Chapter XI: Part 11

That was the beginning of it. Though I go out scarcely ever with the major and Susan, declining invitations on the plea of my duties as governess, it has certainly grown into a habit with me to spend my evenings with them when they are at home.

But I never supposed anything like this would come of it. It has always seemed to me as if the world could see me a little as I see myself, and not think of me as one eligible to be chosen. As soon as I suspected that Mr. McAlpin came here for me, I strove to show him as plainly as I might that he was making a mistake. And now this proves, as it seems to me, how wrong it was not to tell my sad story to Eleanor, but to let her think of me as one still worthy. Susan knows how averse I was to its suppression; but she overruled me, and said Richard thought with her. Eleanor would have whispered it to her husband, and he might have whispered to his brother Andrew, and this new perplexity have been spared. It is not for my own sake I am so sorry, but for his: crosses and vexations are only my due, and I try to take them patiently; but I grow hot with shame every time I think how he is deceived. Oh, if he would only speak out, and end it! that I might thank him and tell him it is impossible: I should like to say unfit. Susan might give him a hint; but when I urge her to do so, she laughs at me and asks, How can she, until he has spoken?

_October 25th._--It has come at last. Mr. McAlpin, one of the best men amidst the honourable men of the world, has asked me to become his wife. Whilst I was trying to answer him, I burst into tears. We were quite alone. "Why do you weep?" he asked, and I answered that I thought it was because of my gratitude to him for his kindness, and because I was so unworthy of it. It was perhaps a hazardous thing to say--but I was altogether confused. I must have explained myself badly, for he could not or would not understand my refusal; he said he certainly should decline to take it: I must consider it well--for a week--or a month--as long as I liked, provided I said "Yes" at last. When the crying was over, I felt myself again; and I told him, just as quietly and calmly as I could speak, that I should never marry; never. He asked _why_, and as I was hesitating what reason to give, and praying to be helped to speak right in the emergency, we were interrupted.

Oh, if I could only tell him the naked truth, as I here write it! That the only one living man it would be possible for me to marry is separated from me wider than seas can part. The barrier was thrown up between us years ago, never to be overstepped by either of us: whilst at the same time it shut me out from my kind. For this reason I can never marry, and never shall marry, so long as the world, for me, endures.

_November 19th._--This is becoming painful. Mr. McAlpin will not give me up. He is all consideration and respect, he is not obtrusive, but yet--he will not give me up. There can exist no good reason why I should not have him, he says; and he is willing to wait for months and years. Eleanor comes in with her remonstrances: "Whatever possesses you, Mary? You must be out of your mind, child, to refuse Andrew McAlpin. For goodness' sake, get a little common sense into your poor crotchety head." Allan McAlpin, in his half-earnest, half-joking way, says to me, "Miss Layne, _I_ make a perfect husband; ask Eleanor if I don't; and I know Andrew will make a better." It is so difficult for me to parry these attacks. The children even have taken it up: and Richard to-day in the schoolroom called me Mrs. McAlpin. Susan has tried to shield me throughout. The major says not a word one way or the other.

A curious idea has come across me once or twice lately--that it might be almost better to give Mr. McAlpin a hint of the truth. Of course it is _but_ an idea; one that can never be carried out; but I know that he would be true as steel. I cannot bear for him to think me ungrateful: and he must consider me both ungrateful and capricious. I respect him and like him very much, and he sees this: if I were at liberty as others are, I would gladly marry him: the great puzzle is, how to make him understand that it is not possible. I suppose the consciousness of my secret, which never leaves me, renders it more difficult for me to be decisive than it would be if I possessed none. Not the least painful part of it all is, that he brings me handsome presents, and will not take them back again. He is nearly old enough to be my father, he says, and so I must consider them as given to me in that light. How shall I stop it?--how convince him?

_November 29th._--Well, I have done it. Last night there was a grand dinner at the mess; some strangers were to join it on invitation; Susan went to spend a quiet hour with the colonel's wife, and Mr. McAlpin came in, and found me alone. What possessed me I cannot tell: but I began to tremble all over. He asked what was the matter, and I took courage to say that I always now felt distressed to see him come in, knowing he came for my sake, and that I could not respond to him as he wished. We had never had so serious a conversation as the one that ensued. He begged me to at least tell him what the barrier was, and where it lay: I thought he almost hinted that it was due to him. "There is some particular barrier, I feel sure," he said, "although Eleanor tells me there is none." And then I took some more courage, inwardly hoping to be helped to speak for the best, and answered Yes, there _was_ a barrier; one that could never be surmounted; and that I had tried to make him see this all along. I told him how truly I esteemed him; how little I felt in my own eyes at being so undeserving of the opinion of a good man; I said I should thank him for it in my heart for ever. Did the barrier lie in my loving another? he asked, and I hesitated there. I _had_ loved another, I said: it was before I came out, and the circumstances attending it were very painful; indeed, it was a painful story altogether. It had blighted my life; it had isolated me from the world; it entirely prevented me from ever thinking of another. I do believe he gathered from my agitation something of the truth, for he was so kind and gentle. Eleanor knew nothing of it, I said; Major and Mrs. Layne had thought there was no need to tell her, and, of course, he would understand that I was speaking to him in confidence. Yes, he answered, in confidence that I should not find misplaced. I felt happier and more at ease with him than I had ever done, for now I knew that misapprehension was over; and we talked together on other matters peacefully, until Major Layne entered and brought a shock with him.

A shock for me. One of the guests at the mess came with him: a naval officer in his uniform: a big man of fifty or sixty years, with a stern countenance and a cloud of untidy white hair. "Where's Susan?" cried the major: "out? Come here, then, Mary: you must be hostess." And before I knew what or who it was, I had been introduced to Admiral Chavasse. My head was in a whirl, my eyes were swimming: I had not heard the name spoken openly for years. Major Layne little thought he was related to G. C.: Mr. McAlpin had no idea that this fine naval officer, Parker Chavasse, could be cousin to one of whom I had been speaking covertly, but had not named. The admiral is on cruise, has touched at Calcutta, and his vessel is lying in Diamond Harbour.

_November 30th._--Oh dear! oh dear! That I should be the recipient of so much goodness, and not be able to appreciate it!

A message came to the schoolroom this morning; Miss Layne was wanted downstairs. It was Susan who sent, but I found Mr. McAlpin alone. He had been holding a confidential interview with Susan: and Susan, hearing how much I had said to him last night, confided to him all. Oh, and he was willing to take me still; to take me as I am! I fell down at his feet sobbing when I told him that it could not be.

[_Private Note from Major Layne's Wife to her Mother at Church Dykely._]

Just half-a-dozen lines, my dear mother, for your eye alone: I enclose them in my ordinary letter, meant for the world in general as well as you. Mr. McAlpin knows _all_; but he was still anxious to make her his wife. He thinks her the best and truest girl, excellent among women. Praise from him _is_ praise. It was, I am certain, a most affecting interview; but they were alone. Mary's refusal--an absolute one--was dictated by two motives. The one is that the old feelings hold still so much sway in her heart (and, she says, always will) as to render the idea of a union with any one else absolutely distasteful. The other motive was consideration for Andrew McAlpin. "I put it to you what it would be," she said to him, "if at any time after our marriage, whether following closely upon it, or in years to come, this story of mine should transpire? I should _die_ with shame, with grief for your sake: and there could be no remedy. No, no; never will I subject you, or any one else, to that frightful chance."

And, mother, she is right. In spite of Mr. McAlpin's present disappointment, I know he thinks her so. It has but increased his admiration for her. He said to me, "Henceforth I shall look upon her as a dear younger sister, and give her still my heart's best love and reverence."

And this is the private history of the affair: I thought I ought to disclose it to you. Richard, while thinking she has done right, says it is altogether an awful pity (he means inclusive of the past), for she's a trump of a girl. And so she is.

Ever yours, dear mother,
SUSAN LAYNE.

+Part the Third.+

It was a lovely place, that homestead of Chavasse Grange, as seen in the freshness of the summer's morning: and my Lady Chavasse, looking from her window as she dressed, might be thinking so. The green lawn, its dew-drops sparkling in the sun, was dotted with beds of many coloured flowers; the thrush and blackbird were singing in the surrounding trees; the far-off landscape, stretched around in the distance, was beautiful for the eye to rest upon.

Nearly hidden by great clusters of roses, some of which he was plucking, and talking at the same time to the head-gardener who stood by, was a good-looking gentleman of some five-and-twenty years. His light morning coat was flung back from the snowy white waistcoat, across which a gold chain passed, its seal drooping; a blue necktie, just as blue as his blue eyes, was carelessly tied round his neck. He might have been known for a Chavasse by those self-same eyes, for they had been his father's--Sir Peter's--before him.

"About those geraniums that you have put out, Markham," he was saying. "How came you to do it? Lady Chavasse is very angry; she wanted them kept in the pots."

"Well, Sir Geoffry, I only obeyed orders," replied the gardener--who was new to the place. "Lady Rachel told me to do it."

"Lady Rachel did? Oh, very well. Lady Chavasse did not understand that, I suppose."

Up went Lady Chavasse's window at this juncture. "Geoffry."

Sir Geoffry stepped out from the roses, and smiled as he answered her.

"Ask Markham about the geraniums, Geoffry--how he could dare to do such a thing without orders."

"Mother, Rachel bade him do it. Of course she did not know that you wished it not done."

"Oh," curtly replied Lady Chavasse. And she shut down the window again.

By this it will be seen that the wishes of the two ladies at Chavasse Grange sometimes clashed. Lady Rachel, though perhaps regarded as second in authority, was fond of having her own way, and took it when she could. Lady Chavasse made a show of deferring to her generally; but she had reigned queen so long that she found it irksome, not to say humiliating, to yield the smallest point to her son's wife.

They were sitting down to breakfast when Sir Geoffry went in, in the room that had once been the garden-parlour. It had been re-embellished since those days, and made the breakfast-room. Lady Chavasse was but in her forty-fourth year; a young woman, so to say, beautiful still, and excellently-well preserved. She wore a handsome dress of green muslin, with a dainty little cap of lace on her rich brown hair. Sir Geoffry's wife was in white; she looked just the same as when she was Rachel Derreston; her perfect features pale, and cold, and faultless.

Geoffry Chavasse laid a rose by the side of each as he sat down. _He_ was the only one changed; changed since the light-hearted days before that episode of sin and care came to the Grange. It had soon passed away again; but somehow it had left its mark on him. His face seemed to have acquired a weary sort of look; and the fair bright hair was getting somewhat thin upon the temples. Sir Geoffry was in Parliament; but he had now paired off for the short remainder of the session. Sometimes they were all in London: sometimes Sir Geoffry would be there alone; or only with his wife: the Grange was their chief and usual home.

They began talking of their plans for the day. Sir Geoffry had to ride over some portion of the estate; Lady Rachel thought she must write some letters; Lady Chavasse, who said her head ached, intended to go out in her new carriage.

It was ordered to the door in the course of the morning: this pretty toy carriage, which had been a recent present from Geoffry to his mother. Low and lightly built, it was something like a basket-chaise, but much more elegant, and the boy-groom, in his natty postillion's dress, sat the horse. Lady Chavasse, a light shawl thrown over her green muslin, and a white bonnet on, stood admiring the turn-out, her maid, who had come out with the parasol, by her side.

"Wilkins," said her ladyship, suddenly, "run and ask Lady Rachel whether she is sure she would not like to go with me?"

The woman went and returned. "Lady Rachel's love and thanks, my lady, but she would prefer to get her letters done."

So Lady Chavasse went alone, taking the road to Church Dykely. The hedges were blooming with wild roses and woodbine, the sweet scent of the hay filled the air, the sky was blue and cloudless. But the headache was making itself sensibly felt; and my lady, remembering that she had often had these headaches lately, began wondering whether Duffham the surgeon could give her anything to cure them.

"Giles," she cried, leaning forward. And the groom turned and touched his cap.

"My lady?"

"To Mr. Duffham's."

So in the middle of the village, at Mr. Duffham's door, Giles pulled up. The surgeon, seeing who it was, came out, and handed his visitor indoors.

Lady Chavasse had not enjoyed a gossip with Mr. Duffham since before her last absence from home. She rather liked one in her coldly condescending way. And she stayed with him in the surgery while he made up some medicine for her, and told her all the village news. Then she began talking about her daughter-in-law.

"Lady Rachel seems well, but there is a little fractiousness perceptible now and then; and I fancy that, with some people, it denotes a state of not perfect health. There are _no_ children, Mr. Duffham, you see. There have been no signs of any."

"Time enough for that, my lady."

"Well--they have been married for--let me recollect--nearly fourteen months. I do hope there will be children! I am anxious that there should be."

The surgeon happened to meet her eyes as she spoke, and read the anxiety seated in them.

"You see--if there were none, and anything happened to Sir Geoffry, it would be the case of the old days--my case over again. Had my child proved to be a girl, the Grange would have gone from us. You do not remember that; you were not here; but your predecessor, Mr. Layne, knew all about it."

Perhaps it was the first time for some three or more years past that Lady Chavasse had voluntarily mentioned the name of Layne to the surgeon. It might have been a slip of the tongue now.

"But nothing is likely to happen to Sir Geoffry, Lady Chavasse," observed Duffham, after an imperceptible pause. "He is young and healthy."

"I know all that. Only it would be pleasant to feel we were on the safe side--that there was a son to succeed. If anything did happen to him, and he left no son, the Grange would pass away from us. I cannot help looking to contingencies: it has been my way to do so all my life."

"Well, Lady Chavasse, I sincerely hope the son will come. Sir Geoffry is anxious on the point, I dare say."

"He makes no sign of being so. Sir Geoffry seems to me to have grown a little indifferent in manner of late, as to general interests. Yesterday afternoon we were talking about making some improvements at the Grange, he and I; Lady Rachel was indoors at the piano. I remarked that it would cost a good deal of money, and the question was, whether it would be worth while to do it. 'My successor would think it so, no doubt,' cried Sir Geoffry. 'I hope that will never be Parker Chavasse; I should not like him to reign here,' I said hastily. 'If it is, mother, I shall not be alive to witness it,' was his unemotional answer."

"Lady Chavasse, considering the difference between the admiral's age and Sir Geoffry's, I should say there are thirty chances against it," was Duffham's reply, as he began to roll up the bottle of mixture in white paper.

While he was doing this, a clapping of tiny hands attracted Lady Chavasse's attention to the window, which stood open. A little boy had run out of Mrs. Layne's door opposite, and stood on the pavement in admiration of the carriage, which the groom was driving slowly about. It was a pretty child of some three years old, or thereabouts, in a brown holland pinafore strapped round the waist, his little arms and legs and neck bare, and his light hair curling.

"Oh, g'andma, look! G'andma, come and look!" he cried--and the words were wafted distinctly to Lady Chavasse.

"Who _is_ that child, Mr. Duffham? I have seen him sometimes before. Stay, though, I remember--I think I have heard. He belongs to that daughter of Mr. Layne's who married a soldier of the same name. A lieutenant, or some grade of that kind, was he not?"

"Lieutenant Layne then: Captain Layne now," carelessly replied Mr. Duffham. "Hopes to get his majority in time, no doubt."

"Oh, indeed. I sometimes wonder how people devoid of family connections manage to obtain rapid promotion. The grandmother takes care of the child, I suppose. Quite a charge for her."

Mr. Duffham, standing now by her side, glanced at Lady Chavasse. Her countenance was open, unembarrassed: there was no sign of ulterior thought upon it. Evidently a certain event of the past was not just then in her remembrance.

"How is the old lady?" she asked.

"Middling. She breaks fast. I doubt, though, if one of her daughters will not go before her."

Lady Chavasse turned quickly at the words.

"I speak of the one who is with her--Miss Elizabeth Layne," continued Mr. Duffham, busily rolling up the bottle. "Her health is failing: I think seriously; though she may linger for some time yet."

There was a pause. Lady Chavasse looked hard at the white knobs on the drug-drawers. But that she began to speak, old Duffham might have thought she was counting how many there were of them.

"The other one--Miss Mary Layne--is she still in that situation in India? A governess, or something of the kind, we heard she went out to be."

"Governess to Captain Layne's children. Oh yes, she's there. And likely to be, the people over the way seem to say. Captain and Mrs. Layne consider that they have a treasure in her."

"Oh, I make no doubt she would do her duty. Thank you; never mind sealing it. I will be sure to attend to your directions, Mr. Duffham."

She swept out to the carriage, which had now drawn up, and stepped over the low step into it. The surgeon put the bottle by her side, and saluted her as she drove away. Across the road trotted the little fellow in the pinafore.

"Did oo see dat booful tarriage, Mis'er Duffham? I'd like to 'ide in it."

"You would, would you, Master Arthur," returned the surgeon, hoisting the child for a moment on his shoulder, and then setting him on his feet again, as Miss Layne appeared at the door. "Be off back: there's Aunt Elizabeth looking angry. It's against the law, you know, sir, to run out beyond the house."

And the little lad ran over at once, obediently.

Nearly three years back--not quite so much by two or three months--Church Dykely was gratified by the intelligence that Captain Layne's wife--then sojourning in Europe--was coming on a short visit to her mother with her three or four weeks' old baby. Church Dykely welcomed the news, for it was a sort of break to the monotonous, jog-trot village life, and warmly received Mrs. Richard Layne and the child on their arrival. The infant was born in France, where Mrs. Richard Layne had been staying with one of her sisters--Mary--and whence she had now come direct to her mother's; Mary having gone on to Liverpool to join Mrs. Richard Layne's other children. The baby--made much of by the neighbours--was to remain with old Mrs. Layne: Mrs. Richard Layne did not deem it well to take so young a child to India, as he seemed rather delicate. Church Dykely said how generous it was of her to sacrifice her motherly feelings for the baby's good--but the Laynes had always been unselfish. She departed, leaving the child. And Baby Arthur, as all the place called him, lived and thrived, and was now grown as fine a little fellow for his age as might be, with a generous spirit and open heart. My Lady Chavasse (having temporarily forgotten it when speaking with Mr. Duffham) had heard all about the child's parentage just as the village had--that he was the son of Captain Richard Layne and his wife Susan. Chavasse Grange generally understood the same, including Sir Geoffry. There was no intercourse whatever between the Layne family and the Grange; there had not been any since Miss Mary Layne quitted it. My Lady Chavasse was in the habit of turning away her eyes when she passed Mrs. Layne's house: and in good truth, though perhaps her conscience reminded her of it at these moments, she had three-parts forgotten the unpleasant episode of the past.

And the little boy grew and thrived: and became as much a feature in Church Dykely as other features were--say the bridge over the mill-stream, or the butcher's wife--and was no more thought of, in the matter of speculation, than they were.

Miss Elizabeth Layne caught hold of the young truant's hand with a jerk and a reprimand, telling him he would be run over some day. She had occasion to tell it him rather often, for he was of a fearless nature. Mr. Duffham nodded across the road to Miss Elizabeth.

"Are you better to-day?" he called out. People don't stand on ceremony in these rural places.

"Not much, thank you," came the answer.

For Miss Elizabeth Layne had been anything but strong lately: her symptoms being very like those that herald consumption.

* * * * *

The time rolled on, bringing its changes. You have already seen it rolling on in Calcutta, for in this, the third part, we have had to go back a year or two.

Elizabeth Layne died. Mrs. Layne grew very feeble, and it was thought and said by every one that one of her daughters ought to be residing with her. There was only one left unmarried--Mary. Mary received news in India of this state of things at home, together with a summons from her mother. Not at all a peremptory summons. Mrs. Layne wrote a few shaky lines, praying her to come "if she would not mind returning to the place:" if she did mind it, why, she, the mother, must die alone as she best could. There was a short struggle in Mary Layne's heart; a quick, sharp battle, and she gave in. Her duty to her mother lay before aught else in God's sight; and she would yield to it. As soon as preparations for her voyage could be made, she embarked for England.

It was autumn when she got home, and Church Dykely received her gladly. Mary Layne had always been a favourite in the place, from the time her father, the good-hearted, hard-working surgeon, had fondly shown her, his youngest and fairest child, to the public, a baby of a few days old. But Church Dykely found her greatly changed. They remembered her as a blooming girl; she came back to them a grave woman, looking older than her years, and with a pale sweet countenance that seemed never to have a smile on it. She was only six-and-twenty yet.

Miss Layne took up her post at once by the side of her ailing mother. What with attending her and attending to Baby Arthur--whom she took into training at once, just as she had taken the children in India--she found her time fully occupied. The boy, when she returned, was turned five. She went out very rarely; never--except to church, or at dusk--when the family were at the Grange, for she seemed to have a dread of meeting them. Church Dykely wondered that Miss Layne did not call at the Grange, considering that she had been humble companion there before she went out, or that my lady did not come to see her; but supposed the lapse of time had caused the acquaintanceship to fall through.

Mary had brought good news from India. Her sister Eleanor, Mrs. Allan McAlpin, had a little girl, to the great delight of all concerned. Just when they had given it up as hopeless, the capricious infant arrived. Major Layne told his wife confidentially that Allan McAlpin was prouder of that baby than any dog with two tails.

And henceforth this was to be Mary Layne's home, and this her occupation--caring for her mother, so long as the old lady should be spared, and gently leading to good the child, Arthur. Mrs. Layne, lapsing into her dotage, would sit in her favourite place, the parlour window, open when the weather allowed it, watching people as they passed. Mary's smooth and bright brown hair might be seen in the background, her head drooping over the book she was reading to Mrs. Layne, or over her work when the old lady grew tired of listening, or over Master Arthur's lessons at the table. Not only lessons to fit him for this world did Mary teach him; but such as would stand him in good aid when striving onwards for the next. Twice a day, morning and evening, would she take the child alone, and talk to him of heaven, and things pertaining to it. Aunt Elizabeth's lessons had been chiefly on the score of behaviour: the other sort of instruction had been all routine, at the best. Mary remedied this, and she had an apt little scholar. Seated on her knee, his bright blue eyes turned up to her face, the child would listen and talk, and say he would be a good boy always, always. The tears wet his eyelashes at her Bible stories: he would put his little face down on her bosom, and whisper out a sobbing wish that Jesus would love _him_ as He had loved the little children on earth. There is no safeguard like this seed sown in childhood: if withheld, nothing can replace it in after-life.

They grew the best and greatest friends, these two. Whether Mary loved him, or not, she did not say; she was ever patient and thoughtful with him, with a kind of grave tenderness. But the child grew to love her more than he had ever loved any one in his young life. One day, when he did something wrong and saw how it grieved her, his repentant sobs nearly choked him. It was very certain that Mary had found the way to his heart, and might mould him for good or for ill.

The child was a chatterbox. Aunt Elizabeth used to say he ought to have the tip of his tongue cut off. He seemed never tired of asking about papa and mamma in India, and Allan and Bobby and the rest, and the elephants and camels--and Dick the eldest, who was in London, at the school attached to King's College.

"When will they come over to see us, Aunt Mary?" he questioned one day, when he was on Mary's knee.

"If grandmamma's pretty well we, will have Dick down at Christmas."

"Is Dick to be a soldier like papa?"

"I think so."

"I shall be a soldier too."

There was an involuntary tightening of her hands round him--as if she would guard him from _that_.

"I hope not, Arthur. One soldier in a family's enough: and that is to be Richard."

"Is papa a very big, big brave man, with a flashing sword?"

"Major Layne is tall and very brave. He wears his sword sometimes."

"Oh, Aunt Mary, I should like to be a soldier and have a sword! When I can write well enough I'll write a letter to papa to ask him. I'd like to ride on the elephants."

"They are not as good to ride as horses."

"Is mamma as pretty as you?" demanded Master Arthur, after a pause.

"Prettier. I am pale and--" sad, she was going to say, but put another word--"quiet."

"When you go back to India, Aunt Mary, shall you take me? I should like to sail in the great ship."

"Arthur dear, I do not think I shall go back."

And so Miss Mary Layne--she was Miss Layne now--stayed on. Church Dykely would see a slender, grave young lady, dressed generally in black silk, whose sweet face seemed to have too careworn an expression for her years. But if her countenance was worn and weary, her heart was not. That seemed full of love and charity for all; of gentle compassion for any wrong-doer, of sympathy for the sick and suffering. She grew to be revered, and valued, and respected as few had ever been in Church Dykely: certainly as none had, so young as she was. Baby Arthur, clacking his whip as he went through the streets on his walks by the nurse Betsy's side, his chattering tongue never still; now running into the blacksmith's shed to watch the sparks; now perching himself on the top of the village stocks; and now frightening Betsy out of her senses by attempting to leap the brook--in spite of these outdoor attractions, Baby Arthur was ever ready to run home to Aunt Mary, as though she were his best treasure.

When Miss Layne had been about six months at her mother's, a piece of munificent good fortune befel her--as conveyed to her in official and unofficial communications from India. Andrew McAlpin--the head of the great McAlpin house in Calcutta, who had respected Mary Layne above all women, and had wished to marry her, as may be remembered--Andrew McAlpin was dead, and had left some of his accumulated wealth to Mary. It would amount to six hundred a-year, and was bequeathed to her absolutely: at her own disposal to will away when she in turn should die. In addition to this, he directed that the sum of one thousand pounds should be paid to her at once. He also left a thousand pounds to Mrs. Richard Layne--but that does not concern us. This good man's death brought great grief to Mary. It had been the result of an accident: he lay ill only a few weeks. As to the fortune--well, of course that was welcome, for Mary had been casting many an anxious thought to the future on sundry scores, and what little money she had been able to put by, out of the salary as governess at Major Layne's, was now nearly exhausted. She thought she knew why Mr. McAlpin had thus generously remembered her: and it was an additional proof of the thoughtful goodness which had ever characterized his life. Oh, if she could only have thanked him! if she had only known it before he died! He had been in the habit of corresponding with her since her return to Europe, for she and he had remained firm friends, but the thought of ever benefiting by him in this way had never entered her head. As how should it?--seeing that he was a strong man, and only in the prime of life. She mourned his loss: she thought she could best have spared any other friend; but all the regrets in the world would not bring him back to life. He was gone. And Allan McAlpin was now sole head of that wealthy house, besides inheriting a vast private fortune from his brother. Eleanor McAlpin, once Eleanor Layne, might well wish for more children amidst all her riches.

The first thing that Mary Layne did with some of this thousand pounds--which had been conveyed to her simultaneously with the tidings of the death--was to convey her mother to the seaside for a change, together with Baby Arthur and the nurse, Betsy. Before quitting home she held one or two interviews with James Spriggings, the house agent, builder, and decorator, and left certain orders with him. On their return, old Mrs. Layne did not know her house. It had been put into substantial repair inside and out, and was now one of the prettiest, not to say handsomest, in the village. All the old carpets were replaced by handsome new ones, and a great deal of the furniture was new. Pillars had been added to the rather small door, giving it an imposing appearance, iron outside railings had taken the place of the old ones. Mrs. Layne, I say, did not know her house again.

"My dear, why have you done it?" cried the old lady, looking about her in amazement. "Is it not a waste of money?"

"I think not, mother," was the answer. "Most likely this will be my home for life. Perhaps Arthur's home after me. At least it will be his until he shall be of an age to go out in the world."

Mrs. Layne said no more. She had grown of late very indifferent to outward things. Aged people do get so, and Mr. Duffham said her system was breaking up. The seaside air had done her good; they had gone to it in May, and came back in August. Mary added a third servant to the household, and things went on as before in their quiet routine.

One afternoon in September, when they had been at home about a month, Mary went out, and took Arthur. She was going to see a poor cottager who had nursed herself, Mary, when she was a child, and who had recently lost her husband. When they came to the gates of Chavasse Grange, past which their road lay, Master Arthur made a dead standstill, and wholly declined to proceed. The child was in a black velvet tunic, the tips of his white drawers just discernible beneath it, and his legs bare, down to the white socks: boys of his age were dressed so then. As bonny a lad for his six years as could be seen anywhere, with a noble, fearless bearing. Mary wore her usual black silk, a rich one too, with a little crape on it; the mourning for Mr. McAlpin. Arthur was staring over the way through the open gates of the Grange.

"I want to go in and see the peacock."

"Go in and see the peacock!" exclaimed Miss Layne, rather taken aback by the demand. "What can you mean, Arthur? The peacock is up by the house."

"I know it is. We can go up there and see it, Aunt Mary."

"Indeed we cannot, Arthur. I never heard of such a thing."

"Betsy lets me go."

The confession involved all sorts of thoughts, and a flush crossed Miss Layne's delicate face. The family were not at the Grange, as she knew: they had gone up to London in January, when Parliament met, and had never returned since: nevertheless she did not like to hear of this intrusion into the grounds of the nurse and child. The peacock had been a recent acquisition; or, as Arthur expressed it, had just "come to live there." When he had talked of it at home, Mary supposed he had seen it on the slopes in passing. These green slopes, dotted here and there with shrubs and flowers, came down to the boundary wall that skirted the highway. The avenue through the gates wound round abruptly, hiding itself beyond the lodge.

"Come, my dear. It is already late."

"But, Aunt Mary, you _must_ see the peacock. He has got the most splendid tail. Sometimes he drags it behind him on the grass, and sometimes it's all spread out in a beautiful circle, like that fan you brought home from India. Do come."

Miss Layne did not reply for the moment. She was inwardly debating upon what plea she could forbid the child's ever going in again to see the peacock: the interdiction would sound most arbitrary if she gave none. All at once, as if by magic, the peacock appeared in view, strutting down the slopes, its proud tail, in all its glory, spread out in the rays of the declining sun.

It was too much for Arthur. With a shout of delight he leaped off the low foot-path, flew across the road, and in at the gates. In vain Mary called: in his glad excitement he did not so much as hear her.

There ensued a noise as of the fleet foot of a horse, and then a crash, a man's shout, and a child's cry. What harm had been done? In dire fear Mary Layne ran to see, her legs trembling beneath her.

Just at the sharp turn beyond the lodge, a group stood: Sir Geoffry Chavasse had Arthur in his arms; his horse, from which he had flung himself, being held and soothed by a mounted groom. The lodge children also had come running out to look. She understood it in a moment: Sir Geoffry must have been riding quickly down from the house, his groom behind him, when the unfortunate little intruder encountered him just at the turn, and there was no possibility of pulling up in time. In fact, the boy had run absolutely on to the horse's legs.

She stood, white, and faint, and sick against the wall of the lodge: not daring to look into the accident--for Mary Layne was but a true woman, timid and sensitive; as little daring to encounter Sir Geoffry Chavasse, whom she had not been close to but for a few months short of seven years. That it should have occurred!--that this untoward thing should have occurred!

"I wonder whose child it is?" she heard Sir Geoffry say--and the well-remembered tones came home to her with a heart-thrill. "Poor little fellow! could it have been my fault, or his? Dovey"--to the groom--"ride on at once and get Mr. Duffham here. Never mind my horse; he's all right now. You can lead him up to the house, Bill, my lad!"

The groom touched his hat, and rode past Mary on his errand. Sir Geoffry was already carrying the child to the Grange; Bill, the eldest of the lodge children, following with the horse. All in a minute, a wailing cry burst from Arthur.

"Aunt Mary! Aunt Mary! Oh, please let her come! I want Aunt Mary."

And then it struck Sir Geoffry Chavasse that a gentleman's child, such as this one by his appearance evidently was, would not have been out without an attendant. He turned round, and saw a lady in black standing by the lodge. The wailing cry began again.

"Aunt Mary! I want Aunt Mary."

There was no help for it. She came on with her agitated face, from which every drop of blood had faded. Sir Geoffry, occupied with the child, did not notice her much.

"I am so grieved," he began; "I trust the injury will be found not to be very serious. My horse----"

He had lifted his eyes then, and knew her instantly. His own face turned crimson; the words he had been about to say died unspoken on his lips. For a moment they looked in each other's faces, and might have seen, had the time been one of less agitation, how markedly sorrow had left its traces there. The next, they remembered the present time, and what was due from them.

"I beg your pardon: Miss Layne, I think?" said Sir Geoffry, contriving to release one hand and raise his hat.

"Yes, sir," she answered, and bowed in return.

He sat down on the bank for a moment to obtain a better hold of the child. Blood was dripping from one of the little velvet sleeves. Sir Geoffry, carrying him as gently as was possible, made all haste to the house. The window of what had been the garden-parlour stood open, and he took him into it at once. Ah, how they both remembered it. It had been refurnished and embellished now: but the room was the room still. Sir Geoffry had returned home that morning. His wife and Lady Chavasse were not expected for a day or two. Scarcely any servants were as yet in the house; but the woman who had been left in charge, Hester Picker, came in with warm water. She curtsied to Miss Layne.

"Dear little fellow!" she exclaimed, her tongue ready as of old. "How did it happen, sir?"

"My horse knocked him down," replied Sir Geoffry. "Get me some linen, Picker."

The boy lay on the sofa where he had been put, his hat off, and his pretty light brown hair falling from his face, pale now. Apparently there was no injury except to the arm. Sir Geoffry looked at Mary.

"I am a bit of a surgeon," he said. "Will you allow me to examine his hurt as a surgeon would? Duffham cannot be here just yet."

"Oh yes, certainly," she answered.

"I must cut his velvet sleeve up."

And she bowed in acquiescence to that.

Hester Picker came in with the linen. Before commencing to cut the sleeve, Sir Geoffry touched the arm here and there, as if testing where the damage might lie. Arthur cried out.

"That hurts you," said Sir Geoffry.

"Not much," answered the little fellow, trying to be brave. "Papa's a soldier, and I want to be a soldier, so I won't mind a little hurt."

"Your papa's a soldier? Ah, yes, I think I remember," said Sir Geoffry, turning to Mary. "It is the little son of Captain Layne."

"My papa is Major Layne now," spoke up Arthur, before she could make any answer. "He and mamma live in India."

"And so you want to be a soldier, the same as papa?" said Sir Geoffry, testing the basin of water with his finger, which Picker was holding, and which had been brought in very hot.

"Yes, I do. Aunt Mary there says No, and grandmamma says No; but--oh, what's that?"

He had caught sight of the blood for the first time, and broke off with a shuddering cry. Sir Geoffry was ready now, and had the scissors in his hand. But before using them he spoke to Miss Layne.

"Will you sit here whilst I look at it?" he asked, putting a chair with its face to the open window, and its back to the sofa. And she understood the motive and thanked him: and said she would walk about outside.

By-and-by, when she was tired of waiting, and all seemed very quiet, she looked in. Arthur had fainted. Sir Geoffry was bathing his forehead with eau-de-Cologne; Picker had run for something in a tumbler and wine stood on the table.

"Was it the pain?--did it hurt him very badly?" asked Mary, supposing that the arm had been bathed and perhaps dressed.

"I have not done anything to it; I preferred to leave it for Duffham," said Sir Geoffry--and at the same moment she caught sight of the velvet sleeve laid open, and something lying on it that looked like a mass of linen. Mary turned even whiter than the child.

"Do not be alarmed," said Sir Geoffry. "Your little nephew is only faint from the loss of blood. Drink this," he added, bringing her a glass of wine.

But she would not take it. As Sir Geoffry was putting it on the table, Arthur began to revive. Young children are elastic--ill one minute, well the next; and he began to talk again.

"Aunt Mary, are you there?"

She moved to the sofa, and took his uninjured hand.

"We must not tell grandmamma, Aunt Mary. It would frighten her."

"Bless his dear little thoughtful heart!" interjected Hester Picker. "Here comes something."

The something proved to be a fly, and it brought Mr. Duffham. Before the groom had reached the village, he overtook this said fly and the surgeon in it, who was then returning home from another accident. Turning round at the groom's news--"Some little child had run against Sir Geoffry's horse, and was hurt"--he came up to the Grange.

When Mr. Duffham saw that it was _this_ child, he felt curiously taken aback. Up the room and down the room looked he; then at Sir Geoffry, then at Miss Layne, then at Hester Picker, saying nothing. Last of all he walked up to the sofa and gazed at the white face lying there.

"Well," said he, "and what's this? And how did it happen?"

"It was the peacock," Arthur answered. "I ran away from Aunt Mary to look at it, and the horse came."

"The dear innocent!" cried Hester Picker. "No wonder he ran. It's a love of a peacock."

"Don't you think it was very naughty, young sir, to run from your aunt?" returned Mr. Duffham.

"Yes, very; because she had told me not to. Aunt Mary, I'll never do it again."

The two gentlemen and Hester Picker remained in the room; Mary again left it. The arm was crushed rather badly; and Mr. Duffham knew it would require care and skill to cure it.

"You must send to Worcester for its best surgeon to help you," said the baronet, when the dressing was over. "I feel that I am responsible to Major Layne."

Old Duffham nearly closed his eyelids as he glanced at the speaker. "I don't think it necessary," he said; "no surgeon can do more than I can. However, it may be satisfactory to Major Layne that we should be on the safe side, so I'll send."

When the child was ready, Mary got into the fly, which had waited, and Mr. Duffham put him to lie on her lap.

"I hope, Miss Layne, I may be allowed to call to-morrow and see how he gets on," said Sir Geoffry, at the same time. And she did not feel that it was possible for her to say No. Mr. Duffham mounted beside the driver; to get a sniff, he said, of the evening air.

"How he is changed! He has suffered as I have," murmured Mary Layne to herself, as her tears fell on Baby Arthur, asleep now. "I am very thankful that he has no suspicion."

The child had said, "Don't tell grandmamma;" but to keep it from Mrs. Layne was simply impossible. With the first stopping of the fly at the door, out came the old lady; she had been marvelling what had become of them, and was wanting her tea. Mr. Duffham took her in again, and said a few words, making light of it, before he lifted out Baby Arthur.

A skilful surgeon was at the house the next day, in conjunction with Mr. Duffham. The arm and its full use would be saved, he said; its cure effected; but the child and those about him must have patience, for it might be rather a long job. Arthur said he should like to write to his papa in India, and tell him that it was his own fault for running away from Aunt Mary; he could write letters in big text hand. The surgeon smiled, and told him he must wait until he could use both arms again.

The doctors had not left the house many minutes when Sir Geoffry Chavasse called, having walked over from the Grange. Miss Layne sent her mother to receive him, and disappeared herself. The old lady, her perceptions a little dulled with time and age, and perhaps also her memory, felt somewhat impressed and flattered at the visit. To her it almost seemed the honour that it used to be: that one painful episode of the past seemed to be as much forgotten at the moment as though it had never had place. She took Sir Geoffry upstairs.

Arthur was lying close to the window, in the strong light of the fine morning. It was the first clear view Sir Geoffry had obtained of him. The garden-parlour at the Grange faced the east, so that the room on the previous evening, being turned from the setting sun, had been shady at the best, and the sofa was at the far end of it. As Sir Geoffry gazed at the child now, the face struck him as being like somebody's; he could not tell whose. The dark blue eyes especially, turned up in all their eager brightness to his, seemed quite familiar.

"He says I must not write to papa until I get well," said Arthur, who had begun to look on Sir Geoffry as an old acquaintance.

"Who does?" asked the baronet.

"The gentleman who came with Mr. Duffham."

"He means the doctor from Worcester, Sir Geoffry," put in old Mrs. Layne. She was sitting in her easy-chair near, as she had been previously; her spectacles keeping the place between the leaves of the closed Bible, which she had again taken on her lap; her withered hands, in their black lace mittens and frilled white ruffles, were crossed upon the Book. Every now and then she nodded with incipient sleep.

"I am so very sorry this should have happened," Sir Geoffry said, turning to Mrs. Layne. "The little fellow was running up to get a look at the peacock, it seems; and I was riding rather fast. I shall never ride fast round that corner again."

"But, Sir Geoffry, they tell me that the child ran right against you at the corner: that it was no fault of yours at all, sir."

"It was my fault, grandmamma," said Arthur. "And, Sir Geoffry, that's why I wanted to write to papa; I want to tell him so."

"I think I had better write for you," said Sir Geoffry, looking down at the boy with a smile.

"Will you? Shall you tell him it was my fault?"

"No. I shall tell him it was mine."

"But it was not yours. You must not write what is not true. If Aunt Mary thought I could tell a story, or write one, oh, I don't know what she'd do. God hears all we say, you know."

Sir Geoffry smiled--a sad smile--at the earnest words, at the eager look in the bright eyes. Involuntarily the wish came into his mind that _he_ had a brave, fearless-hearted, right-principled son, such as this boy evidently was.