“My darling! my darling! God alone knows what my love for you has been.”
Another shy glance at him through her raining tears. Her heart was beating against his. Did the glance seem to ask why, then, had he not spoken? His next words would imply that he thought so.
“I am still a poor man, Lucy. I was waiting for Sir Henry’s return to lay the case before him. He may refuse you to me!”
“If he should—I will tell him—that I shall never have further interest in life,” was her murmured answer.
And Lionel’s own face was working with agitation, as he kissed those tears away.
At last! at last!
CHAPTER LXVI. IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN JAN!
The afternoon express-train was steaming into Deerham-station, just as Jan Verner was leaping his long legs over rails and stones and shafts, and other obstacles apt to collect round the outside of a halting-place for trains, to get to it. Jan did not want to get to the train; he had no business with it. He only wished to say a word to one of the railway-porters, whose wife he was attending. By the time he had reached the platform the train was puffing on again, and the few passengers who had descended were about to disperse.
“Can you tell me my way to Lady Verner’s?”
The words were spoken close to Jan’s ear. He turned and looked at the speaker. An oldish man with a bronzed countenance and upright carriage, bearing about him that indescribable military air which bespeaks the soldier of long service, in plain clothes though he may be.
“Sir Henry Tempest?” involuntarily spoke Jan, before the official addressed had time to answer the question. “I heard that my mother was expecting you.”
Sir Henry Tempest ran his eyes over Jan’s face and figure. An honest face, but an ungainly figure: loose clothes, that would have been all the better for a brush, and the edges of his high shirt-collar jagged out.
“Mr. Verner?” responded Sir Henry, doubtingly.
“Not Mr. Verner. I’m only Jan. You must have forgotten me long ago, Sir Henry.”
Sir Henry Tempest held out his hand.
“I have not forgotten what you were as a boy; but I should not have known you as a man. And yet—it is the same face.”
“Of course it is,” said Jan. “Ugly faces, like mine, don’t alter. I will walk with you to my mother’s: it is close by. Have you any luggage?”
“Only a portmanteau. My servant is looking after it. Here he is.”
A very dark man came up—an Indian—nearly as old as his master. Jan recognised him.
“I remember you!” he exclaimed. “It is Batsha.”
The man laughed, hiding his dark eyes, but showing his white teeth.
“Massa Jan!” he said. “Used to call me Bat.”
Without the least ceremony, Jan shook him by the hand. He had more pleasant reminiscences of him than of his master. In fact, Jan could only remember Colonel Tempest by name. He, the Colonel, had despised and shunned the awkward and unprepossessing boy: but the boy and Bat used to be great friends.
“Do you recollect carrying me on your shoulder, Bat? You have paid for many a ride in a palanquin for me. Riding on shoulders or in palanquins, in those days, used to be my choice recreation. The shoulders and the funds both ran short at times.”
Batsha remembered it all. Next to his master he had never liked anybody so well as the boy Jan.
“Stop where you are a minute or two,” said unceremonious Jan to Sir Henry. “I must find one of the porters, and then I’ll walk with you.”
Looking about in various directions, in holes and corners, and sheds,—inside carriages and behind trucks, Jan at length came upon a short, surly-looking man, wearing the official uniform. It was the one of whom he was in search.
“I say, Parkes, what is this I hear about your forcing your wife to get up, when I have given orders that she should lie in bed? I went in just now, and there I found her dragging herself about the damp brewhouse. I had desired that she should not get out of her bed.”
“Too much bed don’t do nobody much good, sir,” returned the man in a semi-resentful tone. “There’s the work to do—the washing: if she don’t do it, who will?”
“Too much bed wouldn’t do you good; or me, either: but it is necessary for your wife in her present state of illness. I have ordered her to bed again. Don’t let me hear of your interfering a second time, and forcing her up. She is going to have a blister on now.”
“I didn’t force her, sir,” answered Parkes. “I only asked her what was to become of the work, and how I should get a clean shirt to put on.”
“If I had got a sick wife, I’d wash out my shirt myself, before I’d drag her out of her bed to do it,” retorted Jan. “I can tell you one thing, Parkes: that she is worse than you think for. I am not sure that she will be long with you: and you won’t get such a wife again in a hurry, once you lose her. Give her a chance to get well. I’ll see that she gets up fast enough, when she is fit for it.”
Parkes touched his peaked cap as Jan turned away. It was very rare that Jan came out with a lecture: and when he did the sufferers did not like it. A sharp word from Jan Verner seemed to tell home.
Jan returned to Sir Henry Tempest, and they walked away in the direction of Deerham Court.
“I conclude all is well at Lady Verner’s,” remarked Sir Henry.
“Well enough,” returned Jan. “I thought I heard you were not coming until to-morrow. They’ll be surprised.”
“I wrote word I should be with them to-morrow,” replied Sir Henry. “But I got impatient to see my child. Since I left India and have been fairly on my way to her, the time of separation