Cyril Blount; or, Trust-money. By the author of 'Recommended to Mercy'

Front matter

CYRIL BLOUNT CYEIL BLOUNT; OB, TRUST-MONEY. BY THE AUTHOR OF "KECOMMENDED TO MEECY." IN THEEE VOLUMES. Vol. III. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1865. [ The Right of Translation is reserved. J LOKDON: HUNTED DY W. CLOWES AND S0K3, STAMFORD STREET, AND CHARING CROSS. CONTENTS OF VOL. III. CHAP. PAGE I. — Mrs. Blount learns a Family Fact . . 1 IT. — Doing Nothing is doing 111 ... 7 III. — Pride lurks under a Threadbare Coat . 13 IV. — Mrs. Blount heaps on her Coals . . 23 V. — Foul Water will quench Fire ... 30 VI. — A Hint to Believing Officers ... 38 VII. — Hopes and Fears 44 VIII.— A Lower Depth 53 IX.— The Harvest .62 X. — Nina jumps at a Conclusion ... 68 XI. — Uncle Tos guards his Treasure ... 73 XII.-— The Lion's Jaws 78 XIII.— The Son and Heir 86 XIV.—' No ' again 97 XV. — Herbert settles the Question . . .105 XVI. — Cyril takes a Step in the Bight Direction . 112 XVIL— Love's Interlude 122 X VIII.— He must Stoop that hath a Low Door . 128 XIX. — Charity begins at Home .... 136 XX. — Let By-gones be By-gones . . .

Contents. VI CeHAP. PAGE XXI— Perilous Stuff 153 XXII.— Many Drops sink a Ship . . .159 XXIII. — Conscience makes another Coward . 179 XXIV.— Mrs. Toler makes herself Officious . 189 XXV.— The Widows' College . . . .196 XXVI.— Where the Lane led to ... 206 XXVIL— A Glimpse of the Silver Lining . . 213 XXVIII.— Better Late than Never . . .222 XXIX.— Bertie's Sin finds him Out . . . 232 . XXX.— Mildred asks Herself a Question . . 238 XXXI. — Dr. Latham opens his Eyes . . . 245 XXXII— Money is a Bad Master . . . . 251 XXXIII. — Long looked for, come at Last . . 258 XXXIV.— Mildred objects to the Connection . 266 XXXV— Esther tells her Story . . . .276 XXXVI.— A Magistrate's Dilemma . . . 291 XXXVII.— East or West, Home is best . . .298 XXXVIII. — Nina comes to her Senses . . . 310 XXXIX.— Maude is proved to be a Weak Vessel . 320 XL. —After Clouds comes fine Weather .

CHAPTEE I. MES. BLOUNT LEAENS A FAMILY FACT. ' And it really is true ! Well, wonders will never cease ; but I certainly never did expect to see the widow Carvill with a second family.' The observation was Mrs. Blount's, and by it the reader will at once perceive that the tide of gossip had set in full and strong, beneath the elm tree's shade. ' But, my dear ma'am, I see nothing so very wonderful in it, after all. Mrs. Henslowe was no chicken when she married, certainly ; indeed, I always said that, under five-and-forty was an age that she'd never see again ; but that's neither here nor there. Milady's to be confined, they say in August, and what is more to the purpose, I had the engaging of the monthly nurse.' VOL. III. B ' Did you, now ? ' said Mrs. Blount, on the tip-toe of curiosity, on a subject so interesting and congenial. ' Did you, now ?

Chapter II. Doing Nothing Is Doing Ill

Meanwhile the ' merry-go-round ' in ' Vanity Fair,' on which Cyril Blount's fate had placed him, continued to revolve, not only with its usual bewilder ing rapidity, but withal with such a succession of ups and downs, jerks and thumps, rushings on and stop pings short ; trials, in short, of every sort and kind, of purse, credit, health, and temper, that the unfor tunate tyro had grown to be fairly dazed with the vicissitudes of his lot. His friend Bob had for a considerable period ex perienced much uneasiness in regard to the affairs of his uncle's employe. The little guardsman's friendship for Cyril had steadily increased in warmth and solidity ; and as the countenance of the latter grew clouded with care, and his face was elongated by the dead weight of his rapidly-increasing debts, Bob grew daily more desirous of claiming a friend's privilege to assist him.

There was something in our hero's strictly-guarded silence in the matter of those debts, that struck Bob as being very noble and magnanimous. Other fel lows, not bad ones either, as he counted badness, had not scrupled (stimulated thereto by his liberal offers) to dip their fingers into his well-filled purse, and thereby stave off for a while the consequences of their past errors. They had done this, and Bob had not thought the worse of them for this proof of confidence in his friendship ; but still, and for all that the obliger in these cases was as generous, I was about to say, as a prince, but that comparison has, I have reason to believe, grown out of fashion : for all then that Bob was thoroughly generous and open-handed, he did both like and respect Cyril the better, for the steadiness with which he had refused his proffered assistance.

He racked his brain, with a severity that quite fatigued that not over-powerful organ, with an end less variety of schemes and projects for the bettering of Cyril's fortunes ; but one and all were pondered over and dismissed as inexpedient, and utterly in applicable to the case of that improvident youn" Chalkshire gentleman. ' If Uncle Robert had an idea he was so hard up, Doing Nothing is doing III. 9 I'm sure he'd double his salary, or something of that kind,' he said, one day to himself, ' and by Jove I'll tell him ! What is a hundred pounds or so a year to such a rich fellow as Uncle Robert ? He wouldn't feel it if he paid poor Blount's miserable debts twice over. He mustn't know he plays, though. Uncle Robert sets his face against that. I shall stick to the " little accounts." Little !

They're big enough by this time, I'll be bound for them ! ' and Bob, on friendly thoughts intent, turned the head of his favourite hack eastward, with the intention of committing what he half feared that Cyril would consider a crime of lese amitie, or of thought less indiscretion at the very least. He found the old man, as he had expected, seated in the small dark room he called his office. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and the contrast be tween the brewer's ' den ' and the garish sunshine outside was very striking. ' My dear boy ! ' said the old man, laying down his spectacles, and looking with eyes of pride and affection at the adopted son, whose cheery voice and pleasant smile had always been, as he was wont to say, welcome to him as flowers of May. ' My dear boy, I was just thinking of you ; but I hardly hoped to see you and the " Iron Duke " in the City such a day as, this.

Why, boy, here's your name among the Eleven in the crack match at Lords'. Why didn't you tell your old uncle ? I should like to see you handle a bat, you scamp ! I've never played myself since I was at the old grammar school. A little fellow I was, Bob, in those days, but that is near upon sixty years ago, and I've had time to grow, ay, and grow old, too, since then. I remember as well as if it was but yesterday, when there was a great match between — ' We will not, however, follow the old man into the reminiscences of his far-away childhood ; but when the glow, following on those stirring recollections, had subsided, Bob, without preamble (for the confidential terms on which the uncle and nephew lived together, rendered circumlocution unnecessary), opened his heart to the kind old brewer, and divulged such a portion of Cyril's embarrassments, as was calculated to excite interest and compassion in one, so well able to respond to the appeal, which Bob took care should be sufficiently urgent.

The conference lasted for an hour or more, a longer time than Bob ever remembered to have devoted to serious matters in his life before ; and Mr. Doing Nothing is doing III. 11 Kennaway listened, with a grave face, to his nephew's warm praise of Cyril, and to his disserta tion on the ' moral impossibility ' that existed of keep ing within an income of eighty pounds a year. ' You see, Uncle Robert, that everything costs so much. Why, his lodgings alone are a guinea a week, and a wretched hole enough it is that he lives in,' said sympathizing Bob, who had been kept in cotton ever since he could remember, and who had a vague idea that his friend Cyril displayed a mira culous amount of self-denial, in his choice of those same lodgings in Bury Street, St. James. ' Humph ! ' grunted the prudent brewer. ' It seems to me that Master Cyril hasn't been cutting his coat exactly according to his cloth.

Lodgings in Bury Street! Well, everything's changed, I suppose, since I was a young man ! However, Bob, you're a good fellow, as you always was, since I've known you, and that's since you were a little chap, scarce a foot long, I fancy — though babbies are not things I know much about — in the parson's arms a-christen ing of you, in St. George's, Bloomsbury. Well, as I said, this young man is your friend, and I'll have a bit o'talk with him. You send him to dine with me to-morrow, and keep away yourself. Dine at your fine club, or with some of your lords and ladies. I'll have it out with him,' he repeated, patting his nephew good humouredly on the shoulder, as the latter drew on his lavender ' kids.' ' And now off with you, for I've got half-a-dozen letters to write, while you have been bothering me with your non sense.' Bob mounted his magnificent iron-grey hack (the hack which looked able to carry a bishop of fourteen stone, in addition to the ' ninestun ' man who owned him), with a heart as light as his person.

He knew well what ' having it out ' with Uncle Robert meant, and how very mild were the lectures which went by the name of a bit of talk. ' What a clever old fellow he is,' he remarked to himself, as he slowly threaded his way along the crowded streets. ' And what a confounded shame it would be to go to windward of him. Not that a fellow could — No, upon my soul, I don't believe a fellow could ; for Uncle Robert's as sensible an old brick as ever I came across, and I flatter myself I know who's wide awake, and who isn't, as well as most men.'

Chapter III. Peide Lurks Undee

A THREADBAEE COAT. Foe the first time in his life — for he was as honest a little 'swell' as ever smoked his pipe at the ' Raleigh,' or gave a lift in his drag to a bosom friend for a day's doubtful pleasuring at Epsom, Ascot, or Goodwood — for the first time in his life, Bob took it into his head to diplomatize. ' If I say, I'm not going down to Lees Court to morrow, ten to one that Cyril will think it a bore, and declare off,' was Bob's cunning idea. ' I sha'n't say a word of it's being a case of hob and nob, and a " talk," and all that kind of thing. I shall say, I'm coming later, and just let him go by rail. And, by Jove ! if Cyril doesn't tell me to morrow he's a richer man by five hundred pounds or so, I'll never bother my head again about any thing.' Cyril fell into the trap, if trap it could be called, and punctually at six found himself at the Lodgegate of Mr. Kenna way's beautiful suburban villa.

It was not the custom for any such guests as Cyril, or Ned Bradleigh, to be what is called dressed, when they dined with the hospitable brewer. He was an old bachelor, as he often, with something nearly approaching to a chuckle, remarked, and therefore his 'little place' was Liberty Hall. 'No black looks at dirty boots, if a fellow did happen to forget himself, and leave a little mud upon the drawing-room carpet. No — "full fig" wouldn't suit at all with the plain goings on at Liberty Hall.' ' Be punctual, and bring your appetites with you.' These were the only conditions insisted upon by the single-hearted Amphytrion, when he opened his doors to the ' young people,' with whom it was his pleasure to be surrounded ; and Cyril Blount, bearing in mind this stringent order, arrived in good time, and well prepared to do justice to the choice wines and excellent fare which were never wanting at Lees Court. ' The young rascal is late enough, isn't he ? ' Uncle Robert was saying for the twentieth time, when seven o'clock had struck, and there were no signs of his nephew's arrival. ' We'll give him another quarter of an hour, and Pride lurks under a Threadbare Coat. 15 no more.

A young man doesn't deserve quarter, when he does his best to get the dinner murdered.' And Mr. Kennaway, rubbing his hands gleeful! v, rejoiced over the success of his joke. A quarter-past seven chimed from the ivory and or-molu timepiece that stood upon the chimney piece, and when the last stroke had sounded, Mr. Kennaway rang the bell, and ordered dinner. ' We won't give him another minute's law — teach him to look about him. Come to dinner. You must put up with the company of an old fellow like me for once.' And so, with a half-apology for the anticipated dullness, the old man, leaning on Cyril's arm, pro ceeded through the broad entrance-hall to the dining-room. If our hero had feared that the repast would prove a dull one, he was agreeably disappointed. Mr. Kennaway, although he was not what is called an educated man, had picked up, during his long life, a good store of well-remembered information.

He possessed, too, the rare talent of putting at his ease a guest younger than himself by half a century, and one with whom, as might have been naturally expected, he had but few subjects in common. The dinner was not of long duration ; and when it was over, and the last servant had taken his departure, Cyril's host, who had not forgotten the delicate mission with which he had been charged, opened the subject by a panegyric on his nephew's usually punctual habits, and thought fulness of the wishes of others. ' He's one of a thousand, is Bob ; at least, that's my opinion,' the old man said. ' He was born a gentleman, as his father was before him ; though Harry was, like myself, nothing better than a brewer's son.' ' He was younger than you, Sir, wasn't he ? ' asked Cyril, feeling that some response was re quired by this exordium. ' By a few minutes— no more.

We were twins, Harry and I ; and never were two brothers so ill matched in every way, as he and your humble servant.' ' Rather uncommon that— isn't it, Sir ? I fancied that often people didn't know one twin from an other.' ' They wouldn't have had much to puzzle 'em in our likeness,' rejoined Mr. Kennaway. 'And we were as different in our dispositions and head-pieces Pride lurks under a Tlireadbare Coat. 17 as we were in our looks. Why, Sir, Harry was all for book-learning, and for hunting up old editions of the Greek and Latin authors. My father made his money by looking into and keeping quite another guess sort of books, and he hadn't much patience with a son that was in another line altogether.' ' Captain Kennaway doesn't seem to have taken much after his father,' suggested Cyril. ' Well, no he hasn't ; and yet Bob went to Eton, and saw little enough of the brewery when he was a lad.

Harry had hard work, I fear, to give his boy all the advantages he got ; and it wasn't in his nature to look much after shillings and pence. He married an attorney's (old Fulding's) daughter — a girl with ten thousand pounds to her fortune. She was as nice a woman as you could see, but she died, poor thing, when Bob was quite a little fellow. And, to my mind, Harry was never the same man afterwards.' There was a pause after this, which Cyril did not feel inclined to break, for the memory of his dead sister-in-law had clouded the old man's brow, and given a mournful inflexion to his voice. When he spoke again, it was in a more cheerful tone. VOL. III. c 'There never was a better father than Harry proved himself. He became a very boy again him self to win the little chap's love and confidence ; and, though he was sternly inflexible when punishment was necessary, he never allowed himself to speak angrily to little Bob, or in a way calculated to lead the child to that most common of all vices, " deception." ' ' Captain Kennaway has often talked to me of his father,' Cyril said, ' and told me that he always respected him as much as a friend as he loved him as a parent.' ' Respect him ?

I should think he did ! Henry had been wild enough himself at twenty-five, before he sobered down, and took to books ; but his ex perience, while it enabled him to advise his son, rendered him lenient to such youthful faults and follies as every lad is prone to— more's the pity — when he goes into the world ; and runs, what poor Harry used to call, the gauntlet of temptation.' ' He must have been a good father — a most true friend,' murmured Cyril, feelingly. ' And a brother, such as few have had to lament the loss of. And yet,' he continued, gloomily, ' I had the misfortune to embitter the last few years of Pride lurks under a Threadbare Coat. 19 his existence, although I never knew it till he was gone, and had left me the legacy of the son he loved so dearly. I have told you,' he went on to say, ' that my brother was not a man of economical habits, and about three years before he died, what with Bob's expenses, and the want of a housekeeper, and one thing and another, he got into difficulties.

How I found out that it was so, I forget — all I know is, that I forced — almost literally forced him to accept the loan of five hundred pounds, and that after the little affair was managed, it went out of my head as clean as a whistle. It was very different, however, as I soon afterwards found, with Harry. He died of heart disease, poor dear fellow, and left a letter behind him to me, saying, how it had weighed on his mind that he couldn't pay the money, try as he would. It was my fault for for getting it — I ought — rich as I was, and knowing that my father had left me all he had, to have made Harry understand that it was restitution money — restitution money, because I had been my father's favourite, and heir — while poor Harry — well — there's no use talking about it — he wrote the letter not long before he died, telling me that the debt and obligation had made him miserable, and that it had seemed to deprive him of the right of advising or watching over his son.

" How can I," he wrote, " have the face to bid my boy avoid running in debt, when I have myself incurred obligations which I am unable to discharge ? " It was a morbid feeling, and, perhaps, increased by the nature of his disease ; but of one thing it made me certain, and that is, that to shut up such secrets in one's own breast, is the greatest mistake a man can well commit.' ' I am sure of it,' Cyril said, ' but it is not every one, Sir, who has the good fortune to possess a friend like you — a friend who would be merciful to weak nesses, and — ' ' Tush, tush, man ! — such friends are not difficult to make ; and I, for one, feel so grateful for such a son — for I consider him one — that I'd even go a little out of my way to serve any friend of his — if I thought him deserving, mind. I can excuse extra vagance, and even — even a little play at first — but the second time is a bad case, unless there are very extenuating circumstances.' He looked hard at Cyril as he uttered the last words, and seeing the confused look and conscious blush that rose to the lad's cheek, he was pondering how he had best proceed, when Cyril said, with a Pride lurks under a Threadbare Coat. 21 carelessness, which took the old man entirely by surprise, — ' I don't understand, Sir, about extenuating circumstances.

If a man knows what he has to live on, and gets into debt, he has nobody to blame but himself, and ought to take the consequences. Your nephew's very late to-night, Sir,' he went on saying, hurriedly, and as if desirous of changing the conver sation, ' very late, and I am afraid I must be going soon, or I shall be late for the 10.50 train.' The kind old man made no attempt to detain his guest — perhaps he saw and respected a determination (worthy of a better cause) to keep secret embar rassments which the young man's wealthy employer could have disentangled in a moment. ' There's good stuff in that young fellow,' he said to himself as the door closed upon Cyril's retreating figure ; ' but I don't know what Bob will be saying to me for all this. You may take a horse to the pond — or an ass, I should rather say — but it isn't so easy to make him drink when he gets there.

He's a gentleman though, every inch of him, and, by George ! I like a gentleman. Harry was a gentle man too, if ever there was one, and as I often tell Bob, it's among the highfliers that you're most sure of good manners. You needn't fall down and wor ship them — you may love your neighbour, as the saying is, and yet not hold his stirrup ; but for all that, I shan't know what to say to Bob, and that's the truth of it.' Mr. Kennaway, however, to state the real facts of the case, did not dwell either very long, or very anxiously, either on the complicated money difficul ties of his nephew's protege, or on Bob's probable disappointment. It was his hour for his evening nap, nor did he sleep the less soundly for the attempt that he had made to prove himself, for the hundredth time in his life, a friend in need.

Chapter IV. Mes

BLOUNT HEAPS ON HER COALS. Mildred Blount was, in many respects, not a common character, and it was no slight evidence of this fact that she said no word to her sister of Herbert Willingham's confession that he loved her. There is an ancient proverb, which saith that ' the tongues of idle persons is never idle,' and doubtless it was in part owing to Mildred's active habits that her tongue never itched to tell her heart's precious secret But although she might have reasonably objected to initiating poor loquacious Mrs. Blount into the first great mystery of her life, it may be thought only natural that she should have opened her heart to the sister, from whom she had never for a day been separated, and whose own breast con tained (as she believed) no mystery or concealment. Mildred's motives for acting in a manner so much at variance from what might have been expected of her, need not at present be revealed.

Suffice it to say that she not only kept silence from confidential words, but effectually succeeded in hiding from her unsuspicious mother and sister the interest, novel as she could not but own to herself it was pleasant, which (like the Angel's touch, troubling the smooth ness of the water) had stirred the sluggish current of her hitherto monotonous existence. ' Sing that song again, Millie, pleaded Nina, as the two girls, having taken out their low camp-stools, sat together upon the shingly beech. While Mrs. Blount, who could, if she chose, see them from every window of the house, took occasional glances at her children, in order to make sure that they were safe and unmolested.' ' Sing that song again. I like the end so much — " Yet would I buy with life again that one dear dream of thee." ' It is pretty,' said Mildred ; ' but very dismal.

I would rather sing you something more en livening.' But Nina persisted in her choice, and the rich, contralto notes had just died away after the close of the first stanza, when Mrs. Blount appeared at the garden-gate, and beckoned them to the house. Nina could only walk very slowly as yet. The Mrs. Blount heaps on her Coals. 25 mere use of her feet was, however, in itself a source of pleasure, and as she crept along at a very snail's pace, with Mildred's arm supporting her, the convalescent girl laughed and chattered gaily — her head filled with pleasant projects for the future in the days when her health being perfectly re established, she and her ' darling Millie ' would take it by turns to go out ' into the world.' ' For I don't care the least about being a governess,' she was saying. ' I don't mean that I should like a dull place, or one where there wasn't a soul to talk to — but — after all, you know, Millie ' — and she looked up with a pretty blush — ' after all, something might happen, you know — it isn't quite certain that — ' ' Come in, girls, come, quick !

There's a per son here — Mrs. Toler, the monthly nurse — who's been seeing Cyril lately at Mrs. Bradleigh's, and she says he's so changed, we shouldn't know him.' Mrs. Toler dropped a respectful curtsy. She was a tall, large woman, dressed as became her calling, in a dark lavender cotton-gown, a black silk bonnet, and a barege shawl, with border of many colours. Her age was apparently between forty and fifty, and she wore a very dark ' front,' which came down low upon her forehead. Altogether her coun tenance was not a prepossessing one, although there were remains of beauty traceable in her white, even teeth, and in the contour, thin and worn though it was, of her oval face. ' Here are my daughters,' Mrs. Blount said, proudly. She exulted greatly over her daughters' beauty, and was glad to exhibit it, even to so hum ble a personage as the monthly nurse. ' Here are my daughters, and they'll be as vexed, as I am, to hear their brother isn't looking well.' To which introduction Mrs. Toler replied, with a voice which struck Mildred as singularly sweet, though the grammar was decidedly faulty. ' I couldn't say, Miss, as the young gentleman was changed, seeing that I never saw him before.

He's pale now in the face, to be sure, and drawn like, which his mamma, she says, he hadn't used to be. I was at Mrs. Bradleigh's, yesterday, when Mr. Cyril came in, Miss, and when he heerd I was a-coming to Wilchester, he asked me to call and see the family, and give his love and duty.' ' And so he wasn't looking well ? ' repeated Mrs. Blount. ' I thought as much. He wants some of Mrs. Blount heaps on her Coals. 27 our good Chalkshire air, Mrs. Toler, to set him up, and give him a colour again. And so you're en gaged by Mrs. Henslowe ? I'm sure I hope she'll have a good time. And where are you living ? In Wilchester or Thaleford? It's a pretty place is Thaleford, but there's not much choice of small houses in the parish.' Mrs. Toler replied, that she had taken a small lodging in Thaleford, but had some thoughts of removing to Wilchester, that she might be nearer to her work. ' For it's my belief, Ma'am, that Mrs. Henslowe, poor lady, may be taken any day.

She looks that delicate, you might a'most blow her away — barring that she's in the family-way, you know. I heerd at the house there was a talk of Miss Carvill's coming down ; but law, Ma'am, they do set such uncredit able stories about, that one never knows what to think.' Mrs. Toler was evidently a gossip. She liked, apparently, the sound of her own voice, as much as she enjoyed the cup of tea and the buttered toast, placed before her by Mildred. Mrs. Blount en couraged this flow of conversation. She felt a kind of torturing interest in anything and everything connected with the affairs at Laurel Cottage ; and the cultivation of Mrs. Toler's acquaintance seemed an admirable method of stimulating into vitality such sprouts of information, as might otherwise never have reached her ears. There was nothing low or mean in this poor woman's curiosity.