Susan Fielding [A novel.] By the Author of 'Archie Lovell.' [Mrs. A. Edwards.], etc

Chapter I

Fourteen years before the time of which I write, Colonel Ffrench had sworn a bitter oath that his grauddaughter Portia should never hold communication with any member of her mother's family while He lived ! The one natural affection, the one un selfish feeling, of Richard Ffrench's heart had, undoubtedly, been his feeling for his eldest son. Harry's ruin, Harry's shameful death, had inflicted upon him a blow under which all his worldly cynical philosophy could offer him no support ; and the first instinctive selfshielding outcry of his own stricken con science had been an outcry against the Dy- TOL. II. sarts. But for their influence he Had not been estranged from his son ; but for the Dysart' s his Harry Had lived! They were his murderers. These things Colonel Ffrench spoke in His first access of grief — that awful, blind grief of a man without belief beyond the hour wherein he grieves — he repeated them in colder blood until he came, not only to regard them as true, but to cling to them with a kind of sullen sense of consolation.

Harry's child might be brought under his roof. Let her forget the name of the mother who bore her, let it be an understood thing that she should scarcely know what blood ran in her veins, and Harry's child might be saved — from growing up a Dysart. Little as he liked chUdren generally, it seemed to Him that he might like, might at least sup port the presence of this one, could some portion of his hatred of her mother's race be only instilled into her heart ! And as we have seen, Portia came. Came, and in spite of her grace, her cleverness, her likeness to Harry, her want of affection for her mother, awakened very slight feeling, one way or the other, in Colonel Ffrench's breast. During their journey to Halfont, good Miss Jemima took due care to tutor the child into what she should do and say on first seeing her grandfather.

" He is an old gentleman, Portia — nay, never say you don't like old gentlemen, that is not pretty to say — an old man with his Head bowed down low; and you must run, with your arms held up, and offer to kiss Him, and say, ' Grand papa, love me for my own papa's sake !' " And Portia, even at six years old, being a charming little actress, she had carried out these instructions to the letter; the upheld arms, the proffered lips — all. " She has learnt her lesson well," said Colonel Ffrench, turning coldly away. " Have Her kept to Her nursery, Jemima. I don't see the likeness you told me of." Upon this Portia, with Her baby vanity sorely wounded, with confirmed distaste for old gentlemen, was at once hurried from Her grandfather's presence, and from that day until the present Had never heard another expansive word from His lips !

He treated her while she was Httle with a cool, Half sarcastic civility that would have galled a more sensitive child into positive hatred of him ; as she grew to be a woman, was un varyingly, scrupulously polite to her — no more. His last flickering capacity for strong feeling had, in very truth, been buried in Harry's dishonoured grave. For Harry's girl he cared nothing ; not even enough to seek to keep up, through her, his enmity towards her mother's family. Years went on : Colonel Ffrench becoming more and more indifferent to every subject but gout, and the diet gout involves ; and now, at one and-twenty, Portia not only spent six weeks of every season in her grandmother's house, but was engaged to marry Her first cousin, a Dysart, Colonel Ffrench acquiescent ! In the constitution of some very old men the instincts survive the affections by a quarter of a century or so.

Colonel Ffrench was thus constituted ; and love of rank, worship of titles and of titled people, were really instincts with him. Harry's bright face belonged to the past — the past in which so many other fair things, effaced now from the old man's weak memory, had been shipwrecked. The name of the Dowager Countess of Erroll was still written in the Peerage, still connected him with the world where his treasure, where his heart had been in His youth. And so the first time that Miss Jemima dared, tremblingly, to make mention of the Dysart name, a year or so after the death of Lady Portia Molyneux, she found, to Her astonishment, that Richard, then confined to his sofa with gout, was in just as Christian a frame of mind as that to which she, honest soul, by stout endeavour — aye, and by earnest prayer, had brought herself !

" The child is of the Dysart blood, as well as of ours, brother," she had pleaded. " I have Had more than one letter from Her grandmother, inviting Portia to stay with her, but never dared show them you ; and now she has written to me in the same spirit again. There are a few trinkets, it seems, that should come to Portia from Her mother, and these Lady Erroll makes the excuse for writing. 'Tis Her Heart — her Heart, of course, that yearns to see the child !" said good Miss Jemima ; " and I cannot feel it our duty, as Christians, to keep them asunder." " The Countess of ErroU's heart !" said old Colonel Ffrench looking up with helpless malignity from his cup of water-gruel. " My dear Jemima, let the girl go, by all means. She turns her toes in ; a London dancing master will do her good. But don't let you and me talk nonsense.

Lady Erroll has no more heart than she has honesty. Take my word for it, the trinkets will turn out paste." And so they did. On her return from London, Portia, with infinite disgust, dis played her legacy to Miss Jemima, tossing each article aside with contempt as she showed it. " Paste brilliants, Cairngorm diamonds, miserable garnets, mock pearls ! ' Not things, possibly, of intrinsic worth,' says grandmamma, ' but invaluable as me mentoes.' As if I cared about mementoes ! She is a painted old woman with a peacock voice, Aunt Jem, divides her time equally be tween squabbling over bills, going to church, a,nd whist — I was reminded of Brussels — and there was so little to eat ! Stfll I amused myself. I went to the theatre four times. I learnt to play cards. I heard naughty stories of every one of grandmamma's friends.

My cousin, Ted Josselin, taught me to waltz. I amused myself, and I'll go again." Thus, when Portia was a school-girl of sixteen, began the renewal of intercourse be tween herself and her mother's family. Old Lady Erroll and Colonel Ffrench never met more (in this world), but some kind of Half conciliatory letter passed between them, and at distant intervals, thrice perhaps in two years, Miss Jemima would constrain herself to go up and partake of luncheon, cold in every sense of the word, under the Countess of ErroU's roof. Portia, as I have said, passed some weeks of every season at Her grandmother's House. There was still very Httle to eat at that stately Eaton Square table, with its services of plate, and servants in plush and powder, and grandmamma was still a painted old woman with a peacock voice, dividing her time between rigid economy, her prayer-book, and the odd trick; nevertheless, Portia found plenty to divert her during her town visits, and took special care to propitiate grandmamma while she paid them.

The Countess of ErroU's countenance has been for Her the Open Sesame to the world— not such a decorous, humdrum world as was comprised in Miss Jemima's visiting list ; but the world of London, as London has been at any time during the last eight years — quite as piquant a phase of manners, in its way, as was that of the Regency—and with Dysart cousins of all degrees as Her mentors and friends. Play going, dancing, card-playing, as many flirta tions as she could compass, as much excitement as she could live under ; all this, and more, was crowded into the short six weeks during which Portia annually escaped from Halfont dulness — for her grandmother was anything but an austere or vigilant duenna ; once away from Miss Jemima, once among her " Dysart associates," and Portia did pretty much as she chose with Her time and with herself.

Nor had her London visits been without serious and tangible results. Four several offers of undeniable settlements had been made to Portia Ffrench since that first season when she came out, a slim girl of eighteen, under the old Countess of Erroll's wing. And each time she had accepted ; played with Her new suitor for a week, or a day ; then Had a scene with her cousin Teddy, repented, broken off the engagement, and been sent down to Halfont in disgrace. The last occasion on which this had occurred was during the present spring — just when poor Blake was also falling into captivity. The suitor this time, a Glasgow manufacturer, very rich, very plain, very much in love, yet determined to " stand no nonsense" from any woman, earl's granddaughter or no, whom He should honour with his addresses.

So, on the second day of his new happiness, the Scotchman thought fit to have an opinion ; found Teddy Josselin help ing Portia in an employment, they called gardening, in the conservatory, and demurred. If Mr. Josselin wished to cut off the leaves of dead geraniums He might do so, but not in such close neighbourhood to the lady he, with an emphasis, meant to marry. " You are jealous, Mr. Macbean," said Portia, with beautiful dignity — "jealous of my cousin, who is more than a brother to me. Good-bye, and please take away your ring," drawing a magnificent diamond from her finger. " It was too Heavy for me from the first." With a choking Heart, but bearing his defeat manfully, the suitor departed. Then Portia burst into tears. "It was your fault, Ted. Everything's your fault ! I didn't hate him — not very much, for a real lover, at least — and of course you oughtn't to have been here."

" Shall I call him back ?" said Teddy, innocently. " I think I hear His fairy step still in the hall." Upon this Portia's lip quivered, and Teddy put down the scissors, and kissed her, deliberately. " I don't see the slightest reason why we shouldn't be lovers," he said. "You've been engaged to other fellows and thrown them over for me. Now be engaged to me, and let any other feUow make you throw me over, if he can !" They went down that moment, hand in hand, to the dining-room, where it was old Lady ErroU's custom to spend her forenoons, looking over accounts — butchers', bakers', greengrocer's, detecting a cutlet too much here, a head of sea-kale she could not remember, there — and Portia told her story bravely. She had quarrelled with one suitor more. She Had discarded the Scotchman and his settlements.

Teddy and herself — a little tremble in Her voice — had found out at last that they liked each other. Might they be engaged ? Old Lady Erroll looked up, her finger still marking the place in her account-book, from one young face to the other. " The last time this kind of folly occurred I was angry," she said, in her shrill old voice. " I am not angry now. Old people mustn't waste their little residue of life upon useless emotion. If you had married Macbean, I would have left you ten thousand pounds in my will. I told him so last night. You are so much the richer, Ted." " Which will come exactly to the same, if I marry Portia," remarked Teddy Jos selin. " If!" This monosyUable, not agreeably uttered, was all the opposition Lady Erroll offered. So Portia and Teddy returned to their gardening, ridiculously happy — or, perhaps, amused might be a juster term — and in four and-twenty hours all the town knew Mr. Macbean was supplanted, and by whom.

Old Lady Erroll received the many coloured remarks of her friends with marked equanimity. " Teddy is a little boy," she would say placidly—" is a dozen years younger in sense and knowledge of the world than my granddaughter. I don't trouble myself to think about flirtations between cousins. Teddy might spend his time worse." She was unusually affable and obliging in her relations with Portia. Certainly, Mr. Blake might be asked to dinner — any friend of poor little Ted's was welcome. Ted knew very well the house and everything in it belonged to him. To Teddy himself she was charming. Who under such circumstances could suspect that the good old octogenarian lady meant mischief ? Well, Portia sus pected it, for one — but then Portia always suspected the worst of everbody. " If grandmamma's intentions were honourable she would not be so generous," Portia remarked to her lover.

" She has given me a real onyx seal, slightly chipped, and a couple of torn lace lappets. I can't feel easy in my mind with grandmamma in such unnatural dispositions." But Teddy's peace was untroubled. A sounder philosopher than many wise men, Teddy Josselin never worried Himself about any evil whatsoever until it had positively overtaken Him. He was really fond of Portia, enjoyed being engaged to Her nearly as much as he used to enjoy breaking off her engage ments with other people, sincerely thought it would be about the best thing that could Happen to Him to marry her ; at the same time was not a passionate or impatient lover, but content to let everything connected with His engagement shape itself as it would, the subject of money along with the rest. His present means of subsistence were, his pay as a lieutenant in the Guards, and five hun dred a year allowed him by Lady Erroll.

His prospects for the future were from twenty-five to thirty thousand pounds, and the House in Eaton Square, all dependent upon the will of Lady Erroll. Supposing her to turn refractory, he could thus rely, with certainty, upon the sum of seven shil lings and fourpence a day, upon which to maintain his establishment, for Colonel Ffrench had long ago declared that a hand some trousseau and a hundred or so of pounds on his wedding day, would be the sole provision he could possibly make for His granddaughter. Seven shillings and fourpence a day ! Barely enough, with their present habits, to keep Portia and Mr. Josselin in gloves and bouquets. Well, Teddy declared the money part of the matter was not worth disturbing oneself about. See how he managed already ! He had five hundred a year nominally ; but when by accident he spent twice his allowance, never found any difficulty to speak of in getting his debts paid.

There were always plenty of people to cash bills, and so on, if your prospects were decent; and, besides, grandmamma must consent in time. No one out of a play ever refused their consent to anything now-a-days. He had sounded Her a score of times about His engagement, and her answer was always the same. " You know best, my poor little Teddy, you know best — don't consult me." Of course, if He knew best, the thing was settled. And so Miss Jemima was told that mat ters were progressing satisfactorily ; and Colonel Ffrench's consent gained for the fifth time to Portia's approaching marriage ; and a wildly extravagant trousseau ordered by Portia Herself before Her London visit ended ; all without the definite question being mooted as to the means upon which the young couple were to exist. " We are Happy in the present, taking no thought, like Hlies," Teddy would say, in his foolish innocent way, whenever Miss Jemima tried to bring him to business.

" The brides maid's dresses are decided on, the trousseau is ordered. Now the only thing to think of is Gunter." And at last (just two days before the commencement of this story) he told Lady Erroll, one fine morning, that she must really begin to see about ordering his wedding breakfast. " Colonel Ffrench is an invalid, and as you are Portia's grandmamma as well as mine, we thought we would be married in town. A pleasant little party, not more than twenty people, and I'll undertake all trouble about the wine " — the Countess of ErroU's bad wine was proverbial—" I mean I'U undertake to see that we have it nice." Old Lady Erroll looked, not without genuine compassion, on Teddy's fair boyish face, the one object left in the world that gave her eyes pleasure to behold ! "Teddy, child," said she, " am I to understand that those Ffrench people regard the engagement in any other light than a joke ?

They do. Ah ! Now perhaps you will tell me what you mean to support Portia Ffrench upon ? You don't know, of course. Very well. Then we old people wiU talk the matter over for you. Tell old Jemima Ffrench — you are going there to-morrow, you say ? — tell old Jemima Ffrench, with my love, that I shall expect Her here to lunch and to talk over settlements — you will use that word ' settlements ' — at one on Wednesday. Time enough to order the wedding-breakfast afterwards."

Chapter II

The message was given duly, and at the hour and day appointed Jemima Ffrench drove up in a cab before the Countess of ErroU's House. The good old soldier was dressed as usual in Her plain village clothes, but no princess visiting a subject could have Held Her head higher than did Miss Jemima as she marched up Lady ErroU's doorsteps, and was ushered by a gorgeous six-foot high footman into Lady ErroU's dining-room. The old Countess was sitting at her writing-table, an open desk at her side, and one or two packets of docketed faded letters upon the table. She rose, gave Miss Jemima a little curtsey that Had been the mode in the days of George the Third, and two with ered fingers. " How are you, my dear ? I haven't seen you this age. You look pretty vol. ii. well, but people at our time of life don't grow younger — don't grow younger !

How is Colonel Ffrench?" Miss Jemima seated herself, very upright, on a chair at some distance from Her hostess, and answered that her brother was in his usual feeble state. He had not got into the open air three times this summer. "But keeps his faculties, I trust?" said Lady Erroll. (To no one who looked at her would it occur to ask a similar question ! Seamed with wrinkles though her face was, you could scarce believe it to be the face of a woman of eighty. The keenness almost of youth was in her pale eyes ; her hair, dressed in small flat curls, was yellow still ; her pro minent teeth were still white, and every one of them her own.) "Poor Colonel Ffrench is not, I trust, growing feeble in his mind," she continued, in her shrill piping voice — " the very worst affliction we old people have to dread."

"My brother's mind is as strong as it ever was, I thank you !" said Miss Jemima, stiffer than before. " His memory fails him a little at times. That is all." Old Lady Erroll took out a gilt bonbon box from Her pocket, opened it, and helped Herself to a lozenge. She ate sweetmeats all day long ; before her meals, after Her meals — Portia declared whUe her meals were going on. At the kind of conversational pause in which an old man takes snuff, out, invariably, came Lady ErroU's bonbon-box. " I did not mean to offend you, my dear Miss Ffrench, but something my little grandson, Josselin, told me made me fear poor Colonel Ffrench must be somewhat enfeebled in His mental state. You can guess what I mean ?" " Not in the least," said Miss Jemima, but her face turned very red. "Why, about this love-affair — flirtation, I should say — of Portia's and Ted's. Surely the boy must Have Hoaxed me.

You can't be taking the thing in earnest, any of you ?" Miss Jemima's face grew redder. " If we Had not taken it in earnest, Mr. Jossehn would never Have come to our House in the way he has done latterly," said she, with energy. " OH dear, dear, how guilty that makes me feel!" said Ladv Erroll, with Her shrill small laugh. " Why, I had them here toge ther for weeks and weeks, and yet I knew that the whole thing was nonsense. Portia has behaved very foolishly, Miss Ffrench. I hid my annoyance at the time, but I don't know when I have felt more vexed. Macbean was no more vulgar than half the men you meet in society now-a-days, and his offers of settlements were most liberal. Portia may wait long before she meets with as eligible an offer, taking it altogether, as Macbean' s." Indignation for a moment held Jemima Ffrench dumb : then " Portia dishked Mr. Macbean," she cried, hotly.

" It made her shudder, she told me, to see him come near her. She detested herself every time she thought of her engagement. Would you have wished her to become the man's wife with feelings like these ?" " Well, it scarcely matters what I wished," said Lady Erroll. "I am not Portia's guardian or adviser. Remembering who she is, as the child of my own poor unhappy daughter, I certainly should like to see ner secured from poverty, married to some man who can keep her in decent comfort, before I die." The buttons were off the foils ; and Miss Jemima's spirits felt relieved. In open war fare she could hold her own against any Dysart of them all. The thrusts and counter thrusts of preliminary sparring suited her not. " And remembering who she is, as the child of my unhappy nephew, I wish to see Portia marry a man whom she can love," she cried with spirit.

" I don't believe in money — I believe in affection ; and affection only, for making the lives of human beings happy." Lady Erroll took another sugar-plum. " It seems to me we are wasting breath on imaginary difficulties, my dear Miss Ffrench. If you believe in poverty, as a promoter of happiness, and if Portia believes in it too, by all means let her marry Teddy Josselin. He has His pay and his debts, and Colonel Ffrench, no doubt, will assist His granddaughter with something more sub stantial than advice at her starting in life. Still they will be poor, quite poor enough, to test the value of your Happiness theory. Let them marry, by all means." "And you, Lady Erroll?" said Miss Jemima, point-blank. " What assistance are they to look for from you ? I suppose we may as well talk the matter plainly over."

"Nay," said the old Countess, still with suspicious urbanity, "do you tell me the intentions of the lady's friends first. What allowance does Colonel Ffrench propose to make to his granddaughter?" Miss Jemima's honest eyes fell. If she had possessed a fortune, she would in that moment have settled every shilling of it upon her Harry's child ; but she had, remaining in the world, exactly two thousand pounds, the greater part of the half-yearly income from which was scrupulously received by Colonel Ffrench as Jemima's " share " in the expenses of Halfont Manor. " My brother Richard, as you know, is a comparatively poor man. His habits are expensive, rendered more so by His ill health, and every year a narrower margin is left over and above his own personal expendi ture. Except a very modest sum in ready money, it will not be in Richard's power to assist Portia when she marries."

"And after his death? What certain settlement can be made upon her after His death?" "My brother's income dies with Him, Lady Erroll. The little that remained of His former fortune was sunk by him, years ago, in an annuity. Halfont came to him with his second wife, and, failing chUdren of hers, reverts by settlement, as you are aware, on Richard's death, to Her family." "Ay!" exclaimed Lady Erroll, a quick expression of anger lighting up her old face, impassive until now. " As I am aware ! You do well to use that expression, Miss Ffrench. Before Portia married Harry Ffrench, do you know what your brother told me about that Halfont property ? I can show it you — Here — in black and white ! " She touched with her withered hand one of the packets of letters that lay beside her. " When you came I had just been refreshing my memory by reading an old note or two of your brother's. He was considered one of the acutest letterwriters of his day, Miss Ffrench.

Men used to say TaUeyrand could scarce surpass Richard Ffrench in the art with which he could mislead others, yet leave himself uncompromised. Hear what he wrote me a week before my daughter's marriage !" -She took up a sheet of note-paper, yellow with time, unfolded it, and without spectacles read aloud : — " Settlements, as you know, I have always held in detestation. They are needful only in certain exceptional cases, never where marriage begins under such fair auspices as will that of our children! My dear Portia will, I trust, look upon Hal font as her home, now and hereafter, just as certainly as if a dozen lawyers had been at work to secure it to her on parchment ! ' Would you like to read the letter yourself? You know your brother's hand ?" Then Miss Jemima raised her eyes steadily to Lady Erroll's. " I wish to hear nothing of the past.

I wish, if I can, to forget it, with its shame and errors on both sides. I loved Harry as well, perhaps, as you loved your daughter, and have mourned for him as deeply." (Old Lady- Erroll went to a rout three weeks after Lady Portia's funeral.) " All that is over. I came here to talk of Portia. The girl is brimful of faults. She is extravagant, vain, giddy ; I don't rightly know how much Portia could love ! But she is young — at one-and-twenty everything is possible ! Let her marry this Mr. Josselin, because she cares for him, and he for her. Old animosities, old letters, old wrongs — yes, for I will allow that you were wronged — let all be forgotten in the happiness of these two children " . . . . and then Jemima Ffrench' s full heart overflowed ; her voice choked. Lady Erroll looked at her with an ex pression of cool curiosity.

" You are an en thusiast, Miss Ffrench!" she remarked, after a minute's silence; "and I am quite ready to believe a sincere one. I am as completely matter-of-fact as Portia herself. I could say nothing stronger. In the case of two un worldly, hot-hearted, hot-headed young people, such young people as one reads of in old-fashioned romances, I will admit, for argument's sake, that a marriage begun in poverty might brace character, stimulate Honourable ambition. But what are these two lovers, my granddaughter and my grand son, whose cause you plead ?" " They are young, and they love each other ! " cried Miss Jemima, quite unconscious that she was saying anything ridiculous. "They are," said Lady Erroll, "exact representatives of their class and of their period. Teddy, to begin with. I don't say he is vicious, as men used to be when you and I were young.

He neither drinks, nor gambles, nor commits public scandal of any kind after the robust fashion of fifty years ago ; but he hasn't an ounce of ballast in his composition. I allow him, nominally, five hundred a year ; he spends double that sum at least — on what ? Bouquets, opera-stalls, the bills of his men-milliners — who shall say ? I never even ask. I like the boy. Ted Josselin is all that's left to me, Sarah's only child — and Sarah was a good, a creditable daughter to me, Miss Ffrench. If Ted can meet with a suitable wife, a woman with money and position, he may do pretty well ; as long as he remains single he won't go very far astray. If he marries into poverty, marries a woman like his cousin Portia, he is ruined ! Simply that. No need to pile up words whe"re one expresses everything so accurately."

V But I don't see why marrying Portia need be marrying into poverty," urged Miss Jemima. "Young people can surely begin life on five or six hundred a year. To my mind such an income, even with a family, is a handsome one. I will, on my part, do everything I can to help them at starting, and " " And where is the income you speak of to come from?" interrupted Lady Erroll, still with thorough amiability. " Teddy's pay amounts, I think, to one hundred and thirty-three pounds, nine shillings, and four pence a year. Colonel Ffrench, you tell me, can give Portia no other assistance than a certain small sum on her wedding-day. Where are they to look for the remaining four or five hundred a year of which you speak ?" " From you, Lady Erroll," said Miss Jemima. " You would, surely, continue the same allowance to Mr. Josselin after his marriage as you make him now ?"