Good Heavens! When I think of it I doubt whether I am standing on my head or my heels."
This was very strong language for Mr. Jerningham, who was not accustomed to find fault with the proceedings of his superiors.
He went about the office all these weeks with a visage of woe and the air of a man conscious that some great evil was at hand. Sir Boreas had observed it, and knew well why that visage was so long.
Nevertheless when his eyes fell on that bundle of papers,--on the Crocker bundle of papers,--he only pushed it a little further out of sight than it was before.
Who does not know how odious a letter will become by being shoved on one side day after day? Answer it at the moment, and it will be nothing. Put it away unread, or at least undigested, for a day, and it at once begins to a.s.sume ugly proportions. When you have been weak enough to let it lie on your desk, or worse again, hidden in your breast-pocket, for a week or ten days, it will have become an enemy so strong and so odious that you will not dare to attack it. It throws a gloom over all your joys. It makes you cross to your wife, severe to the cook, and critical to your own wine-cellar. It becomes the Black Care which sits behind you when you go out a riding. You have neglected a duty, and have put yourself in the power of perhaps some vulgar snarler. You think of destroying it and denying it, dishonestly and falsely,--as Crocker did the mail papers. And yet you must bear yourself all the time as though there were no load lying near your heart. So it was with our aeolus and the Crocker papers. The papers had become a great bundle. The unfortunate man had been called upon for an explanation, and had written a blundering long letter on a huge sheet of foolscap paper,--which Sir Boreas had not read, and did not mean to read. Large fragments of the torn "mail papers"
had been found, and were all there. Mr. Jerningham had written a well-worded lengthy report,--which never certainly would be read.
There were former doc.u.ments in which the existence of the papers had been denied. Altogether the bundle was big and unholy and distasteful. Those who knew our aeolus well were sure that he would never even undo the tape by which the bundle was tied. But something must be done. One month"s pay-day had already pa.s.sed since the suspension, and the next was at hand. "Can anything be settled about Mr. Crocker?" asked Mr. Jerningham, one day about the end of August.
Sir Boreas had already sent his family to a little place he had in the West of Ireland, and was postponing his holiday because of this horrid matter. Mr. Jerningham could never go away till aeolus went.
Sir Boreas knew all this, and was thoroughly ashamed of himself.
"Just speak to me about it to-morrow and we"ll settle the matter," he said, in his blandest voice. Mr. Jerningham retreated from the room frowning. According to his thinking there ought to be nothing to settle. "D---- the fellow," said Sir Boreas, as soon as the door was closed; and he gave the papers another shove which sent them off the huge table on to the floor. Whether it was Mr. Jerningham or Crocker who was d.a.m.ned, he hardly knew himself. Then he was forced to stoop to the humility of picking up the bundle.
That afternoon he roused himself. About three o"clock he sent, not for Mr. Jerningham, but for the Duca. When Roden entered the room the bundle was before him, but not opened. "Can you send for this man and get him here to-day?" he asked. The Duca promised that he would do his best. "I can"t bring myself to recommend his dismissal," he said.
The Duca only smiled. "The poor fellow is just going to be married, you know." The Duca smiled again. Living in Paradise Row himself, he knew that the lady, _nee_ Clara Demijohn, was already the happy wife of Mr. Tribbledale. But he knew also that after so long an interval Crocker could not well be dismissed, and he was not ill-natured enough to rob his chief of so good an excuse. He left the room, therefore, declaring that he would cause Crocker to be summoned immediately.
Crocker was summoned, and came. Had Sir Boreas made up his mind briefly to dismiss the man, or briefly to forgive him, the interview would have been unnecessary. As things now were the man could not certainly be dismissed. Sir Boreas was aware of that. Nor could he be pardoned without further notice. Crocker entered the room with that mingling of the bully and the coward in his appearance which is generally the result when a man who is overawed attempts to show that he is not afraid. Sir Boreas pa.s.sed his fingers through the hairs on each side of his head, frowned hard, and, blowing through his nostrils, became at once the aeolus that he had been named;
a.s.sumes the G.o.d, Affects to nod, And seems to shake the spheres.
"Mr. Crocker," said the G.o.d, laying his hand on the bundle of papers still tied up in a lump. Then he paused and blew the wrath out of his nostrils.
"Sir Boreas, no one can be more sorry for an accident than I am for that."
"An accident!"
"Well, Sir Boreas; I am afraid I shall not make you understand it all."
"I don"t think you will."
"The first paper I did tear up by accident, thinking it was something done with."
"Then you thought you might as well send the others after it."
"One or two were torn by accident. Then--"
"Well!"
"I hope you"ll look it over this time, Sir Boreas."
"I have done nothing but look it over, as you call it, since you came into the Department. You"ve been a disgrace to the office. You"re of no use whatsoever. You give more trouble than all the other clerks put together. I"m sick of hearing your name."
"If you"ll try me again I"ll turn over a new leaf, Sir Boreas."
"I don"t believe it for a moment. They tell me you"re just going to be married." Crocker was silent. Could he be expected to cut the ground from under his own feet at such a moment? "For the young lady"s sake, I don"t like turning you adrift on the world at such a time. I only wish that she had a more secure basis for her happiness."
"She"ll be all right," said Crocker. He will probably be thought to have been justified in carrying on the delusion at such a crisis of his life.
"But you must take my a.s.surance of this," said aeolus, looking more like the G.o.d of storms, "that no wife or baby,--no joy or trouble,--shall save you again if you again deserve dismissal."
Crocker with his most affable smile thanked Sir Boreas and withdrew.
It was said afterwards that Sir Boreas had seen and read that smile on Roden"s face, had put two and two together in regard to him, and had become sure that there was to be no marriage. But, had he lost that excuse, where should he find another?
CHAPTER XIX.
"MY MARION."
The blow came very suddenly at last. About the middle of September the spirit of Marion Fay flitted away from all its earthly joys and all its earthly troubles. Lord Hampstead saw her alive for the last time at that interview which was described a few pages back. Whenever he proposed to go down again to Pegwell Bay some objection was made, either by the Quaker or by Mrs. Roden on the Quaker"s behalf. The doctor, it was alleged, had declared that such visits were injurious to his patient,--or perhaps it was that Marion had herself said that she was unable to bear the excitement. There was, no doubt, some truth in this. And Marion had seen that though she herself could enjoy the boundless love which her lover tendered to her, telling herself that though it was only for a while, it was very sweet to have it so, yet for him these meetings were full of agony. But in addition to this there was, I think, a jealousy on the part of Zachary Fay as to his daughter. When there was still a question whether the young lord should be his son-in-law, he had been willing to give way and to subordinate himself, even though his girl were the one thing left to him in all the world. While there was an idea that she should be married, there had accompanied that idea a hope, almost an expectation, that she might live. But when it was brought home to him as a fact that her marriage was out of the question because her life was waning, then unconsciously there grew up in his heart a feeling that the young lord ought not to rob him of what was left.
Had Marion insisted, he would have yielded. Had Mrs. Roden told him that it was cruel to separate them, he would have groaned and given way. As it was, he simply leaned to that view of the matter which gave him the greatest preponderance with his own child. It may be that she saw it too, and would not wound him by asking for her lover"s presence.
About the middle of September she died, having written to Hampstead the very day before her death. Her letters lately had become but a few words each, which Mrs. Roden would put into an envelope and send to their destination. He wrote daily, a.s.suring her that he would not leave his home for a day in order that he might go to her instantly when she would send for him. To the last she never gave up the idea of seeing him again;--but at last the little light flickered out quicker than had been expected.
Mrs. Roden was at Pegwell Bay when the end came; and to her fell the duty of making it known to Lord Hampstead. She went up to town immediately, leaving the Quaker in the desolate cottage, and sent down a note from Holloway to Hendon Hall. "I must see you as soon as possible. Shall I go to you, or will you come to me?" When she wrote the words she was sure that he would understand their purport, and yet it was easier to write so than to tell the cruel truth plainly.
The note was sent down by a messenger, but Lord Hampstead in person was the answer.
There was no need of any telling. When he stood before her dressed from head to foot in black, she took him by the two hands and looked into his face. "It is all over for her," he said,--"the trouble and the anguish, and the sense of long dull days to come. My Marion! How infinitely she has the best of it! How glad I ought to be that it is so."
"You must wait, Lord Hampstead," she said.
"Pray, pray, let me have no consolation. Waiting in the sense you mean there will be none. For the one relief which will finally come to me I must of course wait. Did she say any word that you would wish to tell me!"
"Many, many."
"Were they for my ears?"
"What other words should she have spoken to me? They were prayers for your health."
"My health needs not her prayers."
"Prayers for your soul"s health."
"Such praying will be efficacious there,--or would be were anything needed to make her fit for those angels among whom she has gone. For me they can do nothing,--unless it be that in knowing how much she loved me I may strive to be as she was."
"And for your happiness."
"Psha!" he exclaimed.
"You must let me do her commission, Lord Hampstead. I was to bid you remember that G.o.d in His goodness has ordained that the dead after awhile shall be remembered only with a softened sorrow. I was to tell you that as a man you should give your thoughts to other things. It is not from myself;--it is from her."
"She did not know. She did not understand. As regards good and evil she was, to my eyes, perfect;--perfect as she was in beauty, in grace, and feminine tenderness. But the character of others she had not learned to read. But I need not trouble you as to that, Mrs.
Roden. You have been good to her as though you were her mother, and I will love you for it while I live." Then he was going away; but he turned again to ask some question as to the funeral. Might he do it. Mrs. Roden shook her head. "But I shall be there?" To this she a.s.sented, but explained to him that Zachary Fay would admit of no interference with that which he considered to be his own privilege and his own duty.
Lord Hampstead had driven himself over from Hendon Hall, and had driven fast. When he left Mrs. Roden"s house the groom was driving the dog-cart up and down Paradise Row, waiting for his master. But the master walked on out of the Row, forgetting altogether the horse and the cart and the man, not knowing whither he was going.
The blow had come, and though it had been fully expected, though he had known well that it was coming, it struck him now as hard, almost harder than if it had not been expected. It seemed to himself that he was unable to endure his sorrow now because he had been already weakened by such a load of sorrow. Because he had grieved so much, he could not now bear this further grief. As he walked on he beat his hands about, unconscious that he was in the midst of men and women who were gazing at him in the streets. There was nothing left to him,--nothing, nothing, nothing! He felt that if he could rid himself of his t.i.tles, rid himself of his wealth, rid himself of the very clothes upon his back, it would be better for him, so that he might not seem to himself to think that comfort could be found in externals. "Marion," he said, over and over again, in little whispered words, but loud enough for his own ears to hear the sound.