Part 61 (2/2)

'Yes, go, Henry; it is right, and you shall hear not another word of objection,' said Averil.

'You can write or telegraph the instant you want me. And it will be for a short time,' said Henry, half repenting when the opposition had given way.

'Oh, we shall get on very well,' said Minna, cheerfully; 'better, perhaps for you know we don't mind Far West manners; and I'll have learnt to do all sorts of things as well as Cora when you come home!'

And Henry, after a year's famine of practice, was in better spirits than since that fatal summer morning. Averil felt how different a man is in his vocation, and deprived of it.

'Oh yes,' she said to herself, 'if I had let ourselves be a drag on him when he is so much needed, I could never have had the face to write to our dear sufferer at home in his n.o.ble patience. It is better that we should be desolate than that he should be a wreck, or than that ma.s.s of sickness should be left untended! And the more desolate, the more sure of One Protector.'

There was true heroism in the spirit in which this young girl braced herself to uncomplaining acceptance of desertion in this unwholesome swamp, with her two little ailing sisters, beside the sluggish stream, amid the skeleton trees--heroism the greater because there was no enthusiastic patriotism to uphold her--it was only the land of her captivity, whence she looked towards home like Judah to Jerusalem.

CHAPTER XXIII

Prisoner of hope thou art; look up and sing, In hope of promised spring.

Christian Year

In the summer of 1862, Tom May was to go up for his examination at the College of Physicians, but only a day or two before it he made his appearance at home, in as much excitement as it was in him to betray.

Hazlitt, the banker's clerk at Whitford, had written to him tidings of the presentation of the missing cheque for 25, which Bilson had paid to old Axworthy shortly before the murder, and which Leonard had mentioned as in the pocket-book containing his receipt for the sum that had been found upon him. Tom had made a halt at Whitford, and seen the cheque, which had been backed by the word Axworthy, with an initial that, like all such signatures of the nephew, might stand either for S.

or F., and the stiff office hand of both the elder and younger Axworthy was so much alike, that no one could feel certain whose writing it was.

The long concealment, after the prisoner's pointed reference to it, was, however, so remarkable, that the home conclave regarded the cause as won; and the father and son hastened triumphantly to the attorneys'

office.

Messrs. Bramshaw and Anderson were greatly struck, and owned that their own minds were satisfied as to the truth of their client's a.s.sertion; but they demurred as to the possibility of further steps. An action for forgery, Tom's first hope, he saw to be clearly impossible; Samuel Axworthy appeared to have signed the cheque in his own name, and he had every right to it as his uncle's heir; and though the long withholding of it, as well as his own departure, were both suspicious circ.u.mstances, they were not evidence. Where was there any certainty that the cheque had ever been in the pocket-book or even if it had, how did it prove the existence of young Ward's acknowledgment? Might it not have been in some receptacle of papers. .h.i.therto not opened? There was no sufficient case to carry to the police, after a conviction like Leonard's, to set them on tracing the cheque either to an unknown robber, or to Sam Axworthy, its rightful owner.

Mr. Bramshaw likewise dissuaded Dr. May from laying the case before the Secretary of State, as importunity without due grounds would only tell against him if any really important discovery should be made: and the Doctor walked away, with blood boiling at people's coolness to other folk's tribulations, and greatly annoyed with Tom for having acceded to the representations of the men of law, and declining all co-operation in drawing up a representation for the Home Office, on the plea that he had no time to lose in preparing for his own examination, and must return to town by the next train, which he did without a syllable of real converse with any one at home.

The Doctor set to work with his home helpers, a.s.sisted by Dr. Spencer; but the work of composition seemed to make the ground give way under their feet, and a few adroit remarks from Dr. Spencer finally showed him and Ethel that they had not yet attained the prop for the lever that was to move the world. He gave it up, but still he did not quite forgive Tom for having been so easily convinced, and ready to be dismissed to his own affairs.

However, Dr. May was gratified by the great credit with which his son pa.s.sed his examination, and took his degree; and Sir Matthew Fleet himself wrote in high terms of his talent, diligence, and steadiness, volunteering hopes of being able to put him forward in town in his own line, for which Tom had always had a preference; and adding, that it was in concurrence with his own recommendation that the young man wished to pursue his studies at Paris--he had given him introductions that would enable him to do so to the greatest advantage, and he hoped his father would consent. The letter was followed up by one from Tom himself, as usual too reasonable and authoritative to be gainsaid, with the same representation of advantages to be derived from a course of the Parisian hospitals.

'Ah, well! he is after old Fleet's own heart,' said Dr. May, between pride and mortification. 'I should not grudge poor Fleet some one to take interest in his old age, and I did not look to see him so warm about anything. He has not forgotten Calton Hill! But the boy must have done very well! I say, shall we see him Sir Thomas some of these days, Ethel, and laugh at ourselves for having wanted, to make him go round in a mill after our old fas.h.i.+on?'

'You were contented to run round in your mill,' said Ethel, fondly, 'and maybe he will too.'

'No, no, Ethel, I'll not have him persuaded. Easy-going folk, too lazy for ambition, have no right to prescribe for others. Ambition turned sour is a very dangerous dose! Much better let it fly off! I mean to look out of my mill yet, and see Sir Thomas win the stakes. Only I wish he would come and see us; tell him he shall not hear a word to bother him about the old practice. People have lived and died at Stoneborough without a May to help them, and so they will again, I suppose.'

Ethel was very glad to see how her father had made up his mind to what was perhaps the most real disappointment of his life, but she was grieved that Tom did not respond to the invitation, and next wrote from Paris. It was one of his hurried notes, great contrasts to such elaborate performances as his recent letter. 'Thanks, many thanks to my father,' he said; 'I knew you would make him see reason, and he always yields generously. I was too much hurried to come home; could not afford to miss the trail. I had not time to say before that the Bank that sent the cheque to Whitford had it from a lodging-house in town. Landlord had a writ served on S. A.; as he was embarking at Folkestone, he took out the draft and paid. He knew its import, if Bramshaw did not. I hope my father was not vexed at my not staying.

There are things I cannot stand, namely, discussions and Gertrude.'

Gertrude was one of the chief cares upon Ethel's mind. She spent many thoughts upon the child, and even talked her over with Flora.

'What is it, Flora? is it my bad management? She is a good girl, and a dear girl; but there is such a want of softness about her.'

'There is a want of softness about all the young ladies of the day,'

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