Johnny Ludlow Third Series Part 29

Mrs. Knox dressed herself with Sally's help, and went out with my Lady Jenkins--the ex-Mayor of Lefford's wife. The bills and the calculations made a long job, and Janet's mind was buried in it, when a startling disturbance suddenly arose in the garden: d.i.c.ky had climbed into the mulberry-tree and fallen out of it. The girls came, das.h.i.+ng open the gla.s.s-doors, saying he was _dead_. Janet ran out, herself nearly frightened to death.

Very true. If d.i.c.ky was not dead, he looked like it. He lay white and cold under the tree, blood trickling down his face. James galloped off for Mr. Tamlyn. The two maids and Janet carried d.i.c.ky into the kitchen, and put him on the ironing-board, with his head on an old cus.h.i.+on. That revived him; and when Mr. Shuttleworth arrived, for Tamlyn was out, d.i.c.ky was demanding bread-and-treacle. Shuttleworth put some diachylon plaster on his head, ordered him to bed, and told him not to get into trees again.

Their fears relieved, the maids had time to remember common affairs.

Sally found all the sitting-room fires out, and hastened to light them.

As soon as Janet could leave d.i.c.ky, who had persisted in going to bed in his boots, she went back to the accounts. Mrs. Knox came in before they were done. She blew up Janet for not being quicker, and when she had recovered the shock of d.i.c.ky's accident, she blew her up for that.

"Where's the note?" she snapped.

"What note, ma'am?" asked Janet.

"The bank-note. The bank-note for fifty pounds that I told you to take care of."

"I have not seen any bank-note," said Janet.

Well, that began the trouble. The bank-note was searched for, and there was neither sign nor symptom of it to be found. Mrs. Knox accused Janet Carey of stealing it, and called in a policeman. Mrs. Knox made her tale good to the man, representing Janet as a very black girl indeed; but the man said he could not take her into custody unless Mrs. Knox would charge her formally with the theft.

And that, Mrs. Knox hesitated to do. She told the policeman she would take until the morrow to consider of it. The whole of that evening, the whole of the night, the whole of the next morning till midday, Janet spent searching the garden-room. At midday the policeman appeared again, and Janet went into a sort of fit.

When Mr. Shuttleworth was sent for to her, he said it was caused by fright, and that she had received a shock to the nervous system. For some days she was delirious, on and off; and when she could escape Sally's notice, who waited on her, they'd find her down in the garden-room, searching for the note, just as we afterwards saw her searching for it in her sleep at Miss Deveen's. It chanced that the two rooms resembled each other remarkably: in their situation in the houses, in their shape and size and building arrangements, and in their opening by gla.s.s-doors to the garden. Janet subsided into a sort of wasting fever; and Mrs. Knox thought it time to send for Miss Cattledon. The criminal proceedings might wait, she told Janet: like the heartless woman that she was! Not but that the loss of the money had thrown her flat on her beam-ends.

Miss Cattledon came. Janet solemnly declared, not only that she had not the bank-note, but that she had never seen the note: never at all. Mrs.

Knox said no one but Janet could have taken it, and but for her illness, she would be already in prison. Miss Cattledon told Mrs. Knox she ought to be ashamed of herself for suspecting Janet Carey, and took Janet off by train to Miss Deveen's. Janet arrived there in a s.h.i.+vering-fit, fully persuaded that the Lefford policemen were following her by the orders of Mrs. Knox.

And for the result of it all we must go on to the next paper.

DR. KNOX.

"MY DEAR ARNOLD,

"Come down to Lefford without delay if you can: I want to see you particularly. I am in a peck of trouble.

"Ever your friend, "RICHARD TAMLYN."

The above letter reached Dr. Knox in London one morning in April. He made it right with the authorities to whom he was subject, and reached Lefford the same afternoon.

Leaving his bag at the station, he went straight to Mr. Tamlyn's house; every other person he met halting to shake hands with him. Entering the iron gates, he looked up at the windows, but saw no one. The sun shone on the pillared portico, the drawing-room blinds beside it were down.

Dr. Knox crossed the flagged courtyard, and pa.s.sed off to enter by the route most familiar to him, the surgery, trodden by him so often in the days not long gone by. Mr. Dockett stood behind the counter, compounding medicines, with his coat-cuffs and wristbands turned up.

"Well, I never!" exclaimed the young gentleman, dropping a bottle in his astonishment as he stared at Dr. Knox. "You are about the last person I should have expected to see, sir."

By which remark the doctor found that Mr. Tamlyn had not taken his apprentice into his confidence. "Are you all well here?" he asked, shaking hands.

"All as jolly as circ.u.mstances will let us be," said Mr. Dockett. "Young Bertie has taken a turn for the worse."

"Has he? I am sorry to hear that. Is Mr. Tamlyn at home? If so, I'll in and see him."

"Oh, he's at home," was the answer. "He has hardly stirred out-of-doors for a week, and Shuttleworth says he's done to death with the work."

Going in as readily as though he had not left the house for a day, Dr.

Knox found Mr. Tamlyn in the dining-room: the pretty room that looked to the garden and the fountain. He was sitting by the fire, his hand rumpling his grey hair: a sure sign that he was in some bother or tribulation. In the not quite four months that had pa.s.sed since Dr. Knox left him, he had changed considerably: his hair was greyer, his face thinner.

"Is it you, Arnold? I am glad. I thought you'd come if you could."

Dr. Knox drew a chair near the fire, and sat down. "Your letter gave me concern," he said. "And what do you mean by talking about a peck of trouble?"

"A peck of trouble!" echoed Mr. Tamlyn. "I might have said a bushel. I might have said a ton. There's trouble on all sides, Arnold."

"Can I help you out of it in any way?"

"With some of it, I hope you can: it's why I sent for you. But not with all: not with the worst. Bertie's dying, Arnold."

"I hope not!"

"As truly as that we are here talking to one another, I believe him to be literally dying," repeated the surgeon, solemnly, his eyes filling and his voice quivering with pain. "He has dropped asleep, and Bessy sent me out of the room: my sighs wake him, she says. I can't help sighing, Arnold: and sometimes the sigh ends with a groan, and I can't help that."

Dr. Knox didn't see his way clear to making much answer just here.

"I've detected the change in him for a month past; in my inward heart I felt sure he could not live. Do you know what your father used to say, Arnold? He always said that if Bertie lived over his sixteenth or seventeenth year, he'd do; but the battle would be just about that time.

Heaven knows, I attached no importance to the opinion: I have hardly thought of it: but he was right, you see. Bertie would be seventeen next July, if he were to live."

"I'm sure I am very grieved to hear this--and to see your sorrow," spoke Arnold.

"He is _so_ changed!" resumed Mr. Tamlyn, in a low voice. "You remember how irritable he was, poor fellow?--well, all that has gone, and he is like an angel. So afraid of giving trouble; so humble and considerate to every one! It was this change that first alarmed me."

"When did it come on?"

"Oh, weeks ago. Long before there was much change for the worse to be _seen_ in him. Only this morning he held my hand, poor lad, and--and----" Mr. Tamlyn faltered, coughed, and then went on again more bravely. "He held my hand between his, Arnold, and said he thought G.o.d had forgiven him, and how happy it would all be when we met in heaven.

For a long while now not a day has pa.s.sed but he has asked us to forgive him for his wicked tempers--that's his word for it, wicked--the servants, and all."

"Is he in much pain?"

"Not much now. He has been in a great deal at times. But it made no difference, pain or no pain, to his sweetness of temper. He will lie resigned and quiet, the drops pouring down his face with the agony, never an impatient word escaping him. One day I heard him tell Bessy that angels were around him, helping him to bear it. We may be sure, Arnold, when so extraordinary a change as that takes place in the temperament, the close of life is not far off."

"Very true--as an ordinary rule," acquiesced Dr. Knox. "And now, how can I help you in this trouble?"

"In this trouble?--not at all," returned Mr. Tamlyn, rousing himself, and speaking energetically, as if he meant to put the thought behind him. "_This_ trouble no earthly being can aid me in, Arnold; and I don't think there's any one but yourself I'd speak to of it: it lies too deep, you see; it wrings the soul. I could die of this trouble: I only fret at the other."

"And what is the other?"

"Shuttleworth won't stay."

"Won't he!"