"Is he ill?"
"He must be ill. Sauntering down that narrow lane by Maythorn Bank, I came upon a tall something mooning along like a walking shadow. I might have taken it for a shadow, but that it lifted its bent head, and threw its staring eyes straight into mine--and I protest that a shadowy sensation crept over myself when I recognized it for Fontaine. You never saw a face so gloomy and wan. How long is it since we saw him, Johnny?"
"About nine months, I think, sir."
"The man must be suffering from a wasting complaint, or else he has some secret care that"s fretting him to fiddle-strings. Mark my words, all of you, it is one or the other."
"Dear me!" put in Mrs. Todhetley, full of pity. "I always thought him a gloomy man. Did you ask him whether he was ill?"
"Not I," said the pater: "he gave me no opportunity. Had I been a sheriffs-officer with a writ in my hand he could hardly have turned off shorter. They had moved into the other house that day, he muttered, and he must lock up Maythorn Bank and be after them."
This account of Sir Dace was in a measure cleared up the next morning.
Who should come in after breakfast but the surgeon, Cole. Talking of this and that, Sir Dace Fontaine"s name came up.
"I am on my way now to Sir Dace; to the new place," cried Cole. "They went into it yesterday. Might have gone in a month ago, but Sir Dace made no move to do it. He seems to have no heart left to do anything; neither heart nor energy."
"I knew he was ill," cried the Squire. "No mistaking that. And now, Cole, what is it that"s the matter with him?"
"He shows symptoms of a very serious inward complaint," gravely answered Cole. "A complaint that, if it really does set in, must prove fatal. We have some hopes yet that we shall ward it off. Sir Dace does not think we shall, and is in a rare fright about himself."
"A fright, is he! That"s it, then."
"Never saw any man in such a fright before," went on Cole. "Says he"s going to die--and he does not want to die."
"I said last night the man was like a walking shadow. And there"s a kind of scare in his face."
Cole nodded. "Two or three weeks ago I got a note from him, asking me to call. I found him something like a shadow, as you observe, Squire. The cold weather had kept him indoors, and I had not chanced to see him for some weeks. When Sir Dace told me his symptoms, I suppose I looked grave. Combined with his wasted appearance, they unpleasantly impressed me, and he took alarm. "The truth," he said, in his arbitrary way: "tell me the truth; only that. Conceal nothing." Well, when a patient adjures me in a solemn manner to tell the truth, I deem it my duty to do so,"
added Cole, looking up.
"Go on, Cole," cried the Squire, nodding approval.
"I told him the truth, softening it in a degree--that I did not altogether like some of the symptoms, but that I hoped, with skill and care, to get him round again. The same day he sent for Darbyshire of Timberdale, saying we must attend him conjointly, for two heads were better than one. Two days later he sent for somebody else--no other than Mr. Ben Rymer."
We all screamed out in surprise. "Ben Rymer!"
"Ay," said Cole, "Ben Rymer. Ben has got through and is a surgeon now, like the rest of us. And, upon my word, I believe the fellow has his profession thoroughly in hand. He will make a name in the world, the chances for it being afforded him, unless I am mistaken."
Something like moisture stood in the Squire"s good old eyes. "If his father, poor Rymer, had but lived to see it!" he softly said. "Anxiety, touching Ben, killed him."
"So we three doctors make a pilgrimage to Sir Dace regularly everyday; sometimes together, sometimes apart," added Cole. "And, of the three of us, I believe the patient likes young Rymer best--has most confidence in him."
"Shall you cure him?"
"Well, we do not yet give up hope. If the disease does set in, it will----"
"What?"
"Run its course quickly."
"An instant yet, Cole," cried the Squire, stopping the surgeon as he was turning away. "You have told us nothing. How does the parish get on?--and the people? How is Letsom?--and Crabb generally? Tanerton--how is he?--and Timberdale? Coming here fresh, we are thirsting for news."
Cole laughed. He knew the pater liked gossip as much as any old woman: and the reader must understand that, as yet, we had not heard any, having reached Crabb Cot late the previous afternoon.
"There is no particular news, Squire," said he. "Letsom is well; so is Crabb. Herbert Tanerton"s not well. He is in a crusty way over Jack."
"He is always in a way over something. Where is Jack?"
"Jack"s here, at the Rectory; just come to it. Robert Ashton"s bailiff is about to take a farm on his own account, and Jack came rushing over from Liverpool to apply for the post."
Tod, who had been too much occupied with his fishing-flies to take much heed before, set up a shrill whistle at this. "How will the parson like that?" he asked.
"The parson does not like it at all. Whether he will succeed in preventing it, is another matter," concluded Cole. And, with that, he made his escape.
Close upon the surgeon"s departure, Colonel Letsom came in; he had heard of our arrival. It was a pity, he said, the two brothers should be at variance. Jack wanted the post--he must make a living somehow; and the Rector was in a way over it; not quite mad, but next door to it; Ashton of course not knowing what to do between them. From that subject, he began to speak of the Fontaines.
A West Indian planter, one George Bazalgette, had been over on a visit, he said, and had spent Christmas at Maythorn Bank; his object being to induce Verena to accept him as her husband. Verena would not listen to him, and he wasted his eloquence in vain. She made no hesitation in vowing to him that her affections were buried in the grave of Edward Pym.
"Fontaine told me confidentially in London that he intended she _should_ have Bazalgette," remarked the Squire. "It was the evening we went looking for her at that wax-work place."
"Ay; but Fontaine is changed," returned the colonel: "all his old domineering ways are gone out of him. When Bazalgette was over here, he did not attempt even to persuade her: she must take her own course, he said. So poor Bazalgette went back as he came--wifeless. It was a pity."
"Why?"
"Because this George Bazalgette was a nice fellow," replied Colonel Letsom. "An open-hearted, fine-looking, generous man, and desperately in love with her. Miss Verena will not readily find his compeer in a summer day"s march."
"As old as Adam, I suppose, colonel," interjected Tod.
"Yes--if you choose to put Adam"s age down at three or four and thirty,"
laughed the colonel, as he took his leave.
To wait many hours, once she was at Crabb, without laying in a stock of those delectable "family pills," invented by the late Thomas Rymer, would have been quite beyond the philosophy of Mrs. Todhetley. That first morning, not ten minutes after Colonel Letsom left us, taking the Squire with him, she despatched me to Timberdale for a big box of them.
Tod would not come: said he had his flies to see to.
Dashing through the Ravine and out on the field beyond it, I came upon Jack Tanerton. Good old Jack! The Squire had said Sir Dace was changed: I saw that Jack was. He looked taller and thinner, and the once beaming face had care upon it.
"Where are you bound for, Jack?"
"Not for any place in particular. Just sauntering about."
"Walk my way, then. I am going to Rymer"s."
"It is such nonsense," cried Jack, speaking of his brother, after we had plunged a bit into affairs. "Calling it derogatory, and all the rest of it! I could be just as much of a gentleman as Ashton"s bailiff as I am now. Everybody knows me. He gives a good salary, and there"s a pretty house; and I have also my own small income. Alice and I and the little ones should be as happy as the day"s long. If I give in to Herbert and don"t take it, I don"t see what I am to turn to."
"But, Jack, why do you give up the sea?" I asked. And Jack told me what he had told others: he should never take command again until he was a free man.
"Don"t you think you are letting that past matter hold too great an influence over you?" I presently said. "You must be conscious of your own innocence--and yet you seem as sad and subdued as though you were guilty!"
"I am subdued because other people think me guilty!" he answered.
"Changed? I am. It is that which has changed me; not the calamity itself."