Chapter I

I think it must have been the illness he had in the summer that tended to finally break down Valentine Chandler. He had been whirling along all kinds of doubtful ways before, but when a sort of low fever attacked him, and he had to lie by for weeks, he was about done for.

That's how we found it when we got to Crabb Cot in October. Valentine, what with illness, his wild ways and his ill-luck, had come to grief and was about to emigrate to Canada. His once flourishing practice had run away from him; no prospect seemed left to him in the old country.

"It is an awful pity!" I remarked to Mrs. Cramp, having overtaken her in the Islip Road, as she was walking towards home.

"Ay, it is that, Johnny Ludlow," she said, turning her comely face to me, the strings of her black bonnet tied in a big bow under her chin. "Not much else was to be expected, taking all things into consideration. George Chandler, Tom's brother, makes a right good thing of it in Canada, farming, and Val is going to him."

"We hear that Val's mother is leaving North Villa."

"She can't afford to stay in it now," returned Mrs. Cramp, "so has let it to the Miss Dennets, and taken a pretty little place for herself in Crabb. Georgiana has gone out as a governess."

"Will she like that?"

"Ah, Master Johnny! There are odd moments throughout all our lives when we have to do things we don't like any more than we like poison--I hate to look at the place," cried Mrs. Cramp, energetically. "When I think of Mrs. Jacob's having to turn out of it, and all through Val's folly, it gives me the creeps."

This applied to North Villa, of which we then were abreast. Mrs. Cramp turned her face from it, and went on sideways, like a crab.

"Why, here's Jane Preen!"

She was coming along quietly in the afternoon sunshine. I thought her altered. The once pretty blush-rose of her dimpled cheeks had faded; in her soft blue eyes, so like Oliver's, lay a look of sadness. He had been dead about a year now. But the blush came back again, and the eyes lighted up with smiles as I took her hand. Mrs. Cramp went on; she was in a hurry to reach her home, which lay between Islip and Crabb. Jane rang the bell at North Villa.

"Shall I take a run over to Duck Brook to-morrow, Jane, and sit with you in the Inlets, and we'll have a spell of gossip together?"

"I never sit in the Inlets now," she said, in a half whisper, turning her face away.

"Forgive me, Jane," I cried, repenting my thoughtlessness; and she disappeared up the garden path.

Susan opened the door. Her mistress was out, she said, but Miss Clementina was at home. It was Clementina that Jane wanted to see.

Valentine, still weak, was lying on the sofa in the parlour when Jane entered. He got up, all excitement at seeing her, and they sat down together.

"I brought this for Clementina," she said, placing a paper parcel on the table. "It is a pattern which she asked me for. Are you growing stronger?"

"Clementina is about somewhere," he observed; "the others are out. Yes, I am growing stronger; but it seems to me that I am a long while about it."

They sat on in silence, side by side, neither speaking. Valentine took Jane's hand and held it within his own, which rested on his knee. It seemed that they had lost their tongues--as we say to the children.

"Is it all decided?" asked Jane presently. "Quite decided?"

"Quite, Jane. Nothing else is left for me."

She caught her breath with one of those long sighs that tell of inward tribulation.

"I should have been over to see you before this, Jane, but that my legs would not carry me to Duck Brook and back again without sitting down by the wayside. And you--you hardly ever come here now."

A deep flush passed swiftly over Jane's face. She had not liked to call at the troubled house. And she very rarely came so far as Crabb now: there seemed to be no plea for it.

"What will be the end, Val?" she whispered.

Valentine groaned. "I try not to think of it, my dear. When I cannot put all thought of the future from me, it gives me more torment than I know how to bear. If only----"

The door opened, and in came Clementina, arresting what he had been about to say.

"This is the pattern you asked me for, Clementina," Jane said, rising to depart on her return home. For she would not risk passing the Inlets after sunset.

* * * * *

A week or two went by, and the time of Valentine Chandler's departure arrived. He had grown well and strong apparently, and went about to say Good-bye to people in a subdued fashion. The Squire took him apart when Val came for that purpose to us, and talked to him in private. Tod called it a "Curtain Lecture." Valentine was to leave Crabb at daybreak on the Saturday morning for London, and go at once on board the ship lying in the docks about to steam away for Quebec.

It perhaps surprised none of us who knew the Chandler girls that they should be seen tearing over the parish on the Friday afternoon to invite people to tea. "It will be miserably dull this last evening, you know, Johnny," they said to me in their flying visit; "we couldn't stand it alone. Be sure to come in early: and leave word that Joseph Todhetley is to join us as soon as he gets back again." For Tod had gone out.

According to orders, I was at North Villa betimes: and, just as on that other afternoon, I met Jane Preen at the gate. She had walked in from Duck Brook.

"You are going to spend the evening here, Jane?"

"Yes, it is the last evening," she sighed. "Valentine wished it."

"The girls have been to invite me; wouldn't let me say No. There's to be quite a party."

"A party!" exclaimed Jane, in surprise.

"If they could manage to get one up."

"I am sure Valentine did not know that this morning."

"I daresay not. I asked the girls if Valentine wanted a crowd there on his last evening, and they exclaimed that Valentine never knew what was good for him."

"As you are here, Johnny," she went on, after a silence, "I wonder if you would mind my asking you to do me a favour? It is to walk home with me after tea. I shall not be late this evening."

"Of course I will, Jane."

"I _cannot_ go past the Inlets alone after dark," she whispered. "I never do so by daylight but a dreadful shiver seizes me. I--I'm afraid of seeing something."

"Have you ever seen it since that first evening, Jane?"

"Never since. Never once. I do not suppose that I shall ever see it again; but the fear lies upon me."

She went on to explain that the gig could not be sent for her that evening, as Mr. Preen had gone to Alcester in it and taken Sam. Her mode and voice seemed strangely subdued, as if all spirit had left her for ever.

In spite of their efforts, the Miss Chandlers met with little luck. One of the Letsom girls and Tom Coney were all the recruits they were able to pick up. They came dashing in close upon our heels. In the hall stood Valentine's luggage locked and corded, ready for conveyance to the station.

There's not much to relate of that evening: I hardly know why I allude to it at all--only that these painful records sometimes bring a sad sort of soothing to the weary heart, causing it to look forward to that other life where will be no sorrow and no parting.

Tod came in after tea. He and Coney kept the girls alive, if one might judge by the laughter that echoed from the other room. Tea remained on the table for anyone else who might arrive, but Mrs. Jacob Chandler had turned from it to put her feet on the fender. She kept me by her, asking about a slight accident which had happened to one of our servants. Valentine and Jane were standing at the doors of the open window in silence, as if they wanted to take in a view of the garden. And that state of things continued, as it seemed to me, for a good half-hour.

It was a wild night, but very warm for November. White clouds scudded across the face of the sky; moonlight streamed into the room. The fire was low, and the green shade had been placed over the lamp, so that there seemed to be no light but that of the moon.

"Won't you sing a song for the last time, Valentine?" I heard Jane ask him with half a sob.

"Not to-night; I'm not equal to it. But, yes, I will; one song," he added, turning round. "Night and day that one song has been ever haunting me, Jane."

He was sitting down to the piano when Mrs. Cramp came in. She said she would go up to take her bonnet off, and Mrs. Chandler went with her. This left me alone at the fire. I should have made a start for the next room where the laughing was, but that I did not like to disturb the song then begun. Jane stood listening just outside the open window, her hands covering her bent face.

Whether the circumstances and surroundings made an undue impression on me, I know not, but the song struck me as being the most plaintive one I had ever heard and singularly appropriate to that present hour. The singer was departing beyond seas, leaving one he loved hopelessly behind him.

"Remember me, though rolling ocean place its bounds 'twixt thee
and me,
Remember me with fond emotion, and believe I'll think of thee."

So it began; and I wish I could recollect how it went on, but I can't; only a line here and there. I think it was set to the tune of Weber's Last Waltz, but I'm not sure. There came a line, "My lingering look from thine will sever only with an aching heart;" there came another bit towards the end: "But fail not to remember me."

Nothing in themselves, you will say, these lines; their charm lay in the singing. To listen to their mournful pathos brought with it a strange intensity of pain. Valentine sang them as very few can sing. That his heart was aching, aching with a bitterness which can never be pictured except by those who have felt it; that Jane's heart was aching as she listened, was all too evident. You could feel the anguish of their souls. It was in truth a ballad singularly applicable to the time and place.

The song ceased; the music died away. Jane moved from the piano with a sob that could no longer be suppressed. Valentine sat still and motionless. As to me, I made a quiet glide of it into the other room, just as Mrs. Cramp and Mrs. Jacob Chandler were coming in for some tea. Julietta seized me on one side and Fanny Letsom on the other; they were going in for forfeits.

* * * * *

Valentine Chandler left the piano and went out, looking for Jane. Not seeing her, he followed on down the garden path, treading on its dry, dead leaves. The wind, sighing and moaning, played amidst the branches of the trees, nearly bare now; every other minute the moon was obscured by the flying clouds. Warm though the night was, and grand in its aspect, signs might be detected of the approaching winter.

Jane Preen was standing near the old garden arbour, from which could be seen by daylight the long chain of the Malvern Hills. Valentine drew Jane within, and seated her by his side.

"Our last meeting; our last parting, Jane!" he whispered from the depth of his full heart.

"Will it be for ever?" she wailed.

He took time to answer. "I would willingly say No; I would _promise_ it to you, Jane, but that I doubt myself. I know that it lies with me; and I know that if God will help me, I may be able to----"

He broke down. He could not go on. Jane bent her head towards him. Drawing it to his shoulder, he continued:

"I have not been able to pull up here, despite the resolutions I have made from time to time. I was one of a fast set of men at Islip, and--somehow--they were stronger than I was. In Canada it may be different. I promise you, my darling, that I will strive to make it so. Do you think this is no lesson to me?"

"If not----"

"If not, we may never see each other again in this world."

"Oh, Valentine!"

"Only in Heaven. The mistakes we make here may be righted there."

"And will it be _nothing_ to you, never to see me again here?--no sorrow or pain?"

"_No sorrow or pain!_" Valentine echoed the words out of the very depths of woe. Even then the pain within him was almost greater than he could bear.

They sat on in silence, with their aching hearts. Words fail in an hour of anguish such as this. An hour that comes perhaps but once in a lifetime; to some of us, never. Jane's face lay nestled against his shoulder; her hand was in his clasp. Val's tears were falling; he was weak yet from his recent illness; Jane's despair was beyond tears.

* * * * *

We were in the height and swing of forfeits when Valentine and Jane came in. They could not remain in the arbour all night, you see, romantic and lovely though it might be to sit in the moonlight. Jane said she must be going home; her mother had charged her not to be late.

When she came down with her things on, I, remembering what she had asked me, took my hat and waited for her in the hall. But Valentine came out with her.

"Thank you all the same, Johnny," she said to me. And I went back to the forfeits.

They went off together, Jane's arm within his--their last walk, perhaps, in this world. But it seemed that they could not talk any more than they did in the garden, and went along for the most part in silence. Just before turning into Brook Lane they met Tom Chandler--he who was doing so much for Valentine in this emigration matter. He had come from Islip to spend a last hour with his cousin.

"Go on, Tom; you'll find them all at home," said Valentine. "I shall not be very long after you."

Upon coming to the Inlets, Jane clung closer to Valentine's arm. It was here that she had seen her unfortunate brother Oliver standing, after his death. Valentine hastily passed his arm round her to impart a sense of protection.

At the gate they parted, taking their farewell hand-shake, their last kiss. "God help you, my dear!" breathed Valentine. "And if--if we never meet again, believe that no other will ever love you as I have loved."

He turned back on the road he had come, and Jane went in to her desolate home.