Johnny Ludlow: Fifth Series E-Book

Mrs. Henry Wood

• Herausgeber: Publisher s11838
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Johnny Ludlow. Fifth Series an English novelist Mrs. Henry Wood. This book is one of many works by her. Published in 1899. And now republish in ebook format. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book.

Leseprobe

Johnny Ludlow.

Fifth Series

By

Mrs. Henry Wood

Table of Contents

FEATHERSTON’S STORY.

WATCHING ON ST. MARK’S EVE.

SANKER’S VISIT.

ROGER MONK.

THE EBONY BOX.

OUR FIRST TERM AT OXFORD.

Footnote

“God sent his Singers upon earth

With songs of sadness and of mirth,

That they might touch the hearts of men,

And bring them back to heaven again.”

Longfellow.

FEATHERSTON’S STORY.

I.

I have called this Featherston’s story, because it was through him that I heard about it—and, indeed, saw a little of it towards the end.

 Buttermead, the wide straggling district to which Featherston enjoyed the honour of being doctor-in-ordinary, was as rural as any that can be found in Worcestershire. Featherston’s house stood at the end of the village. Whitney Hall lay close by; as did our school, Dr. Frost’s. In the neighbourhood were scattered a few other substantial residences, some farmers’ homesteads and labourers’ cottages. Featherston was a slim man, with long thin legs and a face grey and careworn. His patients (like the soldier’s steam arm) gave him no rest day or night.

There is no need to go into details here about Featherston’s people. His sister, Mary Ann, lived in his house at one time, and for everyday ailments was almost as good a doctor as he. She was not at alllike him: a merry, talkative, sociable little woman, with black hair and quick, kindly dark eyes.

Our resident French master in those days at Dr. Frost’s was one Monsieur Jules Carimon: a small man with honest blue eyes in his clean-shaven face, and light brown hair cropped close to his head. He was an awful martinet at study, but a genial little gentleman out of it. To the surprise of Buttermead, he and Mary Featherston set up a courtship. It was carried on in sober fashion, as befitted a sober couple who had both left thirty years, and the rest, behind them; and after a summer or two of it they laid plans for their marriage and for living in France.

“I’m sure I don’t know what on earth I shall do amongst the French, Johnny Ludlow,” Mary said to me in her laughing way, when I and Bill Whitney were having tea at Featherston’s one half-holiday, the week before the wedding. “Jules protests they are easier to get on with than the English; not so stiff and formal; but I don’t pay attention to all he says, you know.”

Monsieur Jules Carimon was going to settle down at his native place, Sainteville—a town on the opposite coast, which had a service of English steamers running to it two or three times a-week. He had obtained the post of first classical master at the college there, and meant to eke out his salary (never large in French colleges) by teaching French and mathematics to as many English pupils as he could obtain out of hours. Like other northern French seaport towns, Sainteville had its small colony of British residents.

“We shall get on; I am not afraid,” answered Mary Featherston to a doubting remark made to her by oldMrs. Selby of the Court. “Neither I nor Jules have been accustomed to luxury, and we don’t care for it. We would as soon make our dinner of bread-and-butter and radishes, as of chicken and apple-tart.”

So the wedding took place, and they departed the same day for Sainteville. And of the first two or three years after that there’s nothing good or bad to record.

Selby Court lay just outside Buttermead. Its mistress, an ancient lady now, was related to the Preen family, of whom I spoke in that story which told of the tragical death of Oliver. Lavinia Preen, sister to Oliver’s father, Gervase Preen, but younger, lived with Mrs. Selby as a sort of adopted daughter; and when the death of the father, old Mr. Preen, left nearly all his large family with scarcely any cheese to their bread, Mrs. Selby told Ann Preen, the youngest of them all, that she might come to her also. So Lavinia and Ann Preen lived at the Court, and had no other home.

These two ladies were intimate with Mary Featherston, all three being much attached to one another. When Mary married and left her country for France, the Miss Preens openly resented it, saying she ought to have had more consideration. Did some premonitory instinct prompt that unreasonable resentment? I cannot say. No one can say. But it is certain that had Mary Featherston not gone to live abroad, the ominous chain of events fated to engulf the sisters could not have touched them, and this account, which is a perfectly true one, would never have been written.

For a short time after the marriage they and Mary Carimon exchanged a letter now and then; not often, for foreign postage was expensive; and then it dropped altogether.

Mrs. Selby became an invalid, and died. She left each of the two sisters seventy pounds a-year for life; if the one died, the other was to enjoy the whole; when both were dead, it would lapse back to the Selby estate.

“Seventy pounds a-year!” remarked Ann Preen to her sister. “It does not seem very much, does it, Lavinia? Shall we be able to live upon it?”

They were seated in the wainscoted parlour at Selby Court, talking of the future. The funeral was over, and they must soon leave; for the house was waiting to be done up for the reception of its new master, Mr. Paul Selby, an old bachelor full of nervous fancies.