The Executor: a novel

Chapter I

The young ladies of the Misses Boaden's establishment, Elmwood House, Forest Hill, had dispersed for the hour of recreation permitted on summer evenings. A couple strolled to and fro with linked arms in deepest conversation ; one of somewhat heavy aspect sat under a lilac bush laboriously conning a lesson. The rest were playing croquet (lawn tennis was in its infancy as yet) on a tolerably large space of grass in which the garden termi nated, and which was mentioned in the Misses Boaden's prospectus as 'The Grounds.' The players, however, were evidently knocking the balls about in a purposeless manner, and had not settled to a regular game, while a running fire of conjecture and question ran from mouth to mouth. 'Where is Stasie?' 'Isn't Stasie Verner coming?' ' Oh, she will not be long ! ' ' She is writing letters, I think.' ' What a shame, when she promised to be my partner !' 'Run, Dolly, and ask if she is coming.' ' No, I won't !

There she is looking out of the window : call to her.' Chorus — ' Now you know Miss Amelia will not let us shout' Vigorous dumb show, waving of hands and beckoning, answered by a serious shake of the head, conveying decided refusal. Stasie Verner — now kneeling before the window of her bedroom, her elbows resting on the low sill, while she gazed dreamily out over the garden — a discontented, even sad look darkening her young face — was the leading spirit of the school : first, she was the eldest, except the pupil teacher, Ella Mathews ; secondly, she was of a bold and daring disposition, disposed to take full advantage of any superiority nature might have allotted her ; thirdly, she had a remarkably sharp tongue ; and finally, though her means were limited, she had a certain munificence of nature, that recommended her more to her companions than to her teachers.

A tap on the door roused her from her thoughts or dreams some minutes after she had shaken her head in token of refusing her schoolfellows' invitation ; she rose slowly and stood still for a moment before uttering, not too amiably, 'Come in.' A tall and already developed figure, upright and well rounded, a careless stateliness (if such a contradiction can be combined) in her carriage and the pose of her head, a confusion of very fair disordered hair, and a face too pale perhaps, though the skin vvas soft and creamy, broad browed, and narrowing to a delicate chin, lit up by a pair of eyes, uncertain as to colour, but dark compared to her hair and complexion, as were also the brows and lashes. Her expression was for the moment un mistakably impatient, not to say angry. The door opened to admit a small slight girl, plain but pleasant looking, and exceedingly neat of aspect ' Well ! what is it, Ella ?

Am I never to have a minute's peace to think my own thoughts ? I tell you I will not go out to play croquet or any thing else ! it is too hot and too tiresome ! ' cried Stasie Verner. ' I have not come to ask you,' returned the other calmly, as she closed the door and advanced into the room. ' The postman has brought you this letter, and one to me. Will you permit me to stay and read it?' this with a tone of mock entreaty. ' A letter ! Oh, thank you, dear ! Even a letter is a blessed break, though I have no correspondents I care for;' and she opened it with some eagerness, while her friend, drawing a chair to the window, proceeded to peruse hers, deliberately and attentively. 'Come,' said Stasie, her brow clearing, her eyes lighting up, ' this is not so bad. It is an invitation from Mrs. Harding to go to them on Friday, and stay for a few days ; they hope to have a box to see Jeafferson in Rip Van Winkle.

Isn't that perfectly delicious ? I know every word of the story, and I have so longed to see it acted.' ' Yes, I am glad ; I wish I could go too ! ' with a little sigh. ' So do I,' cried Stasie heartily. ' What can I wear, Ella ? I have nothing fit to be seen, and I am sick of rusty black ; I really must insist on buying some new clothes while I am at the Hardings'.' Miss Mathews did not answer, and seemed absorbed in her letter. 'What have you got?' said Stasie, squeezing herself on to the same chair with her friend. 'Nothing very good,' she returned slowly, folding up her letter ; ' I am afraid Bob has been getting into some scrape again, though mother does not exactly say so, and she has not been very well herself, poor dear ! The vicar has been asking about me ; it seems he knows an old lady vvho wants an accomplished young one as companion, etc. etc.

Alas ! my accomplishments are few and far between.' ' But, Ella, you must not leave while I am here. Why, what would become of me? I should either mope to death, or quarrel vvith every creature, and be expelled as a nuisance !' ' " There is many a slip,'" quoted Ella, 'and I fear there is no such good luck as an engagement in store for me, though I am fitter for some such nondescript employment than to teach.' • ' You can teach very well, if you only knew the things to teach,' said Stasie reflectively. ' How I wish they vvould let me go back and live with your mother, Ella ! Yours is the only home I ever knew ! and then I might be a help, for I know I have some money — perhaps not much, but something I can call my own.' ' Not till you are one-and-twenty. You may be sure Mr. Harding and the other executor will keep you tight enough while they can.' ' I am not sure of anything,' returned Stasie impatiently; ' Mr. Harding is always so pleasant and good-natured when I am with him that I think he will do everything I want ; and yet I never advance a step towards emancipation.

Why, next month I shall be eighteen ! and I have seen nothing — I know nothing. I can't help being a big baby ! It vvould be almost better to have been shut up in a convent ; there is some sort of romance, something distingue, about such seclusion ; but a second-rate school in Forest Hill, vvith Saturday afternoons at the Crystal Palace, is the very essence of commonplace.' ' But, Stasie, you are really not so badly informed, as girls go.' ' Bah ! I am utterly ignorant ; and I should be ignorant if I had taken honours in every University Exam. Can books teach me how to talk? how to eat, sit, stand, and comport myself like people in society ? I shall never forget the only day I spent at my guardian's house. Every thing was so strange, I felt afraid to speak ; I could not shape my sentences in the light, droll, pleasant way the rest spoke.

I was afraid to choose any of the dishes that were offered at luncheon, lest I should make a mistake in the manner of eating them. I felt stiff and awkward when I moved compared to the quiet easy manners of the other ladies ; and though Lady Elizabeth was very kind, she altered her tone in some indefinable way whenever she ad dressed me, as if I were a half-reclaimed savage, to be dealt vvith carefully and indulgently. Oh, I cannot tell you the curious dread and longing I have to try another plunge into a life so different from all I have known, and yet ' she stopped abruptly. ' I think, Stasie, you are too ambitious and discontented,' said her friend gravely. ' Just think what it is to be certain of one's future — to have enough; I don't mean for the pleasure of being idle, but to be sure of food and raiment and lodging, and be free to work at what you like best, without anxiety about any one.' ' That's just it !' cried Stasie, jumping up to walk to and fro. ' I have no one in the world to care about, which is as bad as having no one to care for me.' 'No one, Stasie?' a little reproachfully. ' I do love you, Ella, and I am fond of your dear mother ; but then I do not belong to you nor you to me ; yet I w*ould rather go and live with you — your people, I mean — at Islington, dull and slow as it is, than stay here or any where.

Still I like some of the lessons very much, though I am not what you call intellectual. At any rate, I am sick of being shut up, and I intend to make a strong effort to escape when the other executor comes to England, and he must be here soon. He will help me, I am sure.' ' I hope so. Now, had you not better sit down and answ*er Mrs. Harding's invitation, while I write a line to my mother?' ' I will, but there is plenty of time before prayers.' Nevertheless Miss Verner began to clear away the look ing-glass from her small dressing-table, setting forth upon it a shabby little writing-case and much-besprinkled ink bottle, and applied herself to the composition of a some what gushing acceptance. Stasie, or according to her high-flown baptismal name, Anastasia Verner, was the daughter of a well-born but ex ceedingly unsuccessful younger son, who, after many follies and failures, had made a love match, and, dying, left his widow an empty exchequer, a formidable amount of small debts, and a pretty fair-haired baby girl.

The poor young mother was brave, self-helpful, and utterly devoted to her child, but her strength was undermined by grief and anxiety, and so overweighted in the struggle for existence. Accident threw her into an evangelical circle, through the kind notice of the clergyman whose church she attended, and whose assistance she asked in her search for pupils. At the parsonage she met an elderly Syrian gentleman, who was for the time being a prime favourite with the Exeter Hall faction, and had brought a parcel and an introductory letter from a gifted missionary, then working amid the Jews scattered throughout Turkish Arabia, to the busy incum bent of an obscure north-west district. But neither time, nor scorching heat, nor money making, nor consular cares (Christian Kharapet, Esq., as he loved to call himself, was British Consul at Mardin, a town that had lately come into notice because of the mighty ruins discovered in its vicinity) — none of these had so exhausted his system or dulled his sight as to render him regardless or indifferent to the pen sive delicate grace of the young widow.

His fancy was pleased, and although she had neither money nor position, she stood well with many influential members of the party that petted and pushed him on the road to fortune. He felt he should do himself no harm by a disinterested marriage ; so he offered a safe home, and promised kindly companionship to the widow, and further baited his hook by undertaking to settle on her precious little daughter a sum sufficient to ensure the child against poverty. Conscious of her own physical inability to protect or provide for her child, and vaguely hoping that rest and a genial climate might prolong her days until Stasie was old enough to take care of herself, Mrs. Verner accepted the old man's offer, and went away with him to his Eastern home, taking Stasie, then about a year old, vvith her. Whether the poor young widow found the repose and security she hoped for, or withered under the influence of a life so unsuited to European habits and training, God only knows, but she did not survive her ill-assorted marriage two years.

Her elderly husband bitterly mourned her loss, and transferred all his affections to his wife's little girl, who developed into the spoilt pet, the diminutive tyrant of the Consulate. When about six years old, however, she began to droop, her stepfather vvas terrified. He would even have paid large sums out of his painfully-gathered and rigidly guarded hoard to restore his darling to her natural strength and vivacity, but where was he to find help ? In his ex tremity he summoned what native skill was within reach, but in vain ! At this juncture the missionary whose introduction had led to the establishment of little Stasie as queen of the Consulate, made his appearance at Mardin, on his homeward journey, having been successful in his labours, and being recalled to report them by the society he repre sented.

Kharapet received him with embraces and tears of joy. Here was a counsellor, a comforter, a saviour ! His advice was clear and short. ' You must send the child to England at once,' he said ; ' she simply wants a European climate : she will die here.' ' And what is to become of me without her ? ' groaned Kharapet ' Better part with her for a few years than lose her alto gether,' returned Mr. Mathews, the missionary. ' After a few years you must pay another visit to London, and then she can return here with you, and be your companion for the rest of your days.' ' Oh, the dreary years — the dreary years ! ' ' They will soon pass,' said the missionary consolingly. ' Let her come home with me. Mrs. Mathews will take charge of her, and bring her up with our own dear ones in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, so that hereafter she may be a help to you in your favourite scheme of drawing nearer together the Nestorian and the English churches.' This project found favour in the eyes of the afflicted Consul, and after a keen encounter as to the terms to be given and received for the little invalid's education and maintenance, Stasie Verner, attended by a Chaldean nurse, started for Alexandretta, on her westward journey.

Arrived at the residence of the missionary's family, Stasie soon became one of them, and one of the noisiest. Here she was happy enough. Mrs. Mathews was no strong minded disciplinarian, but she was kindly, honest, well meaning, and not unjust. She kissed and cuffed the little stranger as she did her own children ; scolded or cried over them all according to the temper of the moment ; and the household scrambled on, not unhappily or uncomfortably — the girls getting what instruction they could at a neighbouring day-school, and occasional treats, wildly en joyed, to the Crystal Palace or to Richmond, as the finances permitted. Mrs. Mathews managed as best she could for her little protegee ; the payments made on her account seemed far from munificent, but what cash passed through her reverend husband's clutches she neither asked nor knew.

When Stasie was about eleven, her stepfather was obliged, by public and private business, to visit London — an ecstatic period for his adopted daughter, who enjoyed unlimited indulgence, and received unbounded promises of Arab steeds, jewels, attendants, and Heaven knows what, when she should resume her sway at Mardin. The old gentleman was delighted by her progress, mental and physical, and agreed readily enough to her remaining three or four years longer. These years brought many changes. First, the mis sionary succumbed to fever ; this brought a serious diminu tion of means to the family, though the good man had not been improvident, and had managed to store up some small provision for wife and children. Stasie continued to reside vvith them, the money paid on her account forming an important item in the family budget.

Then one of the boys got an appointment abroad, and so much was lifted from the widow's burden. The eldest girl, Ella — Stasie's special friend — had begun to pine for greater educational advantages, that she might fit herself for self-support. Even Stasie, the idlest of the young group, most given to dreaming, and finding nearly pleasure enough in the harmony of mere healthy existence, nearly excitement enough in games of cricket and battledore and shuttlecock, played in a large back-garden with vvhich the old-fashioned Islington house was blessed, began to think she ought to do something, she knew not what. She vvas always at the bottom of her class, always under punishment for neglected lessons, always the despair of her teachers, yet a bit of a favourite, for if she was saucy one hour she was kindly and helpful the next.

Nor could she be considered quite ignorant. At times she was seized with a passion for reading story-books and a battered cheap edition of Shakespeare, that she had unearthed from be hind a row of religious books in a nondescript apartment dignified by the name of ' the Study,' as also some stray volumes of Bulwer Lytton's, which latter did much to rouse her desire for knowledge. After reading Zanoni, she made up her mind to master the doctrines and tenets of the Rosicrucians when she returned to Syria, never doubting that she should there find some venerable mysterious priest who pursued profound scientific and astronomical researches under the deep blue of Eastern skies ; but in the meantime she could not bend her mind to the low and narrow limits of spelling, grammar, geography, and the multiplication table !

In vvhich latter little Polly, the baby of the family, could beat her hollow. While the months and years rippled by, scarce marked by any incident, Stasie began slowly to think of her return to Mardin, and even of progress in her Rosicrucian studies, with less of unmixed pleasure. She had grown warmly attached to Ella, and even felt a sort of half-con temptuous liking for Bob, the second boy, destined for the medical profession ; besides, the aforesaid Bob had, to his mother's horror, made some delightful theatrical acquaintances, and occasionally received from them orders, which enabled him to treat his sister and Stasie to ecstatic glimpses of dramatic delight. This was a joy she (Stasie) could not expect to find at Mardin, and for vvhich j the Arab steeds, the jewels, cloth of gold, salaaming attendants, and Rosi crucian priests would be but a poor exchange.

The period of trial and of separation was near at hand, and Stasie's courage had sunk lower and lower, when one day towards the close of February the startling news reached Mr. Kharapet's London agent and personal friend, Mr. Harding (of J. Harding and Co.), that H.B.M.'s Consul at Mardin had died suddenly, after a bath injudiciously taken immediately on his return from a long and fatiguing ride. These tidings changed the aspect of Stasie Verner's life. She had now no home, and belonged to no one. Her father's people had simply disregarded her completely, and of her mother's, only an elderly lady, Miss Stretton, a grand aunt, had ever taken the slightest notice of her. Stasie was deeply and sincerely affected when Mr. Harding himself announced the loss of her only friend and protector. This gentleman was not quite a stranger to her.

From him Mrs. Mathews received the quarterly payments on account of her young protegee. He even visited the Islington residence at rare intervals, and held private inter views with the young lady, on whom he made a very favourable impression by the frank kindly bonho?nie of his questions and friendly interest he seemed to take in her. She had spent a day occasionally at his handsome house near Regent's Park, where she had enjoyed herself in a spacious nursery with some pretty children, and been taken to drive in the Park by Mrs. Harding, a soft-mannered, dark-eyed little woman. ' Your stepfather has not left you unprovided for,' said Mr. Harding, after a pause, to allow the freshly-orphaned girl's tears unchecked course; 'and I suppose that is all you care to know* of such matters. I am one of the executors, and I am sure I need not say that I shall take particular care of your interests in every way.

My co-executor is Hormuz Kharapet, your stepfather's half-brother. I daresay you have never seen him. He lived chiefly at Bombay, where I knew him ; but he is now at Mardin. Poor Kharapet, rather unnecessarily, I think, has appointed, in addition to executors, a guardian, Mr. Percy WTyatt, who travelled in the East some years ago. Can you remember him ? I think he must have been at Mardin before you came to England.' ' My memory of everything at Mardin is very shadowy,' returned Stasie, drying her tears, and trying to steady her voice. ' I vaguely remember some strange gentleman who used to take me on his knee and tell me stories, but it is like a dream.' ' I daresay it was Wyatt, just the sort of thing he would do ! Well, he is away in Rome at present, and we can make no sort of change till he returns.

I will not keep you any longer, my dear, for I have not much time, and I must have a talk with Mrs. Mathews. My wife shall come and see you in a day or two. You will always find us true friends.' Stasie could only give him her hand in silence, and then escaped, to pour out her thoughts, her mingled grief and sense of isolation, to Ella, her most sympathetic confidante. Meantime Mr. Harding, with much civility, laid the state of Stasie's affairs before Mrs. Mathews, who gathered from his exposition that Kharapet had on his last visit to London made a will, bequeathing all he possessed to his step daughter, — that was now nearly three years ago, — and it remained to be proved whether he had since made another; also to ascertain what amount of property he had left, respecting which Mr. Harding had no certain knowledge.

In any case, he felt sure that Stasie would not be left penniless, and that for the present Mrs. Mathews might venture to keep Miss Verner as an inmate, without risk of loss. When Mr. Percy Wyatt returned it was impossible to say what changes might take place, for which he (Mr. Harding) would be in no way responsible. Indeed, he believed a politician like Wyatt, and a woman of fashion like his wife, Lady Elizabeth, would take very little trouble about an obscure ward. Mr. Harding even doubted that Mr. Wyatt would accept the responsibility. To this Mrs. Mathews answered, with moist eyes, that with all her faults Stasie vvas like one of her own children to her, that she would miss her as much as any one of them, and that she was welcome to a home with her (Mrs. Mathews) until she vvas able to help herself, if indeed it were possible that a true Christian, as Mr. Kharapet seemed to be, could have the cruelty to leave Stasie penniless by any subsequent will.

So the matter remained for many months, during which the young orphan heard little or nothing of her own affairs, and continued to lead the same life as heretofore, broken by rare visits to Mrs. Harding, who was always kind and pleasant. The only distinct information which reached her goodnatured protectress was conveyed by a message given as Mr. Harding was bidding Stasie good-bye one Sunday evening, when she was starting on her return home after passing the day at his house. 'TeU Mrs. Mathews, Stasie, that the will is all right, and you are properly provided for;' on receiving w*hich Mrs. Mathews observed, ' Thank the Lord ! for though one ought to have faith, it is hard to sit loose to this world vvith an empty pocket' The arrival of ' Mr. O. Percy and Lady Elizabeth Wyatt, from a prolonged visit to the Continent,' — as announced in the Morning Post, soon after Christmas, made a great change in Stasie Verner's existence.

She was formally introduced to her guardian at his own residence, whither she was taken by Mrs. Harding. He asked her a few questions politely but vaguely, apologised for the absence of Lady Elizabeth, who was not able to come up to town just yet, expressed his readiness to be of service to her in any way, and then bowed them out. Soon after this interview poor Stasie was informed of the terrible decision arrived at by executors and guardian — to remove her to a 'high-class boarding-school,' the choice of which Mr. Wyatt was graciously pleased to say could not be in better hands than those of Mrs. Harding. In due course and with many tears Stasie's rather limited outfit was prepared, and she was deposited with those excellent ladies ' the Misses Boaden.' But compensations sometimes come when least expected.

Mrs. Mathews, vvith all her good nature, was generally on the look-out for chances, and finding there was room in Miss Boaden's establishment for a pupil-teacher, succeeded in placing her eldest daughter Ella there, to the infinite comfort of her friend and confidante. Time rolled on swiftly and silently in the monotony of school life ; Ella had already passed her nineteenth, while Stasie was approaching her eighteenth year, at the time this story opens, when the period of stillness and inactivity for the latter was in its last moments, and a total change was close at hand.

Chapter II

Stasie had finished her note long before her friend ceased to write rapidly, and she still sat on, gazing at Ella without seeing her, while her thoughts strayed away to the dim distant past of her childhood in her stepfather's Syrian home, the half-forgotten realities of vvhich were largely supple mented by a lively imagination, influenced no doubt by as extensive reading as her means permitted, on Eastern subjects. She was impatient for the arrival of the other executor, from whose interference on her behalf she ex pected so much, albeit she did not very clearly know what she wanted. Her leading idea was to leave school, to travel in Italy or Germany, or to return to the only home she had ever known. Latterly she had troubled herself more than she used as to her own future, as to whether the property bequeathed her was mere competence or wealth ; on this point she had, on one or two of the rare occasions when she saw him, essayed to extract some distinct information from Mr. Harding, but in vain.

A friendly pat on the shoulder, a laughing assurance ' that she need not disturb herself,' ' that she would always have cheese to her bread,' was all her acting guardian deigned to say, so she was obliged to fall back on con jecture. She had grown weary and indignant at the prolonged imprisonment to which she was subjected, now that she felt herself a woman, and fancied she was equal to guide her own steps. To be shut up with children and half formed ignorant girls, by no means of the class that might be expected at an establishment of the pretensions affected by the Misses Boaden, was too bad ! for Stasie Verner, in spite of her middle-class training, was by nature an aristo crat, so far as hatred of vulgarity and meanness went While she sat musing vvith contracted brows, and a mouth halfsad, halfpouting, she became vaguely aware that the front-door bell sounded, and that some one was being ushered into the drawing-room beneath, — Elmwood House, in spite of its large name, being only one of a row of semi-detached villas slight as to construction and of small dimensions. ' It is late for a visitor,' said Ella Mathews, without look ing up from her writing. 'I want this posted by eight o'clock, and it must be seven now.' ' Not quite, I think,' returned Stasie dreamily. ' I wish I had a watch !

I wonder if ' She did not finish her sentence, but lapsed into her own thoughts. A moment or two after the door opened to admit the junior member of the firm, Miss Amelia Boaden, who held a card in her hand. ' Stasie, there is a visitor below for you,— -your uncle, I believe,' offering her the card ; ' you had better come down and speak to him, my dear.' Stasie started up, all quivering at this sudden fulfilment of her hopes, and, taking the card, read the inscription thereon — 'Hormuz Kharapet, 23 St., Mayfair. 'It is my stepfather's brother, the executor !' exclaimed Stasie. ' Oh ! I am so glad ! I did not think he would be here so soon;' and she made for the door. ' Stay, Stasie ! stay, my dear,' said Miss Amelia eagerly. ' Had you not better smooth your hair and put on your best dress ?

You are really ' ' My best dress,' interrupted Stasie scornfully. ' Bad is the best ! I will go as I am, and then, if he has any feeling, he will make Mr. Harding give me some money to buy a new one. I am the worst-dressed girl in the school, Miss Amelia, and you know it' Without waiting for a reply, Stasie flung out of the room, and descended the stairs rapidly. In truth her toilette needed renewal. The black cash mere had grown nearly brown ; marks of unpicked stitch ing showed visibly where alterations and revivifications had taken place ; the edges of the cuffs were frayed ; the white frill round her throat, though not soiled, was crumpled ; and her fair hair was rough and untidy. Nevertheless, vvith the light of suddenly-awakened life and hope sparkling in her eyes, glowing on her cheek, and dimpling round a mouth which could be sweet, scornful, or sad, as the spirit moved her, she was as pleasant an object as the eye could rest upon.