Reginald Cruden | Page 4

telegraphed to your mother at once, as you know--but before that telegram could have reached her your poor father--"
It was enough. Poor Horace closed his ears convulsively against the fatal word, and dropped back on his chair with a gasp.
The doctor put his hand kindly on the boy's shoulder.
"Are you here alone?" said he, presently.
"My mother and brother will be here directly."
"Your father lies in a private ward. Will you wait till they come, or will you go up now?"
A struggle passed through the boy's mind. An instinctive horror of a sight hitherto unknown struggled hard with the impulse to rush at once to his father's bedside. At length he said, falteringly,--
"I will go now, please."
When Mrs Cruden and Reginald arrived half an hour later, they found Horace where the doctor had left him, on his knees at his father's bedside.
CHAPTER TWO.
A COME-DOWN IN THE WORLD.
Mr Cruden had the reputation of being one of the most respectable as well as one of the richest men in his part of the county. And it is fair to say he took far more pride in the former quality than the latter. Indeed, he made no secret of the fact that he had not always been the rich man he was when our story opens. But he was touchy on the subject of his good family and his title to the name of gentleman, which he had taught his sons to value far more than the wealth which accompanied it, and which they might some day expect to inherit.
His choice of a school for them was quite consistent with his views on this point. Wilderham was not exactly an aristocratic school, but it was a school where money was thought less of than "good style," as the boys called it, and where poverty was far less of a disgrace than even a remote connection with a "shop." The Crudens had always been great heroes in the eyes of their schoolfellows, for their family was unimpeachable, and even with others who had greater claims to be considered as aristocratic, their ample pocket-money commended them as most desirable companions.
Mr Cruden, however, with all his virtues and respectability, was not a good man of business. People said he let himself be imposed upon by others who knew the value of money far better than he did. His own beautiful estate at Garden Vale, Rumour said, was managed at double the expense it should be; and of his money transactions and speculations in the City--well, he had need to be the wealthy man he was, said his friends, to be able to stand all the fleecing he came in for there!
Nevertheless, no one ever questioned the wealth of the Crudens, least of all did the Crudens themselves, who took it as much for granted as the atmosphere they breathed in.
On the day on which our story opens Mr Cruden had driven down into the City on business. No one knew exactly what the business was, for he kept such matters to himself. It was an ordinary expedition, which consisted usually of half a dozen calls on half a dozen stockbrokers or secretaries of companies, with perhaps an occasional visit to the family lawyer or the family bank.
To-day, however, it had consisted of but one visit, and that was to the bank. And it was whilst returning thence that Mr Cruden was suddenly seized with the stroke which ended in his death. Had immediate assistance been at hand the calamity might have been averted, but neither the coachman nor footman was aware of what had happened till the carriage was some distance on its homeward journey, and a passer-by caught sight of the senseless figure within. They promptly drove him to the nearest hospital, and telegraphed the news to Garden Vale; but Mr Cruden never recovered consciousness, and, as the doctor told Horace, before even the message could have reached its destination he was dead.
We may draw a veil over the sad scenes of the few days which followed-- of the meeting of the widow and her sons at the bedside of the dead, of the removal of the loved remains home, of the dismal preparations for the funeral, and all the dreary details which occupy mourners in the house of death. For some time Mrs Cruden, prostrated by the shock of her bereavement, was unable to leave her room, and the burden of the care fell on the two inexperienced boys, who had to face it almost single-handed.
For the Crudens had no near relatives in England, and those of their friends who might have been of service at such a time feared to intrude, and so stayed away. Blandford and Harker, the boys' two friends who had been visiting at Garden Vale at the time of Mr