Johnny Ludlow, Fourth Series. Mrs. Henry Wood
that Annet found herself well enough to get upon her legs. The first use she made of them was to go up to London to see her husband. But the sight of her so much excited Frank that Dr. Dale begged her not to come again. It was, he said, taking from Frank one chance of his recovery. So Annet gave her promise not to do so, and came back to Pitchley’s sobbing and sighing.
Things went on without much change till May. News came of Frank periodically, chiefly to Stephen Radcliffe, who was the recognized authority in Dr. Dale’s eyes. On the whole it was good. The improvement in him, though slow, was gradual: and Dr. Dale felt quite certain now of his restoration. In May, the cheering tidings arrived that Frank was all but well; and Stephen Radcliffe, who went to London for a fortnight about that time and saw Frank twice, confirmed it.
Stephen’s visit up arose in this way. One Esau D. Stettin (that’s how he wrote his name), who owned land in Canada, came to this country on business, and brought news to the Torr of Tom Radcliffe. Tom had every chance of doing well, he said, and was quite steady—and this was true. Mr. and Mrs. Stephen were almost as glad to hear it as if a fortune had been left them. But, to ensure his doing well and to make his farm prosperous, Tom wanted no end of articles sent out to him: the latest improvements in agricultural implements; patent wheelbarrows, and all the rest of it. For Stephen to take the money out of his pocket to purchase the wheelbarrows was like taking the teeth from his head; but as Esau D. Stettin—who was above suspicion—confirmed Tom’s need of the things, Stephen decided to do it. He went up to London, to buy the articles and superintend their embarkation, and it was during that time that he saw Frank. Upon returning to the Torr, he fully bore out Dr. Dale’s opinion that Frank was recovering his mind, was, in fact, almost well; but he privately told the Squire some other news that qualified it.
Frank’s health was failing. While his mind was resuming its tone, his body was wasting. He was, Ste said, a mere shadow; and Dr. Dale feared that he would not last very long after complete sanity set in.
How sorry we all were, I need not say. With all his failings and his instability, every one liked Frank Radcliffe. They kept it from Annet. She was but a shadow herself: had fretted her flesh to fiddlestrings; and Duffham’s opinion was that she stood a good chance of dwindling away till nothing was left of her but a shroud and a coffin.
“Would it be of any use my going up to see him, poor fellow?” asked the Squire, sadly down in the mouth.
“Not a bit,” returned Stephen. “Dale would be sure not to admit you: so much depends on Frank’s being kept free from excitement. Why, he wanted to deny me, that Dale; but I insisted on my right to go in. I mean to see him again, too, before many days are over.”
“Are you going to London again?” asked the Squire, rather surprised. It was something new for Stephen Radcliffe to be a gad-about.
“I shall have to go, I reckon,” said Stephen, ungraciously. “I’ve to see Stettin before he sails.”
Stephen Radcliffe did go up again, apparently much against his will, to judge by the ill words he gave to it. And the report he brought back of Frank that time was rather more cheering.
The Squire was standing one hot morning in the yard in his light buff coat, blowing up Dwarf Giles for something that had gone wrong in the stables, when a man was seen making his way from the oak-walk towards the yard. The June hay-making was about, and the smell of the hay was wafted across to us on the wings of the summer breeze.
“Who’s that, Johnny?” asked the pater: for the sun was shining right in his eyes.
“It—it looks like Stephen Radcliffe, sir.”
“You may tell him by his rusty suit of velveteen,” put in Tod; who stood watching a young brood of ducklings in the duck-pond, and the agonies of the hen that had hatched them.
Stephen Radcliffe it was. He had a stout stick in his hand, and his face was of a curious leaden colour. Which, with him, took the place of paleness.
“I’ve had bad news, Mr. Todhetley,” he began, in low tones, without any preliminary greeting. “Frank’s dead.”
The Squire’s straw hat, which he chanced to have taken off, dropped on the stones. “Dead! Frank!” he exclaimed in an awestruck tone. “It can’t be true.”
“Just the first thought that struck me when I opened the letter,” said Stephen, drawing one from his pocket. “Here it is, though, in black and white.”
His hands shook like anything as he held out the letter. It was from one of the assistants at Dale’s—a Mr. Pitt: the head doctor, under Dale, Stephen explained. Frank had died suddenly, it stated, without warning of any kind, so that there was no possibility of apprising his friends; and it requested Mr. Radcliffe to go up without delay.
“It is a dreadful thing!” cried the Squire.
“So it is, poor fellow,” agreed Stephen. “I never thought it was going to end this way; not yet awhile, at any rate. For him, it’s a happy release, I suppose. He’d never ha’ been good for anything.”
“What has he died of?” questioned Tod.
The voice, or the question, seemed to startle Stephen. He looked sharply round, as if he hadn’t known Tod was there, an ugly scowl on his face.
“I expect we shall hear it was heart disease,” he said, facing the Squire and turning his back upon Tod.
“Why do you say that, Mr. Radcliffe? Was anything the matter with his heart?”
“Dale had some doubts of it, Squire. He thought that was the cause of his wasting away.”
“You never told us that.”
“Because I never believed it. A Radcliffe never had a weak heart yet. And it’s only a thought o’ mine: he might have died from something else. Laid hands on himself, maybe.”
“For goodness’ sake don’t bring up such an ill thought as that,” cried the pater explosively. “Wait till you know.”
“Yes, I must wait till I know,” said Stephen, sullenly. “And a precious inconvenience it is to me to go up at this moment when my hay’s just cut! Frank’s been a bother to me all his life, and he must even be a bother now he’s dead.”
“Shall I go up for you?” asked the Squire: who in his distress at the sudden news would have thought nothing of offering to start for Kamschatka.
“No good if you did,” growled Stephen, folding up the letter that the pater handed back to him. “They’d not as much as release him to be buried without me, I expect. I shall bring him down here,” added Stephen, jerking his head in the direction of the churchyard.
“Yes, yes, poor fellow—let him lie by his mother,” said the Squire.
Stephen said a good-morrow, meant for the whole of us; and had rounded the duck-pond on his exit, when he stopped, and turned back again to the pater.
“There’ll be extra expenses, I suppose, up at Dale’s. Have I your authority to discharge them?”
“Of course you have, Mr. Radcliffe. Or let Dale send in the account to me, if you prefer it.”
He went off without another word, his head down; his thick stick held over his shoulder. Tho Squire rubbed his face, and wondered what on earth was the next thing to do in this unhappy crisis.
Annet was in Wales with her mother at some seaside place. It would be a dreadful shock to her. Getting the address from David Skate, the Squire wrote to break it to them in the best manner he could. But now, a mischance happened to that letter. Welsh names are difficult to spell; the pater’s pen put L for Y, or X for Z, something of that sort; and the letter went to a wrong town altogether, and finally came back to him unopened. Stephen Radcliffe had returned then.
Stephen did not keep his word, instead of bringing Frank down, he left him in London in Finchley Cemetery. “The heat of