"Don't care" (continued 4)

“It is very beautiful,” said Alwyn. “Yes, he would have liked it very much.”

“He liked the wild things,” said Wyn, “and the creatures; it’s the birds and beasts that ought to follow him.”

“Come,” said Alwyn, “you helped him to all his pleasure in them; come and give him the wreath yourself.”

He took Wyn’s hand and led him, through the sitting-room window, into the room where his young master lay, calm and still, with the bright eyes closed for ever. But the window was uncurtained, and the sun and the sky looked through.

Wyn trembled as he looked. The little carefully-reared boy had never seen death before, and the awe of the sight choked back his tears. Alwyn helped him to lay the wreath on Edgar’s breast, above the white cross already placed there, and then took him out again on to the terrace. Wyn touched his cap and went away; but Alwyn’s silent grief was more comfort to him than any words of consolation would have been, and perhaps Alwyn too was soothed by the sense of fellow-feeling. He was glad to think that the great family vault under the floor of the church, where so many Cunninghams had been laid, could not be opened now, and that Edgar would lie under the turf in the churchyard, with the sky over his head, and the great trees of the wood near at hand.

All the servants and most of the villagers were at that funeral. Wyn Warren was set to walk by Robertson’s side, next after the friends and the family, in which position he felt, in all his trouble, a sort of childish pride. The day was bright, and there was a fresh wind blowing such as Edgar was wont to love, and over the grave, instead of the ordinary hymn, the choir sang some verses about the Heavenly Jerusalem, which seemed to Wyn to picture just the sort of “happy home” where he could fancy that his dear Mr Edgar would dwell.

Thy gardens and thy gallant walks Continually are green; There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers As nowhere else are seen. Quite through the streets, with silver sound, The flood of Life doth flow; Upon whose banks on every side The Wood of Life doth grow. There trees for evermore bear fruit, And evermore do spring; There evermore the angels sit, And evermore do sing.

“Ah,” thought Wyn, “Mr Edgar would like that sort of Paradise.”

Later in the day Alwyn asked Harry Whittaker to meet him in the park and walk with him through the wood. He had several matters, he told him, to talk about.

But when they met he put his arm through his old comrade’s, and walked on for a long time in silence. At last Harry said:

“Things have been different from what we looked for, sir, haven’t they? But there’s comfort waiting at home for us. At least, it seems like home over there now to me.”

“Ah, yes,” said Alwyn. “I have gained more than I ever thought for. But I don’t seem able to think of anything now but my poor boy and the lonely years that I might have made brighter for him if I had not held out so long.”

“You came when he most wanted you,” said Harry.

“Yes, thank God for that! But he had been lonely, though he was such a plucky fellow that he hardly knew it. And I miss—”

Alwyn’s voice faltered, and he brushed his hand across his eyes.

“That was not what I wanted to talk of,” he said, rousing himself. “What are your plans, Harry? I must not hurry away from my father; but I shall soon be going back now—for a time, at least.”

“I am ready to go back at once,” said Harry. “I’ve heard from my wife, and she’s willing to have my sister Florence out to live with us.”

“Your sister who found the jewels?”

“Yes. Lady Carleton’s very good to her; but she told me—for I went to speak to her ladyship about it—that the girl don’t exactly fit in for service. There’s no one to look after her at home, specially if, as seems likely, my eldest sister settles in life. And I declare, sir, the way the young girls at Rapley run about together is worse for her than any rough company she might see out our way. She gets into mischief for want of something bigger to do. And mischief for girls—well, it is the mischief indeed!”

“So you mean to take her out?”

“No, not with me. They want to have her home a bit first; and she’d be better to wait for this Confirmation. She’s set her heart on being confirmed with Miss Geraldine.”

“Oh, yes, I heard my sister speak of it. But how shall you get her out to you?”

“Markham’s mother and sister are coming out in the spring, and would bring her. You see, sir, Alberta must have some one—we can’t get girls out our way. There’ll be plenty for Florrie to do, and I make no doubt she’ll be happy, and what my aunt calls work off her bouncing.”

Alwyn laughed. “It seems a very good place,” he said; “and certainly she did us a good turn. What—what are the Warrens thinking about for little Wyn? I wish we could give him an opening.”

“I don’t think his parents would part with him,” said Harry. “He’s a nice little chap, but it is a bit difficult to say what next for him. He’s too small and not the sort for a gamekeeper, and, as his father says, he’d never have the heart to kill the vermin. Then he thought of getting him taken into the garden under Mr Elton; but I’m afraid he’d fret and not be much good here.”

“Edgar asked me to take care of him,” said Alwyn. “He said that perhaps he had spoiled him for other work. But he was very fond of him.”

“Ah, sir, he’ll be none the worse for having thought of some one before himself. You know they had had a notion, as he was so handy and quiet, to let him be put under a butler for a time and then be trained up to wait on invalid gentlemen. But—”

“Well?” said Alwyn.

“Well, his sister Bessie said something to him, but he hid his face and said, ‘They’d all die. Robertson says five have.’”

“Poor little chap,” said Alwyn. “It’s too soon to tease him about it. But I must talk to his father, and think what can be done.”

The matter was not settled very easily. Mr Cunningham’s ideas were bounded by giving Wyn a sovereign, and letting him run about the place in any capacity that might turn up.

Bessie, thinking this very undesirable, wanted him to come and board with her, and be apprenticed to the schoolmaster as pupil-teacher. Wyn said that he hated teaching, and couldn’t bear to be shut up indoors. Alwyn hardly knew enough of English life to judge what would be best, but he could not bear the notion that Edgar’s favourite should be left to run to waste, or to a life in which he would not be happy, and at last Sir Philip Carleton made a suggestion.

If the boy really had a turn for plants and flowers, and they wanted to get him into a superior line, why should not an appointment be got for him when a little older at Kew or some other great public garden? If he was clever and took to the work, there were all sorts of openings. And in the meantime, as his education by all accounts consisted chiefly of the names of mosses and lichens, and the habits of birds, field-mice, and other wild creatures of the woods, send him to school—to the great Church public school at Ardingly for boys of his standing—where he would meet other sons of gentlemen’s servants, besides boys of a superior class. He could learn Latin and science, it would be a complete change for him, and the tutors there would soon find out what he was fit for.

Alwyn liked the idea very much. He thought that Wyn had capabilities, and there was an affectionate simplicity about the little fellow that was very engaging. So, as Mr and Mrs Warren gave their grateful consent, it was at once settled that he should go to Ardingly after the Christmas holidays, about the same time as Florence’s passage was taken for New York.

Chapter Twenty Three.

The Colour of the Jewels.

Before the Confirmation day came the lost jewels were safely restored to Lady Carleton’s keeping, and the diamonds that had been hidden for eight years in a hollow tree were likely to be handed down as heirlooms to her children with additional care and interest.

But over the bent heads of the three young people who had had so much interest in their loss and their recovery, there flashed a glory of mystic light and colour. For the great west window of Ashcroft Church was filled with painted glass, jewel-like in pattern and colour. In the centre was the form of Him who made the lame to walk, and, as the winter afternoon sun streamed through the window, the earthly colours seemed transmuted into heavenly jewels.

Underneath was an inscription:—

“To the glory of God, in memory of Edgar Cunningham, and in thanksgiving for undeserved mercies, this window is given by all concerned in the losing and the finding of the jewels hidden in Ashcroft Wood.”

Lilian Carleton, Alwyn Cunningham, Harry Whittaker, Florence, and Wyn had all in their very different proportions contributed to the offering.

When in after life the three children looked back on their Confirmation day, it was lighted up for them by that wonderful colouring, and sweet with the recollection, for Florence, of the first person she had eared to please; for Geraldine, of the first she had much eared to help; and for Wyn, with a far deeper, tenderer memory of one who had not perhaps had the best things to give him, but who had given him all he could, the love of the beautiful things of Nature, and the example of uncomplaining courage and endurance.

Before that day came Alwyn had gone back to Boston, intending to return in the spring and bring his wife to visit Ashcroft. There was a great deal in his future life that would be difficult of adjustment, and perhaps those parts of it which he would spend under his father’s roof would not be the easiest to manage. But pardon and reinstatement were worth much, and he knew well that if his father had really disinherited him, apart from the obvious loss, the bitterness would have been unspeakable. And, as the sorrow of his brother’s loss turned into a sweet and tender memory, he felt that those three months with him had been worth any pain. He might well say:

My days with others will the sweeter be For those brief days I spent in loving thee.

To Mr Cunningham the reconciliation had cleared away a cloud of which he had never acknowledged the blackness. It was perhaps inevitable that the sense that poor Edgar had no more to suffer should transcend the grief for his loss; but Geraldine had a much kinder father in the future, and her welfare became his chief consideration, as she tried to brighten his home. She rode and walked with him; the occasional visits of Alwyn and his lively, earnest-tempered wife would oblige society and friendly intercourse, and Miss Cunningham of Ashcroft bade fair as time went on to find her life full of interest and occupation.

Sir Philip and Lady Carleton settled permanently at Ravenshurst, and one great anxiety was lifted off Wyn Warren’s shoulders when a happy home was found there for poor Dobbles, who drew the nursery donkey-cart or carried little Lily on his back through the woodland walks once so familiar to his steady feet.

For Wyn will never forget Mr Edgar, though he prospered at school, and found many hopes and interests open to him. He treasured the botany books that had been given to him as a remembrance; and if, as his new masters think, a career as a naturalist should be open to him in the future, he will never make a new discovery in wider fields, never see with his own eyes the wonders he has read of, without feeling an echo of Mr Edgar’s pleasure when some specimen which he was sure could be found in the wood actually came to light there.

When Florence went home to Rapley before she sailed for America, her father said that she had grown into a woman. The naughty-girl period was over. She looked at everything from a different standpoint; and Miss Mordaunt never received such a surprise in her life as when Florence Whittaker called to say good-bye, and to thank her, with manners learnt at Ravenshurst, for all past kindness. Now that she knew how to be polite her broad and genial smile and warm-hearted, outspoken voice were pleasant, and in after days it is not certain that Miss Mordaunt did not look back on Maud Florence Nellie as having had her good points after all. She had a satisfactory parting also with Mrs Lee. She was not so entirely a changed character as to receive her Aunt Stroud’s good advice with perfect submission, and the form in which she couched her excellent resolutions for the future was:

“Well, I shall be as meek as any lamb to Alberta, and ‘fly round,’ as Harry calls it, whenever she tells me, just because Aunt Stroud declares I shall make them repent of their kindness! And if I were you, Mattie, I’d say yes to Mr Clements to-morrow, for the very reason that Aunt Stroud says you’ll never have the sense to see which side your bread’s buttered.”

Whether Mattie availed herself of this ingenious excuse, whether on a closer acquaintance Mr Clements developed traits in common with her favourite heroes, or whether, as was most probable, fiction finally faded before fact, Mattie did bring herself to a favourable answer before Florence sailed.

“And who’s going to look after Sybil and Ethel?” said Florence virtuously. “My lady and Aunt Charlotte would say it was a great disadvantage to them to be left to themselves.”

“Well, Florrie,” said the aggravated Sybil, “I don’t see as you were much the better for having Mattie to look after you.”

“Florrie is just like Aunt Stroud,” said Ethel. “She’ll be just as good advicey when she’s old enough.”

For energy will have a vent, and Florence had expended some of her new-found wisdom in endeavouring to regulate her younger sisters’ conduct.

“Don’t quarrel, girls,” said Mattie, “when Florrie’s going away so soon. I’m not going away from you yet—perhaps not till Sybil’s near as old as I was when Aunt Stroud married.”

Nobody expressed a desire that Florence should give up her new prospects to undertake the responsibility.

“No, Martha Jane,” said Mrs Stroud, “that would never do. I grant that Florrie’s a much better girl than I ever thought to see her. But nothing ever will eradicate the snap and the bounce of her altogether. It’s very well for Henery that he has his hands full, and I hope he’ll fill up hers. She’ll do a turn of work in her day. But young people should be managed quiet and peaceable, and as for the girls—George may marry or Mary Whittaker, your cousin, might want a home. Or, at any rate, there’ll be my eye and your eye on them, to keep them straight.”

But on the evening before she was to start—she was to go to Ashcroft for a day, and meet her escort in London afterwards—Florrie, as she stood in her little room for the last time, felt the awe of a great change coming over her. If he came back after long years as Harry had done, perhaps the younger ones wouldn’t know her; perhaps she would feel strange and uncomfortable as he did.

Florrie went downstairs and back into the sitting-room, acting at once, as was her way, on the thought that came into her mind. “Father,” she said, “I’m very sorry I was such a naughty girl. Harry and Mr Alwyn came home to say they were sorry—but—but—I’d rather say it before I go. And please, father, don’t forget what I’m like. I’ll have my photo took every year and send you.”

“My dear, I didn’t forget Harry,” said her father; “you mistake—and certainly I’m not going to forget you.”

“Oh, Florrie dear,” said Mattie, taking her in her arms and crying, “I thought you didn’t care a bit about leaving us all.”

“Oh yes, I do,” said Florrie, sobbing; “I never said I didn’t care. But when things have got to be done they’ve got to be gone through with whether people care or not!”

And with this sentiment, which no one could say was not a turning of her bold spirit to the use for which it was given to her, Maud Florence Nellie Whittaker went out to her new life.

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Chapter 1

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Chapter 2

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Chapter 3

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Chapter 4

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Chapter 5

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Chapter 6

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Chapter 7

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Chapter 8

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Chapter 9

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Chapter 10

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Chapter 11

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Chapter 12

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Chapter 13

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Chapter 14

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Chapter 15

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Chapter 16

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Chapter 17

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Chapter 18

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Chapter 19

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Chapter 20

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Chapter 21

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Chapter 22

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Chapter 23

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