Johnny Ludlow, Fourth Series

Lost in these thoughts, her eyes bent on her work, Alice did not see a gentleman who was coming across the field towards the house. The click of the little gate, as it swung to after him, caused her to look up, but hardly in time. Herbert turned at the sound.

“Who’s come bothering now, I wonder?”

“I think it is Colonel Letsom,” answered Grace.

“Then he must come in here,” rejoined Herbert. “I am not going into that cold drawing-room.”

Colonel Letsom it was; a pleasant little man with a bald head, who had walked over from his house at Crabb. Grace opened the parlour-door, and the colonel came in and shook hands.

“I want you both to come and dine with me to-night in a friendly way,” spoke he; “no ceremony. My brother, the major, is with us for a day or two, and we’d like to get a few friends together to meet him at dinner.”

Herbert Tanerton hesitated. He did not say No, for he liked dinners; he liked the importance of sitting at the right or left hand of his hostess and saying grace. He did not say Yes, for he thought of his throat.

“I hardly know, colonel. I got up with a sore throat this morning. Very relaxed indeed it is. Who is to be there?”

“Yourselves and the Fontaines and the Todhetleys: nobody else,” answered the colonel. “As to your throat—I dare say it will be better by-and-by. A cheerful dinner will do you good. Six o’clock sharp, mind.”

Herbert Tanerton accepted the offer, conditionally. If his throat got worse, of course he should have to send word, and decline. The colonel nodded. He felt sure in his own mind the throat would get better: he knew how fanciful the parson was, and how easily he could be roused out of his ailments.

“How do you like the Fontaines?” questioned he of the colonel. “Have you seen much of them yet?”

“Oh, we like them very well,” answered the colonel, who, in his easy nature, generally avowed a liking for everybody. “They are connections of my wife’s.”

“Connections of your wife’s!” repeated Herbert quickly. “I did not know that.”

“I’m not sure that I knew it myself, until we came to compare notes,” avowed the colonel. “Any way, I did not remember it. Sir Dace Fontaine’s sister married–. Stop; let me consider—how was it?”

Grace laughed. The colonel laughed also.

“I know it now. My wife’s sister married a Captain Pym: it is many years ago. Captain Pym was a widower, and his first wife was a sister of Dace Fontaine’s. Yes, that’s it. Poor Pym and his wife died soon; both of them in India: and so, you see, we lost sight of the connection altogether; it slipped out of memory.”

“Were there any children?”

“The first wife had one son, who was, I believe, taken to by his father’s relatives. That was all. Well, you’ll come this evening,” added the colonel, turning to depart. “I must make haste back home, for they don’t know yet who’s coming and who’s not.”

A few days previously to this, we had taken up our abode at Crabb Cot, and found that some people named Fontaine had come to the neighbourhood, and were living at Maythorn Bank. Naturally the Squire wanted to know who they were and what they were. And as they were fated to play a conspicuous part in the drama I am about to relate, I must give to them a word of introduction. Important people need it, you know.

Dace Fontaine belonged to the West Indies and was attached to the civil service there. He became judge, or sheriff, or something of the kind; had been instrumental in quelling a riot of the blacks, and was knighted for it. He married rather late in life, in his forty-first year, a young American lady. This young lady’s mother—it is curious how things come about!—was first cousin to John Paul, the Islip lawyer. Lady Fontaine soon persuaded her husband to quit the West Indies for America. Being well off, for he had amassed money, he could do as he pleased; and to America they went with their two daughters. From that time they lived sometimes in America, sometimes in the West Indies: Sir Dace would not quite abandon his old home there. Changes came as the years went on: Lady Fontaine died; Sir Dace lost a good portion of his fortune through some adverse speculation. A disappointed man, he resolved to come to England and settle down on some property that had fallen to him in right of his wife; a small estate called Oxlip Grange, which lay between Islip and Crabb. Any way, old Paul got a letter, saying they were on the road. However, when they arrived, they found that the tenants at Oxlip Grange could not be got to go out of it without proper notice—which anybody but Sir Dace Fontaine would have known to be reasonable. After some cavilling, the tenants agreed to leave at the end of six months; and the Fontaines went into that pretty little place, Maythorn Bank, then to be let furnished, until the time should expire. So there they were, located close to us at Crabb Cot, Sir Dace Fontaine and his two daughters.

Colonel Letsom had included me in the dinner invitation, for which I felt obliged to him: I was curious to see what the Fontaines were like. Tom Coney said one of the girls was beautiful, lovely—like an angel: the other was a little quick, dark young woman, who seemed to have a will of her own.

We reached Colonel Letsom’s betimes—neighbourly fashion. In the country you don’t rush in when the dinner’s being put on the table; you like to get a chat beforehand. The sunbeams were slanting into the drawing-room as we entered it. Four of the Letsoms were present, besides the major, and Herbert Tanerton and his wife, for the throat was better. All of us were talking together when the strangers were announced: Sir Dace Fontaine, Miss Fontaine, and Miss Verena Fontaine.

Sir Dace was a tall, heavy man, with a dark, sallow, and arbitrary face; Miss Fontaine was little and pale; she had smooth black hair, and dark eyes that looked straight out at you. Her small teeth were brilliantly white, her chin was pointed. A particularly calm face altogether, and one that could boast of little beauty—but I rather took to it.

Did you ever see a fairy? Verena Fontaine looked like nothing else. A small, fair, graceful girl, with charming manners and pretty words. She had the true golden hair, that is so beautiful but so rare, delicate features, and laughing eyes blue as the summer sky. I think her beauty and her attractions altogether took some of us by surprise; me for one. Bob Letsom looked fit to eat her. The sisters were dressed alike, in white muslin and pink ribbons.

How we went in to dinner I don’t remember, except that Bob and I brought up the rear together. Sir Dace took Mrs. Letsom, I think, and the colonel Mrs. Todhetley; and that beautiful girl, Verena, fell to Tod. Tod! The two girls were about the most self-possessed girls I ever saw; their manners quite American. Not their accent: that was good. Major Letsom and Sir Dace fraternized wonderfully: they discovered that they had once met in the West Indies.

After dinner we had music. The sisters sang a duet, and Mary Ann Letsom a song; and Herbert Tanerton sang, forgetting his throat, Grace playing for him; and they made me sing.

The evening soon passed, and we all left together. It was a warmish night, with a kind of damp smell exhaling from the shrubs and hedges. The young ladies muffled some soft white woollen shawls round their faces, and called our climate a treacherous one. The parson and Grace said good-night, and struck off on the near way to Timberdale; the rest of us kept straight on.

“Why don’t your people always live here?” asked Verena of me, as we walked side by side behind the rest. “By something that was said at dinner I gather that you are not here much.”

“Mr. Todhetley’s principal residence lies at a distance. We only come here occasionally.”

“Well, I wish you stayed here always. It would be something to have neighbours close to us. Of course you know the dreadful little cottage we are in—Maythorn Bank?”

“Quite well. It is very pretty, though it is small.”

“Small! Accustomed to our large rooms in the western world, it seems to us that we can hardly turn in these. I wish papa had managed better! This country is altogether frightfully dull. My sister tells us that unless things improve she shall take flight back to the States. She could do it,” added Verena; “she is twenty-one now, and her own mistress.”

I laughed. “Is she obliged to be her own mistress because she is twenty-one?”

“She is her own,” said Verena. “She has come into her share of the money mamma left us and can do as she pleases.”

“Oh, you were speaking in that sense.”

“Partly. Having money, she is not tied. She could go back to-morrow if she liked. We are not bound by your English notions.”

“It would not suit our notions at all. English girls cannot travel about alone.”

“That comes of their imperfect education. What harm do you suppose could anywhere befall well brought-up girls? We have been self-dependent from childhood; taught to be so. Coral could take care of herself the whole world over, and meet with consideration, wheresoever she might be.”

“What do you call her—Coral? It is a very pretty name.”

“And coral is her favourite ornament: it suits her pale skin. Her name is really Coralie, but I call her Coral—just as she calls me Vera. Do you like my name—Verena?”

“Very much indeed. Have you read ‘Sintram’?”

“‘Sintram’!—no,” she answered. “Is it a book?”

“A very nice book, indeed, translated from the German. I will lend it you, if you like, Miss Verena.”

“Oh, thank you. I am fond of nice books. Coralie does not care for books as I do. But—I want you to tell me,” she broke off, turning her fair face to me, the white cloud drawn round it, and her sweet blue eyes laughing and dancing—“I can’t quite make out who you are. They are not your father and mother, are they?”—nodding to the Squire and Mrs. Todhetley, who were on ever so far in front with Sir Dace.

“Oh no. I only live with them. I am Johnny Ludlow.”

Maythorn Bank had not an extensive correspondence as a rule, but three letters were delivered there the following morning. One of the letters was for Verena: which she crushed into her hand in the passage and ran away with to her room. The others, addressed to Sir Dace, were laid by his own man, Ozias, on the breakfast-table to await him.

“The West Indian mail is in, papa,” observed Coralie, beginning to pour out the coffee as her father entered. “It has brought you two letters. I think one of them is from George Bazalgette.”

Sir Dace wore a rich red silk dressing-gown, well wadded. A large fire burnt in the grate of the small room. He felt the cold here much. Putting his gold eye-glasses across his nose, as he slowly sat down—all his movements were deliberate—he opened the letter his daughter had specially alluded to, and read the few lines it contained.

“What a short epistle!” exclaimed Coralie.

“George Bazalgette is coming over; he merely writes to tell me so,” replied Sir Dace. “Verena,” he added, for just then Verena entered and wished him good-morning, with a beaming face, “I have a letter here from George Bazalgette. He is coming to Europe; coming for you.”

A defiant look rose to Verena’s bright blue eyes. She opened her mouth to answer; paused; and closed it again without speaking. Perhaps she recalled the saying, “Discretion is the better part of valour.” It certainly is, when applied to speech.

Breakfast was barely over when Ozias came in again. He had a copper-coloured face, as queer as his name, but he was a faithful, honest servant, and had lived in the family twenty years. The gardener was waiting for instructions about the new flower-beds, he told his master; and Sir Dace went out. It left his daughters at liberty to talk secrets. How pretty the two graceful little figures looked in their simple morning dresses of delicate print, tied with bows of pale green ribbon.

“I told you I knew George Bazalgette would be coming over, Vera,” began Coralie. “His letter by the last mail quite plainly intimated that.”

Verena tossed her pretty head. “Let him come! He will get his voyage out and home for nothing. I hope he’ll be fearfully sea-sick!”

Not to make a mystery of the matter, which we heard all about later, and which, perhaps, led to that most dreadful crime—but I must not talk of that yet. George Bazalgette was a wealthy West Indian planter, and wanted to marry Miss Verena Fontaine. She did not want to marry him, and for the very good reason that she intended to marry somebody else. There had been a little trouble about it with Sir Dace; and alas! there was destined to be a great deal more.

“Shall I tell you what I hope, Vera?” answered Coralie, in her matter-of-fact, unemotional way. “I hope that Edward Pym will never come here, or to Europe at all, to worry you. Better that the sea should swallow him up en voyage.”

Verena’s beaming face broke into smiles. Her sister’s pleasant suggestion went for nothing, for a great joy lay within her.

“Edward Pym has come, Coral. The ship has arrived in port, and he has written to me. See!”

She took the morning’s letter from the bosom of her dress, and held it open for Coralie to see the date, “London,” and the signature “Edward.” Had the writer signed his name in full, it would have been Edward Dace Pym.

“How did he know we were here?” questioned Coralie, in surprise.

“I wrote to tell him.”

“Did you know where to write to him?”

“I knew he had sailed from Calcutta in the Rose of Delhi; we all knew that; and I wrote to him to the address of the ship’s brokers at Liverpool. The ship has come on to London, it seems, instead of Liverpool, and they must have sent my letter up there.”

“If you don’t take care, Vera, some trouble will come of this. Papa will never hear of Edward Pym. That’s my opinion.”

She was as cool as were the cucumbers growing outside in the garden, under the glass shade. Verena was the opposite—all excitement; though she did her best to hide it. Her fingers were restless; her blushes came and went; the sweet words of the short love-letter were dancing in her heart.

“My darling Vera,

“The ship is in; I am in London with her, and I have your dear letter. How I wish I could run down into Worcestershire! That cannot be just yet: our skipper will take care to be absent himself, I expect, and I must stay: he is a regular Martinet as to duty. You will see me the very hour I can get my liberty. How strange it is you should be at that place—Crabb! I believe a sort of aunt of mine lives there; but I have never seen her.

“Ever your true lover,“Edward.”

“Who is it—the sort of aunt?” cried Coralie, when Verena had read out the letter; “and what does he mean?”

“Mrs. Letsom, of course. Did you not hear her talking to papa, last night, about her dead sister, who had married Captain Pym?”

“And Edward was the son of Captain Pym’s first wife, papa’s sister. Then, in point of fact, he is not related to Mrs. Letsom at all. Well, it all happened ages ago,” added Coralie, with supreme indifference, “long before our time.”

Just so. Edward Pym, grown to manhood now, and chief-mate of the Rose of Delhi, was the son of that Captain Pym and his first wife. When Captain Pym died, a relative of his, who had no children of his own, took to the child, then only five years old, and brought him up. The boy turned out anything but good, and when he was fourteen he ran away to sea. He found he had to stick to the sea, for his offended relative would do no more for him: except that, some years later, when he died, Edward found that he was down for five hundred pounds in his will. Edward stayed on shore to spend it, and then went to sea again, this time as first officer in an American brig. Chance, or something else, took the vessel to the West India Islands, and at one of them he fell in with Sir Dace Fontaine, who was, in fact, his uncle, but who had never taken the smallest thought for him—hardly remembered he had such a nephew—and made acquaintance with his two cousins. He and Verena fell in love with one another; and, on her side, at any rate, it was not the passing fancy sometimes called by the name, but one likely to last for all time. They often met, the young officer having the run of his uncle’s house whenever he could get ashore; and Edward, who could be as full of tricks and turns as a fox when it suited his convenience to be so, contrived to put himself into hospital when the brig was about to sail, saying he was sick; so he was left behind. The brig fairly off, Mr. Edward Pym grew well again, and looked to have a good time of idleness and love-making. But he reckoned without his host. A chance word, dropped inadvertently, opened the eyes of Sir Dace to the treason around. The first thing he did was to forbid Mr. Edward Pym his house; the second thing was to take passage with his family for America. Never would he allow his youngest and prettiest and best-loved daughter to become the wife of an ill-conducted, penniless ship’s mate; and that man a cousin! The very thought was preposterous! So Edward Pym, thrown upon his beam-ends, joined a vessel bound for Calcutta. Arrived there, he took the post of chief mate on the good ship Rose of Delhi, Captain Tanerton, bound for England.

“What is this nonsense I hear, about your wanting to leave the sea, John?”

The question, put in the Rector of Timberdale’s repellent, chilly tone, more intensified when anything displeased him, brought only a smile to the pleasant face of his brother. Ever hopeful, sunny-tempered Jack, had reached the Rectory the previous night to make a short visit. They sat in the cheerful, bow-windowed room, the sun shining on Jack, as some days before it had shone on Grace; the Rector in his easy-chair at the fire.

“Well, I suppose it is only what you say, Herbert—nonsense,” answered Jack, who was playing with the little dog, Dash. “I should like to leave the sea well enough, but I don’t see my way clear to do it at present.”

“Why should you like to leave it?”

“Alice is anxious that I should. She cannot always sail with me now; and there are the little ones to be seen to, you know, Herbert. Her mother is of course—well, very kind, and all that,” went on Jack, after an imperceptible pause, “but Alice would prefer to train her children herself; and, to do that, she must remain permanently on shore. It would not be a pleasant life for us, Herbert, she on shore and I at sea.”

“Do you ever think of duty, John?”

“Of duty? In what way?”

“When a man has deliberately chosen his calling in life, and spent his first years in it, it is his duty to continue in that calling, and to make the best of it.”

“I suppose it is, in a general way,” said Jack, all smiles and good-humour. “But—if I could get a living on shore, Herbert, I don’t see but what my duty would lie in doing it as much as it now lies at sea.”

“You may not see it, John. Chopping and changing often brings a man to poverty.”

“Oh, I’d take care, I hope, not to come to poverty. Down, Dash! Had I a farm of two or three hundred acres, I could make it answer well, if any man could. You know what a good farmer I was as a boy, Herbert—in practical knowledge, I mean—and how I loved it. I like the sea very well, but I love farming. It was my born vocation.”

“I wish you’d not talk at random!” cried Herbert, fretfully. “Born vocation! You might just as well say you were born to be a mountebank! And where would you get the money to stock a farm of two or three hundred acres? You have put none by, I expect. You never could keep your pence in your pocket when a lad: they were thrown away right and left.”

“That’s true,” laughed Jack. “Other lads used to borrow them. True also that I have not put money by, Herbert. I have not been able to.”

“Of course you have not! It wouldn’t be you if you had.”

“No, Dash, there’s not a bit more; you’ve had it all,” cried Jack to the dog. But he, ever generous-natured, did not tell his brother why he had not been able to put by: that the calls made upon him by his wife’s mother—Aunt Dean, as they still styled her—were so heavy and so perpetual. She wanted a great deal for herself, and she presented vast claims for the expenses of Jack’s two little children, and for the maintenance of her daughter when Alice stayed on shore. Alice whispered to Jack she believed her mother was making a private purse for herself. Good-natured Jack thought it very likely, but he did not stop the supplies. Just as Aunt Dean had been a perpetual drain upon her brother, Jacob Lewis, during his lifetime, so she now drained Jack.

“Then, with no means at command, what utter folly it is for you to think of leaving the sea?” resumed the parson.

“So it is, Herbert,” acquiesced Jack. “I assure you I don’t think of it.”

“Alice does.”

“Ay, poor girl, because she wishes it.”

“Do you see any chance of leaving it?”

“Not a bit,” readily acknowledged Jack.

“Then where’s the use of talking about it—of harping upon it?”

“None in the world,” said Jack.

“Then we’ll drop the subject, if you please,” pursued Herbert, forgetting, perhaps, that it was he who introduced it.

“Jump then, Dash! Jump, good little Dash!”

“What a worry you make with that dog, John! Attend to me. I want to know why you came to London instead of to Liverpool.”

“She was laid on for London this time,” answered Jack.

“Laid on!” ejaculated Herbert, who knew as much about sailor’s phrases as he did of Hebrew.

Jack laughed. “The agents in Calcutta chartered the ship for London, freights for that port being higher than for Liverpool. The Rose of Delhi is a free ship.”

“Oh,” responded Herbert. “I thought perhaps she had changed owners.”

“No. But our broker in London is brother to the owners in Liverpool. There are three of them in all. James Freeman is the broker; Charles and Richard are the owners. Rich men they must be!”

“When do you think you shall sail again?”

“It depends upon when they can begin to reload and get the fresh cargo in.”

“That does not take long, I suppose,” remarked Herbert, slightingly.

“She may be loaded in three days if the cargo is ready and waiting. It may be three weeks if the cargo’s not—or more than that.”

“And Alice does not go with you?”

Jack shook his head: something like a cloud passed over his fresh, frank face. “No, not this time.”

We were all glad to see Jack Tanerton again. He had paid Timberdale but one visit, and that a flying one, since he took command of the Rose of Delhi. It was the old Jack Tanerton, frank of face, hearty of manner, flying to all the nooks and corners of the parish with outstretched hands to rich and poor, with kind words and generous help for the sick and sorrowful: just the same, only with a few more years gone over his head. I don’t say but Herbert was also glad to see him; only Herbert never displayed much gladness at anything.

One morning Jack and I chanced to be out together; when, in passing through the green and shady lane, that would be fragrant in summer with wild roses and woodbine, and that skirted Maythorn Bank, we saw some one stooping to peer through the sweetbriar hedge, as if he wanted to see what the house was like, and did not care to look at it openly. He sprang up at sound of our footsteps. It was a slight, handsome young man of five or six-and-twenty, rather under the middle height, with a warm colour, bright dark eyes, and dark whiskers. The gold band on his cap showed that he was a sailor, and he seemed to recognize Jack with a start.

“Good-morning, sir,” he cried, hurriedly.

“Is it you, Mr. Pym?—good-morning,” returned Jack, in a cool tone. “What are you doing down here?”

“The ship’s finished unloading, and is gone into dry dock to be re-coppered, so I’ve got a holiday,” replied the young man: and he walked away with a brisk step, as if not caring to be questioned further.

“Who is he?” I asked, as we went on in the opposite direction.

“My late chief mate: a man named Pym.”

“You spoke as if you did not like him, Jack.”

“Don’t like him at all,” said Jack. “My own chief mate left me in Calcutta, to better himself, as the saying runs; he got command of one of our ships whose master had died out there; Pym presented himself to me, and I engaged him. He gave me some trouble on the homeward voyage; drank, was insolent, and would shirk his duty when he could. Once I had to threaten to put him in irons. I shall never allow him to sail with me again—and he knows it.”