Johnny Ludlow, Sixth Series

“Papa, is that from Oliver?”

“Don’t you see it is?” returned Mr. Preen.

“And—is anything different decided?” asked Mrs Preen, timidly, as if she were afraid of either the question or the answer.

“What is there different to decide?” he retorted.

“But, Gervais, I thought you wrote to say that he could not come home.”

“And he writes back to say that he must come. I suppose he must. The house over there is being given up; he can’t take up his abode in the street. There’s what he says,” continued Mr. Preen, tossing the letter to the middle of the table for the public benefit. “He will be here to-morrow.”

A glad light flashed into Jane’s countenance. She lifted her handkerchief to hide it.

Oliver Preen was her brother; she and he were the only children. He had been partly adopted by a great aunt, once Miss Emily Preen, the sister of his grandfather. She had married Major Magnus late in life, and was left a widow. Since Oliver left school, three years ago now, he had lived with Mrs. Magnus at Tours, where she had settled down. She was supposed to be well off; and the Preen family—Gervais Preen and all his hungry brothers and sisters—had cherished expectations from her. They thought she might provide slenderly for Oliver, and divide the rest of her riches among them. But a week or two ago she had died after a short illness, and then the amazing fact came out that she had nothing to leave. All Mrs. Magnus once possessed had been sunk in an annuity on her own life.

This was bad enough for the brothers and the sisters, but it was nothing compared with the shock it gave to him of Duck Brook. For you see he had to take his son back now and provide for him; and Oliver had been brought up to do nothing. A mild young man, he, we understood, not at all clever enough to set the Thames on fire.

Mr. Preen finished his breakfast and left the room, carrying the letter with him. Jane went at once into the garden, which in places was no better than a wilderness, and ran about the sheltered paths that were out of sight of the windows, and jumped up to catch the lower branches of trees, all in very happiness. She and Oliver were intensely attached to one another; she had not seen him for three years, and now they were going to meet again. To-morrow! oh, to-morrow! To-morrow, and he would be here! She should see him face to face!

“Jane!” called out a stern voice, “I want you.”

In half a moment Jane had appeared in the narrow front path that led between beds of sweet but common flowers from the entrance gate in the centre of the palings to the door of the house, and was walking up demurely. Mr. Preen was standing at an open window.

“Yes, papa,” she said. And Mr. Preen only answered by looking at her and shutting down the window.

The door opened into a passage, which led straight through to the back of the house. On the left, as you entered, was the parlour; on the right was the room which Mr. Preen used as an office, in which were kept the account books and papers relating to the estate. It was a square room, lighted by two tall narrow windows. A piece of matting covered the middle of the floor, and on it stood Mr. Preen’s large flat writing-table, inlaid with green leather. Shelves and pigeon-holes filled one side of the walls, and a few chairs stood about. Altogether the room had a cold, bare look.

It was called the “Buttery.” When Mr. and Mrs. Preen first came to the house, the old man who had had charge showed them over it. “This is the parlour,” he said, indicating the room they were then looking at; “and this,” he added, opening the door on the opposite side of the passage, “is the Buttery.” Jane laughed: but they had adopted the name.

“I want these letters copied, Jane,” said Mr. Preen, who was now sitting at his table, his back to the fire, and the windows in front of him; and he handed to her two letters which he had just written.

Jane took her seat at the table opposite to him. Whenever Mr. Preen wanted letters copied, he called upon her to do it. Jane did not much like the task; she was not fond of writing, and was afraid of making mistakes.

When she had finished the letters this morning she escaped to her mother, asking how she could help in the preparations for Oliver. They kept one maid-servant; a capless young lady of sixteen, who wore a frock and pinafore of a morning. There was Sam as well; a well-grown civil youth, whose work lay chiefly out of doors.

The day passed. The next day was passing. From an early hour Jane Preen had watched for the guest’s arrival. In the afternoon, when she was weary of looking and looking in vain, she put on a warm shawl and her pink sun-bonnet and went out of doors with a book.

A little lower down, towards the Islip Road, Brook Lane was flanked on one side by a grove of trees, too dense to admit of penetration. But there were two straight paths in them at some distance from each other, which would carry you to the back of the grove, and to the stream running parallel with the highway in front; from which stream Duck Brook derived its name. These openings in the trees were called Inlets curiously. A few worn benches stood in front of the trees, and also behind them, and had been there for ages. If you took your seat upon one of the front benches, you could watch the passing and re-passing (if there chanced to be any) on the high road; if you preferred a seat at the back, you might contemplate the pellucid stream and the meads beyond it, like any knight or fair damsel of romance.

This was a favourite resort of Jane Preen’s, a slight relief from the dullness at home. She generally sat by the stream, but to-day faced the road, for she was looking for Oliver. It was not a frequented road at all, but I think this has been said; sometimes an hour would pass away and not so much as a farmer’s horse and cart jolt by, or a beggar shambling on foot.

Jane had brought out a favourite book of the day, one of Bulwer Lytton’s, which had been lent to her by Miss Julietta Chandler. Shall we ever have such writers again? Compare a work over which a tremendous fuss is made in the present day with one of those romances or novels of the past when some of us were young—works written by Scott, and Bulwer, and others I need not mention. Why, they were as solid gold compared with silver and tinsel.

Jane tried to lose herself in the romantic love of Lucy and Paul, or in the passionate love-letters of Sir William Brandon, written when he was young; and she could not do so. Her eyes kept turning, first to that way of the road, then to this: she did not know which way Oliver would come. By rail to Crabb station she supposed, and then with a fly onwards; though being strange to the neighbourhood he might pitch upon any out-of-the-way route and so delay his arrival.

Suddenly her heart stopped beating and then coursed on to fever heat. A fly was winding along towards her in the distance, from the direction of Crabb. Jane rose and waited close to the path. It was not Oliver. Three ladies and a child sat in the fly. They all stared at her, evidently wondering who she was and what she did there. She went back to the bench, but did not open her book again.

It must be nearing four o’clock: she could tell it by the sun, for she had no watch: and she thought she would go in. Slowly taking up the book, she was turning towards home, which was close by, when upon giving a lingering farewell look down the road, a solitary foot passenger came into view: a gentlemanly young man, with an umbrella in his hand and a coat on his arm.

Was it Oliver? She was not quite sure at first. He was of middle height, slight and slender: had a mild fair face and blue eyes with a great sadness in them. Jane noticed the sadness at once, and thought she remembered it; she thought the face also like her own and her mother’s.

“Oliver?”

“Jane! Why—is it you? I did not expect to find you under that peasant bonnet, Jane.”

They clung to each other, kissing fondly, tears in the eyes of both.

“But why are you walking, Oliver? Did you come to Crabb?”

“Yes,” he said. “I thought I might as well walk; I did not think it was quite so far. The porter will send on my things.”

There was just a year between them; Oliver would be twenty-one in a month, Jane was twenty-two, but did not look as much. She took his arm as they walked home.

As she halted at the little gate, Oliver paused in surprise and gazed about: at the plain wooden palings painted green, which shut in the crowded, homely garden; at the old farmhouse.

“Is this the place, Jane?”

“Yes. You have not been picturing it a palace, have you?”

Oliver laughed, and held back the low gate for her. But as he passed in after her, a perceptible shiver shook his frame. It was gone in a moment; but in that moment it had shaken him from head to foot. Jane saw it.

“Surely you have not caught a chill, Oliver?”

“Not at all; I am warm with my walk. I don’t know why I should have shivered,” he added. “It was like the feeling you have when people say somebody’s ‘walking over your grave.’”

Mr. Preen received his son coldly, but not unkindly; Mrs. Preen did the same; she was led by her husband’s example in all things. Tea, though it was so early, was prepared at once, with a substantial dish for the traveller; and they sat down to it in the parlour.

It was a long room with a beam running across the low ceiling. A homely room, with a coarse red-and-green carpet and horse-hair chairs. A few ornaments of their own (for the furniture belonged to the house), relics of better days, were disposed about; and Jane had put on the table a glass of early primroses. The two windows, tall and narrow, answered to those in the Buttery. Oliver surveyed the room in silent dismay: it wore so great a contrast to the French salons at Tours to which he was accustomed. He gave them the details of his aunt’s death and of her affairs.

When tea was over, Mr. Preen shut himself into the Buttery; Mrs. Preen retired to the kitchen to look after Nancy, who had to be watched, like most young servants, as you watch a sprightly calf. Jane and Oliver went out again, Jane taking the way to the Inlets. This time she sat down facing the brook. The dark trees were behind them, the clear stream flowed past in a gentle murmur; nothing but fields beyond. It was a solitary spot.

“What do you call this place—the Inlets?” cried Oliver. “Why is it called so?”

“I’m sure I don’t know: because of those two openings from the road, I suppose. I like to sit here; it is so quiet. Oliver, how came Aunt Emily to sink all her money in an annuity?”

“For her own benefit, of course; it nearly doubled her income. She did it years ago.”

“And you did not know that she had nothing to leave?”

“No one knew. She kept the secret well.”

“It is very unfortunate for you.”

“Yes—compared with what I had expected,” sighed Oliver. “It can’t be helped, Jane, and I try not to feel disappointed. Aunt Emily in life was very kind to me; apart from all selfish consideration I regret and mourn her.”

“You will hardly endure this dreary place after your gay and happy life at Tours, Oliver. Duck Brook is the fag-end of the world.”

“It does not appear to be very lively,” remarked Oliver, with a certain dry sarcasm. “How was it that the Pater came to it?”

“Well, you know—it was a living, and we had nothing else.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When Uncle Gilbert died, there was no other of our uncles, those who were left, who could help papa; at least they said so; and I assure you we fell into great embarrassment as the weeks went on. It was impossible to remain in Jersey; we could pay no one; and what would have been the ending but for papa’s falling in with Captain Falkner, I can’t imagine. Captain Falkner owns a good deal of land about here; but he is in difficulties himself and cannot be here to look after it; so he offered papa the agency and a house to live in. I can tell you, Oliver, it was as a godsend to us.”

“Do you mean to say that my father is an agent?” cried the young man, his face dyed with a red flush.

Jane nodded. “That, and nothing less. He looks after the estate and is paid a hundred pounds a-year salary, and we live rent free. Lately he has taken something else, something different; the agency of some new patent agricultural implements.”

Oliver Preen looked very blank. He had been living the life of a gentleman, was imbued with a gentleman’s notions, and this news brought him the most intense mortification.

“He will expect you to help him in the Buttery,” continued Jane.

“In the what?”

“The Buttery,” laughed Jane. “It is the room where papa keeps his accounts and writes his letters. Letters come in nearly every morning now, inquiring about the new agricultural implements; papa has to answer them, and wants some of his answers copied.”

“And he has only a hundred a year!” murmured Oliver, unable to get over that one item of information. “Aunt Emily had from eight to nine hundred, and lived up to her income.”

“The worst is that we cannot spend all the hundred. Papa has back debts upon him. Have you brought home any money, Oliver?”

“None to speak of,” he answered; “there was none to bring. Aunt Emily’s next quarter’s instalment would have been due this week; but she died first, you see. She lived in a furnished house; and as to the few things she had of her own, and her personal trinkets, Aunt Margaret Preen came down and swooped upon them. Jane, how have you managed to put up with the lively state of affairs here?”

“And this lively spot—the fag-end of the world. It was Emma Paul first called it so. I put up with it because I can’t help myself, Oliver.”

“Who is Emma Paul?”

“The daughter of Lawyer Paul, of Islip.”

“Oh,” said Oliver, slightingly.

“And the nicest girl in the world,” added Jane. “But I can tell you this much, Oliver,” she continued, after a pause: “when we came first to Duck Brook it seemed to me as a haven of refuge. Our life in Jersey had become intolerable, our life here was peaceful—no angry creditors, no daily applications for debts that we could not pay. Here we were free and happy, and it gave me a liking for the place. It is dull, of course; but I go pretty often to see Emma Paul, or to take tea at Mrs. Jacob Chandler’s, and at Crabb Cot when the Todhetleys are staying there. Sam brings the gig for me in the evening, when I don’t walk home. You will have to bring it for me now.”

“Oh, there’s a gig, is there?”

“Papa has to keep that for his own use in going about the land: sometimes he rides.”

“Are the debts in Jersey paid, Jane?”

A shadow passed over her face, and her voice dropped to a whisper.

“No. It makes me feel very unhappy sometimes, half-frightened. Of course papa hopes he shall not be found out here. But he seems to have also two or three old debts in this neighbourhood, and those he is paying off.”

The sun, setting right before them in a sea of red clouds, fell upon their faces and lighted up the sadness of Oliver’s. Then the red ball sank, on its way to cheer and illumine another part of the world, leaving behind it the changes which set in after sunset. The bright stream became grey, the osiers bordering it grew dark. Oliver shook himself. The whole place to him wore a strange air of melancholy. It was early evening yet, for the month was only February; but the spring had come in with a kindly mood, and the weather was bright.

Rising from the bench, they slowly walked up the nearest Inlet, side by side, and gained the high road just as a pony-chaise was passing by, an elderly gentleman and a young lady in it; Mr. and Miss Paul.

“Oh, papa, please pull up!” cried the girl. “There’s Jane Preen.”

She leaped out, almost before the pony had stopped, and ran to the pathway with outstretched hands.

“How pleasant that we should meet you, Jane! Papa has been taking me for a drive this afternoon.”

Oliver stood apart, behind his sister, looking and listening. The speaker was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen, with a blushing, dimpled face, a smiling mouth displaying small white teeth, shy blue eyes, and bright hair. Her straw hat had blue ribbons and her dress was one of light silk. Never in his life, thought Oliver, had he seen so sweet a face or heard so sweet a voice.

“Have you been for a walk?” she asked of Jane.

“No,” answered Jane. “We have been down the Inlet, and sitting to watch the sun set. This is my brother, Emma, of whom you have heard. He arrived this afternoon, and has left Tours. Will you allow me to introduce him to you? Oliver, this is Miss Paul.”

Mr. Oliver Preen was about to execute a deep bow at a respectful distance, after the manner of the fashionable blades of Tours, and swung off his hat to begin with; but Emma Paul, who was not fashionable at all, but sociable, inexperienced and unpretending, held out her hand. She liked his looks; a slender young fellow, in deep mourning, with a fair, mild, pleasing face.

“Papa,” she said, turning to the gig, which had drawn up close to the foot-path, “this is Mr. Oliver Preen, from France. He has come home, Jane says.”

John Paul, a portly, elderly gentleman, with iron-grey hair and a face that looked stern to those who did not know him, bent forward and shook hands with the stranger.

Emma began plunging into all sorts of gossip, for she liked nothing better than to talk. Jane liked it too.

“I have been telling Oliver we call Duck Brook the fag end of the world, and that it was you who first said it,” cried Jane.

“Oh, how could you?” laughed Emma, turning her beaming face upon Oliver. And they might have gone on for ever, if left alone; but Mr. Paul reminded his daughter that it was growing late, and he wanted to get home to dinner. So she lightly stepped into the low chaise, Oliver Preen assisting her, and they drove off, Emma calling to Jane not to forget that they were engaged to drink tea at North Villa on the morrow.

“What’s Preen going to do with that young fellow?” wondered the lawyer, as he drove on.

“I’m sure I don’t know, papa,” said Emma. “Take him into the Buttery, perhaps.”

Old Paul laughed a little at the idea. “Not much more work there than Preen can do himself, I expect.”

“When I last saw Jane she said she thought her brother might be coming home. It may be only for a visit, you know.”

Old Paul nodded, and touched up the pony.

Oliver stood in the pathway gazing after the chaise until it was out of sight. “What a charming girl!” he cried to his sister. “I never saw one so unaffected in all my life.”

II

If the reader has chanced to read the two papers entitled “Chandler and Chandler,” he may be able to recall North Villa, and those who lived in it.

It stood in the Islip Road—hardly a stone’s throw from Crabb Cot. Jacob Chandler’s widow lived in it with her three daughters. She was empty-headed, vain, frivolous, always on the high ropes when in company, wanting to give people the impression that she had been as good as born a duchess: whereas everyone knew she had sprung from small tradespeople in Birmingham. The three daughters, Clementina, Georgiana, Julietta, took after her, and were as fine as their names.

But you have heard of them before—and of the wrong inflicted by their father, Jacob Chandler, upon his brother’s widow and son. The solicitor’s business at Islip had been made by the elder brother, Thomas Chandler; he had taken Jacob into partnership, and given him a half share without cross or coin of recompense: and when Thomas died from an accident, leaving his only son Tom in the office to succeed him when he should be of age, Jacob refused to carry out the behest. Ignoring past obligations, all sense of right or wrong, he made his own son Valentine his partner in due course of time, condemning Tom, though a qualified solicitor, to remain his clerk.

It’s true that when Jacob Chandler lay on his death-bed, the full sense of what he had done came home to him: any glaring injustice we may have been committing in our lives does, I fancy, often take hold of the conscience at that dread time: and he enjoined his son Valentine to give Tom his due—a full partnership. Valentine having his late father’s example before him (for Jacob died), did nothing of the kind. “I’ll raise your salary, Tom,” said he, “but I cannot make you my partner.” So Tom, thinking he had put up with injustice long enough, quitted Valentine there and then. John Paul, the other Islip lawyer, was only too glad to secure Tom for his own office; he made him his manager and paid him a good salary.

About two years had gone on since then. Tom Chandler, a very fine young fellow, honest and good-natured, was growing more and more indispensable to Mr. Paul; Valentine was growing (if the expression may be used) downwards. For Valentine, who had been an indulged son, and only made to work when he pleased, had picked up habits of idleness, and other habits that we are told in our copy-books idleness begets. Gay, handsome, pleasant-mannered, with money always in his pocket, one of those young men sure to be courted, Valentine had grown fonder of pleasure than of work: he liked his game at billiards; worse than that, he liked his glass. When a client came in, ten to one but a clerk had to make a rush to the Bell Inn opposite, to fetch his master; and it sometimes happened that Valentine would not return quite steady. The result was, that his practice was gradually leaving him, to be given to Mr. Paul. All this was telling upon Valentine’s mother; she had an ever-haunting dread of the poverty which might result in the future, and was only half as pretentious as she used to be.

Her daughters did not allow their minds to be disturbed by anxiety as yet; the young are less anxious than the old. When she dropped a word of apprehension in their hearing, they good-humouredly said mamma was fidgety—Valentine would be all right; if a little gay now it was only what other young men were. It was a pleasant house to visit, for the girls were gay and hospitable; though they did bedeck themselves like so many peacocks, and put on airs and graces.

Jane Preen found it pleasant; had found it so long ago; and she introduced Oliver to it, who liked it because he sometimes met Emma Paul there. It took a very short time indeed after that first meeting by the Inlets for him to be over head and ears in love with her. Thus some weeks went on.

More pure and ardent love than that young fellow’s for Emma was never felt by man or woman. It filled his every thought, seemed to sanctify his dreary days at Duck Brook, and made a heaven of his own heart. He would meet her at North Villa, would encounter her sometimes in her walks, now and then saw her at her own house at Islip. Not often—old Mr. Paul did not particularly care for the Preens, and rarely gave Emma leave to invite them.

Emma did not care for him. She had not found out that he cared for her. A remarkably open, pleasant girl in manner, to him as to all the world, she met him always with frank cordiality—and he mistook that natural cordiality for a warmer feeling. Had Emma Paul suspected his love for her she would have turned from it in dismay; she was no coquette, and all the first love of her young heart was privately given to someone else.

At this time there was a young man in Mr. Paul’s office named Richard MacEveril. He was a nephew of Captain MacEveril of Oak Mansion—a pretty place near Islip. Captain MacEveril—a retired captain in the Royal Navy—had a brother settled in Australia. When this brother died, his only son, Richard, came over to his relatives, accompanied by a small income, about enough to keep him in coats and waistcoats.

The arrival very much put out Captain MacEveril. He was a good-hearted man, but afflicted with gout in the feet, and irascible when twinges took him. Naturally the question arose to his mind—how was he to put Richard in the way of getting bread and cheese. Richard seemed to have less idea of how it was to be done than his uncle and aunt had. They told him he must go back to Australia and find a living there. Richard objected; said he had only just left it, and did not like Australia. Upon the captain’s death, whenever that should take place, Richard would come into a small estate of between two and three hundred a-year, of which nothing could deprive him; for Captain MacEveril had no son; only a daughter, who would be rich through her mother.