Nearly three years back—not quite so much by two or three months—Church Dykely was gratified by the intelligence that Captain Layne’s wife—then sojourning in Europe—was coming on a short visit to her mother with her three or four weeks’ old baby. Church Dykely welcomed the news, for it was a sort of break to the monotonous, jog-trot village life, and warmly received Mrs. Richard Layne and the child on their arrival. The infant was born in France, where Mrs. Richard Layne had been staying with one of her sisters—Mary—and whence she had now come direct to her mother’s; Mary having gone on to Liverpool to join Mrs. Richard Layne’s other children. The baby—made much of by the neighbours—was to remain with old Mrs. Layne: Mrs. Richard Layne did not deem it well to take so young a child to India, as he seemed rather delicate. Church Dykely said how generous it was of her to sacrifice her motherly feelings for the baby’s good—but the Laynes had always been unselfish. She departed, leaving the child. And Baby Arthur, as all the place called him, lived and thrived, and was now grown as fine a little fellow for his age as might be, with a generous spirit and open heart. My Lady Chavasse (having temporarily forgotten it when speaking with Mr. Duffham) had heard all about the child’s parentage just as the village had—that he was the son of Captain Richard Layne and his wife Susan. Chavasse Grange generally understood the same, including Sir Geoffry. There was no intercourse whatever between the Layne family and the Grange; there had not been any since Miss Mary Layne quitted it. My Lady Chavasse was in the habit of turning away her eyes when she passed Mrs. Layne’s house: and in good truth, though perhaps her conscience reminded her of it at these moments, she had three-parts forgotten the unpleasant episode of the past.
And the little boy grew and thrived: and became as much a feature in Church Dykely as other features were—say the bridge over the mill-stream, or the butcher’s wife—and was no more thought of, in the matter of speculation, than they were.
Miss Elizabeth Layne caught hold of the young truant’s hand with a jerk and a reprimand, telling him he would be run over some day. She had occasion to tell it him rather often, for he was of a fearless nature. Mr. Duffham nodded across the road to Miss Elizabeth.
“Are you better to-day?” he called out. People don’t stand on ceremony in these rural places.
“Not much, thank you,” came the answer.
For Miss Elizabeth Layne had been anything but strong lately: her symptoms being very like those that herald consumption.
The time rolled on, bringing its changes. You have already seen it rolling on in Calcutta, for in this, the third part, we have had to go back a year or two.
Elizabeth Layne died. Mrs. Layne grew very feeble, and it was thought and said by every one that one of her daughters ought to be residing with her. There was only one left unmarried—Mary. Mary received news in India of this state of things at home, together with a summons from her mother. Not at all a peremptory summons. Mrs. Layne wrote a few shaky lines, praying her to come “if she would not mind returning to the place:” if she did mind it, why, she, the mother, must die alone as she best could. There was a short struggle in Mary Layne’s heart; a quick, sharp battle, and she gave in. Her duty to her mother lay before aught else in God’s sight; and she would yield to it. As soon as preparations for her voyage could be made, she embarked for England.
It was autumn when she got home, and Church Dykely received her gladly. Mary Layne had always been a favourite in the place, from the time her father, the good-hearted, hard-working surgeon, had fondly shown her, his youngest and fairest child, to the public, a baby of a few days old. But Church Dykely found her greatly changed. They remembered her as a blooming girl; she came back to them a grave woman, looking older than her years, and with a pale sweet countenance that seemed never to have a smile on it. She was only six-and-twenty yet.