Showing What Happened Off Heligoland
During the six weeks after this, Harry Clavering settled
down to his work at the chambers in the Adelphi with
exemplary diligence. Florence, having remained
a fortnight in town after Harry’s return to the
sheepfold, and having accepted Lady Ongar’s present—not
without a long and anxious consultation with her sister-in-law
on the subject—had returned in fully restored
happiness to Stratton. Mrs. Burton was at Ramsgate
with the children, and Mr. Burton was in Russia with
reference to a line of railway which was being projected
from Moscow to Astracan. It was now September,
and Harry, in his letters home, declared that he was
the only person left in London. It was hard upon
him—much harder than it was upon the Wallikers
and other young men whom Fate retained in town for
Harry was a man given to shooting—a man
accustomed to pass the autumnal months in a country
house. And then, if things had chanced to go
one way instead of another, he would have had his own
shooting down at Ongar Park with his own friends—admiring
him at his heels; or, if not so this year, he would
have been shooting elsewhere with the prospect of
these rich joys for years to come. As it was,
he had promised to stick to the shop, and was sticking
to it manfully. Nor do I think that he allowed
his mind to revert to those privileges which might
have been his at all more frequently than any of my
readers would have done in his place. He was
sticking to the shop; and, though he greatly disliked
the hot desolation of London in those days, being absolutely
afraid to frequent his club at such a period of the
year, and though he hated Walliker mortally, he was
fully resolved to go on with his work. Who could
tell what might be his fate? Perhaps in another
ten years he might be carrying that Russian railway
on through the deserts of Siberia. Then there
came to him suddenly tidings which disturbed all his
resolutions, and changed the whole current of his life.
At first there came a telegram to him from the country,
desiring him to go down at once to Clavering, but
not giving him any reason. Added to the message
were these words: “We are all well at the
parsonage”—words evidently added
in thoughtfulness. But before he had left the
office, there came to him there a young man from the
bank at which his cousin Hugh kept his account, telling
him the tidings to which the telegram no doubt referred.
Jack Stuart’s boat had been lost, and his two
cousins had gone to their graves beneath the sea!
The master of the boat, and Stuart himself, with a
boy, had been saved. The other sailors whom they
had with them, and the ship’s steward, had perished
with the Claverings. Stuart, it seemed, had caused
tidings of the accident to be sent to the rector of
Clavering and to Sir Hugh’s bankers. At
the bank they had ascertained that their late customer’s
cousin was in town, and their messenger had thereupon
been sent, first to Bloomsbury Square, and from thence
to the Adelphi.
