Magnum Bonum

CHAPTER XLI. GOOD OUT OF EVIL.

How the field of combat lay By the tomb's self; how he sprang from ambuscade- Captured Death, caught him in that pair of hands. Browning.

"John," said Sydney, as they were taking their last walk together as engaged people on the banks of their Avon, "There's something I think I ought to tell you."

"Well, my dearest."

"Don't they say that there ought not to be any shadow of concealment of the least little liking for any one else, when one is going to be married," quoth Sydney, not over lucidly.

"I'm sure I can safely acquit myself of any such shadow," said John, laughing. "I never had the least little liking for anybody but Mother Carey, and that wasn't a least little one at all!"

"Well, John, I'm very much ashamed of it, because he didn't care for me, as it turned out; but if he had, as I once thought, I should have liked him," said Sydney, looking down, and speaking with great confusion out of the depths of her conscience, stirred up by much 'Advice to Brides,' and Sunday novels, all turning on the lady's error in hiding her first love; and then perhaps because the effect on John was less startling than she had expected, she added with another effort, "It was Lucas Brownlow."

"Jock!" cried John. "The dear fellow!"

"Yes-I did think it, when he was in the Guards, and always about with Cecil. It was very silly of me, for he did not care one fraction."

"Why do you think so?" said John hoarsely.

"Well, I know better now, but when he made up his mind to leave the army, I fancied it was no better than being a recreant knight, and I begged and prayed him to go out with Sir Philip Cameron, and as near as I dared told him it was for my sake. But he went on all the same, and then I was quite sure he did not care, and saw what a goose I had made of myself. Oh! Johnny, it has been very hard to tell you, but I thought I ought, and I hope you'll never think of it more, for Lucas just despised my foolish forwardness, and you know you have every bit of my heart and soul. What is the matter, John? Oh! have I done harm, when I meant to do right?"

"No, no, my darling, don't be startled. But do you mean that you really thought Jock's disregard of your entreaties came from indifference?"

"It was all one mixture of pain and anger," said Sydney. "I can't define it. I thought it was one's duty to lead a man to be courageous and defend his country, and of course he thought me such a fool. Why, he has never really talked to me since!"

"And you thought it was indifference," again repeated John, with an iteration worthy of his father.

"O John, you frighten me. Wasn't it? Did you know this before?"

"No, most certainly not. I did know thus much, that in giving up the army Jock had given up his dearest hopes; but I thought it was some fine fashionable lady, whom he was well rid of, though he didn't know it. And he never said a word to betray it, even when I came home brimful and overflowing with happiness. And you know it was his doing that my way has been smoothed. Oh! Sydney, I don't know how to look at it!"

"But indeed, John dear, I couldn't help loving you best. You saved me, you know, and I feel to fit in, and understand you best. I can't be sorry as it has turned out."

"That's very well," said John, trying to laugh, "for you couldn't be transferred back to him, like a bale of goods. And I could not have helped loving you; but that I should have been a robber, Jock's worst enemy!"

"I can't be sorry you did not guess it," said Sydney. "Then I never should have had you, and somehow-"

"And you thought him wanting in courage," recurred John.

"Only when I was wild and silly, talking out of the 'Traveller's Joy.' It was hearing about his going into that dreadful place that stirred it all up in my mind, because I saw what a hero he is."

"God grant he may come safe out of it!" said John. "I'll tell you what, Sydney, though, it is a shame, when I am the gainer: I think your romance went astray; more faith and patience would have waited to see the real hero come out, and so you have missed him and got the ordinary, jog-trot, commonplace fellow instead."

"Ah! but love must be at the bottom of faith and patience," said Sydney, "and that was scared away by shame at my own forwardness and foolishness. And now it is all gone to the jog-trot! I want no better hero!"

"What a confession for the maiden of the twelfth century!"

"I'm very glad you don't feel moved to start off to the yellow fever."

"Do you know, Sydney, I do not know what I don't feel moved to sometimes, I cannot understand this silence!"

"But you said the telegram that he was mending was almost better than if he had never been ill at all."

"So I thought then; but why do we not hear, if all is well with them?"

Three weeks since, a telegram had been received by Allen, containing the words, "Janet died at 2.30 A.M. Lucas mending."

It had been resolved not to put off the wedding, as much inconvenience would have been caused, and poor Janet was only cousin to John, and had been removed from all family interests so long, even Mrs. Robert Brownlow saw no impropriety, since Barbara went to Belforest for a fortnight, returning to Mrs. Evelyn on the afternoon of the wedding-day itself to assist in her move to the Dower House. Esther, who had never professed to wish for a hero, had been so much disturbed by the recent alarms of war, that she was only anxious that her guardsman should safely sell out in the interval of peace; and he had begun to care enough about the occupations at Fordham to wish to be free to make it his chief dwelling-place.

The wedding was as quiet as possible. Sydney was disappointed of the only bridesmaid she cared much about, and Barbara felt a kind of relief in not having a second time to assist at the destruction of a brother's hopes. She was very glad to get back to Fordham, reporting that Allen and Elvira were so devotedly in love that a third person was very much de trop; though they had been very kind, and Elvira had mourned poor Janet with real gratitude and affection. Still they did not take half so much alarm at the silence as she did, and she was relieved to be with the Evelyns, who were becoming very anxious. The bridegroom and bride could not bear to go out of reach of intell- igence, and had limited their tour to the nearest place on the coast, where they could hear by half a day's post.

No news had come except that seven American papers had been forwarded to Barbara, giving brief accounts of the pestilence in the southern cities. The numbers of deaths in Abville were sensibly decreased, one of these papers said. The arrival of an English physician, Dr. Lucas Brownlow, and his sister had been noticed, and also that the sister had succumbed to the disease, but that he was recovering. These were all, however, only up to the date of the telegram, and the sole shadow of encouragement was in the assurances that any really fatal news would have been telegraphed. Mrs. Evelyn and Barbara were very loving companions during this time. Together they looked over those personal properties of Duke's which rather belonged to his mother than his heir. Mrs. Evelyn gave Barbara several which had special associations for her, and together they read over his papers and letters, laughing tenderly over those that awoke droll remembrances, and perfectly entering into one another's sympathies.

"Yet, my dear," said Mrs. Evelyn, "I do not know whether I ought to let you dwell on this: you are too young to be looking back on a grave when all life is before you."

"Nay," said Babie, "it was he that showed me how to look right on through life! You cannot tell how delightful it is to me to be brought near to him again, now I can understand him so much better than ever I did when he was here."

"Yet it was always his fear that he might sadden your life."

"Sadden? oh no! It was he who put life into my hands, as something worth using," said Babie. "Don't you know it is the great glory and quiet secret treasure of my heart, that, as Jock said that first night, I have that love not for time but eternity."

And their thoughts could not but go back to the travellers in America, and all the possibilities, for were not whole families swept off by the disease, without power of communication?

However, at last, four days after the wedding, Barbara received a letter.

"Ashton Vineyard, Virginia. September 30th.

"MY DEAREST BABIE,-I have left you too long without tidings, but I have had little time, and no heart to write, and I could not bear to send such news without details. Of the ten terrible days at Abville I may, if I can, tell you when we meet. I was in a sort of country house a little above the valley of the shadow of death, preparing supplies, and keeping beds ready for any of the exhausted workers who could snatch a rest in the air of the hill. I scarcely saw my poor Janet. She had made out that her husband had been one of the first victims, before she even guessed at his being there. She only came once to tell me this, and they would not even allow me to come down to the Church, where all the clergy, doctors and sisters who could, used to meet, every morning and evening.

"On the tenth day she brought home Jock, smitten down after incessant exertion. Everyone allows that he saved more cases than anyone, though he says it was the abatement of the disease. Janet declares that his was a slight attack. If that was slight! She attended to him for two days, then told me the crisis was past and that he would live, and almost at the same time her strength failed her. The last thing she said consciously to me was, 'Don't waste time on me. I know these symptoms. Attend to Jock. That is of use. Only forgive and pray for me.' Very soon she was insensible, and was gone before twenty-four hours were over. The sister whom they spared to help me, said she was too much worn out to struggle and suffer like most, indeed as Jock had done.

"That Sister Dorothea, a true divine gift, a sweet and fair vision of peace, is a Miss Ashton, a Virginian. She broke down, not with the disease, only fatigue, and I gave her such care as I could spare from my dear boy. When her father, General Ashton, came to take her home, he kindly insisted on likewise carrying us off to his beautiful home, on a lovely hillside, where we trusted Jock's strength would be restored quickly. But perhaps we were too impatient, for the journey was far too much for him. He fainted several times, and the last miles were passed in an unconscious state. There has come back on him the intermittent fever which often succeeds the disease; and what is more alarming is the faintness, oppression, and difficulty of breathing, which he believes to be connected with the slight affection of heart remaining from his rheumatic fever at Schwarenbach. Then it is very difficult to give him nourishment except disguised with ice, and he is altogether fearfully ill. I send such an account of the case as I can get for John or Dr. Medlicott to see. How I long for our kind home friends. This place is unhappily very far from everywhere, a lone village in the hills; the nearest doctor twelve miles off. The Ashtons think highly of him; but he is old, and I can't say that I have any confidence in his treatment. Jock allows that he should do otherwise, but he says he has no vigour or connection of ideas to be fit to treat himself consistently, and that he should only do harm by interfering with Dr. Vanbro; indeed I fear he thinks that it does not make much difference. If patience and calmness can bring him through, he would live, but my dear Babie, I greatly dread that I shall not bring him back to the home he made so bright. He seldom rouses into talking much, but lies passive and half dozing when the feverish restlessness is not on him. He told me just now to send his love to you all, especially to the Monk and Sydney, with all dear good wishes to them both. No one can be kinder than the Ashtons; they are always trying to help in the nursing, and sending for everything that can be thought of for Jock. Sister Dorothea and Primrose are as good and loving as Sydney herself could be, and there is an excellent clergyman who comes in every day, and prays for my boy in Church. Ask them to do the same at Fordham, and at our own Churches. As long as I do not telegraph, remember that while there is life there is hope. "Your loving Mother C."

This letter was sent on to John. Two days later a fly drove up to the Dower House, and Sydney walked into the drawing-room alone.

Where did she come from?

>From Liverpool. John was gone to America.

"I wanted to go too," she said, tears coming into her eyes; "but he said he could go faster without me, and he could not take me to these Ashtons, or leave me alone in New York."

"It was very noble and good in you to let him go, Sydney," cried Babie.

"It would have broken his heart for ever," said Sydney, "if he had not tried to do his utmost for Jock. He says Jock has been more than a brother to him, and that he owes all that he is, and all that he has, to him and Mother Carey, and that even-if-if he were too late, he should save her from coming home alone. You think he was right, mamma?"

"Right indeed, and I am thankful that my Sydney was unselfish, and did not try to keep him back."

"O mamma, I could never have looked him in the face again if I had hindered him! And so we went up to London, and luckily Dr. Medlicott was at home, and he was very eager that John should go. He says he does not think it will be too late, and they talked it over, and got some medicines, and then John let me come down to Liverpool with him and see him on board, and we telegraphed the last thing to Mrs. Brownlow, so that it might be too late for her to stop him."

While that message was rushing on its way beneath the Atlantic it was the early morning of the ebb tide of the fever, and the patient was resting almost doubled over with his head on pillows before him, either slumber or exhaustion, so still, that his mother had yielded to urgent persuasion, and lain down in the next room to sleep in the dreamless repose of the overworn watcher.

For over him leant a sturdy, dark-browed, dark-bearded figure, to whom she had ventured to entrust him. Some fourteen hours before, Robert had with some difficulty found them out at Ashton Vineyard, having been irresistibly drawn by Jock's telegram to spend in the States an interval of leisure in his work, caused by his appointment as principal to another Japanese college. He had gone to the bank where Jock had given an address, and his consternation had been great on hearing the state of things. All this, however, he had left unexplained, and his mother had hardly even thought of asking where he had dropped from. For Jock was in the midst of one of his cruellest attacks of the fever, and all she had been conscious of was a knock and summons to the door, where Primrose Ashton gently whispered, "Here is some one you will be glad to see," and Robert's low deep voice, almost inaudible with emotion, asked, "May I see him?"

"He will not know you," she said, with the sad composure of one who has no time to grieve. But even in the midst of the babbling moan of fevered weakness, there was half a smile as of pleased surprise, and an evident craving for the strong support of his brother's arm, and by-and-by Jock looked up with meaning and recognition in his eyes, though quite unable to speak, in that faint and exhausted state indeed that verged nearer to death after every attack.

This had passed enough for her to know there would be a respite for perhaps a good many hours, and she had yielded to the entreaty or command of Bobus, that she would lie down and sleep, trusting to him to call her at any moment.

Presently, as morning light stole in, Jock's eyes were open, gazing at him fondly, and he whispered, "Dear old Bob," then presently, "Open the window."

The sun was rising, and the wooded hillside opposite was all one gorgeous mass of autumn colouring, of every shade from purple to golden yellow, so glorious that it arrested Bobus's attention even at that instant.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" asked the feeble voice.

"Wonderful, as we always heard."

"Lift me a little. I like to see it. Not fast-or high-so."

Bobus raised the white wasted form, and rested the head against his square firm shoulder. "Dear old Bob! This is jolly! I'm not cramping you?"

"O no, but should not you have something?"

"What time is it?"

"6.30."

"Too soon yet for that misery;" then, after some silence, "I'm so glad you are come. Can you take mother home?"

"I would; but you will."

"I don't think so."

"Now, Jock, you are not getting into Armine's state of mind, giving yourself up and wishing to die?"

"Not at all. There are hosts of things I want to do first. There's that discovery of father's. With what poor Janet told me of Hermann's doings, and what I saw at Abville, if I could only get an hour of my proper wits, I could put the others up to a wrinkle that would make the whole thing comparatively plain."

"Should not you be better if you dictated it, and got it off your mind?"

"So I thought and tried, but presently I saw mother looking queer, and she said I was tired, and had gone on enough. I made her read it to me afterwards, and I had gone off into a muddle, and said something that would have been sheer murder. So I had better leave it alone. Old Vanbro mistrusts every word I say because of the Hermann connection, and indeed I may not always have talked sense to him. Those things work out in God's own time, and the Monk is on the track. I'd like to have seen him, but I've got you."

This had been said in faint slow utterances, so low that Bobus could hardly have heard a couple of feet further off, and with intervals between, and there was a gesture of tender perfect content in the contact with him that went to his heart, and, before he was aware, a great hot tear came dropping down on Jock's forehead and caused an exclamation.

"I beg your pardon," said Bobus. "Oh! Jock, you don't know what it is to find you like this. I came with so much to ask and talk of to you."

Jock looked up inquiringly.

"You were right to suppress that paper of mine," continued Bobus, "I wouldn't have written it now. I have seen better what a people are without Christianity, be the code what it may, and the civilisation, it can't produce such women as my mother, no, nor such men as you, Jockey, my boy," he muttered much lower.

"Are you coming back, dear old man?" said Jock, with eyes fixed on him.

"I don't know. Tell me one thing, old man: I always thought, when you took to using your brains and getting up physical science, that you must get beyond what satisfied you as a soldier. Now, have the two, science and religion, never clashed, or have you kept them apart?"

"They've worked in together," said Jock.

"You don't say so because you ought, and think it good for me?"

"As if I could, lying here. 'All Thy works praise Thee, O God, and Thy saints do magnify Thee.'"

Bobus was not sure whether this were a conscious reply, or only wandering, and his mother here came in, wakened by the murmur of voices.

The brothers could not bear to lose sight of one another, though Jock was too much exhausted by this conversation, and, by the sickness that followed any endeavour to take food, to speak much again. Thus, when the Rector came, Bobus asked whether he must be sent out of the room, Jock made an earnest sign to the contrary, and he stayed.

There was of course nothing to concern him, especially in the brief reading and prayer; but his mother, looking up, saw that he was finding out the passage in the little Greek Testament.

Janet's lay on a little table close by the bedside. The two copies had met again. The work of one was done. Was the work of the other doing at last?

However that might be, nothing could be gentler, tenderer, or more considerate towards his mother than was Bobus, and her kind friends felt much relieved of their fears for her, since she had such a son to take care of her.

Towards the evening, the negro servant knocked at the door, and Bobus took from him a telegram envelope. His mother opened it and read:

"Friar Brownlow to Mrs. Brownlow. I embark to-day."

A smile shone out on Jock's white weary face, and he said, "Good old Monk! If I can but hold out till he comes, I shall get home again yet. I should like to do him credit."

"Ashton Vineyard, October l2th.

"MY DEAREST CHILD,-You know the main fact by telegram, and now I can write, I must tell you all in more order. We thought our darkest hour was over when the dear John's telegram came, and the hope helped us up a little while. To Jock himself it was like a drowning man clinging to a rope with the more exertion because he knew that a boat was putting off. At least so it was at first, but as his strength faded, his brain could not grasp the notion any longer, and he generally seemed to be fancying himself on the snow with Armine, still however looking for John to come and save them, and sometimes, too, talking about Cecil, and being a true brother in arms, a faithful servant and soldier. The long severe strain of study, work, and all the rest which he has gone through, body and mind, coming on a heart already not quite sound, throughout the past year, was, John thinks, the real reason of his being unable to rally when the fever had brought him down, after the dreadful exertion at Abville. Dear fellow, he never let us guess how much his patience cost him. I think we had looked to John's arrival as if it would act like magic, and it was very sore disappointment when his treatment was producing no change for the better, but the prostration went on day after day. Poor Bobus was in utter despair, and went raging about, declaring that he had been a fool ever to expect anything from Kencroft, and at last he had to be turned out of the sick-room. For I should tell you that the one thing that kept me up was the entire calm grave composure that John preserved throughout, and which gave him the entire command. He never showed any consternation or dismay, nor uttered an augury, but he went quietly and vigilantly on, in a manner that all along gave me a strange sense of confidence and trust, that all that could be done was being done, and the issue was in higher hands. He would not let anyone really help him but Sister Dorothea, with her trained skill as a nurse. I don't think even I should have been suffered in the room, if he had not thought Jock might be more conscious than was apparent, for he had not himself received one token of recognition all those three days. Poor Bobus! the little gleam of light that Jock had let in on him seemed all gone. I do not know what would have become of him but for the good Ashtons. He had been persuaded for a time that what was so real to Jock must be true; but when Jock was no longer conscious, he had nothing to help him, and I am afraid he spoke terrible words when Primrose talked of prayer and faith. I believe he declared that to see one like his brother snatched away when just come to the perfection of his early manhood, with all his capacity and all his knowledge in vain, convinced him either that this universe was one grim, pitiless machine, grinding down humanity by mere law of necessity, or if they would have it that there was supernatural power, it could only be malevolent; and then Primrose, so strong in faith as to venture what I should have shrunk from as dangerous presumption, dared him to go on in his disbelief, if his brother were given back to prayer.

"She pitied him so much, the sweet bright girl, she had so pitied him all along, that I believe she prayed as much for him as for Jock.

"Of course I did not know all this till afterwards, for all was stillness in that room, except when at times the clergyman came in and prayed.

"The next thing I am sure of, was John's leaning over me, and his low steady voice saying, 'The pulse is better, the symptoms are mitigating.' Sister Dorothea says they had both seen it for some hours, but he made her a sign not to agitate me till he was secure that the improvement was real. Indeed there was something in that equable firm gentleness of John's that sustained me, and prevented my breaking down. Even then it was another whole day before my darling smiled at me again, and said, 'Thanks' to John, but oh! with such a look.

"When Bobus heard his brother was better, he gave a sob, such as I shall never forget, and rushed away into the pine-wood on the hillside, all alone. The next time I saw him he was walking in the garden with Primrose, and with such a quieted, subdued, gentle look upon his face, it put me in mind of the fields when a great storm has swept over them, and they are lying still in the sunshine afterwards.

"Since that day, when John said we might send off that thankworthy telegram, there has been daily progress. I have had one of my headaches. That monarch John found it out, and turned me out. I could bear to go, for I knew my boy was safe with him. He made me over to Primrose, who nursed me as tenderly as my Babie could have done, and indeed, I begin to think she will soon be as near and dear to me as my Sydney or Elvira. She has a power over Bobus that no one else ever had, and she is very lovely in expression as well as features, but how will so ardent a Christian as she is receive one still so far off as my poor Robert, though indeed I think he has at least come so far as the cry, 'Help Thou mine unbelief.'

"So now they have let me come back to my Jock, and I see visibly his improvement. He holds out his hand, and he smiles, and he speaks now and then, the dreadful oppression is gone, and all the dangerous symptoms are abating, and I cannot tell how happy and thankful we are. 'Send my love, and tell Sydney she has a blessed Monk,' he says, as he wakes, and sees me writing.

"That dear Monk says he will not go home till he can carry home his patient. When that will be I cannot tell, for he cannot sit up in bed yet. Dear Sydney, how I thank her! John says it was not his treatment, but, under Divine Providence, youthful nature that had had her rest, and begun to rally her strength. But under that blessing, it was John's steady, faithful strength and care that enabled the restoration to take place. "My dear child's loving "MOTHER CAREY."