Deceivers Ever

Front matter

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IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. il c n f ci u • CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY. 1878. {All rights reserved.') CONTENTS OF VOL. II. CHAI TEU PAGE I. By the Covert Side ... ... i II. Sable Trimmings ... ... 32 III. Mr. Ormsby has Good Intentions ... 66 IV. The Contents of a Work-Basket 92 V. What stood -between them ... nii VI. "Rest to the Weary" ... 14n VII. "I SHALL NEVER MARRY ANY ONI." ... 169 VIII. Mr. Titus Snell ... ... 193 IX. North Rocks ... ... ... 221 X. Mary Brereton's Song ... 24. . XI. Fragilis Fern ... ... ... 271 XII. The "Nancy" ... ...

Chapter I. By The Covert Side

It is a hunting morning, and breakfast is supposed to be going on. I say " supposed to be " advisedly, for although the table glitters with silver dishes, filled with hot kidneys, devilled grills, and all other good things, and although Lady Althea presides over the tea and coffee cups, eating and drinking seems to be the very last thing that any of the assembled guests VOL. II. B appear inclined to attend to. Miss Plun kett, indeed, feeds steadily and persistently, looking neither to the right nor to the left; but, then, hunting is not upon her mind. Neither is it upon the mind of Mr'. Newton, who is buried behind the Times, engrossed in the Money Article. He is an old gentleman of a serious and business-like aspect, who nourishes a secret scorn for country sights, sounds, and pur suits. Nothing good or worthy of a sensible man's attention, thinks Mr. New ton, can emanate from any spot outside a radius of three miles from Temple Bar.

It is not without considerable pressure that he has yielded to his niece's entreaties to accept Lady Althea's invitation to go down to Yarworth; and already, as the exciting information meets his eye that Foreign Stocks opened flat, but went up three-eighths in the course of the day, he is meditating whether he may not with propriety leave his niece with her friends, and return himself by the first train on the morrow to his beloved City. Upon the mind of Mr. Marshall, on the contrary, hunting lies heavy as lead — completely depriving him of his appetite ; for Mr. Marshall is to-day to make his debut in Leicestershire. He washeard to observe airily on first arriving, that he had hunted several years running in Ireland, where, of course, everybody rides much harder than they do on our side of the water, and that he regretted having no horses this winter, and therefore being unable to show the members of the Pytchley Hunt " the way to go."

Philip had at once placed his horses at Mr. Marshall's disposal, and entreated him to afford to the natives his valuable lessons in Irish style and pluck, and he had found himself unable to refuse a mount. The unhappy tenor tried to fortify himself with a tea-spoonful of brandy in his tea, and by humming snatches of " Suoni la Tromba " in a gay and defiant manner. Secretly his soul quaked within him. The other gentlemen are in pink; the ladies in their habits. The men are all much excited, and Lady Althea reminds them in vain that the hot things are all getting stone cold. Philip's servant is buckling his master's spurs ; Jack Ormsby is filling his silver flask at the side-board, and little Tom Colthorpe is trotting back wards and forwards between the window and the table, coffee-cup in hand, in a perpetual ferment as to whether " that brute of mine " has taken to kicking at the other horses, who, just brought round to the gate, are waiting for their riders.

Joe, standing up at the table, is devouring her bread-and-butter with violent rapidity, as though eating for a Avager ; whilst Miss Newton, sitting oppo site, calm and ladylike as ever, nibbles her toast with tranquil ease, and throws glances of ill-concealed aversion across the table at Mrs. Hardy's indecorous manner of bolting her food. In the midst of the general confusion, Ella, a little bit pale, but looking charming in her habit, as a well-made woman always does, glides into the room. " How are you, Miss Dallas ; better, I hope?" cries Mr. Colthorpe. "We were all so sorry you had a headache, and couldn't come down last night," " Come and sit by me," says Joe, dragging her down into the vacant chair by her side. Jack Ormsby appears to be more engrossed than ever over his flask, and he must be very awkward to-day, for he spills the orange gin he is pouring into it over the side-board.

Philip hastens forward to supply Ella with eggs and toast. " Are you not rather rash to ride to day, my dear ? " asks Lady Althea, eyeing her son's attentions with disapproval. " It would be far better for you to be satisfied for to-d^y to drive to the meet with Mr. Newton and Miss Plunkett, and myself. By the way, let me introduce you to Miss Newton. My niece, Miss Dallas." Clarice gave Ella a little frigid bow across the table, put up her gold-rimmed eye-glass at her for one minute, and then dropped it again instantly, as though she were not worth scrutinizing. " Jack dear, please cut me a little ham ; and I want some more butter," she said, craning her flaxen head backwards towards the side-board. Mr. Ormsby set about attending to her wants, with anything but lover-like alacrity. Ella turned quickly towards her aunt.

" Thank you, aunt, I am quite well again to-day. It will do me good to ride." " Of course it will ! " cried Joe, in her loud, cheery voice. " A gallop will do her all the good in the world ; there is nothing like it for a sick headache. Are you going to distinguish yourself across country to-day, Miss Newton ? " " Oh dear, no. I am only going to ride to the meet. I think ladies are very much in the way in the hunting-field." " Dear Clarice has such refined feel ings ! " murmured Miss Plunkett, ad miringly. " Oh, well, I have no doubt you are wiser not to attempt it, if you think you would be in the way," said Joe, with a careless laugh. " I dare say you know best. Besides, to be sure, your get-up doesn't look much like going." Clarice shuddered slightly, and turned her head the other way, disdaining to reply.

" Did you ever see such a riding-school attire ! " continued Joe, aside, to Ella. And certainly Miss Newton's costume was anything but correct. Her habit was profusely decorated with braid ; her hat was swathed in voluminous folds of white tulle ; she wore a white muslin tie with Honiton lace ends, and — graver iniquity still — she had hung a thick chain and heavy gold locket round her neck, whilst long gold pendants dangled in her ears. Mrs. Hardy herself, whatever eccen tricities she permitted herself to indulge in in ordinary life, was in her habit the very perfection of neatness and simplicity. Her plain linen collar, fastened by a small gold horse-shoe, was her sole orna ment, and she would not have detracted from the neatness of her appearance by net or gauze streamers for any earthly consideration.

" All such feminine weak nesses," said Joe, " must be laid aside by a woman who regards hunting as a serious business rather than a frivolous pleasure." She looked at the offensive details of Miss Newton's toilette with contemptuous pity, and turned up her little nose disdainfully. " I wonder she isn't ashamed to come out such a guy ! " she whispered to Ella. There was evidently no love lost between Mrs. Hardy and Miss Newton. A covert battle was constantly going on between them — defiantly aggressive on the one side, serenely sarcastic on the other. Miss Newton, who apparently was con scious that some remarks derogatory to her personal appearance were being made by her adversary, was heard to remark at this juncture that gentlemen have always a horror of " horsey women." At which Joe, with her mouth full of bread-and butter, looked across at her and laughed — laughed with all the impudence of a Parisian " gamin."

" Such a vulgar laugh ! " as Clarice remarked afterwards to Miss Plunkett. Then there was a general move from the table, and hostilities were perforce suspended. It was a still, gray morning, breezeless and mild. The sky was of that uniform hue, which neither threatens rain noi1 holds out hopes of sunshine. The last of autumn's brown leaves had been swept from the hedgerows, leaving them bare and brown — a fairer sight thus, in their barrenness and desolation, to the eye of the Leicestershire squires than in all the wealth of their summer bravery. At an angle where two roads met, having between them a rough piece of common land, the hounds met that morning. It was a favourite meet, and well attended. A low gorse covert to the right, on the gentle slope of a grassy hill, was the one destined to be drawn, and was well known to be a sure find.

To the left a small copse, purple with the subdued light of the winter morning, formed a sober-toned background to the vivid scarlet coats of the horsemen. There was a fair show of spectators in open carriages drawn up along one of the roads, and a few ladies on horseback. Ella had seen many more out in her own county, but the ladies to-day were all there on business, and comported themselves with a certain solemnity due to the importance of the occasion. There was, indeed, a singular absence of trifling in the aspect of all present. There was no laughing chatter, no dawdling by the side of the carriages, no cantering backwards and forwards. Every one present fell in with the spirit of the noble and popular master under whose rule all is order and soberness and proper attention to the business in hand.

A solemn hush falls upon all, when the word of command is given, and the pack of hounds, lean-flanked and sinewy-limbed, are seen silently spreading themselves through the gorse. Hardly a word is to be heard amongst all the eager spectators. They stand collected at one corner, listening intently, exchanging but few words, and those in whispers, to each other. There are flashes of white among the low bushes ; every now and then a waving tail or an eager head is caught sight of for a moment, and then disappears again as suddenly. In the very midst of this silent pause of expectation, a gentleman on a big brown horse is observed capering and plunging about wildly, with an evident intention of making straight for the middle of the covert. " Hold hard, you there, sir ! " shouts the master. "If you can't hold your horse you had better go home."

" Good heavens, it's Marshall ! " says Philip to Mrs. Hardy and Ella. " He will be off, to a certainty, at the first fence ! My men have given him old Pocket, You remember you rode him last week, Joe ? He has not been out since, and he's always a bit of a puller. He is as full of himself as a two-year-old to-day. Marshall is to show us the way to go, you know. "We are to receive a lesson in hard riding ! " " Wretched man ! " cried Joe, laughing. " How devoutly he must be wishing him self back again at home, practising the duet out of the ' Trovatore ' ! " " Poor fellow ! I have a feeling of sympathy for him," said Ella, compassion ately. " Who knows if I, too, may not very soon be off, lying in the first ditch by his side ! " Nothing of the sort," answered Philip. " Follow me, and I promise you you will get along splendidly.

Hush ! " — in a 1G DECEIVERS EVER. sudden, excited whisper — " they have found ! " The first faint whimper swelling almost immediately into a ringing chorus, shows that a fox is at last on foot. The music grows louder and louder, and presently a small, reddish brown object breaks from the further side of the covert, and flies for its life towards the distant woods. " Tally ho ! Oone away ! " breaks wildly from a dozen voices. Cigars are thrown away, hats are pressed firmly down. The hounds are on the line directly ; in less time than it takes to write it, the whole field is in motion. The day's work has begun in earnest, and Ella Dallas has cleared her first fence in " the Shires " in good style, and is surprised to find how easily she had taken it. " We are in for a good thing," said Philip, as their horses pressed along, side by side, across a wide grass field.

But he was wrong. After about ten minutes there was a check. The first fox had dashed into a small wood, and a second one broke away. Half the hounds went after one and half after the other. There was a great deal of shouting and holloing, and blowing the horn ; the whips galloped wildly back wards and forwards, bringing the hounds together, and " Valentine, Venturesome, and Harkaway " seemed bent upon going off upon a little independent hunt of their own, so impossible did it appear to recall those three recalcitrant animals to a due sense of the responsibilities of their position. Philip and Mrs. Hardy found themselves side by side. VOL. II. c "Where is Ella?" asked Joe, looking round sharply. "There, by the gate. Colthorpe is with her; he will take good care of her. She will go as well as you do, Joe, when she has been out a few times.

She is hardly nervous even now, and what a good seat and hands she has!" And Philip sighed as he looked longingly towards the graceful figure, set off to full advantage by the tight-fitting habit — wishing he were by her side, yet not liking to weary her by keeping near her too persistently. Joe was stooping down over her horse's neck. All at once she raised her head and looked at her companion. " Philip," she said, with a sudden im pulse, " you and I are old friends. It has not been difficult for me to guess your secret." " Hush ! " interrupted Philip quickly, whilst a look of pain passed rapidly across his face. " Don't speak of it, please. It is all over. I have told her, and it is hopeless. She loves some one else. Do not mention this again." " Dear boy, I am so dreadfully sorry. I guessed as much.

But you must let me speak of it this once. There is something I must tell you, Philip. It may be a breach of confidence, but I cannot keep it to myself. I am burning with indignation. Do you know who it is that Ella loves, and for whose sake she has refused you ? " Philip put up his hand to stop her. " Hush, Joe ! You are a good-hearted little woman, and mean well, I know, but you must not speak of these things to me. If you know Ella's secret, keep it. I do not wish to know it." " But you . hall know it ! " cried Joe, impetuously. " You must know it, because it is a wicked shame, and the man is a villain, and you ought to know it. Do you know that it is your paragon, your bosom friend, your dearly beloved Mr. Jack Ormsby, who has broken poor Ella Dallas's heart with his false words ? " " Joe, Joe ! be careful of what you say," said Philip, turning upon her indignantly.

" Remember that Jack Ormsby is my friend, and that I will not hear him falsely accused. You are speaking, as you women always do, upon your own fanciful suppositions. Such a thing is, to begin with, absolutely impossible on the very face of it, because Jack has only seen Ella once before for one evening, last July, which we both spent together in her father's house. He and I both left next morning ; so that what you say is as ridiculous as it is without foundation — and, moreover, Jack is inca pable of falseness or dishonourable conduct either to man or woman." Mrs. Hardy listened to him attentively, fixing her eyes earnestly upon his face. " How very strange," she said thought fully, " that he should have kept his visit to your uncle's house such a profound sicret from you ! Only last night your cousin told me that he had stayed with them nearly three weeks !

" " Good God, can this be true ! " groaned Philip, almost inaudibly, as a sudden terror filled his heart. But no, how could such a thing be possible ! Had not his mother forwarded to him letters from Jack, when he was abroad, written from Scotland, where he had gone after they both left Cheriton together ? But had they indeed both left Cheriton together ? Philip suddenly recollected that Jack's train was to have started an hour later than his own. Was it possible that he had been so base, so utterly vile, as to stay behind on purpose to steal Ella's heart from him ? and that, too, in order to inflict upon her, in cold blood, the greatest injury which a man can work to a woman — that of taking her love, when he is unable to lay his life at her service. No, Philip could not believe such a thing to be possible.

There might, perhaps, be men whose hearts were black and bad enough for such villainy ; but not such a man as Jack was — his hero, his type of all that was noble and good, the friend who had saved his life ! On the further side of the little wood he could just see Jack upon his chestnut mare, looking brave and stalwart in his hunting gear — every inch an English gentleman. He was talking lightly to some one near him, with a laugh upon his handsome, careless face. Could any man who had broken an innocent girl's heart, and who had, moreover, been unfaithful to the woman he was pledged to, so talk and so laugh ? Most assuredly Philip could not have done so. He felt reassured. Joe was an impetuous little woman. Little women, with strong feelings and impulsive dispositions, are apt to get hold of the wrong end of the chapter.

She had made some stupid mistake ; she had misunderstood what Ella had said to her. She had meant well, of course ; but, as Philip mentally summed up the case, " for once she had put her foot in it." " There must be some mistake, Joe," he said to her in his usual voice. " Ella could not have told you such a thing." Joe shrugged her shoulders. " Very well, you had better ask her," she said. " Of course I could not do that," an swered Philip ; " but all the same I am perfectly certain that Jack Ormsby could not have behaved himself in any base or unworthy manner." Just then the object of their conversation seemed to become aware that Ella was at no great distance from him, and attended only by Mr. Colthorpe. Nodding carelessly to the man he had been talking to, he walked his horse slowly and leisurely to her side, and bent his fair curly head down to speak to her.

There was nothing remarkable in his manner of addressing her, and Philip took this action of his as a convincing proof that Joe's accusations against him were ground less. For would a man who had so sinned against a girl go forward deliberately to speak to her ? Would he not rather shrink, abashed and ashamed, from her presence ? Apparently Joe did not look at things in the same light. " Well, I am going to join her, even if you do not. It is cruel to leave her there Avith him ; " and she had already started towards Ella, when an acquaintance of Philip's rode up to them. " Have you any brandy, Dallas ? " said this gentleman — a Mr. Long — standing right in their way. " There's a fellow come to grief at that last fence, and I have forgotten my flask." " It must be Marshall ! " exclaimed Philip, turning his horse round ; and Mrs. Hardy, Avith the proverbial curiosity of her sex, felt unable to resist the temptation of going Avith him to see too.

They found the unhappy tenor — for it Avas indeed he — sitting disconsolately upon the side of a ditch, with his feet in the Avater at the bottom of it. He was one mass of mud from head to foot, and his hat lay utterly crushed by his side. Some body had caught his horse, who shoAved no signs of haAring come down, and was standing quietly by. Mr. Marshall supported his head upon his hands and groaned aloud. As Philip and Mrs. Hardy approached, he looked up piteously at them. A long smear of mud right over one eye, and down the side of his face, imparted an intensely comic expression to his otherwise lugubrious countenance. " Dear me ! I hope you are not hurt, Marshall?" said Philip, repressing with diffi culty his inclination to laugh ; whilst the unabashed Joe grinned openly behind him. " Oh — shaken all to bits — by that con founded animal," groaned Mr. Marshall.

" I'm awfully sorry. How did it hap pen ? He is as safe as a church generally. Did he put his foot in a hole ? " "Ten to one it was a 'voluntary,'" Avhispered Joe in Philip's ear. " Oh, the brute is all right. He kicked me off over his head. I shall feel the effects of it for life, I know." " Oh, you fell, not he ! That Avas it, Marshall. That comes of your hard riding ! Is that the way the fellows ride in Ireland ? " laughed Philip, as he helped the mud-bespattered tenor out of the ditch, Avhere apparently he would have remained for some time longer, bemoaning himself over his bruises. " We don't have such d d ATicious brutes over there. I am sure you didn't mean it, but you shouldn't haATe put a fellow on such a beast as that. He isn't safe ; upon my word, he isn't." " Why, I rode him the whole day last time he was out, and he carried me splendidly !

" cried Joe, laughing. " So it seems you can't even show the way to the women in these regions." Mr. Marshall took refuge again in groans, and Philip, having administered brandy to him, delivered him OA^er into the care of a groom, and he and Joe hastened to rejoin the rest of the field. Just as they came up, the hounds had got on the line of the right fox, and they were off again. Neither Philip nor Joe, hoAvever, got so good a place in the spurt of tAventy minutes that followed as they might have done, had they not so chari tably gone to Mr. Marshall's rescue. As to Ella, she had disappeared before they came up, and Jack Ormsby with her. No words of any importance had passed between them. When Jack had ridden up to her, as witnessed by Philip and Mrs. Hardy, Mr. Colthorpe Avas Avith her.

Jack only said — " I did not know that hunting was one of your accomplishments." Ella had flushed a little at the sound of his voice, but she replied very quietly — " I am very fond of riding." " And how well you go ! " he said, looking at her admiringly. " I have been watching you. Your seat is perfect, and you look your very best on horseback." Something in this speech made Ella's heart beat with angry pride. What right had he to speak to her so — to admire her, or to notice her in any way ! She turned upon him a look of indignation. Mr. Colthorpe happened to move away a fe\v paces. Jack made use of the brief oppor tunity — he was always ready to use opportunities — by returning her glance Avith one of deprecating tenderness, and he spoke one word. " Minerva ! " he said entreatingly. At the sound of that fond, playful name which he had been wont to call her in the old happy days, her anger and her pride all died away ; her lip trembled, and her eyes filled with a rush of tears.

At this minute the fox broke covert within ten yards of where they stood. " Come on, Miss Dallas. We are off again ! " cried out Mr. Colthorpe, wildly ; and Ella thankfully dashed forward after him, trying to still the wild beating of her heart in the new and wholesome ex citement of the day's sport.

Chapter II. Sable Trimmings

There had come to Ella Dallas one of those shocks which, thank God, come into the lives of but few people. Most of us, it is true, are called upon, sooner or later, to mourn OATer the lost illusions of our youth. There comes a time to all of us when, sadly and regretfully, Ave are brought to oavu that those things which we thought once to be good and lovely — when we looked at them through the glamour of our life's opening brightness — have turned out to be flat, stale, and profitless ; that our pure gold is but silver gilt, and our diamonds at best but glitter ing crystals. But as a rule these sad discoveries do not come upon us in a day ; they are the work of months and of years. Little by little, as one thing after another fails us, as one hope after another is realized, only to fall short in the realization — by slow degrees, as the years roll by, we are brought to own that life has not fulfilled to us the golden promise of our early days.

It is by the old, and not by the young, that the lesson of the wisest man that ever lived is learnt at last. " There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good VOL. II. D in his labour." Nothing better than eating and drinking and labour! Is that to be all ? If the conviction of this truth Avere to come home to us at twenty instead of at sixty, who among us would care to liA*e out the intervening years ? Thank God, it takes us till our old affe to impress the dreary, spiritless words rightly into our hearts. Now to Ella Dallas, at nineteen, there had come a something of that hopelessness and loss of faith in all the bright and good things of this life, of which the Preacher sang once in mournful words long centuries ago. In one day, in one hour, she had lost her belief in the best and dearest hopes that life has power to hold out to a true hearted woman.