Kitabı oku: «Maud Florence Nellie: or, Don't care!», sayfa 11
Chapter Twenty One
In a “Rift Imprisoned.”
Wyn gave up his basket of wild flowers to Mr Elton, who had charge of the arrangements for the flower show, and then went on to Ravenshurst with those he had collected for Lily. He had been sent over there once or twice with parcels or messages for Florence, and the nurse, thinking him a well-behaved little boy, allowed him to stop and give his opinion, whether the white flowers gathered in the hedges were all, as Florence said, “hemlock,” or would rank as different specimens. Wyn sorted out yarrow and wild parsley, cow parsley, and several others, and then said:
“Miss Lily hasn’t got any honeysuckle. That’s not rare, but it is very sweet, and suitable for a young lady’s basket. You should put the climbing things round the edge for her, Florrie; different sorts of brambles, and dog-rose berries, and traveller’s joy.”
“There’s some honeysuckle on the old oak tree,” said Florrie, “but we can’t get it, it’s too high up.”
“I’ll fetch it down for you,” said Wyn, scrambling up the lower branches of the tree. “Why,” he said, putting his hand into a hole a few feet up, “how clean someone’s scraped out this hole – taken all the old nests out of it!”
“There ain’t nothing in it, Wyn, is there?” said Florrie.
“No; I once tried to make that hole ever so nice and soft with moss and stuff, and put acorns and nuts in it to get the squirrels there. I even went and got a bit of putty and stopped up the hole in the bottom and put decayed wood over it; but, bless you, they never came.”
“What did you do, Wyn?” said Florence, coming close.
“Stopped a great hole. It’s stopped still; I can put my hand down, and you feel nothing but wood.”
“Could you get the hole open, Wyn? Was it a hole that things could be hidden in?”
“I suppose so. Whatever is the matter, Florrie? You look downright scared!”
The hole was wide and shallow. Wyn took the knife with which he had meant to cut the honeysuckle, scraped and cut, and, the soft decayed wood giving way, the piece of putty yielded to his pull and came out.
“There’s a hole, but I can’t feel the bottom of it,” he said.
“Put in my sunshade; feel with the hook.”
“My stars, Florrie, there’ll be nothing alive in there!” said Wyn; but, boy like, to fish in a hole with a hook was delightful to him. “There’s – there’s something down at the bottom. I can just reach. It’s hard – it’s loose. Hi! I’ve got it; it’s coming up. Oh, my eyes! Oh, my stars! It’s – it’s diamonds!”
“It’s them!” cried Florence, clasping her hands as a long band of flashing stones came up into the sunlight on the hook of her parasol, and Wyn tumbled right out of the tree in his amazement, dropping his treasure-trove most appropriately at the feet of Lady Carleton, who, unseen by Wyn and Florence, had come up, and was watching them under the tree.
“Found!” she exclaimed; “found at last!”
“Is it the lost jewels?” said Wyn, bewildered. “Why, who ever would have thought of looking in a tree for them?”
“As if they hadn’t been looking in all the holes in the wood,” said Florence, “and you could have told them of another. Didn’t you know?”
“I hated coming here without Mr Edgar,” said Wyn.
“Now, not another thing must be done till Sir Philip knows, and Mr Cunningham, and Harry Whittaker too. Stay there, Wyn Warren; don’t touch the tree. Come, Florence, and tell Sir Philip we have got them,” said Lady Carleton.
Sir Philip declared that the rest of the jewels must be taken out in the presence of those most nearly concerned, and hurried messengers were sent to summon them; while Sir Philip, the Ravenshurst keeper, and Wyn patrolled round the tree, as if they thought that the jays and the wood-pigeons would carry off the precious discovery.
The short September evening had closed in, and the wood was all dusky and dewy, when at last Mr Cunningham and Alwyn, Harry Whittaker, Sir Philip and Lady Carleton, Wyn and Florence by right of discovery, the two head-keepers, and the village constable, all gathered, by the light of the rising moon and of some half-dozen lanterns, round the tree.
“Now, Warren,” said Mr Cunningham, “cut away till you lay the bottom of the hole open.” Wyn held the light, the keeper gave two or three cuts with a small axe, and a great piece of the rotten bark gave way under the stroke.
“You can look in now, sir,” he said. “Give us the lantern, Wyn.”
Sir Philip and Mr Cunningham peered into the hole, which seemed to be full of decayed wood, soft and crumbling.
“Will Lady Carleton see if she can find anything?” said Alwyn.
Lady Carleton came forward and put her hand into the hole.
“It’s like a bran pie!” she said, with a nervous little laugh. “But yes – here is a prize!” Out came something, discoloured and tarnished, but a gold bracelet; then something else, which, as the dust was shaken off and the light fell on it, flashed and dazzled – a diamond star, rings, brooches, everything. The lost jewels were found at last!
“Begging your pardon, gentlemen,” said Harry Whittaker, “I can’t understand now how they came to be hidden so completely.”
“It is clear enough at last,” said Sir Philip.
“Lady Carleton, as she wishes every one fully to know, hid the box in which she had put the jewels among the ferns on the rockery. Lennox, who had left the place the week before, came back on the sly to see his sweetheart, and, according to his statement to you, stole the jewels, threw the box into the pond, and put the jewels for security into that great hole, just within a man’s reach. You explained why he never came back for them, and if he had I don’t see how he would have got them out, for of course they slipped through the smaller hole in the bottom of the visible hollow, of which he was not aware. Wyn Warren stopped that hole up to make a nesting-place for the squirrels, little thinking what he was burying away. He did his work so cleverly that the other day, when his father inspected this great shallow hole, he never thought of the cave beneath.
“And now this great discovery has been made by so strange a set of accidents that they must be called Providential: the losing of the letter, my little girl picking it up and this young woman finding it, which, I suppose, led to her knowing of the search for the jewels; Wyn’s good-nature in getting Lily the honeysuckle; your offer of the wild-flower prize – all these trifles have worked in to clear up a most unhappy perplexity. And, Mr Henry Whittaker, I beg to congratulate you.”
“And I,” said Mr Cunningham, holding out his hand to Harry, “to apologise for having misjudged you.”
Harry touched his hat first and then took the extended hand.
“Thank you, sir,” he said. “It’s very handsome of you to say so; but, under the circumstances, I should certainly have suspected myself.”
“You will all come in to Ravenshurst and get some supper, and look at the jewels in a better light?” said Sir Philip.
“Thank you,” said Alwyn, “but my brother will want me, and Whittaker and I would like to walk back together, if you don’t mind driving home alone, father.”
“As you will,” said Mr Cunningham; then, in a lower tone, “I am glad we had it out to-day, Alwyn. That was poor Edgar’s doing; he will be glad of this.”
So the group, so strangely gathered together, dispersed. Harry and Alwyn walked away through the wood together. Theirs had been a strange comradeship, first for evil and then for good, in bad fortune and good fortune. It was hardly likely that they could be as close companions in the future as they had been in the past, but there would always be a tie between them that nothing could loosen.
And when Lady Carleton, taking Florence by the hand, led her into her own room, and kneeling down with her gave thanks that the undoing of her childish folly had come through the sister of the man who had been most injured by it, and that all doubt and mystery were over, Florence never thought of being elated at her discovery; she felt grateful and quiet, and went to bed thinking chiefly of the hearty kiss with which Harry had parted from her, and his words: “I’m heartily grateful to you, Florence. You’ve been the means of doing me a real good turn.” Even while, as she thought how she would try and deserve my lady’s kind words, and be worth the friendly treatment she had had from her, the girlish thought pressed in between:
“Oh, my! what would Carrie and Ada think if they’d have known I’d had the finding of a real diamond necklace!”
The flower show next day in a tent in the park was an occasion never to be forgotten, for there, in the centre of the tent, above Mr Elton’s best orchids, and the geraniums from Sir Philip’s garden, under a glass case, and with Mr Warren on guard beside them, lay the lost jewels of Ravenshurst, still tarnished and dusty, with the bits of touchwood clinging to them still, and testifying to the prison from which their brightness had been released, that all the world might know that they were found at last.
And there all the country round came to look at them; Mr Cunningham, with his eldest son, looking more bright and genial than he had ever been seen before, telling the story to Mr and Mrs Murray. And there were Harry Whittaker and his father, to whom he had sent an urgent telegram, and Florence walking round with them, an object of astonishment to her Aunt Stroud and to Mattie, who had come also to see the wonderful jewels. And there were Geraldine and her governess – Geraldine calling Florence eagerly to look at the wild-flower baskets sent by “our class.” And at last in the afternoon, to the intense joy of Wyn Warren, came Mr Edgar himself. How carefully Wyn led the pony across the smooth turf and round the tent, where every one made way, and Edgar lay back quite still, not nodding and half raising himself and looking about, as had been his wont, but resting on his pillows, with only his bright eyes watching everything! He stopped in the middle of the tent, and Alwyn lifted down the jewels and showed them to him, one by one; and Harry, who had never yet seen him, came up to shake hands with him, and Edgar smiled at him and said in his old lively way:
“Found at last, you see!” and then, “My brother talks to me often about you.”
Harry could hardly speak, the white face and bright eyes quite overcame him.
“I want to see the wild flowers,” said Edgar, and the various collections were shown to him, with Wyn’s with the words “First Prize” on it.
“I’m so fond of wild flowers, you know,” he said. “I want all the children who collected them to have a shilling from me, besides their prizes. Wyn shall give them away.”
So the dozen or so of children who had competed were called up and named, and Alwyn gave Wyn the shillings to distribute as they bowed and curtsied and smiled at Mr Edgar.
Then Alwyn said that that was enough and he must come home, and Wyn led the pony back across the turf, while Alwyn walked beside it, looking sad and anxious, bright as the day should have been for him.
Before he was lifted out of the chair, Edgar called Wyn up to him and took his little red fist in his long white fingers.
“I’ve liked my drive very much,” he said. “Take care of old Dobbles.”
Wyn could not speak a word, and when Edgar had been carried away, and he had led the pony safely out of sight, he suddenly flung his arms round Dobbles’ neck and burst into a passion of tears; for he knew, as well as if any one had told him, that all their long pleasant days were over, and that he would never take Mr Edgar out again. He could not go back to the tent, to the tea that was to come, and the merry-making. He sat on the straw in Dobbles’ stable and cried as if his heart would break.
Here he was discovered by Alwyn, who had come to fulfil his father’s wish, by looking at the horses. Wyn jumped up in a hurry and feigned to be absorbed in the contents of Dobbles’ manger. Alwyn, although he saw pretty well what was amiss, did not want to face the boy’s grief just then, so he only patted Dobbles, and said that Mr Edgar was resting comfortably and did not seem overtired, and that Wyn had better go and play cricket and come up to-morrow to tell him how many runs he had made.
The half-realised fears of youth are easily soothed by cheerful words from an elder. Wyn, partly perhaps from Edgar’s influence and theoretical instructions, was an excellent cricketer for his age and station, and now went off quite cheerfully to share in the game; and as the boys, and indeed all the village, were much fuller of the discovery of the jewels than of Mr Edgar or of anything else, the flower show and fête concluded joyously.
Florence remained at the Lodge that night to see her relations, and as she walked back with Harry from the station after seeing them off by the last train for Rapley, he had a long talk with her, and told her, being an outspoken person, a good deal about his own history, and of his feelings when he had contemplated his returning.
“I’d never have got over it, Florrie,” he said, “if father hadn’t been there to make it up.”
He did not lecture Florrie nor allude to any of her misdemeanours, but somehow the tone he took influenced her and made her feel that the results of sauciness and defiance were not matters to be laughed at.
Chapter Twenty Two
Wild Flowers
Wyn saw Mr Edgar many times after the day of the flower show, though he never took him out again with Dobbles. The weather continued fine and bright, and Edgar, in every interval of pain and faintness, insisted on getting on to the terrace or near the window, saying that the feeling of the air and the sight of the sky and the trees kept the life in him.
Then Wyn would bring him a flower or two or tell him some anecdote about his pets, and it was very seldom that Edgar did not smile and brighten at these reminders of his old solaces.
It seemed as if with the jewels some spirit of kindliness and affection had also been released from long imprisonment. The Cunninghams drew nearer to each other, and it was not so much that Alwyn’s presence made the house more cheerful or might fill up the gap that Edgar would leave, as that the melting of the hardness of displeasure made them all more able to feel a common grief. Mr Cunningham was gentler to Edgar, and spoke of him tenderly; Geraldine softened down and began to have thoughts of making herself her father’s companion as time went on. They remembered, and seemed to feel for the first time, how faithful the love of old Granny Warren had been for them all and to know the value of such lifelong love. The master himself, and Geraldine, to say nothing of Alwyn, went to give her accounts of Edgar, and once she was taken down to see him, and to look at her two dear boys together again.
All the village had a feeling of sympathy with the trouble at the great house which was much warmer than the old respect. Mr Murray found that his squire could give him more than courtesy and the necessary subscriptions. He visited Edgar frequently, and when Geraldine Cunningham, Florence Whittaker, and Alwyn Warren were put under instruction for an approaching confirmation, it was for all of them something more than a piece of ordinary propriety, an occasion for dress and companionship, or a mere act of obedience, as it might have been once. But on poor Edgar himself the shadow of the valley of death fell heavily. He had indemnified himself for the long years of physical dependence, so peculiarly trying to one of his temper, by the unconquerable self-reliance of his spirit. He had doffed aside his suffering and given it the go-by with unfailing courage. And now, with his bodily strength, the strong nerves failed too; every trifle startled and fretted him. All his gay indifference was gone.
He could not meet the thought of death now as he might perhaps have done once, with unrealising boldness. He was brave still, and in moments of suffering would often whisper the old formula “I don’t care – it will soon be better;” but the time came when he answered Alwyn’s words of comfort with an altogether new look in his eyes, and with the faltering confession, “I am afraid.”
“Of what, my boy?” said Alwyn, pressing the clinging fingers tenderly.
“Of Death,” whispered Edgar; “when I must let you go.”
He listened dutifully to Mr Murray, and without any mental dissent, but his words did not seem to make much impression. In fact, it was difficult to know what to say to him; for the difficulty was hardly in a region where words could reach.
“If I am afraid I’ll face it,” he said once.
But at last the intense conviction that had been sent into Alwyn’s soul, and which had power to change his whole self – how, it was hard to say – by words or looks or tender hand-clasp, slid also into Edgar’s heart. Alwyn never thought himself that it was anything that he said or did that brought peace to Edgar at last.
But there came a morning bright and blue, when the ash trees were touched with gold, and the smooth turf was thick with dew, and the clear autumn air blew through the open window – when Edgar lay in his brother’s arms with the life ebbing fast away from him.
Then he opened his eyes once more and looked up into Alwyn’s face:
“I don’t care, Val,” he said, “for He careth for me.”
Those were his last conscious words, and with the daylight that he loved on his face, and, by great mercy, the day spring in his heart, Edgar Cunningham died.
Late on that same afternoon Alwyn was sitting alone on the terrace. He was very tired with the long strain of watching, and so sad at heart that he could scarcely turn with comfort to the thought of the love and the life that awaited him in future; he could only feel the want of the hand that had clung to his so constantly, could only think of the pitifulness of Edgar’s story.
He looked up, and there stood Wyn Warren with his eyes red with crying, and with a great wreath of wild flowers in his hand.
“Please, sir, he liked these best. And there’s a bit of everything here.”
Alwyn looked at the wreath, which was constructed with great skill and of an infinite variety of leaves, berries, and blossoms. Every summer flower lingering in shady corners of the wood had been brought together. There were bits of every different kind of tree – autumn berries, curious seed vessels, grasses and rushes, heather and ferns, moss and lichen – all the woodland world was represented. It could not be a gay wreath with its infinite mixture of tints and forms, but there was the very spirit of the wood in its sober colouring and fresh woody smell.
“It is very beautiful,” said Alwyn. “Yes, he would have liked it very much.”
“He liked the wild things,” said Wyn, “and the creatures; it’s the birds and beasts that ought to follow him.”
“Come,” said Alwyn, “you helped him to all his pleasure in them; come and give him the wreath yourself.”
He took Wyn’s hand and led him, through the sitting-room window, into the room where his young master lay, calm and still, with the bright eyes closed for ever. But the window was uncurtained, and the sun and the sky looked through.
Wyn trembled as he looked. The little carefully-reared boy had never seen death before, and the awe of the sight choked back his tears. Alwyn helped him to lay the wreath on Edgar’s breast, above the white cross already placed there, and then took him out again on to the terrace. Wyn touched his cap and went away; but Alwyn’s silent grief was more comfort to him than any words of consolation would have been, and perhaps Alwyn too was soothed by the sense of fellow-feeling. He was glad to think that the great family vault under the floor of the church, where so many Cunninghams had been laid, could not be opened now, and that Edgar would lie under the turf in the churchyard, with the sky over his head, and the great trees of the wood near at hand.
All the servants and most of the villagers were at that funeral. Wyn Warren was set to walk by Robertson’s side, next after the friends and the family, in which position he felt, in all his trouble, a sort of childish pride. The day was bright, and there was a fresh wind blowing such as Edgar was wont to love, and over the grave, instead of the ordinary hymn, the choir sang some verses about the Heavenly Jerusalem, which seemed to Wyn to picture just the sort of “happy home” where he could fancy that his dear Mr Edgar would dwell.
Thy gardens and thy gallant walks
Continually are green;
There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers
As nowhere else are seen.
Quite through the streets, with silver sound,
The flood of Life doth flow;
Upon whose banks on every side
The Wood of Life doth grow.
There trees for evermore bear fruit,
And evermore do spring;
There evermore the angels sit,
And evermore do sing.
“Ah,” thought Wyn, “Mr Edgar would like that sort of Paradise.”
Later in the day Alwyn asked Harry Whittaker to meet him in the park and walk with him through the wood. He had several matters, he told him, to talk about.
But when they met he put his arm through his old comrade’s, and walked on for a long time in silence. At last Harry said:
“Things have been different from what we looked for, sir, haven’t they? But there’s comfort waiting at home for us. At least, it seems like home over there now to me.”
“Ah, yes,” said Alwyn. “I have gained more than I ever thought for. But I don’t seem able to think of anything now but my poor boy and the lonely years that I might have made brighter for him if I had not held out so long.”
“You came when he most wanted you,” said Harry.
“Yes, thank God for that! But he had been lonely, though he was such a plucky fellow that he hardly knew it. And I miss – ”
Alwyn’s voice faltered, and he brushed his hand across his eyes.
“That was not what I wanted to talk of,” he said, rousing himself. “What are your plans, Harry? I must not hurry away from my father; but I shall soon be going back now – for a time, at least.”
“I am ready to go back at once,” said Harry. “I’ve heard from my wife, and she’s willing to have my sister Florence out to live with us.”
“Your sister who found the jewels?”
“Yes. Lady Carleton’s very good to her; but she told me – for I went to speak to her ladyship about it – that the girl don’t exactly fit in for service. There’s no one to look after her at home, specially if, as seems likely, my eldest sister settles in life. And I declare, sir, the way the young girls at Rapley run about together is worse for her than any rough company she might see out our way. She gets into mischief for want of something bigger to do. And mischief for girls – well, it is the mischief indeed!”
“So you mean to take her out?”
“No, not with me. They want to have her home a bit first; and she’d be better to wait for this Confirmation. She’s set her heart on being confirmed with Miss Geraldine.”
“Oh, yes, I heard my sister speak of it. But how shall you get her out to you?”
“Markham’s mother and sister are coming out in the spring, and would bring her. You see, sir, Alberta must have some one – we can’t get girls out our way. There’ll be plenty for Florrie to do, and I make no doubt she’ll be happy, and what my aunt calls work off her bouncing.”
Alwyn laughed. “It seems a very good place,” he said; “and certainly she did us a good turn. What – what are the Warrens thinking about for little Wyn? I wish we could give him an opening.”
“I don’t think his parents would part with him,” said Harry. “He’s a nice little chap, but it is a bit difficult to say what next for him. He’s too small and not the sort for a gamekeeper, and, as his father says, he’d never have the heart to kill the vermin. Then he thought of getting him taken into the garden under Mr Elton; but I’m afraid he’d fret and not be much good here.”
“Edgar asked me to take care of him,” said Alwyn. “He said that perhaps he had spoiled him for other work. But he was very fond of him.”
“Ah, sir, he’ll be none the worse for having thought of some one before himself. You know they had had a notion, as he was so handy and quiet, to let him be put under a butler for a time and then be trained up to wait on invalid gentlemen. But – ”
“Well?” said Alwyn.
“Well, his sister Bessie said something to him, but he hid his face and said, ‘They’d all die. Robertson says five have.’”
“Poor little chap,” said Alwyn. “It’s too soon to tease him about it. But I must talk to his father, and think what can be done.”
The matter was not settled very easily. Mr Cunningham’s ideas were bounded by giving Wyn a sovereign, and letting him run about the place in any capacity that might turn up.
Bessie, thinking this very undesirable, wanted him to come and board with her, and be apprenticed to the schoolmaster as pupil-teacher. Wyn said that he hated teaching, and couldn’t bear to be shut up indoors. Alwyn hardly knew enough of English life to judge what would be best, but he could not bear the notion that Edgar’s favourite should be left to run to waste, or to a life in which he would not be happy, and at last Sir Philip Carleton made a suggestion.
If the boy really had a turn for plants and flowers, and they wanted to get him into a superior line, why should not an appointment be got for him when a little older at Kew or some other great public garden? If he was clever and took to the work, there were all sorts of openings. And in the meantime, as his education by all accounts consisted chiefly of the names of mosses and lichens, and the habits of birds, field-mice, and other wild creatures of the woods, send him to school – to the great Church public school at Ardingly for boys of his standing – where he would meet other sons of gentlemen’s servants, besides boys of a superior class. He could learn Latin and science, it would be a complete change for him, and the tutors there would soon find out what he was fit for.
Alwyn liked the idea very much. He thought that Wyn had capabilities, and there was an affectionate simplicity about the little fellow that was very engaging. So, as Mr and Mrs Warren gave their grateful consent, it was at once settled that he should go to Ardingly after the Christmas holidays, about the same time as Florence’s passage was taken for New York.
