One of the 28th: A Tale of Waterloo

"Why, mother darling!" he exclaimed, "how on earth did you get here?"

"I came across in a smack to Ostend, Ralph, and then came on by carriage. I got here last night, and learned at the quartermaster-general's office that you were wounded and were somewhere in Brussels, at least they believed you were here somewhere, but they could not say where. They let me have a copy of the list of the houses that had been allotted for the use of wounded officers. It was too late to begin the search last night, but I have been three hours going round this morning. I saw the surgeon downstairs and he told me—" and her lips quivered and her eyes filled with tears.

"That I had lost my left arm, mother. Well, that is nothing to fret about when thousands have been killed. One can do very well without a left arm; and I think, on the whole, that I have been wonderfully lucky. Denis!" But Denis was not in the room, having, as soon as he had discovered who Ralph's visitor was, gone out to leave them alone. "And have you made this journey all by yourself, mother?"

"No, my dear. Mr. Tallboys was good enough to come over to take care of me by the way."

"Mr. Tallboys, mother! How did he know that you were coming?"

"Well, I told him, Ralph. But that is a long story, and you shall hear it another day. The doctor said you had better not do much talking now. Mr. Tallboys will stay here a day or two and then go home. I intend to take a room somewhere close by and install myself here as your head nurse."

"I shan't want much nursing, mother; but I shall be delighted to have you with me. I have a capital servant. The man I told you about in my letters. He is a most amusing fellow and very much attached to me. Do you know, he got leave directly the battle was over, and was all night walking by the side of the ambulance wagon. He is a capital fellow. By the way, mother, I suppose the will has not turned up yet? You said in your last letter you had great hopes of its being found."

"It has been found, Ralph; and it is all just as we supposed. But how it was found, or anything about it, you mustn't ask at present. It is a long story, and I must insist now that you lie quiet and go to sleep."

"Well, I will try, mother. Will you just look outside the door and see if Denis is there? Denis, this is my mother," he said as the soldier came in. "She has come over to help nurse me; and as she will be principally with me in the daytime, you will be at liberty to be out whenever you like."

"Sure, and I am glad the lady has come, Mr. Conway; though I would have done the best I could for you. Still, a man is but a poor crater in a sick-room. Can I get you anything ma'am?"

"Well, I have had nothing this morning, Denis; and if you could get me a cup of tea and some bread and butter, if it is not against the rules, I should be very glad."

"Sure, I will do that, ma'am, with the greatest pleasure in life," Denis said; and presently returned bringing up a tray with tea, bread and butter, and a plate of cold meat.

"Is there anything else, ma'am?"

"Well, Denis, I should be very much obliged if you will take a note from me to a gentleman named Tallboys, whom you will find at the Hotel de L'Europe. Give it to him yourself if you can. He will be glad to hear from you about my son, how he is going on and so on."

For the next few days Ralph's arm was exceedingly painful, attended by a certain amount of fever. At the end of that time he began to improve, and his wound made steady progress toward recovery. After staying for four days at Brussels, Mr. Tallboys had returned home. Mrs. Conway and Denis divided the nursing between them, sitting up on alternate nights.

A fortnight after Mrs. Conway's arrival Ralph said, "Now, mother, I shall be up to-morrow and can therefore be considered as fairly convalescent, so there can be no reason now why you should not tell the story about the finding of the will. You told me in one of your letters before Christmas that Mr. Tallboys had failed altogether. So how did it come to be found?"

Mrs. Conway thereupon told the story. When she came to the point where she had gone as a servant to the Hall, Ralph interrupted her with a loud protest. "I don't like that, mother; I don't like the idea of your having gone as a servant, whatever the stake was. If I had been at home and had known it, I certainly would not have let you go, not if there had been ten fortunes to be gained by it. The idea of your having to go and live as a servant, and work for people like that is horrid!"

"There was nothing very unpleasant about it, Ralph. I had plenty to do and to think about, and the time passed a great deal more rapidly than it would have done if I had been staying at home all by myself. It would have been very lonely and dull then; and I can assure you that I considered it no hardship at all being at the Hall. But you must not interrupt me in my story. If you do I shall tell you nothing more about it until you get home to England."

This threat effectually sealed Ralph's lips, and beyond occasional exclamations he said nothing until the story was ended.

"Well, it's all very wonderful, mother," he said; "and I should never have thought for a moment that you were so brave, and could have put things together like that, and could have carried out such a scheme. But I am awfully glad you have succeeded; because you had set your mind on it, and the money will I hope make you quite comfortable. How much was it after all mother? You never told me that."

"It is half of Mr. Penfold's estates, and of the money he had invested, which is a very large sum, Ralph; although I do not know how much."

"Half the estate! Why, it will make me quite a rich man. I never dreamed it was anything like that. I thought most likely it was enough to continue the allowance that he said he should make me. Why, mother, it is tremendous! And what becomes of the other half?"

"That is left to Mabel Withers, Ralph. You two divide everything that he left."

"Well, that certainly is rather hard upon his sisters," Ralph said; "and I don't blame them for being against it. Though, of course, it was not right to keep the will hidden."

"Mr. Penfold did not leave anything to them, because they are both very well provided for. Their father left them a handsome sum at his death; and as they have been living at the Hall ever since, and can have spent nothing, they must be very amply provided for. Their brother, therefore, naturally considered he was perfectly at liberty to leave his property as he chose. I do not think the Miss Penfolds have the slightest reason to grumble, after living as they have done for the last twenty years at their brother's expense."

"Of course that makes a difference," Ralph agreed; "it certainly didn't seem nice that Mabel and I, who are no relation by blood to Mr. Penfold, should come into the property that his sisters expected would be theirs. But, of course, now you explain it, it is different."

"I do not think in any case, Ralph, Mr. Penfold would have left his fortune to his sisters. He was a man very averse to exerting his own will, and I am sure that he submitted to, rather than liked, his sisters' residence at the Hall. I know that he considered, and justly, that they had once committed a cruel wrong upon him, and had in a way spoiled his life. I question whether he really ever forgave them."

"I see, mother," Ralph said. "Well, now, about myself; I should think there can be no occasion for me to continue in the army unless I like?"

"I hope you won't like, Ralph. In the first place I want to have you with me; and in the second, you will be a large landowner, and property has its duties."

"Well, there is no necessity to decide about that at present. The doctor said yesterday I should certainly get three months' sick leave before I rejoined. By all we hear the fighting is at an end, and there is no fear whatever that Napoleon will have it in his power to cause trouble in the future. They will take care of that, whatever they do with him. If there is going to be peace everywhere, I do not know that I should care very much about staying in the army; but, as I said, we need not decide at present."

Ten days later, Ralph was so far recovered that he was able to return home with his mother. As soon as she informed him of her arrival at Dover, Mr. Tallboys wrote to tell her that he had had an interview in London with the Miss Penfolds' lawyer, who informed him that he had instructions from his clients to examine the will, and if satisfied of its genuineness, to offer no opposition whatever to its being proved. Mr. Tallboys had thereupon shown him the will, and had no difficulty in convincing him that it was the document he himself had drawn up, and Mr. Penfold had signed in his presence.

"The lawyer has placed all the deeds and documents relating to Mr. Penfold's property in my hands, and, as I was of course before well aware, my late client died worth a very considerable property in addition to his large estates in this country. For the last twenty years his income has exceeded his expenditure by an average of three thousand a year, and as the surpluses have been judiciously invested, and as the prices of all funds and stocks now stand vastly higher than they did during the course of the long war, their total value now amounts to something over a hundred and thirty thousand pounds.

"The property in this country was valued, at the time Mr. Penfold drew up his will, at eighty thousand pounds; these estates he left to your son, and the sum of eighty-thousand pounds, in various investments, to Miss Withers, and directed that the residue, whatever it might be at his death, should be equally divided between them. Your son's share, therefore, will amount to about twenty-five thousand pounds. I may say that the outlying farms, which were settled by deed as a security for the four hundred pounds annually paid to you, are not included in the above valuation, but are ordered to revert to the main estate upon your decease.

"The formalities will all be completed in the course of a short time. I may say that from the totals to be divided must be deducted the legacy duties, which, as your son and Miss Withers are strangers by blood to the testator, will be heavy." Mr. Tallboys added that he heard the younger Miss Penfold was now recovering from her serious illness, but it was not probable she would ever be again herself. He had received, he said, a letter that morning from their solicitor, saying that as soon as Miss Eleanor Penfold could be moved, which it was hoped would be in the course of another week, the ladies would vacate possession of the Hall.

A fortnight later Mrs. Conway and Ralph left Dover for London, leaving orders with an agent to sell the furniture of their house. All Ralph's old friends on the shore had been made happy with handsome presents. After a short stay in London they went down, and Ralph took possession of the Hall. He soon found there was abundance of occupation for his time on the estate, and that this would be increased when, as would doubtless be the case, he was placed on the Commission of Peace for the county, as Herbert Penfold had been before him.

As soon as Ralph had completely recovered his health and strength he told his mother that she must spare him for a week, as he had promised that he would on the first opportunity go over to Dunkirk to see his friend Jacques.

He crossed by the packet from Dover to Calais, and thence by coach to Dunkirk. Here he inquired among the fishermen for Jacques, and found that he had returned before Napoleon broke out from Elba, and that he was owner of a fishing smack which was now at sea. The next day Jacques returned, and his delight at meeting Ralph was unbounded. He took him home to his neat cottage where his pretty young wife was already installed. Ralph remained two days with him, and obtained a promise from him that he would once a year sail over to Weymouth and pay him a visit.

"I am a rich man, Jacques, now. At present I see you want nothing, but should any accident befall your fishing boat, or you have need for money for any other cause, write to me, and the money for a new boat or for any other purpose shall be yours at once. I could afford to give you a hundred boats without hurting myself, so do not hesitate for a moment in letting me know if I can help you. It will be a real pleasure to me to do so."

Jacques kept his promise, and never missed coming over once year to pay Ralph a visit, and as his five sons one after another grew up to be able to manage boats for themselves, they were each presented one by Ralph. Jacques himself prospered as a fisherman, and never required the assistance Ralph would have been glad to give him.

Neither Ralph nor Mabel Withers was informed of the expression of Mr. Penfold's hopes in his will that they would some day be married, the two mothers agreeing cordially that nothing was so likely to defeat the carrying out of Mr. Penfold's wishes as for the young people to have any suspicions of them. They were still but boy and girl, and were now perfectly happy in their unrestrained intercourse, for not a day passed that the two families did not see something of each other; but had they had a suspicion of the truth it would have rendered them shy and awkward with each other, and have thrown them much more widely apart.

"We both hope that it will come about, Mrs. Conway," Mrs. Withers said one day; "and I certainly think there is every prospect of it. Let us leave well alone, and allow it to come about naturally and without interference."

As soon as Ralph left the army he purchased Denis Mulligan's discharge, and the Irishman was installed as butler and Ralph's special servant at the Hall, and remained in his service to the end of his life. In due time the natural change in the relations between the two young people came about, and their youthful friendship ripened into love. When Ralph was twenty-three, and Mabel had just come of age, she changed her name and took up her place at the Hall, Mrs. Conway gladly handing over the reins of government to her. She herself lived with her children, for she was almost as fond of Mabel as of Ralph, to the end of a long life; and deep was the regret among her children and grandchildren when she was at last laid in Bilston Church, close to the resting-place of Herbert Penfold.