God's Good Man, Marie Corelli [me reader .txt] 📗

him to get away to Riversford, where apparently he intended to take up his future abode, Mordaunt Appleby the brewer having offered him a situation as brewery accountant. The opportunity occurred last night, so I hear. He managed to get off with his luggage in a trap, and duly arrived at the Crown Inn. There he was set upon in the taproom by certain old friends and gambling associates, who accused him of wilfully attempting to injure Miss Vancourt. He denied it. Thereupon they challenged him to drink ten glasses of raw whiskey, one on top of another, to prove his innocence. It was a base and brutal business, but he accepted the challenge. At the eighth glass he fell down unconscious. His companions thought he was merely drunk—but—as it turned out—he was dead.” [Footnote: This incident happened lately in a village in the south of England.]

Walden heard in silence.

“It’s horrible!” he said at last—“Yet—I cannot say sorry! I suppose as a Christian minister I ought to be,—but I’m not! I only hope none of my people were concerned in the matter?”

“You may be quite easy on that score,”—replied Forsyth—“Of course there will be an inquest, and a severe reproof will be administered to the men who challenged him,—but there the affair will end. I really don’t think we need grieve ourselves unduly over the exit of one scoundrel from a world already overburdened with his species.” With that, he turned and poked the fire into a brighter blaze. “Let us talk of something else”—he said. “I called in to tell you that Santori is in London, and that I have taken the responsibility upon myself of sending for him to see Miss Vancourt.”

Walden was instantly all earnest attention.

“Who is Santori?” he asked.

“Santori,” replied Forsyth, “is a great Italian, whose scientific researches into medicine and surgery have won him the honour of all nations, save and except the British. We are very insular, my dear Walden!—we never will tolerate the ‘furriner’ even if he brings us health and healing in his hand! Santori is a medical ‘furriner,’ therefore he is generally despised by the English medical profession. But I’m a Scotsman—I’ve no prejudices except my own!” And he laughed—“And I acknowledge Santori as one of the greatest men of the age. He is a scientist as well as a surgeon—and his great ‘speciality’ is the spine and nerves. Now I have never quite explained to you the nature of Miss Vancourt’s injuries, and there is no need even now to particularise them. The main point of her case is that in the condition she is now, she must remain a cripple for life,—and” here he hesitated,—“that life cannot, I fear, be a very long one.”

Walden turned his head away for a moment.

“Go on!” he said huskily.

“At the same time,” continued Dr. Forsyth, gently—“there are no bones broken,—all the mischief is centred in damage to the spine. I sent, as you know, for Wentworth Glynn, our best specialist in this country, and he assured me there was no hope whatever of any change for the better. Yesterday, I happened to see in the papers that Santori had arrived in London for a few weeks, and, acting on a sudden inspiration, I wrote him a letter at once, explaining the whole case, and asking him to meet me in consultation. He has wired an answer to-day, saying he will be here to-morrow.”

Walden’s eyes were full of sorrowful pain and yearning.

“Well!” he said, with a slight sigh—“And what then?”

“What then?” responded Dr. ‘Jimmy’ cheerfully—“Why nothing,—except that it will be more satisfactory to everyone concerned,—and to me particularly—to have his opinion.”

There was a pause. John gazed down into the fire as though he saw a whole world of mingled grief and joy reflected in its crimson glow. Then, suddenly lifting his head, he looked his friend full in the face.

“Forsyth,”—he said—“I think I ought to tell you—you ought to know—I am going to marry her!”

Without a word, ‘Jimmy’ gripped his hand and pressed it hard. Then he turned very abruptly, and walked up and down the little room. And presently he drew out his glasses and polished them vigorously though they were in no need of this process.

“I thought you would!” he said, after a while—“Of course I saw how the land lay! I knew you loved her---”

“I suppose that was easy to guess!” said John, a warm flush of colour rising to his brows as he spoke—“But you could not have imagined for a moment that she would love me! Yet she does! That is the wonder of it! I am such an old humdrum fellow—and she is so young and bright and pretty! It seems so strange that she should care!”

Dr. Forsyth looked at him with an appreciative twinkle in his eye. Then he laid a friendly hand upon his shoulder,

“You are a quaint creature, John!” he said—“Yet, do you know, I rather like your humdrum ways? I do, positively! And if I were a woman, I think I should esteem myself fortunate if I got you for a husband! I really should! You certainly don’t suffer from swelled head, John—that’s a great point in your favour!”

He laughed,—and John laughed with him. Then, drawing their chairs to opposite sides of the fire, they talked for an hour or more on the subject that was most interesting to them both, John was for marrying Maryllia as soon as possible—“in order that I may have the right to watch over her,” he urged, and Forsyth agreed.

“But wait till Santori has seen her, and given his opinion,”—he said—“If he comes, as his telegram says he will to-morrow, we can take him entirely into our confidence, to decide what is best for her peace and pleasure. The ceremony of marriage can be gone through privately at the Manor,—by the way, why don’t you ask your friend the Bishop to officiate? I suppose he knows the position?”

“He knows much, but not all,”—said John—“I wrote to him about the accident of course—and have written to him frequently since, but I did not think I should ever have such news to tell him as I have now!” His eyes darkened with deep feeling. “He has had his own tragedy—he will understand mine!”

A silence fell between them,—and soon after, Forsyth took his leave. Walden, left alone, and deeply conscious of the new responsibility he had taken upon his life, set to work to get through his parish business for the evening, in order to have time to devote to Maryllia the next day, and, writing a long letter to Bishop Brent, he told him all the history of his late-found happiness,—his hopes, his sorrows, his fears—and his intention to show what a man’s true love could be to a woman whom unkind destiny had deprived of all the natural joys of living. He added to this letter a few words referring to Forsyth’s information respecting the Italian specialist, Santori, who had been sent for to see Maryllia and pronounce on her condition—“but I fear,” he wrote, “that there is nothing to be done, save to resign ourselves to the apparently cruel and incomprehensible will of God, which in this case has declared itself in favour of allowing the innocent to suffer.”

Next morning he awoke to find the sun shining brightly from a sky almost clear blue, save for a few scattered grey fleecy clouds,— and, stepping out into his garden, the first thing he noticed was a root of primroses breaking shyly into flower. Seeing Bainton trimming the shrubbery close by, he called his attention to it.

“Spring is evidently on the way, Bainton!” he said cheerily, “We are getting past the white into the gold again!”

“Ay, Passon, that we be!” rejoined Bainton, with a smile—“An’ please the Lord, we’ll soon get from the gold into the blue, an’ from the blue into the rose! For that’s allus the way o’ the year,— first little white shaky blossoms wot’s a bit afraid of theirselves, lest the frost should nip ‘em,—and then the deep an’ the pale an’ the bright gold blossoms, which just laughs at dull weather—an’ then the blue o’ the forget-me-nots an’ wood-bells,—an’ the red o’ the roses to crown all. An’ mebbe,” he continued, with a shrewd upward glance at his master’s face—“when the roses come, there’ll be a bit of orange-blossom to keep ‘em company---”

John started,—and then his kind smile, so warm and sunny and sweet, shone like a beam of light itself across his features.

“What, Bainton!” he said—“So you know all about it already!”

Bainton began to chuckle irrepressibly.

“Well, if the village ain’t a liar from its one end to its t’otherest, then I knows!” he declared triumphantly—“Lord love ye, Passon, you don’t s’pose ye can keep any secrets in this ‘ere parish? They knows all about ye ‘fore ye knows yerself!—an’ Missis Spruce she came down from the Manor last night in such a state o’ fluster as never was, an’ she sez, all shakin’ like an’ smilin’— ‘Miss Maryllia’s goin’ to be married,’ sez she, an’ we up an’ sez to ‘er—‘What, is the Dook goin’ to ‘ave her just the same though she can’t walk no more?’ an’ she sez: ‘Dook, not a bit of it! There’s a better man than any Dook close by an’ it’s ‘im she’s goin’ to ‘ave an’ nobody else, an’ it’s Passon Walden,’ sez she, an’ with that we all gives a big shout, an’ she busts out cryin’ an’ laughin’ together, an’ we all doos the same like the nesh fools we are when a bit o’ news pleases us like,—an’—an’---” Here Bainton’s voice grew rather husky and tremulous as he proceeded—“so of course the news went right through the village two minutes arterwards. An’ it’s all we could do to keep from comin’ up outside ‘ere an’ givin’ ye a rousin’ cheer ‘fore goin’ to bed, onny Mr. Netlips ‘e said it wouldn’t be ‘commensurate,’ wotever that is, so we just left it. Howsomever, I made up my mind I’d be the first to wish ye joy, Passon!—an’ I wish it true!”

Silently Walden held out his hand. Bainton grasped it with affectionate respect in his own horny palm.

“Not that I’d ‘ave ever thought you’d a’ bin a marryin’ man, Passon!” he averred, his shrewd eyes lighting up with the kindliest humour—“But it’s never too late to mend!”

Walden laughed.

“That’s true, Bainton! It’s never too late to repent of one’s follies and begin to be wise! Thank you for all your good wishes— they come from the heart, I know! But”—and his smile softened into an earnest gravity of expression—“they must be for her—for Miss Maryllia—not for me! I am already happier than I deserve—but she needs everyone’s good thoughts and prayers to help her to bear her enforced helplessness—she is very brave—yet—it is hard---”

He broke off, not trusting himself to say more.

“It’s hard—it’s powerful hard!” agreed Bainton, sympathetically— “Such a wife as she’d a’ made t’ye, Passon, if she’d been as she was when she come in smilin’ an’ trippin’ across this lawn by your side, an’ ye broke off a bit o’ your best lilac for her! There’s the very bush—all leafless twigs now, but strong an’ ‘elthy an’ ready to bloom again! Ah! I remember that day well!—‘twas the same day as ye sat under the apple tree arter she was gone an’ fastened a threepenny bit with a ‘ole in it to ye’re watch chain! I seed it! An’ I was fair mazed over that ‘oley bit,—but I found out all about it!—hor-hor-hor!” and Bainton began to laugh with exceeding delight at his own perspicuity—“A few minutes’ gossip with