Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 115

"Oh dear!" cried she, flurried out of her senses, "John's going to turn rebellious now."

"No, I am not," said John, smiling at her. "I mean to go without any rebellion at all."

"There's my best lad," said she fondly. "Change of scene is all pleasure, John. It's not like going through a course of pills and powders."

Well, they all went to the seaside, and at the end of five weeks they all came back again. John had to be a.s.sisted out of the carriage, from fatigue. There could be no mistake now.

After that, it was just a gradual decay. The sinking was so imperceptible that he seemed to be always at a stand-still, and some days he was as well as any one need be. His folk did not give up hope of him: no one does in such cases. John was cheerful, and often merry.

"It can't be consumption," Sir John would say. "We've nothing of the kind in our family; neither on his mother's side nor on mine. A younger sister of hers died of a sort of decline: but what can that have to do with John?"

Why, clearly nothing. As every one agreed.

In one of Mr. Carden's visits, Sir John tackled him as he was going away, asking what it was. The two were shut up together talking for a quarter-of-an-hour, Mr. Carden's horses--he generally came over in his carriage--growing rampant the while. Sir John did not seem much wiser when the sitting was over. He only shuffled his spectacles about on his old red nose--as he used to do when perplexed. Talking of noses: you never saw two so much alike as his and the Squire's, particularly when they went into a temper.

Not very long after they were back from the seaside, and directly after school met, the accident occurred to Barrington. You have heard of it before: and it has nothing to do with the present paper. John Whitney took it to heart.

"He is not fit to die," Bill heard him say. "He is not fit to die."

One morning John walked over to see him, resting on stiles and gates between whiles. It was not very far; but he was good for very little now. Barrington was lying flat on his bed, Mrs. Hearn waiting on him.

Wolfe was not tamed then.

"It's going to be a race between us, I suppose, Whitney," said he. "You look like a shadow."

"A race?" replied Whitney, not taking him.

"In that black-plumed slow coach that carries dead men to their graves, and leaves them there. A race which of us two will have the honour of starting first. What a nice prospect! I always hated clayey soil. Fancy lying in it for ever and a day!"

"Fancy, rather, being borne on angels' wings, and living with G.o.d in heaven for ever and ever!" cried Whitney earnestly. "Oh Barrington, fancy _that_."

"You'd do for a parson," retorted Barrington.

The interview was not satisfactory: Whitney so solemnly earnest, Wolfe so mockingly sarcastic: but they parted good friends. It was the last time they ever saw each other in life.

And thus a few more weeks went on.

Now old Frost had one most barbarous custom. And that was, letting the boys take the few days of Michaelmas holiday, or not, as the parents pleased. Naturally, very few did please. I and Tod used to go home: but that was no rule for the rest. We did not go home this year. A day or two before the time, Sir John Whitney rode over to d.y.k.e Manor.

"You had better let the two boys come to us for Michaelmas," he said to the Squire. "John wants to see them, and they'll cheer us up. It's anything but a lively house, I can tell you, Todhetley, with the poor lad lying as he is."

"I can't see why he should not get well," said the Squire.

"I'm sure I can't. Carden ought to be able to bring him round."

"So he ought," a.s.sented the Squire. "It would be quite a feather in his cap, after all these months of illness. As to the boys, you may be troubled with 'em, and welcome, Sir John, if you care to be."

And so, we went to Whitney Hall that year, instead of home.

John had the best rooms, the two that opened into one another. Sometimes he would be on the bed in one, sometimes on the sofa in the other. Then he would walk about on some one's arm; or sit in the easy-chair at the west window, the setting sun full on his wasted face. Barrington had called him a shadow: you should have seen him now. John had talked to Barrington of angels: he was just like an angel in the house himself.

And--will you believe it?--they had not given up hope of his getting well again. I wondered the doctors did not tell Lady Whitney the plain truth, and have done with it: but to tell more professional truth than they can help, is what doctors rarely put themselves out of the way to do.

And still--the shadow of the coming death lay on the house. In the hushed voices and soft tread of the servants, in the subdued countenances of Sir John and Lady Whitney, and in the serious spirit that prevailed, the shadow might be seen. It is good to be in such a house as this: for the lessons learnt may take fast hold of the heart.

It was good to hear John Whitney talk: and I never quite made out whether he was telling of dreams or realities.

Tod was out of his element: as much so as a fish is out of water. He had plenty of sympathy with John, would have made him well at any sacrifice to himself: but he could not do with the hushed house, in which all things seemed to give way to that shadow of the coming presence. Tod, in his way, was religious enough; more so than some fellows are; but dying beds he did not understand, and would a great deal rather have been shooting partridges than be near one. He and Bill Whitney--who was just as uncomfortable as Tod--used to get off anywhere whenever they could.

They did not forget John. They would bring him all kinds of things; flowers, fruit, blackberries as big as Willis's thimble, and the finest nuts off the trees; but they did not care to sit long with him.

John was awake one afternoon, and I was sitting beside him. He sat in his easy-chair at the window--as he liked to do at this hour when the evening was drawing on. The intensely serene look that for some time now had taken possession of his face, I had never seen surpa.s.sed in boy or man.

"How quiet the house is, Johnny!" he said, touching my hand. "Where are they all?"

"Helen and Anna went out to ask after Mrs. Frost and Barrington. And the boys--but I think you know it--have gone with Sir John to Evesham. You wouldn't call the house quiet, John, if you could hear the row going on in the nursery."

He smiled a little. "Charley's a dreadful Turk: none of us elder ones were ever half as bad. Where's the mother?"

"Half-an-hour ago she was shut up with some visitors in the drawing-room. It's those Miss Clutterbucks, John: they always stay long enough to hold a county meeting."

"Is Mrs. Frost worse--that the girls have gone to ask after her?" he resumed.

"I think so. Harry said Dr. Frost shook his head about her, when they saw him this morning."

"She'll never be strong," remarked John. "And perhaps the bother of the school is too much for her."

"Hall takes a good deal of that, you know."

"But Hall cannot take the responsibility; the true care of the school.

That must lie on Mrs. Frost."

What a beautiful sky it was! The sun was nearing the horizon; small clouds, gold and red and purple, lay in the west, line above line. John Whitney sat gazing in silence. There was nothing he liked so much as looking at these beautiful sunsets.

"Go and play for me, will you, Johnny?"

The piano was at the far end of the room in the shade. My playing is really nothing. It was nothing to speak of then, it is nothing to speak of now: but it is soft and soothing; and some people like it. John could play a little himself, but it was too much exertion for him now. They had tried to teach Bill. He was kept hammering at it for half a year, and then the music master told Sir John that he'd rather teach a post.

So Bill was released.

"The same thing that you played the evening before last, Johnny. Play that."

"But I can't. It was only some rubbish out of my own head, made up as I went along."

"Make up some more then, old fellow."

I had hardly sat down, when Lady Whitney came in, stirred the fire--if they kept up much, he felt the room too warm--and took one of the elbow-chairs in front of it.

"Go on, my dear," she said. "It is very pleasant to hear you."

But it was not so pleasant to play before her--not that, as I believed, her ears could distinguish the difference between an Irish Jig and the Dead March in Saul--and I soon left off. The playing or the fire had sent Lady Whitney into a doze. I crossed the room and sat down by John.