Chantry House

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There was no resisting after this appeal, and after the first shock,
my mother was ready to admit that as Clarence owed everything to Mr.
Castleford, he could not well desert the firm, if it were really
needful for its welfare that he should go out. We got her to look
on Mr. Castleford as captain of the ship, and Clarence as first
lieutenant; and when she was once convinced that he did not want to
aggrandise the family, but to do his duty, she dropped her
objections; and we soon saw that the occupations that his absence
would impose on her would be a fresh interest in life.

Just as the decision was thus ratified, a packet from Canton arrived
for Clarence from Bristol. It was the first reply of young Frith to
the tidings of the bequest which had changed the poor clerk to a
wealthy man, owning a large proportion of the shares of the
prosperous house.

I asked if he were coming home, and Clarence briefly replied that he
did not know,--'it depended--'

'Is he going to wed a fair Chinese with lily feet?' asked Martyn, to
which the reply was an unusually discourteous 'Bosh,' as Clarence
escaped with his letter. He was so reticent about it that I
required a solemn assurance that poor Lawrence's head had not been
turned by his fortune, and that there was nothing wrong with him.
Indeed, there was great stupidity in never guessing the purport of
that thick letter, nor that it contained one for Emily, where
Lawrence Frith laid himself, and all that he had, at her feet,
ascribing to her all the resolution with which he had kept from
evil, and entreating permission to come home and endeavour to win
her heart. We lived so constantly together that it is surprising
that Clarence contrived to give the letter to Emily in private. She
implored him to say nothing to us, and brought him the next day her
letter of uncompromising refusal.

He asked whether it would have been the same if he had intended to
remain at home.

'As if you were a woman, you conceited fellow,' was all the answer
she vouchsafed him.

Nor could he ascertain, nor perhaps would she herself examine, on
which side lay her heart of hearts. The proof had come whether she
would abide by her pledge to him to accept the care of us in his
absence. When he asked it, it had not occurred to him that it might
be a renunciation of marriage. Now he perceived that so it had
been, but she kept her counsel and so did he. We others never
guessed at what was going on between those two.

CHAPTER XLIV--PAYING THE COST

'But oh! the difference to me.'

WORDSWORTH.

So Clarence was gone, and our new life begun in its changed aspect.
Emily showed an almost feverish eagerness to make it busy and
cheerful, getting up a sewing class in the village, resuming the
study of Greek, grappling with the natural system in botany, all of
which had been fitfully proposed but hindered by interruptions and
my father's feebleness.

On a suggestion of Mr. Stafford's, we set to work on that History of
Letter Writing which, what with collecting materials, and making
translations, lasted us three years altogether, and was a great
resource and pleasure, besides ultimately bringing in a fraction
towards the great purpose. Emily has confessed that she worked away
a good deal of vague, weary depression, and sense of monotony into
those Greek choruses: but to us she was always a sunbeam, with her
ever ready attention, and the playfulness which resumed more of
genuine mirth after the first effort and strain of spirits were
over.

Then journal-letters on either side began to bridge the gulf of
separation,--those which, minus all the specially interesting
portions, are to be seen in the volume we culled from them, and
which had considerable success in its day.

Martyn worked in the parish and read with Mr. Henderson till he was
old enough for Ordination, and then took the curacy of St.
Wulstan's, under a hardworking London vicar, and thenceforth his
holidays were our festivals. Our old London friends pitied us for
what they viewed as a fearfully dull life, and in the visits they
occasionally paid us thought they were doing us a great favour by
bringing us new ideas and shooting our partridges.

We hardly deserved their compassion: our lives were full of
interest to ourselves--that interest which comes of doing ever so
feeble a stroke of work in one great cause; and there was much keen
participation in the general life of the Church in the crisis
through which she was passing. We found that, what with drawing
pictures, writing little books, preparing lessons for teachers, and
much besides which is now ready done by the National Society and
Sunday School Institute, we could do a good deal to assist Martyn in
his London work, and our own grew upon us.

For the first year of her widowhood, my mother shrank from society,
and afterwards had only spasmodic fits of doubt whether it were not
her duty to make my sister go out more. So that now and then Emily
did go to a party, or to make a visit of some days or weeks from
home, and then we knew how valuable she was. It would be hard to
say whether my mother were relieved or disappointed when Emily
refused James Eastwood, in spite of many persuasions, not only from
himself, but his family. I believe mamma thought it selfish to be
glad, and that it was a failure in duty not to have performed that
weighty matter of marrying her daughter; feeling in some way
inferior to ladies who had disposed of a whole flock under five and
twenty, whereas she had not been able to get rid of a single one!

Of Clarence's doings in China I need not speak; you have read of
them in the book for yourselves, and you know how his work
prospered, so that the results more than fulfilled his expectations,
and raised the firm to the pitch of greatness and reputation which
it has ever since preserved, and this without soiling his hands with
the miserable opium traffic. Some of the subordinates were so set
on the gains to be thus obtained, that he and Lawrence Frith had a
severe struggle with them to prevent it, and were forced conjointly
to use all their authority as principals to make it impossible.
Those two were the greatest of friends. Their chief relaxation was
one another's company, and their earnest aim was to support the
Christian mission, and to keep up the tone of their English
dependants, a terribly difficult matter, and one that made the time
of their return somewhat doubtful, even when Walter Castleford was
gone out to relieve them. Their health had kept up so well that we
had ceased to be anxious on that point, and it was through the
Castlefords that we received the first hint that Clarence might not
be as well as his absence of complaint had led us to believe.

In fact he had never been well since a terrible tempest, when he had
worked hard and exposed himself to save life. I never could hear
the particulars, for Lawrence was away, and Clarence could not write
about it himself, having been prostrated by one of those chills so
perilous in hot countries; but from all I have heard, no resident in
Hong-Kong would have believed that Mr. Winslow's courage could ever
have been called in question. He ought to have come home
immediately after that attack of fever; for the five years were
over, and his work nearly done; but there was need to consolidate
his achievements, and a strong man is only too apt to trifle with
his health. We might have guessed something by the languor and
brevity of his letters, but we thought the absence of detail owing
to his expectation of soon seeing us; and had gone on for months
expecting the announcement of a speedy return, when an unexpected
shock fell on us. Our dear mother was still an active woman, with
few signs of age about her, when, in her sixty-seventh year, she was
almost suddenly taken from us by an attack of gout in the stomach.

I feel as if I had not done her justice, and as if she might seem
stern, unsympathising, and lacking in tenderness. Yet nothing could
be further from the truth. She was an old-fashioned mother, who
held it her duty to keep up her authority, and counted over-
familiarity and indulgence as sins. To her 'the holy spirit of
discipline was the beginning of wisdom,' and to make her children
godly, truthful, and honourable was a much greater object than to
win their love. And their love she had, and kept to a far higher
degree than seems to be the case with those who court affection by
caresses and indulgence. We knew that her approval was of a
generous kind, we prized enthusiastically her rare betrayals of her
motherly tenderness, and we depended on her in a manner we only
realised in the desolation, dreariness, and helplessness that fell
upon us, when we knew that she was gone. She had not, nor had any
of us, understood that she was dying, and she had uttered only a few
words that could imply any such thought. On hearing that there was
a letter from Clarence, she said, 'Poor Clarence! I should like to
have seen him. He is a good boy after all. I've been hard on him,
but it will all be right now. God Almighty bless him!'

That was the only formal blessing she left among us. Indeed, the
last time I saw her was with an ordinary good-night at the foot of
the stairs. Emily said she was glad that I had not to carry with me
the remembrance of those paroxysms of suffering. My dear Emily had
alone the whole force of that trial--or shall I call it privilege?
Martyn did not reach home till some hours after all was over, poor
boy.

And in the midst of our desolateness, just as we had let the
daylight in again upon our diminished numbers round the table, came
a letter from Hong-Kong, addressed to me in Lawrence Frith's
writing, and the first thing I saw was a scrawl, as follows:-

'DEAREST TED--All is in your hands. You can do IT. God bless you
all. W. C. W.'

When I came to myself, and could see and hear, Martyn was impressing
on me that where there is life there is hope, though indeed,
according to poor Lawrence's letter, there was little of either. He
feared our hearing indirectly, and therefore wrote to prepare us.

He had been summoned to Hong-Kong to find Clarence lying desperately
ill, for the most part semi-delirious, holding converse with
invisible forms, or entreating some one to let him alone--he had
done his best. In one of his more lucid intervals he had made
Lawrence find that note in a case that lay near him, and promise to
send it; and he had tried to send some messages, but they had become
confused, and he was too weak to speak further.

The next mail was sure to bring the last tidings of one who had
given his life for right and justice. It was only a reprieve that
what it actually brought was the intelligence that he was still
alive, and more sensible, and had been able to take much pleasure in
seeing the friend of his youth, Captain Coles, who was there with
his ship, the Douro. Then there had been a relapse. Captain Coles
had brought his doctor to see him, and it had been pronounced that
the best chance of saving him was a sea-voyage. The Douro had just
received orders to return to England, and Coles had offered to take
home both the friends as guests, though there was evidently little
hope that our brother would reach any earthly home. As we knew
afterwards, he had smiled and said it was like rehabilitation to
have the chance of dying on board one of H.M. ships. And he was
held in such respect, and was so entirely one of the leading men of
the little growing colony, and had been known as such a friend to
the naval men, and had so gallantly aided a Queen's ship in that
hurricane, that his passage home in this manner only seemed a
natural tribute of respect. A few last words from Lawrence told us
that he was safely on board, all unconscious of the silent, almost
weeping, procession that had escorted his litter to the Douro's
boat, only too much as if it were his bier. In fact, Captain Coles
actually promised him that if he died at sea he should be buried
with the old flag.

We could not hope to hear more for at least six weeks, since our
letter had come by overland mail, and the Douro would take her time.
It was a comfort in this waiting time that Martyn could be with us.
His rector had been promoted; there was a general change of curates;
and as Martyn had been working up to the utmost limits of his
strength, we had no scruple in inducing him to remain with us, and
undertake nothing fresh till this crisis was past. Though as to
rest, not one Sunday passed without requests for his assistance from
one or more of the neighbouring clergy.

CHAPTER XLV--ACHIEVED

'And hopes and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued -
Subdued and cherished long.'

S. T. COLERIDGE.

The first that we did hear of our brother was a letter with a
Falmouth postmark, which we scarcely dared to open. There was not
much in it, but that was enough. 'D. G.- I shall see you all again.
We put in at Portsmouth.'

There was no staying at home after that. We three lost no time in
starting, for railways had become available, and by the time we had
driven from the station at Portsmouth the Douro had been signalled.

Martyn took a boat and went on board alone, for besides that Emily
did not like to leave me, her dress would have been a revelation
that ALL were no longer there to greet the arrival. The precaution
was, however, unnecessary. There stood Clarence on deck, and after
the first greeting, he laid his hand on Martyn's arm and said, 'My
mother is gone?' and on the wondering assent, 'I was quite sure of
it.'

So they came ashore, Clarence lying in the man-of-war's boat, in
which his friend insisted on sending him, able now to give a smiling
response and salute to the three cheers with which the crew took
leave of him. He was carried up to our hotel on a stretcher by
half-a-dozen blue jackets. Indeed he was grievously changed,
looking so worn and weak, so hollow-eyed and yellow, and so
fearfully wasted, that the very memory is painful; and able to do
nothing but lie on the sofa holding Emily's hand, gazing at us with
a face full of ineffable peace and gladness. There was a misgiving
upon me that he had only come back to finish his work and bid us
farewell.

Kindly and considerately they had sent him on before with Martyn.
In a quarter of an hour's time his good doctor came in with Lawrence
Frith, a considerable contrast to our poor Clarence, for the slim
gypsy lad had developed into a strikingly handsome man, still
slender and lithe, but with a fine bearing, and his bronzed
complexion suiting well with his dark shining hair and beautiful
eyes. They had brought some of the luggage, and the doctor insisted
that his patient should go to bed directly, and rest completely
before trying to talk.

Then we heard that his condition, though still anxious, was far from
being hopeless, and that after the tropics had been passed, he had
been gradually improving. The kind doctor had got leave to go up to
London with us, and talk over the case with L---, and he hoped
Clarence might be able to bear the journey by the next afternoon.

Presently after came Captain Coles, whom we had not seen since the
short visit when we had idolised the big overgrown midshipman, whom
Clarence exhibited to our respectful and distant admiration nearly
twenty years ago. My mother used to call him a gentlemanly lad, and
that was just what he was still, with a singularly soft gentle
manner, gallant officer and post-captain as he was. He cheered me
much, for he made no doubt of Clarence's ultimate recovery, and he
added that he had found the dear fellow so valued and valuable, so
useful in all good works, and so much respected by all the English
residents, 'that really,' said the captain, 'I did not know whether
to deplore that the service should have lost such a man, or whether
to think it had been a good thing for him, though not for us, that--
that he got into such a scrape.'

I said something of our thanks.

'To tell you the truth,' said Coles, 'I had my doubts whether it had
not been a cruel act, for he had a terrible turn after we got him on
board, and all the sounds of a Queen's ship revived the past
associations, and always of a painful kind in his delirium, till at
last, just as I gave him up, the whole character of his fancies
seemed to change, and from that time he has been gaining every day.'

We kept the captain to dinner, and gathered a good deal more
understanding of the important position to which Clarence had risen
by force of character and rectitude of purpose in that strange
little Anglo-Chinese colony; and afterwards, I was allowed to make a
long visit to Clarence, who, having eaten and slept, was quite ready
to talk.

It seemed that the great distress of his illness had been the
recurrence--nay, aggravation--of the strange susceptibility of brain
and nerve that had belonged to his earlier days, and with it either
imagination or perception of the spirit-world. Much that had seemed
delirium had belonged to that double consciousness, and he perfectly
recollected it. As Coles had said, the sights and sounds of the
ship had been a renewal of the saddest time in his life; he could
not at night divest himself of the impression that he was under
arrest, and the sins of his life gathered themselves in fearful and
oppressive array, as if to stifle him, and the phantom of poor
Margaret with her lamp--which had haunted him from the beginning of
his illness--seemed to taunt him with having been too fainthearted
and tardy to be worthy to espouse her cause. The faith to which he
tried to cling WOULD seem to fail him in those awful hours, when he
could only cry out mechanical prayers for mercy. Then there had
come a night when he had heard my mother say, 'All right now; God
Almighty bless him.' And therewith the clouds cleared from his
mind. The power of FEELING, as well as believing in, the blotting
out of sin, returned, the sense of pardon and peace calmed him, and
from that time he was fully himself again, 'though,' he said, 'I
knew I should not see my mother here.'

If she could only have seen him come home under the Union Jack,
cheered by sailors, and carried ashore by them, it would have been
to her like restoration. Perhaps Clarence in his dreamy weakness
had so felt it, for certainly no other mode of return to Portsmouth,
the very place of his degradation, could so have soothed him and
effaced those memories. The English sounds were a perfect charm to
him, as well as to Lawrence, the commonest street cry, the very
slices of bread and butter, anything that was not Chinese, was as
water to the thirsty! And wasted as was his face, the quiet rest
and joy were ineffable.

Still Portsmouth was not the best place for him, and we were glad
that he was well enough to go up to London in the afternoon;
intensely delighting in the May beauty of the green meadows, and
white blossoming hedgerows, and the Church towers, especially the
gray massiveness of Winchester Cathedral. 'Christian tokens,' he
said, instead of the gay, gilded pagodas and quaint crumpled roofs
he had left. The soft haze seemed to be such a rest after the glare
of perpetual clearness.

We were all born Londoners, and looked at the blue fog, and the
broad, misty river, and the brooding smoke, with the affection of
natives, to the amazement of Lawrence, who had never been in town
without being browbeaten and miserable. That he hardly was now, as
he sat beside Emily all the way up, though they did not say much to
one another.

He told us it was quite a new sensation to walk into the office
without timidity, and to have no fears of a biting, crushing speech
about his parents or himself; but to have the clerks getting up
deferentially as soon as he was known for Mr. Frith. He had hardly
ever been allowed by his old uncle to come across Mr. Castleford,
who was of course cordial and delighted to receive him, and, without
loss of time, set forth to see Clarence.

The consultation with the physician had taken place, and it was not
concealed from us that Clarence's health was completely shattered,
and his state still very precarious, needing the utmost care to give
him any chance of recovering the effects of the last two years, when
he had persevered, in spite of warning, in his eagerness to complete
his undertaking, and then to secure what he had effected. The
upshot of the advice given him was to spend the summer by the
seaside, and if he had by that time gathered strength, and
surmounted the symptoms of disease, to go abroad, as he was not
likely to be able as yet to bear English cold. Business and cares
were to be avoided, and if he had anything necessary to be done, it
had better be got over at once, so as to be off his mind. Martyn
and Frith gathered that the case was thought doubtful, and entirely
dependent on constitution and rallying power. Clarence himself
seemed almost passive, caring only for our presence and the
accomplishment of his task.

We had a blessed thanksgiving for mercies received in the Margaret
Street Chapel, as we called what is now All Saints; but he and I
were unfit for crowds, and on Sunday morning availed ourselves of a
friend's seat in our old church, which felt so natural and homelike
to us elders that Martyn was scandalised at our taste. But it was
the church of our Confirmation and first Communion, and Clarence
rejoiced that it was that of his first home-coming Eucharist. What
a contrast was he now to the shrinking boy, scarcely tolerated under
his stigmatised name. Surely the Angel had led him all his life
through!

How happy we two were in the afternoon, while the others conducted
Lawrence to some more noteworthy church.

'Now,' said Clarence, 'let us go down to Beachharbour. It must be
done at once. I have been trying to write, and I can't do it,' and
his face lighted with a quiet smile which I understood.

So we wrote to the principal hotel to secure rooms, and set forth on
Tuesday, leaving Frith to finish with Mr. Castleford what could not
be settled in the one business interview that had been held with
Clarence on the Monday.

CHAPTER XLVI--RESTITUTION

'Ah! well for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes.'

WHITTIER.

Things always happen in unexpected ways. During the little
hesitation and difficulty that always attend my transits at a
station, a voice was heard to say, 'Oh! Papa, isn't that Edward
Winslow?' Martyn gave a violent start, and Mr. Fordyce was
exclaiming, 'Clarence, my dear fellow, it isn't you! I beg your
pardon; you have strength enough left nearly to wring one's hand
off!'

'I--I wanted very much to see you, sir,' said Clarence. 'Could you
be so good as to appoint a time?'

'See you! We must always be seeing you of course. Let me think.
I've got three weddings and a funeral to-morrow, and Simpson coming
about the meeting. Come to luncheon--all of you. Mrs. Fordyce will
be delighted, and so will somebody else.'

There was no doubt about the somebody else, for Anne's feet were as
nearly dancing round Emily as public propriety allowed, and the
radiance of her face was something to rejoice in. Say what people
will, Englishwomen in a quiet cheerful life are apt to gain rather
than lose in looks up to the borders of middle age. Our Emily at
two-and-thirty was fair and pleasant to look on; while as for Anne
Fordyce at twenty-three, words will hardly tell how lovely were her
delicate features, brown eyes, and carnation cheeks, illuminated by
that sunshine brightness of her father's, which made one feel better
all day for having been beamed upon by either of them. Clarence
certainly did, when the good man turned back to say, 'Which hotel?
Eh? That's too far off. You must come nearer. I would see you in,
but I've got a woman to see before church time, and I'm short of a
curate, so I must be sharp to the hour.'

'Can I be of any use?' eagerly asked Martyn. 'I'll follow you as
soon as I have got these fellows to their quarters.'

We had Amos with us, and were soon able to release Martyn, after a
few compliments on my not being as usual THE invalid; and by and by
he came back to take Emily to inspect a lodging, recommended by our
friends, close to the beach, and not a stone's throw from the
Rectory built by Mr. Fordyce. As we two useless beings sat opposite
to each other, looking over the roofs of houses at the blue expanse
and feeling the salt breeze, it was no fancy that Clarence's cheek
looked less wan, and his eyes clearer, as a smile of content played
on his lips. 'Years sit well on her,' he said gaily; and I thought
of rewards in store for him.

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