Johnny Ludlow, Fourth Series. Mrs. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ Frank! How could you?”

      “Why, I heard you say you must get one.”

      “Yes—but—not just yet. It may not be wanted, you know.”

      “Stuff! The thing was in Mrs. What’s-her-name’s window in High Street, staring passers-by in the face; so I went in, and bought it.”

      “It’s too beautiful,” murmured Annet, putting it reverently into the paper, as if she mistook it for a baby. “And how has the day gone, Frank? Could you buy the sheep?”

      “Yes; all right. The sheep—Annet, who do you think is coming here to-morrow? Going to honour us as one of the guests?”

      At the break in the sentence, Frank had flung himself into a chair, and thrown his head back, laughing. Annet wondered.

      “Stephen! It’s true. He had gone to Worcester after some sheep himself. I asked whether we should have the pleasure of seeing them here, and he curtly said that he was coming, but couldn’t answer for Mrs. Radcliffe. Had the Pope of Rome told me he was coming, I should not have been more surprised.”

      “Stephen’s wife took no notice of the invitation.”

      “Writing is not in her line: or in his either. Something must be in the wind, Annet: neither he nor his wife has been inside our doors yet.”

      They sat down to supper, full of chat: as genial married folks always are, after a day’s separation. And it was only when the house was at rest, and Annet was lighting the bed-candle, that she remembered a letter lying on the mantel-piece.

      “Oh, Frank, I ought to have given it to you at once; I quite forgot it. This letter came for you by this morning’s post.”

      Frank sat down again, drew the candle to him, and read it. It was from one of his former friends, a Mr. Briarly; offering on his own part and on that of another former friend, one Pratt, a visit to Pitchley’s Farm.

      Instincts arise to all of us: instincts that it might be well to trust to oftener than we do. A powerful instinct, against the offered visit, rushed into the mind of Francis Radcliffe. But the chances are, that, in the obligations of hospitality, it would not have prevailed, even had the chance been afforded him.

      “Cool, I must say!” said Frank, with a laugh. “Look here, Annet; these two fellows are going to take us by storm to-morrow. If I don’t want them, says Briarly, I must just shut the door in their faces.”

      “But you’ll be glad to see them, won’t you, Frank?” she remarked in her innocence.

      “Yes. I shall like well enough to see them again. It’s our busy time, though: they might have put it off till after harvest.”

      As many friends went to this entertainment at Pitchley’s Farm as liked to go. Mr. Brandon was one of them: he walked over with us—with me, and Tod, and the Squire, and the mater. Stephen Radcliffe and his wife were there, Becca in a black silk with straps of rusty velvet across it. Stephen mostly sat still and said nothing, but Becca’s sly eyes were everywhere. Frank and his wife, well dressed and hospitable, welcomed us all; and the board was well spread with cold meats and dainties.

      Old Brandon had a quiet talk with Annet in a corner of the porch. He told her he was glad to find Frank seemed likely to do well at the farm.

      “He tries his very best, sir,” she said.

      “Ay. Somehow I thought he would. People said ‘Frank Radcliffe has his three hundred a-year to fall back upon when he gets out of Pitchley’s’: but I fancied he might stay at Pitchley’s instead of getting out of it.”

      “We are getting on as well as we can be, sir, in a moderate way.”

      “A moderate way is the only safe way to get on,” said Mr. Brandon, putting his white silk handkerchief corner-wise on his head against the sun. “That’s a true saying, He who would be rich in twelve months is generally a beggar in six. You are helping Frank well, my dear. I have heard of it: how industrious you are, and keep things together. It’s not often a good old head like yours is set upon young shoulders.”

      Annet laughed. “My shoulders are not so very young, sir. I was twenty-four last birthday.”

      “That’s young to manage a farm, child. But you’ve had good training; you had an industrious mother”—indicating an old lady on the lawn in a big lace cap and green gown. “I can tell you what—when I let Frank Radcliffe have the lease, I took into consideration that you were coming here as well as he. Why!—who are these?”

      Two stylish-looking fellows were dashing up in a dog-cart; pipes in their mouths, and portmanteaus behind them. Shouting and calling indiscriminately about for Frank Radcliffe; for a man to take the horse and vehicle, that they had contrived to charter at the railway terminus; for a glass of bitter beer apiece, for they were confoundedly dry—there was no end of a commotion.

      They were the two visitors from London, Briarly and Pratt. Their tones moderated somewhat when they saw the company. Frank came out; and received a noisy greeting that might have been heard at York. One of them trod on Mr. Brandon’s corns as he went in through the porch. Annet looked half frightened.

      “Come to stay here!—gentlemen from London!—Frank’s former friends!” repeated old Brandon, listening to her explanation. “Fine friends, I should say! Frank Radcliffe,”—laying hold of him as he was coming back from giving directions to his servant—“how came you to bring those men down into your home?”

      “They came of their own accord, Mr. Brandon.”

      “Friends of yours, I hear?”

      “Yes, I knew them in the old days.”

      “Oh. Well—I should not like to go shouting and thundering up to a decent house with more aboard me than I could carry. Those men have both been drinking.”

      Frank was looking frightfully mortified. “I am afraid they have,” he said. “The heat of the day and the dust on the journey must have caused them to take more than they were aware of. I’m very sorry. I assure you, Mr. Brandon, they are really quiet, good fellows.”

      “May be. But the sooner you see their backs turned, the better, young man.”

      From that day, the trouble set in. Will it be believed that Frank Radcliffe, after keeping himself straight for ever so much more than a year, fell away again? Those two visitors must have found their quarters at Pitchley’s Farm agreeable, for they stayed on and on, and made no sign of going away. They were drinkers, hard and fast. They drank, themselves, and they seduced Frank to drink—though perhaps he did not require much seduction. Frank’s ale was poured out like water. Dozens of port, ordered and paid for by Briarly, arrived from the wine-merchant’s; Pratt procured cases of brandy. From morning till night liquor was under poor Frank’s nose, tempting him to sin. Their heads might be strong enough to stand the potions; Frank’s was not. It was June when the new life set in; and on the first of September, when all three staggered in from a day’s shooting, Frank was in a fever and curiously trembling from head to foot.

      By the end of the week he was strapped down in his bed, a raving madman; Duffham attending him, and two men keeping guard.

      Duffham СКАЧАТЬ