Johnny Ludlow, Second Series

“Do you want to kill me, Geoffry?”

“Heaven knows that I wish I had been killed, before I brought this distress upon you,” was his rejoinder.

“I am distressed. I have never felt anything like it since your father died. No; not once when you, a child of seven, were given over in illness, and it was thought you would not live till morning.”

Sir Geoffry passed his hand hastily across his eyes, in which stood the hot tears. His heart was sore, nearly unto breaking; his ingratitude to his mother seemed fearfully great. He longed to throw himself at her feet, and clasp her knees, and tell how deep for her was his love, how true and deep it always would be.

“Though the whole world had united to deceive me, Geoffry, I could never have believed that you would do so. Why did you pretend to be fond of Rachel?”

“I never pretended to be fonder of Rachel than I was. I liked her as a cousin, nothing more. I know it now. And—mother”—he added, with a flush upon his face, and a lowering of the voice, “it is better and safer that the knowledge should have come to me before our marriage than after it.”

“Nonsense,” said Lady Chavasse. “Once married, a man of right principles is always safe in them.”

Sir Geoffry was silent. Not very long ago, he had thought himself safe in his. With every word, it seemed that his shame and his sin came more glaringly home to him.

“Then you mean to tell me that you do not like Rachel–”

“That I have no love for her. If—if there be any one plea that I can put forth as a faint shadow of excuse for what has happened, it lies in my love for another. Faint it is, Heaven knows: the excuse, not the love. That is deep enough: but I would rather not speak of it to you—my mother.”

“And that you never will love Rachel?” continued Lady Chavasse, as though he had not interposed.

“Never. It is impossible that I can ever love any one but Mary Layne. I am grateful, as things have turned out, that I did not deceive Rachel by feigning what I could not feel. Neither does she love me. We were told to consider ourselves betrothed, and did so accordingly; but, so far as love goes, it has not been so much as mentioned between us.”

“What else have you to say?” asked Lady Chavasse.

“I might say a great deal, but it would all come round to the same point: to the one petition that I am beseeching you to grant—that you will sanction the marriage.”

Lady Chavasse’s hands trembled visibly within their rich lace frills, as they lay passive on her soft dress of fine geranium cashmere. Her lips grew white with agitation.

“Geoffry!”

“My darling mother.”

“I have heard you. Will you hear me?”

“You know I will.”

“More than one-and-twenty years ago, my husband died within these walls; and I—I was not eighteen, Geoffry—felt utterly desolate. But, as the weeks went on, I said my child will be born, if God permit, and he will bring me comfort. You were born, Geoffry; you did bring me comfort: such comfort that I thought Heaven had come again. You best know, my son, what our life has been; how we have loved each other: how pleasantly time has flown in uninterrupted happiness. I have devoted myself, my time, my energies, everything I possessed, to you, my best treasure; I have given up the world for you, Geoffry; I had only you left in it. Is it fitting that you should fling me from you now; that you should blight my remaining days with misery; that you should ignore me just as though I were already dead—and all for the sake of a stranger?”

“But–”

“I have not finished, Geoffry. For the sake of a stranger, whom a few months ago neither you nor I had ever seen? If you think this—if you deem that you would be acting rightly, and can find in your heart to treat me so, why, you must do it.”

“But what I wish and propose is quite different!” he exclaimed in agony. “Oh, mother, surely you can understand me—and the dilemma I am placed in?”

“I understand all perfectly.”

“Ah yes!”

“Geoffry, there is no middle course. You must choose between me and—her. Once she and I separate—it will be to-day—we can never meet again. I will not tolerate her memory; I will never submit to the degradation of hearing her named in my presence. Our paths lie asunder, Geoffry, far as the poles: hers lies one way, mine another. You must decide for yourself which of them you will follow. If it be mine, you shall be, as ever, my dear and honoured son, and I will never, never reproach you with your folly: never revert to it; never think of it. If it be hers, why, then—I will go away somewhere and hide myself, and leave the Grange free for you. And I—I dare say—shall not live long to be a thorn in your remembrance.”

She broke down with a flood of bitter sobs. Geoffry Chavasse had never seen his mother shed such. The hour was as trying to her as to him. She had loved him with a strangely selfish love, as it is in the nature of mothers to do; and that she should have to bid him choose between her and another—and one so entirely beneath her as Lady Chavasse considered Mary Layne to be—was gall and wormwood. Never would she have stooped to put the choice before him, even in words, but for her dread that he might be intending to take it.

“It is a fitting end, Geoffry—that this worthless girl should supplant me in your home and heart,” she was resuming when her emotion allowed; but Geoffry stood forward to face her, his agitation great as her own.

“An instant, mother: that you may fully understand me. The duty I owe you, the allegiance and the love, are paramount to all else on earth. In communing with myself last night, as I tell you I was, my heart and my reason alike showed me this. If I must choose between you and Mary Layne, there cannot be a question in my mind on which side duty lies. In all honour I am bound to make her my wife, and I should do it in all affection: but not in defiance of you; not to thrust rudely aside the love and obligations of the past one-and-twenty years. You must choose for me. If you refuse your approval, I have no resource but to yield to your decision; if you consent, I shall thank you and bless you for ever.”

A spasm of pain passed across the mouth of Lady Chavasse. She could not help saying something that arose prominently in her mind though it interrupted the question.

“And you can deem the apothecary Layne’s daughter fit to mate with Sir Geoffry Chavasse?”

“No, I do not. Under ordinary circumstances, I should never have thought of such a thing. This unhappy business has a sting for me, mother, on many sides. Will you give me your decision?” he added, after a pause.

“I have already given it, Geoffry—so far as I am concerned. You must choose between your mother, between all the hopes and the home-interests of one-and-twenty years, and this alien.”

“Then I have no alternative.”

She turned her gaze steadily upon him. A sob rose in his throat as he took her hands, his voice was hoarse with emotion.

“To part from her will be like parting with life, mother. I can never know happiness again in this world.”

But the decision was irrevocable. What further passed between Sir Geoffry and his mother in the remaining half-hour they spent together, how much of entreaty and anguish was spoken on his side, how much of passionate plaint and sorrow on hers, will never be known. But she was obdurate to the last letter: and Sir Geoffry’s lot in life was fixed. Mary Layne was to be sacrificed: and, in one sense of the word, himself also: and there might be no appeal.

Lady Chavasse exacted from him that he should quit the Grange at once without seeing Miss Layne, and not return to it until Mary had left it for ever. Anything he wished to say to her, he was to write. On Lady Chavasse’s part, she voluntarily undertook to explain to Miss Layne their conversation faithfully, and its result; and to shield the young lady’s good name from the censure of the world. She would keep her for some time longer at the Grange, be tender with her, honour her, drive out with her in the carriage so that they might be seen together, subdue her mother’s anger, strive to persuade Mr. Luke Duffham that his opinion had been mistaken, and, in any case, bind him down to secrecy: in short, she would make future matters as easy as might be for Mary, as tenaciously as though she were her own daughter. That she promised this at the sacrifice of pride and of much feeling, was indisputable; but she meant to keep her word.

However miserable a night the others had passed, it will readily be imagined that Mary Layne had spent a worse. She made no pretence of eating breakfast; and when it was taken away sat at her work in the garden-parlour, trying to do it; but her cold fingers dropped the needle every minute, her aching brow felt as though it were bursting. Good-hearted Hester Picker was sorry to see her looking so ill, and wished the nasty trying spring, hot one day, cold the next, would just settle itself down.

Mary rose from her chair, and went upstairs to her own bedroom for a brief respite: in her state of mind it seemed impossible to stay long quiescent anywhere. This little incidental occurrence frustrated one part of the understanding between Sir Geoffry and his mother—that he should quit the house without seeing Miss Layne. In descending, she chanced to cross the end of the corridor just as he came out of his mother’s room after bidding her farewell. The carriage waited at the door, his coat was on his arm. Mary would have shrunk back again, but he bade her wait.

“You must allow me to shake her hand, and say just a word of adieu, mother; I am not quite a brute,” he whispered. And Lady Chavasse came out of her room, and tacitly sanctioned it.

But there was literally nothing more than a hand-shake. Miss Layne, standing still in all humility, turned a little white, for she guessed that he was being sent from his home through her. Sir Geoffry held her hand for a moment.

“I am going away, Mary. My mother will explain to you. I have done my best, and failed. Before Heaven, I have striven to the uttermost, for your sake and for mine, to make reparation; but it is not to be. I leave you to my mother; she is your friend; and you shall hear from me in a day or two. I am now going to see Mrs. Layne. Good-bye: God bless you always!”

But, ere Sir Geoffry reached the hall, Lady Chavasse had run swiftly down, caught him, and was drawing him into a room. The fear had returned to her face.

“I heard you say you were going to call on Mrs. Layne. Geoffry, this must not be.”

“Not be!” he repeated, in surprise. “Mother, I am obeying you in all essential things; but you cannot wish to reduce me to an utter craven. I owe an explanation to Mrs. Layne almost in the same degree that I owe it to you; and I shall certainly not quit Church Dykely until I have given it.”

“Oh, well—if it must be,” she conceded, afraid still. “You—you will not be drawn in to act against me, Geoffry?”

“No power on earth could draw me to that. You have my first and best allegiance; to which I bow before every other consideration, before every interest, whether of my own or of others. But for that, should I be acting as I am now? Fare you well, mother.”

She heard the carriage-door closed; she heard Sir Geoffry’s order to the footman. Even for that order, he was cautious to give a plausible excuse.

“Stop at Mrs. Layne’s. I have to leave a message from her ladyship.”

The wheels of the carriage crunched the gravel, bearing off Sir Geoffry in the storm of sleet—which had begun to fall—and Lady Chavasse passed up the stairs again. Taking the hand of Mary—who had stood above like a statue—never moving—she led her, gently enough, into her dressing-room, and put her in a comfortable chair by the fire; and prepared for this second interview.

Briefly, Lady Chavasse recounted what she had to say. Sir Geoffry had found himself obliged to choose between Miss Layne and her, his mother. Mary Layne sat with her hands before her face, and acknowledged that, if it came to such a choice, he had chosen rightly. And then, in forcible language, because it came from her heart, my lady drew a picture of the life-long happiness she and her son had enjoyed together, of her devotion and sacrifices for him, of his deep love and reverence for her: and she quietly asked Mary to put herself in imagination in her place, and say what her feelings would have been had a stranger come in to mar this. Had she any right to do this?—Lady Chavasse asked her—would she be justified in destroying the ties of a life, in thrusting herself between mother and son?—in invoking a curse, his mother’s curse, on him? My lady did not spare her: but she spoke in no angry tone, rather in a piteous and imploring one: and Mary, feeling as if matters were being put to her own better feeling, sobbed, and shook, and shrunk within herself, and could have knelt at Lady Chavasse’s feet for pardon in her distress and humiliation.

And that was the end of the wretched business—as Duffham phrases it in his diary—so far as the Grange and its people were concerned. Mary Layne stayed, perforce, two or three weeks longer at the house, and my lady made much of her: she took her out daily in her carriage; she said to her friends, in the hearing of her servants and the sympathizing Hester Picker, how vexatious it was that the relaxing, unseasonable weather had brought out the delicacy that was latent in Miss Layne’s constitution, and that she feared she must let her go away somewhere for a change. Mary submitted to all. She was in such a self-abased frame of mind that had my lady desired her to immolate herself on a blazing pyre, she would have gone to it meekly. My lady had interviews with Mrs. Layne, and with Duffham (who had got well then), and with his brother Luke. At the two or three weeks’ end, Miss Elizabeth Layne came by appointment to the Grange, and she and Mary were driven to the nearest station in my lady’s own carriage on their way to the seaside: or to elsewhere, as it might be. And never an ill breath, in the Grange or out of it, transpired to tarnish the fair fame of Mary Layne.

But my lady was not honest in one respect. The letter that arrived for Mary from Sir Geoffry a day or two after his departure, was never given to her. My lady knew she might trust her son implicitly; he could only be straightforward and keep his word in all things; nevertheless, she deemed the fire the safest place for the weighty epistle of many sheets. On the other hand, Mary wrote to Sir Geoffry, saying that the alternative he had chosen was the only one possible to him. Nothing, no prayers of his, she said, would have induced her to put herself between him and his mother, even had he so far forgotten his duty as to urge it. It was a good and sensible letter, and none but a good and unselfish girl could have written it.

So that ended the dream and the romance. And I hope the reader does not forget that it is Duffham’s diary that’s telling all this, and not I. For though dreams and romance seem to be in Duffham’s line, they are not in mine.

Part the Second

Not very long after the time that Mary Layne quitted Chavasse Grange—having closed all connection with it, never to be to it henceforth but as an utter stranger—her eldest sister, Susan, the wife of Captain Richard Layne, arrived in England from India with her children, four little ones; the eldest seven years old, the youngest eighteen months. The children had been ailing, and she brought them over for a twelvemonth’s change. Mrs. Layne was a good deal worn herself, for the only nurse she had with her, a coloured woman, was sea-sick during the voyage. Her sister Eleanor, who originally went out with her to Calcutta, had made an excellent match; having married Allan McAlpin, the younger partner in the staid old firm of McAlpin Brothers, merchants of high standing, and wealthy men.

The first thing Mrs. Richard Layne did on arrival was to establish herself in lodgings in Liverpool, the port she landed at (in order to rest a week or two from the fatigues of the voyage) and send for her mother and sister Elizabeth. In answer came a letter from her mother, saying she was not equal to the journey and that Elizabeth was from home. It contained Elizabeth’s present address, and also one or two items of news that startled young Mrs. Layne well-nigh out of her senses. Leaving her children to their nurse’s care, she started for the address given, and found her two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary. The one living in a chronic state of outpouring sarcasm and reproach; the other meekly taking all as not a tithe of her just due.

After a day or two given to natural grief and lamentation, Mrs. Richard Layne took matters into her own capable hands. She considered that a more complete change would be good for Mary, and decided to convey her to the Continent. She wrote a long and confidential letter to her husband in India, of what she meant to do: and then she went back to Liverpool with Elizabeth, to leave the latter in charge of her own children and their coloured nurse, during her absence across the Channel. Mrs. Layne then returned to Mary, and they started together for France.

Shortly after this, old Mrs. Layne fell ill: and Elizabeth, when she found she must go home in consequence, left a responsible English nurse with the coloured woman and children. Not for several months afterwards did Mrs. Richard Layne and Mary return from abroad; and at the end of the twelvemonth they all went back to India—Mrs. Layne, her children, the native nurse, and Mary. Mary accompanied them in the capacity of governess.

After that a couple of years went on.

[From Miss Mary Layne’s Journal, written in Calcutta, at the house of Captain Layne.]

June 10th.—Cool of the evening. Susan came to the schoolroom in the midst of the geography lesson this morning, and told me an old friend of mine at home had called, and I was to come into the verandah to see her. I never was more surprised. It was Jane Arkill; my chief friend in our old school-days. She has married a Mr. Cale, a doctor, who has just come out here to practise. Mrs. Cale says she shall never grow reconciled to the heat of India. While she sat telling us home news, she alternately wiped her pale face and stared at me, because I am so much altered. She thinks she should not have known me. It is not that my features have changed, she says, but that I have grown so much graver, and look so old. When people talk like this, I long to tell them that things have changed me; that I have passed through a fiery trial of sin and suffering; that my life is one long crucifixion of inward, silent repentance. When I first came out, two years ago, and people would say, “It must be the climate that is making Miss Layne look so ill,” it seemed to me like the worst hypocrisy to let them think it was the climate, and not to tell the truth. This feeling came back again to-day, when Jane Arkill—I shall often forget to call her “Cale”—said my eyes had grown to have a sad look in them; and Susan answered that young ladies faded quickly in India; and that Mary would apply herself too closely to the children’s studies in spite of remonstrance. Too closely? Why, if I devoted every hour of my life, night and day, to these dear children, I could never repay what their mother—or their father, either—has done for me.

My mother is very well, Jane says, but lame, and cannot get about much: she saw her only six weeks ago—for they came out by the overland route. Only six weeks ago!—to hear that one has seen my dear mother so recently as that, makes it seem almost as though I had seen her but yesterday. My darling mother!—whom my conduct so grieved and outraged at the time, and who was so quick to forgive me and to do so much for me. What a message she has sent me! “Give my love to dear Mary, and say I hope she is happy with her sisters.” Elizabeth, too, sent me her love. “I saw your little Arthur, Mrs. Layne,” Jane Cale then said to my sister: “he is a sweet little fellow; your mother and Elizabeth are so fond of him. They call him Baby Arthur.” I felt my face growing whiter than death: but Susan, who was never I believe put out in her life, quietly sent me away with a message to the nurse—that she might bring the children. When I got back, Captain Layne had come in and had the baby on his shoulder: for nurse had made more haste than I. “None of your children here are so fair as the little one your wife left in England, Captain Layne,” Jane Cale was saying, as she looked at them one by one. “You mean little Arthur,” returned the Captain, in his ready kindness; “I hear he is fair.” “Have you never seen him?” “No; how should I have seen him?” asked Captain Layne, laughing: “he was born over there, and my wife left him behind her as a legacy to her mother. It is rather a hazard, Mrs. Cale, as perhaps you know, to bring out very young infants to this country.” Susan came to the rescue: she took the baby and put him on his feet, that Mrs. Cale should see how well he walked for his twelvemonth’s age. But it did not answer. No doubt Jane thought that the more she told them about Baby Arthur in England, the better pleased they would be. How much difference was there, she asked, between this child and little Arthur—eighteen months?—and how much between Arthur and the one above him? “Oh,” said the captain, “if it comes to months, you must ask my wife. Come here, sir,” he called to Robert, who was tumbling over the little black bearer, “tell this lady how old you are, for I am sure I can’t.” “I’m over four,” lisped Bobby. “Ah, I see,” said Jane Cale, “Baby Arthur is just between them.” “Exactly so,” said Captain Layne: “Susan, I think these children may go to their own quarters now.” They went at once, for I have trained them to be obedient, and I escaped with them. It is the first time any human tongue has spoken to me of Baby Arthur. I think if Captain Layne had looked at me I should have died: but he is ever kind. Never, by so much as a word, or look, or tone, since the hour when I first set foot on these shores, his wife’s humbled sister, his children’s meek governess—and it is more than good of him to entrust their training to me!—never has he betrayed that he as much as knew anything, still less thought of it.

Oh, how events have been smoothed for me!—how much more than I deserve have I to be thankful for!

[Letter from Captain Layne’s Wife to her Mother at Church Dykely.]Calcutta, September 2nd.

My Darling Mother,

I am sitting down to answer your letter, which arrived by last mail: for I am sure you must wonder at my long silence and think it an age since I wrote. But the truth is, I have had a touch of my old complaint—intermittent fever—and it left me very weak and languid. I know you have an untiring correspondent in Eleanor. Perhaps that makes me a little negligent in writing home, though I am aware it ought not to do so.

We were truly glad to welcome Mrs. Cale, because she had so recently come from you. I cannot say that I have seen much of her as yet, for it was just after she got out that my illness began; and when I grew better my husband sent me to the hills for a change. Mary went with me and the children. She is the greatest comfort. Mother dear, in spite of what we know of, I do not think Mary has her equal for true worth in this world. You say that Mrs. Cale, in writing home to you, described Mary as being so altered; so sad and subdued. Why, my dear mother, of course she is sad: how could it be otherwise? I do not suppose, in her more recent life, she has ever felt other than the most intense sadness of mind; no, not for one minute: and it is only to be expected that this must in time show itself in the countenance. I spoke to her about it one day; it is a long, long time ago now; saying I did not like to see her retain so much sadness. “It cannot be helped,” she answered; “sadness must always follow sin.”

And now I must tell you, even at the risk of being misunderstood—though I am sure you know me too well to fear I should seek to countenance or excuse wrong-doing—that I think Mary takes an exaggerated view of the past. She seems to think it can never be wiped out, never be palliated. Of course, in one sense, it never can: but I don’t see why she need continue to feel this intense humiliation, as if she ought to have a cordon drawn round her gown to warn all good folks from its contact. Look again at that persistent fancy of hers, always to wear black; it is writing about her gown puts me in mind of it. Black, black, black: thin silk when the heat will allow, oftener a dreary, rusty-black-looking kind of soft muslin that is called here “black jaconite”—but I really don’t know whether that’s the way to spell the thing. During the late intense heat, we have talked her into a black-and-white muslin: that is, white, with huge black spots upon it in the form of a melon. Only once did I speak to her about wearing white as we do; I have never ventured since. She turned away with a shiver, and said white was no longer for her. Mother, dear, if any one ever lived to work out on earth their repentance for sin, surely it is Mary. The more I see of her innate goodness, the less can I understand the past. With her upright principles and strict sense of conscientiousness—and you know that Mary always had these, even as a child—I am unable to imagine how it could have been that– But I won’t go into that. And it may be that the goodness, so remarkable, would not have come out conspicuously but for the trial.