The Stokesley Secret

“Dear Davie, they only make people miserable when they care too much about them.  Papa will forgive Hal before he goes away, I am sure; only he is making him sorry first, that he may never do such a thing again.”

“I don’t like it.”  And David cried sadly, perhaps because partly he was tired with having been on his legs more than usual that day; but his good and loving little self was come home again.  He at least had forgiven his brother the wrong done to himself; and there was no hanging back that night from the fulness of prayer; no, he rather felt that he had been unkind; and the last thing heard of him that night was, that as Sam and Hal were coming up-stairs to bed, a little white figure stood on the top of the stairs, and a small voice said, “Hal, please kiss me!  I am so sorry I told Papa about—”

“There, hold your tongue,” said Hal, cutting him short with the desired kiss, “if you hadn’t told, someone else would.”

But long after Sam was asleep, Hal was wetting his pillow through with tears.

CHAPTER XV

Still the silence lasted.  Henry had tried at first to persuade himself that it was only by chance that he never heard his own name from lips that used to call it more often than any other.  Indeed, he was so much used to favour, that it needed all the awe-struck pity of the rest to prove to him its withdrawal; and he was so much in the habit of thrusting himself before Samuel, that even the sight and sound of the First Book of Euclid, all day long, failed to convince him that his brother could be preferred; above all, as Nurse Freeman had been collecting his clean shirts as well as Sam’s, and all the portmanteaus and trunks in the house had been hunted out of the roof.  Once, either the spirit of imitation, or his usual desire of showing himself off, made him break in when Sam was knitting his brows frightfully over a sum in proportion.  Hal could do it in no time!

So he did; but he put the third term first, and multiplied the hours into the minutes, instead of reducing them to the same denomination; so that he made out that twenty-five men would take longer to cut a field of grass than three, and then could not see that he was wrong; but Miss Fosbrook and Sam both looked so much grieved for him, that a start of fright went through him.

Some minds really do not understand a fault till they see it severely visited; and “at least” and “couldn’t help” had so blinded Henry’s eyes that he had thought himself more unlucky than to blame, till his father’s manner forced it on him that he had done something dreadful.  Vaguely afraid, he hung about, looking so wretched that he was a piteous sight; and it cut his father to the heart to spend such a last day together.  Mayhap the Captain could hardly have held out all that second day, if he had not passed his word to his brother.

The travellers were to set off at six in the morning, to meet the earliest train: and it was not till nine o’clock at night, when the four elder ones said good-night, that the Captain, following them out of the room, laid his hand on Henry as the others went up-stairs, and said, “Henry, have you nothing to say to me?”

Henry leant against the baluster and sobbed, not knowing what else to do.

“You can’t be more grieved than I am to have such a last day together,” said his father, laying his hand on the yellow head; “but I can’t help it, you see.  If you will do such things, it is my duty to make you repent of them.”

Hal threw himself almost double over the rail, and something was heard about “sorry,” and “never.”

“Poor little lad!” said his father aloud to himself; “he is cut up enough now; but how am I to know if his sorrow is good for anything?”

“O Papa!  I’ll never do such a thing again!”

“I wish I knew that, Hal,” said the Captain, sitting down on the stairs, and taking him between his knees.  “There, let us talk it over together.  I don’t suppose you expected to steal and deceive when you got up in the morning.”

“Oh no, no!”

“Go back to the beginning.  See how you came to this.”

As he waited for an answer, Hal mumbled out after some time, “You said we need not go to church on a week-day.”

“Well, what of that?”

“I didn’t go in case the telegraph should come.”

“There are different ways of thinking,” said his father.  “Church was the only place where I could have gone that St. Barnabas’ Day.”

“I would have gone,” said the self-contradictory Henry, “only the Grevilles are always at one for being like a girl.”

“Ha! now we see daylight!” said the Captain.

“‘The Grevilles are at one,’—that’s more like getting to the bottom of it.”

“Yes, Papa,” said Hal, glad to make himself out a victim to circumstance; “you can’t think what a pair of fellows those are for not letting one alone; Purday says they haven’t as much conscience between them as a pigeon’s egg has meat; and going down to Mr. Carey’s with them every day, they let one have no peace.”

“You will find people everywhere who will let you have no peace, unless you do not care for them; though you will not be left to the Grevilles any longer.”

“Yes, Papa; when I am away from them, you will see—”

“No, Hal, I shall not see, I shall hear.”

“Shall not I sail with you, then, Papa?”

“You will not sail at all: I thought you knew that.”

“I thought the Admiral must have given you two appointments,” said Hal timidly.

“He gave me one, for one of my sons.  The first choice is Sam’s right, even if he had not deserved it by his brave patient obedience.”

Hal hung his head; then said, “But, Papa, if Sam broke down in his examination, please mightn’t I—”

“No, Henry.  Not only does your uncle say that though Sam’s success is very doubtful, your inaccuracy would make your failure certain; but if your knowledge were ever so well up to the mark, I could not put you into the navy.  Left to yourself here, you have been insubordinate, vain, weak, shuffling: can I let you go into greater temptation, where disgrace would be public and without remedy?”

“Oh, but, Papa!  Papa!  Away from the Grevilles, and not under only a governess—”

“You shall be away from the Grevilles, and not under a governess.  Your uncle is kind enough to take you with him to his house, and will endeavour to make you fit to try to get upon the foundation by the time there is a vacancy.”

“O Papa! don’t,” sobbed Henry.

“I can’t help it, Hal!  You have shown yourself unfit either for the sea or for home.  What can I do with you?”

“Try me—only try me, Papa.  I would—”

“I cannot go by what you say you would be, but what you are.  Deeds, not words.”

“But if you won’t let me go into the navy, only let me be in real school.”

“No, Henry; I have not the means of sending you there: excepting on the foundation; and if you get admittance there at all, it will only be by great diligence, and your uncle’s kindness in preparing you.”

Henry cried bitterly.  It was a dreadful prospect to do his lessons alone with Uncle John in the boys’ play-hours, and be kept in order by Aunt Alice when his uncle was in school.  Perhaps his father would not have liked it himself, for his voice was very pitying, though cheering, as he said, “One half year, Hal, very likely no more if you take pains, and you’ll get into school, and be very happy, so long as you don’t make a Greville of every idle chap you meet.”

Henry cried as though beyond consolation.

“I hate leaving you this way,” continued his father; “but by the time I come home you will see it was the best thing for you; and look up to Uncle John as your best friend.  Why, Hal, boy, you’ll be a tall fellow of fourteen!  Let me find you godly and manly: you can’t be one without the other.  There now, good night, God bless you.”

More might have been said to Henry on his fault and what had led to it; but what his father did say was likely to sink deeper as he grew older, and had more sense and feeling.

From him Captain Merrifield went to the school-room, where Miss Fosbrook was packing up for the little girls, and putting last stitches to their equipments, with hearty good-will and kindness, as if she had been their elder sister.

He thanked her most warmly; and without sending away the girls, who were both busy tacking in little white tuckers to the evening frocks, he began to settle about the terms on which she was to remain at Stokesley.  He said that he could not possibly have left his wife without a person on whose friendly help and good management of the children he could depend.  Important as it was to him to be employed, he must have refused the appointment if Miss Fosbrook had been discontented, or had not had the children so well in hand.  He explained that he had reason to think that Mrs. Merrifield’s present illness had been the effect of all she had gone through while he was in the Black Sea during the Crimean War.  She had been a very strong person, and had never thought of sparing herself; but she and all her little children had had to get into Stokesley in his absence; she had to manage the estate and farm, teach the elder children, and take care of the babies, with no help but Nurse Freeman’s: and though he had been wounded when with the Naval Brigade, and had been at death’s door with cholera, the effects had done him no lasting harm at all; while the over-strain of the anxiety and exertion that she had undergone all alone had so told upon her, that she had never been well since, and he much feared, would never be in perfect health again.  He must depend upon Miss Fosbrook for watching over her and saving her, as his little Susie could not yet do; and for letting him know from time to time how she was going on, and whether he ought to give up everything and come home.

He had tears in his eyes as he thanked Christabel for her earnest promise to watch and tend Mrs. Merrifield with a daughter’s care; and her heart swelled with strong deep feeling of sorrow and sympathy with these two brave-hearted loving people, doing their duty at all costs so steadily; and she was full of gladness and thankfulness that they could treat her as a true and trusty friend.  He walked away, feeling far too much to bear any eye upon him; and Susan was found to be crying quietly, making her thread wet through, and her needle squeak at every stitch, at the sad news that Mamma never was to be quite well, even though assured that she was likely to be much better than she had been for months past.

Bessie shed no tears; but Miss Fosbrook, who had been hindered all day by Sam’s Euclid and Colenso, and had sat up till half-past eleven o’clock to make the two Sunday frocks nice enough for the journey, on going into the bed-room to lay them out for the morning, saw a little face raised from the pillow of one of the small white beds, and found her broad awake.  Bessie never could go to sleep properly when anything out of the common way was coming to pass, so that was the less wonder; but she had a great deal in her head, and she was glad to get Christabel to kneel down by her, to listen to her whispers.