Wilfrid Cumbermede

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HAVE LOST HIS WAY."]

It was my sole but unavailing prayer. He turned away towards the house. My trouble rose to agony. I made some wild motion of despair, and threw myself on the grass. He turned, looked at me for a moment in silence, and then said in a changed tone--

'My boy, I am sorry for you. I beg you will not trouble yourself any more. The affair is not worth it. Such a trifle! What can I do for you?'

I got up. A new thought of possible relief had crossed my mind.

'Please, sir, if you won't box my ears, will you shake hands with me?'

'To be sure I will,' he answered, holding out his hand, and giving mine a very kindly shake. 'Where do you live?'

'I am at school at Aldwick, at Mr Elder's.'

'You're a long way from home!'

'Am I, sir? Will you tell me how to go? But it's of no consequence. I don't mind anything now you've forgiven me. I shall soon run home.'

'Come with me first. You must have something to eat.'

I wanted nothing to eat, but how could I oppose anything he said? I followed him at once, drying my eyes as I went. He led me to a great gate which I had passed before, and opening a wicket, took me across a court, and through another building where I saw many servants going about; then across a second court, which was paved with large flags, and so to a door which he opened, calling--

'Mrs Wilson! Mrs Wilson! I want you a moment.'

'Yes, Sir Giles,' answered a tall, stiff-looking elderly woman who presently appeared descending, with upright spine, a corkscrew staircase of stone.

'Here is a young gentleman, Mrs Wilson, who seems to have lost his way. He is one of Mr Elder's pupils at Aldwick. Will you get him something to eat and drink, and then send him home?'

'I will, Sir Giles.'

'Good-bye, my man,' said Sir Giles, again shaking hands with me. Then turning anew to the housekeeper, for such I found she was, he added:

'Couldn't you find a bag for him, and fill it with some of those brown pippins? They're good eating, ain't they?'

'With pleasure, Sir Giles.'

Thereupon Sir Giles withdrew, closing the door behind him, and leaving me with the sense of life from the dead.

'What's your name, young gentleman?' asked Mrs Wilson, with, I thought, some degree of sternness.

'Wilfrid Cumbermede,' I answered.

She stared at me a little, with a stare which would have been a start in most women. I was by this time calm enough to take a quiet look at her. She was dressed in black silk, with a white neckerchief crossing in front, and black mittens on her hands. After gazing at me fixedly for a moment or two, she turned away and ascended the stair, which went up straight from the door, saying--

'Come with me, Master Cumbermede. You must have some tea before you go.'

I obeyed, and followed her into a long, low-ceiled room, wainscotted all over in panels, with a square moulding at the top, which served for a cornice. The ceiling was ornamented with plaster reliefs. The windows looked out, on one side into the court, on the other upon the park. The floor was black and polished like a mirror, with bits of carpet here and there, and a rug before the curious, old-fashioned grate, where a little fire was burning and a small kettle boiling fiercely on the top of it. The tea-tray was already on the table. She got another cup and saucer, added a pot of jam to the preparations, and said:

'Sit down and have some bread and butter, while I make the tea.'

She cut me a great piece of bread, and then a great piece of butter, and I lost no time in discovering that the quality was worthy of the quantity. Mrs Wilson kept a grave silence for a good while. At last, as she was pouring out the second cup, she looked at me over the teapot, and said--

'You don't remember your mother, I suppose, Master Cumbermede?'

'No, ma'am. I never saw my mother.'

'Within your recollection, you mean. But you must have seen her, for you were two years old when she died.'

'Did you know my mother, then, ma'am?' I asked, but without any great surprise, for the events of the day had been so much out of the ordinary that I had for the time almost lost the faculty of wonder.

She compressed her thin lips, and a perpendicular wrinkle appeared in the middle of her forehead, as she answered--

'Yes; I knew your mother.'

'She was very good, wasn't she, ma'am?' I said, with my mouth full of bread and butter.

'Yes. Who told you that?'

'I was sure of it. Nobody ever told me.'

'Did they never talk to you about her?'

'No, ma'am.'

'So you are at Mr Elder's, are you?' she said, after another long pause, during which I was not idle, for my trouble being gone I could now be hungry.

'Yes, ma'am.'

'How did you come here, then?'

'I walked with the rest of the boys; but they are gone home without me.'

Thanks to the kindness of Sir Giles, my fault had already withdrawn so far into the past, that I wished to turn my back upon it altogether. I saw no need for confessing it to Mrs Wilson; and there was none.

'Did you lose your way?'

'No, ma'am.'

'What brought you here, then? I suppose you wanted to see the place.'

'The woman at the lodge told us the nearest way was through the park.'

I quite expected she would go on cross-questioning me, and then all the truth would have had to come out. But to my great relief, she went no further, only kept eyeing me in a manner so oppressive as to compel me to eat bread and butter and strawberry jam with self-defensive eagerness. I presume she trusted to find out the truth by-and-by. She contented herself in the mean time with asking questions about my uncle and aunt, the farm, the school, and Mr and Mrs Elder, all in a cold, stately, refraining manner, with two spots of red in her face--one on each cheek-bone, and a thin rather peevish nose dividing them. But her forehead was good, and when she smiled, which was not often, her eyes shone. Still, even I, with my small knowledge of womankind, was dimly aware that she was feeling her way with me, and I did not like her much.

'Have you nearly done?' she asked at length.

'Yes, quite, thank you,' I answered.

'Are you going back to school to-night?'

'Yes, ma'am; of course.'

'How are you going?'

'If you will tell me the way--'

'Do you know how far you are from Aldwick?'

'No, ma'am.'

'Eight miles,' she answered; 'and it's getting rather late.'

I was seated opposite the windows to the park, and, looking up, saw with some dismay that the air was getting dusky. I rose at once, saying--

'I must make haste. They will think I am lost.'

'But you can never walk so far, Master Cumbermede.'

'Oh, but I must! I can't help it. I must get back as fast as possible.'

'You never can walk such a distance. Take another bit of cake while I go and see what can be done.'

Another piece of cake being within the bounds of possibility, I might at least wait and see what Mrs Wilson's design was. She left the room, and I turned to the cake. In a little while she came back, sat down, and went on talking. I was beginning to get quite uneasy, when a maid put her head in at the door, and said--

'Please, Mrs Wilson, the dog-cart's ready, ma'am.'

'Very well,' replied Mrs Wilson, and turning to me, said--more kindly than she had yet spoken--

'Now, Master Cumbermede, you must come and see me again. I'm too busy to spare much time when the family is at home; but they are all going away the week after next, and if you will come and see me then, I shall be glad to show you over the house.'

As she spoke she rose and led the way from the room, and out of the court by another gate from that by which I had entered. At the bottom of a steep descent, a groom was waiting with the dog-cart.

'Here, James,' said Mrs Wilson, 'take good care of the young gentleman, and put him down safe at Mr Elder's. Master Wilfrid, you'll find a hamper of apples underneath. You had better not eat them all yourself, you know. Here are two or three for you to eat by the way.'

'Thank you, Mrs Wilson. No; I'm not quite so greedy as that,' I answered gaily, for my spirits were high at the notion of a ride in the dog-cart instead of a long and dreary walk.

When I was fairly in, she shook hands with me, reminding me that I was to visit her soon, and away went the dog-cart behind a high-stepping horse. I had never before been in an open vehicle of any higher description than a cart, and the ride was a great delight. We went a different road from that which my companions had taken. It lay through trees all the way till we were out of the park.

'That's the land-steward's house,' said James.

'Oh, is it?' I returned, not much interested. 'What great trees those are all about it.'

'Yes; they're the finest elms in all the county those,' he answered. 'Old Coningham knew what he was about when he got the last baronet to let him build his nest there. Here we are at the gate!'

We came out upon a country road, which ran between the wall of the park and a wooden fence along a field of grass. I offered James one of my apples, which he accepted.

'There, now!' he said, 'there's a field!--A right good bit o' grass that! Our people has wanted to throw it into the park for hundreds of years. But they won't part with it for love or money. It ought by rights to be ours, you see, by the lie of the country. It's all one grass with the park. But I suppose them as owns it ain't of the same mind.--Cur'ous old box!' he added, pointing with his whip a long way off. 'You can just see the roof of it.'

I looked in the direction he pointed. A rise in the ground hid all but an ancient, high-peaked roof. What was my astonishment to discover in it the roof of my own home! I was certain it could be no other. It caused a strange sensation, to come upon it thus from the outside, as it were, when I thought myself miles and miles away from it, I fell a-pondering over the matter; and as I reflected, I became convinced that the trees from which we had just emerged were the same which used to churn the wind for my childish fancies. I did not feel inclined to share my feelings with my new acquaintance; but presently he put his whip in the socket and fell to eating his apple. There was nothing more in the conversation he afterwards resumed deserving of record. He pulled up at the gate of the school, where I bade him good-night and rang the bell.

There was great rejoicing over me when I entered, for the boys had arrived without me a little while before, having searched all about the place where we had parted company, and come at length to the conclusion that I had played them a trick in order to get home without them, there having been some fun on the road concerning my local stupidity. Mr Elder, however, took me to his own room, and read me a lecture on the necessity of not abusing my privileges. I told him the whole affair from beginning to end, and thought he behaved very oddly. He turned away every now and then, blew his nose, took off his spectacles, wiped them carefully, and replaced them before turning again to me.

'Go on, go on, my boy. I'm listening,' he would say.

I cannot tell whether he was laughing or crying. I suspect both. When I had finished, he said, very solemnly--

'Wilfrid, you have had a narrow escape. I need not tell you how wrong you were about the apple, for you know that as well as I do. But you did the right thing when your eyes were opened. I am greatly pleased with you, and greatly obliged to Sir Giles. I will write and thank him this very night.'

'Please, sir, ought I to tell the boys? I would rather not.'

'No. I do not think it necessary.'

He rose and rang the bell.

'Ask Master Fox to step this way.'

Fox was the oldest boy, and was on the point of leaving.

'Fox,' said Mr Elder, 'Cumbermede has quite satisfied me. Will you oblige me by asking him no questions. I am quite aware such a request must seem strange, but I have good reasons for making it,'

'Very well, sir,' said Fox, glancing at me.

'Take him with you, then, and tell the rest. It is as a favour to myself that I put it, Fox.'

'That is quite enough, sir.'

Fox took me to Mrs Elder, and had a talk with the rest before I saw them. Some twenty years after, Fox and I had it out. I gave him a full explanation, for by that time I could smile over the affair. But what does the object matter?--an apple, or a thousand pounds? It is but the peg on which the act hangs. The act is everything.

To the honour of my school-fellows I record that not one of them ever let fall a hint in the direction of the mystery. Neither did Mr or Mrs Elder once allude to it. If possible they were kinder than before.

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