III. THE DARES AT HOME
A profusion of glass and plate glittered on the dining-table of Mr. Dare. It was six o'clock, and they had just sat down. Mrs. Dare, in a light gauze dress and blonde head-dress, sat at the head of the table. There was a large family of them; four sons and four daughters; and all were present; also Miss Benyon, the governess. Anthony and Herbert sat on either side Mrs. Dare; Adelaide and Julia, the eldest daughters, near their father; the four other children, Cyril and George, Rosa and Minny, were between them.
Mr. Dare was helping the salmon. In due course, a plate, followed by the sauce, was carried to Anthony.
"What's this! Melted butter! Where's the lobster sauce?"
"There is no lobster sauce to-day," said Mrs. Dare. "We sent late, and the lobsters were all gone. There was a small supply. Joseph, take the anchovy to Mr. Anthony."
Mr. Anthony jerked the anchovy sauce off the salver, dashed some on to his plate, and jerked the bottle back again. Not with a very good grace: his palate was a dainty one. Indeed, it was a family complaint.
"I wouldn't give a fig for salmon without lobster sauce," he cried. "I hope you won't send late again."
"It was the cook's fault," said Mrs. Dare. "She did not fully understand my orders."
"Deaf old creature!" exclaimed Anthony.
"Anthony, there's cucumber," said Julia, looking down the table at her brother. "Ann, take the cucumber to Mr. Anthony."
"You know I never eat cucumber with salmon," grumbled Anthony, in reply. And it was not graciously spoken, for the offer had been dictated by good-nature.
A pause ensued. It was at length broken by Mrs. Dare.
"Herbert, are you growing more reconciled to office-work?"
"No; and never shall," returned Herbert. "From ten till five is an awful clog upon one's time; it's as bad as school."
Mr. Dare looked up from his plate. "You might have been put to a profession that would occupy a great deal more time than that, Herbert. What calls have you upon your time, pray, that it is so valuable? Will you take some more fish?"
"Well, I don't know. I think I will. It is good to-day; very good with the cucumber, that Anthony despises."
Ann took his plate up to Mr. Dare.
"Anthony," said that gentleman, as he helped the salmon, "where were you this afternoon? You were away from the office altogether, after two o'clock."
"Out with Hawkesley," shortly replied Anthony.
"Yes; it is all very well to say, 'Out with Hawkesley,' but the office suffers. I wish you young men were not quite so fond of taking your pleasure."
"A little more fish, sir?" asked Joseph of Anthony.
"Not if I know it."
The second course came in. A quarter of lamb, asparagus and other vegetables. Herbert looked cross. He had recently taken a dislike to lamb, or fancied he had done so.
"Of course there's something coming for me!" he said.
"Oh, of course," said Mrs. Dare. "Cook knows you don't like lamb."
Nothing, however, came in. Ann was sent to inquire the reason of the neglect. The cook had been unable to procure veal cutlet, and Master Herbert had said if she ever sent him up a mutton-chop again he should throw it at her head. Such was the message brought back.
"What an old story-teller she must be to say she could not get veal cutlet!" exclaimed Herbert. "I hate mutton and lamb, and I am not going to eat either one or the other."
"I heard the butcher say this morning that he had no veal, Master Herbert," interposed Ann. "This hot weather they don't kill much meat."
"Why have you taken this dislike to lamb, Herbert?" asked Mr. Dare. "You have eaten it all the season."
"That's just it," answered Herbert. "I have eaten so much of it that I am sick of it."
"Never mind, Herbert," said his mother. "There's a cherry tart coming and a delicious lemon pudding. I don't think you can be so very hungry; you went twice to salmon."
Herbert was not in a good humour. All the Dares had been culpably pampered, and of course it bore its fruits. He sat drumming with his silver fork upon the table, condescending to try a little asparagus, and a great deal of both pie and pudding. Cheese, salad, and dessert followed, of which Herbert partook plentifully. Still he thought he was terribly used in not having had different meat specially provided for him; and he could not recover his good humour. I tell you the Dares had been most culpably indulged. The house was one of luxury and profusion, and every little whim and fancy had been studied. It is one of the worst schools a child can be reared in.
The three younger daughters and the governess withdrew, after taking each a glass of wine. Cyril and George went off likewise, to their lessons or to play. It was their own affair, and Mr. Dare made it no concern of his. Presently Mrs. Dare and Adelaide rose.
"Hawkesley's coming in this evening," called out Anthony, as they were going through the door.
Adelaide turned. "What did you say, Anthony?"
"Lord Hawkesley's coming. At least he said he would look in for an hour. But there's no dependence to be placed on him."
"We must be in the large drawing-room, mamma, this evening," said Adelaide, as they crossed the hall. "Miss Benyon and the children can take tea in the school-room."
"Yes," assented Mrs. Dare. "It is bad form to have one's drawing-room cucumbered with children, and Lord Hawkesley understands all that. Let them be in the school-room."
"Julia also?"
Mrs. Dare shrugged her shoulders. "If you can persuade her into it. I don't think Julia will consent to take tea in the school-room. Why should she?"
Adelaide vouchsafed no reply. Dutiful children they were not--affectionate children they were not--they had not been brought up to be so. Mrs. Dare was of the world, worldly: very much so: and that leaves very little time upon the hands for earnest duties. She had taken no pains to train her children: she had given them very little love. This conversation had taken place in the hall. Mrs. Dare went upstairs to the large drawing-room, a really handsome room. She rang the bell and gave sundry orders, the moving motive for all being the doubtful visit of Viscount Hawkesley--ices from the pastrycook's, a tray of refreshments, the best china, the best silver. Then Mrs. Dare reclined in her chair for her after-dinner nap--an indulgence she much favoured.
Adelaide Dare entered the smaller drawing-room, an apartment more commonly used, and opening from the hall. Julia was reading a book just brought in from the library. Miss Benyon was softly playing, and the two little ones were quarrelling. Miss Benyon turned round from the piano when Adelaide entered.
"You must make tea in the school-room this evening, Miss Benyon, for the children. Julia, you are to take yours there."
Julia looked up from her book. "Who says so?"
"Mamma. Lord Hawkesley's coming, and we cannot have the drawing-room crowded."
"I am not going to keep out of the drawing-room for Lord Hawkesley," returned Julia, a quiet girl in appearance and manner. "Who is Lord Hawkesley, that he should disarrange the economy of the house? There's so much ceremony and parade observed when he comes that it upsets all comfort. Your lordship this, and your lordship that; and papa my-lording him to the skies. I don't like it. He looks down upon us--I know he does--although he condescends to make a sort of friend of Anthony."
Adelaide Dare's dark eyes flashed and her face crimsoned. She was a handsome girl. "Julia! I do think you are an idiot!"
"Perhaps I am," composedly returned Julia, who was of a careless, easy temper; "but I am not going to be kept out of the drawing-room for my Lord Hawkesley. Let me go on with my book in peace, Adelaide: it is a charming one."
Meanwhile Herbert Dare, seeing no prospect of more wine in store--for Mr. Dare, with wonderful prudence, told Herbert that two glasses of port were sufficient for him--left his seat, and bolted out at the dining-room window, which opened on to the ground. He ran into the hall for his hat, and then, speeding across the lawn, passed into the high-road. Anthony remained alone with his father; and Anthony was plucking up courage to speak upon a subject that was causing him some perplexity. He plunged into it at once.
"Father, I am in a mess. I have managed to outrun the constable."
Mr. Dare was at that moment holding his glass of wine between his eye and the light. The words quite scared him. He set his glass down and looked at Anthony.
"How's that? How have you managed that?"
"I don't know how it has come about," was Anthony's answer. "It is so, sir; and you must be so good as to help me out of it."
"Your allowance is sufficient--amply so. Do you forget that I set you clear of debt at the beginning of the year? What money do you want?"
Anthony Dare began pulling the fringe out of the dessert napkin, to the great detriment of the damask. "Two hundred pounds, sir."
"Two hundred pounds!" echoed Mr. Dare, a dark expression clouding his handsome face. "Do you want to ruin me, Anthony? Look at my expenses! Look at the claims upon me! I say that your allowance is a liberal one, and you ought to keep within it."
Anthony sat biting his lip. "I would not have applied to you, sir, if I could have helped it; but I am driven into a corner and must find money. I and Hawkesley drew some bills together. He has taken up two, and I----"
"Then you and Hawkesley were a couple of fools for your pains," intemperately interrupted Mr. Dare. "There's no game so dangerous, so delusive, as that of drawing bills. Have I not told you so, over and over again? Simple debt may be put off from month to month, and from year to year; but bills are nasty things. When I was a young man I lived for years upon promises to pay, but I took care not to put my name to a bill."
"Hawkesley----"
"Hawkesley may do what you must not," interrupted Mr. Dare, drowning his son's voice. "He has his father's long rent-roll to turn to. Recollect, Anthony, this must not occur again. It is impossible that I can be called upon periodically for these sums. Herbert is almost a man, and Cyril and George are growing up. A pretty thing, if you were all to come upon me in this manner. I have to exert my wits as it is, I can tell you. I'll give you a cheque to-morrow; and I should serve you right if I were to put you upon half allowance until I am repaid."
Mr. Dare finished his wine, rang for the table to be cleared, and left the room. Anthony remained standing against the side of the window, half in, half out, buried in a brown study, when Herbert came up, leaping over the grass. Herbert was nearly as tall as Anthony. He had been for some time articled to his father, but had only joined the office the previous Midsummer. He looked into the room and saw it was empty.
"Where's the governor?"
"Gone somewhere. Into the drawing-room, perhaps," replied Anthony.
"What a nuisance!" ejaculated Herbert. "One can't talk to him before the girls. I want twenty-five shillings from him. Markham has the primest fishing-rod to sell, and I must have it."
"Twenty-five shillings for a fishing-rod!" cried Anthony.
"And cheap at the price," answered Herbert. "You don't often see so complete a thing as this. Markham would not part with it--it's a relic of his better days, he says--only his old mother wants some comfort or other which he can't otherwise afford. The case----"
"You have half-a-dozen fishing-rods already."
"Half a dozen rubbish! That's what they are, compared with this one. It's no business of yours, Anthony."
"Not at all. But you'll oblige me, Herbert, by not bothering the governor for money to-night. I have been asking him for some, and it has put him out."
"Did you get it?"
Anthony nodded.
"Then you'll let me have the one-pound-five, Anthony?"
"I can't," returned Anthony. "I shall have a cheque to-morrow, and I must pay it away whole. That won't clear me. But I didn't dare to tell of more."
"If I don't get that fishing-rod to-night, Markham may sell it to some one else," grumbled Herbert.
"Go and get it," replied Anthony. "Promise him the money for to-morrow. You are not obliged to give it, you know. The governor has just said that he lived for years upon promises to pay."
"Markham wants the money down."
"He'll think that as good as down if you tell him he shall have it to-morrow. Bring the fishing-rod away; possession's nine points of the law, you know."
"He'll make such an awful row afterwards, if he finds he does not get the money."
"Let him. You can row again. It's the easiest thing on earth to fence off little paltry debts like that. People get tired of asking for them."
Away vaulted Herbert for the fishing-rod. Anthony yawned, stretched himself, and walked out just as twilight was fading. He was going out to keep an appointment.
Herbert Dare went back to Markham's. The man--though, indeed, so far as birth went he might be called a gentleman--lived a little way beyond Mr. Dare's. The cottage was situated in the midst of a large garden, in which Markham worked late and early. He had a very, very small patrimony upon which he lived and kept his mother. He was bending over one of the beds when Herbert returned. "He would take the fishing-rod then, and bring the money over at nine in the morning, before going to the office. Mr. Dare was gone out, or he would have brought it at once," was the substance of the words in which Herbert concluded the negotiation.
Could they have looked behind the hedge at that moment, Herbert Dare and Markham, they would have seen two young gentlemen suddenly duck down under its shelter, creep silently along, heedless of the ditch, which, however, was tolerably dry at that season, make a sudden bolt across the road, when they got opposite Mr. Dare's entrance, and whisk within its gates. They were Cyril and George. That they had been at some mischief and were trying to escape detection, was unmistakable. Under cover of the garden-wall, as they had previously done under cover of the hedge, crept they; sprang into the house by the dining-room window, tore up the stairs, and took refuge in the drawing-room, startlingly arousing Mrs. Dare from her after-dinner slumbers.
In point of fact, they had reckoned upon finding the room unoccupied.
IV. THROWING AT THE BATS
Aroused thus abruptly out of sleep, cross and startled, Mrs. Dare attacked the two boys with angry words. "I will know what you have been doing," she exclaimed, rising and shaking out the flounces of her dress. "You have been at some mischief! Why do you come violently in, in this manner, looking as frightened as hares?"
"Not frightened," replied Cyril. "We are only hot. We had a run for it."
"A run for what?" she repeated. "When I say I will know a thing, I mean to know it. I ask you what you have been doing?"
"It's nothing very dreadful, that you need put yourself out," replied George. "One of old Markham's windows has come to grief."
"Then that's through throwing stones again!" exclaimed Mrs. Dare. "Now I am certain of it, and you need not attempt to deny it. You shall pay for it out of your own pocket-money if he comes here, as he did the last time."
"Ah, but he won't come here," returned Cyril. "He didn't see us. Is tea not ready?"
"You can go to the school-room and see. You are to take it there this evening."
The boys tore away to the school-room. Unlike Julia, they did not care where they took it, provided they had it. Miss Benyon was pouring out the tea as they entered. They threw themselves on a sofa, and burst into a fit of laughter so immoderate and long that their two young sisters crowded round eagerly, asking to hear the joke.
"It was the primest fun!" cried Cyril, when he could speak. "We have just smashed one of Markham's windows. The old woman was at it in a nightcap, and I think the stone must have touched her head. Markham and Herbert were holding a confab together and they never saw us!"
"We were chucking at the leathering bats," put in George, jealous that his brother should have all the telling to himself, "and the stone----"
"It is leather-winged bat, George," interrupted the governess. "I corrected you the other night."
"What does it matter?" roughly answered George. "I wish you wouldn't put me out. A leathering-bat dipped down nearly right upon our heads, and we both heaved at him, and one of the stones went through the window, nearly taking, as Cyril says, old Mother Markham's head. Won't they be in a temper at having to pay for it! They are as poor as charity."
"They'll make you pay," said Rosa.
"Will they?" retorted Cyril. "No catch, no have! I'll give them leave to make us pay when they find us out. Do you suppose we are donkeys, you girls? We dipped down under the hedge, and not a soul saw us. What's for tea?"
"Bread and butter," replied the governess.
"Then those may eat it that like! I shall have jam."
Cyril rang the bell as he spoke. Nancy, the maid who waited on the school-room, came in answer to it. "Some jam," said Cyril. "And be quick over it."
"What sort, sir?" inquired Nancy.
"Sort? oh--let's see: damson."
"The damson jam was finished last week, sir. It is nearly the season to make more."
Cyril replied by a rude and ugly word. After some cogitation, he decided upon black currant.
"And bring me up some apricot," put in George.
"And we'll have some gooseberry," called out Rosa. "If you boys have jam, we'll have some too."
Nancy disappeared. Cyril suddenly threw himself back on the sofa, and burst into another ringing laugh. "I can't help it," he exclaimed. "I am thinking of the old woman's fright, and their dismay at having to pay the damage."
"Do you know what I should do in your place, Cyril?" said Miss Benyon. "I should go back to Markham, and tell him honourably that I caused the accident. You know how poor they are; they cannot afford to pay for it."
Cyril stared at Miss Benyon. "Where'd be the pull of that?" asked he.
"The 'pull,' Cyril, would be, that you would repair a wrong done to an unoffending neighbour, and might go to sleep with a clear conscience."
The last suggestion amused Cyril amazingly he and conscience had not a great deal to do with each other. He was politely telling Miss Benyon that those notions were good enough for old maids, when Nancy appeared with the several sorts of jam demanded. Cyril drew his chair to the table, and Nancy went down.
"Ring the bell, Rosa," said Cyril, before the girl could well have reached the kitchen. "I can't see one sort from another; we must have candles."
"Ring it yourself," retorted Rosa.
"George, ring the bell," commanded Cyril.
George obeyed. He was under Cyril in the college school, and accustomed to obey him.
"You might have told Nancy when she was here," remarked Miss Benyon to Cyril. "It would have saved her a journey."
"And if it would?" asked Cyril. "What were servants' legs made for, but to be used?"
Nancy received the order for the candles, and brought them up. It was to be hoped her legs were made to be used, for scarcely had Cyril begun to enjoy his black currant jam when they were heard coming up the stairs again.
"Master Cyril, Mr. Markham wants to see you."
Cyril and the rest exchanged looks. "Did you say I was at home?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then you were an idiot for your pains! I can't come down, tell him. I am at tea."
Down went Nancy accordingly. And back she came again. "He says he must see you, Master Cyril."
"Be a man, Cyril, and face it," whispered Miss Benyon in his ear.
Cyril jerked his head rudely away from her. "I won't go down. There! Nancy, you may tell Markham so."
"He has sat down on the garden bench, sir, outside the window to wait," explained Nancy. "He says, if you won't see him he shall ask for Mr. Dare."
Cyril appeared to be in for it. He dashed his bread and jam on the table, and clattered down. "Who's wanting me?" called out he, when he got outside. "Oh!--is it you, Markham?"
"How came you to throw a stone just now, and break my window, Cyril Dare?"
The words threw Cyril into the greatest apparent surprise. "I throw a stone and break your window!" repeated he. "I don't know what you mean."
"Either you or your brother threw it; you were both together. It entered my mother's bedroom window, and went within an inch of her head. I'll trouble you to send a glazier round to put the pane in."
"Well, of all strange accusations, this is about the strangest!" uttered Cyril. "We have not been near your window; we are upstairs at our tea."
At this juncture, Mr. Dare came out. He had heard the altercation in the house. "What's this?" asked he. "Good evening, Markham."
Markham explained. "They crouched down under the hedge when they had done the mischief," he continued, "thinking, no doubt, to get away undetected. But, as it happened, Brooks the nurseryman was in his ground behind the opposite hedge, and he saw the whole. He says they were throwing at the bats. Now I should be sorry to get them punished, Mr. Dare; we have been boys ourselves; but if young gentlemen will throw stones, they must pay for any damage they do. I have requested your son to send a glazier round in the morning. I am sorry he should have denied the fact."
Mr. Dare turned to Cyril. "If you did it, why do you deny it?"
Cyril hesitated for the tenth part of a second. Which would be the best policy? To give in, or to hold out? He chose the latter. His word was as good as that confounded Brooks's, and he'd brave it out! "We didn't do it," he angrily said; "we have not been near the place this evening. Brooks must have mistaken others for us in the dusk."
"They did do it, Mr. Dare. There's no mistake about it. Brooks had been watching them, and he thinks it was the bigger one who threw that particular stone. If I had set a house on fire," Markham added to Cyril, "I'd rather confess the accident, than deny it by a lie. What sort of a man do you expect to make?"
"A better one than you!" insolently retorted Cyril.
"Wait an instant," said Mr. Dare. He proceeded to the school-room to inquire of George. That young gentleman had been an admiring hearer of the colloquy from a staircase-window. He tore back to the school-room on the approach of his father; hastily deciding that he must bear out Cyril in the denial. "Now, George," said Mr. Dare, sternly, "did you and Cyril do this, or did you not?"
"Of course we did not, papa," was the ready reply. "We have not been near Markham's. Brooks must be a fool."
Mr. Dare believed him. He was leaving the room when Miss Benyon interposed.
"Sir, I should be doing wrong to allow you to be deceived. They did break the window."
The address caused Mr. Dare to pause. "How do you know it, Miss Benyon?"
Miss Benyon related what had passed. Mr. Dare cast his eyes sternly upon his youngest son. "It is you who are the fool, George, not Brooks. A lie is sure to get found out in the end; don't attempt to tell another."
Mr. Dare went down. "I cannot come quite to the bottom of this business, Markham," said he, feeling unwilling to expose his sons more than they had exposed themselves. "At all events you shall have the window put in. A pane of glass is not much on either side."
"It is a good deal to my pocket, Mr. Dare. But that's all I ask. And you know my character too well to fear I would make a doubtful claim. Brooks is open to inquiry."
He departed; and Mr. Dare touched Cyril on the arm. "Come with me."
He took him into the room, and there ensued an angry lecture. Cyril thought George had confessed, and stood silent before his father. "What a sneak he must have been!" thought Cyril. "Won't I serve him out!"
"If you have acquired the habit of speaking falsely, you had better relinquish it," resumed Mr. Dare. "It will not be a recommendation in the eyes of Mr. Ashley."
"I am not going to Ashley's," burst forth Cyril; for the mention of the subject was sure to anger him. "Turn manufacturer, indeed! I'd rather----"
"You'd rather be a gentleman at large," interrupted Mr. Dare. "But," he sarcastically added, "gentlemen require something to live upon. Listen, Cyril. One of the finest openings that I know of in this city, for a young man, is in Ashley's manufactory. You may despise Mr. Ashley as a manufacturer; but others respect him. He was reared a gentleman--he is regarded as one; he is wealthy, and his business is large and flourishing. Suppose you could drop into this, after him?--succeed to this fine business, its sole proprietor? I can tell you that you would occupy a better position, and be in receipt of a far larger income than either Anthony or Herbert will be."
"But there's no such chance as that, for me," debated Cyril.
"There is the chance: and that's why you are to be placed there. Henry, from his infirmity, is not to be brought up to business, and there is no other son. You will be apprenticed to Mr. Ashley, with a view to succeeding, as a son would, first of all to a partnership with him, eventually to the whole. Now, this is the prospect before you, Cyril; and prejudiced though you are, you must see that it is a fine one."
"Well," acknowledged Cyril, "I wouldn't object to drop into a good thing like that. Has Mr. Ashley proposed it?"
"No, he has not distinctly proposed it. But he did admit, when your apprenticeship was being spoken of, that he might be wanting somebody to succeed him. He more than hinted that whoever might be chosen to succeed him, or to be associated with him, must be rendered fit for the connection by being an estimable and a good man; one held in honour by his fellow citizens. No other could be linked with the name of Ashley. And now, sir, what do you think he, Mr. Ashley, would say to your behaviour to-night?"
Cyril looked rather shame-faced.
"You will go to Mr. Ashley's, Cyril. But I wish you to remember, to remember always, that the ultimate advantages will depend upon yourself and your conduct. Become a good man, and there's little doubt they will be yours; turn out indifferently, and there's not the slightest chance for you."
"I shan't succeed to any of Ashley's money, I suppose?" complacently questioned Cyril, who somewhat ignored the conditions, and saw himself in prospective Mr. Ashley's successor.
"It is impossible to say what you may succeed to," replied Mr. Dare, in so significant a tone as to surprise Cyril. "Henry Ashley's I should imagine to be a doubtful life; should anything happen to him, Mary Ashley will, of course, inherit all. And he will be a fortunate man who shall get into her good graces and marry her."
It was a broad hint to a boy like Cyril. "She's such a proud thing, that Mary Ashley!" grumbled he.
"She is a very sweet child," was the warm rejoinder of Mr. Dare. And Cyril went upstairs again to his jam and his interrupted tea.
Meanwhile the evening went on, and the drawing-room was waiting for Lord Hawkesley. Mrs. Dare and Adelaide were waiting for him--waiting anxiously in elegant attire. Mr. Dare did not seem to care whether he came or not; and Julia, who was buried in an easy chair with her book, would have preferred, of the two, that he stayed away. Between eight and nine he arrived. A little man; young, fair, with light eyes and sharp features, a somewhat cynical expression habitually on his lips. Helstonleigh, in its gossip, conjectured that he must be making young Anthony Dare useful to him in some way or other, or he would not have condescended to the intimacy. For Lord Hawkesley, a proud man by nature, had been reared as an earl's son and heir; which meant an exclusiveness far greater in those days than it is in these. This was the third evening visit he had paid to Mrs. Dare. Had Adelaide's good looks any attraction for him? She was beginning to think so, and to weave visions upon the strength of it. Entrenched as the Dares were in their folly and assumption, Adelaide was blind to the wide social gulf that lay between herself and Viscount Hawkesley.
She sat down at the piano at his request and sang an Italian song. She had a good voice, and her singing was better than her Italian accent. Lord Hawkesley stood by her and looked over the music.
"I like your style of singing very much," he remarked to her when the song was over. "You must have learnt of a good master."
"Comme ca," carelessly rejoined Adelaide. As is the case with many more young ladies who possess a superficial knowledge of French, she thought it the perfection of good taste to display as much of it as she did know. "I had the best professor that Helstonleigh can give; but what are Helstonleigh professors compared with those of London? We cannot expect first-rate talent here."
"Do you like London?" asked Lord Hawkesley.
"I was never there," replied Adelaide, feeling the confession, when made to Lord Hawkesley, to be nothing but a humiliation.
"Indeed! You would enjoy a London season."
"Oh, so much! I know nothing of the London season, except from books. A contrast to your lordship, you will say," she added, with a laugh. "You must be almost tired of it; desillusionne."
"What's that in English?" inquired Lord Hawkesley, whose French studies, as far as they had extended, had been utterly thrown away upon him. Labouring under the deficiency, he had to make the best of it, and did it with a boast. "Used up, I suppose you mean?"
Adelaide coloured excessively. She wondered if he was laughing at her, and made a mental vow never to speak French to a lord again.
"Will you think me exacting, Miss Dare, if I trespass upon you for another song?"
Adelaide did not think him exacting in the least. She was ready to sing as long as he pleased.
V. CHARLOTTE EAST'S PRESENT
Towards dusk, that same evening, Charlotte East went over to Mrs. Buffle's for some butter. After she was served, Mrs. Buffle--who was a little shrimp of a woman, with a red nose--crossed her arms upon the counter and bent her face towards Charlotte's. "Have you heered the news?" asked she. "Mary Ann Cross is going to make a match of it with Ben Tyrrett."
"Is she?" said Charlotte. "They had better wait a few years, both of them, until they shall have put by something."
"They're neither of them of the putting-by sort," returned Mrs. Buffle. "Them Crosses is the worst girls to spend in all the Fair: unless it's Carry Mason. She don't spare her back, she don't. The wonder is, how she gets it."
"Young girls will dress," observed Charlotte, carelessly.
Mrs. Buffle laughed. "You speak as if you were an old one."
"I feel like one sometimes, Mrs. Buffle. When children are left, as I and Robert were, with a baby brother to bring up, and hardly any means to do it upon, it helps to steady them. Tom----"
Eliza Tyrrett burst in at the door, with a violence that made its bell twang and tinkle. "Half-a-pound o' dips, long-tens, Dame Buffle, and be quick about it," was her order. "There's such a flare-up, in at Mason's."
"A flare-up!" repeated Mrs. Buffle, who was always ripe and ready for a dish of scandal, whether it touched on domestic differences, or on young girls' improvidence in the shape of dress. "Is Mason and her having a noise?"
"It's not him and her. It's about Carry. Hetty Mason locked Carry up this afternoon, and Mason never came home at all to tea; he went and had some beer instead, and a turn at skittles, and she wouldn't let Carry out. He came in just now, and his wife told him a whole heap about Carry, and Mason went up to the cock-loft, undid the door, and threatened to kick Carry down. They're having it out in the kitchen, all three."
"What has Carry done?" asked Mrs. Buffle eagerly.
"Perhaps Charlotte East can tell," said Eliza Tyrrett, slyly. "She has been thick with Carry lately. I am not a-going to spoil sport."
Charlotte took up her butter, and bending a severe look of caution on the Tyrrett girl, left the shop. Anthony Dare's reputation was not a brilliant one, and the bare fact of Caroline Mason's allowing herself to walk with him would have damaged her in the eyes of Honey Fair. As well keep it, if possible, from Mrs. Buffle and other gossips.
As Charlotte crossed to her own door, she became conscious that some one was flying towards her in the dusk of the evening: a woman with a fleet foot and panting breath. Charlotte caught hold of her. "Caroline, where are you going?"
"Let me alone, Charlotte East"--and Caroline's nostrils were working, her eyes flashing. "I have left their house for ever, and am going to one who will give me a better."
Charlotte held her tight. "You must not go, Caroline."
"I will," she defiantly answered. "I have chosen my lot this night for better or for worse. Will I stay to be taunted without a cause? To be told I am what I am not? No! If anything should happen to me, let them reproach themselves, for they have driven me on to it."
Charlotte tried her utmost to restrain the wild girl. "Caroline," she urged, "this is the turning-point in your life. A step forward, and you may have passed it beyond recall; a step backwards, and you may be saved for ever. Come home with me."
Caroline in her madness--it was little else--turned her ghastly face upon Charlotte. "You shan't stop me, Charlotte East! You go your way, and I'll go mine. Shall Mark and she go on at me without cause, I say, calling me false names?"
"Come home with me, Caroline. You shall stay with me to-night; you shan't go back to Hetty. My bed's not large, but it will hold us."
"I won't, I won't!" she uttered, struggling to be free.
"Only for a minute," implored Charlotte. "Come in for a minute until you are calm. You are mad just now."
"I am driven to it. There!"
With a jerk she wrenched herself from Charlotte's grasp, passion giving her strength: and she flew onwards and was lost in the dark night. Charlotte East ran home. Her brothers were there. "Tom," said she, "put this butter in the cupboard for me;" and out she went again. At the end of Honey Fair, a road lay each way. Which should she take? Which had Caroline taken?
She chose the one to the right--it was the most retired--and went groping about it for twenty minutes. As it happened, as such things generally do happen, Caroline had taken the other.
In a sheltered part of that, which lay back, away from the glare of the gas lamps, Caroline had taken refuge. She had expected some one would be there to meet her; but she found herself mistaken. Down she sat on a stone, and her wild passion began to diminish.
Nearly half an hour afterwards, Charlotte found her there. Caroline was talking to Anthony Dare, who had just come up. Charlotte grasped Caroline.
"You must come with me, Caroline."
"Who on earth are you, and what do you want intruding here?" demanded Anthony Dare, turning round with a fierce stare on Charlotte.
"I am Charlotte East, sir, if it is any matter to you to know my name, and I am a friend of Caroline Mason's. I am here to take her out of harm's way."
"There's nothing to harm her here," haughtily answered young Anthony. "Mind your own business."
"I am afraid there is one thing to harm her, sir, and that's you," said brave Charlotte. "You can't come among us people in Honey Fair for any good. Folks bent on good errands don't need to wait till dark before they pay their visits. You had better give up prowling about this place, Mr. Anthony Dare. Stay with your equals, sir; with those that will be a match for you."
"The woman must be deranged!" uttered Anthony, going into a terrible passion. "How dare you presume to say such things to me?"
"How dare you, sir, set yourself out to work ill?" retorted Charlotte. "Come along, Caroline," she added to the girl, who was now crying bitterly. "As for you, sir, if you mean no harm, as you say, and it is necessary that you should condescend to visit Honey Fair, please to pay your visits in the broad light of day."
No very pleasant word broke from Anthony Dare. He would have liked to exterminate Charlotte. "Caroline," foamed he, "order this woman away. If I could see a policeman, I'd give her in charge."
"Sir, if you dare attempt to detain her, I'll appeal to the first passer-by. I'll tell them to look at the great and grand Mr. Anthony Dare, and to ask him what he wants here, night after night."
Even as Charlotte spoke, footsteps were heard, and two gentlemen, talking together, advanced. The voice of one fell familiarly on the ear of Anthony Dare, familiarly on that of Charlotte East. The latter uttered a joyful cry.
"There's Mr. Ashley! Loose her, sir, or I'll call to him."
To have Mr. Ashley "called to" on the point would not be altogether agreeable to the feelings of young Anthony. "You fool!" he exclaimed to Charlotte East, "what harm do you suppose I meant, or thought of? You must be a very strange person yourself, to get such a thing into your imagination. Good night, Caroline."
And turning on his heel haughtily, Anthony Dare stalked off in the direction of Helstonleigh. Mr. Ashley passed on, having noticed nothing, and Charlotte East wound her arm round the sobbing girl, subdued now, and led her home.
Anthony went straight to Pomeranian Knoll, and threw himself on to a sofa in a very ill humour. Lord Hawkesley was occupied with Adelaide and her singing, and paid little attention to him.
At the close of the evening they left together, Anthony going out with Lord Hawkesley, and linking arms as they proceeded towards the Star Hotel, Lord Hawkesley's usual quarters when in Helstonleigh.
"I have got two hundred out of the governor," began Anthony in a confidential tone. "He will give me the cheque to-morrow."
"What's two hundred, Dare?" slightingly spoke his lordship. "It's nothing."
"It was of no use trying for more to-night. The two hundred will stop present worry, Hawkesley; the future must be provided for when it comes." And they walked on with a quicker step.
Mrs. Dare had looked at her watch as they departed. It was half-past eleven. She said she supposed they might as well be going to bed, and Mr. Dare roused himself. For the last half-hour he had been half-asleep; quite asleep he did not choose to fall, in the young man's presence. A viscount to Lawyer Dare was a viscount. "Where's Herbert?" asked he, stretching himself. Master Herbert, Joseph answered, had had supper served (not being able to recover from the short allowance at dinner), and had gone to bed. The rest, excepting Adelaide, had gone before, free from want, from care, full of the good things of this life. The young Halliburtons, their cousins once removed, had knelt and thanked God for the day's good, even though that day to them had been what all their days were now, one of poverty and privation. Not so the Dares. As children, for they were not in a heathen land, they had been taught to say their prayers at night; but as they grew older, the custom was suffered to fall into disuse. The family attended church on Sundays, fashionably attired, and there ended their religion.
To bed and to sleep went they, all the household, old and young--Joseph, the manservant, excepted. Sleepy Joseph stretched himself in a large chair to wait the return of Mr. Anthony: sleepy Joseph had so to stretch himself most nights. Mr. Anthony might come in in an hour's time, or Mr. Anthony might not come in until it was nearly time to commence the day's duties in the morning. It was all a chance; as poor Joseph knew to his cost.
Nine o'clock was the breakfast hour at Mr. Dare's, and the family were in general pretty punctual at it. On the following morning they were all assembled at the meal, Anthony rather red about the eyes, when Ann, the housemaid, entered.
"Here's a parcel for you, Mr. Anthony."
She held in her arms a large untidy sort of bundle, done round with string. Anthony turned his wondering eyes upon it.
"That! It can't be for me."
"A boy brought it and said it was for you, sir," returned Ann, letting the cumbersome parcel fall on a chair. "I asked if there was any answer, and he said there was not."
"It must be from your tailor, Anthony," said Mrs. Dare.
Anthony's consequence was offended at the suggestion. "My tailor send me a parcel done up like that!" repeated he. "He had better! He would get no more of my custom."
"What an extraordinary direction!" exclaimed Julia, who had got up, and drawn near, in her curiosity: "'Young Mister Antony Dare!' Just look, all of you."
Anthony rose, and the rest followed, except Mr. Dare, who was busy with a county paper, and paid no attention. A happy thought darted into Minny's mind. "I know!" she cried, clapping her hands. "Cyril and George are playing Anthony a trick, like the one they played Miss Benyon."
Anthony, too hastily taking up the view thus suggested, and inwardly vowing a not agreeable chastisement to the two, as soon as they should rush in to breakfast from school, took out his penknife and severed the string. The paper fell apart, and the contents rolled on to the floor.
What on earth were they? What did they mean? A woman's gown, tawdry but pretty; a shawl; a neck-scarf, with gold-coloured fringe; two pairs of gloves, the fingers worn into holes; a bow of handsome ribbon; a cameo brooch, fine and false; and one or two more such articles, not new, stood disclosed. The party around gazed in sheer amazement.
"If ever I saw such a collection as this!" exclaimed Mrs. Dare. "It is a woman's clothing. Why should they have been sent to you, Anthony?"
Anthony's cheek wore rather a conscious colour just then. "How should I know?" he replied. "They must have been directed to me by mistake. Take the rags away, Ann"--spurning them with his foot--"and throw them into the dust-bin. Who knows what infected place they may have come from?"
Mrs. Dare and the young ladies shrieked at the last suggestion, gathered their skirts about them, and retired as far as the limits of the room allowed. Some enemy of malicious intent must have done it, they became convinced. Ann--no more liking to be infected with measles or what not than they--seized the tongs, gingerly lifted the articles inside the paper, dragged the whole outside the door, and called Joseph to carry them to the receptacle indicated by Mr. Anthony.
Charlotte East had thought she would not do her work by halves.
VI. THE FEAR GROWING GREATER
We must leap over some months. A story, you know, cannot stand still, any more than we can.
Spring had come round. The sofa belonging to Mrs. Reece's parlour was in Mrs. Halliburton's, and Janey was lying on it--her blue eyes bright, her cheeks hectic, her fair curls falling in disorder. Through autumn, through winter, it had appeared that Dobbs's prognostications of evil for Jane were not to be borne out, for she had recovered from the temporary indications of illness, and had continued well; but, with the early spring weather, Jane failed, and failed rapidly. The cough came back, and great weakness grew upon her. She was always wanting to be at rest, and would lie about anywhere. Spreading a cloak on the floor, with a pillow for her head, Janey would plant herself between her mother and the fire, pulling the cloak up on the side near the door. One day Dobbs came in and saw her there.
"My heart alive!" uttered Dobbs, when she had recovered her surprise; "what are you lying down there for?"
"I am tired," replied Janey; "and there's nowhere else to lie. If I put three chairs together, it is not comfortable, and the pillow rolls off."
"There's the sofa in our room," said Dobbs. "Why don't you lie on that?"
"So I do, you know, Dobbs; but I want to talk to mamma sometimes."
Dobbs disappeared. Presently there was a floundering and thumping heard in the passage, and the sofa was propelled in by Dobbs, very red with the exertion. "My missis is indignant to think that the child should be upon the floor," cried she, wrathfully. "One would suppose some folks were born without brains, or the sofa might have been asked for."
"But, Dobbs," said Janey--and she was allowed to "Dobbs" as much as she pleased, unreproved--"what am I to lie on in your room?"
"Isn't there my easy chair, with the high foot-board in front--as good as a bed when you let it out?" returned Dobbs, proceeding to place Janey comfortably on the sofa. "And now let me say what I came in to say, when the sight of that child on the cold floor sent me shocked out again," she added, turning to Jane. "My missis's leg is no better to-day, and she has made up her mind to have Parry. It's erysipelas, as sure as a gun. Every other spring, about, she's laid up with it in her legs, one or the other of 'em. Ten weeks I have known her in bed with it----"
"The very best preventive to erysipelas is to take an occasional warm bath," interrupted Jane.
The suggestion gave immense offence to Dobbs. "A warm bath!" she uttered, ironically. "And how, pray, should my missis take a warm bath? Sit down in a mashing-tub, and have a furnace of boiling water turned on to her? Those new-fangled notions may do for Londoners, but they are not known at Helstonleigh. Warm baths!" repeated Dobbs, with increased scorn: "hadn't you better propose a water-bed at once? I have heard that they are inventing them also."
"I have heard so, too," pleasantly replied Jane.
"Well, my missis is going to have Parry up, and she intends that he shall see Janey and give her some physic--if physic will be of use," added Dobbs, with an incredulous sniff. "My missis says it will. She puts faith in Parry's physic as if it was gold; it's a good thing she's not ill often, or she'd let herself be poisoned if quantity could poison her! And, Janey, you'll take the physic, like a precious lamb; and heaps of nice things you shall have after it, to drive the taste out. Warm baths!" ejaculated Dobbs, as she went out, returning to the old grievance. "I wonder what the world's coming to?"
Mr. Parry was called in, and soon had his two regular patients there. Mrs. Reece was confined to her bed with erysipelas in her leg; and if Janey seemed better one day, she seemed worse the next. The surgeon did not say what was the matter with Jane. He ordered her everything good in the shape of food; he particularly ordered port wine. An hour after the latter order had been given Dobbs appeared, with a full decanter in her hand.
"It's two glasses a day that she is to take--one at eleven and one at three," cried she without circumlocution.
"But, indeed, I cannot think of accepting so costly a thing from Mrs. Reece as port wine," interrupted Jane, in consternation.
"You can do as you like, ma'am," said Dobbs with equanimity. "Janey will accept it; she'll drink her two glasses of wine daily, if I have to come and drench her with it. And it won't be any cost out of my missis's pocket, if that's what you are thinking of," logically proceeded Dobbs. "Parry says it will be a good three months before she can take her wine again; so Janey can drink it for her. If my missis grudged her port wine or was cramped in pocket, I should not take my one glass a day, which I do regular."
"I can never repay you and Mrs. Reece for your kindness and generosity to Jane," sighed Mrs. Halliburton.
"You can do it when you are asked," was Dobbs's retort. "There's the wing and merrythought of a fowl coming in for her dinner, with a bit of sweet boiled pork. I don't give myself the ceremony of cloth-laying, now my missis is in bed, but just eat it in the rough; so the child had better have hers brought in here comfortably, till my missis is down again. And, Janey, you'll come upstairs to tea to us; I have taken up the easy chair."
"Thank you very much, Dobbs," said Janey.
"And don't you let them cormorants be eating her dinners or drinking her wine," said Dobbs, fiercely, as she was going out. "Keep a sharp look-out upon 'em."
"They would not do it!" warmly replied Jane. "You do not know my boys yet, if you think they would rob their sick sister."
"I know that boys' stomachs are always on the crave for anything that's good," retorted Dobbs. "You might skin a boy if you were forced to it, but you'd never drive his nature out of him; and that's to be always eating!"
So she had even this help--port wine! It seemed almost beyond belief, and Jane lost herself in thought.
"Mamma, you don't hear me!"
"Did you speak, Janey?"
"I say I think Dobbs got that fowl for me. Mrs. Reece is not taking meat, and Dobbs would not buy a fowl for herself. She will give me all the best parts, and pick the bones herself. You'll see. How kind they are to me! What should I have done, mamma, if I had only our plain food? I know I could not eat it now."
"God is over us, my dear child," was Jane's reply. "It is He who has directed this help to us: never doubt it, Jane. Whether we live or die," she added pointedly, "we are in His hands, and He orders all things for the best."
"Can to die be for the best?" asked Janey, sitting up to think over the question.
"Why, yes, my dear girl; certainly it is, if God wills it. How often have I talked to you about the REST after the grave! No more tears, no more partings. Which is best--to be here, or to go to that rest? Oh, Janey! we can put up surely with illness and with crosses here, if we may only attain to that. This world will last only for a little while at best; but that other will abide for ever and for ever."
A summons from Mr. Parry's boy: Miss Halliburton's medicine had arrived. Miss Halliburton made a grievous face over it, when her mamma poured the dose out. "I never can take it! It smells so nasty!"
Jane held the wine-glass towards her, a grave, kind smile upon her face. "My darling, it is one of earth's little crosses; try and not rebel against it. Here's a bit of Patience's jam left, to take after it."
Janey smiled bravely as she took the glass. "It was not so bad as I thought, mamma," said she, when she had swallowed it.
"Of course not, Janey; nothing is that we set about with a brave heart."
But, with every good thing, Janey did not improve. Her mother shrank from admitting the fact that was growing only too palpable; and Dobbs would come in and sit looking at Janey for a quarter of an hour together, never speaking.
"Why do you look at me so, Dobbs?" asked Janey, one day, suddenly. "You were crying when you looked at me last night at dusk."
Dobbs was rather taken to. "I had been peeling onions," said she.
"Why do you shrink from looking at the truth?" an inward voice kept repeating in Mrs. Halliburton's heart. "Is it right, or wise, or well to do so?" No; she knew that it could not be.
That same day, after Mr. Parry had paid his visit to Mrs. Reece, he looked in upon Janey. "Am I getting better?" she asked him. "I want to go into the green fields again, and run about."
"Ah," said he, "we must wait for that, little maid."
Jane went out to the door with him. When he put out his hand to say good morning, he saw that she was white with emotion, and could not speak readily. "Will she live or die, Mr. Parry?" was the whispered question that came at last.
"Now don't distress yourself, Mrs. Halliburton. In these lingering cases we must be content to wait the issue, whatever it may be."
"I have had so much trouble of one sort or another, that I think I have become inured to it," she continued, striving to speak more calmly. "These several days past I have been deciding to ask you the truth. If I am to lose her, it will be better that I should know it beforehand: it will be easier for me to bear. She is in danger, is she not?"
"Yes," he replied; "I fear she is."
"Is there any hope?"
"Well, you know, Mrs. Halliburton, while there is life there is hope."
His tone was kindly; but she could not well mistake that, of human hope, there was none. Her lips were pale--her bosom was heaving. "I understand," she murmured. "Tell me one other thing: how near is the end?"
"That I really cannot tell you," he more readily replied. "These cases vary much in their progression. Do not be downcast, Mrs. Halliburton. We must every one of us go, sooner or later. Sometimes I wish I could see all mine gone before me, rather than leave them behind to the cares of this troublesome world."
He shook hands and departed. Jane crept softly upstairs to her own room, and was shut in for ten minutes. Poor thing! she could not spare time for the indulgence of grief, as others might! she must hasten to her never-ceasing work. She had her task to do; and ten minutes lost from it in the day must be made up at night.
As she was going downstairs, with red eyes, Mrs. Reece heard her footstep and called to her from her bed. "Is that you, ma'am?"
So Jane had to go in. "Are you better?" she inquired.
"No, ma'am, I don't see much improvement," replied the old lady. "Mr. Parry is going to change the lotion; but it's a thing that will have its course. How is Janey? Does he say?"
"She is much the same," said Jane. "She grows no better. I fear she never will."
"Ay! so Dobbs says; and it strikes me Parry has told her so. Now, ma'am, you spare nothing that can do her good. Whatever she fancies, tell Dobbs, and it shall be had. I would not for the world have a dying child stinted while I can help it. Don't spare wine; don't spare anything."
"A dying child!" The words, in spite of Jane's previous convictions; nay, her knowledge; caused her heart to sink with a chill. She proceeded, as she had done many times before, to express a tithe of her gratitude to Mrs. Reece for the substantial kindness shown to Janey.
"Don't say anything about it, ma'am," returned the old lady in her simple, straightforward way. "I have neither chick nor child of my own, and both I and Dobbs have taken a liking for Janey. We can't think anything we can do too much for her. I have spoken to Parry--therefore don't spare his services; at any hour of the day or night send for him if you deem it necessary."
With another attempt at heartfelt thanks, Jane went down. Full as her cup was to the brim, she was yet overwhelmed with the sense of kindness shown. From that time she set herself to the task of preparing Janey for the great change by gradual degrees--a little now, a little then: to make her long for the translation to that better land.
One evening, about eight o'clock, Patience entered--partly to inquire after Janey, partly to ask William if he would go to bring Anna from Mrs. Ashley's, where she had been taking tea. Samuel Lynn was detained in the town on business, and Grace had been permitted to go out: therefore Patience had no one to send. William left his books, and went out with alacrity. Patience sat down by Janey's sofa.
"I get so tired, Patience. I wish I had some pretty books to read! I have read all Anna's over and over again."
"And she won't eat solids now, and she grows tired of mutton-broth, and sago, and egg-flip, and those things," put in Dobbs, in an injured tone, who was also sitting there.
"I would try her with a little beef-tea, made with plenty of carrots and thickened with arrowroot," said Patience.
"Beef-tea, made with carrots and thickened with arrowroot!" ungraciously responded Dobbs, who held in contempt every one's cooking except her own.
"I can tell thee that it is one of the nicest things taken," said Patience. "It might be a change for the child."
"How's it made?" asked Dobbs. "It might do for my missis: she's tired of mutton broth."
"Slice a pound of lean beef, and let it soak for two hours in a quart of cold water," replied Patience. "Then put meat and water into a saucepan, with a couple of large carrots scraped and sliced. Let it warm gradually, and then simmer for about four hours, thee putting salt to taste. Strain it off; and, when cold, take off the fat. As the broth is wanted, stir it up, and take from it as much as may be required, boiling the portion, for a minute, with a little arrowroot."
Dobbs condescended to intimate that perhaps she might try it; though she'd be bound it was poor stuff.
William had hastened to Mr. Ashley's. He was shown into a room to wait for Anna, and his attention was immediately attracted by a shelf full of children's story-books. He knew they were just what Janey was longing for. He had taken some in his hand, when Anna came in, ready for him, accompanied by Mrs. Ashley, Mary, and Henry. Then William became aware of the liberty he had taken in touching the things, and, in his self-consciousness, the colour, as usual, rushed to his face. It was a frank, ingenuous face, with its fair, open forehead, and its earnest, dark grey eyes; and Mrs. Ashley thought it so.
"Were you looking at our books?" asked Henry, who was in a remarkably good humour.
"I am sorry to have touched them," replied William. "I was thinking of something else."
"I would be nearly sure thee were thinking of thy sister," cried Anna, who had an ever-ready tongue.
"Yes, I was," replied William candidly. "I was wishing she could read them."
"I have told her about the books," said Anna, turning from William to the rest. "I related to her as much as I could remember of 'Anna Ross:' that book which thee had in thy hand, William. She would so like to read them; she is always ill."
"Is she very ill?" inquired Mrs. Ashley.
"She is dying," replied Anna.
It was the first intimation William had received of the great fear. His countenance changed, his heart beat wildly. "Oh, Anna! who says it?" he cried out, in a low, wailing tone.
There was a dead silence. Anna's announcement sounded sufficiently startling, and Mrs. Ashley looked with sympathy at the evidently agitated boy.
"There! that's my tongue!" cried Anna repentantly. "Patience says she wonders some one does not cut it out for me."
Mary Ashley--a fair, gentle little girl, with large brown eyes, like Henry's--stepped forward, full of sympathy. "I have heard of your sister from Anna," she said. "She is welcome to read all my books; you can take some to her now, and change them as often as you like."
How pleased William was! Mary selected four, and gave them to him. "Anna Ross," "The Blind Farmer," "Theophilus and Sophia," and "Margaret White." Very old, some of the books, and childish; but admirably suited to what people were beginning to call Jane--a dying child.
"I say," cried out Henry, a little aristocratic patronage in his tone, as William was departing, "how do you get on with your Latin?"
"I get on very well. Not quite so fast as I should with a master. I have to puzzle out difficulties for myself, and I am not sure but that's one of the best ways to get on. I go on with my Greek, too; and Euclid, and----"
"How much time do you work?" burst forth Henry.
"From six o'clock till half-past nine. A little of the time I am helping my brothers."
"There's perseverance, Henry!" cried Mrs. Ashley; and Master Henry shrugged his shoulders.
"Anna," began William, as they walked along, "how do you know that Janey is so ill?"
"Now, William, thee must ask thy mother whether she is ill or not. She may get well--how do I know? She was ill last summer, and Hannah Dobbs would have it she was in a bad way then; but she recovered. Dost thee know what Patience says?"
"What?" asked William eagerly.
"Patience says I have ten ears where I ought to have two; and I think thee hast the same. Fare thee well," she added, as they reached her door. "Thank thee for coming for me."
William waited at the gate until Anna was admitted, and then hastened home. Jane was alone, working as usual.
"Mamma, is it true that Janey is dying?"
Jane's heart gave a leap; and poor William, as she saw, could scarcely speak for agitation. "Who told you that?" she asked in low tones.
"Anna Lynn. Is it true?"
"William, I fear it may be. Don't grieve, child! don't grieve!"
William had laid his head down upon the table, the sobs breaking forth. His poor mother left her seat, and bent her head down beside him, sobbing also.
"William, for my sake don't grieve!" she whispered. "God alone knows what is good. He would not take her unless it were for the best."
VII. THE END
April passed. May was passing; and the end of Jane Halliburton was at hand. There was no secret now about her state; but she was going away very peacefully.
In this month, May, there occurred another vacancy in the choir of the cathedral. Little Gar--but he was growing too big now to be called Little Gar--proved to be the successful candidate; so that both boys were now in the choir.
"It will be such a help to me, learning to chant, should I ever try for a minor canonry," boasted Gar, who never tired of telling them that he meant to be a clergyman.
"Gar, dear, did you ever sit down and count the cost?" asked Mrs. Halliburton. "I fear it will not be your luck to go to college."
"Labor omnia vincit," cried out Gar. "You have heard us stumbling over our Latin often enough, mamma, to know what that means. Frank will need to count the cost, too, if he is ever to make himself into a barrister; and he says he will be one."
"Oh, you two vain boys!" cried Jane, laughing.
"Mamma," spoke up Janey from the sofa--and her breathing was laboured now--"is there harm in their wishing this?"
"Not at all. They are laudable aims. Only Frank and Gar are so poor and friendless that I fear the hopes are too ambitious to end in anything but disappointment."
Janey called Gar to her, and pulled his face down to a level with hers, whispering softly, "Strive well, Gar, and trust in God."
Later, when Jane had to be out on an indispensable errand, Dobbs came in to sit with Janey. She brought her some jelly in a saucer.
"I am nearly tired of it, Dobbs," said Janey. "I grow tired of everything. And I don't like to say so, because it seems so ungrateful."
"It's the nature of illness to get tired of things," responded Dobbs, who thought it was her mission never to cease buoying Janey up with hope. "You'll be better when the hot weather comes in."
"No, I shan't, Dobbs. I shall never get better now."
A combination of feelings, indignation predominating, nearly took away Dobbs's breath. "Who on earth has been putting that grim notion in your head?" asked she.
"It is true, Dobbs."
"True!" ejaculated Dobbs. "Who has been saying it to you? I want to know that."
"Mamma for one. She----"
"Of all the stupids!" burst forth Dobbs, drowning what Janey was about to say. "To frighten the child by telling her she's going to die!"
"It does not frighten me, Dobbs. I like to lie and think of it."
Dobbs fell into a doubt whether Janey was in her senses. "Like to lie and think of being screwed down in a coffin, and put into the cold ground, and left there till the judgment day!" uttered she.
"Oh, but, Dobbs, you must know better than that," returned Jane. "We are not put into the coffin; it is only our bodies that are put into the coffin; we go into the world of departed spirits."
"De-par-ted what?" ejaculated Dobbs, whose notions of the future--the life after this life--were not very definite; and who could not have been more astonished had Jane begun to talk to her in Greek.
"Mamma has always tried to explain these things to us," said Jane. "She has made them as clear to us as they can be made, and she has taught us not to fear death. She says a great mistake is often made by those who bring up children. They are taught to run away from death as something gloomy and frightful, instead of being shown its bright side."
"Well, I never heard the like!" exclaimed Dobbs, lost in wonder. "How can there be a bright side to death?--in a horrid coffin, with brass nails and tin-tacks that screw you down?"
Tears filled Janey's eyes. "Oh, Dobbs, you must learn better than that, or how will you ever be reconciled to death? Don't you know that when we die, we--our spirit, that is, for it is our spirit that lives and thinks--leave our body behind us? There's no more consciousness in our body, and it is put into the grave till the last day. It is like the shell that the silkworm casts away when it comes into the moth: the life is in the moth: not in the cast-off shell. You cannot think what trouble mamma has taken with us always to explain these things; and she has talked to me so much lately."
"And where does the spirit go--by which, I suppose, you mean the soul?" asked Dobbs.
Janey shook her head, to express her ignorance at the best. "It is all a mystery," she said; "but mamma has taught us to believe that there's a place for the departed, and that we shall be there. It is not to be supposed that the soul, a thing of life, could be boxed up in a coffin, Dobbs. When Jesus Christ said to the thief on the cross, 'To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise,' he meant that world. It is a place of light and rest."
"And the good and bad are there together?"
Again Janey shook her head. "Don't you remember, in the parable of the rich man and the beggar, there was a great gulf between them, and Abraham said that it could not be passed? I dare say it will be very peaceful and happy there: quite different from this world, where there's so much trouble and sickness. Why should I be afraid of death, Dobbs?"
Dobbs sat looking at her, and was some minutes before she spoke. "Not afraid to die!" she slowly said. "Well, I should be."
Janey's eyes were wet. "Nobody need be afraid to die when they have learnt to trust in God. Don't you know," she answered with something like enthusiasm, "that many people, when dying, have seen Jesus waiting for them? What does it matter, then, where our bodies are put? We are going to be with Jesus. Indeed, Dobbs, there's nothing sad in dying, if you only can look at it in the right way. It is those who look at it in the wrong way that are afraid to die."
"The child's as learned as a minister!" was Dobbs's inward comment. "Ours told us last Sunday evening at Chapel that we were all on the high road to perdition. I'd rather listen to her creed than to his: it sounds more encouraging. Their ma hasn't brought 'em up amiss; and that's the truth!"
The soliloquy was interrupted by the return of Mrs. Halliburton. Almost immediately afterwards some visitors came in--Mary Ashley and Anna Lynn. It was the first time Mary had been there, and she had come to bring Janey some more books. She was one of those graceful children whom it is pleasant to look at. A contrast in attire she presented to the little Quakeress, with her silk dress, her straw hat, trimmed with a wreath of flowers and white ribbons, her dark curls falling beneath it. She was much younger than her brother Henry; but there was a great resemblance between them--in the refined features, the bright complexion, and the soft dark eyes. Somehow, through a remark made by Dobbs, the conversation turned upon Jane's inability to recover; and Mary Ashley heard with extreme wonder that death was not dreaded. "Her ma has taught her different," was Dobbs's comment.
"Mamma takes great pains with us," observed Mary; "but I should not like to die. How is it?" she added, turning to Mrs. Halliburton. "Jane is not much older than I, and yet she does not dread it!"
"My dear," was the reply, "I think it is simply this. Those whom God is intending to take from the world, He often, in His mercy and wisdom, weans from the love of it. You are healthy and strong, and the world is pleasant to you. Jane has been so long weak and ill that she no longer finds enjoyment in it; and this naturally causes her to look beyond this world to the rest and peace of the next. All things are well ordered."
Mary Ashley began to think they must be. Chattering Anna, vain Anna, sat gazing at Mary's pretty hat, her drooping curls; none, except Anna herself, knew with what envious longing. Anna, at any rate, was not tired of the world.
The end grew nearer and nearer. There came a day when Jane did not get up; there came a second, and a third. On the fourth morning, Janey, who had passed a comfortable night, compared with some nights which had preceded it, was sitting up in bed when her brothers came in from school. They hurried over their breakfast and ran up to her, carrying the remains of it in their hands.
The first few minutes after breakfast had always been devoted by Jane to reading to her children; in spite of her necessity for close working they were so devoted still. "I will read here this morning," she observed, as the boys stood around the bed.
"Mamma," interrupted Janey, "read about the holy city, in the Book of Revelation."
Mrs. Halliburton turned to the twenty-first chapter, and had read to the twenty-third verse--"And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof"--when Jane suddenly started forward in bed, her eyes fixed on some opposite point. Mrs. Halliburton paused, and endeavoured to put her gently back again.
"Oh, mamma, don't keep me!" she said in a strangely thrilling tone; "don't keep me! I see the light! I see papa!"
There was a strange light, not as of earth, in her own face, an ineffable smile on her lip, that told more of heaven. Her arms dropped; and she sank back on the pillow. Jane Halliburton had gone to her Heavenly Father; it may be also to her earthly one. Gar screamed.
Dobbs arrived in the midst of the commotion. And when Dobbs saw what had happened, she fell into a storm of anger, of passionate sobs, half ready to knock down Mrs. Halliburton with words, and the poor boys with blows. Why was she not called to see the last of her? The only young thing she had cared for in all the world, and yet she could not be allowed to wish her farewell! She'd never love another again as long as her days lasted! In vain they strove to explain to her that it was sudden, unexpected, momentary: Dobbs would not listen.
Mrs. Halliburton stole away from Dobbs's storm--anywhere. Her heart was brimful. Although she had known that this must be the ending, now that it had come she was as one unprepared. In her grief and sorrow, she was tempted for a moment--but only for a moment--to question the goodness and wisdom of God.
Some one called to her from the foot of the stairs, and she went down. She had to go down; she could not shut herself up, as those can who have servants to be their deputies. Anna Lynn stood there, dressed for school.
"Friend Jane Halliburton, Patience has sent me to ask after Janey this morning. Is she better?"
"No, Anna. She is dead."
Jane spoke with unnatural calmness. The child, scared at the words, backed away out at the garden door, and then flew to Patience with the news. It brought Patience in. Jane was nearly prostrate then.
"Nay, but thee art grieving sadly! Thee must not take on so."
"Oh, Patience! why should it be?" she wailed aloud in her despair and bereavement. "Anna left in health and joyousness; my child taken! Surely God is dealing hardly with me."
"Thee must not say that," returned Patience gravely. "But thee art not thyself just now. What truth was it that I heard thee impress upon thy child not a week ago? That God's ways are not as our ways."
VIII. A WEDDING IN HONEY FAIR
But that such contrasts are all too common in life, you might think it scarcely seemly to go direct from a house of death to a house of marriage. This same morning which witnessed the death of Jane Halliburton, witnessed also the wedding of Mary Ann Cross and Ben Tyrrett. Upon which there was wonderful rejoicing at the Crosses' house.
Of course, whether a wedding was a good one or a bad one (speaking from a pecuniary point of view), it was equally the custom to feast over it in Honey Fair. Benjamin Tyrrett was only what is called a jobber in the glove trade, earning fifteen or sixteen shillings a week; but Mary Ann Cross made up her mind to have him--in defiance of parental and other admonitions that she ought to look over Ben's head. They had gone to work Honey Fair fashion, preparing nothing. Every shilling that Mary Ann Cross could spare went in finery--had long gone in finery. In vain Charlotte East impressed upon her the necessity of saving: of waiting. Mary Ann would do neither one nor the other.
"All that you can spare from back debts, and from present actual wants, you should put by," Charlotte had urged. "You don't know how many more calls there are for money after marriage than before it."
"There'll be two of us to earn it then," logically replied Mary Ann.
"And two of you to live," said Charlotte. "To marry upon nothing is to rush into trouble."
"How you do go on, Charlotte East! He'll earn his wages, and I shall earn mine. Where'll be the trouble? I shan't want to spend so much upon my back when I am married."
"To marry as you are going to do, must bring trouble," persisted Charlotte. "He will manage to get together a few bits of cheap furniture, just what you can't do without, to put into one room; and there you will be set up, neither of you having one sixpence laid by to fall back upon; and perhaps the furniture unpaid, hanging like a log upon you. What shall you do when children come, Mary Ann?"
Mary Ann Cross giggled. "If ever I heard the like of you, Charlotte! If children do come, they must come, that's all. We can't send 'em back again."
"No, you can't," said Charlotte. "They generally arrive in pretty good troops: and sometimes there's little to welcome them on. Half the quarrels between man and wife, in our class of life, spring from nothing but large families and small means. Their tempers get soured with each other, and never get pleased again."
"Folks must take their chance, Charlotte."
"There's no must in it. You are nineteen, Ben Tyrrett's twenty-three; suppose you made up your minds to wait two or three years. You would be quite young enough then: and meanwhile, if both of you laid by, you would have something in hand to meet extra expenses, or sickness if it came."
"Opinions differs," shortly returned Mary Ann. "If folks tell true, you were putting by ever so long for your marriage, and it all ended in smoke. I'd rather make sure of a husband when I can get him."
An expression of pain crossed the face of Charlotte East. "Whether I marry or not," she answered calmly, "I shall be none the worse for having laid money by instead of squandering it. If the best man that ever was born came to me, I would not marry him if we had made no better provision for a rainy day than you and Tyrrett have. What can come of such unions, Mary Ann?"
"It's the way most of us girls do marry," returned Mary Ann.
"And what comes of it, I ask? Blows sometimes, Mary Ann; the workhouse sometimes; trouble always."
"Is it true that you put by, Charlotte?"
"Yes. I put by what I can."
"But how in wonder do you manage it? You dress as well as we do. I'm sure our backs take all our money; father pretty nigh keeps the house."
"I dress better than you in one sense, Mary Ann. I don't have on a silk gown one day and a petticoat in rags the next. No one ever sees me otherwise than neat and clean, and my clothes keep good a long while. It's the finery that runs away with your money. I am not ashamed to make a bonnet last two years; you'd have two in a season. Another thing, Mary Ann: I do not waste my time--I sit to my work; and I dare say I earn double what you do."
"Let us hear what you earned last week, if it isn't impertinent," was Mary Ann's answer.
"Ten and ninepence."
"Look at that!" cried the girl, lifting her hands. "I brought out but five and twopence, and I left no money for silk, and am in debt two quarterns. 'Melia was worse. Hers came to four and eleven. That surly old foreman says to me when he was paying, 'What d'ye leave for silk, Mary Ann Cross? There's two quarterns down.' 'I know there is, sir,' says I, 'but I don't leave nothing to-day.' He gave a grunt at that, the old file did."
"And I suppose you spent your five shillings in some useless thing?"
"I had to pay up at Bankes's, and the rest went in a new peach bonnet-ribbon."
"Peach! You should have bought white, if you must be married."
"Thank you, Charlotte! What next? Do you suppose I'm going to be married in that shabby old straw, that I've worn all the spring? Not if I know it."
"Where's your money to come from for a new one? There will be other things wanted, more essential than a bonnet."
"I'll have a new one if I go in trust for it," returned Mary Ann. "Tyrrett buys the ring. And it is of no use for you to preach, Charlotte; if you preach your tongue out, it'll do no good."
Charlotte might, indeed, have preached a very long sermon before she could effect any change in the system of improvidence obtaining in Honey Fair. Neither Benjamin Tyrrett nor Mary Ann Cross was gifted with forethought, and they took no pains to acquire it.
The marriage was carried out, and this was the happy day. Mrs. Cross gave an entertainment in honour of the event, at which the bride and bridegroom assisted--as the French say--with as many others as the kitchen would hold. Tea for the ladies, pipes and ale for the gentlemen, supper for all, with spirits-and-water handed round.
How Mrs. Cross had contrived to go on so long without an expose, she scarcely knew herself. The wonder was, that she had gone on at all. It took the energies of her life to patch up her embarrassments, and hide her difficulties from her husband. The evil day, however, was only delayed. It could not be averted.
IX. AN EXPLOSION FOR MRS. CROSS
The evil day, hinted at in the last chapter, was not long in coming. It might not have fallen quite so soon but for a misfortune which overtook Jacob Cross. The manufacturer for whom he worked died suddenly, and the business was immediately given up--the made gloves being bought by up a London house, and the stock in trade, leather machines, etc., sold by auction. He had been a first-class manufacturer, doing nearly as large a business as Mr. Ashley; and not only Jacob Cross, but many more men in Honey Fair were thrown out of work--one of whom was Andrew Brumm; another, Timothy Carter. This happened only a few months after Mary Ann Cross's marriage.
It struck terror to the heart of Mrs. Cross. Though she had paid some of her debts, she had incurred others: indeed, the very fact of her having to pay had caused her to incur fresh ones. Her position was ominous. She and Amelia had worked for this same manufacturer, now dead, and of course they were at a standstill. Mary Ann Tyrrett had likewise worked for him; but she had left the paternal home; and with her we have nothing just now to do. The position of others was ominous, as well as that of Mrs. Cross. It was the autumn season, and trade was flat. Winter orders had gone in, and there was no necessity to hurry those for the spring; so that the hands thrown out of work, both men and women, stood every chance of remaining out.
A gloom overspread Honey Fair. In many a household the articles least needed went, week after week, to the pawnbrokers, without being redeemed on the Saturday night, as in more prosperous times. Upon the proceeds the families had to exist. It was bad enough for those who were free from debt; but for those already labouring under it--above all, labouring under secret debt--it was something not to be told. Mrs. Cross had nightmares regularly every night. Visions would come over her now and again of running away, if she had only known where to run to. The men would stand or sit at their doors all day, with pipes in their mouths: money was sure to be found for tobacco, by hook or by crook. There they would lounge in gloomy silence, varied by an occasional wordy war with their wives, who wished them anywhere else; or they and their pipes would saunter up and down the road, forming into groups to condole with each other and to abuse the glove trade.
One Monday afternoon there was a small assemblage in the kitchen of Jacob Cross--himself, Andrew Brumm, and Timothy Carter. Brumm and Carter were, in one sense, more fortunate than Cross; inasmuch as that their respective wives worked each for another house, not the one which had closed; therefore they retained their employment. The fact, however, appeared to afford little consolation to the two men, for they were keeping up a chorus of grumbling, when Joe Fisher staggered in--if you have not forgotten him.
Fisher had hitherto managed, to the intense surprise of every one, to keep out of the workhouse. He would be taken on for a job of work now and then; but manufacturers were chary of employing Joe Fisher. For one thing, he gave way to drink. A disreputable-looking object had he become: a tattered coat and waistcoat, pantaloons in rags, and not the ghost of a shirt. People wondered how he found money for drink.
"Who'll give us house-room?" was his salutation, as he pushed himself in, his eyes haggard, his legs unsteady, his face thin from incipient famine. "Will nobody give us a corner to lie in?"
The men took their pipes from their mouths. "Turned out at last, Joe?"
"Turned out," replied Joe. "And my missis close upon her down-lying."
Mrs. Cross, who was at the back of the kitchen, washing out her potato saucepan, of which frugal edible, seasoned with salt, the family dinner had consisted, put in her word.
"You couldn't expect nothing else, Joe Fisher. There you have been, in them folks' furnished room, paying nothing, and paying nothing, and you drinking everlasting. They have threatened you long enough. Last week, you know, they took a vow you should go this."
"Where's the wife and little 'uns?" asked meek Timothy Carter.
"You can look at 'em," responded Fisher. "They're not a hundred miles off. They bain't out of view."
He gave a flourish of his hand towards the road, and the men and Mrs. Cross crowded to the door to reconnoitre. In the middle of the lane, crouched down in its mud, for the weather had been bad, and it was very wet under foot, was untidy Sukey Fisher--a woman all skin and bone now, her face hopeless and desperate. She wore no cap, and her matted hair fell on to her gown--such a gown! all tatters and dirt. Several young children huddled around her.
"Untidy creature!" muttered Mrs. Cross to herself. "She is as fond of a drop as her lazy, quarrelsome husband; and this is what they have brought it to between 'em! Them poor little objects of young 'uns 'ud be as well dead as alive."
"Look at 'em!" began Fisher. "And they call this a free country! They call it a country as is a pattern to others and a refuge for the needy. Why don't Government, that opened our ports to them foreign French and keeps 'em open, come down and take a look at my wife squatting there?--turned out of our room without a place to put our heads into!"
"If you hadn't put quite as much inside your head, Joe Fisher, and been doing of it for years, you might have had more for the outside on't now," again spoke Mrs. Cross in her sharp tones. The woman was not naturally sharp, as were some in Honey Fair; but the miserable fear she lived in, added to their present privations, told upon her temper.
"Hold your magging," said Joe Fisher. "I never like to quarrel with petticuts, one's own belongings excepted. All as I say, Mother Cross, is, don't you mag."
Mrs. Cross made no reply to this, and Fisher resumed.
"This comes of letting the Government and the masters have their own way! If we had that there strike among us, that I've so often told ye on, things would be different. Let a man sit down a minute, Cross."
Cross civilly pushed a chair towards him, concentrating his attention afterwards upon Mrs. Fisher. A crowd had collected round her; and Mrs. Buffle, with a feeling of humanity that few had given that lady credit for possessing, sent out an old woollen shawl to the shivering woman, and a basin of hasty pudding. The mother could not feed the whining children fast enough with the one iron spoon.
A young man ran up to Cross's door. It was Adam Thorneycroft. He did not live in Honey Fair, but often found his way to it, although Charlotte had rejected him. "Is Joe Fisher here?" asked he. "Fisher, why don't you go to the workhouse and tell them the state your wife is in? She can't stop there."
"Her state is no concern of your'n, Master Thorneycroft," was the sullen answer.
Thorneycroft turned on his heel, a scornful gesture escaping him at Fisher's half-stupid condition. "I must be off to my work," he observed; "but can't one of you, who are gentlemen at large, just go to the workhouse and acquaint them with the woman's helplessness, and that of her children around her?"
Timothy Carter responded to it. "I'll go," said he; "I haven't nothing to do with myself this afternoon."
Timothy and Adam walked away together, Tim treading with gingerly feet past his own door, lest his wife should recognise his step, bolt out, and stop him. Charlotte East was standing at her door, and Adam halted. Timothy walked on: he did not feel himself perfectly safe yet.
"What a life that poor woman's is!" exclaimed Charlotte.
"Ay," assented Adam; "and all through Fisher's not sticking to his work."
Charlotte moved her face gravely towards him. "Say through his drinking, Adam."
"Do you speak that as a warning, Charlotte?" he continued. "I think you mean well by me, but you go just the wrong way to show it. If you wanted me to keep steady, you should have come and helped me in it. Good-bye. I am late."
"Gentlemen at large, young Thorney called us!" cried Jacob Cross to his friend Brumm, as Fisher went off and they sat down again. "He's not far out. What's to be the end on't?"
"Why, the work'us," responded Mrs. Cross, who rarely let an opportunity slip of putting in her own opinion. "The work'us for us as well as for the Fishers, unless things take a turn. When great, big, able-bodied men is throwed out o' work, and yet has to eat and drink, and other folks at home has to eat and drink, and nothing to stay their stomachs upon, the work'us can't be far off."
"Never for me!" said Andrew Brumm. "I'll work to keep me and mine out on it, if it is at breaking stones upon the road. I know one thing--if ever I do get into certain work again, I'll make my missis be a bit providenter than she was before."
"Bell Brumm ain't one of the provident sort," dissented Mrs. Cross. "How do you manage to get along at all, Drew, these bad times? You don't seem to get into trouble."
"Well, we manage somehow," replied Andrew. "But we have to pinch. My missis sticks at her work, now I be out on't. She hardly looks off it; and I does the house, and sees to the children. Nine shilling, all but her silk, she earned last week. And finding that we can exist on that after a fashion, has set me thinking that when my good wages was added to it we ought to have put by for a rainy day," he continued, after a pause. "Just let me get the chance again!"
"It's surprising the miracles wages works when folks ain't earning none!" put in Mrs. Cross in a tone of irony, who did not altogether like the turn the conversation was taking. "When you get into work again, Drew Brumm, your wife won't be more able to save than the rest of us."
"But she shall," returned Andrew. "And she sees for herself now that it might be done."
"I was a-making a calkelation yesterday how long we might hold out on our household things," observed Jacob Cross--a silent man, in general. "If none of us can get work, they'll have to go, piecemeal. One can't clam; one must live upon something."
"I'm resolved upon one point--that I won't have no underhand debt again," resumed Brumm. "Last spring I found out the flaring trade my missis was carrying on with them Bankes's--and the way I come to know of it was funny: but never mind that. 'Bell,' says I to her, 'I'd rather sell off all I've got and go tramping the country, than I'd live with a sword over my head'--which debt is. And I went down to Bankes's and said to 'em, 'If you let my wife get into debt again, I won't pay it, as I now give you notice, and I'll have you up before the justices for a pest.' I thought I'd make it strong, you see, Cross. And I paid off their bill, so much a week, and got shut of 'em. Them Bankes's does more mischief in Honey Fair than everything else put together."
"Why, what do Bankes's do?" asked Jacob, in happy ignorance.
"Do!" returned Brumm. "Don't you know----"
But at that critical moment, Mrs. Cross, in bustling behind Andrew Brumm's chair, which was on the tilt, contrived to get her foot entangled in it. Brumm, his chair, and his pipe, all came down together.
"Mercy on us!" uttered Jacob Cross, coming to the rescue. "How did you manage that, Brumm?"
Before Brumm could answer, or had well gathered himself up, there was another visitor--Mr. Abbott, the landlord of at least a third of Honey Fair. He had come on his usual Monday's errand. Jacob Cross put down his pipe and touched his hat, which, in the manners of Honey Fair, was worn indoors. It was not often that the landlord and the men came into contact with each other.
"Are you ready for me, Mrs. Cross?"
"We are not ready to-day, sir," interposed Jacob. "You must please to give us a little grace these hard times, sir. The moment I be in work again, I'll think of you, before I think of ourselves."
"I have given all the grace I can give," replied Mr. Abbott, a hard, surly man. "You must either pay, or turn out: I don't care which."
"I'll pay you as soon as I am in work, sir; you may count upon it. As to turning out, sir, where could I turn to? You'd not let me take out my furniture, and we can't sit down in the street, as Fisher's wife is doing."
Mr. Abbott turned to the door. When he came back, a man was with him. "I must trouble you to give this man house-room for a few days. As you won't go out, he must stop in, to see that your goods stop in."
Cross's spirit rose within him. "It's a hard way to treat a man, sir! I have lived under you for years, and you have had your rent regular."
"Regular!" exclaimed the landlord. "I have had more trouble to get it from your wife, since Bankes's came to Helstonleigh, than from anybody else in Honey Fair."
Cross did not understand this. He was too much absorbed by the point in question to ask an explanation. "There's only three weeks owing to you, sir, and----"
"Three weeks!" interrupted Mr. Abbott; "there are nine weeks owing to me. Nine weeks to-day."
Jacob Cross stood confounded. "Who says there's nine weeks?" asked he.
"I say so. Your wife can say so. Ask her."
But Mrs. Cross, with a scared face and white lips, whisked through the door and hurried down Honey Fair. The explosion had come.
Mr. Abbott, wasting no more words, departed, leaving the unwelcome visitor behind him. Andrew Brumm came in again from outside, where he had stood, out of delicacy, feeling thankful that his rent was all right. It was pinching work; but Andrew was beginning to learn that debt pinches the mind, more than hunger pinches the body.
"Comrade," whispered he, grasping Cross's hand, "it's all along of them Bankes's. The women buy their fal-lals and their finery, and the weekly payments to 'em must be kept up, whether or no, for fear Bankes's should let out on't to us, and ask us for the money. Of course the rent and other things gets behind. Half the women round us are knee-deep in Bankes's books."
"Why couldn't you have told me this before?" demanded Cross, in his astonishment.
"It's not my province to interfere with other men's wives," was Brumm's sensible answer.
"Where's she got to?" cried Jacob, looking round for his wife. "I'll come to the bottom of this. Nine weeks' rent owing; and her salving me up that it was only three!"
Jacob might well say, "Where's she got to?" Mrs. Cross had glided down Honey Fair into the first friendly door that happened to be open. That was Mrs. Carter's. "For mercy's sake, let's stop here a minute, Elizabeth Carter!" exclaimed she. "We have got the bums in!"
Mrs. Carter was rubbing up some brass candlesticks. Work ran short with her that week, and therefore she spent it in cleaning, which was her notion of taking holiday; scrubbing and scouring from morning till night. She turned round and stared at Mrs. Cross, who, with white face and gasping breath, had sunk down upon a chair.
"What on earth's the matter?"
"Abbott has brought it out to my husband that I owes nine weeks' rent, and he's telling him about Bankes's, and now he has gone and put a bum into the house!"
"More soft you, to have had to do with Bankes's!" was the sympathy offered by Mrs. Carter. "You couldn't expect nothing less."
"That old skinflint, Abbott----"
Mrs. Cross stopped short. She opened the staircase door about an inch, and humbly twisted herself through the aperture. Who should be standing there to hear her, having followed her in, but Mr. Abbott himself.
He had no need to say, "Ready, Mrs. Carter?" Mrs. Carter always was ready. She paid him weekly, and asked no favour. The payment made, he departed again, and Mrs. Cross emerged from her retreat.
"You can pay him!" she exclaimed, with some envy. "And Timothy's out o' work, too; and you be slack. How do you manage it?"
"I'm not a fool," was the logical response of Mrs. Carter. "If I spent my earnings when they are coming in regular, or let Tim keep his to his own cheek, where should we be in a time like this? I have my understanding about me."
Mrs. Carter did not praise her understanding without cause. Whatever social virtues she may have lacked, she was rich in thrift, in forethought. Had Timothy remained out of work for a twelvemonth, they would not have been put to shifts.
"I'm afraid to go back!" cried Mrs. Cross.
"So should I be, if I got myself into your mess."
The offered sympathy not being consolatory to her present frame of mind, Mrs. Cross departed. Home, at present, she dared not go. She went about Honey Fair, seeking the gossiping pity which Elizabeth Carter had declined to give, but which she was yearning for. Thus she spent an hour or two.
Meanwhile the news had been spreading through Honey Fair, "Crosses had the bums in;" and Mary Ann, hearing it, flew home to know whether it was correct. She--partly through fear, partly in the security from paternal correction, imparted to her by the feeling that she was Mary Ann Tyrrett, and no longer Mary Ann Cross--yielded to her father's questions, and made full confession. Debts here, debts there, debts everywhere. Cross was overwhelmed; and when his wife at length came in, he quietly knocked her down.
The broker advanced to the rescue. "If you dare to come between man and wife," raved Cross, lifting his arm menacingly, "I'll serve you the same." He was a quiet-tempered man, but this business had terribly exasperated him. "You'll come to die in the work'us," he uttered to his wife. "And serve you right! It's your doings that have broke up our home."
"No," retorted she passionately, as she lifted herself from the floor; "it's your squanderings in the publics o' nights, that have helped to break up our home."
It was a little of both.
The quarrel was interrupted by a commotion outside, and Mrs. Cross darted out to look--glad, perhaps, to escape from her husband's anger. An official from the workhouse had come down with an order for the admission of Susan Fisher instanter. Timothy Carter, in his meek and humane spirit, had so enlarged upon the state of affairs in general, touching Mrs. Fisher, that the workhouse bestirred itself. An officer was despatched to marshal them into it at once. The uproar was caused by her resistance: she was still sitting in the road.
"I won't go into the work'us," she screamed; "I won't go there to be parted from my children and my husband. If I'm to die, I'll die out here."
"Just get up and march, and don't let's have no row," said the officer. "Else I'll fetch a wheel-barrer, and wheel ye to it."
She resisted, shrieking and flinging her arms and her wild hair about her, as only a foolish woman would do; the children, alarmed, clung to her and cried, and all Honey Fair came out to look. Mr. Joe Fisher also staggered up, in a state not to be described. He had been invited by some friend, more sympathizing than judicious, to solace his troubles with strong waters; and down he fell in the mud, helpless.
"Well, here's a pretty kettle of fish!" cried the perplexed workhouse man. "A nice pair, they are! How I am to get 'em both there, is beyond me! She can walk, if she's forced to it; but he can't! They spend their money in sotting, and when they have no more to spend they come to us to keep 'em! I must get an open cart."
The cart was procured somewhere and brought to the scene, a policeman in attendance; and the children were lifted into it one by one. Next the man was thrown in, like a clod; and then came the woman's turn. With much struggling and kicking, with shrieks that might have been heard a mile off, she was at length hoisted into it. But she tumbled out again: raving that "no work'us shouldn't hold her." The official raved in turn; and Honey Fair hugged itself. It had not had the gratification of so exciting a scene for many a day; to say nothing of the satisfaction it derived from hearing the workhouse set at defiance.
The official and the policeman at length conquered. She was secured, and the cart started at a snail's pace with its load--Mrs. Fisher setting up a prolonged and dismal lamentation not unlike an Irish howl: and Honey Fair, in its curiosity, following the cart as its train.
X. A STRAY SHILLING
"Whose shilling is this on my desk?" inquired Mr. Ashley of Samuel Lynn, one morning towards the close of the summer.
"I cannot tell thee," was the reply of the Quaker. "I know nothing of it."
"It is none of mine, to my knowledge," remarked Mr. Ashley.
"What shilling is that on the master's desk?" repeated Samuel Lynn to William when he returned into his own room, where William was.
"I put a shilling on the desk this morning," replied William. "I found it in the waste-paper basket."
"Thee go in, then, and tell the master."
William did so. "The shilling rolled out of the waste-paper basket, sir," said he, entering the counting-house and approaching Mr. Ashley.
Mr. Ashley was remarkably exact in his accounts. He had missed no shilling, and he did not think it was his. "What should bring a shilling in the waste-paper basket?" he asked. "It may have rolled out of your own pocket."
William could have smiled at the remark. A shilling out of his pocket! "Oh, no, sir, it did not."
Mr. Ashley sat looking earnestly at William--as the latter fancied. In reality he was buried deep in his own thoughts. But William felt uncomfortable under the survey, and his face flushed to a glow. Why should he feel uncomfortable? What should cause the flush?
This. Since Janey's death, some months ago now, their circumstances had been more straitened than ever; of course, there had been expenses attending it, and Mrs. Halliburton was paying them off weekly. Bread and potatoes, and a little milk, would often be their food. On the previous night Jane had a sick headache. Some tea would have been acceptable, but she had neither tea nor money in the house; and she was firm in her resolution not to purchase on trust. On this morning early, when William rose, he found his mother down before him, at her work as usual. Her head felt better, she said; it might get quite well if she had only some tea; but she had not, and--there was an end of it. William went out, ardently wishing (in the vague profitless manner that he might have wished for Aladdin's lamp) that he had only a shilling to procure some for her. When, half an hour after, this shilling rolled out of the waste-paper basket, as he was shaking it in Mr. Ashley's counting-house, a strong temptation--not to take it, but to wish that he might take it, that it was not wrong to take it--rushed over him. He put it down on the desk and turned from it--turned from the temptation, for the shilling seemed to scorch his fingers. The remembrance of this wish--it sounded to him like a dishonest one--had brought the vivid colour to his face, under what he thought was Mr. Ashley's scrutiny. That gentleman observed it.
"What are you turning red for?"
This crowned all. William's face changed to scarlet.
Mr. Ashley was surprised. He came to the conclusion that some mystery must be connected with the shilling--something wrong. He determined to fathom it. "Why do you look confused?" he resumed.
"It was only at my own thoughts, sir."
"What are they? Let me hear them."
William hesitated. "I would rather not tell them, sir."
"But I would rather you did." Mr. Ashley spoke quietly, as usual; but there lay command in the quietest tone of Mr. Ashley's.
Implicit obedience had been enjoined upon the Halliburtons from their earliest childhood. In that manufactory Mr. Ashley was William's master, and he believed he had no resource but to comply with his desire. William was of a remarkably ingenuous nature; and if he had to impart a thing, he did not do it by halves, although it might tell against himself.
"When I found that shilling this morning, sir, the thought came over me to wish it was mine--to wish that I might take it without doing ill. The thought did not come over me to take it," he added, raising his truthful eyes to Mr. Ashley's, "only to wish that it was not wrong to do so. When you looked at me so earnestly, sir, I fancied you could see what my thoughts had been. And they were not honourable thoughts."
"Did you ever take money that was not yours?" asked Mr. Ashley, after a pause.
William looked surprised. "No, sir, never."
Mr. Ashley paused again. "I have known children help themselves to halfpence and pence, and think it little crime."
The boy shook his head. "We have been taught better than that, sir. And, besides the crime, money taken in that way would bring us no good, only trouble. It could not prosper."
"Tell me why you think that."
"My mother has always taught us that a bad action can never prosper in the end."
"I suppose you coveted the shilling for marbles; or for sweetmeats?"
"Oh no, sir. It was not for myself that I wished it."
"Then for whom? For what?"
This caused William's face to flush again. Mr. Ashley questioned till he drew from him the particulars--how that he had wished to buy some tea, and why he had wished it.
"I have heard," remarked Mr. Ashley, after listening, "that you have many privations to put up with."
"It is true, sir. But we don't so much care for them if we only can put up with them. My mother says she knows better days will be in store for us, if we only bear on patiently. I am sure we boys ought to do so, if she can. It is worse for her than for us."
There ensued another searching question from Mr. Ashley. "Have you ever, when alone in the egg-house, amidst its thousands of eggs, been tempted to pocket a few to carry home?"
For one moment William suffered a flash of resentment to cross his countenance. The next his eyes filled with tears. He felt deeply hurt.
"No, sir, I have not. I hope you do not fear that I am capable of it?"
"No, I do not," said Mr. Ashley. "Your father was a clergyman, I think I have heard?"
"He was intended for a clergyman, sir, but he did not get to the University. His father was a clergyman--a rector in Devonshire, and my mother's father was a clergyman in London. My uncle Francis is also a clergyman, but only a curate. We are gentlepeople, though we are poor. We would not take eggs or anything else."
Mr. Ashley suppressed a smile. "I conclude that you and your brothers live in hope some time of regaining your position in life?"
"Yes, sir. I think it is that hope that makes us put up with hard things so well."
"What do you think of being?"
William's countenance fell. "There is not so much chance of my getting on, sir, as there is for my brothers. Frank and Gar are hopeful enough; but I don't look forward to anything good for me. My mother says if I only help her I shall be doing my duty."
"Your sister died in a decline," remarked Mr. Ashley. "These home privations must have told upon her."
William's face brightened. "She had everything she wanted, sir; everything, even to port wine. Mrs. Reece and Dobbs took a liking to her when they first came, and they never let her want for anything. Mamma says that Jane's wants having been supplied in so extraordinary a manner, ought to teach us how certainly God is looking over us and taking care of us--that all things, when they come to be absolutely needed, will no doubt be supplied to us, as they were to her."
"What a perfect trust in God that boy seems to have!" mused Mr. Ashley, when he dismissed William. "Mrs. Halliburton must be a mother in a thousand. And he will make a man in a thousand, unless I am mistaken. Truthful, open, candid--I don't know a boy like him!"
About five minutes before the great bell was rung at one o'clock, William was called into the counting-house. "I have been casting up my cash and find I am a shilling short," observed Mr. Ashley, "therefore the shilling that you found is no doubt the missing one. I shall give it to you," he continued: "a reward for telling me the straightforward truth when I questioned you."
William took the shilling--as he supposed. "Here are two!" he exclaimed, in his surprise.
"You cannot buy much tea with one; and that is what you were thinking of. Would you like to be apprenticed to me?" Mr. Ashley resumed, drowning the boy's thanks.
The question took William by storm: he was at a loss what to answer. He would have been equally at a loss had he been accorded a whole week to deliberate upon it. He looked foolish, and said he could not tell.
"Would you like the business?" pursued Mr. Ashley.
"I like the business very well, sir, now I'm used to it. But I could not hope ever to get on to be a master."
"There's no knowing what you may get on to be, if you are steady and persevering. Masters don't begin at the top of the tree; they begin at the bottom and work up to it. At least, that is the case with a great many. In becoming an apprentice you would occupy a better position in the manufactory than you do now."
"Joe Stubbs is an apprentice, is he not, sir?"
"I will explain it to you, if you do not understand," said Mr. Ashley. "Joe Stubbs is apprenticed to one branch of the business, the cutting; John Braithwait is an apprentice to the staining, and so on. These lads expect to remain workmen all their lives, working at their own peculiar branch. You would not be apprenticed to any one branch, but to the whole, with a view to becoming hereafter a manager or a master; in the same manner that I might apprentice my son, were he intended for the business."
William thought he should like this. Suddenly his countenance fell.
"What now?" asked Mr. Ashley.
"I have heard, sir, that the apprentices do not earn wages at first. I--I am afraid we could not well do at home without mine."
"You need not concern yourself with what you hear, or with what others earn or don't earn. I should give you eight shillings a-week, instead of four, and you would retain your evenings for study, as you do now. I do not see any different or better opening for you," continued Mr. Ashley; "but should any arise hereafter, through your mother's relatives, or from any other channel, I would not stand in the way of your advancement, but would consent to cancel your indentures. Do you understand what I have been saying?"
"Yes, sir, I do. Thank you very much."
"You can speak to Mrs. Halliburton about it, and hear what her wishes may be," concluded Mr. Ashley.
The result was, that William was apprenticed to Mr. Ashley. "I can tell thee, thee hast found favour with the master," remarked Samuel Lynn to William. "He has made thee his apprentice, and has admitted thee, I hear, to the companionship of his son. They are proofs that he judges well of thee. Pay thee attention to deserve it."
It was quite true that William was admitted to the occasional companionship of Henry Ashley. Henry had taken a fancy to him, and would get him there to help him stumble through his Latin.
The next to be apprenticed to Mr. Ashley, and almost at the same time, was Cyril Dare. But when he found that he was to be the fellow-apprentice of William Halliburton, the two on a level in every respect, wages excepted--and of wages Master Cyril was at first to earn none--he was most indignant, and complained explosively to his father. "Can't you speak to Mr. Ashley, sir?"
"Where would be the use?" asked Mr. Dare. "There's not a man in Helstonleigh would brook interference in his affairs less than Thomas Ashley. If one of the two apprentices must leave, because they are too much for each other's company, it would be you, Cyril, rely upon it."
Cyril growled; but, as Mr. Dare said, there was no help for it. And he and William had to get on together in the best way they could. Cyril had thought that he should be the only gentleman-apprentice at Mr. Ashley's. There was a marked distinction observed in a manufactory between the common apprentices, who did the rough work, and what were called the gentleman-apprentices. It did not please Cyril that William should have been made one of the latter.
XI. THE SCHOOLBOYS' NOTES
As the time went on, Jane's brain grew very busy. Its care was the education of her boys--a perplexing theme. So far as the classics went, they were progressing. Frank and Gar certainly were not pushed on as they might have been, for Helstonleigh collegiate school was not at that time renowned for its pushing qualities; but the boys had a spur in themselves. Jane never ceased to urge them to attention, to strive after progress; not by the harsh reproaches some children have to hear, but by loving encouragement and gentle persuasion. She would call up pleasant pictures of the future, when they should have surmounted the difficulties of toil, and be reaping their reward. It had ever been her custom to treat her children as friends; as friends and companions, more than as children. I am not sure that it is not a good plan in all cases, but it undoubtedly is so where children are naturally well disposed and intelligent. Even when they were little, she would converse and reason with them, so far as their understandings would permit. The primary thing she inculcated was the habit of unquestioning obedience. This secured in their earliest childhood, she could afford to reason with them as they grew older; to appeal to their own sense of intelligence; to show them how to form and exercise a right judgment. Had the children been wilful, deceitful, or opposed to her, her plan must have been different; compulsion must have taken the place of reasoning. When they did anything wrong--all children will, or they are not children--she would take the offender to her alone. There would be no scolding; but in a grave, calm, loving voice she would say, "Was this right? Did you forget that you were doing wrong and would grieve me? Did you forget that you were offending God?" And so she would talk; and teach them to do right in all things, for the sake of right, for the sake of doing their duty to Heaven and to man. These lessons from a mother loved as Jane was, could not fail to take root and bear seed. The young Halliburtons were in fair training to make not only good, but admirable men.
Jane inculcated another valuable lesson. In all perplexity, trouble, or untoward misfortune, she taught them to look it full in the face; not to fly from it, as is the too-common custom, but to meet it and do the best with it. She knew that in trouble, as in terror, looking it in the face takes away half its sting: and so she was teaching them to look, not only by precept, but by example. With such minds, such training to work upon, there was little need to urge them to apply closely to their studies; they saw its necessity themselves, and acted upon it. "It is your only chance, my darlings, of getting on in life," she would say. "You wish to be good and great men; and I think perhaps you may be, if you persevere. It is a tempting thing, I know, to leave wearying tasks for play or idleness; but do not yield to it. Look to the future. When you feel tired, out of sorts, as if Latin were the greatest grievance upon earth, say to yourselves, 'It is my duty to keep on, and my duty I must do. If I turn idle now, my past application will be lost; but, if I persevere, I may go bravely on to the end.' Be brave, darlings, for my sake."
And the boys were so. Thus it would happen that when the rest of the school were talking, or idling, or being caned, the Halliburtons were at work. The head master could not fail to observe their steady application; and he more than once held them up as an example to the school.
So far so good. But though the classics are essential parts of a good education, they do not include all its requisites. And nothing else was taught in the college school. There certainly was a writing master, and something like an initiation into the first rules of arithmetic was attempted; but not a boy in the charity school, hard by, that could not have shamed the college boys in adding up a column of figures or in writing a page. As to their English----You should have seen them attempt to write a letter. In short, the college school ignored everything except Latin and Greek.
This state of affairs gave Jane great concern. "Unless I can organize some plan, my boys will grow up dunces," she said to herself. And a plan she did organize. None could remedy this so well as herself; she, so thoroughly educated in all essential branches. It would take two hours from her work, but for the sake of her boys she would sacrifice that. Every night, therefore, except Saturday, as soon as they had prepared their lessons for school--and in doing that they were helped by William--she left her work and became their instructor. History, geography, astronomy, composition, and so on. You can fill up the list.
And she had her reward. The boys advanced rapidly. As the months and quarters went on, it was only so much the more instruction gained by them.
I think you must be indulged with a glance at one of these college school notes. But, first of all, suppose we read one written by Frank.
"DEAR GLENN,--Thanks for wishing me to join your fishing expedition the day after to-morrow, but I can't come. My mother says, as I had a holiday from college one day last week, it will not do to ask for it again. You told me to send word this evening whether or not, so I drop you this note. I should like to go, and shall be thinking of you all day. Mind you let me have a look at the fish you bring home. Yours,
"FRANK HALLIBURTON."
The note was addressed "Glenn senior," and Gar was ordered to deliver it at Glenn senior's house. Glenn senior, who was a king's scholar, not a chorister, made a wry face over it when delivered, and sat down on the spur of the moment to answer it:
"DEER HALIBURTON,--Its all stuf about not asking for leve again what do the musty old prebens care who gets leve therell be enuff to sing without you tell your mother I cant excuse you from our party theirs 8 of us going and a stunning baxket of progg as good go out for a day's fishing has stop at home on a holiday for the benefit of that preshous colledge bring me word you'll come to-morrow at skool for we want to arrange our plans yours old fellow
"P GLENN."
Master P. Glenn was concluding his note when his father passed through the room and glanced over the boy's shoulder. He (Mr. Glenn) was a surgeon; one of the chief surgeons attached to the Helstonleigh infirmary, and in excellent practice. "At your exercise, Philip?"
"No, papa. I am writing a note to one of our fellows. I want him to be of our fishing party on Wednesday."
"Wednesday! Have you a holiday on Wednesday?"
"Yes. Don't you know it will be a saint's day?"
"Not I," said Mr. Glenn. "Saints' days don't concern me as they do you college boys. That's a pretty specimen of English!" he added, running his amused eyes over Philip's note.
"Are there any mistakes in it?" returned Philip. "But it's no matter, papa. We don't profess to write English in the college school."
"It is well you don't profess it," remarked Mr. Glenn. "But how is it your friend Halliburton can turn out good English?" He had taken up Frank's letter.
"Oh! they are such chaps for learning, the two Halliburtons. They stick at it like a horse-leech--never getting the cane for turned lessons. They have school at home in the evenings for English, and history, and such stuff that they don't get at college."
"Have they a tutor?"
"They are not rich enough for a tutor. Mrs. Halliburton's the tutor. What do you think Gar Halliburton did the other day? Keating was having a row with the fourth desk, and he gave them some extra verses to do. Up goes Gar Halliburton, before he had been a minute at his seat. 'If you please, sir,' says he to Keating, 'I had better have another piece.' 'Why so?' asks Keating. 'Because,' says Gar, 'I did these same verses with my brother at home a week ago.' He meant his eldest brother; not Frank. But, now, was not that honourable, papa?"
"Yes, it was," answered Mr. Glenn.
"That's just the Halliburtons all over. They are ultra-honourable."
"I should like to see your friend Frank, and inquire how he manages to pick up his English."
"Let me bring him to tea to-morrow night!" cried Philip eagerly.
"You may, if you like."
"Hurrah!" shouted Philip. "And you'll persuade him not to mind his mother, but to come to our fishing party?"
"Philip!"
"Well, papa, I don't mean that, exactly. But I do not see the use of boys listening to their mothers just in everything."
Philip Glenn seized his note, and added a postscript:--"My father sais you are to come to tea to-morrow we shall be so joly." And it was despatched to Frank by a servant in livery.
XII. A LESSON FOR PHILIP GLENN
Frank was as eager to accept the invitation as Philip had been to offer it. When the afternoon arrived, and school was over, Frank tore home, donned his best clothes, and then tore back again to Mr. Glenn's house. Philip received him in the small room, where he and his brother prepared their lessons.
"How is it that you and my boys write English so differently?" inquired Mr. Glenn, when he had made Frank's acquaintance.
Frank broke into a broad smile, suggested by the remembrance of Philip's English. "We study it at home, sir."
"But some one teaches you?"
"Mamma. She was afraid that we should grow up ignorant of everything except Latin and Greek; so she thought she would remedy the evil."
"And she takes you in an evening?"
"Yes, sir; every evening except Saturday, when she is sure to be busy. She comes to the table as soon as our lessons for school are prepared, and we commence English. The easier portions of our Latin and Greek we do in the day, I and Gar: we crib the time from play-hours; and my brother William helps us at night with the more difficult parts."
"Where is your brother at school?" asked Mr. Glenn.
"He is not at school, sir. He is at Mr. Ashley's, with Cyril Dare. William has not been to school since papa died. But he was well up in everything, for papa had taken great pains with him, and he has gone on by himself since."
"Can he do much good by himself?"
"Good!" echoed Frank, speaking bluntly in his eagerness; "I don't think you could find so good a scholar for his age. There's not one could come near him in the college school. At first he found it hard work. He had no one to explain difficult points for him, and was obliged to puzzle them out with his own brains. And it's that that has got him on."
Mr. Glenn nodded. "Where a good foundation has been laid, a hard-working boy may get on better without a master than with one, provided----"
"That is just what William says," interrupted Frank, his dark eyes sparkling with animation. "He would have given anything at one time to be at the college school with us; but he does not care about it now."
"Provided his heart is in his work, I was about to add," said Mr. Glenn, smiling at Frank's eagerness.
"Oh, of course, sir. And that's what William's is. He has such capital books, too--all the best that are published. They were papa's. I hardly know how I and Gar should get on, without William's help."
"Does he help you?"
"He has helped us ever since papa died; before we went to college, and since. We do algebra and Euclid with him."
"In--deed!" exclaimed Mr. Glenn, looking hard at Frank. "When do you contrive to do all this?"
"In the evening. Tea is over by half-past five, and we three--William, I, and Gar--turn at once to our lessons. In about two hours mamma joins us, and we work with her about two hours more. Of course we have different nights for different studies, Latin every night, Greek nearly every night, Euclid twice a week, algebra twice a week, and so on. And the lessons we do with mamma are portioned out; some one night, some another."
"You must be very persevering boys," cried Mr. Glenn. "Do you never catch yourselves looking off to play; to talk and laugh?"
"No, sir, never. We have got into the habit of sticking to our lessons; mamma brought us into it. And then, we are anxious to get on: half the battle lies in that."
"I think it does. Philip, my boy, here's a lesson for you, and for all other lazy scapegraces."
Philip shrugged his shoulders, with a laugh. "Papa, I don't see any good in working so hard."
"Your friend Frank does."
"We are obliged to work, sir," said Frank, candidly. "We have no money, and it is only by education that we can hope to get on. Mamma thinks it may turn out all for the best. She says that boys who expect money very often rely upon it and not upon themselves. She would rather turn us out into the world with our talents cultivated and a will to use them, than with a fortune apiece. There's not a parable in the Bible mamma is fonder of reading to us than that of the ten talents."
"No fortune!" repeated Mr. Glenn in a dreamy tone.
"Not a penny; mamma has to work to keep us," returned Frank, making the avowal as freely as though he had proclaimed that his mother was lady-in-waiting to the Queen, and he one of her pages. Jane had contrived to convince them that in poverty itself there lay no shame or stigma; but a great deal in paltry attempts to conceal it.
"Frank," said Mr. Glenn, "I was thinking that you must possess a fortune in your mother."
"And so we do!" said Frank. "When Philip's note came to me last night, and we were--were----"
"Laughing over it!" suggested Mr. Glenn, helping out Frank's hesitation, and laughing himself.
"Yes, that's it; only I did not like to say it," acknowledged Frank. "But I dare say you know, sir, how most of the college boys write. Mamma said then, how glad we ought to be that she can make time to teach us better, and that we have the resolution to persevere."
"I wish your mother would admit my sons to her class," said Mr. Glenn, half-seriously, half-jokingly. "I would give her any recompense."
"Shall I ask her?" cried Frank.
"Perhaps she would feel hurt?"
"Oh no, she wouldn't," answered Frank impulsively. "I will ask her."
"I should not like such a strict mother," avowed Philip Glenn.
"Strict!" echoed Frank. "Mamma's not strict."
"She must be. She says you shan't come fishing with us to-morrow."
"No, she did not. She said she wished me not to go, and thought I had better not, and then she left it to me."
Philip Glenn stared. "You told me at school this morning that it was decided you were not to come. And now you say Mrs. Halliburton left it to you."
"So she did," answered Frank. "She generally leaves these things to us. She shows us what we ought to do, and why it is right that we should do it, and then she leaves it to what she calls our own good sense. It is like putting us upon our honour."
"And you do as you know she wishes you would do?" interposed Mr. Glenn.
"Yes, sir, always."
"Suppose you were to take your own will for once against hers?" cried Philip in a cross tone. "What then?"
"Then I dare say she would decide herself the next time, and tell us we were not to be trusted. But there's no fear. We know her wishes are sure to be right; and we would not vex her for the world. The last time the dean was here there was a fuss about the choristers getting holiday so often; and he forbade its being done."
"But the dean's away," impatiently interrupted Philip Glenn. "Old Ripton is in residence, and he would give it you for the asking. He knows nothing about the dean's order."
"That's the very reason," returned Frank. "Mamma put it to me whether it would be an honourable thing to do. She said, if Dr. Ripton had known of the dean's order, then I might have asked him, and he could do as he pleased. She makes us wish to do what is right--not only what appears so."
"And you'll punish yourself by going without the holiday, for some rubbishing notion of 'doing right'! It's just nonsense, Frank."
"Of course we have to punish ourselves sometimes," acknowledged Frank. "I shall be wishing all day long to-morrow that I was with you. But when evening comes, and the day's over, then I shall be glad to have done right. Mamma says if we do not learn to act rightly and self-reliantly as boys we shall not do so as men."
Mr. Glenn laid his hand on Frank's shoulder. "Inculcate your creed upon my sons, if you can," said he, speaking seriously. "Has your mother taught it to you long?"
"She has always been teaching it to us; ever since we were little," rejoined Frank. "If we had to begin now, I don't know that we should make much of it."
Mr. Glenn fell into a reverie. As Mr. Ashley had once judged by some words dropped by William, so Mr. Glenn was judging now--that Mrs. Halliburton must be a mother in a thousand. Frank turned to Philip.
"Have you done your lessons?"
"Done my lessons! No. Have you?"
Frank laughed. "Yes, or I should not have come. I have not played a minute to-day--but cribbed the time. Scanning, and exercise, and Greek; I have done them all."
"It seems to me that you and your brothers make friends of your lessons, whilst most boys make enemies," observed Mr. Glenn.
"Yes, that's true," said Frank.
"Philip," said Mr. Glenn to his son that evening after Frank had departed, "I give you carte blanche to bring that boy here as much as you like. If you are wise, you will make a lasting friend of him."
"I like the Halliburtons," replied Philip. "The college school doesn't, though."
"And pray, why?"
"Well, I think Dare senior first set the school against them--that's Cyril, you know, papa. He was always going on at them. They were snobs for sticking to their lessons, he said, which gentlemen never did; and they were snobs because they had no money to spend, which gentlemen always had; and they were snobs for this, and snobs for the other; and he got his desk, which ruled the school, to cut them. They had to put up with a good deal then, but they are bigger now, and can fight their way; and, since Dare senior left, the school has begun to like them. If they are poor, they can't help it," concluded Philip, as if he would apologize for the fact.
"Poor!" retorted Mr. Glenn. "I can tell you, Master Philip, and the college school too, that they are rich in things that you want. Unless I am deceived, the Halliburtons will grow up to be men of no common order."
XIII. MAKING PROGRESS
Trifles, as we all know, lead to great events. When Frank Halliburton had gone home, in his usual flying, eager manner, plunging headlong into the subject of Mr. Glenn's request, and Jane consented to grant it, she little thought that it would lead to a considerable increase to her income, enabling them to procure several comforts, and rendering better private instruction than her own easy for her sons.
Not that she yielded to the request at once. She took time for consideration. But Frank was urgent; and she was one of those ever ready to do a good turn for others. The Glenns, as Frank said, did write English wretchedly; and if she could help to improve them without losing time or money, neither of which she could afford, why not do so? And she consented.
It certainly did occur to Mrs. Halliburton to wonder that Mr. Glenn had not provided private instruction for his sons, to remedy the deficiencies existing in the college school system. Mr. Glenn suddenly awoke to the same wonder himself. The fact was, that he, like many other gentlemen in Helstonleigh who had sons in the college school, had been content to let things take their chance: possibly he assumed that spelling and composition would come to his sons by intuition, as they grew older. The contrast Frank Halliburton presented to Philip aroused him from his neglect.
Jane consented to allow the two young Glenns to share the time and instruction she gave to her own boys. Mr. Glenn received the favour gladly; but, at first, there was great battling with the young gentlemen themselves. They could not be made to complete their lessons for school, so as to be at Mrs. Halliburton's by the hour appointed. At length it was accomplished, and they took to going regularly.
Before three months had elapsed, great improvement had become visible in their spelling. They were also acquiring an insight into English grammar; had learnt that America was not situated in the Mediterranean, or watered by the Nile; and that English history did not solely consist of two incidents--the beheading of King Charles, and the Gunpowder Plot. Improvement was also visible in their manners and in the bent of their minds. From being boisterous, self-willed, and careless, they became more considerate, more tractable; and Mr. Glenn actually once heard Philip decline to embark in some tempting scrape, because it would "not be right."
For it was impossible for Jane to have lads near her, and not gently try to counteract their faults and failings, as she would have done by her own sons; whilst the remarkable consideration and deference paid by the young Halliburtons to their mother, their warm affection for her, and the pleasant peace, the refinement of tone and manner distinguishing their home, told upon Philip and Charles Glenn with good influence. At the end of three months, Mr. Glenn wrote a note of warm thanks to Mrs. Halliburton, expressing a hope that she would still allow his sons the privilege of joining her own, and, in a delicate manner, begging grace for his act, enclosed four guineas; which was payment at the rate of sixteen guineas a year for the two.
Jane had not expected it. Nothing had been hinted to her about payment, and she did not expect to receive any: she did not understand that the boys had joined on those terms. It was very welcome. In writing back to Mr. Glenn, she stated that she had not expected to receive remuneration; but she spoke of her straitened circumstances and thanked him for the help it would be.
"That comes from a gentlewoman," was his remark to his wife, when he read the note. "I should like to know her."
"I hinted as much to Frank one day, but he said his mother was too much occupied to receive visits or to pay them," was Mrs. Glenn's reply.
As it happened, however, Mr. Glenn did pay her a visit. A friend of his, whose boys were in the college school, struck with the improvement in the Glenns, and hearing of its source, wondered whether his boys might not be received on the same terms, and Mr. Glenn undertook to propose it. The result of all this was, that in six months from the time of that afternoon when Frank first took tea at Mr. Glenn's, Jane had ten evening pupils, college boys. There she stopped. Others applied, but her table would not hold more, nor could she do justice to a greater number. The ten would bring her in eighty guineas a year; she devoted to them two hours, five evenings in the week.
Now she could command somewhat better food, and more liberal instruction for her own boys, William included, in those higher branches of knowledge which they could not, or had not, commenced for themselves. A learned professor, David Byrne, whose lodgings were in the London Road, was applied to, and he agreed to receive the young Halliburtons at a very moderate charge, three evenings in the week.
"Mamma," cried William, one day, with his thoughtful smile, soon after this agreement was entered upon, "we seem to be getting on amazingly. We can learn something else now, if you have no objection."
"What is that?" asked Jane.
"French. As I and Samuel Lynn were walking home to-day, we met Monsieur Colin. He said he was about to organize a French class, twelve in number, and would be glad if we would make three of the number. What do you say?"
"It is a great temptation," answered Jane. "I have long wished you could learn French. Would it be very expensive?"
"Very cheap to us. He said he considered you a sister professor----"
"The idea!" burst forth Frank, hotly. "Mamma a professor!"
"Indeed, I don't know that I can aspire to anything so formidable," said Jane, with a laugh. "A schoolmistress would be a better word."
Frank was indignant. "You are not a schoolmistress, mamma. I----"
"Frank," interrupted Jane, her tone changing to seriousness.
"What, mamma?"
"I am thankful to be one."
The tears rose to Frank's eyes. "You are a lady, mamma. I shall never think you anything else. There!"
Jane smiled. "Well, I hope I am, Frank; although I help to make gloves and teach boys English."
"How well Mr. Lynn speaks French!" exclaimed William.
"Does he speak it?"
"As a native. I cannot tell what his accent may be, but he speaks it as readily as Monsieur Colin. Shall we learn, mamma? It will be the greatest advantage to us, Monsieur Colin conversing with us in French."
"But what about the time, William?"
"Oh, if you will manage the money, we will manage the time," returned William, laughing. "Only trust to us, mother. We will make it, and neglect nothing."
"Then, William, you may tell Monsieur Colin that you shall learn."
"Fair and easy!" broke out Frank; a saying of his when pleased. "Mamma, I think, what with one thing and another turning up, we boys shall be getting quite first-class education."
"Although mamma feared we never should accomplish it," returned William. "As did I."
"Fear!" cried Frank. "I didn't. I knew that 'where there's a will there's a way.' Degeneres animos timor arguit," added he, finishing off with one of his favourite Latin quotations; but forgetting, in his flourish, that he was paying a poor compliment to his mother and his brother.
XIV. WILLIAM HALLIBURTON'S GHOST
This chapter may be said to commence the second part of this history, for some years have elapsed since the events last recorded.
Do you doubt that the self-denying patience displayed by Jane Halliburton, her persevering struggles, her never-fainting industry, joined to her all-perfect trust in the goodness and guidance of the Most High God, could fail to bring their reward? It is not possible. But do not fancy that it came suddenly in the shape of a coach-and-six. Rewards worth having are not acquired so easily. Have you met with the following lines? They are somewhat applicable.
"How rarely, friend, a good, great man inherits Honour and wealth, with all his worth and pains! It seems a fable from the land of spirits When any man obtains that which he merits, Or any merits that which he obtains. For shame, my friend! renounce this idle strain: What would'st thou have the good, great man obtain-- Wealth? title? dignity? a golden chain? Or heaps of corpses which his sword hath slain? Goodness and greatness are not means, but ends. Hath he not always treasures, always friends, The good, great man? Three treasures-- Love; and life; and calm thoughts, equable as infants' breath. And three fast friends, more sure than day or night, Himself; his Maker; and the angel, Death."
Jane's reward was in progress: it had not fully come. At present it was little more than that of an approving conscience for having fought her way through difficulties in the patient continuance of well-doing, and in the fulfilment, in a remarkable manner, of the subject she had had most at heart--that of giving her sons an education that would fit them to fulfil any part they might be called upon to play in the destinies of life--in watching them grow up full of promise to make good and great men.
In circumstances, Jane was tolerably at ease now. Time had wrought its changes. Mrs. Reece had gone--not into other lodgings, but to join Janey Halliburton on the long journey. And Dobbs--Dobbs!--was servant to Mrs. Halliburton! Dobbs had experienced misfortune. Dobbs had put by a good round sum in a bank, for Dobbs had been provident all her life; and the bank broke and swallowed up Dobbs's savings; and nearly all Dobbs's surly independence went with it. Misfortunes do not come alone; and Mrs. Reece died almost immediately after Dobbs's treacherous bank went. The old lady's will had been good to leave Dobbs something, but she had not the power to do so: the income she had enjoyed went at her death to her late husband's relatives. She had made Dobbs handsome presents from time to time, and these Dobbs had placed with the rest of her money. It had all gone.
Poor Dobbs, good for nothing in the first shock of the loss, paid Mrs. Halliburton for a bedroom weekly, and sat down to fret. Next, she tried to earn a living at making gloves--an employment Dobbs had followed in her early days. But, what with not being so young as she was, neither eyes nor fingers, Dobbs found she could make nothing of the work. She went about the house doing odd tasks for Mrs. Halliburton, until that lady ventured on a proposal (with as much deference as though she had been making it to an Indian Begum), that Dobbs should remain with her as her servant. An experienced, thoroughly good servant she required now; and that she knew Dobbs to be. Dobbs acquiesced; and forthwith went upstairs, moved her things into the dark closet, and obstinately adopted it as her own bedroom.
The death of Mrs. Reece had enabled Jane to put into practice a plan she had long thought of--that of receiving boarders into her house, after the manner of the dames at Eton. Some of the foundation boys in the college school lived at a distance, and it was a great matter with the parents to place them in families where they would find a good home. The wife of the head master, Mrs. Keating, took in half-a-dozen; Jane thought she might do the same. She had been asked to do so; but had not room while Mrs. Reece was with her. She still held her class in the evening. As one set of boys finished with her, others were only too glad to take their places: there was no teaching like Mrs. Halliburton's. Upon making it known that she could receive boarders, applications poured in; and six, all she had accommodation for, came. They, of course, attended the college school during the day. Thus she could afford to relinquish working at the gloves; and did so, to Samuel Lynn's chagrin: a steady, regular worker, as Jane had been, was valuable to the manufactory. Altogether, what with her evening class, and the sum paid by the boarders, her income was between two and three hundred a year, not including what was earned by William.
William had made progress at Mr. Ashley's, and now earned thirty shillings a week. Frank and Gar had not left the college school. Frank's time was out, and more than out: but when a scholar advanced in the manner that Frank Halliburton had done, Mr. Keating was not in a hurry to intimate to him that his time had expired. So Frank remained on, studying hard, one of the most finished scholars Helstonleigh Collegiate School had ever turned out.
There sat one great desire in Frank's heart; it had almost grown into a passion; it coloured his dreams by night and his thoughts by day--that of matriculating at one of the two Universities. The random and somewhat dim idea of Frank's early days--studying for the Bar--had become the fixed purpose of his life. That he was especially gifted with the tastes and qualifications necessary to make a good pleader, there could be no doubt about; therefore, Frank had probably not mistaken his vocation. Persevering in study, keen in perceptive intellect, equable in temper, fluent and persuasive in speech, a true type was he of an embryo barrister. He did not quite see his way yet to getting to college. Neither did Gar; and Gar had set his mind upon the Church.
One cold January evening, bright, clear, and frosty, Samuel Lynn stopped away from the manufactory. He had received a letter by the evening post saying that a friend, on his way from Birmingham to Bristol, would halt for a few hours at his house and go on by the Bristol mail, which passed through the city at eleven o'clock. The friend arrived punctually, was regaled with tea and other good things in the state parlour, and he and Samuel Lynn settled themselves to enjoy a pleasant evening together, Patience and Anna forming part of the company. Anna's luxuriant curls and her wondrous beauty--for, in growing up, that beauty had not belied the promise of her childhood--were shaded under the demure Quaker's cap. Something else had not belied the promise of her childhood, and that was her vanity.
Apparently, she did not find the evening or the visitor to her taste. He was old, as were her father and Patience: every one above thirty Anna was apt to class as "old." She fidgeted, was restless, and, just as the clock struck seven--as if the sound rendered any further inaction unbearable--she rose and was quietly stealing from the room.
"Where are thee going, Anna?" asked her father.
Anna coloured, as if taken by surprise. "Friend Jane Halliburton promised to lend me a book, father: I should like to fetch it."
"Sit thee still, child; thee dost not want to read to-night when friend Stanley is with us. Show him thy drawings. Meanwhile, I will get the chessmen. Thee'd like a game?" turning to his visitor.
"Ay, I should," was the ready answer. "Remember, friend Lynn, I beat thee last time."
"Maybe my skill will redeem itself to-night," nodded the Quaker, as he rose for the chessboard. "It shall try its best."
"Would thee like a candle?" asked Patience, who was busy sewing.
"Not at all. My chamber is light as day, with the moon so near the full."
Mr. Lynn went up to his room. The chessboard and men were kept on a table near the window. As he took them from it he glanced out at the pleasant scene. His window, at the back, faced the charming landscape, and the Malvern Hills in the horizon shone out almost as distinctly as by day. Not, however, on the landscape were Samuel Lynn's eyes fixed; they had caught something nearer, which drew his attention.
Pacing the field-path which ran behind his low garden hedge was a male figure in a cloak. To see a man, whether with a cloak or without it, abroad on a moonlight night, would not have been extraordinary; but Samuel Lynn's notice was drawn by this one's movements. Beyond the immediate space occupied by the house, the field-path was hidden: on one side, by the high hedge intervening between his garden and Mrs. Halliburton's; on the other, by a wall. The figure--whoever it might be--would come to one of these corners, stealthily peep at Samuel Lynn's house and windows, and then continue his way past it, until he reached the other corner, where he would halt and peep again, partially hiding himself behind the hedge. That he was waiting for something or some one was apparent, for he stamped his feet occasionally in an impatient manner.
"What can it be that he does there?" cried the Quaker, half aloud: "this is the second time I have seen him. He cannot be taking a sketch of my house by moonlight! Were it any other than thee, William Halliburton, I should say it wore a clandestine look."
He returned to the parlour, and took his revenge on his friend by checkmating him three times in succession. At nine o'clock supper came in, and at ten Mr. Stanley, accompanied by Samuel Lynn, left, to walk leisurely into Helstonleigh and await the Bristol mail. As they turned out of the house they saw William Halliburton going in at his own door.
"It is a cold night," William remarked to Mr. Lynn.
"Very. Good night to thee."
You cannot see what he is like by this light, especially in that disguising cloak, and the cap with its protecting ears. But you can see him the following morning, as he stands in Mr. Ashley's counting-house.
A well-grown, upright, noble form, a head taller than Samuel Lynn, by whose side he is standing, with a peculiarly attractive face. Not for its beauty--the face cannot boast of very much--but for its broad brow of intellect, its firm, sweet mouth, and its truthful dark-grey eyes. None could mistake William Halliburton for anything but a gentleman, although they had seen him, as now, with a white apron tied round his waist. William was making up gloves: a term, as you may remember, which means sorting them according to their qualities--work that was sometimes done in Mr. Ashley's room, on account of its steady light, for it bore a north aspect. A table, or counter, was fixed down one side, under its windows. Mr. Lynn stood by his side, looking on.
"Thee can do it tolerably well, William," he observed, after some minutes' close inspection.
William smiled. The Quaker never bestowed decided praise, and never thought any one could be trusted in the making-up department, himself and James Meeking excepted. William had been exercised in the making-up for the past eighteen months, and he thought he ought to do it pretty well by this time. Mr. Lynn was turning away, when his keen sight fell on several dozens at a little distance. He took up one of the top pairs with a hasty movement, knitted his brow, and then took up others.
"Thee has not exercised thy judgment or thy caution here, friend William."
"I did not make up those," replied William.
"Who did, then?"
"Cyril Dare."
"I have told Cyril Dare he is not to attempt the making-up," returned
Samuel Lynn, in severe tones. "When did he do these?"
"Yesterday afternoon."
"There, again! He knows the gloves are not made up in a winter's afternoon. I myself would not do it by so obscure a light. Thee go over these thyself when thee has finished the stack before thee."
Samuel Lynn was not one who spared work. He mixed the offending dozens together indiscriminately, and pushed them towards William. Then he turned to his own place, and went on with his work: he was also making up. Presently he spoke again.
"What does thee do at the back of my house of a night? Thee must find the walk cold."
William turned his head with a movement of surprise. "I don't do anything at the back of your house. What do you mean?"
"Not walk about there, watching it, as thee did last night?"
"Certainly not! I do not understand you."
Samuel Lynn's brows knit heavily. "William, I deemed thee truthful. Why deny what is a palpable fact?"
William Halliburton put down the pair of gloves he had in his hand, and turned to the Quaker. "In saying that I do not walk at the back of your house at night, or at the back of any house, I state the truth."
"Last night at seven o'clock, I saw thee parading there in thy cloak. I saw thee, I say, William. The night was unusually light."
"Last night, from tea-time until half-past nine, I never stirred out of my mother's parlour," rejoined William. "I was at my books as usual. At half-past nine I ran up to say a word to Henry Ashley. You saw me returning."
"But I saw thee at the back with my own eyes," persisted the Quaker. "I saw thy cloak. Thee had on that blue cap of thine: it was tied down over thy ears; and the collar of the cloak was turned up, to protect thee, as I surmised, from the cold."
"It must have been my ghost," responded William. "Should I be likely to pace up and down a cold field, for pastime, on a January night?"
"Will thee oblige me by putting on thy cloak?" was all the answer returned by Samuel Lynn.
"What--now?"
"Please."
William, laughing, went out of the room, and came back in his cloak. It was an old-fashioned cloak--a remarkable cloak--a dark plaid, its collar lined with red. Formerly worn by gentlemen, they had now become nearly obsolete; but William had picked this up for much less than half its value. He did not care much for fashion, and it was warm and comfortable in winter weather.
"Perhaps you wish me to put on my cap?" said William, in a serio-comic tone.
"Yes; and turn down the ears."
He obeyed, very much amused. "Anything more?" asked he.
"Walk thyself about an instant."
His lips smiling, his eyes dancing, William marched from one side of the room to the other. While this was in process Cyril Dare bustled in, and stood in amazement, staring at William. The Quaker paid no attention to his arrival, except that he took out his watch and glanced at it. He continued to address William.
"And thee can assure me to my face, that thee was not pacing the field last night in the moonlight, dressed as now?"
"I can, and do," replied William.
"Then, William, it is one of two things. My eyes or thy word must be false."
"Did you see my face?" asked William.
"Not much of that. With the ears down and the collar up, thy face was pretty effectually concealed. There's not another cloak like thine in all Helstonleigh."
"You are right there," laughed William; "there's not one half so handsome. Admire the contrast of the purple and green plaid and the scarlet collar."
"No, not another like it," emphatically repeated the Quaker. "I tell thee, William Halliburton, in the teeth of thy denial, that I saw thee, or a figure precisely similar to thee, parading the field-path last night, and stealthily watching my windows."
"It's a clear case of ghost," returned William, with an amused look at Cyril Dare. "How much longer am I to make a walking Guy of myself, for your pleasure and Cyril's astonishment?"
"Thee can take it off," replied the Quaker, his curt tone betraying dissatisfaction. Until that moment he had believed William Halliburton to be the very quintessence of truth. His belief was now shaken.
In the small passage between Mr. Ashley's room and Samuel Lynn's, William hung up the cloak and cap. The Quaker turned to Cyril Dare, who was taking off his great-coat, stern displeasure in his tone.
"Dost thee know the time?"
"Just gone half-past nine," replied Cyril.
Mr. Lynn held out his watch to Cyril. It wanted seventeen minutes to ten. "Nine o'clock is thy hour. I am tired of telling thee to be more punctual. And thee did not come before breakfast."
"I overslept myself," said Cyril.
"As thee dost pretty often, it seems. If thee can do no better than thee did yesterday, as well oversleep thyself for good. Look at these gloves."
"Well!" cried Cyril, who was a good-looking young man, in stature not far short of William. At least he would have been good-looking, but for his eyes; there was a look in them, almost amounting to a squint; and they did not gaze openly and honestly into another's eyes. His face was thin, and his features were well-formed. "Well!" cried he.
"It is well," repeated the Quaker; "well that I looked at them, for they must be done again. Firsts are mixed with seconds, thirds with firsts; I do not know that I ever saw gloves so ill made up. What have I told thee?"
"Lots of things," responded Cyril, who liked to set the manager at defiance, as far as he dared.
"I have desired thee never to attempt to make up the gloves. I now forbid thee again; and thee will do well not to forget it. Begin and band these gloves that William Halliburton is making ready."
Cyril jerked open the drawer where the paper bands were kept, took some out of it, and carried them to the counter, where William stood. Mr. Lynn interposed with another order.
"Thee will please put thy apron on."
Now, having to wear this apron was the very bugbear of Cyril Dare's life. "There's no need of an apron to paper gloves," he responded.
"Thee will put on thy apron, friend," calmly repeated Samuel Lynn.
"I hate the apron," fumed Cyril, jerking open another drawer, and jerking out his apron; for he might not openly disobey the authority of Samuel Lynn. "I should think I am the first gentleman that ever was made to wear one."
"If thee are practically engaged in a glove manufactory, thee must wear an apron, gentleman or no gentleman," equably returned the Quaker. "As we all do."
"All don't!" retorted Cyril. "The master does not."
"Thee are not in the master's position yet, Cyril Dare. And I would advise thee to exercise thy discretion more and thy tongue less."
The discussion was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Ashley, and the room dropped into silence. There might be no presuming in the presence of the master. He sat down to his desk, and opened his morning letters. Presently a young man put his head in and addressed Samuel Lynn.
"Noaks, the stainer, has come in, sir. He says the skins given out to him yesterday would be better for coloured than blacks."
"Desire James Meeking to attend to him," said Mr. Lynn.
"James Meeking isn't here, sir. He's up in the cutters' room, or somewhere."
Samuel Lynn, upon this, went out himself. Cyril Dare followed him. Cyril was rather fond of taking short trips about the manufactory, as interludes to his work. Soon after, the master lifted his head.
"Step here, William."
William put down the gloves he was examining and approached the desk. "What sort of a French scholar are you?" inquired Mr. Ashley.
"A very good one, sir," he replied, after a pause given to surprise. "I know it thoroughly. I can read and write it as readily as I can English."
"But I mean as to speaking. Could you make yourself understood, for instance, if you were suddenly dropped down into a French town, where the natives spoke nothing but their own language?"
William smiled. "I don't think I should have much difficulty over it. I have been so much with Monsieur Colin that I talk as fast as he does. He stops me occasionally to grumble at what he calls l'accent anglais."
"I am not sure that I shall not send you on a mission to France," resumed Mr. Ashley. "You can be better spared than Samuel Lynn; and it must be one of you. Will you undertake it?"
"I will undertake anything that you wish me to do, sir, that I could accomplish," replied William, lifting his clear earnest eyes to those of his master.
"You are an exceedingly good judge of skins: even Samuel Lynn admits that. I want some intelligent, trustworthy person to go over to France, look about the markets there, and pick up what will suit us. The demand for skins is great at the present time, and the markets must be watched to select suitable bales before other bidders step in and pounce upon them. By these means we may secure some good bargains and good skins: we have succeeded lately in doing neither."
"At Annonay, I presume you mean, sir."
"Annonay and its neighbourhood; that's the chief market for dressed skins. The undressed pelts are to be met with best, as you are aware, in the neighbourhood of Lyons. You would have to look after both. I have talked the matter over with Mr. Lynn, and he thinks you may be trusted both as to ability and conduct."
"I will do my best if I am sent," replied William.
"Your stay might extend over two or three months. We can do with a great deal; both of pelts and dressed skins. The dressers at Annonay----Cyril, what are you doing there?"
Cyril could scarcely have told. He had come into the counting-house unnoticed, and his ears had picked up somewhat of the conversation. In his anger and annoyance, Cyril had remained, his face turned towards the speakers, listening for more.
For it had oozed out at Pomeranian Knoll, through a word dropped by Henry Ashley, that Mr. Ashley had it in contemplation to despatch some one from the manufactory on this mission to France, and that the some one would not be Samuel Lynn. Cyril received the information with avidity, never doubting that he would be the one fixed upon. To give him his due, he was really a good judge of skins--not better than William; but somehow Cyril had never given a thought to William in the matter. Greatly had he anticipated the journey to the land of pleasure, where he would be under no one's control but his own. In that moment, when he heard Mr. Ashley speaking to William upon the subject, not to him, Cyril felt at war with every one and everything; with the master, with William, and especially with the business, which he hated as much as he had ever done.
But Mr. Ashley was not one to do things in a hurry, and he had only broached the subject.
Chapter XV
"NOTHING RISK, NOTHING WIN."
It was Saturday night, the Saturday after the above conversation, and Mr. Lynn was making ready to pay the men. James Meeking was payer in a general way; but James Meeking was also packer; that is, he packed, with assistance, the goods destined for London. A parcel was being sent off this evening, so that it fell to Mr. Lynn's lot to pay the workmen. He stood before the desk in the serving-room, counting out the money in readiness. There was a quantity of silver in a bag, and a great many brown paper packets of halfpence; each packet containing five shillings. But they all had to be counted, for sometimes a packet would run a penny or twopence short.
The door at the foot of the stairs was heard to open, and a man's step came up. It proved to be a workman from a neighbouring manufactory.
"If you please, Mr. Lynn, could you oblige our people with twelve or fourteen pounds' worth of change?" he asked. "We couldn't get in enough to-day, try as we would. The halfpence seem as scarce as the silver."
Now it happened that the Ashley manufactory was that evening abundantly supplied. Samuel Lynn went into the counting-house to the master, who was seated at the desk. "The Dunns have sent in to know if we can oblige them with twelve or fourteen pounds' worth of change," said he. "We have plenty to-night; but to send away so much may run us very short. Dost thee happen to have any gold that thee can spare?"
Mr. Ashley looked at his own cash drawer. "Here are six, seven sovereigns."
"That will be sufficient," replied Samuel Lynn, taking them from his hand, and going back to the applicant in the serving-room. "How much has thee need of?" asked he.
"Fourteen pounds, please, sir. I have the cheque here, made out for it. Silver or copper, it doesn't matter which; or a little gold. I have brought a basket along with me."
Mr. Lynn gave the money, and took the cheque. The man departed, and the Quaker carried the cheque to Mr. Ashley.
Mr. Ashley put the cheque into one of the pigeon-holes of his desk. He had the account in duplicate before him, of the goods going off, and was casting it up. William and Cyril were both in the counting-house, but not engaged with Mr. Ashley. William was marking small figures on certain banded gloves; Cyril was looking on, an employment that suited Cyril amazingly. His want of occupation caught the Quaker's eye.
"If thee has nothing to do, thee can come and help me count the papers of coppers."
Cyril dared not say "No," before Mr. Ashley. He might have hesitated to say it to Samuel Lynn; nevertheless, it was a work he especially disliked. It is not pleasant to soil the fingers counting innumerable five-shilling brown-paper packets of copper money; to part them into stacks of twelve pence, or twenty-four halfpence. In point of fact, it was James Meeking's work; but there were times when Samuel Lynn, William, and Cyril had each to take his turn at it. Perhaps the two former liked it no better than did Cyril Dare.
Cyril ungraciously followed to the serving-room. In a few minutes James Meeking looked in at the counting-house. "Is the master ready?"
Mr. Ashley rose and went into the next room, carrying one of the duplicate lists. The men were waiting to pack--James Meeking and the other packer, a young man named Dance. The several papers of boxes were ready on a side counter; and Mr. Ashley stood with the list in his hand, ready to verify them. Had Samuel Lynn not been occupied with serving, he would have done this.
"Three dozen best men's outsizes, coloured," called out James Meeking, reading the marks on the first parcel he took up.
"Right," responded Mr. Ashley.
James Meeking laid it upon the packing-table--clear, except for an enormous sheet of brown paper as thick as card-board--turned to the side counter and took up another of the parcels.
"Three dozen best men's outsizes, coloured," repeated he.
"Right," replied Mr. Ashley.
And so on, till all the parcels were told through and were found to tally with the invoice. Then began the packing. It made a large parcel, about four feet square. Mr. Ashley remained, looking on.
"You will not have enough string there," he observed, as the men were placing the string round it in squares.
"I told you we shouldn't, Meeking," said George Dance.
"There's no more downstairs," was Meeking's answer, "I thought it might be enough."
Neither of the men could leave the parcel. They were mounted on steps on either side of it. Mr. Ashley called to William. "Light the lantern, and go upstairs to the string-closet. Bring down a ball."
Candles were not allowed to be carried about the premises. William came forth, lighted the lantern, and went upstairs. At the same moment, Cyril Dare, who had finished his disagreeable copper counting, strolled into the counting-house. Finding it empty, he thought he could not do better than take a survey of Mr. Ashley's desk, the lid of which was propped open. He had no particular motive in doing this, except that that receptacle might present some food or other to gratify his curiosity, which the glove-laden counters could not be supposed to do. Amidst other things his eyes fell on the Messrs. Dunns' cheque, which lay in one of the pigeon-holes.
"It would set me up for a fortnight, that fourteen pounds!" ejaculated he. "No one would find it out, either. Ashley would suspect any one in the manufactory before he'd suspect me!"
He stood for a moment in indecision, his hand stretched out. Should it be drawn back, and the temptation resisted; or, should he yield to it? "Here goes!" cried Cyril. "Nothing risk, nothing win!"
He transferred the cheque to his own pocket, and stole out of the counting-house into the small narrow passage which intervened between it and Mr. Lynn's room, where the parcel was being made up. Passing stealthily through the room, at the back of the huge parcel, which hid him from the eyes of the men and of Mr. Ashley, he emerged in safety into the serving-room, took up his position close to Samuel Lynn, and began assiduously to count over some shilling stacks which he had already verified. Samuel Lynn, his face turned to the crowd of men who were on the other side the counter receiving their wages, had not noticed the absence of Cyril Dare. Upon this probable fact Cyril had reckoned.
"Any more to count?" asked Cyril.
Samuel Lynn turned his head round. "Not if thee has finished all the packets." Had he seen what had just taken place, he might have entrusted packets of coppers to Mr. Cyril less confidently.
Cyril jumped upon the edge of the desk, and remained perched there. William Halliburton came back with the twine, which he handed to George Dance. Blowing out the lantern, he returned to the counting-house.
The parcel was completed, and James Meeking directed it in his plain, clerk-like hand--"Messrs. James Morrison, Dillon, and Co., Fore Street, London." It was then conveyed to a truck in waiting, to be wheeled to the parcels office. Mr. Ashley returned to his desk and sat down. Presently Cyril Dare came in.
"Halliburton, don't you want to be paid to-night? Every one's paid but you. Mr. Lynn's waiting to close the desk."
"Here is a letter for the post, William," called out Mr. Ashley.
"I am coming back, sir. I have not set the counter straight yet."
He received his money--thirty shillings a week now. He then put things straight in the counting-house, to do which was as much Cyril's work as his, and took a letter from the hands of Mr. Ashley. It contained one of the duplicate lists, and was addressed as the parcel had been. William generally had charge of the outward-bound letters now; he did not forget them as he had done in his first unlucky essay. He threw on the elegant cloak of which you have heard, took his hat, and went through the town, as far as the post-office, Cyril Dare walking with him. There they parted; Cyril continuing his way homewards, William retracing his steps.
All had left the manufactory except Mr. Ashley and Samuel Lynn. James Meeking had gone down. On a late night, as the present, when all had done except the master and Samuel Lynn, the latter would sometimes say to the foreman, "Thee can go on to thy supper; I will lock up, and bring thee the keys." Mr. Ashley was setting his desk straight--putting sundry papers in their places; tearing up others. He unlocked his cash drawer, and put his hand into the pigeon-hole for the cheque. It was not there. Neither there nor anywhere, that he could see.
"Why, where's that cheque?" he exclaimed.
It caused Samuel Lynn to turn. "Cheque?" he repeated.
"Dunns' cheque, that you brought me an hour ago."
"I saw thee put it in the second pigeon-hole," said the Quaker, advancing to the desk, and standing by Mr. Ashley.
"I know I did. But it is gone."
"Thee must have moved it. Perhaps it is in thy private drawer?"
Mr. Ashley shook his head: he was deep in consideration. "I have not touched it since I placed it there," he presently said. "Unless--surely I cannot have torn it up by mistake?"
He and Samuel Lynn both stooped over the waste-paper basket. They could detect nothing of the sort amidst its contents. Mr. Ashley was nonplussed. "This is a curious thing, Samuel," said he. "No one was in the room during my absence except William Halliburton."
"He would not meddle with thy desk," observed the Quaker.
"No: nor suffer any one else to meddle with it. I should like to see William. He may possibly throw some light upon the subject. The cheque could not vanish into thin air."
Samuel Lynn went down to James Meeking's, whom he disturbed at supper. He bade him watch at the entrance-gate for the return of William from the post-office, and request him to walk into the manufactory. William was not very long in making his appearance. He received the message--that the master and Mr. Lynn wanted him--and in he went with alacrity, having jumped to the conclusion that some conference was about to be held touching the French journey.
Considerably surprised was he to learn what the matter really was. He quite laughed at the idea of the cheque's being gone, and believed that Mr. Ashley must have torn it up. Very minutely went he over the contents of the paper-basket. Its relics were not there.
"It's like magic!" exclaimed William. "No one entered the counting-house; not even Mr. Lynn or Cyril Dare."
"Cyril Dare was with me," said the Quaker. "Verily it seems to savour of the marvellous."
It certainly did; and no conclusion could be come to. Neither could anything be done that night.
It was late when William reached home--a quarter past ten. Frank was sitting over the fire, waiting for him. Gar had gone to bed tired; Mrs. Halliburton with headache; Dobbs, because there was nothing more to do.
"How late you are!" was Frank's salutation; "just because I want to have a talk with you."
"Upon the old theme," said William, with a smile. "Oxford or Cambridge?"
"I say, William, if you are going to throw cold water upon it----But it won't put a damper upon me," broke off Frank, gaily.
"I would rather throw hot water on it than cold, Frank."
"Look here, William. I am growing up to be a man, and I can't bear the idea of living longer upon my mother. At my age I ought to be helping her. I am no nearer the University than I was years ago; and if I cannot get there, all my labour and my learning will be thrown away."
"Not thrown away," said William.
"Thrown away as far as my views are concerned. I must go to the Bar, or go to nothing--aut Caesar, aut nullus. To the University I will go; and I see nothing for it but to do so as a servitor. I shan't care a fig for the ridicule of those who get there by a golden road. There's Lacon going to Christchurch at Easter, a gentleman commoner; Parr goes to Cambridge, to old Trinity."
"They are the sons of rich men."
"I am not envying them. We have not faced the difficulties of our position so long, and made the best of them, for me to begin envying others now. Wall's nephew goes up at Easter----"
"Oh, does he?" interrupted William. "I thought he could not manage it."
"Nor can he manage it in that sense. His father has too large a family to help him, and there's no chance of the exhibition. It is promised, Keating has announced. The exhibitions in Helstonleigh College don't go by right."
"Right or merit, do you mean, Frank?"
"I suppose I mean merit; but the one implies the other. They go by neither."
"Or you think that Frank Halliburton would have had it?"
"At any rate, he has not got it. Neither has Wall. Therefore, we have made up our minds, he and I, to go to Oxford as servitors."
"All right! Success to you both!"
Frank fell into a reverie. The friend of whom he spoke, Wall, was nephew of the under-master of the college school. "Of course I never expected to get to college in any other way," continued Frank, taking up the tongs and balancing them on his fingers. "If an exhibition did at odd moments cross my hopes, I would not dwell upon it. There are fellows in the school richer and greater than I. However, the exhibition is gone, and there's an end of it. The question now is--if I do go as a servitor, can my mother find the little additional expense necessary to keep me there?"
"Yes, I am sure she can: and will," replied William.
"There'll be the expenses of travelling, and sundry other little things," went on Frank. "Wall says it will cost each of us about fifteen pounds a year. We have dinner and supper free. Of course, I should never think of tea, and for breakfast I would take milk and plain bread. There'd be living at home between terms--unless I found something to do--and my clothes."
"It can be managed. Frank, you'll drop those tongs."
"What we shall have to do as servitors neither I nor Wall can precisely tell," continued Frank, paying no attention to the warning. "Wall says, brushing clothes, and setting tables for meals, and waiting on the other students at dinner, will be amongst the refreshing exercises. However it may be, my mind is made up to do. If they put me to black shoes, I shall only sing over it, and sit down to my studies with a better will when the shoes have come to an end."
William smiled. "Blacking shoes will be no new employment to you, Frank."
"No. And if ever I catch myself coveting the ease and dignity of the lordly hats, I shall just cast my thoughts back again to our early privations; to what my mother struggled through for us; and that will bring me down again. We owe all to her; and I hope she will owe something to us in the shape of comforts before she dies," warmly added Frank, the tears rising to his eyes.
"It is what I have hoped for years," replied William, in a low tone. "It is coming, Frank."
"Well, I think I do now see one step before me. You remember papa's dream, William?"
William simply bowed his head.
"Lately I have not even seen that step. Between ourselves, I was losing some of my hopefulness; and you know that is what I never lost, whatever the rest of you may have done."
"We none of us lost hope, Frank. It was hope that enabled us to bear on. You were over-sanguine."
"It comes to the same thing. The step I see before me now is to go to Oxford as a servitor. To St. John's if I can, for I should like to be with Wall. He is a good, plodding fellow, though I don't know that he is over-burthened with brains."
"Not with the quick brains of Frank Halliburton."
Frank laughed. "You know Perry, the minor canon? He also went to St. John's as a servitor. I shall get him to tell me----"
Frank stopped. The tongs had gone down with a clatter.
XVI. MRS. DARE'S GOVERNESS
"There's such a row at our place!" suddenly announced Cyril Dare, at the Pomeranian Knoll dinner-table, one Monday evening.
"What about?" asked Mr. Dare.
"Some money's missing. At least, a cheque; which amounts to the same thing."
"Not quite the same," dissented Mr. Dare. "Unless it has been cashed."
"I mean the same as regards noise," continued Cyril. "There's as much fuss being made over it as if it had been fourteen pounds' weight of solid gold. It was a cheque of Dunns'; and the master put it into his desk, or says he did so. When he came to look for it, it was gone."
"Who took it?" inquired Mr. Dare.
"Who's to know? That's what we want to find out."
"What was the amount?"
"Fourteen pounds, I say. A paltry sum. Ashley makes a boast, and says it's not the amount that bothers him, but the feeling that we must have some one false near us."
"Don't speak so slightingly of money," rebuked Mr. Dare. "Fourteen pounds are not so easily picked up that it should be pleasant to lose them."
"I'm sure I don't want to speak slightingly of money," returned Cyril, rebelliously. "You keep me too short, sir, for me not to know the full value of it. But fourteen pounds cannot be much of a loss to Mr. Ashley."
"If I keep you short, you have forced me to it by your extravagances--you and the rest of you," responded Mr. Dare, in short, emphatic tones.
An unpleasant pause ensued. When the father of a family intimates that his income is diminishing, it is not a welcome announcement. The young Dares had been obliged to hear it often lately. Adelaide broke the silence.
"How was the cheque taken?"
"It was a cheque brought by Dunns' people on Saturday night, in exchange for money, and the master placed it in his open desk in the counting-house," explained Cyril. "He went into Lynn's room to watch the packing, and was away an hour. When he returned, the cheque was gone."
"Who was in the counting-house?"
"Not a soul except Halliburton. He was there all the time."
"And no one else went in?" cried Mr. Dare.
"No one," replied Cyril, sending up his plate for more meat.
"Why, then, it would look as if Halliburton took it?" exclaimed Mr. Dare.
Cyril raised his eyebrows. "No one would venture to suggest as much in the hearing of the manufactory. It appears to be impressed with the opinion that Halliburton, like kings, can do no wrong."
"Mr. Ashley is so?"
"Mr. Ashley, and downwards."
"But, Cyril, if the facts are as you state, Halliburton must have been the one to take it," objected Mr. Dare. "Possibly the cheque may have been only mislaid?"
"The counting-house underwent a thorough search this morning, and every corner of the master's desk was turned out, but nothing came of it. Halliburton appears to be in a world of surprise as to where it can have gone; but he does not seem to glance at the fact that suspicion may attach to him."
"Of course Mr. Ashley intends to investigate it officially?" said Mr. Dare.
"He does not say," replied Cyril. "He had the two packers before him this morning separately, inquiring if they saw any one pass through the room to the counting-house on Saturday night. He also questioned me. We had none of us seen anything of the sort."
"Where were you at the time, Cyril?" eagerly questioned Mr. Dare.
Knowing what we know, it may seem a pointed question. It was not, however, so spoken. Mr. Dare would probably have suspected the whole manufactory before casting suspicion upon his son. The thought that really crossed his mind was, that if his son had happened to be in the way and had seen the thief, whoever he might be, steal into the counting-house, so that through him he might be discovered, it would have been a feather in Cyril's cap in the sight of Mr. Ashley. And to find favour with Mr. Ashley Mr. Dare considered ought to be the ruling aim of Cyril's life.
"I was away from it all, as it happened," said Cyril, in reply to the question. "Old Lynn nailed me on Saturday to help to pay the men. While the cheque was disappearing, I was at the delightful employment of counting coppers."
"Did one of the packers get in?"
"Impossible. They were under Mr. Ashley's eye the whole time."
"Look here, Cyril," interrupted Mrs. Dare, the first word she had spoken: "is it sure that that yea-and-nay Simon of a Quaker has not helped himself to it?"
Cyril burst into a laugh. "He is not a Simon in the manufactory, I can tell you, ma'am. He is too much of a martinet."
"Will Mr. Ashley be at the manufactory this evening, Cyril?" questioned Mr. Dare.
"You may as well ask me whether the moon will shine," was the response of Cyril. "Mr. Ashley comes sometimes in an evening; but we never know whether he will or not, beforehand."
"Because he may be glad of legal assistance," remarked Mr. Dare, who rarely failed to turn an eye to business.
You may remember the party that formerly sat round Mr. Dare's dinner-table on that day, some years ago, when Herbert was pleased to fancy that he fared badly, not appreciating the excellences of lamb. Two of that party were now absent from it--Julia Dare and Miss Benyon. Julia had married, and had left England with her husband; and Miss Benyon had been discarded for a more fashionable governess.
This fashionable governess now sat at the table. She was called Mademoiselle Varsini. You must not mistake her for a French woman; she was an Italian. She had been a great deal in France, and spoke the language as a native--indeed, it was more easy to her now than her childhood's tongue; and French was the language she was required to converse in with her pupils, Rosa and Minny Dare. English also she spoke fluently, but with a foreign accent.
She was peculiar looking. Her complexion was of pale olive, and her eyes were light blue. It is not often that light blue eyes are seen in conjunction with so dark a skin. Strange eyes they were--eyes that glistened as if they were made of glass; they had at times a hard, glazed appearance. Her black hair was drawn from her face and twisted into innumerable rolls at the back of her head. It was smooth and beautiful, as if a silken rope had been coiled there. Her lips were thin and compressed in a remarkable degree, which may have been supposed to indicate firmness of character. Tall, and full across the bust for her years, her figure would have been called a fine one. She wore a closely-fitting dress of some soft, dark material, with small embroidered cuffs and collar.
What were her years? She said twenty-five: but she might be taken for either older or younger. It is difficult to guess with certainty the age of an Italian woman. As a rule they look much older than English women; and, when they do begin to show age, they show it rapidly. Mr. Dare had never approved of the engagement of this foreign governess. Mrs. Dare had picked her up from an advertisement, and had persisted in engaging her, in spite of the written references being in French and that she could only read one word in ten of them. Mr. Dare's scruples were solely pecuniary. The salary was to be fifty pounds a year; exactly double the amount paid to Miss Benyon; and he had great expenses on him now. "What did the girls want with a fashionable foreign governess?" he asked. But he made no impression upon Mrs. Dare. The lady was engaged, and arrived in Helstonleigh: and Mr. Dare had declared, from that hour to this, that he could not make her out. He professed to be a great reader of the human face, and of human character.
"Has there been any attempt made to cash the cheque?" resumed Mr. Dare to Cyril.
"Ashley said nothing about that," replied Cyril. "It was lost after banking hours on Saturday night; therefore he would be sure to stop it at the bank before Monday morning. It is Ashley's loss; Dunns, of course, have nothing to do with it."
"It would be no difficult matter to change it in the town," remarked Anthony Dare. "Anyone would cash a cheque of Dunns': it is as good as a banknote."
Cyril lifted his shoulders. "The fellow had better not be caught at it, though."
"What would be the punishment in Angleterre for such a crime?" spoke up the governess.
"Transportation for a longer or a shorter period," replied Mr. Dare.
"What you would phrase aux galeres mademoiselle," struck in Herbert.
"Ah, ca!" responded mademoiselle.
As they called her "mademoiselle" we must do the same. There had been a discussion as to what she was to be called when she first came. Miss Varsini was not grand enough. Signora Varsini was not deemed familiar enough for daily use. Therefore "mademoiselle" was decided upon. It appeared to be all one to mademoiselle herself. She had been accustomed, she said, to be called mademoiselle in France.
Mr. Dare hurried over his dinner and his wine, and rose. He was going to find out Mr. Ashley. He was in hopes some professional business might arise to him in the investigation of the loss spoken of by Cyril. He was not a particularly covetous man, and had never been considered grasping, especially in business; but circumstances were rendering him so now. His general expenses were enormous--his sons contrived that their own expenses should be enormous; and Mr. Dare sometimes did not know which way to turn to meet them. Anthony drained him--it was Mr. Dare's own expression; Herbert drained him; Cyril wanted to drain him; George was working on for it. Small odds and ends arising in a lawyer's practice, that years ago Mr. Dare would scarcely have cared to trouble himself to undertake, were eagerly sought for by him now. He must work to live. It was not that his practice was a bad one; it was an excellent practice; but, do as Mr. Dare would, his expenses outran it.
He bent his steps to the manufactory. Had Mr. Ashley not been there, Mr. Dare would have gone on to his house. But Mr. Ashley was there. They were shut into the private room, and Mr. Ashley gave the particulars of the loss, more in detail than Cyril had given them.
"There is only one opinion to be formed," observed Mr. Dare. "Young Halliburton was the thief. The cheque could not go of itself; and no one else appears to have been near it."
In urging the case against William, Mr. Dare was influenced by no covert motive. He drew his inferences from the circumstances related to him, and spoke in accordance with them. The resentment he had once felt against the Halliburtons for coming to Helstonleigh (though the resentment was on Mrs. Dare's part rather than on his) had long since died away. They did not cross his path or he theirs; they did not presume upon the relationship; had not, so far as Mr. Dare knew, made it known abroad; therefore they were quite welcome to be in Helstonleigh for Mr. Dare. To do Mr. Dare justice, he was rather kindly disposed towards his fellow-creatures, unless self-interest carried him the other way. Cyril often amused himself at home by abusing William Halliburton: they were tolerable friends and companions when together, but Cyril could not overcome his feeling of dislike; a feeling to which jealousy was now added, for William found more favour with Mr. Ashley than he did. Cyril gave vent to his anger in explosions at home, and William was not spared in them: but Mr. Dare had learnt what his son's prejudices were worth.
"It must have been Halliburton," repeated Mr. Dare.
"No," replied Mr. Ashley. "There are four persons, of all those who were in my manufactory on Saturday night, for whom I will answer as confidently as I would for myself. James Meeking and George Dance are two. I believe them both to be honest as the day; and if additional confirmation that it was not they were necessary, neither of them stirred from beneath my own eye during the possible time of the loss. The other two are Samuel Lynn and William Halliburton. Samuel Lynn is above suspicion; and I have watched William grow up from boyhood--always upright, truthful and honourable; but more truthful, more honourable, year by year, as the years have passed."
"I dare say he is," acquiesced Mr. Dare. "Indeed, I like his look myself. There's something unusually frank about it. Of course you will have it officially investigated? I came down to offer you my services in the matter."
"You are very good," was the reply of Mr. Ashley. "Before entering farther into the affair, I must be fully convinced that the cheque's disappearance was not caused by myself. I----"
"By yourself?" interrupted Mr. Dare, in surprise.
"I do not think it was, mind; but there is a chance of it. I remember tearing up a paper or two after I received the cheque, and putting the pieces, as I believe, into the waste-paper basket. But I won't answer for it that I did not put them into the fire instead, as I passed it on my way to Mr. Lynn's room to call over the parcels bill."
"But you would not tear up the cheque?" cried Mr. Dare.
"Certainly not, intentionally. If I did it through carelessness, all I can say is, I have been very careless. No; I shall not stir in this matter for a day or two."
"But why wait?" asked Mr. Dare.
"If the cheque was stolen, it was probably changed somewhere in the town that same night; and this will soon be known. I shall wait."
Mr. Dare could not bring Mr. Ashley to a more business-like frame of mind. He left the manufactory, and went straight to the police-station, there to hold an interview with Mr. Sergeant Delves, a popular officer, with whom Mr. Dare had had dealings before. He stated the case to him, and desired Mr. Delves to ferret out what he could.
"Privately, you know, Delves," said he, winking at the sergeant, whom he held by the shoulder. "There's no doubt, in my opinion, that the cheque was changed that same night--probably at a public-house. Go to work sub rosa--you understand; and any information you may obtain bring quietly to me. Don't take it to Mr. Ashley."
"I understand," replied Sergeant Delves, a portly man with a padded breast and a red face, who, in his official costume, always looked as if he were choking. "I'll see to it."
And he did so; and very effectively.
XVII. TAKING AN ITALIAN LESSON
But the evening is not yet over at Pomeranian Knoll.
The dinner-table had broken up. Anthony Dare left the house soon after his father. Mrs. Dare turned to the fire for her after-dinner nap: the young ladies, Adelaide excepted, proceeded to the drawing-room. Adelaide Dare was thinner than formerly; and there was a worn, restless look upon her face, that told of care or of disappointment. She remained in her seat at the dessert-table, and, fencing herself round with a newspaper, lest Mrs. Dare's eyes should open, took a letter from her pocket and spread it on the table.
Viscount Hawkesley had never come forward to make her the Viscountess; but he had not given up his visits to Pomeranian Knoll, and Adelaide had never ceased hoping. It was one of his letters that she was poring over now. Two or three years ago she might have married well. A clergyman had desired to make her his wife. Adelaide declined. She had possibly her own private reasons for believing in the good faith of Lord Hawkesley. Adelaide Dare was not the first who has thrown away the substance to grasp the shadow.
Mademoiselle Varsini, on leaving the dinner-table, had gone up to the school-room. There she stirred the fire into a blaze, sat down in a chair, and bent her head in what seemed to be an attitude of listening.
She did not listen in vain. Soon, stealthy footsteps were heard ascending the stairs, and a streak of vermilion flashed into her olive cheek, and she pressed her hand upon her bosom, as if to still its beating. "Que je suis bete!" she murmured. French was far more familiar to her than her native tongue.
The footsteps proved to be those of Herbert Dare. A tall, handsome man now, better-looking than Anthony. He, Herbert, would have been very handsome indeed, but that his features were spoiled by the free expression they had worn in his youth--free as that which characterised the face of Mr. Dare. He was coming in to pay a visit to the governess. He paid her a good many visits: possibly thought it polite to do so. Some gentlemen are polite, and some are the contrary; some take every opportunity of improving their minds; some don't care whether they improve them or not. Herbert Dare we should place amidst the former: a thirst for foreign languages must, undoubtedly, be reckoned one of the desires for improvement. Minny Dare had one evening broken in upon a visit her brother was paying to mademoiselle, and she (very impertinently, it must be owned) inquired what he was doing there. "Taking an Italian lesson," Herbert answered, and he did not want Minny to bother him over it. Minny made a wry face at the books spread out between Herbert and mademoiselle, seated opposite each other at either end of the table, and withdrew with all speed lest the governess should press her to share in it. Minny did not like Italian lessons as much as Herbert appeared to do.
He came in with quiet footsteps, and the first thing he did was to--lock the door. The action may have been intended as a quiet reproof to Miss Minny: if so, it is a pity she was not there to profit by it.
"Have they asked for me in the salon?" began the governess.
"Not they," replied Herbert. "They are too much occupied with their own concerns."
"Herbert, why were you not here on Saturday night?" she asked.
"On Saturday night? Oh--I remember. I had to go out to keep an engagement."
"You might have spoken to me first, then," she answered resentfully. "Just one little word. I did come up here, and I waited--I waited! After the tea I came up, and I waited again. Ah! quelle patience!"
"Waited to give me my Italian lesson?"
Herbert Dare spoke in a voice of laughing raillery. The Italian girl did not seem inclined to laugh. She stood on one side the fire, and its blaze--it was the only light in the room--flickered on her compressed lips. More compressed than ever were they to-night.
"Now, what's the use of turning cross, Bianca?" continued Herbert, still laughing. "You are as exacting as if I paid you a guinea a lesson, and went upon a system of 'no lesson, no pay.' If----"
"Bah!" interrupted mademoiselle angrily: and it certainly was not respectful of Herbert, as pupil, to call her by her Christian name--if it was that which angered her. "I am getting nearly tired of it all."
"Tired of me! You might have a worse pupil----"
"Will you be quiet, then!" cried she, stamping her foot. "I am not inclined for folly to-night. You shall not say again you are coming here, if you don't come, mind, as you did on Saturday night."
"Well, I had an engagement, and I went straight off from the dinner-table to keep it," answered Herbert, becoming serious. "Upon my word of honour it was not my fault, Bianca; it was a business engagement. I had not time to come here before I went."
"Then you might have come when you returned," she said.
"Scarcely," replied he. "I was not home till two in the morning."
Bianca Varsini lifted her strange eyes to his. "Why tell me that?" she asked, her voice changing to one of mournful complaint. "I know you went out from dinner--I watched you out; and I saw you when you went out again. It was past ten. I saw you with my own eyes."
"You must have good eyes, Bianca. I went out from the dinner-table----"
"Not then--not then; I speak not of then," she vehemently interrupted. "You might have come here before you went out the second time."
"I declare I don't know what you mean," he said, staring at her. "I did not come in until two in the morning. It was past two."
"But I saw you," she persisted. "It was moonlight, and I saw you cross the lawn from the dining-room window, and go out. I was at this window, and I watched you go in the direction of the gate. It was long past ten."
"Bianca, you were dreaming! I was not near the house."
Again she stamped her foot. "Why you deceive me? Would I say I saw you if I did not?"
Herbert had once seen Bianca Varsini in a passion. He did not care to see her in one again. When he said that he had not come near the house, from the time of his leaving it on rising from dinner, until two in the morning, he had spoken the strict truth. What the Italian girl was driving at, he could not imagine: but he deemed it as well to drop the subject.
"You are a folle, Bianca, as you often call yourself," said he jestingly, taking her hands. "You go into a temper for nothing. I'd get rid of that haste, if I were you."
"It was my mother's temper," she answered, drawing her hands away and letting them fall by her side. "Do you know what she once did! She spit in the face of the Archeveque of Paris!"
"She was a lady!" cried Herbert ironically. "How was that?"
"He offended her. He was passing her in procession at the Fete Dieu, and he said something reproachful to her, and it put her in a temper, and she spit at him! She could do worse than that if she liked! She could have died for those who were kind to her; but let them offend her--je les en fais mes compliments!"
"I say, mademoiselle, who was your mother?"
"Never you mind! She was on the stage; not what you English call good. But she was good to me; and she wished me to be what she was not. When I was twelve she put me into a convent. La maudite place!"
Herbert laughed. He knew enough of French to understand the expression.
"It was maudite to me. I must not dance; I must not sing; I must not have my liberty to do the simplest thing on earth. I must be up in the morning to prayers; and then at my lessons all day; and then at prayers again. I did pray. I did pray to the Virgin to take me from it. I nearly prayed my heart out--and she never heard me! I had been there a year--figure to yourself, a year!--when my mother came to see me. She had been back in Italy. 'Take me away,' I said to her, 'before I die!' 'No, Bianca mia,' she answered, 'I leave you here that you may not die; that your life may be happier than mine is, for mine is the vraie misere.' I not tell you in Italian, as she spoke, for you not understand it," rapidly interrupted mademoiselle. "My mother, she continued to me: 'When you are instructed, you shall become a gouvernante in a family of the noblesse; you shall consort with the princes without shame; and perhaps you will make a good parti in marriage. Though you have no fortune, you will be accomplished; you will have the maniere and the tournure; you will be belle.' Do you think me belle?" she abruptly broke off again.
"Enchanting!" answered Herbert. "Have I not told you so five hundred times?"
She stole a glance at the little old-fashioned oval glass which hung over the mantel-piece, and then went on.
"My mother would not take me out. Though I lay on the flagstones of the visitors' parlour, though I wept for it, she would not take me out. 'It is for your good, Bianca mia,' she said. And I remained there seven years. Seven years! Do you figure it?"
"But I suppose you grew reconciled?"
"We grow reconciled to the worst in time," she answered, dreamily gazing into the fire with her strange eyes. "I pressed down my despair into myself at first, and I looked out for the opportunity to run away. We were as closely kept as the nuns in their cells, in their barred rooms, in their grated chapel; but, sooner than not have had my will and get away, I would have set the place on fire!"
"I say, mademoiselle, don't you talk treason!" cried Herbert, laughing.
"Do you think I would not?" she answered, turning to him, a gleaming look in her eyes. "But I had to wait for the opportunity to escape; and, while I waited, news came that my mother had died. She caught cold one night when she was in her evening robe, and it settled in her throat, and formed a depot, and she died. And so it was all over with my escape! My mother gone, I had nowhere to fly to. And I stopped in that enfer seven years."
"You are complimentary to convents, Bianca. Maudite in one breath, enfer in another!"
"They are all that, and worse!" intemperately responded the Italian girl. "They are--mais n'importe; c'est fini pour moi. I had to beat down my heart then, and stop in one. Ah! I know not how I did it. I look back and wonder. Seven years!"
"But who paid for you all that time?"
"My mother was not poor. She had enough for that. She made the arrangements with a priest when she was dying, and paid the money to him. The convent educated me, and dressed me, and made me hard. Their cold rules beat down my rebellious heart; beat it down to hardness. I should not have been so hard but for that convent!"
"Oh, you are hard, then?" was the remark of Herbert Dare.
"I can be!" nodded Mademoiselle Varsini. "Better not cross me!"
"And how did you get out of the convent?"
"When I was nineteen, they sent me out into a situation, to teach music and my own language, and French and English. They taught well in the convent: I could speak English then as readily as I speak it now: and they gave me a box of clothes and four five-franc pieces, saying that was the last of my mother's effects. What cared I? Had they turned me out penniless, I should have jumped to go. I served in that first situation two years. It was easy, and it was good pay."
"French people?"
"But certainly: Parisians. It was not more than one mile from the convent. There was but one little pupil."
"Why did you leave?"
"I was put into a passion one day, and madame said after that she was frightened to keep me. Ah! I have had adventures, I can tell you. In the next place I did not stay three months; the ennui came to me, and I left it for another that I found; and the other one I liked--I had my liberty. I should have stayed in that, but one came and turned me out of it."
"A fresh governess?"
"No; a man. A hideous. He was madame's brother, and he was wrinkled and yellow, and his long skinny fingers were like claws. He wanted me to marry him; he said he was rich. Sell myself to that monster? No!--continue a governess, rather. One evening madame and my two pupils had gone to the Odeon, and he came to the little etude where I sat. He locked the door, and said he would not unlock it till I gave him a promise to be his wife. I stormed, and I stormed: he tried to take my hand, the imbecile! He laughed at me, and said I was caged----"
"Why did you not ring the bell?" interrupted Herbert.
"Bon! Do we have bells in every room in the old Parisian houses? I would have pulled open the window, but he stood against the fastening, laughing still; so I dashed my hand through a pane, and the glass clattered down to the court below, and the servants came out to look up. 'I cannot undo the etude door,' I called to them; 'come and break it open!' So that hideous undid it then, and the servants got some water and bathed my hand. 'But why need the signora have put her hand through the glass? Why not have opened the window?' said one. 'What is that to you?' I said. 'You will not have to pay for it. Bind my hand up.' They wrapped it in a handkerchief, and I put on my bonnet and cloak, and went out. Madeleine--she was the cook, and a good old soul--saw me. 'But where is the signorina going so late as this?' she asked. 'Where should I be going, but to the pharmacien's?' I answered; and I went my way."
"We say chemist's in England," observed Herbert. "Did he find your hand much damaged?"
"I did not go there. Think you I made attention to my hand? I went to the--what you call it?--cutler's shops, through the Rue Montmartre, and I bought a two-edged stiletto. It was that long"--pointing from her wrist to the end of her finger--"besides the handle. I showed it to that hideous the next day. 'You come to the room where I sit again,' I said to him, 'and you will see.' He told madame his sister, and she said I must leave."
Herbert Dare looked at her--at her pale face, which had gone white in the telling, her glistening, stony eyes, her drawn lips. "You would not have dared to use the stiletto, though!" he cried, in some wonder.
"I not dare! You do not know me. When I am roused, there's not a thing I would not dare to do. I am not ruffled at trifles: things that excite others do not trouble me. 'Bah! What matter trifles?' I say. My mother always told me to let the evil spirit lie torpid within me, or I should not die in my bed."
"I say," cried Herbert, half mockingly, "what religion do you call yourself?"
She took the question literally. "I am a Catholic or Protestant as is agreeable to my places," was the very candid answer. "I am not a devote--a saint. Where's the use of it?"
"That is why you generally have those violent headaches on Sunday," said Herbert Dare, laughing. "You ought----"
There was an interruption. Rosa Dare's footsteps were heard on the stairs, and they halted at the door.
"Mademoiselle!" she called out.
Mademoiselle did not answer. Herbert Dare flung his handkerchief over the handle of the door in a manner that hid the key-hole. Rosa Dare tried the door, found it fastened, and went off grumbling.
"It's my belief mademoiselle locks herself in there to get a nap after dinner, as mamma does in the dining-room!"
She was heard to enter the drawing-room and slam the door. Herbert softly opened that of the school-room, and went down after his sister.
"I say, Herbert," cried Rosa, when he entered, "have you seen anything of mademoiselle?"
"I!" responded Herbert. "Do you think I keep mademoiselle in my pocket?"
"She goes and locks herself up in the school-room after dinner, and I can't think what she does there, or what she can be at," retorted Rosa.
"At her devotions, perhaps," suggested Herbert.
The words did not please Mrs. Dare, who had then joined the circle. "Herbert, I will not have Mademoiselle Varsini ridiculed," she said quite sternly. "She is a most efficient instructress for Rosa and Minny, and we must be careful not to give her offence, or she might leave."
"I'm sure I have heard of foreign women telling their beads till cock-crowing," persisted Herbert.
"Those are Roman Catholics. A Protestant, as is Mademoiselle Varsini----"
Mrs. Dare's angry words were cut short by the appearance of Mademoiselle Varsini herself. She, the governess, turned to Rosa. "What did you want just now when you came to the school-room door?"
"I wanted you here to show me that filet stitch," answered Rosa, slight impertinence peeping out in her tone. "And I don't see why you should not answer when I knock, mademoiselle."
"It may not always suit me to answer," was the calm reply of the governess. "My time is my own after dinner; and Madame Dare will agree with me that a governess should hold full control over her school-room."
"You are perfectly right, mademoiselle," acquiesced Mrs. Dare.
Mademoiselle went to the piano and dashed off a symphony. She was a brilliant player. Herbert, looking at his watch, and finding it later than he thought, hurried from the house.
XVIII. A VISION IN HONEY FAIR
The surmise that the missing cheque had been changed into good money on the Saturday night, proved to be correct. White, the butcher at the corner of the shambles, had given change for it, and locked up the cheque in the cash-box. Had he paid it into the bank on Monday, he would have found what it was worth. But he did not do so. Mr. White was a fat man with a good-humoured countenance and black hair. Sergeant Delves proceeded to his house some time on the Tuesday.
"I hear you cashed a cheque of the Messrs. Dunn on Saturday night," began he. "Who brought it to you?"
"Ah, what about that cheque?" returned the butcher. "One of your men has been in here, asking a lot of questions."
"A good deal about it," said the sergeant. "It was stolen from Mr. Ashley."
"Stolen from Mr. Ashley!" echoed the butcher, staring at Sergeant Delves.
"Stolen out of his desk. And you stand a nice chance, White, of losing the money. You should be more cautious. Who was it brought it here?"
"A gentleman. A respectable man, at any rate. Who says it's stolen?"
"I do," replied the sergeant, sitting himself down on the meat-block--rather a damp seat from its just having been washed with hot water. Delves liked to make himself familiar with his old friends in Helstonleigh in a patronising manner; it was only lately he had been promoted to sergeant. "Now! let's have the particulars, White."
"I had just shut up my shop, all but the door, when in come a gentleman in a cloak and cap. 'Could you oblige the Messrs. Dunn with change for a cheque, Mr. White?' says he, handing a cheque to me. 'Yes, sir,' said I, 'I can; very happy to oblige 'em. Would you like it in gold?' Well, he said he would like it in gold, and I gave it to him. 'Thank ye,' said he; 'I'd have got it nearer if I could, for I'm troubled to death with tooth-ache; but people are shut up:' and I noticed that he had kept his white handkerchief up to his mouth and nose. He went out with the gold, and I put up the cheque. And that's all I know about it, Delves."
"Don't you know who it was?"
"No, I don't. He had a cap on, with the ears coming down his cheeks; and, what with that, and the peak over his eyes, and the white handkerchief held up to his nose, I didn't so much as get a sight of his face. The shop was pretty near dark, too, for the gas was out. There was only a candle at the pay window."
"If a man came in disguised like that, asking to have a cheque changed into gold, it might have occurred to some tradesmen there'd be something wrong about it," cried the sergeant.
"I didn't know he was disguised," objected the butcher. "I saw it was a good cheque of the Messrs. Dunn, and I never gave a thought to anything else. I've had their cheques before to-day. Mr. William Dunn has dealt here this twenty year. But now that it's put into my head, I begin to think he was disguised," continued the butcher. "His voice was odd, thick and low, and he spoke as if he had plums in his mouth."
"Should you know him again?"
"Ay. That is if he came in dressed as he was then. I'd know the cloak out of a hundred. It was one of them old-fashioned plaid rockelows."
"Roquelaures," corrected the sergeant.
"Something of that. The collar was lined with red, with a little edge of fur on it. There's a few such shaped cloaks in the town now, made of blue serge or cloth."
"What time was it?" asked the sergeant.
"Just eleven. I was shutting up."
Sergeant Delves took possession of the cheque and proceeded to the office of Mr. Dare. A long conference ensued, and then they went out together towards Mr. Ashley's manufactory. On the road they happened to meet Cyril, and Mr. Dare drew him aside.
"Do you happen to know any one who wears an old-fashioned plaid cloak?" he asked.
"Halliburton wears one," replied Cyril: "the greatest object of a thing you ever saw. I say," continued Cyril, "what's old Delves doing with you?"
"Not much," carelessly said Mr. Dare. "He has been looking after a little private business for me."
"Oh, is that all?" and Cyril, feeling reassured, tore off on the errand he was bound for. For reasons best known to himself, it would not have pleased him that Sergeant Delves should be pressed into the affair of the cheque. At least, Cyril would have preferred that the matter should be allowed to rest.
He executed his commission, one that he had been charged with by Samuel Lynn, turned back, passed the manufactory, and took his way to Honey Fair on a little matter of his own. It was only the purchase of a dog--not to make a mystery of it. A dog that had taken Cyril's fancy, and for which he and the owner had not yet been able to come to terms. So he was going up again to try his powers of persuasion.
As he walked rapidly through Honey Fair, he saw a little bit of by-play on the opposite side. A young woman in a tattered gown, and a dirty bonnet drawn over her face, was walking along as rapidly as he. Her bent head, her humble attitude, her shrinking air, her haste to get out of sight of others, all betrayed that she, from some cause or other, was not in good odour with the world around. That she felt herself under a cloud, was only too apparent: it was a cloud of humiliation, for which she had only herself to thank. The women who met her hurried past with a toss of the head and then stood to peep after her as she disappeared in the distance.
She hurried--hurried past them--glad, it seemed, to be away from their stern looks and condemning eyes. Had you seen her, you would never have recognised her. In the dim eye, darker than of yore, the white cheek, the wasted form, no likeness remained of the once-blooming Caroline Mason.
Just as she passed opposite to Cyril, Eliza Tyrrett came out of a house and met her; and Eliza, picking up her skirts, lest they should become contaminated, swept past with a sidelong glance of reproach and a scornful gesture. Caroline's head only bent the lower as she glided away from her old companion.
It had been just as well that Charlotte East had not sent back that bundle, years ago, to surprise Anthony Dare. It was years now since Charlotte herself had come to the same conclusion.