Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood

The brothers could not bear to lose sight of one another, though Jock was too much exhausted by this conversation, and, by the sickness that followed any endeavour to take food, to speak much again. Thus, when the Rector came, Bobus asked whether he must be sent out of the room, Jock made an earnest sign to the contrary, and he stayed.

There was of course nothing to concern him, especially in the brief reading and prayer; but his mother, looking up, saw that he was finding out the passage in the little Greek Testament.

Janet’s lay on a little table close by the bedside. The two copies had met again. The work of one was done. Was the work of the other doing at last?

However that might be, nothing could be gentler, tenderer, or more considerate towards his mother than was Bobus, and her kind friends felt much relieved of their fears for her, since she had such a son to take care of her.

Towards the evening, the negro servant knocked at the door, and Bobus took from him a telegram envelope. His mother opened it and read:

“Friar Brownlow to Mrs. Brownlow. I embark to-day.”

A smile shone out on Jock’s white weary face, and he said, “Good old Monk! If I can but hold out till he comes, I shall get home again yet. I should like to do him credit.”

“Ashton Vineyard, October l2th.

“MY DEAREST CHILD,—You know the main fact by telegram, and now I can write, I must tell you all in more order. We thought our darkest hour was over when the dear John’s telegram came, and the hope helped us up a little while. To Jock himself it was like a drowning man clinging to a rope with the more exertion because he knew that a boat was putting off. At least so it was at first, but as his strength faded, his brain could not grasp the notion any longer, and he generally seemed to be fancying himself on the snow with Armine, still however looking for John to come and save them, and sometimes, too, talking about Cecil, and being a true brother in arms, a faithful servant and soldier. The long severe strain of study, work, and all the rest which he has gone through, body and mind, coming on a heart already not quite sound, throughout the past year, was, John thinks, the real reason of his being unable to rally when the fever had brought him down, after the dreadful exertion at Abville. Dear fellow, he never let us guess how much his patience cost him. I think we had looked to John’s arrival as if it would act like magic, and it was very sore disappointment when his treatment was producing no change for the better, but the prostration went on day after day. Poor Bobus was in utter despair, and went raging about, declaring that he had been a fool ever to expect anything from Kencroft, and at last he had to be turned out of the sick-room. For I should tell you that the one thing that kept me up was the entire calm grave composure that John preserved throughout, and which gave him the entire command. He never showed any consternation or dismay, nor uttered an augury, but he went quietly and vigilantly on, in a manner that all along gave me a strange sense of confidence and trust, that all that could be done was being done, and the issue was in higher hands. He would not let anyone really help him but Sister Dorothea, with her trained skill as a nurse. I don’t think even I should have been suffered in the room, if he had not thought Jock might be more conscious than was apparent, for he had not himself received one token of recognition all those three days. Poor Bobus! the little gleam of light that Jock had let in on him seemed all gone. I do not know what would have become of him but for the good Ashtons. He had been persuaded for a time that what was so real to Jock must be true; but when Jock was no longer conscious, he had nothing to help him, and I am afraid he spoke terrible words when Primrose talked of prayer and faith. I believe he declared that to see one like his brother snatched away when just come to the perfection of his early manhood, with all his capacity and all his knowledge in vain, convinced him either that this universe was one grim, pitiless machine, grinding down humanity by mere law of necessity, or if they would have it that there was supernatural power, it could only be malevolent; and then Primrose, so strong in faith as to venture what I should have shrunk from as dangerous presumption, dared him to go on in his disbelief, if his brother were given back to prayer.

“She pitied him so much, the sweet bright girl, she had so pitied him all along, that I believe she prayed as much for him as for Jock.

“Of course I did not know all this till afterwards, for all was stillness in that room, except when at times the clergyman came in and prayed.

“The next thing I am sure of, was John’s leaning over me, and his low steady voice saying, ‘The pulse is better, the symptoms are mitigating.’ Sister Dorothea says they had both seen it for some hours, but he made her a sign not to agitate me till he was secure that the improvement was real. Indeed there was something in that equable firm gentleness of John’s that sustained me, and prevented my breaking down. Even then it was another whole day before my darling smiled at me again, and said, ‘Thanks’ to John, but oh! with such a look.

“When Bobus heard his brother was better, he gave a sob, such as I shall never forget, and rushed away into the pine-wood on the hillside, all alone. The next time I saw him he was walking in the garden with Primrose, and with such a quieted, subdued, gentle look upon his face, it put me in mind of the fields when a great storm has swept over them, and they are lying still in the sunshine afterwards.

“Since that day, when John said we might send off that thankworthy telegram, there has been daily progress. I have had one of my headaches. That monarch John found it out, and turned me out. I could bear to go, for I knew my boy was safe with him. He made me over to Primrose, who nursed me as tenderly as my Babie could have done, and indeed, I begin to think she will soon be as near and dear to me as my Sydney or Elvira. She has a power over Bobus that no one else ever had, and she is very lovely in expression as well as features, but how will so ardent a Christian as she is receive one still so far off as my poor Robert, though indeed I think he has at least come so far as the cry, ‘Help Thou mine unbelief.’

“So now they have let me come back to my Jock, and I see visibly his improvement. He holds out his hand, and he smiles, and he speaks now and then, the dreadful oppression is gone, and all the dangerous symptoms are abating, and I cannot tell how happy and thankful we are. ‘Send my love, and tell Sydney she has a blessed Monk,’ he says, as he wakes, and sees me writing.

“That dear Monk says he will not go home till he can carry home his patient. When that will be I cannot tell, for he cannot sit up in bed yet. Dear Sydney, how I thank her! John says it was not his treatment, but, under Divine Providence, youthful nature that had had her rest, and begun to rally her strength. But under that blessing, it was John’s steady, faithful strength and care that enabled the restoration to take place.

“My dear child’s loving

“MOTHER CAREY.”

CHAPTER XLII. – DISENCHANTED

Whatever page we turn,
However much we learn,
Let there be something left to dream of still.

                                                 Longfellow.

It was on a very cold day of the cold spring of 1879 that three ladies descended at the Liverpool station, escorted by a military-looking gentleman. He left them standing while he made inquiries, but his servant had anticipated him. “The steamer has been signalled, my Lord. It will be in about four o’clock.”

“There will be time to go to the hotel and secure rooms,” said one lady.

“Oh, Reeves can do that. Pray let us come down to the docks and see them come in.”

No answer till all four were seated in a fly, rattling through the street, but on the repetition of “Are we going to the docks?” his Lordship, with a resolute twirl of his long, light moustache, replied, “No, Sydney. If you think I am going to have you making a scene on deck, falling on your husband’s breast, and all that sort of thing, you are much mistaken! I shall lodge you all quietly in the hotel, and you may wait there, while I go down with Reeves, and receive them like a rational being.”

“Really, Cecil, that’s too bad. He let me come on board!”

“Do you think I should have brought you here if I had thought you meant to make yourself ridiculous?”

“It is of no use, Sydney,” said Babie; “there’s no dealing with the stern and staid pere de famille. I wonder what he would have liked Essie to do, if he had had to go and leave her for nearly two months when he had only been married a week?”

“Essie is quite a different thing—I mean she has sense and self-possession.”

“Mamma, won’t you speak for us?” implored Sydney. “I did behave so well when he went! Nobody would have guessed we hadn’t been married fifty years.”

“Still I think Cecil is quite right, and that it may be better for them all to manage the landing quietly.”

“Without a pack of women,” said Cecil. “Here we are! I hope you will find a tolerable room for him and no stairs.”

As if poor Mrs. Evelyn were not well enough used to choosing rooms for invalids!

Twilight had come, the gas had been turned on, and the three anxious ladies stood in the window gazing vainly at endless vehicles, when the door opened and they beheld sundry figures entering.

Sydney and Barbara flew, the one to her husband, the other to her mother, and presently all stood round the fire looking at one another. Mrs. Evelyn made a gesture to a very slender and somewhat pale figure to sit down in a large easy chair.

“Thank you, I’m not tired,” he briskly said, standing with a caressing hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Here’s Cecil can’t quite believe yet that I have the use of my limbs.”

“Yes,” said John, “no sooner did he come on board, than he made a rush at the poor sailor who had broken his leg, and was going to be carried ashore on a hammock. He was on the point of embracing him, red beard and all, when he was forcibly dragged off by Jock himself whom he nearly knocked down.”

“Well,” said Cecil, as Sydney fairly danced round him in revengeful glee, “there was the Monk solicitously lifting him on one side, and Mother Carey assisting with a smelling-bottle on the other, so what could I suppose?”

“All for want of us,” said Sydney.

“And think of the cunning of him,” added Babie; “shutting us up here that he might give way to his feelings undisturbed!”

“I promised to go and speak about that poor fellow at the hospital,” cried John, with sudden recollection.

“You had better let me,” said Jock.

“You will stay where you are.”

“I consider him my patient.”

“If that’s the way you two fought over your solitary case all the way home,” said Babie, “I wonder there’s a fragment left of him.”

“It was only three days ago,” said John, “and Jock has been a new man ever since he picked the poor fellow up on deck, but I’m not going to let him stir to-night.”

“Let me come with you, Johnny,” entreated Sydney; “it will be so nice! Oh, no, I don’t mind the cold!”

“Here,” added her brother, “take the poor fellow a sovereign.”

“In compensation for the sudden cooling of your affection,” said Jock. “Well, if it is an excuse for an excursion with Sydney I’ll not interfere, but ask him for his sister’s address in London, for I promised to tell her about him.”