The Golden Calf, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [ebook reader screen .TXT] 📗

we believe! If! The whole future is an "if!" The future! What future can there be for us? We came from nothing, we go back to nothing--we are resolved into the elements which renew the earth for new comers. The wheel of progress is always revolving--for the mass there is eternity, infinity--no beginning, no end; but for the individual, his little span of life begins and ends in corruption.'

The sound of the organ and the fresh rustic voices singing a familiar hymn told Ida that the sermon was over. Lady Palliser was in an agony of anxiety to get Brian away before the congregation came out. She and Ida contrived to beguile him out of the churchyard and away towards Wimperfield Park by a meadow path which was but little frequented. He grew more rational as they walked home, but talked and argued all the way with that semi-hysterical garrulity which was so painful to his hearers.

They found Vernon sitting up in bed, reading 'Grimm's Goblins,' and in very high spirits. A most wonderful event had happened. Cheap Jack had been to see him. He came with Mr. Fosbroke at twelve o'clock. He had overtaken Mr. Fosbroke in the park, and had asked leave to go up to the house with him, just for a peep at his patient.

'He only stayed a quarter of an hour,' said Vernie, 'for old Fos was in a hurry; but it was such fun! He made me laugh all the time, and Fos laughed, too,--he couldn't help it; and he said Jack's funny talk was better for me now than all the medicine in his surgery; and I am to get up for an hour or two this afternoon; and I am to have some chicken, and as much asparagus as ever I can eat--and in less than a week I shall be able to go up to the hanger and see Jack.'

'My darling, you will have to be much stronger first,' said Ida.

'Oh, but I am very strong now, Ah, there's Brian,' as his brother-in-law looked in at the door. 'What a time since you're been to see me! You've been ill, too, mother said. Come in, Brian. Don't mind about giving me a bad cold that day. It wasn't your fault.'

Brian came into the room with a hang-dog look, and sat by the boy's bed.

'Yes, it was my fault, Vernie. I am a wretched creature. Everything that I do ends badly. I didn't mean to do you any harm.'

'Of course not. You thought it was fun, and so did I, till I got tired and hungry. But those men who were chasing you! There were no men, were there? _I_ didn't see any,' said the boy, with his clear blue eyes on Brian's haggard face.

'Yes, they were there, dodging behind the trees. I saw them plain enough,' answered Brian, moodily. 'It was about that business I told you of. No, I couldn't tell you; it was not a thing to tell a child--a shameful accusation; but I have given them the slip.'

'Brian,' said Ida, laying her hand on his shoulder, 'why do you say these things? You know you are talking nonsense.'

'Am I?' he muttered, cowering as he looked up at her. 'Well, it's as likely as not. Ta, ta, Vernie! You're as well as ever you were. It is I who am booked for a coffin!'

He went away with his feeble shuffling steps, so unlike the step of youth; Ida following him, thinking sadly of the autumn afternoons when he used to come leaping out of his boat--young, bright, and seemingly full of life and energy, and when she half believed she loved him.


CHAPTER XXVII.


JOHN JARDINE SOLVES THE MYSTERY.

The Jardines came the next day, self-invited guests. Ida had tried to prevent any such visit, in her desire to keep her husband's degradation from the knowledge of his kindred; but Bessie was not to be so put off. She had heard that Brian was ill, and that Vernon had been dangerously ill; and her heart overflowed with love and compassion for her friend. It was not easy for Mr. Jardine to leave his parish, but he would have done a more difficult thing rather than see his wife unhappy; so on the Monday morning after that scene in the church, Ida received a telegram to say that Mr. and Mrs. Jardine were going to drive over to see her, and that they would claim her hospitality for a couple of days.

It was a drive of over thirty miles, only to be done by a merciful man between sunrise and sunset. Mr. and Mrs. Jardine started at five o'clock, breakfasted and lunched on the road, and brought their faithful steed, Drummer Boy, up to the Wimperfield portico at seven in the evening, with not a hair turned. Ida was waiting for them in the portico.

'You darling, how pale and worried you look!' exclaimed Bessie, as she hugged her friend; 'and why didn't you let me come before?'

'You could have done me no good, dear, when my troubles were at the worst. Thank God the worst is over now--Vernie is getting on splendidly. He was downstairs to-day, and ate such a dinner. We were quite afraid he would bring on a relapse from over-eating. He is delighted at the idea of seeing you and Mr. Jardine.'

'Has he gone to bed? I'll go up to see him at once, if I may,' said John Jardine.

'He is in his own room. He asked to stop up till seven on purpose to see you.'

'Then I'll go to him this instant.'

The luggage had been brought out of the light T cart, and the Drummer Boy had been led round to the stables. Ida took Bessie to a room at the end of the house, remote from Brian's apartments.

'Why, this isn't our usual room!' said Bessie, astonished.

'No, I thought this would be a pleasanter room in such warm weather. It looks east,' Ida answered, rather feebly.

'It's a very nice room; only I felt more at home in the other. I have occupied it so often, you know, I felt almost as if it were my own. Oh, you cruel girl! why didn't you let me come sooner? I wanted so to be with you in your trouble; and I offered to come directly I heard Vernie was ill!'

'I know, dear; but you could have done no good. We were in God's hands. We could only pray and wait.'

'Love can always do good. I could have comforted you!

'Nothing could have comforted me if he had died.'

'And Brian--poor Brian has been ill, too. I thought him very much changed when we were here--so thin, so nervous, so depressed.'

'Yes, he was ill then--he is very ill now. We take all the care we can of him, but he doesn't get any better.'

'Poor dear Brian! and he was once the soul of fun and gaiety--used to sing comic songs so capitally. I suppose it is a poor thing for a man to do, but it was very nice, especially at Christmas time. There are so few people who can do anything to help one over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Brian was good at everything--charades, clumps, consequences, dumb crambo. And to think that he should be ill so long! What is his complaint, Ida?' asked Bessie, suddenly becoming earnest, after a lapse into childishness.

'It is a nervous complaint,' faltered Ida; 'he will soon get over it, I hope and believe, if we take proper care of him. He is very excitable, very unlike his old self; and you must not be astonished at anything he may say or do.'

'You don't mean that he is out of his mind?' said Bessie, with an awe-stricken look.

'No, no; nothing of the kind--at least, nothing that is likely to be lasting; but he has delusions sometimes--a kind of hysterical affection. Oh, Bessie, I did not want you to know anything; I tried to keep you away.'

Bessie had her arms round her old friend, and Ida, quite broken down by the fears and agitations of the last six weeks, hid her face upon Mrs. Jardine's shoulder and sobbed aloud. It was a complete collapse of heroic resolutions, of that unflinching courage and strength of mind which had sustained her so long; but it was also a blessed relief to the overcharged heart and brain.

'It is very selfish of me to plague you with my troubles,' she said, when Bessie had kissed and comforted her with every expression of sympathy and tenderness in the gamut of womanly love, 'but I wanted you to be prepared for the worst. And now, let me help you to change your gown, if you are going to make any change for dinner. The gong will sound in less than half-an-hour.'

'Oh, those gongs, they always fill me with despair!' cried Bess. 'I am never ready when ours begins to buzz through the house, like a gigantic, melancholy-mad bumble bee. Of course I must change, dear; firstly, because I am smothered with dust, and sixthly, as Dogberry says, because I have brought a pretty gown to do honour to Wimperfield.'

And Bessie, rushing to her portmanteau, and tearing out its contents in a frantic way, shook out the laces and ribbons of a gracious Watteau-like arrangement in Madras muslin, while she chattered to her hostess.

'Shall I send for Jane Dyson?' the immaculate maid, who had lived with an archbishop's wife. 'She can unpack your things.'

'Not for worlds. I have oceans to tell you, and I should hate that prim personage looking on and listening. Such news, Ida: Urania is engaged.'

'At last!'

'That was what everybody said. This was her sixth season, and it was rapidly becoming a case of real distress, and she was getting blue, oh, to a frightful extent--a perambulatory epitome of Huxley-cum-Darwin,--that's what our boys call her. And now, after refusing ever so many nice young men in the Government offices because they were not rich enough for her, she is going to make a great match, and marry a nasty old man.'

'Oh, Bessie! nasty and old!'

'Strong language, isn't it? but the gentleman has been to Kingthorpe, and there is no doubt about the fact. One wouldn't mind his being elderly if he were only a gentleman; but he is not.'

'Then why in mercy's name does Miss Rylance marry him?'

'Because he is Sir Tobias Vandilk, one of the richest men on the Stock Exchange. He is of Dutch extraction, they say; and this is supposed to account for his utter destitution with regard to English aspirates. He has a palace in Park Lane, and a park in Yorkshire; gives dinners of a most _recherché_ description every Thursday in the season; and immense shooting parties, at which I am told he and his friends slaughter quintillions of pheasants, and flood the London market every autumn; and it is whispered that he has lent money to royal personages.'

'Is Urania happy?'

'If she is not, I know who is. Dr. Rylance looks twenty years younger since the engagement. He was beginning to get weighed down by Urania. You remember with what a firm hand he managed her in days gone by! Well, after she took to Huxley and Darwin, and the rest of them, that was all over. She was always tripping him up with some little shred of scientific knowledge, fresh from Tyndall; always attacking his old-fashioned notions