Beechcroft at Rockstone Part 47

'I quite agree to that,' he said, 'and, indeed, I see that you have managed her most wisely, and obtained her affection and grat.i.tude, as indeed you have mine!' he added, with a tone in his voice that touched Jane to the core of her heart.

'I never heard anything like it before,' she said to her sister over their fire at night, with a dew of pleasure in her eyes.

'I never liked Jasper so well before. He is infinitely pleasanter and more amiable. Do you remember our first visit? No, it was not you who went with me, it was Emily. I am sure he felt bound to be on guard all the time against any young officer's attentions to his poor little sister-in-law,' said Ada, with her Maid-of-Athens look. 'The smallest approach brought those hawk's eyes of his like a dart right through one's backbone. It all came back to me to-night, and the way he used to set poor Lily to scold me.'

'So that you rejoiced to be grown old. I beg your pardon, but I did. My experience was when I went to help Lily pack for foreign service, when I suppose my ferret look irritated him, for he snubbed me extensively, and I am sure he rejoiced to carry his wife out of reach of all the tribe. I dare say I richly deserved it, but I hope we are all "mellered down," as Wat Greenwood used to say of his brewery for the pigs.'

'My dear, what a comparison!'

'Redolent of the Old Court, and of Lily, waiting for her swan's nest among the reeds, till her stately warrior came, and made her day dreams earnest in a way that falls to the lot of few. I don't think his severity ever dismayed her for a moment, there was always such sweetness in it.

'True knight and lady! Yes. He is grown handsomer than ever, too!'

'I hope he will get those poor children out of their hobble! It is chivalrous enough of him to come down about it, in the midst of all his business in London.'

Sir Jasper started the next morning with Fergus on his way to school, getting on the road a good deal of information, mingled together about forms and strata, cricket and geology. Leaving his little son at Mrs.

Edgar's door, he proceeded to Ivinghoe Terrace, where he waited long at the blistered door of the dilapidated house before the little maid informed him that Mr. Richard was gone out, and missus was so ill that she didn't know as Miss White could see n.o.body; but she took his card and invited him to walk into the parlour, where the breakfast things were just left.

Down came Kalliope, with a wan face and eyes worn with sleeplessness, but a light of hope and grat.i.tude flas.h.i.+ng over her features as she met the kind eyes, and felt the firm hand of her father's colonel, a sort of king in the eyes of all Royal Wardours.

'My poor child,' he said gently, 'I am come to see if I can help you.'

'Oh! so good of you,' and she squeezed his hand tightly, in the effort perhaps not to give way.

'I fear your mother is very ill.'

'Very ill,' said Kalliope. 'Richard came last night, and he let her know what we had kept from her; but she is calmer now.'

'Then your brother Richard is here.'

'Yes; he is gone up to Mr. White's.'

'He is in a solicitor's office, I think. Will he be able to undertake the case?'

'Oh no, no'--the white cheek flushed, and the hand trembled. 'There is a Leeds family here, and he is afraid of their finding out that he has any connection with this matter. He says it would be ruin to his prospects.'

'Then we must do our best without him,' Sir Jasper said in a fatherly voice, inexpressively comforting to the desolate wounded spirit. 'I will not keep you long from your mother, but will you answer me a few questions? Your brother tells me--'

She looked up almost radiantly, 'You have seen him?'

'Yes. I saw him yesterday,' and as she gazed as if the news were water to a thirsty soul--'he sent his love, and begged his mother and you to forgive the distress his precipitancy has caused. I did not think him looking ill; indeed, I think the quiet of his cell is almost a rest to him, as he makes sure that he can clear himself.'

'Oh, Sir Jasper! how can we ever be grateful enough!'

'Never mind that now, only tell me what is needful, for time is short.

Your brother sent these notes in their own envelope, he says.'

'Yes, a very dirty one. I did not open it or see them, but enclosed it in one of my own, and sent it by my youngest brother, Petros.'

'How was yours addressed?'

'Francis Stebbing, Esq., Marble Works; and I put in a note in explanation.'

'Is the son's name likewise Francis?'

'Francis James.'

'Petros delivered it?'

'Yes, certainly.'

Here they were interrupted by Maura's stealing timidly in with the message that poor mamma had heard that Sir Jasper was here, and would he be so very good as to come up for one minute and speak to her.

'It is asking a great deal,' said Kalliope, 'but it would be very kind, and it might ease her mind.'

He was taken to the poor little bedroom full of oppressive atmosphere, though the window was open to relieve the labouring breath. It seemed absolutely filled with the enormous figure of the poor dropsical woman with white ghastly face, sitting pillowed up, incapable of lying down.

'Oh, so good! so angelic!' she gasped.

'I am sorry to see you so ill, Mrs. White.'

'Ah! 'tis dying I am, Colonel Merrifield--begging your pardon, but the sight of you brings back the times when my poor captain was living, and I was the happy woman. 'Tis the thought of my poor orphans that is vexing me, leaving them as I am in a strange land where their own flesh and blood is unnatural to them,' she cried, trying to clasp her swollen hands, in the excitement that brought out the Irish substructure of her nature. 'Ah, Colonel dear, you'll bear in mind their father that would have died for you, and be good to them.'

'Indeed, I hope to do what I can for them.'

'They are good children, Sir Jasper, all of them, even the poor boy that is in trouble out of the very warmth of his heart; but 'tis Richard who would be the credit to you, if you would lend him the helping hand.

Where is the boy, Kally?'

'He is gone to call on Mr. White.'

'Ah! and you'll say a good word for him with his cousin,' she pleaded, 'and say how 'tis no discredit to him if things are laid on his poor brother that he never did.'

The poor woman was evidently more anxious to bespeak patronage for her first-born, the pride and darling of her heart, than for those who might be thought to need it more, but she became confused and agitated when she thought of Alexis, declaring that the poor boy might have been hasty, and have disgraced himself, but it was hard, very hard, if they swore away his liberty, and she never saw him more, and she broke into distressing sobs. Sir Jasper, in a decided voice, a.s.sured her that he expected with confidence that her son would be freed the next day, and able to come to see her.

'It's the blessing of a dying mother will be on you, Colonel dear! Oh!

bring him back, that his mother's eyes may rest on the boy that has always been dutiful. No--no, d.i.c.k, I tell you 'tis no disgrace to wear the coat his father wore.' Wandering was beginning, and she was in no condition for Kalliope to leave her. The communicative Maura, who went downstairs with him, said that Richard was so angry about Alexis that it had upset poor mamma sadly. And could Alexis come?' she asked, 'even when he is cleared?'

'I will ask for furlough for him.'

'Oh! thank you--that would do mamma more good than anything. She is so fond of Richard, he is her favourite, but Alexis is the real help and comfort.'

'I can quite believe so. And now will you tell me where I shall find your brother who took the letter, Peter or Petros?'

'Petros is his name, but the boys call him Peter. He is at school--the Bellevue National School--up that street.'

Repairing to that imposing building, Sir Jasper knocked at the door, and sent in his card by an astonished pupil-teacher with a request to the master that he might speak to Petros White, waiting in the porch till a handsome little fellow appeared, stouter, rosier, and more English looking than the others of his family, but very dusty, and rather scared.

'You don't remember me,' said Sir Jasper, 'but I was your father's colonel, and I want to find some way of helping your brother. Your sister tells me she gave you a letter to carry to Mr. Stebbing.'