Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/12

 The boy was right. Where the white blind fluttered was the 's bedroom, and there the dominie lay dying. A gaunt, square, ugly room, with panelled walls, on which the paint had cracked and rubbed and blistered, with such furniture as it possessed old fashioned, lumbering, and mean, with evidence of poverty everywhere—evidence of poverty which a woman's hand had evidently tried to screen and soften without much effect. The bed, its well-worn red moreen curtains with a dirty yellow border having been tightly bound round each sculptured post for the admittance of air, stood near the window, on which its occupant frequently turned his glazed and sunken eyes. The sun had gone to rest, the invalid had marked its sinking, and so had those who watched him. The same thought had occurred to all, though not a word had been spoken; but the roseate flush which he leaves behind still lingered in the heavens, and, as if in mockery, gave momentarily to the dying man's cheek a bright healthy hue, such as he was destined never to wear in life again. The flush grew fainter, and faded away, and then a glance at the face, robbed of its artificial glory, must have been conclusive as to the inevitable result. For the cheeks were hollow and sunken, yellowish-white in colour, and cold and clammy to the touch; the eyes, with scarcely any fire left in them, seemed set in large bistre rings; the nose was thin and pinched, and the bloodless lips were tightly compressed with an expression of acute pain.

The Reverend James Ashurst was dying. Every one in Helmingham knew that, and nearly every one had a word of kindness and commiseration for the stricken man, and for his wife and daughter. Dr. Osborne had carried the news up to the Park several days previously, and Sir Thomas had hemmed and coughed and said, "Dear me," and Lady Churchill had shaken her head piteously, on hearing it. "And nothing much to leave in the way ofeh, my dear doctor?" It was the doctor's turn to shake his head then, and he solaced himself with a large pinch of snuff, taken in a flourishing and sonorous manner, before he replied that he believed matters in that way were much worse than people thought; that he did not believe there was a single penny—not a single penny: indeed, it was a thing not to be generally talked of, but he might mention it in the strictest confidence to Sir Thomas and my lady, who had always proved themselves such good friends to the Ashursts—that was, he had mentioned to Mrs. Ashurst that there was one faint hope of saving her husband's life, if he would submit to a certain operation which only one man in England, Godby, of St. Vitus's Hospital in London, could perform. But when he had mentioned Godby's probable fee—and you could not expect these eminent men to leave their regular work and come down such a long distance under a large sum—he saw at once how the land lay, and that it was impossible for them to raise the money. Miss Ashurst—curious girl that, so determined and all that kind of thing—had indeed pressed him so hard that he had sent his man over to the telegraph office at Brocksopp with a message, inquiring what would be Godby's exact charge for running down—it was a mere question of distance with these men, so much a mile and so much for the operation—but he knew the sum he had named was not far out.

From the Park Dr. Osborne had driven his very decorous little four-wheeler to Woolgreaves, the residence of the Creswells, his other great patients, and there he had given a modified version of his story, with a very much modified result. For old Mr. Creswell was away in France, and neither of the two young ladies was of an age to feel much sympathy, unless with their intimate relations, and they had been educated abroad, and seen but little of the Helmingham folk; and as for Tom Creswell, he was the imp of the school, having all Sam Baker's love of mischief without any of his good heart, and would not have cared who was ill or who died, provided illness or death afforded occasion for slacking work and making holiday. Every one else in the parish was grieved at the news. The rector—bland, polished, and well endowed with worldly goods—had been most actively compassionate towards his less fortunate brother; the farmers, who looked upon "Master Ashurst" as a marvel of book learning, the labourers who had consented to the removal of the village sports, held from time immemorial on the village green, to a remote meadow whence the noise could not penetrate to the sick man's room, and who had considerately lowered the matter as well as the manner of their singing as they passed the school-house at night in jovial chorus; all these people pitied the old man dying, and the old wife whom he would leave behind. They did not say much about the daughter; when they referred to her it was generally to the effect