Land at Last: A Novel

by Edmund Yates

At this point the conversation became decidedly sentimental; for Charley, while carefully maintaining that true happiness was only to be found in the married state, was equally careful to state his opinion that separation from Til must involve a perfectly incomparable condition of misery; and altogether matters were evidently reaching a climax. Matilda Ludlow was an unaffected honest girl: she knew perfectly well that Charley loved her, and she had no particular objection to his selecting this particular occasion on which to tell her so. But Til and Charley were not to part that evening in the character of affianced lovers; for in one of those significant pauses which precede important words, cab-wheels rolled rapidly up to the little gate, hurried footsteps ran along the flagged path, and a loud knock and ring at the door impatiently demanded attention.

Mrs. Ludlow awoke with a violent start: Charley and Til looked at each other. The door was opened, and a moment later the cook from Elm Lodge was in the room, and had replied to Charley's hurried question by the statement that her master was very ill, and she had been sent to fetch Miss Ludlow.

"Very ill! has any accident happened?" they all questioned the woman, who showed much feeling--all his dependents loved Geoffrey--and the confusion was so great, that it was some minutes before they succeeded in learning what actually had happened. That Geoffrey had returned home as usual; had gone to the nursery, and played with the child and talked to the nurse as usual; had gone to his painting-room; and had not again been seen by the servants, until the housemaid had found him lying on the hearth-rug an hour before, when they had sent for Dr. Brandram, and that gentleman had despatched the cook to bring Miss Ludlow.

"Did Mrs. Ludlow tell you to come?" asked Til.

To this question the woman replied that her mistress was not at home. She had been out the greater part of the day, had returned home some time later than Mr. Ludlow, and had kept the cab waiting for an hour; then she had gone away again, and had not returned when the cook had been sent on her errand. Charley Potts exchanged looks of undisguised alarm with Til at this portion of the woman's narrative, and, seeing that reserve would now be wholly misplaced, he questioned her closely concerning Mrs. Ludlow. She had nothing to tell, however, beyond that the housemaid had said her master and mistress had been together in the dining-room, and, surprised that dinner had not been ordered up, she had gone thither; but hearing her mistress speaking "rather strangely," she had not knocked at the door. The servants had wondered at the delay, she said, not understanding why their master should go without his dinner because Mrs. Ludlow was not at home, and had at length found him as she described.

"Did Mrs. Ludlow often go out in this way?" asked Mr. Potts.

"No, sir, never," said the woman. "I never knew my mistress leave my master alone before, sir; and I am afraid something has took place between them."

The distress and bewilderment of the little party were extreme. Manifestly there was but one thing to be done; Til must obey the doctor's summons, and repair immediately to her brother's house. He was very ill indeed, the cook said, and quite "off his head;" he did not talk much, but what he did say was all nonsense; and Dr. Brandram had said it was the beginning of brain-fever. Charley and Til were both surprised at the firmness and collectedness manifested by Mrs. Ludlow under this unexpected trial. She was very pale and she trembled very much, but she was quite calm and quiet when she told Til that she must put up such articles of clothing as she would require for a few days, as it was her intention to go to her son and to remain with him.

"I am the fittest person, my dear," said the old lady. "If it be only illness that ails him, I know more about it than you do; if it is sorrow also, and sorrow of the kind I suspect, I am fitter to hear it and act in it than you."

It was finally agreed that they should both go to Geoffrey's house and that Til should return home in the morning; for even in this crisis Mrs. Ludlow could not quite forget her household gods, and to contemplate them bereft at once of her own care and that of Til would have been too grievous; so they started--the three women in the cab, and Charley Potts on the box, very silent, very gloomy, and not even in his inmost thoughts approaching the subject of a pipe.