Wenderholme Part 40

Every one looked at him, and no one who had looked once took his eyes off Mr. Prigley again. There was that in his face which fixed attention irresistibly. The roar of the conversation was suddenly hushed, and a silence succeeded in which you might have heard the breaking of a piece of bread.

Mr. Prigley went straight to Mrs. Ogden, not noticing anybody else. He spoke to her, not loudly, but audibly enough for every one to hear him.

"I have come to tell you, Mrs. Ogden, that Mrs. Stanburne, mother of Colonel Stanburne of Wenderholme, is now lying in a dying state at the vicarage."

Mrs. Ogden did not answer at once. When she had collected her ideas, she said, "I thought Mrs. Stanburne had been in her own house and well in health. If I'd known she was dyin', you may be sure, Mr. Prigley, as there should 'ave been no dancin' i' this house, though she's not a relation of ours. We're only plain people, but we know what's fittin'

and seemly."

"Then you cannot be aware, Mrs. Ogden, of what has happened at Wenderholme Cottage. Mrs. Stanburne's illness has been brought on by the suddenness with which the present owner of Wenderholme ordered her to quit her cottage on this estate. She was an old lady, in feeble health, and the trouble of a sudden eviction has proved too much for her. If there is any surgeon here, let him follow me."

This said, Mr. Prigley quitted the table without bowing to anybody, and his gaunt figure and pale grave face pa.s.sed along the gallery to the great staircase. Dr. Bardly left his place at the supper-table, and followed him.

Miss Smethurst's young partner made no more soft speeches to her that night. A great pang smote him in his breast. Had he forgotten those dear friends who had been so good to him in the time of their prosperity? And what was this horrible story of an eviction? Mrs. Stanburne turned out of Wenderholme Cottage! Could it be possible that his uncle had gone to such a length as that?

The boy was down the staircase in an instant, and overtook the Doctor and Mr. Prigley as they were crossing the great hall. They walked swiftly and silently to the vicarage.

"You'd better wait here, little Jacob," said Dr. Bardly; "I'll go upstairs." And he put Jacob into a small sitting-room, which was empty.

The lad had been there five minutes when the door opened, and Edith came in. She looked very ill and miserable.

All the old tenderness came back into Jacob's heart as he felt for her in this trial. "Miss Stanburne," he said, "dear Miss Stanburne, what does he say?" Weak and shattered as she was by the trials of these last days, that word of tenderness made any farther acting impossible. She went to him, took both his hands in hers, and the tears came.

"There's no hope; she's dying. Come upstairs--she wants to see you."

Mrs. Stanburne was lying in a state of extreme exhaustion, with occasional intervals of consciousness, in which the mind was clear. When Jacob entered the sick-room, she was in one of her better moments.

"Go quite near to her," said Mr. Prigley; "she can only speak in a whisper."

There had always existed a great friends.h.i.+p between the youth and the old lady now lying on the brink of the grave. He bent down over her, and tenderly kissed her forehead.

"G.o.d bless you!" she whispered, "it is very kind of you to come."

Then she said, in answer to his enquiries,--

"I shall not live long, but I shall live rather longer than they think.

I shan't die to-night. I want my son--my son!"

After this supervened a syncope, which Jacob and Edith believed to be death. But the Doctor, with his larger experience, rea.s.sured them for the present. "She will live several hours," he said.

Jacob told them that she had asked for Colonel Stanburne, and added, "I have not the slightest idea where he is."

Then Edith made a sign to him to follow her, and led him downstairs again to the little sitting-room. "Papa is a long way off; he is in France. He must be telegraphed for." And she took a writing-case and wrote an address.

Now, although there was a telegraph from Wenderholme to Ogden's Mill at Shayton, there was none from Shayton to Sootythorn, which was the nearest town of importance. So the best way appeared to be for Jacob to ride off at once with the despatch to the station, which was ten miles off.

"And you must telegraph for mamma at the same time." And Edith wrote Lady Helena's address.

A little delay occurred now, because Jacob's horse had to be sent for to Wenderholme Hall. Edith went upstairs, and soon came down again with rather favorable news. The syncope had not lasted long, and the patient seemed to rally from it somewhat more easily than she had done from the preceding ones.

"Miss Stanburne!" said Jacob, "will you give me a word of explanation?

You were hard and unkind the last time we spoke to each other."

"I did very wrong. I thought I was sacrificing myself for your good. I told you nothing but lies."

Half an hour since Miss Smethurst was within a hair's-breadth of being lady of Wenderholme; but her chances are over now, and she will not bring her fortune to this place--her coals to this Newcastle. As her late partner in the dance rides galloping, galloping through the wooded lanes to the telegraph station, his brain is full of other hopes, and of a far higher, though less brilliant, ambition. He will free himself from the Milend slavery, and work for independence--and for Edith!

CHAPTER XIV.

Mrs. Ogden's Authority.

After the apparition of Mr. Prigley, the supper in the long gallery changed its character completely. Until he came it had been one of the merriest of festivals; after he went away, it became one of the dullest.

A sense of uncomfortableness and embarra.s.sment oppressed everybody present, and though many attempts were made to give the conversation something of its old liveliness, the guests soon became aware that for that time it was frozen beyond hope of recovery. It had been intended to resume the dancing after supper, but the dancing was not resumed, and the guests who intended to return to Shayton that night became suddenly impressed with so strong a sense of the distance of that place from Wenderholme, that all the pressing hospitality of the Ogdens availed not to retain them.

Notwithstanding the Philistinism of Mrs. Ogden's character, and the external hardness which she had in common with most of her contemporaries in Shayton, she was not without heart; and when she heard that her son had turned old Mrs. Stanburne out of the Cottage, she both felt disapproval and expressed it. "Jacob," she said, "you shouldn't 'ave done so." And she repeated many a time to other people in the room, "Our Jacob shouldn't 'ave done so."

And when the carriages had departed, although there were still many people in the house, Mrs. Ogden put her bonnet on, and had herself conducted to the vicarage.

The situation there might have been embarra.s.sing for some people, but Mrs. Ogden was a woman who did not feel embarra.s.sment under any circ.u.mstances. She did what was right, or she did what was wrong, in a simple and resolute way, and her very immunity from nervous reflectiveness often enabled her to do the right thing when a self-conscious person would hardly have ventured to do it. So she knocked at Mrs. Prigley's door.

It happened that the person nearest the door at that moment was Edith, who was crossing the pa.s.sage from one room to another. So Edith opened the door.

Mrs. Ogden walked in at once, and asked very kindly after Mrs.

Stanburne. Edith was pleased with the genuine interest in her manner, and showed her into the little sitting-room.

The news was rather more favorable than might have been hoped for. Mrs.

Stanburne had had no return of unconsciousness; and though the Doctor still thought she was gradually sinking, he began to be of opinion that her illness might be much longer than was at first antic.i.p.ated, and thought that she would live to see the Colonel.

"You don't know me," said Mrs. Ogden; "but as you speak of Mrs.

Stanburne as your grandmamma, I know who you are. You're Miss Edith. I'm little Jacob's grandmamma--Mrs. Ogden of Milend, whom no doubt you've heard speak of."

Edith bowed slightly, and then there was rather an awkward pause.

"My son Jacob did very wrong about your grandmother in turning her out of her house. I wish we could make amends."

Edith tried to say something polite in acknowledgment of Mrs. Ogden's advance, but it ended in tears. "I'm afraid it is too late," she said, finally.

The young lady's evident love for her grandmother won the heart of Mrs.

Ogden, who was herself a grandmother. "Tell me what has been done, my dear. I know nothing about it; I only heard about it to-night. Has Mrs.

Stanburne removed her furniture?"

"Not quite all yet. Most of it is here, in Mr. Prigley's out-houses. It was the hurry of the removal that brought on grandmamma's illness."

"Well, my dear," said the old lady, laying her hand upon Edith's, "let us pray to G.o.d that she may live. And we'll have all the furniture put back into the Cottage."

"I don't think grandmamma would consent to that."