Johnny Ludlow, Fourth Series. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ the garden; or maybe I am toiling up a steep hill and he stands higher up. I seem to be always going towards him and he to be waiting for me. And though I never quite reach him, they are happy dreams. It will not be very long first now.”

      I knew what she meant—and had nothing to say to it.

      “Perhaps it may be as well, Johnny,” she went on in speculative thought. “God does all things for the best.”

      “Perhaps what may be as well?”

      “That he should never have come back to marry me. I do not suppose I should have lived long in any case; I am too much like mamma. And to have been left a widower—perhaps—no, it is best as it is.”

      “You don’t give yourself a chance of getting better, Ellin—cherishing these gloomy views.”

      “Gloomy! They are not gloomy. I am as happy as I can be. I often picture to myself the glories of the world I am hastening to; the lovely flowers, the trees that overshadow the banks of the pure crystal river, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, and the beautiful golden light shed around us by God and the Lamb. Oh, Johnny, what a rest it will be after the weary sorrow here—and the weakness—and the pain!”

      “But you should not wish to leave us before your time.”

      “I do not wish it; it is God who is taking me. I think if I had a wish it would be to stay here as long as papa stays. For I know what my death will be to him. And what it will be to you all,” she generously added, holding out her hands to me, as the tears filled her eyes.

      I held them for a minute in mine. Ellin took up her parasol, preparatory to moving away; but laid it down again.

      “Johnny, tell me—I have often thought I should like to ask you—what do you think could have become of William? Have you ever picked up an idea, however faint, of anything that could tend to solve the mystery?”

      It was a hard question to answer, and she saw my hesitation.

      “I cannot admit that I have, Ellin. When looking at the affair in one light, I whisper to myself, ‘It might have been this way;’ when looking at it in another, I say, ‘It might have been that.’ Difficulties and contradictions encompass it on all sides. One impediment to elucidation was the length of time that elapsed before we began the search in earnest. Had we known from the first that he was really lost, and gone to work then, we might have had a better chance.”

      Ellin nodded assent. “Marianne Ashton still maintains that it was William she saw that day at the railway-station.”

      “I know she does. She always will maintain it.”

      “Has it ever struck you, Johnny, in how rather remarkable a way any proof that it was he, or not he, seems to have been withheld?”

      “Well, we could not get at any positive proof, one way or the other.”

      “But I mean that proof seems to have been withheld,” repeated Ellin. “Take, to begin with, the traveller’s luggage: but for its being lost (and we do not know that it was ever found), the name, sure to have been on it, would have told whether its owner was William Brook, or not. Then take Marianne Ashton: had she gained the platform but a few seconds earlier, she would have met the traveller face to face, avoiding all possibility of mistake either way. Next take the meeting of the two gigs that evening when Gregory West was returning from Spetchley. Gregory, a stranger to Worcester until recently, did not know William Brook; but had Philip West himself gone to Spetchley—as he ought to have done—he would have known him. Again, had Philip’s groom, Brian, been there, he would have known him: he comes from this neighbourhood, you know. Brian was going with the gig that afternoon, but just as it was starting Philip got a message from a client living at Lower Wick, and he had to send Brian with the answer, so Gregory went alone. You must see how very near proof was in all these moments, yet it was withheld.”

      Of course I saw it. And there was yet another instance: Had the Squire only pulled up when we passed the gig in Dip Lane, instead of driving on like the wind, we should have had proof that it was, or was not, Brook.

      “If it was he,” breathed Ellin, “it must have been that night he died. He would not, else, keep away from Timberdale.”

      My voice dropped to a lower key than hers. “Ellin! Do you really think it was he with St. George?”

      “Oh, I cannot say that. If any such thought intrudes itself, I drive it away. I do not like St. George, but I would not be unjust to him.”

      “I thought St. George was one of your prime favourites.”

      “He was never that. He used to be very kind to me, especially after William went away, and I liked him for it. But latterly I have taken a most unreasonable dislike to him—and really without any justifiable cause. He worries me—but it is not that.”

      “Worries you!”

      “In pressing me to be his wife,” she sighed. “Of course I ought to be grateful: he tells me, he tells papa, that with a new life and new scenes, which he would carry me to, my health might be re-established. Poor papa! Only the other day he said to me, ‘My dear, don’t you think you might bring yourself to try it,’ and I was so silly as to burst into tears. The tears came into papa’s eyes too, and he promised never to suggest it to me again.”

      The tears were trickling down her cheeks, now as she spoke. “What a world of crosses and contradiction it is!” she cried, smiling through them as she rose. “And, Johnny, all this is between ourselves, remember.”

      Yes, it was between ourselves. We strolled across the churchyard to a tomb that stood in a corner facing the western sun. It was of white marble, aromatic shrubs encircling it within ornamental railings, and an inscription on it to her who lay beneath—“Maria, the beloved wife of John Delorane.”

      Ellin lingered on through the frosts of winter. Except that she grew thinner and weaker and her cheeks brighter, there really did not seem to be much the matter. Darbyshire saw her every day, other medical men occasionally, but they could not save her. When the snowdrops were peeping from the ground, and the violets nestled in their mossy shelters, and the trees and hedges began to show signs of budding, tokens of the renewal of life after the death of winter, Ellin passed away to that other life, where there is no death and the flowers bloom for ever. And another inscription was added to the white tombstone in the churchyard—“Ellin Maria, the only child of John and Maria Delorane.”

      “You should have seen St. George at the funeral,” said Tom Coney to us, as we turned aside after church one hot summer’s day to look at the new name on grave, for we were away from Crabb Cot when she died. “His face was green; yes, green—hold your tongue, Johnny!—green, not yellow; and his eyes had the queerest look. You were right, Todhetley; you used to say, you know, that St. George was wild after poor Ellin.”

      “Positive of it,” affirmed Tod.

      “And he can’t bear the place now she’s gone out of it,” continued Tom Coney. “Report says that he means to throw up his post and his prospects, and run away for good.”

      “Not likely,” dissented Tod, tossing his head. “A strong man like St. George does not die of love nowadays, or put himself out of good things, either. You have been reading romances, Coney.”

      But Tom Coney was right. When the summer was on the wane St. George bade a final adieu to Timberdale. And if it was his love for Ellin, or her death, that drove him away, he made no mention of it. He СКАЧАТЬ