Johnny Ludlow, Fourth Series. Mrs. Henry Wood
“And was it the heart that was wrong?” asked the pater.
“No. It was what they called ‘effusion on the brain,’ ” replied Stephen. “Dale says it’s rather a common case with lunatics, but he never feared it for Frank.”
“It is distressing to think his poor wife did not see him. Quite a misfortune.”
“Well, we can’t help it: it was no fault of ours,” retorted Stephen: who had actually had the decency to put himself into a semblance of mourning. “The world ’ud go on differently for many of us, Squire, if we could foresee things.”
And that was the end of Francis Radcliffe!
“Finchley Cemetery!” exclaimed Mr. Brandon, when he heard it. “That Stephen Radcliffe has been at his stingy tricks again. You can bury people for next to nothing there.”
Poor Annet came home in her widow’s weeds, In health she was better; and might grow strong in time. There was no longer any suspense: she knew the worst; that was in itself a rest. The great doubt to be encountered now was, whether she could keep on Pitchley’s Farm. Mr. Brandon was willing to risk it: and David Skate took up his abode at the farm for good, and would do his best in all ways. But the three hundred a-year income, that had been the chief help and stay of herself and Frank, was gone.
It had lapsed to Stephen. Nothing could be said against that in law, for old Mr. Radcliffe’s will had so decreed it; but it seemed a very cruel thing for every shilling to leave her, an injustice, a wrong. The tears ran down her pale face as she spoke of it one day at Pitchley’s to the Squire: and he, going in wholesale for sympathy, determined to have a tussel with Stephen.
“You can’t for shame take it all from her, Stephen Radcliffe,” said the Squire, after walking over to Sandstone Torr the next morning. “You must not leave her quite penniless.”
“I don’t take it from her,” replied Stephen, rumpling up his grizzled hair. “It comes to me of right. It is my own.”
“Now don’t quibble, Stephen Radcliffe,” said the Squire, rubbing his face, for he went into a fever as usual over his argument, and the day was hot. “The poor thing was your brother’s wife, and you ought to consider that.”
“Francis was a fool to marry her. An unsteady man like him always is a fool to marry.”
“Well, he did marry her: and I don’t see that he was a fool at all for it. I wish I’d got the whip-hand of those two wicked blades who came down here and turned him from his good ways. I wonder how they’ll answer for it in heaven.”
“Would you like to take a drop of cider?” asked Stephen.
“I don’t care if I do.”
The cider was brought in by Eunice Gibbon: a second edition, so far as looks went, of Mrs. Stephen Radcliffe, whose younger sister she was. She lived there as servant, the only one kept. Holt had left when old Mr. Radcliffe died.
“Come, Stephen Radcliffe, you must make Annet some allowance,” said the Squire, after taking a long draught and finding the cider uncommonly sour. “The neighbours will cry out upon you if you don’t.”
“The neighbours can do as they choose.”
“Just take this much into consideration. If that little child of theirs had lived, the money would have been his.”
“But he didn’t live,” argued Stephen.
“I know he didn’t—more’s the pity. He’d have been a consolation to her, poor thing. Come! you can’t, I say, take all from her and leave her with nothing.”
“Nothing! Hasn’t she got the farm-stock and the furniture? She’s all that to the good. ’Twas bought with Frank’s money.”
“No, it was not. Half the money was hers. Look here. Unless she gets help somewhere, I don’t see how she is to stay on at Pitchley’s.”
“And ’twould be a sight better for her not to stay on at Pitchley’s,” retorted Stephen. “Let her go back to her mother’s again, over in the other parish. Or let her emigrate. Lots of folks is emigrating now.”
“This won’t do, Stephen Radcliffe,” said the Squire, beginning to lose his temper. “You can’t for shame bring every one down upon your head. Allow her a trifle, man, out of the income that has lapsed to you: let the world have to say that you are generous for once.”
Well, not to pursue the contest—which lasted, hot and sharp, for a couple of hours, for the Squire, though he kept getting out of one passion into another, would not give in—I may as well say at once that Stephen at last yielded, and agreed to allow her fifty pounds a-year. “Just for a year or so,” as he ungraciously put it, “while she turned herself round.”
And it was so tremendous a concession for Stephen Radcliffe that no one believed it at first, the Squire included. It must be intended as a thanksgiving for his brother’s death, said the world.
“Only, Ste Radcliffe is not the one to offer thanksgivings,” observed old Brandon. “Take care that he pays it, Squire.”
And thus things fell into the old grooves again, and the settling down of Frank Radcliffe amongst us seemed but as a very short episode in Church Dykely life. Stephen Radcliffe, in funds now, bought an adjoining field that was to be sold, and added it to his land: but he and his wife and the Torr kept themselves more secluded than ever. Frank’s widow took up her old strength by degrees, and worked and managed incessantly: she in the house, and David Skate out of it; to keep Pitchley’s Farm together. And the autumn drew on.
The light of the moon streamed in slantwise upon us as we sat round the bay-window. Tod and I had just got home for the Michaelmas holidays: and we sat talking after dinner in the growing dusk. There was always plenty to relate, on getting home from school. A dreadful thing had happened this last quarter: one of the younger ones had died at a game of Hare and Hounds. I’ll tell you of it some time. The tears glistened in Mrs. Todhetley’s eyes, and we all seemed to be talking at once.
“Mrs. Francis Radcliffe, ma’am.”
Old Thomas had opened the door and interrupted us. Annet came in quietly, and sat down after shaking hands all round. Her face looked pale and troubled. We asked her to stay tea; but she would not.
“It is late to come in,” she said, some apology in her tone. “I meant to have been here earlier; but it has been a busy day, and I have had interruptions besides.”
This seemed to imply that she had come over for some special purpose. Not another word, however, did she say. She just sat in silence, or next door to it: answering Yes and No in an abstracted sort of way when spoken to, and staring out into the moonlight like any one dreaming. And presently she got up to leave.
We went out with her and walked across the field; the pater, I, and Tod. Nearly every blade of the short grass could be seen as distinctly as in the day. At the first stile she halted, saying she expected to meet David there, who had gone on to Dobbs the blacksmith on some errand connected with the horses.
Tod saw a young hare scutter across the grass, and rushed after it, full chase. The moon, low in the heavens, as autumn moons mostly are, lighted up the perplexity on Annet’s face. It was perplexed. Suddenly she turned it on the Squire.
“Mr. Todhetley, I am sure you must wonder what I came for.”
“Well, I thought you wanted something,” said the Squire candidly. “We are always pleased to have you; you ought to have stayed tea.”
“I did want something. But I really could not muster courage to begin upon it. The longer I sat there—like a statue, as I felt—the more my tongue failed me. Perhaps I can say it here.”
It was a curious thing she had to tell, and must have sounded to the Squire’s ears like an incident