Lettice

“I don’t know anything whatever of the sort of work it would be. Does not your son-in-law need some one who knows something about it?” The farmer scratched his head.

“You can write a good hand, I’m thinking,” he said; “and you can soon learn how to make out the accounts. It’s not that; it’s who’s to speak for you;” and he looked up again more scrutinisingly than heretofore in Arthur’s face. It did not grow the less red on that account. “I have no one to speak for me,” he replied haughtily; “so there’s no use thinking about it. All the same,” he went on, recollecting himself, I thank you very much, very much indeed. I’m very tired, and I think I’ll go to bed and, rising, he held out his hand, with the gentle courtesy innate in him, to the farmer, who grasped it heartily in his horny palm, with a friendly “Good night.”

“I’ll see ye in the mornin’, mebbe,” he said.

“It’s not the weather, nor yet the time o’ year, for too early a start.”

“It’s something to have any one to say: ‘Good night’ to,” thought Arthur, as he mounted the narrow staircase to the stuffy little bedroom he had with some difficulty secured to himself for the night, and the tears again welled up, though he tried hard to ignore them.

He slept soundly for some hours, for he was thoroughly tired; but he woke early, and lay anxiously turning over things in his mind. Should he try for the situation the farmer had spoken of? True, there was the difficulty of “no references;” but Arthur’s practical sense had thought of a way out of that. He had some money – very little with him – but a few pounds he had left with his clothes and other small possessions in the safe keeping of a young man, whom he knew he could depend upon to keep secret. This was a former servant in the family of Arthur’s tutor; and when obliged through an accident to leave his place, some kindness young Morison had shown him had completely gained his heart.

“I could write to Dawson to send my box on to Greenwell, or whatever’s the name of the place,” he said to himself. “Then I could give the genteel Eliza some money to keep as a sort of guaranty, to be given back to me when they were satisfied I was not a thief;” and Arthur laughed, perhaps because it was better than crying. “I believe that would do away with all difficulties. And once I am settled, it would be something to be able to write to Lettice, and tell her that, disgraced as I am, I have still found something to do, and that I am earning my own livelihood already.”

His face flushed, though with honest pride this time.

“I should have preferred her to think me in America,” his thoughts went on; “but it would be wrong to leave them in anxiety so long. At least, if they still think me worth being anxious about! Any way, they will be glad to know I am alive and well.”

He had already since his flight written twice to his sisters, twice since the terrible day when, morally convinced of his failure, he had altogether lost heart and fainted in his place among the candidates, though the examination was but half over. He had written, confessing the whole – his nervous terror of the ordeal, his utter incapacity to face more, his thorough unfitness for the profession he had no wish to enter, and announcing, at the same time, his determination henceforth to depend on himself alone, and to work till he could repay the obligation to their uncle, of which Lettice, in her mistaken idea of keeping up his spirit, had so often reminded him.

“I am not a coward,” he had said in one of these letters, “though Lettice may say I am. I have only been a coward in one thing – in my fear of telling the truth, which I thought would so horribly distress her. I dreaded her reproaches, and I still dread them; but I shall no longer deserve them. I, at least, will make my own way, and some day I may be able to do something for all of you, and, in the meantime, you will all be better and happier without the brother who has disappointed you so sadly.”

And these letters he had sent through the same agency, that of poor Dawson, so that there was no post-mark or mark of any kind to betray his present quarters.

And so his thoughts went on that dreary morning in the little stuffy bedroom. If he did not accept the chance so unexpectedly thrown in his way, what was he to do? He dared not make use of his letter to Mr Winthrop’s friend; he dared hardly go to Liverpool. For he was beginning to gain experience. He saw that without references of any kind he might get into awkward predicaments, might be suspected of having run away in disgrace of some very different kind from the failure which he himself judged so severely.

“And that would be too horrible,” thought the poor boy; “to be taken up as a suspicious character, and a scandal about it, and to have to go home and go on living on Uncle Ingram’s money after all, and feel that every one connected with me was ashamed of me! No; I must see what that old fellow has to say, if he hasn’t thought better of it. He’s a good old chap, I’m sure.”

His resolution had not time to cool, for the farmer had “slept upon it” to some purpose. He greeted Arthur with friendly good nature, and, without his needing to broach the subject, started it himself again. He was on his way home, and had promised to “stop with Eliza and James over Christmas,” as Greenwell was only a few hours from his own village, and he proposed to Arthur to accompany him, “to take a look at the place like, so being as he had naught better to do with hisself.”

“And to let them take a look at me,” added Arthur, smiling. “It’s very good of you indeed. It’s more than good of you,” he added, “to trust a perfect stranger, and one that can’t tell you all about himself either. It was family troubles that have made me leave my home, but that’s all I can say.”

“There’s no lack o’ troubles nowheer,” said the farmer; “and there’s no need o’ telling what’s no one’s business but one’s own.”

“But,” continued Arthur, “if your son-in-law, Mr – I don’t think you told me his name?”

“Lamb, James Lamb,” replied the old man.

“If Mr Lamb engages me, I can give him a sort of a pledge for my honesty, any way. I have a little money I can send for, and I could give it into his keeping for a while.”

The farmer’s face cleared.

“That’s not a bad idea,” he said. “Not but what I knows an honest face when I sees one, but James – he might think me soft-like. I had a lad o’ my own onst,” he went on, with an unusual gentleness in his voice, “and I lost him many years ago now – Eliza she were the daughter o’ my wife that is – just about thy age, my lad,” relapsing into the second person singular as he grew more at ease, “seems to me he favoured thee a bit. But Eliza and James they’d mebbe laugh at me for an old fool, so I’m mighty glad about the money.”

“I won’t write for it yet,” said Arthur. “I’d better wait till we get to Greenwell, and see how things turn out I left it with my clothes and other things with a friend to send after me.”

“Just so,” said the farmer. “Oh, as for that, it’ll be time enough.”

An hour or two later saw Arthur, in company with his new friend, mounted in the light box-cart of the latter, and driving, though at a sober pace, for the roads were very slippery, in the direction of the little town of Greenwell. It was a long drive. They stopped towards midday at a little roadside inn for some refreshment in the shape of bread-and-cheese and beer, and then jogged on again. It was not a luxurious mode of travelling; still, it was much better than tramping through the snow, and Arthur’s days of roughing it had taught him the useful lesson of being thankful for small boons. But as the early winter dusk fell it grew colder and colder, and Arthur shivered, though he had a good thick coat, and the farmer had given him a plentiful share of the rough horse-cloth, which did duty for a carriage rug.

“Christmas Eve,” he said, after a long silence, hardly aware that he was speaking aloud.

“Ay so,” said his companion, “the years they comes, and the years they goes. ’Tis many a Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as I mind. ‘Peace on earth, goodwill to men,’ parson tells us. They’ve been a-tellin’ it a sight o’ Christmases, seems to me, but we’re a long way off it still, I’m afeard.”

“I’m afraid so,” said Arthur with a sigh.

And then his thoughts wandered off again to his home. Lettice would hear those same words to-morrow morning. How would they strike her? Was she not wrong, quite wrong? was the question that came over and over again for the thousandth time in his mind. Could it be showing true honour to their dead parents to persist in the course she was doing – a course setting at defiance the Divine injunction? Nay, even allowing they, or their father rather, had been injured, unfairly treated, was there not Divine command for such cases, too? “Forgive, as ye would be forgiven,” “unto seventy times seven,” were the words that floated about before the boy’s eyes, illuminated, as it were, on the ever-darkening sky in front of him. And who was it they were refusing to forgive? One who had never injured them, one who had generously taken upon him responsibilities and risks he was in no way called upon to trouble himself with.

“Ah, yes,” thought Arthur sadly, “that has been his crime in her eyes – his very goodness.” And somehow he felt less unhappy and perplexed when he allowed himself to recognise this than when he strove, as he had thought himself bound to do, against his better judgment, to think Lettice right, to accept the arguments she had so plausibly brought to bear upon him.

“She must be wrong,” he thought. “And if I had been older and wiser, or, at least, more courageous, I might have made her care to see it. But what right have I to speak, miserable failure that I am? I can only do what I am doing – be faithful and loyal to her, even if she is mistaken, and do my utmost to lessen the burden;” and, with another sigh, Arthur shook himself out of his reverie.

How cold it was growing!

“Are we near there?” he inquired.

“Not so far now,” said the old man cheerily. “’Twill be good seeing a bright fire and a bite of supper. The old woman – that’s my wife, none so very old nayther – will be lookin’ out for us. She were to come to Eliza’s to-day like, so as we might have our Christmas together. The plum-pudding will have been ready this three weeks, I make no doubt. She’s a rare housekeeper, is my Eliza, though I says it as shouldn’t.”

And Arthur was boy enough to feel considerable satisfaction in the prospect of plum-pudding, even though served in homely guise. It was a long way better than Christmas Day on the road, or in some poor lodging in loneliness and dreariness!

In a few minutes more the farmer turned off the road they had for some time been following, and shortly after this, twinkling lights began to be visible in the distance. There were not many travellers of any kind about; it was too cold for all not forced to do so to expose themselves to the open air; and when at last, after rattling over the stones of an old-fashioned street, the farmer drew up at a door, evidently the private entrance to a shuttered shop next it, Arthur really felt that he could hardly have endured a quarter of an hour more of it. The mere thought of a fire was felicity, and he did not need twice bidding to jump down and knock lustily at the door. But before it was opened a misgiving seized him.

“Had I not better go somewhere else for the night?” he asked his old friend. “They’re not expecting me. I dare say I can get a bed somewhere near; and then, by the morning you will have told them about me.”

The farmer ejaculated something, which was evidently meant as an equivalent to “nonsense.”

“D’ye think now, James or Eliza’d turn a dog to the door such a night as this, much less a Christian?” he replied reassuringly. “Seein’, too, that it’s me as brings you,” he added, just as the door opened.

For the next minute or two there was a chatter of rather noisy welcome, questions made and asked, women’s voices, and men’s laughter. Then Arthur, feeling himself confused and dazed, conscious of almost nothing but the numbing cold – for he was not yet as strong as usual – found himself in a large, comfortable, though plainly furnished room, with a great old-fashioned fireplace at one end, in which a great old-fashioned fire was burning. He still heard the voices going on about him, though at a little distance, and he had an instinctive feeling that they were talking about him. He stood irresolute, uncertain whether to turn back or go forward, when a kindly voice caught his ear.

“Come near the fire. I’m sure you’re freezing cold. Eliza’s that pleased to see her father again, she sees no one else. James, you’ve not shook hands with – but, to be sure, my old man’s not told us your name yet.”

Arthur smiled. It would not have been easy for the farmer to tell his name when he had never heard it himself. He tried to collect his thoughts, but he still felt very light-headed and strange.

“My name,” he began, “is John – John Morris,” which, so far as it went, was true. “I wish you would call me John.”

“Surely,” replied “James,” as in response to his mother-in-law’s hint he shook hands, so heartily as to make him wince, with the young stranger. “You’re kindly welcome, and, if so be as it suits you to stay on with us, I don’t doubt but as we’ll pull together.”

But he confided to his Eliza afterwards that, though there was no doubt as to his having a very “genteel” appearance, he was by no means sure that this young fellow whom her father had picked up would be strong enough for the place.

“Nevertheless, we’ll give him a good Christmas dinner, and cheer him up a bit. He looks sadly pulled down like, poor fellow!”

Chapter Nine.

A Cab and a Carriage

“Life, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain