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The Vast Abyss, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 39 |
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_ CHAPTER THIRTY NINE. That next morning when Tom jumped out of bed, he felt light-hearted, and ready for anything. He threw open his window to have a look round, and knew by a low whistling that David had come to work. Then reaching out to have a look at the mill, with his head full of telescope, he stared, for the door was open; and excited by this, and fearing something was wrong, he hurriedly dressed, went down, and found that it only wanted a quarter to eight. "And I thought it was only about half-past six," he muttered, as he hurried out and across to the mill. All was still there, and he looked round, but nothing appeared to have been disturbed; but upon looking up he could see the keys were in the laboratory door, and he paused with his heart beating. "Pooh!" he muttered to himself, as he drove away the hesitation. "Nobody would be there now." He went up the stairs, though softly, as if in doubt, and looked through the ajar door, to see that which made him steal softly down again, for, with a black bag on the front of the old bureau, Uncle Richard was busily writing, evidently getting some business done before he went off to town. "Morning, Tom," he said a quarter of an hour later, as he entered the breakfast-room, black bag in hand; "you needn't have crept down again, I was only doing a little business before breakfast." "Then you heard me, uncle?" "To be sure I did, my lad.--Morning, Mrs Fidler." "Good-morning, sir," said the housekeeper; "and--and I sincerely hope you will find your poor brother better when you get up to town." Uncle Richard bowed his head, and the housekeeper went on-- "Don't you think, sir, if it could anyhow be managed, you ought to try and get him down here again? You know how much better he grew while he was here." "Yes," said Uncle Richard quietly, as he went on with his breakfast. "And though I'm not clever as a nurse, you know, sir, I'd do anything I could to make him well." "I do know it, Mrs Fidler," said Uncle Richard warmly; "but," he added, with his face growing more grave, "he will not come down here again." Mrs Fidler sighed, and Tom kept his eyes fixed upon his coffee-cup. The breakfast passed off very silently, and as soon as it was over, Uncle Richard went into the next room, when Mrs Fidler seized upon the opportunity to speak. "I feel as if I must say it, Master Tom," she said, in a low tone of voice, "and I know you won't tell your uncle, but I don't like Mr James Brandon a bit, and I don't like his son; but if master will bring him down there's nothing I won't do to try and make him well; and I do assure you, Master Tom, that there's a deal more in good jellies and very strong beef-tea than there is in doctors' stuff." "They're much nicer," said Tom, smiling. "Ah, but it isn't all that, sir; it's the strength there is in them. Perhaps master might like me to go up and nurse his brother." "No, I'm sure he would not," said Tom; and just then his uncle returned. "Going to walk part of the way with me, Tom?" said Uncle Richard. "I'm going to walk all the way with you, uncle, and carry your bag," said Tom; and ten minutes later they were on the road, chatting about the telescope, and the next things to be done, so that the long walk to the station was made to seem short. Then the train came steaming in, and Uncle Richard stepped into his compartment. "Are you sure you wouldn't like me to come, uncle, and tell him I forgive him again?" whispered Tom, as he handed in the little black bag. "Certain. I'll give your message. Good-bye." The train glided away, and Tom started back for home with his mind busy for a few minutes over the scene at Mornington Crescent; and then thoughts flew on to the mill and into the future, when perhaps some far greater telescope would be mounted, and nights occupied searching the heavens. Then Tom's thoughts came back to earth, and Pete Warboys' hole under the great pine-tree, and he was still busy over that, and the great gipsy-like boy's habits,--poaching, probably stealing, and making himself a nuisance to everybody,--when he caught sight of the lad himself peering into a patch of coppice evidently watching something, that something proving to be the dog, which soon after leaped out into the road. Tom's footsteps had been silenced by the soft green turf which margined the way, so that he was close up to the lad before he was noticed, and then Pete gave a bound and shot into the coppice, followed by his dog; but once more the dog turned back to give him a friendly bark. "After no good, or he wouldn't have rushed away like that," thought Tom, as he went on, reached the cottage feeling very little the worse for his long morning's walk, and meaning to go up and busy himself in the laboratory; but to his surprise Mrs Fidler stopped him. "Don't go away, Master Tom; it's close to one o'clock, and lunch will be ready. We will have regular dinner at seven, when your uncle comes back." "If he does come to-night," said Tom. "Oh, he will, my dear, if he possibly can, you may depend upon it." The housekeeper was right, for soon after half-past six the station fly brought Uncle Richard back, tired, but looking brighter than when he started. "How is he?" said Tom anxiously. "Better, much better. Your aunt says a change came over him soon after we had gone, my boy, and the doctor thinks that he will come round now." Tom looked very hard in his uncle's eyes, and Uncle Richard looked very hard in his, but neither of them spoke. They each thought the same thing though, and that was, that the doctor had said he had something upon his mind. That something was no longer there, and its removal had achieved what no medical man could have done, and so quickly that it seemed to be like a miracle. A week passed, and two answers to letters of inquiry came down to Heatherleigh, both saying that Uncle James was improving fast. Another week, and only one letter came, with the same report. The next week a short acknowledgment came from Sam, to say that his father was nearly well, and had gone down to Bournemouth for a change. "I think, Tom, we may as well finish the telescope," said Uncle Richard dryly. "Let's set to work at once." That same day Mrs Fidler, who had heard the news, seized an opportunity to deliver her opinions to Tom. "It's just as I thought, sir," she said, "he was never really bad. It was all nerves and fidgetting about himself. He thought he was in a very bad state, and kept on making himself worse and worse, till he believed that he was going to die. It was nothing but nerves." "It was something else," thought Tom; and what that something was he did not confide to the housekeeper. "I'm glad he has got well again," he said to himself; "but I hope neither he nor Cousin Sam will come down here." _ |
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