Читать книгу Wayfaring Men - Lyall Edna - Страница 6

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“I do not love thee, Dr. Fell,

The reason why I cannot tell;

But this alone I know full well,

I do not love thee, Dr. Fell.”

Precisely why the house seemed to him so dreary Ralph would have found it hard to say. It did not usually strike people as anything but a model English home. Something had, however, given the boy a clue, and already he vaguely guessed, what no one else suspected, that there was a skeleton in the cupboard. Little enough had fallen from his father’s lips during those last days, yet Ralph had gathered an impression that in some way Sir Matthew was connected with that disastrous speculation which had ruined his father. He was far too young and ignorant to understand the matter, and even had he been sure that Mr. Marriott knew all the facts he could not have asked the old lawyer to explain things to him, for was not Sir Matthew his godfather? a godfather, moreover, who had generously undertaken to provide for him till he was grown up? He was ashamed of himself for not being able to feel more grateful, but that vague dislike and distrust which he had felt during their first talk at Whinhaven Rectory, only grew stronger each hour.

When the last guest had departed, Sir Matthew was beset by eager questions.

“Why did you adopt that horrid little schoolboy, papa?” said Janet, reproachfully. “You are far too generous.”

“My dear, you forget; he is my godson, and I couldn’t leave him without a helping hand. His father entrusted him to me.”

“They are all ready to sponge upon you, papa,” said Minnie. “A reputation for generosity is a terrible thing.”

“For a man’s daughters, eh?” he said, laughingly. “Well, my dear, I don’t want you to be troubled in the least. The boy will be going to Winchester in September, and we shall only have him in the holidays. As for little Evereld, we shall not be keeping her after her first season unless I’m much mistaken.”

“It’s true she is an heiress,” said Lady Mactavish, critically, “but I doubt if she will make a very stylish girl. And she’s far too conscientious to get on well in society.”

“Well, well, we shall see,” said Sir Matthew, easily. “Already she has one fervent admirer. Bruce Wylie makes himself a perfect fool about the child.”

“He’s old enough to be her father,” said Janet.

“But she couldn’t have a better husband,” said Sir Matthew, in the voice that meant that no more was to be said. “Nothing would give me greater satisfaction than to see poor Ewart’s daughter safely under the protection of a man like Wylie, before the heiress-hunters have had time to torment her.”

“You remember that he dines with us this evening?” said Lady Mactavish.

“Yes, to be sure; let me have a list of the guests. And, my dear, remind me that I promised Lady Mountpleasant to open the bazaar for the Decayed Gentlefolk’s Aid Society at the Albert Hall next month.”

“We are no sooner off with one bazaar than we are on with another,” protested Minnie. “Bazaars seem to me the curse of the age.”

“Blessings in disguise, my dear,” replied her father, with a smile. “The days of simple humdrum giving are over, and nowadays, with great wisdom, we kill two or more birds with one stone. To my mind, the bazaar is a most useful institution, and I should be sorry to see it abandoned.”

“Ah, you would ruin yourself with giving, if I allowed you to do it,” said Lady Mactavish, glancing up at him with an air of pride and admiration which for the moment made her hard face beautiful.

The words touched him, and as he left the room he stooped and kissed her forehead. Yet, on the way down to his library, an odd sarcastic smile played about his lips, and he thought to himself, “They have yet to learn that, had St. Paul been a man of the world, he would have added a postscript to his famous chapter, and said, ‘For charity is the best policy.’”

In the meanwhile the schoolroom party were snugly ensconced in the window-seat overlooking St. James’s Park. Ralph had been cheered by the sight of a regiment of Horse Guards, and Miss Ellerbeck had been beguiled into telling them stories of the Franco-Prussian War and of her brother’s adventures during the campaign. By and bye, as the evening advanced, they were interrupted by the appearance of old Geraghty the butler.

“Sir Matthew would like you to be in the drawing-room before dinner, Miss Evereld,” he said, “and I was to say there was no need for the young gentleman to come down. Maybe he’s tired after the journey,” concluded the Irishman, adding these polite words of his own accord, for Sir Matthew had curtly remarked, “Not Master Denmead, you understand.”

“That means that Mr. Bruce Wylie is coming!” cried Evereld, joyously. “He’s such a nice man, and he always brings me chocolate—real French chocolate. I never go down unless Mr. Wylie is there. You’ll like him, Ralph; he has such nice kind eyes, and such a soft voice.”

“Well, you must run and dress, my child,” said Miss Ellerbeck; “and I, too, must be wishing you both goodnight, for I go, as you remember, with a friend to the Richter concert. We will light the gas for you, Ralph, and then you must, for a short time, make yourself happy with your Charles Dickens. Evereld will soon come back to you.”

She bade him a kind good-night, and Ralph took up “The Cricket on the Hearth” and tried to read. But it would not do; the book had ceased to appeal to him. He threw it down, lowered the gas, and returned to the open window, leaning his arms on the sill and looking down through the bars at the dim road beneath, with its endless succession of cabs and carriages. For a little while it amused him to count the red and yellow lamps as they flitted by, but soon his sorrow overwhelmed him once more. It was the first time he had been alone since that morning hour in the fir-grove at Whinhaven, and now once more all the misery of his loss forced itself upon him. He was well fed, well housed, and his immediate future was provided for, yet, perhaps, in all London, there was not at that moment a more desolate little fellow. To be violently plucked up by the roots and for ever banished from that goodly heritage that had so far been his, was in itself hard enough; but to belong to no one in particular, to be planted down and expected to grow and thrive among loveless strangers seemed intolerable, and no ambitious dreams of a future in India came now to his help! He saw nothing before him but an endless vista of this same pain and aching loss. Tomorrow would be as to-day, and all real happiness had, he fancied, gone from him for ever. There is nothing quite so poignant as a child’s first great grief, though mercifully, like all acute pain, it cannot last long.

The passing lights down below had long ceased to interest him, but presently through his tears he happened to notice the pointers and the Pole Star, and found a sort of comfort in what had for so long been familiar. At any rate the same sky was over Whinhaven and London, and the motto which he could remember puzzling over in his childhood, illuminated in one of the Rectory rooms, returned now to his mind—“Astra castra, Numen lumen.” It was true that the stars were his canopy, but was God his light? Had He not plunged his whole life in darkness, and set him far away from love and help and all that could keep a boy straight?

The Westminster chimes rang out just then into the night air, startling him back from his perplexed wondering. Ralph was not of the temperament that is liable to doubt. He took life very simply, and it would have been almost impossible seriously to disturb the faith into which he had grown up; the wave of wretched questioning passed, and he knew in his heart that just as over the great city with its debates and crimes, its sorrows and struggles, the bells ring out their message, so heavenly voices are ringing through the consciences of men, guiding, controlling, influencing all. Had not his father always said it was mere miserable cowardice to believe that darkness would triumph over light, that selfish competition would in the end conquer? Love was to be the victor. Love was to rule. And the great deep bell as it boomed out the hour seemed to his fancy to ring—“Love! Love! Love!” over the restless crowd of hearers.

In the meantime, however, his heart was still aching with the loss of the man who had been friend and companion, teacher and father in one. Surely since God loved him He would send some one to comfort him? Some one whose voice he could hear, whose hand he could grasp. For after all it was the outward tokens of love and comfort that he craved, as all beings of a threefold nature must crave them. A spiritual love could not as yet suffice him.

Now as Ralph leant on the window-sill crying quietly, much as a soldier slowly bleeds on a battlefield because there is no one to staunch his wound, the schoolroom door opened. He had expected some one to be sent to his great need, but had pictured to himself a man. He glanced round into the dim room and started when he saw, instead, only a little white-robed figure.

“Of course,” he thought to himself in his disappointment, “I ought to have known. It is only Evereld come back.”

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, with profound dejection in his voice.

“Are you all in the dark?” said Evereld.

“I’ve been looking at the carriage lamps,” he replied, evasively.

Evereld made no comment, she knew quite well that he had been crying, and a great shyness stole over her—a terror of not being able to reach him, and yet a consuming desire somehow to comfort him. She remembered that in her own grief grown-up people had always tried to soothe her with the adjuration, “Don’t cry, darling.” She had never found any comfort in the words, and of course they would vex a boy. Dick would have hated them.

“Do you know,” she said suddenly, “in some ways you do so remind me of Dick.”

“Who is he?” asked Ralph, still in the dejected voice.

“Dick is my brother,” said Evereld. “He died last winter. There was an outbreak of cholera. On the Thursday father and mother died, on the Friday Dick and I were taken ill, and when I got better they told me he was gone. I was the only one left.” Her voice quivered a little. She ended abruptly.

“Oh!” cried Ralph, like one in pain, and instinctively he caught her hand in his and held it fast. There was a silence. It seemed as if they did not need words just then.

Ralph had not found the strong man of his dreams; he had found instead a little girl with griefs greater than his own, and he felt a longing to comfort her and care for her, and as far as possible to be to her what Dick would have been.

“Was he older than I am?” was his first question.

“He was thirteen,” said Evereld. “His birthday was in last September—on the 15th.”

“And I was thirteen in September, too,—on the 9th,” said Ralph.

“Only a week between you—how strange!” said Evereld. “And about soldiers he was just like you. When you rushed to the window this afternoon and saw all the little details about the Horse Guards’ uniforms, that I never much noticed before, you made me think of Dick directly. He was crazy about uniforms, and Bridget used to make them for him. We’ll get her to make you one.”

“Do you think she would?” said Ralph, forgetting his troubles. “We could act all sorts of things then, you know. Do you like acting?”

“I love the dressing-up part,” said Evereld, “I don’t much care about the talking, Dick used to do most of that.”

“I’ll do that part,” said Ralph blithely, for although shy and reserved with his elders, he was never at a loss for words in a charade, and the two instantly fell to discussing future plans, forgetting every grief and care in the bliss of perfect companionship.

“Let us come down now,” said Evereld, presently. “Geraghty promised to bring us whatever we liked. We’ll sit on the lowest flight of stairs, you know, and he’ll help us as the dishes come out of the dining-room. It’s such fun. I always do it when there’s a dinner-party.”

Ralph consented willingly enough, and found something cheering in the general air of excitement that pervaded the house. They sat cosily on the rich stair carpet with its soft Eastern colouring, a funny little pair, he in his deep black, she in her white Indian muslin, watching the servants as they hurried to and fro, and enjoying what Evereld termed “that nice sort of late-dinner smell.”

“But it makes one awfully hungry,” said Ralph, and the good-natured Geraghty, catching the words, murmured a comforting assurance as he passed by, “I’m coming to you directly, sir,” and in a minute or two with a beaming face he reappeared with two delicious oyster patties.

“How clever you are, Geraghty,” said the little girl. “You always know just what will be nicest.” Whether Geraghty had much regard for their powers of digestion may be doubted, but he took a rare delight in tempting them with every delicacy, from prawns in aspic, to that curious dish called “Angels on horseback.” Ralph was half way through a huge helping of ice pudding when a momentary pang of doubt and reproach seized him. Ought he to be feasting on the very day of his father’s funeral? Evereld saw the change in his face, and helped by what she had lately lived through, was able to read his thoughts. “Dick will be so glad that I’ve got you,” she said, smiling, though Ralph fancied there were tears in her eyes. “I somehow think that your father and mine will be talking together to-night.”

And those few comfortable words were more to the boy than any number of sermons on the resurrection; all his vague beliefs were freshened into living parts of his everyday existence, and for the first time he knew for himself what had been to him hitherto merely things that others told him.

A sudden lull in the roar of voices from the dining-room now took place, after which the Babel of many tongues rose once more. “They are just beginning dessert,” said Evereld. “That was grace, and in a few minutes the ladies will be coming upstairs. I think we had better go to bed now.”

So they parted, after having arranged that in the walking hour on the next morning, they would go together and sail Ralph’s little schooner in St. James’ Park.