Old Iniquity. A novel

Chapter I

" THOU SHALT NOT COVET" " And beneath a willow tree I a little grave did see." — E. B. Browning. Three little sailing boats lay in Eastgate Bay, and three little children sat on the beach, talking of all they would do if those tiny ships belonged to them. " Oh, dear ! " sighed Jack, the elder boy ; " what a bother it is one never can get what one likes ! " whilst his little sister chimed in, — " I only wish I was grown up, and then I should have gone in the steamer to France with the elder ones; but nobody ever wants children." " Except to bully them," said the second B boy. " Hard lines, I say, that we can't get hold of one of those boats. I don't believe there's a creature in them. Don't they look jolly ? " And so all the children's eyes and thoughts were given to the coveted boats, and whilst these young people were diligently breaking the tenth commandment with all their might, they little guessed that in their turn they were awakening; covetous thoughts in another.

A little higher up on the beach sat a lady propped up by cushions and carefully shielded from the sun by a large umbrella. An open book lay on her knees, and she held some knitting in her hand ; but her eyes were on neither her work nor her book. There was a lovely scene spread out before her : the July sun was westering fast, tinging the clouds with a yellow light and tipping the tiny waves with golden gleams ; here and there a boat " went curtseying over the billow," and far out on the horizon little vessels stood out against the sky-line, their white and grey and cinnamon-coloured sails looking like the wings o _► of so many different birds ; whilst close at her feet the sea came murmuring over the pebbles, " THOU SHALT NOT COVET." 3 washing the sand and coming perilously near to the trio of children, who were apparently the only objects in that varied scene capable of awakening any interest in that melancholy looking woman.

Hungrily she fixed her eyes upon each in turn. " If I could but have one of them ! " she sighed, and a tear rolled down her thin cheek and fell on her open book. Just then a burst of childish laughter smote on her ear. Jack had captured a big bit of seaweed and was plaiting it on to his sister's long curls, and the sound of their merriment was anguish to the heavy-hearted woman. Only three minutes before that little girl had lamented that nobody ever wanted children, and yet but a stone's throw from her sat one who said often, and always truly, that she would give all she possessed to hear one little pair of lips call her " mother." Mrs. Grey was the wife of a very wealthy city man, who surrounded her with all the comforts and luxuries that money could buy, and seemed never weary of humouring her every whim and fancy.

But, as we all know, the blessedness of life depends far more on its interests than on its comforts ; and in spite of all that wealth could give her, Mrs. Grey, Rachel-like, refused to be comforted, and year after year she wept for the little dead daughter whose vacant cradle had never been filled by another child. As a natural consequence she grew ailing and feeble ; she was never well, and yet never ill enough for the doctors to give her complaint a name ; they could only suggest change of air and scene. And so it came to pass that of late Mrs. Grey had done nothing but wander from place to place, staying a little time here and a few weeks there, but always returning home again much as she left it, always carrying the dark load of care at her back. Now she had come down to Eastgate, which was about the only watering-place left in England whose resources she had not as yet exhausted.

But as our readers have gathered for themselves, the novelty of the place had not succeeded in winning her from her habitual train of thought; and as she sat on the beach she was indulging in exactly the same reflections as she would have done under her own lime trees in her pretty garden at home. " THOU SHALT NOT COVET" 5 All at once a ball of wool on her knees fell off and rolled down the beach close to where the children were sitting. The little girl arrested it in its downward descent ; but, too shy to take any action herself, suggested to Jack to carry it back to the lady. With boyish awkwardness he sprang up the beach, and pulling at his cap and muttering something unintelligible, thrust the ball into Mrs. Grey's hand. " Thank you!" she said ; " but don't run away in such a hurry," as Jack was beginning to pelt down the beach again.

" Do tell me ; is that your little sister, and that boy your brother ? " " Yes," said Jack, sheepishly. " And have you any more brothers and sisters at home ? " " Worse luck, yes," was the answer. " Two dreadful little squeakers in the nursery, and ever so many older than us. We're ten altogether, and nothing ever happens to any of us ; " and then, as if not relishing any further catechising on his family concerns, Jack gave a tug to his cap, intended for a bow, and ran off again. "Ten of them! ten of them!" repeated Mrs. Grey ; and her face and voice, as she glanced once more at the children, were those of a person bitterly aggrieved. And then she sank into a mournful reverie, in which she soon became so absorbed that she did not hear her husband's approaching footsteps as he crunched tlie pebbles under his heavy tread.

" Well, Mary, I came to fetch you to hear the band," he said ; " but you seem so in love with the sea and your own thoughts, perhaps you had rather not be disturbed." And he laughed good-naturedly. He was a broad-shouldered, pleasant-looking man, with kindly eyes and a singularly bene volent expression, and he could generally win a smile from every one, from his solemn head clerk down to the dirtiest little street arab ; only in the case of his wife he seldom succeeded in provoking one. " I am not at all in love with my thoughts," she answered peevishly, " and as for the sea, I hate it. There is something to me so utterly melancholy in its sound, as it breaks on the beach ; it puts me in mind of that dismal song, ' Break, break, break, on thy cold grey stones.' And when I watch the ships riding in so " THOU SHALT NOT COVET." 7 proudly with their sails set, I can so well under stand the poet's burst of sorrowful yearning as he realizes that no ship can ever bring back the lost one to him.

They may go on ' to their haven under the hill,' but he remains still to long ' for the touch of a vanished hand, for the sound of a voice that is still';" and Mrs. Grey's own voice died away in an angry sob. There was a moment's silence. Poor Mr. Grey was tired of offering consolation, because he was slowly learning that his wife would not be comforted for the sorrow she hugged so closely. And so he stood silent, with his eyes fixed on a smart boat before him, absently reading its newly painted name, The Zcnobia, backwards and forwards, whilst inwardly he was realizing that this trip to Eastgate was another of many failures, and vowing that it should be the very last place he would ever try. " Well," said Mrs. Grey, rousing herself at length, " I suppose we had better go to the music; you would be disappointed if we missed it."

" Oh ! should I ? " thought Mr. Grey, who, if he had been consulted, would have vastly preferred lounging on the beach and smoking a quiet cigar ; but nevertheless, model husband as he was, he meekly gathered up his wife's possessions, and then proceeded to instal her in the most comfortable corner he could find in the cheerful little pleasure gardens. " Most people like listening to music," says a French author of to-day, " because it always seems to be telling them their own story"; and generally Mrs. Grey was no exception to this rule. But this evening, perhaps because she could not forget that little trio on the beach, the band failed utterly to distract her thoughts, and she was glad to accept her husband's offer of the evening paper, which he had just brought from town, and began reading it, whilst he strolled about the gardens.

" You've not found much to amuse you in it, I fear," he said, coming back to her ; but she looked up at him so brightly, that he exclaimed, " What's happened, Mary ? " " Nothing has happened, John," she an swered ; " but I have got an idea. I have been building a beautiful castle in the air, but one which I mean to make into a very sub- "THOU SHAL7 NOT COVET." 9 stantial one before many days are over. Only not a soul must know a word about it as yet;" and she actually laughed as she spoke. " Come, now," thought Mr. Grey, " after all, this trip to Eastgate isn't such a failure then ! " And that evening, as his wife lay on her sofa in the window, watching the moonlight on the water and the red and blue lights in the little boats, he remarked, " I had half a mind to take you straight back with me to-morrow ; but perhaps you can manage to amuse yourself for a little longer here ?

" " Oh, yes ! " she replied brightly. " I really think the place is doing me good." As soon as Mr. Grey had returned to his office on the following morning, his wife sat down to her writing-table and wrote for so long a time that her maid — who took a kindly interest in all her mistress's correspondence — was quite astonished when only one letter was given her for the post, and that letter addressed to some one whose name was quite unknown to that inquisitive young person. She would have been still more surprised could she have seen the very few lines that that envelope con tained, and the penning of which had required so long a time. These were the contents : " Mrs. Grey presents her compliments to the Rector of Longlane, and begs to know if he could give her any information concerning Elizabeth Laurence, the little girl mentioned in yesterday's Reporter as being one of the few survivors from the emigrant ship, Good Hope, outward bound for New Zealand.

The paper states that both parents were amongst the drowned." Two days later came the answer so anxiously expected, entirely confirming the truth of the paragraph in the paper, and adding that the child was now in her grandmother's care. " The latter," wrote the rector, " is a very worthy old woman ; but she is already nearly seventy, and is supported by a very small annuity from a late mistress. We are trying to raise a subscription, so as to start a little fund for the child, and shall be most thankful for any help in the matter." This letter reached Mrs. Grey by -the day mail, and she could hardly restrain her im patience till her husband came home in the evening. Before he had been sive minutes in the " THOU SHALT NOT COVET" 11 house, she thrust her letter into his hand. " Read it," she said ; " there's my secret."

" Oh ! " he said, when he had read it through, " I see ; you want a cheque. Well, my dear, you know you can have as large a one as you like ; it seems a sad case, and -" "But it is not at all that, John!" exclaimed his wife, half crying with vexation at his slow ness of comprehension. " Don't you see what I want to do ? I want to have that child for myself. Both its parents are dead ; it's a trouble to the old grandmother, and it would be all the world to me. I am determined to have it." " Oh ! " said Mr. Grey, rather staggered by the suddenness of the proposal and by his wife's vehemence. " Oh ! that will want a little consideration." " No, it won't," was the answer, spoken with all the petulance of a spoilt child. " To-morrow, being Saturday, you won't go up to the office, so you must take a very early train to Long lane, and see the rector yourself, and arrange it all with him.

I daresay if you manage well you will bring the child back with you in the evening." " H'm ! a pretty story indeed," growled Mr. Grey ; but all the same he got down his Brad shaw, and though he grumbled somewhat at the long distance to be traversed between Eastgate and the little village in a midland county, he was too well accustomed to humour ing his wife's every fancy to dream of making any serious objection to her plan. All he ventured to suggest was that it might be more prudent to make further inquiries about the child before doing more. " She may be blind, or deaf, or dumb, or a cripple," he said. " Then I shall like her all the better ! " ex claimed Mrs. Grey ; "for she will be all the more dependent upon me, and all the less likely to want to get married and leave me when she grows up."

Early the following day, Mr. Grey set forth on his strange mission, and the hours seemed leaden-footed to his wife till the evening train was due. " Now don't expect me to bring the child back," her husband had said at parting, "be cause you'll only be preparing a gratuitous dis appointment for yourself." "THOU SHALT NOT COVET." 13 But nevertheless Mrs. Grey had spent the whole day in anticipating the little orphan's arrival, and wondering whether she would be very shy and frightened. So much was she thinking of this stranger child, that for the first time in her life she forgot to give fresh water to her canary, and actually went out in the afternoon without taking her favourite pug dog with her. Nor did she remark his absence, so absorbed was she in her own reflections as she sat on the esplanade, wondering as she watched the children go by with their nurses if this or that little girl could be like Elizabeth, and studying their various hats and frocks with a view to deciding how her child should be dressed.

And so, despite her husband's warning, Mrs. Grey had so determined in her own mind that he would return with the little girl, that her disappointment was intense when he came back alone. " What ! not brought her ! " she cried, and there was a whole world of reproach in her voice. " No, my dear," said her husband ; " and what is worse she is not to be had ; " and then he went on to explain that he had seen the child's grandmother, and that she utterly refused to let the little girl go. " ' She's the only thing left to me in the world,' said the poor old soul, ' now that my Susan and her husband is both gone, and give her up, no, I could not' And really," continued Mr. Grey, " it did seem so uncommonly like robbing the ewe lamb, that I could say no more. The rector told me that the instant the news of the wreck reached her, she started off, though she is hard on seventy and has never been farther than the next town, and never rested till she reached Southampton, where the few survivors of the wreck were brought in.

" ' If the child were unhappy with me, or if I were forced to starve,' said the old dame, ' it would be another thing ; but I'll starve myself first before I would let her want for anything.' " And so you see, my dear," wound up Mr. Grey, "there was really nothing for it but to leave a trifle for the child, and make the best of my way home. I am very sorry, very sorry indeed, my dear, that it has all been such a failure," as his wife burst into petulant sobs. " But look here, Mary, I'll tell you what I was " THOU SHALT NOT COVET." 15 thinking as I came along in the train, I can't see why you shouldn't adopt one of your sister's children. Poor soul ! she has seven of them, and their circumstances are wofully pinched. She would be glad enough, I know, to let you have one of them." " Thank you !

" cried his wife indignantly ; " a nice time I should have with one of Alice's children ! Why, to begin with, she wouldn't let the child call me ' mother,' and she'd make me feel all the time that it wasn't really my own. No ; I will have a child whom nobody can lay claim to, and who knows that this is the only home it can look to." " Well then, why not take one of your poor Cousin Fred's girls ? They've neither father nor mother, and are pretty nearly starving, I'll be bound ! " " My dear John, I simply could not stand one of those girls near ! For poor Fred's sake I'd be glad enough to help them, but they're all so exactly like their mother, whom I detested, that I should never get on with them. No ; you may say what you like, but I mean to have little Elizabeth Lawrence ; and if that is all, I'll fetch her myself."

" You'd much better do nothing of the sort," said Mr. Grey severely. " It would be simply cruel to worry that old woman any more." " Nonsense ! " retorted his wife ; " the old thing ought to be ashamed of being so selfish as to wish to deprive her grandchild of all the advantages I can offer her. But I am quite sure you went about the business very clumsily, and didn't half say all you ought to have said. At any rate, I don't mean to consider myself beaten." Mr. Grey muttered something about poor Fred's girls, and charity beginning at home ; but Mrs. Grey turned her face to the window, and seemed far too interested in watching a great steamer going down Channel to have any attention to spare for her husband's remarks. And by the time that unwieldy vessel had become nothing but a mere dot on the horizon, Mrs. Grey's determination as to the line of conduct she meant to pursue was irrevocably fixed in her own mind.

Chapter II. Ruth Or

ORPAH? " If your lass Interpretation should abuse, and call this Your lack of love." — Winter's Tale. The little village of Longlane was so com pletely out of the world, that even in these days of universal locomotion, the sight of a stray tourist, attracted by the fame of the fine old parish church, was enough to bring all the good women to their doors, and to make the men pause in their labour to speculate what could have brought the new comer amongst them. Mr. Grey's appearance, therefore, at Longlane on that sultry Saturday in July created an unwonted excitement, which reached its culminating point when he was seen to emerge again from the rectory, and instead ot proceeding to the church — after the fashion of ■7 c the rare strangers — take his way to Widow Dale's instead. What actually took place within the cottage was a source of the most painful curiosity, not only to the outsiders, but to the widow's small grand-daughter.

As soon as the old woman had gained the faintest idea of the purport of Mr. Grey's visit, she had been summarily dismissed to play in the garden, and when some twenty minutes later the strange gentleman passed out again, the child was recalled to finish her interrupted meal of bread and treacle, but was not told one word of what had taken place behind her back. She longed to ask a few questions, but Elizabeth was in wholesome awe of her somewhat crabbed grandmother, and so she ate her supper in silence, without even the one-sided comfort of being able to relieve her feelings by indulging aloud in any speculation. In this respect, outsiders were better off. " Maybe he's come about the wreck," suggested one neighbour. " Had some relations on board, may be," remarked another, following up the lead.

" Or maybe he belongs to the family of them Nortons, where old Widow Dale lived for so many years," came from another. And so the good folks guessed and wondered, but none of them were destined to learn the truth that day. Only one person heard the real purport of Mr. Grey's visit, one Mrs. Neave, the widow's nearest neighbour. " But there," as the villagers said, " Mrs. Neave was as close as Widow Dale herself, and there never was any getting out of her what she had heard." As soon as Elizabeth had done tea, she was told to prepare for the next day's Sunday school. " Then have I got to go back again to school, granny ? " asked the child, who evi dently imagined she had been rescued from the wreck for some grander end than to return to school-life just where she had left it. Of late she had had nothing but holidays, "a rare fine time of it," as her envious playfellows said, and had in truth been desperately spoilt.

Of the wreck itself, its horrors and discomforts, she had known very little. It had happened at night, when Elizabeth was sound asleep, and her recollections of being hastily snatched from her berth, wrapped in a shawl and thrust into a boat, were very vague and confused. She had no remembrance of the terror-struck ex pression on her mother's face, as she looked her last upon the child ; she heard not her broken hearted sobs, saw not how she wrung her hands, feeling death so near and home and safety so far away. All little Elizabeth remembered vividly was the kindly welcome which awaited her on shore, the warm, soft bed, and the tender nursing which pitying strangers bestowed upon her ; and then her grandmother's ecstasies of joy at finding her still alive, instead of having perished along with her parents, as she had feared.

Then the coming home to Longlane was the grandest moment in the whole of her little life. Every one, from the ladies at the Hall down to the meanest villagers, had greeted her kindly ; and though, when she put on her black frock, and was told that her father and mother would never come back to her again, Elizabeth did shed a few genuine tears of childish grief, yet it was so very pleasant to have such a fuss made about her, that in her secret heart, Elizabeth said to herself, that of course the wreck and all that was very sad, but still there were a few nice things about it. But whilst she was enjoying those first days of notoriety, she forgot that all the petting would come to an end in time, and so the announce ment that she was to return to school, as usual, came upon the young person as a great shock.

Indeed, as she sat on her little stool at her grandmother's feet, she could not restrain her tears ; but the old widow was so much engrossed in her own thoughts as she leant back in her wooden arm-chair, that she took no heed of the child beside her. Only when the lesson was learnt, and Eliza beth rose to put aside the book, Mrs. Dale bade her sit still for a moment. " I want to tell you a story, Lisbeth," she said. " Oh ! is it about when you were little and got lost among the gipsies ? " asked the child. " No," said the old woman gravely ; " 'tis another sort of story I'm going to tell you to night. Do you see that picture in the corner, Lisbeth ? " and she pointed to an old print of Naomi and her daughters-in-law. " That was your mother's, child, long ago. She got it as a prize at school, and loved it ever so much.

Now can you tell me what it is all about ? " " It's about Ruth, isn't it ? She said ' Good bye ' to somebody, and then went away some where," was the vague answer. Evidently the wreck had washed most of the knowledge on the subject out of Elizabeth's head. " So that's all you know about it," said her grandmother ; " then you'd best listen to me." And thereupon, in her own simple language, the old woman told that sweet story we all love so well, partly, perhaps, because it always seems to take us by surprise, coming as it does in the midst of chronicles of wars and tumults, and standing out by itself amongst them like a lovely idyll, the tinge of Eastern life which makes it so romantic, mingling with the simple story of filial duty which comes home to every heart, rich or poor, in all ages.

" So you see, Lisbeth, Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, and went away to her pleasant home," wound up the grandmother ; " but Ruth clung to the lonely widow, and would not leave her in her desolate old age." " And what became of Orpah afterwards ? " asked Elizabeth. i 23 " The Bible doesn't tell us," said the old woman ; " but Ruth, you see, got her reward even here." " P'raps, if we knew, Orpah got punished," suggested the child. " Maybe not. 'Twasn't anything very wicked that she did," was the answer ; " 'twas the good thing she did not do. There be many Orpahs in the world, I'll be bound." " I wouldn't like to be one ! " cried Elizabeth. " I'd be Ruth, grannie, and I'd never go away from you, not if you had to go into wild coun tries to-morrow. I'd go with you. I'd not be afraid of anything !

" and the child put her arms round her grandmother's neck and kissed her. " Would you be a Ruth, I wonder ? " said the old woman, holding the girl at a little distance from her, and looking gravely into her face. " Would you be a Ruth, I wonder ? " she re peated, speaking more to herself than to the child. There was something in her manner which startled Elizabeth ; but just then the cuc koo clock struck seven, and her grandmother hurried her off to bed, for Mrs. Neave was coming in, she said, to have a bit of chat with her, and little pitchers weren't wanted. It was just because she felt sure that little pitchers were not wanted, that as soon as Eliza beth heard the sound of voices in the room be low the one in which she slept, she slipped out of bed and stole down the narrow stairs bare foot, till she reached the door at the bottom which opened into the front room.

It had by chance been left on the latch, so that Elizabeth, cowering on the lowest stair and scarcely dar ing to breathe, could hear every word that was spoken by her grandmother and Mrs. Neave. " Yes," the former was saying, " I have had a visitor, though I can't tell you his name ; but 'twas some rich gentleman from the south, whose lady, he said, had read in the papers along of our little Lisbeth, and how she'd lost both her parents in the wreck, and the lady had taken a fancy for having the child, and wanted her that bad that the gentleman had come off post haste to fetch her away." "Well, I never!" cried the astonished neigh bour. " What ! to keep her altogether, do you mean ? " " Ay, to be sure ; to 'dopt her," was the reply ; " 'dopt my Susan's child, and make her into a fine lady. 'Just you think well,' says the gentleman, when he sees I'm dead against letting her go, ' what you're doing in refusing ; it ain't only the nice clothes and all that that she'll get, but she'll be educated like a lady, and there's nothing in the world my wife won't do for her ; whereas if she stops here along with you, my good woman, what'U become of her ?' " ' Please God, sir,' says I, ' if I'm spared, I'll see the girl is brought up as is fitting for her ; and when she's old enough, she can go out to service and earn her bread honestly, as her grandmother did afore her.' " ' That's all very well,' says the stranger ; ' but you must look at a thing all round ; and before you say No off-hand like this, you must just consider what would happen to her if you were to die before she's old enough to go to service.' " ' Bless you, sir,' says I, ' the Lord will provide ; and maybe her old uncle, who lives down at Abbot's Dene, will turn round in the end and do something for her.