we said she lived in a kind of dream. She fulfilled all that was wanted of her, nursing Clarence, waiting on me, ordering dinner, making the tea, and so forth; but it was quite evident that life began for her on the Saturdays, when Lawrence came down, and ended on the Mondays, when he went away. If, in the meantime, she sat down to work, she went off into a trance; if she was sent out for fresh air, she walked quarter-deck on the esplanade, neither seeing nor hearing anything, we averred, but some imaginary Lawrence Frith.
If she had any drawback, good girl, it was the idea of deserting me; but then, as I could honestly tell her, nobody need fear for my happiness, since Clarence was given back to me. And she believed, and was ready to go to China with her Lawrence.
