Chapter XXVIII: The Last of the Holly Arbour

TOM GRIGSON was still staying at his brother's—yet not altogether there, for he and the younger Tom, his first-born, pretty equally divided their time between the Manor House and the Mumbles, where the elder Elliston continued to sway the sceptre—an old man now, but as sharp-witted and fond of having his own way as ever he had been.

It was the more to be wondered at that the active man of business, such as we have seen John's old friend had become, should have taken so long a holiday, seeing that there was neither hunting nor shooting to be indulged in at this particular time. To be sure, he had the pleasure of Tincroft's company; and his presence, in like manner, reconciled John to his prolonged absence from home.

But there was another reason—one closely connected with the future family arrangements of Mr. Tom Grigson—which made divers consultations at headquarters thought to be necessary—the headquarters in this case being Mumbleton on the one hand, and the Manor House on the other.

On the same day as that on which, so far-away, his Sarah and the young Helen were holding their confabulation under the beech tree, and on which, also, so much nearer to him, the brother and sister were talking together on their way to and in the holly arbour at High Beech, John Tincroft was invited by his friend Tom to take a drive with him over to the Mumbles. On this occasion John did not decline the invitation as he did a former one, some twenty years before. Accordingly the dog-cart was got out, and the gentlemen took their seats.

"I want a bit of a talk with you, John, and I want your advice as well," said Tom, when the vehicle was in motion.

But in order to prepare for this "bit of talk," some few words of explanation are necessary.

We have seen in a former part of our history, how Tom Grigson's soul revolted from the contamination of trade, which, no doubt, he would have called low, mean, degrading, demoralising, and a dozen other "ings," if he could have readily laid his tongue to them; and which strong aversion nothing but his love for the fair Kate could have induced him to overcome. We have also seen how, after a time, this aversion gradually changed to something like affection; that, at any rate, the golden result of his enforced connection with trade a good deal more than modified his opinions. More than modified! Why, there was not a man within the sound of Bow Bells who could discourse more warmly and eloquently on the dignity of trade and commerce, and of the great advantages they conferred on a country.

"Talk of our being a nation of shopkeepers," said he; "granted, so we are, and it is the shopkeepers that can beat all the world!"

There was no sham about this, either. Tom Grigson believed in himself, and always had done. And here he had the advantage of some shams and humbugs who are to be met with, even in high places sometimes, and of whom you and I, reader, may happen to know or see somewhat occasionally, who do not believe in themselves, and in whom nobody believes. Tom was more like some who are to be met with in this changeable world, who undergo a sort of natural and gradual transformation in the course of their lives.

As, for instance, one who, from being a red-hot Radical in his teens, has subsided in his riper years into a steady-going Conservative, not to say a determined Tory. And so the case might be reversed, or the principle applied to other instances in polemics, or even in habits of everyday life. Conviction sometimes, sometimes experience, necessarily partial in its operation, and oftentimes interest, are the several, or the combined, powers made instrumental in this change of thought.

It was so, at least, with Tom Grigson. He had begun with a silly, ignorant prejudice against trade and tradesmen, and any thing or person connected with these abominations, as he would have termed them. He ended with a prejudice equally absurd against almost all other classes of the community. All honour to Tom; he was, as I have said, sincere. If he had been a farmer, he would have stood up as sincerely for the farming interest; if a lawyer or an artist, he would have exalted the profession he belonged to the skies; if a— But I must rein in my Pegasus.

Much as Tom reined in his, just as he and John got into the road turning out of Richard Grigson's lawn, and high bred and fed Peg (Richard Grigson's blood mare) first of all shied at a heap of stones by the roadside, and would then fairly have bolted with the dog-cart and its passengers, but for the judicious action of the curb for restraint, and of the whip for punishment. This little episode over, and Peg subsiding into a more sober pace, Tom began:

"I want to talk to you about my boy; you have seen something of him during the last month. What do you think of him?"

"Think? He is a fine young fellow," said John, thoughtfully.

"Oh, fine! Ah yes; that is to say, he stands five feet eight in his stockings already, and will mount up to six feet, I daresay, before he has done growing. Fine! Well, he is something like me in figure and face, they say, with his mother's dark eyes and arched eyebrows superadded; so he must be fine, I suppose." Tom said this half-jokingly, but rather proudly also, no doubt; and then he added—

"But I wasn't thinking of this; it isn't what I meant. What about his mental fit-out? You have had some talk with him, you know."

"He is very modest," said John, "which is a sign of grace. But for all, he doesn't say much, he is a lad of first-rate abilities—easy to see that; and he has made good use of his opportunities. He has had a good education, you know."

"Ought to have had; cost money enough, I know that. Well?"

"Well, what more do you wish me to say?" asked puzzled John.

"Anything and everything."

"He is rather quiet," returned John, thus urged on; "he is altogether a nice, amiable lad. I like him very much. I think you ought to be proud of him, Tom; and I have no doubt you are."

"Oh, proud! Well, as to that, everybody's own geese are swans, you know, John; and that's why I want your opinion, he not being a goose of your incubation, you know. But I have got something more to say. Do you know Tom has given me a good deal of anxiety lately?"

"Has he? I am sorry for that. I wasn't at all aware of any difference between him and you."

"No, there is no difference—in one way of looking at it, at least, but there is in another."

"Dear me!" quoth John, quite concerned. "Why, you seem always to get on so well together. I am sure your Tom has a very strong affection, as well as a high respect for you. A difference! I should never have guessed it, nor yet that he was giving you any trouble in any way, Tom." John said this very earnestly, and sorrowfully too.

"'Tis nothing much in one way of looking at it, but in another it is a good deal; and the truth is, I want to hear what you have to say about it. Perhaps you can help me out of the difficulty, John."

"Not likely that I can, Tom; but what is it, my dear friend?"

"Well, the case is this. Tom has had a good education, and made good use of it, you say. So far good. But what is to come next? His school days are over now, and lads must do something after they have left school, you know—lads that have got to make their way in the world, at any rate."

"No doubt that's true," said John; "but your Tom is not likely to give you trouble in that way, I hope. He isn't idle, is he?"

"No, not a bit of it," replied the father. "But here's the point. I want to make a business man of him, and Tom doesn't want, or hasn't wanted, to be made a business man of."

"Oh," said John; "but he doesn't rebel, does he?"

"No; rebellion is no word for my Tom. The boy never rebelled in his life. But somehow he has got hold of some queer notions that I never knew of till a few weeks ago. He had always thought, he said, that I meant to send him to Oxford."

"And did you not? I fancy I remember your saying something of that sort once when you and he were down at my place, and we were talking over our old Oxford days."

"Yes, very likely some nonsense or other of that sort was spoken, and that shows how foolish it is to say much before our boys and girls. The fact is, I hadn't made up my mind then about what I should do. But it seems that the boy was fired with the idea of going to college, and has been working hard—I will say that for him—to prepare himself for it. And now, poor lad, he is woefully disappointed that I don't like the thought of his throwing himself away, as I call it."

"Are you sure it would be throwing himself away?" asked Tincroft, naturally enough.

"Something like it, when you come to compare it with what lies before him in the other direction."

"You hadn't always such a high opinion of trade, Tom," said Tincroft, gently.

"No, I hadn't; but that was when I didn't know anything about it. I tell you what, John, a parcel of ignoramuses get their heads stuffed with Latin and Greek—"

"As you and I did once, Tom."

"Yes, as you and I did; and then they fancy that if a man can't spout Homer and Virgil, and the rest of the glorious old classics, as they call them, he is good-for-nothing. And they pretend to look down on men three times better than themselves, and ten times of more use in the world, because they are not up—or fancy they are not up—to the old heathenish morality, and disguised immorality, that is to be found in—"

"Hush, hush, Tom!"

"Ah yes, you say 'hush, hush,' but you know 'tis true; and I haven't patience with their pedantic vanity and pride of heart. However, that is not to the present purpose. The question is about young Tom."

"Is he set upon having his own way?" John interrogated:

"'A clerk condemned his father's soul to cross,
Who penned a stanza when he should engross'"?

"Or summing up accounts in daybook and ledger, initiating himself in the sublime mysteries of single and double entry?"

"No, that isn't it. Instead of this, the lad (and you don't know how I love him, John) won't hear of going against my plans. And so, when I was trying to make myself willing to send him to Oxford, he turns round and insists on the counting-house, though I know it will half break his heart—not because he is going into trading business, I don't mean that, but because his mind has so long been fixed on other, I won't say higher, pursuits. Now, what am I to do?"

"I think," said John, sagely, "when it comes to such an amiable discussion as that between father and son, it won't be long in adjusting itself without an arbitrator. But as you ask my advice (not that anything I can say will be worth much, but as you do), I should recommend his trying the counting-house for a year or two. Anyhow, he is too young for college yet, and he can keep up his school learning during that time, in case you and he should see fit to alter your plans then."

"I never thought of such a compromise as that," said Grigson, "and I thank you for suggesting it. It will do famously."

Then, as having disburdened himself of some great trouble, he touched up the mare he was driving into a more lively pace, and in a few minutes they were at their destination.

John Tincroft knew no more of the Mumbles, nor of the dwellers thereat, than his friend had at various times told him. He was prepared, however, to find a tolerably grand house, to which his own modest home could bear no comparison, and a somewhat peremptory but hospitable old gentleman as its master. He was not mistaken in either of these anticipations, and, in addition to old Mr. Elliston, John was introduced by Grigson to his sister-in-law, who, in single blessedness, still presided over her father's household. Besides these, there were visitors at the Mumbles, of whom John had not been told, though it seemed as though his friend Tom half expected to meet them. These were the wife and daughter of Grigson's partner, Elliston—the first a rather fine lady of a certain or uncertain age, the second a young person probably about eighteen years old, just released from boarding school life apparently—"slight in figure, pallid in countenance, plain in features, and affected in manner," thought John, when he had been ten minutes in her company.

Our friend was hospitably welcomed by the host; but that some one else had been expected with Tom, either instead of, or in addition to, himself, was evident from one of the earliest questions put to his friend after the first salutations and introductions.

"Where is your son, Mr. Grigson? How is it he is not with you?"

"He will come over to-morrow, sir. He begged to be excused to-day. He is going out with his uncle, I believe. Indeed, we were not quite sure—" and Tom glanced at the lady visitors opposite.

"Umph!" seemed to rise in the host's throat, but he stifled it in its birth. "Let me have five minutes with you, Grigson," he substituted instead, and the two disappeared.

Thus left alone with the ladies, John Tincroft exerted himself, so far as his awkwardness would permit, to entertain them. Whether or not he succeeded, he was not sorry when, after the lapse of a quarter of an hour, his friend reappeared, and proposed returning. In a few minutes, therefore, after payment of adieux in the customary form, the dog-cart was remounted, and our two friends were on the way back to the Manor House.

Tom was unusually taciturn, John thought, until they had left the precincts of the Mumbles; then he broke silence.

"You saw that young lady, my niece, Blanche Elliston, of course?"

Yes, John had seen her.

"I won't ask you what you think of her, because first impressions are sometimes very erroneous, and I don't care to hear Blanche disparaged. She is my Tom's intended."

"I beg pardon—your Tom's what?" returned John, quickly. And he may be pardoned if he thought he had heard imperfectly and incorrectly.

"Tom's intended," repeated Grigson.

"Intended wife, do you mean, Tom?" John asked so earnestly, and with such a look of gaunt surprise, that his friend broke out into a laugh; but he suddenly checked himself with—

"I don't know why I should laugh, for it is no laughing matter. Yes, Blanche Elliston is young Tom's intended wife."

"Young Tom's wife! Why, he is only a mere boy yet!" exclaimed Tincroft.

"True, John; but he will be a man some day, it is to be hoped."

"Time enough then to be choosing a wife," John had on his tongue's end to say, but a look checked him, and all he said was, "Well, but I don't understand it a bit, Tom. I always was dull of comprehension, you know, so you must bear with me, and explain a little more fully."

"To be sure I will," said Grigson.

And then he went on to explain that the arrangement had been made between the parents on either side at the instance of the grandfather, and when the boy and girl were mere children, that they should yoke together when they became man and woman.

"You see," continued Tom Grigson, "there's a good deal of property involved, and the business firm to be kept up, and it isn't wanted to go out of the family."

"And your brother Richard—Tom's uncle—what does he say to this bargain? Is he a party to it?" asked John.

"No, he won't have anything to do with it, he says, being an old bachelor himself."

"And what do your Tom and his cousin think of this convenient arrangement?" John wanted to know.

"Oh, they are agreeable enough. The girl is willing to have Tom for a husband, she says; and strange if she were not, for he is the right sort of fellow to make a good husband, and good enough looking, into the bargain. As to young Tom, he is agreeable, he says, if he must marry, though he doesn't see any occasion for it; but if he must, Blanche Elliston will do as well as any other. That's what he says. The worst of it is, his cousin is a couple of years older than he; but that can't be helped; and perhaps she hasn't the sweetest temper in the world. But we all have something to put up with, you know, John."

"Please don't say any more about it, Tom," said Tincroft, quietly. "You know your own business best, dear friend, and how to bring up a family. How, indeed, should I know anything at all about it?" pondered John, with a sigh.

Perhaps Grigson was not unwilling to let the subject drop, for he turned the conversation. But during the rest of the drive home, John was uncommonly silent, and on reaching the gate of the Manor House, he alighted.

"The dinner-bell won't ring yet for an hour," said he; "I have to make arrangements with Walter Wilson about our coming journey. So I'll take a stroll to Low Beech before turning in."

Considerably disturbed in his mind, our friend walked slowly from the Manor House gates, and proceeded on his way to Low Beech. To tell the truth, his heart was heavy with what he had heard; and if he had put his thoughts into words, it would have been in something like the following soliloquy:

"I could never have thought it of Tom! What can have possessed him to barter away his own flesh and blood like that? It can't be the money. I'll never believe that he is turned covetous and money-loving. I think it must be because he is ambitious and proud. He always was proud, was Tom Grigson, and I used rather to admire him for it. He was proud of his family and his ancestry then, and now he has turned the other way, and is proud of his connection with trade, and is ambitious of being among the first and foremost of London's citizens, of credit and renown, as John Gilpin—I beg pardon, William Cowper—has it."

"That's all very well, I mean if it pleases him, but he need not be—Poor young Tom! So he is to go a-wooing, and to have a wife, whether he likes it or no, is he? No, I never could have thought it of Tom Grigson—the Tom I knew twenty years ago. And I don't think he seems over-satisfied with it himself."

"'Tis bad enough," we may suppose John going on, "bad enough to do mischief to our neighbours without intending it; but to be brewing a bitter brewst for one's own flesh and blood, with one's eyes open, is worse still, I think."

And so, grumbling to himself, as he would have said, John Tincroft presently arrived at Low Beech Farm, to find that Walter Wilson had walked out with his sister—intending to go to High Beech, to take leave of George's wife, Mm. Matthew thought. And they had been a mortal while gone, she added, grumblingly, thinking no doubt that Elizabeth's time was being grievously wasted.

"I'll go on thither," said John; "perhaps I may meet them on their return."

But he didn't meet them, and so he quietly and ruminatingly took the path which led from the Low to the High, and which so many, many years ago he had traversed to and fro, dreaming of things possible and impossible.

At length he arrived at High Beech Farm; but here again he was at fault. Neither Walter nor Elizabeth had been seen there that day. Invited to enter and rest in the parlour, John shied (remembering the knobby chairs, perhaps) and pleaded haste, also anxiety to find his friend Walter.

"Perhaps they have slipped into the garden," said Mrs. George, indifferently, for she and Elizabeth were not very dear friends; and as to Walter, whom she had never known till of late, there was no particular reason why she should love him.

"I'll go and look in the garden," said John; and he went—passing through the wicket-gate, and slowly walking up the filbert alley, with a comical kind of feeling, remembering the last time he was there, as recorded in these present memoirs.

"They may be in the arbour," said John to himself, as looking round, he saw nothing of his friend and his friend's sister.

"I won't disturb them," he added, considerately; "but I may as well let them know that I am here."

So saying, he walked on, and with a previous considerate premonitory little cough, presented himself at the entrance of the arbour.

"Good afternoon, Miss Wilson," said he, as he discovered the objects of his search, seated as we have described. "I do not come to disturb you; but I wanted a few words with Walter, and not finding him at Low Beech—"

"Hush!" said Elizabeth, looking up from the needlework on which her attention had been occupied. "Walter is asleep," she whispered; "and I shouldn't like him to be woke up. He has had such a nice, long, quiet sleep, without his cough disturbing him as it does of nights. And it will be so good for him."

While Elizabeth was speaking, Tincroft's attention was principally directed towards the sleeper on the opposite side of the arbour, who was quietly resting, with his eyes closed, and one arm loosely hanging down by his side, while his sister's shawl, folded round him, somewhat shaded the lower half of his countenance.

"I wrapped him up in my shawl," continued Elizabeth, in the same guarded tones, "for fear he should get chilled."

"Yes, I see, I see," said John, still scrutinising the sleeper. Then he entered the arbour, and gently glided to his side.

"You won't wake him, please," said Elizabeth, softly.

"No, no, I won't wake him," responded John; but, nevertheless, he ventured to take the nerveless hand in his own. It was deadly cold, he thought, as he loosened it, and it dropped helplessly into its former position. Then he laid his hand on the sleeper's temple, and looked more closely into his face, before he turned to the anxiously watching and now alarmed sister, who gasped—

"Oh, Mr. Tincroft, what is it?"

"Your brother is in a dead faint," he said; "you had better call for help."

And then he busied himself, in his ordinary awkward way, no doubt, in loosening his poor friend's neck-gear, gently placing a loving arm around him for support, while Elizabeth sprang forward with a hysterical cry of:

"Walter, Walter! Brother Walter! Dear brother!"

We shift the scene to a bedchamber in High Beech farmhouse. Walter Wilson had been conveyed thither, and tenderly laid down by rough-handed, but kindly-hearted farm labourers, when he had recovered consciousness sufficiently to admit of removal from the holly arbour. It had been his cousin Sarah's bedroom of old, and was little altered from what it then was. The apartment had been yielded, not very willingly, by Mrs. George Wilson, on the representation that her husband's brother could not, in his present state, be removed to his father's house at Low Beech.

At his side were John Tincroft and Elizabeth Wilson, lovingly tending him, and obeying the directions of a neighbouring surgeon who had been hastily summoned.

When all that skill could suggest had been done, John drew the doctor aside.

"Is the case serious?" he asked.

"He will live forty-eight hours—perhaps twice forty-eight, possibly a week; but he will never rise from that bed except by a miracle," was the reply.

There was no returning to the Manor House to dine that day; and a message was sent by John Tincroft to that effect, stating the reason why.

But later in the evening, he made his appearance there hurriedly. In a few words he explained his haste and his errand. Walter had passionately besought him to send for Helen, that he might see and embrace her once more before he died; for he knew now that death was rapidly approaching. To use the figurative and expressive language of Scripture, "the silver cord was loosed," and "the golden bowl" was "broken." Walter knew that he was dying.

Tincroft was charged with another message also. Walter must see his London lawyer, he said, and John must send him down, to take his dying client's instructions, whatever they might be.

"I must go at once," said John, in great agitation, "if you, Mr. Grigson, will be kind enough to let your groom drive me to the town."

"I will do anything you ask me. Or rather, I will drive you over myself. But what will you do when you get there? You will be too late for the night coach."

"But not for the rail from X—. I have laid my plans, and mean to post on to X—, take the first train to London, and then, after seeing the lawyer, post down to Trotbury."

It was in the early days of railways. As already stated, the London and Trotbury line had not been opened; but two others had, one westward and the other northward. Which of these was to be patronised on this occasion is no matter. It is as well to say, however, that our friend, like a good many other slow-going, prudent personages of that day, had steadily set his face against this new mode of travelling, declaring it a tempting of Providence, and an overturning of all preconceived and preordained modes of locomotion, to make boiling water do the work of horses, and at such an increased pace, too! No wonder, then, that, grave as was the occasion, a smile of surprise and incredulity flitted for a moment across the face of his host.

"You travel by steam, John!"

"Ah, I thought you would say so. But poor dear Helen! I think I would travel in a balloon if it would bring her all the sooner to her father's bedside."

There was nothing more to be said after this; and when, under compulsion, John had partaken of some refreshment, and hastily packed up a small valise, the chaise was brought to the door, and the squire and his guest drove rapidly away.

We need not accompany Tincroft on his anxious journey. It is enough to say that he performed it in what would then have been considered an almost incredibly short space of time, and alarmed the members of his household by a sudden and unexpected inbreak upon them during the small hours of a summer morning.

How he discharged his mournful errand, telling it first to his wife; how Sarah, after a copious flood of tears, composed herself and broken the sorrowful news to the young Helen; how a few hasty preparations were made; and how Sarah, at Helen's mute entreaty and John's express desire, decided on accompanying the sorrow-stricken girl on the journey, need no more words to tell.