Johnny Ludlow, Second Series

Much we heeded him! Counting the carriages (three of them) waiting at the sub-dean’s door, we raced onwards at will, some hither, some thither. King went back to Mrs. Lake. The evening coolness felt delicious after the hot and garish day; the moonlight brought out the lights and shades of the queer old houses and the older cathedral. Collecting ourselves together presently, at Fred Sanker’s whoop, Mr. Angerstyne and Anne were missing.

“They’ve gone to look at the Severn, I think,” said Dan Sanker. “I heard him tell her it was worth looking at in the moonlight.”

Yes, they were there. He had Anne’s arm tucked up under his, and his head bent over her that she might catch his whispers. They turned round at hearing our footsteps.

“Indeed we must go home, Mr. Angerstyne,” said Julia Podd, who had run down after me, and spoke crossly. “The college clock is chiming a quarter to eleven. There’s Mrs. Lake waiting for us under the Tower!”

“Is it so late?” he answered her, in a pleasant voice. “Time flies quickly in the moonlight: I’ve often remarked it.”

Walking forward, he kept by the side of Julia; Anne and I followed together. Some of the boys were shouting themselves hoarse from the top of the ascent, wanting to know if we were lost.

“Is it all settled, Anne?” I asked her, jestingly, dropping my voice.

“Is what settled?” she returned. But she understood; for her face looked like a rose in the moonlight.

“You know. I can see, if the others can’t. And if it makes you happy, Anne, I am very glad of it.”

“Oh, Johnny, I hope—I hope no one else does see. But indeed you are making more of it than it deserves.”

“What does he say to you?”

“He has not said anything. So you see, Johnny, you may be quite mistaken.”

It was all the same: if he had not said anything yet, there could be no question that he meant soon to say it. We were passing the old elm-trees just then; the moonlight, flickering through them on Anne’s face, lighted up the sweet hope that lay on it.

“Sometimes I think if—if papa should not approve of it!” she whispered.

“But he is sure to approve of it. One cannot help liking Mr. Angerstyne: and his position is undeniable.”

The sub-dean’s dinner guests were gone, the three carriages bowling them away; and the porter kept up a fire of abuse as he waited to watch us through the little postern-door. The boys, being college boys, returned his attack with interest. Wishing the Sankers good-night, who ran straight down Edgar Street on their way home, we turned off up the steps, and found Mrs. Lake standing patiently at her door. I saw Mr. Angerstyne catch Anne’s hand for a moment in his, under cover of our entrance.

The morning brought news. Dr. and Mrs. Lewis were on their way to Maythorn Bank, expected to reach it that evening, and the young ladies were bidden to depart for it on the following day.

A wonderful change had taken place in Dr. Lewis. If they had doubted before whether the doctor was not falling into his dotage they could not doubt longer, for he was decidedly in it. A soft-speaking, mooning man, now; utterly lost in the shadow cast by his wife’s importance. She appeared to be smiling in face and gentle in accent as ever, but she overruled every soul in the house: no one but herself had a will in it. What little strength of mind he might have had, his new bride had taken out of him.

Anne did not like it. Hitherto mistress of all things under her father, she found herself passed over as a nonentity. She might not express an opinion, or hazard a wish. “My dear, I am here now,” Mrs. Lewis said to her once or twice emphatically. Anne was deposed; her reign was over.

One little thing, that happened, she certainly did not like. Though humble-minded, entirely without self-assertion, sweet-tempered and modest as a girl should be, she did not like this. Mrs. Lewis sent out invitations for dinner to some people in the neighbourhood, strangers to her until then; the table was too full by one, and she had told Anne that she could not sit down. It was too bad; especially as Julia and Fanny Podd filled two of the more important places, with bunches of fresh sweet-peas in their hair.

“Besides,” Mrs. Lewis had said to Anne in the morning, “we must have a French side-dish or two, and there’s no one but you understands the making of them.”

Whether having to play the host was too much for him, or that he did not like the slight put upon his daughter, before the dinner was half over, the doctor fell asleep. He could not be roused from it. Herbert Tanerton, who had sat by Mrs. Lewis’s side to say grace, thought it was not sleep but unconsciousness. Between them the company carried him into the other room; and Anne, hastening to send in her French dishes, ran there to attend upon him.

“I hope and trust there’s nothing amiss with his heart,” said old Coney doubtfully, in the bride’s ear.

“My dear Mr. Coney, his heart is as strong as mine—believe me,” affirmed Mrs. Lewis, flicking some crumbs off the front of her wedding-dress.

“I hope it is, I’m sure,” repeated Coney. “I don’t like that blue tinge round his lips.”

They went back to the dinner-table when Dr. Lewis revived. Anne remained kneeling at his feet, gently chafing his hands.

“What’s the matter?” he cried, staring at her like a man bewildered. “What are you doing?”

“Dear papa, you fell asleep over your dinner, and they could not wake you. Do you feel ill?”

“Where am I?” he asked, as if he were speaking out of a dream. And she told him what she could. But she had not heard those suspicious words of old Coney’s.

It was some minutes yet before he got much sense into him, or seemed fully to understand. He fell back in the chair then, with a deep sigh, keeping Anne’s hand in his.

“Shall I get you anything, papa?” she asked. “You had eaten scarcely any dinner, they say. Would you like a little drop of brandy-and-water?”

“Why was not your dress ready?”

“My dress!” exclaimed Anne.

“She said so to me, when I asked why you did not come to table. Not made, or washed, or ironed; or something.”

Anne felt rather at sea. “There’s nothing the matter with my dresses, papa,” she said. “But never mind them—or me. Will you go back to dinner? Or shall I get you anything here?”

“I don’t want to go back; I don’t want anything,” he answered. “Go and finish yours, my dear.”

“I have had mine,” she said, with a faint blush. For indeed her dinner had consisted of some bread-and-butter in the kitchen, eaten over the French stew-pans. Dr. Lewis was gazing out at the trees, and seemed to be in thought.

“Perhaps you stayed away from home rather too long, papa,” she suggested. “You are not accustomed to travelling; and I think you are not strong enough for it. You looked very worn when you first came home; worn and ill.”

“Ay,” he answered. “I told her it did not do for me; but she laughed. It was nothing but a whirl, you know. And I only want to be quiet.”

“It is very quiet here, dear papa, and you will soon feel stronger. You shall sit out of doors in the sun of a day, and I will read to you. I wish you would let me get you–”

“Hush, child. I’m thinking.”

With his eyes still fixed on the outdoor landscape, he sat stroking Anne’s hand abstractedly. Nothing broke the silence, except the faint rattle of knives and forks from the dining-room.

“Mind, Anne, she made me do it,” he suddenly exclaimed.

“Made you do what, papa?”

“And so, my dear, if I am not allowed to remedy it, and you feel disappointed, you must think as lightly of it as you are able; and don’t blame me more than you can help. I’ll alter it again if I can, be sure of that; but I don’t have a moment to myself, and at times it seems that she’s just my keeper.”

Anne answered soothingly that all he did must be right, but had no time to say more, for Mr. Coney, stealing in on tip-toe from the dining-room, came to see after the patient. Anne had not the remotest idea what it was that the doctor alluded to; but she had caught up one idea with dread of heart—that the marriage had not increased his happiness. Perhaps had marred it.

Maythorn Bank did not suit Mrs. Lewis. Ere she had been two weeks at it, she found it insufferably dull; not to be endured at any price. There was no fashion thereabout, and not much visiting; the neighbours were mostly simple, unpretending people, quite different from the style of company met with in garrison towns and pump-rooms. Moreover the few people who might have visited Mrs. Lewis, did not seem to take to her, or to remember that she was there. This did not imply discourtesy: Dr. Lewis and his daughter had just come into the place, strangers, so to say, and people could not practically recollect all at once that Maythorn Bank was inhabited. Where was the use of dressing up in peacock’s plumes if nobody came to see her? The magnificent wardrobe, laid in during her recent honeymoon, seemed as good as wasted.

“I can’t stand this!” emphatically cried Mrs. Lewis one day to her daughters. And Anne, chancing to enter the room unexpectedly at the moment, heard her say it, and wondered what it meant.

That same afternoon, Dr. Lewis had another attack. Anne found him sitting beside the pear-tree insensible, his head hanging over the arm of the bench. Travelling had not brought this second attack on, that was certain; for no man could be leading a more quiet, moping life than he was. Save that he listened now and then to some book, read by Anne, he had no amusement whatever, no excitement; he might have sat all day long with his mouth closed, for all there was to open it for. Mrs. Lewis’s powers of fascination, that she had exercised so persistently upon him as Mrs. Podd, seemed to have deserted her for good. She passed her hours gaping, sleeping, complaining, hardly replying to a question of his, if he by chance asked her one. Even the soft sweet voice that had charmed the world mostly degenerated now into a croak or a scream. Those very mild, not-say-boo-to-a-goose voices are sometimes only kept for public life.

“I shall take you off to Worcester,” cried Mrs. Lewis to him, when he came out of his insensibility. “We will start as soon as breakfast’s over in the morning.”

Dr. Lewis began to tremble. “I don’t want to go to Worcester,” said he. “I want to stay here.”

“But staying here is not good for you, my dear. You’ll be better at Mrs. Lake’s. It is the remains of this paint that is making you ill. I can smell it still quite strongly, and I decidedly object to stay in it.”

“My dear, you can go; I shall not wish to prevent you. But, as to the paint, I don’t smell it at all now. You can all go. Anne will take care of me.”

“My dear Dr. Lewis, do you think I would leave you behind me? It is the paint. And you shall see a doctor at Worcester.”

He said he was a doctor himself, and did not need another; he once more begged to be left at home in peace. All in vain: Mrs. Lewis announced her decision to the household; and Sally, whose wits had been well-nigh scared away by the doings and the bustle of the new inmates, was gladdened by the news that they were about to take their departure.

“Pourtant si le ciel nous protège,Peut-être encore le reverrai-je.”

These words, the refrain of an old French song, were being sung by Anne Lewis softly in the gladness of her heart, as she bent over the trunk she was packing. To be going back to Worcester, where he was, seemed to her like going to paradise.

“What are you doing that for?”

The emphatic question, spoken in evident surprise, came from her stepmother. The chamber-door was open; Mrs. Lewis had chanced to look in as she passed.

“What are you doing that for?” she stopped to ask. Anne ceased her song at once and rose from her knees. She really did not know what it was that had elicited the sharp query—unless it was the singing.

“You need not pack your own things. You are not going to Worcester. It is intended that you shall remain here and take care of the house and of Sally.”

“Oh, but, Mrs. Lewis, I could not stay here alone,” cried Anne, a hundred thoughts rushing tumultuously into her mind. “It could not be.”

“Not stay here alone! Why, what is to hinder it? Do you suppose you would get run away with? Now, my dear, we will have no trouble, if you please. You will stay at home like a good girl—therefore you may unpack your box.”

Anne went straight to her father, and found him with Herbert Tanerton. He had walked over from Timberdale to inquire after the doctor’s health.

“Could this be, papa?” she said. “That I am to be left alone here while you stay at Worcester?”

“Don’t talk nonsense, child,” was the peevish answer. “My belief is that you dream dreams, Anne, and then fancy them realities.”

“But Mrs. Lewis tells me that I am not to go to Worcester—that I am to stay at home,” persisted Anne. And she said it before Mrs. Lewis: who had come into the room then, and was shaking hands with the parson.

“I think, love, it will be so much better for dear Anne to remain here and see to things,” she said, in that sweet company-voice of hers.

“No,” dissented the doctor, plucking up the courage to be firm. “If Anne stays here, I shall stay. I’m sure I should be thankful if you’d let us stay: we should have a bit of peace and quiet.”

She did not make a fuss before the parson. Perhaps she saw that to hold out might cause some unprofitable commotion. Treating Anne to a beaming smile, she remarked that her dear papa’s wish was of course law, and bade her run and finish her packing.

And when they arrived the next day at Lake’s, and Anne heard that Henry Angerstyne was in truth still there and knew that she should soon be in his presence, it did indeed seem to her that she had stepped into paradise. She was alone when he entered. The others had sought their respective chambers, leaving Anne to gather up their packages and follow, and she had her bonnet untied and her arms full of things when he came into the room. Paradise! she might have experienced some bliss in her life, but none like unto this. Her veins were tingling, her heart-blood leaping. How well he looked! how noble! how superior to other men! As he caught her hand in his, and bent to whisper his low words of greeting, she could scarcely contain within bounds the ecstasy of her emotion.

“I am so glad you are back again, Anne! I could not believe the good news when the letter came to Mrs. Lake this morning. You have been away two weeks, and they have seemed like months.”

“You did not come over: you said you should,” faltered Anne.

“Ay. And I sprained my foot the day you left, and have had to nurse it. It is not strong yet. Bad luck, was it not? Bristow has been worse, too. Where are you going?”

“I must take these things up to papa and Mrs. Lewis. Please let me go.”

But, before he would release her hand, he suddenly bent his head and kissed her: once, twice.

“Pardon me, Anne, I could not help it; it is only a French greeting,” he whispered, as she escaped with her face rosy-red, and her heart beating time to its own sweet music.

“What a stay Mr. Angerstyne is making!” exclaimed Fanny Podd, who had run about to seek Miss Dinah, and found her making a new surplice for Tom.

“Well, we are glad to have him,” answered Miss Dinah, “and he has had a sprained ankle. We know now what is detaining him in Worcestershire. It seems that some old lady is lying ill at Malvern, and he can’t get away.”

“Some old lady lying ill at Malvern!” retorted Fanny, who liked to take Miss Dinah down when she could. “Why should that detain Mr. Angerstyne? Who is the old lady?”

“She is a relation of his: his great-aunt, I think. And I believe she is very fond of him, and won’t let him go to any distance. All these visits he makes to Malvern are to see her. She is very rich, and he will come in for her money.”

“I’m sure he’s rich enough without it; he does not want more money,” grumbled Fanny. “If the old lady would leave a little to those who need it, she might do some good.”

“She would have to be made of gold and diamonds if she left some to all who need it,” sighed Miss Dinah. “Mr. Angerstyne deserves to be rich, he is so liberal with his money. Many a costly dainty he causes us to send up to that poor sick Captain Bristow, letting him think it is all in the regular fare.”

“But I think it was fearfully sly of him never to tell us why he went so much to Malvern—only you must always put in a good word for everybody, Miss Dinah. I asked him one day what his attraction was, that he should be perpetually running over there, and he gravely answered me that he liked the Malvern air.”

Just for a few days, Dr. Lewis seemed to get a little better. Mrs. Lewis’s fascinations had returned to her, and she in a degree kept him alive. It might have been from goodness of heart, or it might have been that she did not like to neglect him before people just yet, but she was ever devising plans for his amusement—which of course included that of herself and of her daughters. Mr. Angerstyne had not been more lavish of money in coach hire than was Mrs. Lewis now. Carriages for the country and flys for the town—that was the order of the day. Anne was rarely invited to make one of the party: for her there never seemed room. What of that?—when by staying at home she had the society of Mr. Angerstyne.

Whilst they were driving everywhere, or taking their pleasure in the town, shopping and exhibiting their finery, of which they seemed to display a new stock perpetually, Anne was left at liberty to enjoy her dangerous happiness. Dangerous, if it should not come to anything: and he had not spoken yet. They would sit together over their German, Anne trying to beat it into him, and laughing with him at his mistakes. If she went out to walk, she presently found herself overtaken by Mr. Angerstyne: and they would linger in the mellow light of the soft autumn days, or in the early twilight. Whatever might come of it, there could be no question that for the time being she was living in the most intense happiness. And about a fortnight of this went on without interruption.

Then Dr. Lewis began to droop. One day when he was out he had another of those attacks in the carriage. It was very slight, Mrs. Lewis said when they got back again; he did not lose consciousness for more than three or four minutes. But he continued to be so weak and ill afterwards that a physician was called in—Dr. Malden. What he said was known only to the patient and his wife, for nobody else was admitted to the conference.

“I want to go home,” the doctor said to Anne the next morning, speaking in his usual querulous, faint tone, and as if his mind were half gone. “I’m sure I did not smell any paint the last time; it must have been her fancy. I want to go there to be quiet.”

“Well, papa, why don’t you say so?”

“But it’s of no use saying so: she won’t listen. I can’t stand the racket here, child, and the perpetual driving out: the wheels of the carriages shake my head. And look at the expense! It frightens me.”

Anne scarcely knew what to answer. She herself was powerless; and, so far as she believed, her father was; utterly so. Powerless in the hands of his new wife. Dr. Lewis glanced round the room as if to make sure there were no eavesdroppers, and went on in a whisper.

“I’m terrified, Anne. I am being ruined. All my ready-money’s gone; she has had it all; she made me draw it out of the bank. And there, in that drawer, are two rolls of bills; she brought them to me yesterday, and there’s nothing to pay them with.”

Anne’s heart fluttered. Was he only fancying these things in his decaying mind? Or, were they true?

“September has now come in, papa, and your quarter’s dividends will soon be due, you know. Do not worry yourself.”

“They have been forestalled,” he whispered. “She owed a lot of things before her marriage, and the people would have sued me had I not paid them. I wish we were back in France, child! I wish we had never left it!” And, but for one thing, Anne would have wished it, too.

One afternoon, when it was getting late, Anne went into High Street to buy some ribbon for her hair. Mrs. Lewis and her party had gone over to Croome, some one having given her an order to see the gardens there. Lake’s house was as busy as it could be, some fresh inmates of consequence being expected that evening; Anne had been helping Miss Dinah, and it was only at the last minute she could run out. In coming back, the ribbon bought, close to the college gates she heard steps behind her, and found her arm touched. It was by Mr. Angerstyne. For the past two days—nearly three—he had been absent at Malvern. The sight of him was as if the sun had shone.

“Oh!—is it you?—are you back again?” she cried, with as much quiet indifference as she could put on.

“I have just arrived. My aunt is better. And how are you, Anne?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“Need you go in yet? Let us take a short stroll. The afternoon is delightful.”

He called it afternoon, but it was getting on fast for evening: and he turned in at the college gates as he spoke. So they wound round St. Michael’s Churchyard and passed on to the Dark Alley, and so down the long flight of steps that leads from it, and on to the banks of the Severn.

“How are you all going on at Lake’s?” he asked presently, breaking the silence.

“Just as usual. To-day is a grand field-day,” Anne added gaily: “at least, this evening is to be one, and we are not to dine until seven o’clock.”

“Seven? So much the better. But why?”

“Some people of importance are coming–”

Mr. Angerstyne’s laugh interrupted her. She laughed also.

“They are Miss Dinah’s words: ‘people of importance.’ They will arrive late, so the dinner-hour is put off.”

“Take care, Anne!”

A horse, towing a barge, was overtaking them. Mr. Angerstyne drew Anne out of the way, and the dinner and the new guests were forgotten.

It was almost dusk when they returned. The figures on the college tower were darkened, as they came through the large boat-house gateway: the old elm-trees, filled with their cawing rooks, looked weird in the dim twilight. Mr. Angerstyne did not turn to the Dark Alley again, but went straight up to the Green. He was talking of his estate in Essex. It was a topic often chosen by him; and Anne seemed to know the place quite well by this time.

“You would like the little stream that runs through the grounds,” he was observing. “It is not, of course, like the grand river we have just left, but it is pleasant to wander by, for it winds in and out in the most picturesque manner possible, and the banks are overshadowed by trees. Yes, Anne, you would like that.”

“Are you going through the cloisters?—is it not too late?” she interrupted, quite at a loss for something to say; not caring to answer that she should like to wander by the stream.

For he was crossing towards the little south cloister door: though onwards through the Green would have been their more direct road.

“Too late? No. Why should it be? You are not afraid of ghosts, are you?”

Anne laughed. But, lest she should be afraid of ghosts, he put her hand within his arm as they passed through the dark narrow passage beyond the postern; and so they marched arm-in-arm through the cloisters.

“To sit by that winding stream on a summer’s day listening to its murmurs, to the singing of the birds, the sweet sighing of the trees; or holding low converse with a cherished companion—yes, Anne, you would like that. It would just suit you, for you are of a silent and dreamy nature.”

There might not be much actual meaning in the words if you sat down to analyze them: but, to the inexperienced mind of Anne, they sounded very like plain speaking. At any rate, she took them to be an earnest that she should sometime sit by that stream with him—his wife. The dusky cloisters seemed to have suddenly filled themselves with refulgent light; the gravestones over which she was passing felt soft as the mossy glades of fairyland: ay, even that mysterious stone that bears on it the one terrible word “Miserrimus.” Heaven was above her, and heaven beneath: there was no longer any prosaic earth for Anne Lewis.

“Good-night to you, gentlefolks.”

The salutation was from the cloister porter; who, coming into close the gates, met them as they were nearing the west door. Not another word had passed until now: Mr. Angerstyne had fallen into silence. Anne could not have spoken to gain the world.