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The occasion was one, in many respects, of peculiar interest. As recently as on the 8th of that month, Douglas Jerrold had breathed his last, quite unexpectedly. Dying in the fulness of his powers, and at little more than fifty years of age, he had passed away, it was felt, prematurely.
Jerrold, "he was wont to stroll unnoticed, with his faithful dog at his heels, from this house to the news-vendor's stall by the Burlington Arcade, to get the latest news from revolutionary France; now he was the guest of the English people, on his way through cheering crowds to Windsor Castle, where the queen was waiting in the vestibule to receive him."
Jerrold, and, since he was in duress, she would lead with no one, and sent them off wondering and greatly excited, there came running up to the carriage a telegraph messenger boy, who handed her a despatch. "I was going up to the avenue, mum," he explained, "but I seen you here." Nina's face paled as she tore it open and read the curt lines: "Come to me, here. Your help needed instantly."
So Anne wrote to the steamship company, booking her passage in two weeks' time; she wrote to Eliot, asking him to call at the company's office and see if he could get her a decent cabin. She went to Wyck and posted her letters, and then to the Far Acres field where Jerrold was watching the ploughing. They met at the "headland." They would be safe there on the ploughed land, in the open air.
In plain words, Mr. Jerrold, you who brought this trouble upon her by your own misconduct must clear her, no matter at whose expense, or " "Or what?" "I make no threats. I prefer that you should make the proper explanations from a proper sense of what is due."
John McPherson, and my mother is Lady Jane McPherson, he replied, in a tone intended to annihilate me wholly. "But I stood my ground, and said: "'Oh, you are Neil McPherson, are you? and your father is an honorable, and your mother a lady? Well, I am Grey Jerrold, of Boston, and my father is an honorable, and my mother is a lady, too!" "'Now, reely, you make me larf, he cried.
That night Eliot slept in his father's room, so that he could go to her if the attack came. But it did not come. Late in the afternoon Jerrold went down to the Barrow Farm and saw Anne. He came back with a message from her. Anne wanted to see Maisie, if Maisie would let her. "But she thinks you won't," he said. "Why should I?" "She's desperately unhappy."
"My dear child, how can I leave you alone when I see you making the mistake of your life? Eliot is absolutely the right person for you, if you'd only the sense to see it. He's got more character than anybody I know. Much more than dear Jerry. He'll be ten times more interesting to live with." "I thought Jerrold was your favourite." "No, Eliot, my dear. Always Eliot. He was my first baby."
The watch at once ran to their respective stations, Tom Jerrold and I with a couple of others attending to the cross-jack yard. "All ready forrud?" "Aye, aye, sorr," shouted back Tim Rooney from the forecastle, "all ready forrud." "Helms a-lee!" The head sheets were let go as the captain roared out this order, the jib flattening as the vessel went into stays.
"If only I knew where Jerrold was. Nothing's so awful as not knowing." And at breakfast, over toast and marmalade: "Anne, I've got such an awful feeling that something's happened to Jerrold. I'm sure these feelings aren't given you for nothing... You aren't eating anything, darling. You must eat."
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