Land at Last: A Novel

by Edmund Yates

"When I was a very little child,--at the Priory, Arthur. Geoffrey Ludlow--as Ive told you, I think--used to come out to us every Sunday; and in the evening after dinner, before I went to bed, he used to ask for his little wife to sing to him. And then poor papa used to tell me to sit on Geoff's knee, and I used to sing the Evening Hymn."

"Ay," said Caterham in an absent manner, "Geoffrey Ludlow's little wife! Geoffrey Ludlow's little wife!--ay, ay! 'That so I may, rise glorious at Thine awful day!' In Thy mercy, in Thy mercy!" and saying this, he fainted away.

That evening Algy Barford, at Lord Dropmore's in Lincolnshire, on his return from shooting, found a telegram on his dressing-room table. It was from Annie Maurice, and begged his immediate return to town.

Lord Caterham was better the next day. Though still very weak, he insisted on being dressed and wheeled into his sitting-room. Once there, he had his despatch-box placed before him, and the writing-materials put ready to his hand. Of late he had occasionally been in the habit of employing an amanuensis. Annie Maurice had frequently written from his dictation; and when she had been engaged, a son of the old housekeeper, who was employed at a law-stationer's, and who wrote a hand which was almost illegible from its very clearness, had sometimes been pressed into the service. But now Lord Caterham preferred writing for himself. Annie had sent to beg him to rest; and in reply he had scrawled two lines, saying that he was ever so much better, and that he had something to do which must be done, and which when done would leave him much happier and easier in mind. So they left him to himself; and Stephens, looking in from time to time, as was his wont, reported to the servants'-hall that his master was "at it as hard as ever--still a-writin'!" They wondered what could thus occupy him, those curious domestics. They knew exactly the state in which he was, the feeble hold that he had on life;--what do they not know, those London servants?--and they thought that he was making his will, and speculated freely among themselves as to what would be the amount of Stephens's inheritance; and whether it would be a sum of money "down," or an annuity; and whether Stephens would invest it after the usual fashion of their kind--in a public-house, or whether, from excessive gentility, he was not "a cut above that." Lord Caterham would not hold out much longer, they opined; and then Mr. Lionel would come in for his title; and who Mr. Lionel was--inquired about by the new servants, and the description of Mr. Lionel by the old servants--and mysterious hints as to how, in the matter of Mr. Lionel, there had been a "screw loose" and a "peg out;" how he was a "regular out-and-out fast lot," and had had to "cut it;"--all this occasioned plenty of talk in the servants'-hall, and made the dreary autumn-day pass quite pleasantly. And still the sick man sat at his desk, plying his pen, with but rare intervals of rest--intervals during which he would clasp his poor aching head, and lift his shrivelled attenuated hands in earnest silent prayer.

The Beauport household was sunk in repose the next morning, when a sharp ring at the bell, again and again repeated, aroused the young lady who as kitchen-maid was on her preferment, and whose dreams of being strangled by the cook for the heaviness of her hand in an omelette were scared by the shrill clanging of the bell which hung immediately over her head. The first notion of "fire" had calmed down into an idea of "sweeps" by the time that she had covered her night-attire with a dingy calico robe known to her as her "gownd;" and she was tottering blindly down stairs before she recollected that no sweeps had been ordered, and thought that it was probably a "runaway." But lured perhaps by a faint idea that it might be the policeman, she descended; and after an enormous amount of unbolting and unchaining, found herself face-to-face with a fresh-coloured, light-bearded, cheery gentleman, who wore a Glengarry cap, had a travelling-rug in his hand, was smoking a cigar, and had evidently just alighted from a hansom-cab which was standing at the door, and the driver of which was just visible behind a big portmanteau and a gun-case. The fresh-coloured gentleman was apparently rather startled at the apparition of the kitchen-maid, and exclaimed, apparently involuntarily, "Gad!" in a very high key. Recovering himself instantly, he asked how Lord Caterham was. Utterly taken aback at discovering that the visitor was not the policeman, the kitchen-maid was floundering about heavily for an answer, when she was more than ever disconcerted at seeing the fresh-coloured gentleman tear off his Glengarry-cap and advance up the steps with outsretched hand. These demonstrations were not made in honour of kitchen-maid, but of Annie Maurice, who had been aroused from her usual light sleep by the ring, and who, guessing at the visitor, had come down in her dressing-gown to see him.

They passed into the dining-room, and then he took her hand and said: "I only got your telegram at dinner-time last night, my dear Miss Maurice, and came off just as I was. Dropmore--deuced civil of him--drove me over to the station himself hard as he could go, by Jove! just caught mail-train, and came on from King's Cross in a cab. It's about Caterham, of course. Bad news,--ay, ay, ay! He--poor--I can't say it--he's in danger, he--" And brave old Algy stopped, his handsome jolly features all tightened and pinched in his anxiety.

"He is very, very ill, dear Mr. Barford,--very ill; and I wanted you to see him. I don't know--I can't tell why--but I think he may possibly have something on his mind--something which he would not like to tell me, but which he might feel a relief in confiding to some one else; and as you, I know, are a very dear and valued friend of his, I think we should all like you to be that some one. That was what made me send for you."

"I'm--I'm not a very good hand at eloquence, Miss Maurice--might put pebbles in my mouth and shout at the sea-shore and all that kind of thing, like the--the celebrated Greek person, you know--and wouldn't help me in getting out a word; but though I can't explain, I feel very grateful to you for sending for me, to see--dear old boy!" The knot which had been rising in Algy Barford's throat during this speech had grown nearly insurmountable by this time, and there were two big tears running down his waistcoat. He tried to pull himself together as he said: "If he has any thing to say, which he would like to say to me--of course--I shall--any thing that would--God bless him, my dear old boy!--good, patient, dear darling old boy, God bless him!" The thought of losing his old friend flashed across him in all its dread heart-wringing dreariness, and Algy Barford fairly broke down and wept like a child. Recovering himself after a moment, he seized Annie's hand, and muttering something to the effect that he would be back as soon as he had made himself a little less like an Esquimaux, he dashed into the cab and was whirled away.

You would scarcely have thought that Algy Barford had had what is called sleep, but what really is a mixture of nightmare and cramp in a railway-carriage, had you seen him at eleven o'clock, when he next made his appearance at St. Barnabas Square, so bright and fresh and radiant was he. He found Annie Maurice awaiting his arrival, and had with her a short earnest conversation as to Caterham's state. From that he learned all. The doctors had a very bad opinion of their patient's state: it was--hum--ha!--Yes--you know!--general depression--a want of vitality, which--just now--looking at his normal lack of force, of what we call professionally vis vita, might--eh? Yes, no doubt, serious result. Could not be positively stated whether he would not so far recover--pull through, as it is called--rally, as we say, as to--remain with us yet some time; but in these cases there was always--well, yes, it must be called a risk. This was the decision which the doctors had given to Annie, and which she, in other words, imparted to Algy Barford, who, coupling it with his experience of the guarded manner in which fashionable physicians usually announced their opinions, felt utterly hopeless, and shook his head mournfully. He tried to be himself; to resume his old smile and old confident buoyant way; he told his dear Miss Maurice that she must hope for the best; that these doctor-fellows, by Jove, generally knew nothing; half of them died suddenly themselves, without even having anticipated their own ailments; "physician, heal thyself," and all that sort of thing; that probably Caterham wanted a little rousing, dear old boy; which rousing he would go in and give him. But Annie marked the drooping head and the sad despondent manner in which he shrugged his shoulders and plunged his hands into his pockets when he thought she had retired--marked also how he strove to throw elasticity into his step and light into his face as he approached the door of Caterham's room.

It had been arranged between Algy and Annie Maurice that his was to have the appearance of a chance visit, so that when Stephens had announced him, and Lord Caterham had raised his head in wonder, Algy, who had by this time pulled himself together sufficiently, said: "Ah, ha Caterham!--dear old boy!--thought you had got rid of us all out of town, eh?--and were going to have it all to yourself! Not a bit of it, dear boy! These doctor-fellows tell you one can't get on without ozone. Don't know what that is--daresay they're right. All I know is, I can't get on without a certain amount of chimney-pot. Country, delicious fresh air, turf; heather, peat-bog, stubble, partridge, snipe, grouse--all deuced good! cows and pigs, and that kind of thing; get up early, and go to bed and snore; get red face and double-chin and awful weight--then chimney-pot required. I always know, bless you! Too much London season, get my liver as big as Strasburg goose's, you know--foie gras and feet nailed to a board, and that kind of thing; too much country, tight waistcoat, red face--awfully British, in point of fact. Then, chimney-pot. I'm in that state now; and Ive come back to have a week's chimney-pot and blacks and generally cabbage-stalky street--and then I shall go away much better."