"A week, or so, of this improvement, mother, and you will be as you used to be," said he cheerfully, seating her on the sofa and stirring up the fire. "We shall have our home together yet."
She turned her face full on his, as he sat down by her; a half-questioning, half-wondering look in her eyes.
"Not in this world, Francis. Surely _you_ are not deceived!" and his over-sanguine heart went down like lead.
"It is but the flickering of the spirit before it finally quits the weary frame; just as you may have seen the flame shoot up from an expiring candle," she continued. "The end is very near now."
A spasm of pain rose in his throat. She took his hands between her own feeble ones.
"Don"t grieve, Francis; don"t grieve for me! Remember what my life has been."
He did remember it. He remembered also the answer Duffham gave when he had inquired what malady it was his mother was dying of. "A broken heart."
"Don"t forget, Francis--never forget--that it is a journey we must enter on, sooner or later."
"An uncertain and unknown journey at the best!" he said. "You have no fear of it?"
"Fear! No, but I had once."
She spoke the words in a low, sweet tone, and pointed with a smile to the book that still lay open on the table. Francis"s eyes fell on the page.
"When death is drawing near, And thy heart shrinks with fear, And thy limbs fail, Then raise thy hands and pray To Him who cheers the way Through the dark vale.
"Seest thou the eastern dawn?
Hears"t thou, in the red morn, The angel"s song?
Oh! lift thy drooping head, Thou who in gloom and dread Hast lain so long.
"Death comes to set thee free; Oh! meet him cheerily, As thy true friend; And all thy fears shall cease, And in eternal peace Thy penance end."
Francis sat very still, struggling a little with that lump in his throat. She leaned forward, and let her head rest upon him, just as she had done the other day when he first came in. His emotion broke loose then.
"Oh, mother, what shall I do without you?"
"You will have G.o.d," she whispered.
Still all the morning she kept up well; talking of this and that, saying how much of late the verses, just quoted, had floated in her mind and become a reality to her; showing Holt a slit that had appeared in the table-cover and needed darning: telling Francis his pocket-handkerchiefs looked yellow and should be bleached. It might have been thought she was only going out to tea at Church d.y.k.ely, instead of entering on the other journey she had told of.
"Have you been giving her anything?" demanded Stephen, casting his surly eyes on Francis as they sat opposite to each other at dinner in the parlour. "Dying people can"t spurt up in this manner without drugs to make "em."
Francis did not deign to answer. Stephen projected his fork, and took a potato out of the dish. Frank went upstairs when the meal was over. He had left his mother sitting on the sofa, comparatively well. He found her lying on the bed in the next room, grappling with death. She lifted her feeble arms to welcome him, and a ray of joyous light shone on her face. Francis made hardly one step of it to the bed.
"Oh, my darling, it will be all right!" she breathed. "I have prayed for you, and I know--I know I have been heard. You will be helped to put away that evil habit; temptation may a.s.sail, but it will not finally overcome you. And, Francis, when----" Her voice failed.
"I no longer hear what you say, mother," cried Francis in an agony.
"Yes, yes," she repeated, as if in answer to something he had said.
"Beware of Stephen."
The hands and face alike fell. Francis rang the bell violently, and Holt came up. All was over.
Stephen attended the funeral with the others. Grumbling wofully at having to do it, because it involved a new suit of black clothes.
"They"ll be ready for the old man, though," was his consoling reflection: "he won"t be long."
He was even quicker than Stephen thought. On the very day week that they had come in from leaving Selina in the grave, Mr. Radcliffe was lying as lifeless as she was. A seizure carried him off. Francis was summoned again from London before he had well got back to it. Stephen could not, at such a season, completely ignore him.
He did not foresee the blow that was to come thundering down. When Mr.
Radcliffe"s will came to be opened, it was found that his property was equally divided between the two sons, half and half: Stephen of course inheriting the Torr; and Squire Todhetley being appointed trustee for Francis. "And I earnestly beg of him to accept the trust," ran the words, "for the sake of Selina"s son."
Francis caught the glare of Stephen as they were read out. It was of course Stephen himself, but it looked more like a savage wild-cat. That warning of his mother"s came into Francis"s mind with a rush.
II.
It stood on the left of the road as you went towards Alcester: a good-looking, red-brick house, not large, but very substantial.
Everything about it was in trim order; from the emerald-green outer venetian window-blinds to the handsome iron entrance-gates between the enclosing palisades; and the garden and grounds had not as much as a stray worm upon them. Mr. Brandon was nice and particular in all matters, as old bachelors generally are; and he was especially so in regard to his home.
Careering up to this said house on the morning of a fine spring day, when the green hedges were budding and the birds sang in the trees, went a pony-gig, driven by a gentleman. A tall, slender young fellow of seven-and-twenty, with golden hair that shone in the sun and eyes as blue and bright as the sky. Leaving the pony to be taken care of by a labouring boy who chanced to be loitering about, he rang the bell at the iron gates, and inquired of the answering servant whether Mr. Brandon was at home.
"Yes, sir," was the answer of the man, as he led the way in. "But I am not sure that he can see you. What name?" And the applicant carelessly took a card from his waistcoat-pocket, and was left in the drawing-room.
Which card the servant glanced at as he carried it away.
"Mr. Francis Radcliffe."
People say there"s sure to be a change every seven years. Seven years had gone by since the death of old Mr. Radcliffe and the inheritance by Francis of the portion that fell to him; three hundred a-year. There were odd moments when Frank, in spite of himself, would look back at those seven years; and he did not at all like the retrospect. For he remembered the solemn promise he had made to his mother when she was dying, to put away those evil habits which had begun to creep upon him, more especially that worst of all bad habits that man, whether young or old, can take to--_drinking_--and he had not kept the promise.
He had been called to the Bar in due course, but he made nothing by his profession. Briefs did not come to him. He just wasted his time and lived a fast life on the small means that were his. He pulled up sometimes, turned his back on folly, and read like a house on fire: but his wild companions soon got hold of him again, and put his good resolutions to flight. Frank put it all down to idleness. "If I had work to do, I should do it," he said, "and that would keep me straight." But at the close of this last winter he had fallen into a most dangerous illness, resulting from the draughts of ale, and what not, that he had made too free with, and he got up from it with a resolution never to drink again. Knowing that the resolution would be more easy to keep if he turned his back on London and the companions who beset him, down he came to his native place, determined to take a farm and give up the law.
For the second time in his life some money had come to him unexpectedly; which would help him on. And so, after a seven years" fling, Frank Radcliffe was going in for a change.
He had never stayed at Sandstone Torr since his father"s death. His brother Stephen"s surly temper, and perhaps that curious warning of his mother"s, kept him out of it. He and Stephen maintained a show of civility to one another; and when Frank was in the neighbourhood (but that had only happened twice in the seven years), he would call at the Torr and see them. The last time he came down, Frank was staying at a place popularly called Pitchley"s Farm. Old Pitchley--who had lived on it, boy and man, for seventy years--liked him well. Frank made acquaintance that time with Annet Skate; fell in love with her, in fact, and meant to marry her. She was a pretty girl, and a good girl, and had been brought up to be thoroughly useful as a farmer"s daughter: but neither by birth nor position was she the equal of Frank Radcliffe. All her experience of life lay in her own secluded, plain home: in regard to the world outside she was as ignorant as a young calf, and just as mild and soft as b.u.t.ter.
So Frank, after his spell of sickness and reflection, had thrown up London, and come down to settle in a farm with Annet, if he could get one. But there was not a farm to be let for miles round. And it was perhaps a curious thing that while Frank was thinking he should have to travel elsewhere in search of one, Pitchley"s should turn up. For old Pitchley suddenly died. Pitchley"s Farm belonged to Mr. Brandon. It was a small compact farm; just the size Frank wanted. A large one would have been beyond his means.
Mr. Brandon sat writing letters at the table in his library, in his geranium-coloured Turkish cap, with its purple ta.s.sel, when his servant went in with the card.
"Mr. Francis Radcliffe!" read he aloud, in his squeaky voice. "What, is he down here again? You can bring him in, Abel--though I"m sure I don"t know what he wants with me." And Abel went and brought him.
"We heard you were ill, young man," said Mr. Brandon, peering up into Frank"s handsome face as he shook hands, and detecting all sorts of sickly signs in it.
"So I have been, Mr. Brandon; very ill. But I have left London and its dissipations for good, and have come here to settle. It"s about time I did," he added, with the candour natural to him.
"I should say it was," coughed old Brandon. "You"ve been on the wrong tack long enough."
"And I have come to you--I hope I am first in the field--to ask you to let me have the lease of Pitchley"s Farm."
Mr. Brandon could not have felt more surprised had Frank asked for a lease of the moon, but he did not show it. His head went up a little, and the purple ta.s.sel took a sway backwards.
"Oh," said he. "_You_ take Pitchley"s Farm! How do you think to stock it?"