Johnny Ludlow, Fourth Series. Mrs. Henry Wood
heard you were ill, young man,” said Mr. Brandon, peering up into Frank’s handsome face as he shook hands, and detecting all sorts of sickly signs in it.
“So I have been, Mr. Brandon; very ill. But I have left London and its dissipations for good, and have come here to settle. It’s about time I did,” he added, with the candour natural to him.
“I should say it was,” coughed old Brandon. “You’ve been on the wrong tack long enough.”
“And I have come to you—I hope I am first in the field—to ask you to let me have the lease of Pitchley’s Farm.”
Mr. Brandon could not have felt more surprised had Frank asked for a lease of the moon, but he did not show it. His head went up a little, and the purple tassel took a sway backwards.
“Oh,” said he. “You take Pitchley’s Farm! How do you think to stock it?”
“I shall take to the stock at present on it, as far as my means will allow, and give a bond for the rest. Pitchley’s executors will make it easy for me.”
“What are your means?” curtly questioned old Brandon.
“In all, they will be two thousand pounds. Taking mine and Miss Skate’s together.”
“That’s a settled thing, is it, Master Francis?”—alluding to the marriage.
“Yes, it is,” said Frank. “Her portion is just a thousand pounds, and her friends are willing to put it on the farm. Mine is another thousand.”
“Where does yours come from?”
“Do you recollect, Mr. Brandon, that when I was a little fellow at school I had a thousand pounds left me by a clergyman—a former friend of my grandfather Elliot?”
Mr. Brandon nodded. “It was Parson Godfrey. He came down once or twice to the Torr to see your mother and you.”
“Just so. Well, his widow has now recently died; she was considerably younger than he; and she has left me another thousand. If I can have Pitchley’s Farm, I shall be sure to get on at it,” he added in his sanguine way. For, if ever there was a sanguine, sunny-natured fellow in this world, it was Frank Radcliffe.
Old Brandon pushed his geranium cap all aside and gave a flick to the tassel. “My opinion lies the contrary way, young man: that you will be sure not to get on at it.”
“I understand all about farming,” said Frank eagerly. “And I mean to be as steady as steady can be.”
“To begin with a debt on the farm will cripple the best man going, sir.”
“Oh, Mr. Brandon, don’t turn against me!” implored Frank, who was feeling terribly in earnest. “Give me a chance! Unless I can get some constant work, some interest to occupy my hands and my mind, I might be relapsing back to the old ways again from sheer ennui. There’s no resource but a farm.”
Mr. Brandon did not seem to be in a hurry to answer. He was looking straight at Frank, and nodding little nods to himself, following out some mental argument. Frank leaned forward in his chair, his voice low, his face solemn.
“When my poor mother was dying, I promised her to give up bad habits, Mr. Brandon. I hope—I think—I fully intend to do so now. Won’t you help me?”
“What do you wish me to understand by ‘bad’ habits, young man?” queried Mr. Brandon in his hardest tones. “What have been yours?”
“Drink,” said Frank shortly. “And I am ashamed enough to have to say it. It is not that I have been a constant drinker, or that I have taken much, in comparison with what very many men drink; but I have, sometimes for weeks together, taken it very recklessly. That is what I meant by speaking of my bad habits, Mr. Brandon.”
“Couldn’t speak of a worse habit, Frank Radcliffe.”
“True. I should have pulled up long ago but for those fast companions I lived amongst. They kept me down. Once amidst such, a fellow has no chance. Often and often that neglected promise to my mother has lain upon me, a nightmare of remorse. I have fancied she might be looking down upon earth, upon me, and seeing how I was fulfilling it.”
“If your mother was not looking down upon you, sir, your Creator was.”
“Ay. I know. Mr. Brandon”—his voice sinking deeper in its solemnity, and his eyes glistening—“in the very last minute of my mother’s life—when her soul was actually on the wing—she told me that she knew I should be helped to throw off what was wrong. She had prayed for it, and seen it. A conviction is within me that I shall be—has been within me ever since. I think this—now—may be the turning-point in my life. Don’t deny me the farm, sir.”
“Frank Radcliffe, I’d let you have the farm, and another to it, if I thought you were sincere.”
“Why—you can’t think me not sincere, after what I have said!” cried Frank.
“Oh, you are sincere enough at the present moment. I don’t doubt that. The question is, will you be sincere in keeping your good resolutions in the future?”
“I hope I shall. I believe I shall. I will try with all my best energies.”
“Very well. You may have the farm.”
Frank Radcliffe started up in his joy and gratitude, and shook Mr. Brandon’s hands till the purple tassel quivered. He had a squeaky voice and a cold manner, and went in for coughs and chest-aches, and all kinds of fanciful disorders; but there was no more generous heart going than old Brandon’s.
Business settled, the luncheon was ordered in. But Frank was a good deal too impatient to stay for it; and drove away in the pony-gig to impart the news to all whom it might concern. Taking a round to the Torr first, he drove into the back-yard. Stephen came out.
Stephen looked quite old now. He must have been fifty years of age. Hard and surly as ever was he, and his stock of hair was as grizzled as his father’s used to be before Frank was born.
“Oh, it’s you!” said Stephen, as civilly as he could bring his tongue to speak. “Whose chay and pony is that?”
“It belongs to Pitchley’s bailiff. He lent it me this morning.”
“Will you come in?”
“I have not time now,” answered Frank. “But I thought I’d just drive round and tell you the news, Stephen. I’m going to have Pitchley’s Farm.”
“Who says so?”
“I have now been settling it with Mr. Brandon. At first, he seemed unwilling to let me have it—was afraid, I suppose, that I and the farm might come to grief together—but he consented at last. So I shall get in as soon as I can, and take Annet with me. You’ll come to our wedding, Stephen?”
“A fine match she is!” cried cranky Stephen.
“What’s the matter with her?”
“I don’t say as anything’s the matter with her. But you have always stuck up for the pride and pomp of the Radcliffes: made out that nobody was good enough for ’em. A nice comedown for Frank Radcliffe that’ll be—old Farmer Skate’s girl.”
“We won’t quarrel about it, Stephen,” said Frank, with his good-humoured smile. “Here’s your wife. How do you do, Mrs. Radcliffe?”
Becca had come out with a wet mop in her hands, which she proceeded to wring. Some of the splashes went on Frank’s pony-gig. She wore morning costume: a dark-blue cotton gown hanging straight down on her thin, lanky figure; and an old black cap adorning her hard face. It was a great contrast: handsome, gentlemanly, well-dressed, sunny Frank Radcliffe, barrister-at-law; and that surly boor Stephen, in his rough clothes, and his shabby, hard-working wife.
“When