Johnny Ludlow, Fourth Series. Henry Wood

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      So there was Timberdale, all cock-a-hoop at the prospect of seeing William Brook again, and the wedding that was to follow. Sam Mullet, the clerk, was for setting the bells to ring beforehand.

      Some people think September the pleasantest month in the year, when the heats of summer have passed and the frosts of winter have not come. Never a finer September than we had that autumn at Timberdale; the skies looked bright, the leaves of the trees were putting on their tints of many colours, and the land was not yet quite shorn of its golden grain.

      All the world was looking out for William Brook. He did not come. Disappointment is the lot of man. Of woman also. When the third week was dragging itself along in expectancy, a letter came to Mrs. Brook from William. It was to say that his return home was somewhat delayed, as he should have to take Jamaica en route, to transact some business at Kingston for his uncle. He should then proceed direct from Kingston by steamer to Liverpool, which place he hoped to reach before the middle of October. “Tell all my friends this, that they may not wonder at my delay,” the letter concluded; but it contained no intimation that he had received the answer written by Mr. Delorane.

      A short postscript was yet added, in these words: “Alfred St. George has, I know, some relatives living in, or near Kingston—planters, I believe. Tell him I shall call upon them, if I can make time, to see whether they have any commands for him.”

      Long before the middle of October, Ellin Delorane became obviously restless. A sort of uneasy impatience seemed to have taken possession of her: and without cause. One day, when we called at Mr. Delorane’s to take a message from home, Ellin was in the garden with her outdoor things on, waiting to go out with her aunt.

      “What a ridiculous goose you are!” began Tod. “I hear you have taken up the notion that Sweet William has gone down in the Caribbean Sea.”

      “I’m sure I have not,” said Ellin. “Aunt Hester must have told you that fable when she was at Crabb Cot yesterday.”

      “Just so. She and the mater laid their gossiping caps together for the best part of an hour—and all about the foolishness of Miss Ellin Delorane.”

      “Why, you know, Ellin,” I put in, “it is hardly the middle of October yet.”

      “I tell myself that it is not,” she answered gravely. “But, somehow, Johnny, I don’t—don’t—expect—him.”

      “Now, what on earth do you mean?”

      “I wish I knew what. All I can tell you is, that when his mother received that letter from William last month, saying his return was delayed, a sort of foreboding seized hold of me, an apprehension that he would never come. I try to shake it off, but I cannot. Each day, as the days come round, only serves to make it stronger.”

      “Don’t you think a short visit to Droitwich would do you good, Ellin?” cried Tod, which was our Worcestershire fashion of recommending people to the lunatic asylum.

      “Just listen to him, Johnny!” she exclaimed, with a laugh.

      “Yes, ‘just listen to him’—and just listen to yourself, Miss Ellin, and see which talks the most sense,” he retorted. “Have you got over those dreams yet?”

      Ellin turned her face to him quickly. “Who told you anything about that, Aunt Hester?”

      Tod nodded. “It’s true, you know.”

      “Yes, it is true,” she slowly said. “I have had those strange dreams for some weeks now; I have them still.”

      “That William Brook is lost?”

      “That he is lost, and that we are persistently searching for him. Sometimes we are seeking for him in Timberdale, sometimes at Worcester—in America, in France, in places that I have no knowledge of. There always seems to be a sadness connected with it—a sort of latent conviction that he will never be found.”

      “The dreams beget the dreams,” said Tod, “and I should have thought you had better sense. They will soon vanish, once Sweet William makes his appearance: and mind, Miss Ellin, that you invite me to the wedding.”

      Ellin sighed—and smiled. And just then Aunt Hester appeared attired in her crimson silk shawl with the fancy border, and the primrose feather in her Leghorn bonnet.

      A day or two went on, bringing no news of the traveller. On the nineteenth of October—I shall never forget the date—Mr. and Mrs. Todhetley and ourselves set off in the large open phaeton for a place called Pigeon Green, to spend the day with some friends living there. On this same morning, as it chanced, a very wintry one, Mr. St. George started for Worcester in his gig, accompanied by Ellin Delorane. But of this we knew nothing. He had business in the town; she was going to spend a few days with Mary West, formerly Mary Coney.

      Ellin was well wrapped up, and Mr. St. George, ever solicitous for her comfort, kept the warm fur rug well about her during the journey: the skies looked grey and threatening, the wind was high and bitterly cold. Worcester reached, he drove straight through the town, left Ellin at Mrs. West’s door, in the Foregate Street, and then drove back to the Hare and Hounds Inn to put up his horse and gig.

      II

      I shall always say, always think, it was a curious thing we chanced to go that day, of all days, to Pigeon Green. It is not chance that brings about these strange coincidences.

      “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

      Rough-hew them how we will.”

      Pigeon Green, a small colony of a dozen houses, formed a triangle, as may be said, with Timberdale and Evesham, being a few miles distant from each. Old Mr. and Mrs. Beele, life-long friends of the Squire, lived here. Their nephew had brought his newly-married wife from London to show her to them, and we were all invited to dinner. As the Squire did not care to be out in the dark, his sight not being what it used to be, the dinner-hour was fixed for two o’clock. We started in the large open phaeton, the Squire driving his favourite horses, Bob and Blister. It was the nineteenth of October. Mrs. Todhetley complained of the cold as we went along. The lovely weather of September had left us; early winter seemed to be setting in with a vengeance. The easterly wind was unusually high, and the skies were leaden.

      On this same wintry morning Mr. St. George left Timberdale in his gig for Worcester, accompanied by Ellin Delorane. St. George had business to transact with Philip West, a lawyer, who was Mr. Delorane’s agent in Worcester. Philip West lived in the Foregate Street, his offices being in the same house. Ellin was very intimate with his wife, formerly Mary Coney, and was invited to spend a few days with her. It was Aunt Hester who had urged the acceptance of this invitation: seeing that Ellin was nervous at the non-arrival of her lover, William Brook, was peeping into the newspapers for accounts of shipwrecks and other calamities at sea. So they set off after breakfast, Ellin well wrapped up, in this stylish gig of Mr. St. George’s. There are gigs and gigs, you know, and I assure you some gigs were yet fashionable vehicles in those days.

      It was bitterly cold. St. George, remarking that they should have snow as soon as the high wind would let it come down, urged his handsome grey horse to a fleet pace, and they soon reached Worcester. He drove straight to Foregate Street, which lay at the other end of the town, set down Ellin, and then went back again to leave his horse and gig at the Hare and Hounds in College Street, the inn at which he generally put up, retracing his steps on foot to Mr. West’s.

      And now I must return to ourselves.

      After a jolly dinner at two o’clock СКАЧАТЬ