Lot 13

Front matter

LOT 13. BY DOROTHEA GERARD, AUTHOR OF "I.ADY BABY," "ORTHODOX," AND "a QUEEN OF CURDS AND CREAM," AND JOINT AUTHOR OF "flEATA,"' ETC. LONDON: A. D. INNES & CO, BEDFORD STREET. 1895. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PACE I. The Evening Post ... ... ... i II. Looking Back ... ... ... 12 III. The End of the Daisy-chain ... ... 22 IV. Simon's Plan ... ... ... 31 V. "Well, Bernard?" ... ... ... 38 VI. Marian's First Walk ... ... 52 VII. Marian's First Jump ... ... ... 61 VIII. Marian's First Dance ... ... 71 IX. Beginning to Doubt ... ... ... 82 X. The Big House and the Little House 95 XI. Potato-soup ... ... ... ... i°3 XII. A Council of War... ... ... 117 XIII. The Blue Serge ... ... ... 124 XIV. Mr. Silkworth's Gold-mine ... 132 XV. Podskin ... ... •■• ••• 139 XVI. White Camelias ... ... ■•• 145 XVII. " Miss Mercury " ... ... ■■■ iS7 XVIII.

Jess ... ■■ 16S XIX. The Fever Patients ... ... ••• 175 XX. The "Bony Johnnie" ... ■■■ 184 XXI. White Village ... ... ... 202 XXII. Cane Hill ... 215 XXIII. The Death Register ... ... ••• CONTENTS. CHATTER PAGE XXIV. The King at Home ... ... ... 235 XXV. Miss Mercury gets an Idea ... 252 XXVI. A Meeting ... ... ... ... 261 XXVII. The Sandal-wood Box ... ... 270 XXVIII. A Tete-.\-T£te ... 280 XXIX. The Family Confessional ... 291 XXX. Jeremias ... ... 301 XXXI. In the "Hotel" ... ... 311 XXXII. The New Inspector ... ... 321 XXXIII. "Going— going— gone !" ... 329 XXXIV. Two Telegrams ... ... ... 342 XXXV. The First Good-bye ... ... 351 XXXVI. The Second Good-bye ... ... 361 XXXVII. The Two Queens ... ... 370 XXXVIII. The Heiress ... ... ... 385 XXXIX. At the Gate ... ... ... 396 XL. The Old Provision Ground ... LOT 13

Chapter I. The Evening Post

DINNER was over at 31, Laurel Road, and the three ladies of the party were waiting for the lamp in the drawing-room, while the one gentle man still sat over his claret in solitary state. It was a good-sized drawing-room ; one of those London rooms which have once upon a time been divided by folding-doors into a back and a front parlour, as is proclaimed by the two fire-places, and by the heavy beam separating from each other two ceilings which neither in colour nor design are even distantly related. The furniture solid but well-worn ; most of the wood mahogany, and all the carpets Brussels. The ornaments respectable, but scarcely orna mental, and certainly not according to the spirit of the day. Bouquets of wax flowers under glass, photograph albums symmetrically dis posed on a table, and not so much as a peacock's feather or a Japanese screen between the four walls.

K LOT 13 One of the fire-places was filled with pink and white paper shavings, in what used to be the most approved fashion ; the other— the one placed in what had once upon a time been the back-parlour — emitted a moderate red glow, very grateful on this chilly evening of early May to the three people assembled near it. On the long, low fender-stool, with her hands clasped round her knees, with half of her brown head in the firelight, and the other half in the fading daylight, Marian was sitting immovable. From her place she could just see the outline of the stunted laburnum which was the pride of the back garden, sharply cut against the sky. Often in after-days she would remember this evening, or — to speak more truly — she never forgot it, for this was the evening on which — as she put it to herself — " it all began ; " and whenever her memory travelled back to this point she always found herself staring again in spirit at the laburnum, and counting the crossings and recrossings of the tiny twigs, while she listened more or less inattentively to the conversation of her two elderly maiden aunts, and while they all three waited for the entrance of Jemima with the lamp.

The Misses Honoria and Valeria Hilton were by no means fixtures in Laurel Road, nothing more than birds of passage up for their annual spring shopping, on which occasions it was undoubtedly very convenient to possess a brother-in-law in London, who again possessed a spare room, even although this particular bit of the neighbourhood of Regent's Park was in some respects almost as peacefully slumbrous as the little country town of Accringdon, in which they spent the bulk of their uneventful days. " And was it from the newspapers only that your father learned his cousin's death ? " Miss Valeria had to repeat her question twice before she succeeded in attracting Marian's attention. " The newspapers ? Oh, no ; it was Bernard himself who wrote and announced his father's death." " Dear me, wasn't that very nice of Bernard, considering the coolness between the two branches of the family ?

" Marian laughed a little. " Oh, but Bernard never went in for the coolness ! He struck out his own line about that when he was thirteen, and I quite a little girl. I have told you about his visits." " But he hasn't visited you of late years ? " " No ; I suppose his father stopped it." " Well, his father is gone now, so, unless his head is turned by his accession to power, there is no saying whether he may not resume his visits. He is the only son, is he not ? " " The only son." " Good gracious ! he will be quite ridiculously rich. Thornton is a huge place, I believe, and then there is the West Indian estate. I do hope at least that he is worthier of his fortune than his father was. What sort of a young man is he, Marian ? " " He was scarcely a young man at all when I saw him last," said Marian, resting her chin upon her clasped hands and staring straight into the flames.

" I suppose he was about eighteen or so, but I know that his visits used to be so — so refreshing I think I should call it ; even mamma looked forward to them. Some how he used to wake us all up." LOT 13 4 " There is Jemima with the lamp," interrupted Miss Valeria. " Jemima, has the evening post come yet ? I am expecting a small parcel from home." " The post has come, ma'am, but there was no parcel ; just one letter for the Captain." " My mosaic brooch ! " moaned Miss Valeria, as the door closed behind Jemima. "I am perfectly certain that I left it lying on the dressing-table this morning. If that fool of a girl had despatched it by the midday post I should have it now." Marian raised a warning finger. " Take care, Aunt Val ! Where are your resolutions of taking things easy ? You'll never get plump at this rate."

"I suppose not," acquiesced Miss Valeria, sinking back in her chair with a sigh. The short silence that followed was broken by Miss Honoria. " I wish," observed this lady, speaking for the first time, " I really wish that I hadn't eaten any of that pudding." "Dear me, Aunt Hon, why not?" asked Marian, somewhat startled. " It is too nourishing ; I am quite sure it is too nourishing. I have been thinking about it, and I cannot imagine what made me take it ; I who am as a rule so particular about my diet. I quite dread getting weighed next week ; there is sure to be an increase." "Is there? Then I wish I had taken a second helping," said Miss Valeria, regretfully. " I never noticed the pudding ; my mind was too much taken up with my mosaic brooch." " What a pity it is," remarked Marian, " that it wasn't Aunt Hon who left her brooch on the dressing-table!

Perhaps the anxiety of the loss might have worried her down a pound or two." The corners of Marian's mouth twitched as she spoke. Since the days of her babyhood her two aunts — the fat one whose ambition it was to grow thin, and the thin one whose dream was plumpness— -had afforded her most excellent amusement. " I am afraid it would take more than a brooch to worry even half a pound off me," said Miss Honoria, with a good-natured laugh. " I'm always telling Val that plumpness is more a matter of temper than of food (and yet I wish I hadn't taken any of that pudding !) ; I can't help taking things easy, the Lord knows it, since He made me that way." " Why, there is the dining-room door already ! " remarked Marian. "Surely father is very early to-night." A quick but halting step was heard to cross the passage, and in another minute a small, elderly gentleman, with square military shoulders and a decided limp in his left leg, stumped into the room.

"Tired of your own society already?" inquired Miss Valeria. " Is this in our honour, James ? " asked Miss Honoria, smiling her broadest smile. " Eh ? What ? Honour ? Who is talking of honour ? " was Captain Berrincott's somewhat testy reply. "It's a question of light, not of honour. The lamp over there seems a trifle dull to-night, and this letter here is the very deuce to decipher ; I'm going to have a try at it here. There seems to be some mistake — let me see, where had I got to ? " It was now only that Marian perceived that LOT 13. her father was holding in his hand an open letter which he approached more closely to the lamp. "Eh? what's all this about? Mr. Parker? Lot 13 ? I don't believe a word of it.': "Who is Mr. Parker and what is Lot 13?" inquired Miss Valeria sotto voce of her niece.

"My dear Marian, something has evidently happened ; I have never seen your father so completely off his balance." "Mr. Parker is Uncle Simon's man pf business, and Lot 13 — let me see — Lot 13, I think, is the name of the West Indian estate ; but I don't understand why " " James ! " broke out Miss Valeria, in a burst of uncontrollable curiosity, " is there any news in that letter ? " Captain Berrincott lowered the letter and began by giving the questioner a long dazed stare. " News ? " he snorted. " You may call it news if you like, /call it a pack of lies. I tell you I don't believe a word of it." " A word of what ? What is it you are talking about? James, your conduct to-night is extremely peculiar." Miss Valeria had risen and was approaching her brother-in-law. Marian, too, was on her feet and stood beside her father.

"Has anything happened, father?" she asked, laying one small hand upon his sleeve. - " That depends upon what you call happened ; but you won't get me to believe that Simon has left me Lot 13. There, read for yourselves, if you like." And flinging the sheet of paper on the table, the Captain began stumping furiously up and down the room. It was close to Marian's hand that the sheet fell, and with a look of bewilderment on her face she took it up and read. There were not many lines to read, and when she raised her eyes at their conclusion the look of bewilderment had turned to one of surprise so great as to be almost consternation. Silently she held the paper towards Miss Valeria, and presently aunt and niece stared at each other for a full minute, at a loss for words. And well they might stare.

The letter which had reached 31, Laurel Road, by the evening post announced to Captain Berrincott, in Mr. Parker's dry, business terms, that his cousin Simon Berrincott, lately deceased, had be queathed to him and his heirs for ever the property of Lot 13, situated in the Island of St. Clara, in the British West Indies. And this same Simon Berrincott was the very cousin from whom a deadly feud had separated him, well-nigh since boyhood ; the man with whom he had not been on speaking terms for the last quarter of a century, who had died without breathing a single word which might have been interpreted into the desire for a reconciliation ! How explain this seeming anomaly ? " There's a mistake somewhere, there's bound to be a mistake somewhere," burst out the Captain, still pacing the room as fast as his game-leg would let him.

" It's a mistake, it's a practical joke, it's an April hoax ; that's what I tell you it is, so you needn't imagine that you'll get me to believe a word of your stupid nonsense ; " and coming to a standstill before Miss Valeria, he glared at her as savagely as LOT 13 though she, and she alone, were responsible for the state of things. Miss Valeria, however, was beginning to recover her self-possession. "But we are not in April, James," was the first thing she found to say. " Then it's a mistake- " I don't see how it can be. Mr. Parker's language is quite plain. After all, why should Simon not have left you the estate? He was your cousin when all is said and done, and his son has got more money than he can know what to do with." Captain Berrincott laughed angrily. " So likely, isn't it, that after racking his wits during twenty-five years for the best ways of spiting me in all and everything, my dear cousin should bequeath me this mark of his affection ?

" "But, father," suggested Marian, a little shyly, "perhaps that was just the reason — I mean that perhaps he was sorry at the end, and that it was as a sort of — sort of peace-offering that he left you Lot 13." The Captain was silent for a moment, apparently reviewing this new aspect of the case ; then he shook his head. "Somehow that's not like Simon," he said, with an accent of conviction. " And yet it's the only possible explanation," broke out Miss Valeria, in whom a species of mild mental intoxication had completely ousted the first feeling of astonishment. " Simon cannot have been such a bad fellow as I took him for, and I sincerely regret ever having said a word against him. Honoria, my dear, have you heard the news ? Don't tell me you're dropping off again, — wake up, Honoria, and wish James joy of his good luck !

Oh, my dear James, whoever would have thought that we should yet live to see you a West Indian proprietor? Is Lot 13 a large place? I suppose it is very valuable, at any rate ; so many people make their fortunes in the West Indies. And, of course, you will get your sugar for nothing, and as many cocoa-nuts and pine-apples as you can eat, — good gracious, how glorious ! There will be pine-apples at Lot 13, will there not, James? What a funny name Lot 13 is, by-the by ! How did the place come by it ? " The Captain replied briefly that he knew nothing about either Lot 13 or the West Indies. "Well, you will have to read up now. I still feel quite dazed. What a thing for Marian, to be sure ! " "I wonder whether I shall be able now to afford myself a new evening frock," was the first intelligible thought which, after the shock of the news, formed itself in Marian's mind, and she cast a furtive, half-guilty glance at her well worn dinner-dress.

The rest of that evening was broken up into scraps of excited talk, alternating with intervals of no less excited silence. For a considerable time after his usual hour of retirement, Captain Berrincott continued to limp from one end of the room to the other, declaring that it could not be true, and being assured by Miss Valeria that nevertheless it was true, and listening with a sort of rebellious attention to glowing fancy-pictures of West Indian scenery indis criminately mixed up with plans for Marian's future, of which her eager aunt had sketched out half a dozen within an hour. Marian herself had resumed her place on the LOT 13 10 fender-stool, and sat once more staring into the fire, but with a very much warmer flush on her cheeks this time, and a very much brighter light in her eyes.

She was not conscious of any inordinate craving for riches and all that riches bring with them, and yet it could not be in human nature not to feel strangely elated by this unlooked-for inheritance. Even Miss Honoria had shaken off her gentle drowsiness, and was gazing at James with a quite new and almost awe-struck interest. A West Indian proprietor cannot fail to be a more imposing object than a retired captain upon half-pay, and neither Miss Honoria nor Miss Valeria had ever before been very closely connected with any one who possessed so much as a dozen acres of arable land. Undoubtedly it was a great evening for James Berrincott, as he himself acknowledged indirectly when he gave Jemima the order to bring in the second lamp, for it was only on momentous occasions that the former front-parlour partook of the illumination of the back.

Jemima looked surprised and a trifle displeased on receiving the order, and the Captain himself, reflecting upon the matter in cold blood, distinctly con demned his own impetuosity ; but at the moment he had felt the violent need of marking the occasion by something that lay outside of the everyday groove, — and what was the good of running your shins against table-corners here in the dark, when over there, across the Atlantic, acres of waving canes were waiting to be turned into golden-brown sugar, and that again into ringing sovereigns ? It was not till considerably past the usual hour that the household retired to rest that night. As for Miss Valeria, she sat up till past mid night, penning notes to various of her bosom friends at Accringdon. It is true that she would be home again herself that day week, but a brief review of the situation convinced her that the news of the family's good fortune would not keep till then.

Yes, it was a grand evening for the Captain ; and yet that feeling of mistrust which had been the first movement of his mind on receipt of Mr. Parker's news was the last thought to leave him that night. " I hope to goodness there isn't a screw loose somewhere," was the reflection with which he at length fell asleep. LOT 13 12

Chapter II. Looking Back James

and Simon Berrincott had been first cousins who had seen a good deal of each other in their early youth, but who had disagreed upon every single point in life after having agreed in admiring Maria Hilton. Maria had preferred James, which was all the more galling to Simon as James had little besides his own person to recommend him, so that it was impossible to doubt the disinte restedness of her affection, whereas Simon was heir-presumptive to the very considerable family estates. One of these estates lay on the West Indian island of St. Clara, and thither Simon used occasionally to be sent by his father, in order to give the manager of the sugar plantation the impression that he was being controlled. It was to St. Clara that Simon retired in dudgeon the moment the knot was tied between James and Maria ; not sent by his father this time, but simply following an instinctive desire to sulk, and consequently to burrow out of sight, and Lot 13 was the most convenient spot for burrow ing with which he was acquainted.

Sulking alone wouldn't do it, however, as he soon discovered ; something more actively aggressive was needed in order to avenge him upon the world in general and upon his family in particular for the disappointment in love which he had suffered. Accordingly, not six months had passed since James's wedding, when every bearer of the name of Berrincott was horrified by learning that he had united his lot to that of a Creole girl of the name of Caroline Glover, daughter of the manager of one of the estates adjoining Lot 13. So long as his father's fury endured, Simon enjoyed his new position ; once that began to flag, he discovered that he was dead-sick of the girl whom he had married in a fit of spite. She was unusually pretty, but she was not a lady, and even in the first heat of his ill-temper he had never seriously contemplated bringing her home.

As his continued residence on St. Clara was just as much out of the question, the inevitable result was that Simon and Caroline saw comparatively little of each other during the term of their wedded life. It proved to be but a brief term, for, dating from the birth and death of a son at the end of the first year, Caroline began to pine away, and two years had barely passed since he had been rejected by Maria Hilton when Simon Berrincott was again moving in London society, again on the lists of desirable partis, but this time as the widower of Caroline Glover. Probably his first experience of matrimony had sobered him, for this time he suffered his father to choose for him ; and it was in some thing of a hurry too that the final choice was made. Berrincott senior, having had his third apoplectic stroke, thought it high time to put LOT 13. 14 his mind at rest concerning his son's future — that son having already proved that his own wisdom was not to be trusted — and accord ingly Simon found himself, rather to his own surprise, transformed one fine day into the husband of a moderately good-looking young woman, daughter of an old friend of his father's. During all this time Simon had carefully kept clear of his cousin James.

It was not until he had been married for close upon fifteen years that any intercourse was resumed between the two branches of the family, and even then it was by rights an illegal intercourse, tolerated, but not encouraged, by the respective heads. Bernard was at the bottom of it all — or, more truly speaking, the Polar bear at the Zoological Gardens was at the bottom of it all, for if the Polar bear had not chanced to have an un usually good appetite that morning, it is quite possible that Marian and Bernard would never have got introduced. It was on a crisp December day that the meeting took place. Marian's eyes were full of tears when they first fell on Bernard, for she had just discovered that the two precious pennies which she had been so carefully clutch ing had in some unaccountable manner eluded her jealous clasp, and the Polar bear was " asking for more."

" It's no good, miss," nurse was saying ; " you must 'ave dropped 'em in the street. Surely you're not going to cry for such a bit o' nonsense, and you seven years old ! " "Oh, nurse!" gasped Marian, "don't you think the man at the corner would give me a bun on credit?" It was at this moment that a dark-haired boy, accompanied by a bland and butler-like individual, stepped up to the group. "'/ can give you a bun," he announced, in a tone which betrayed real sympathy, though likewise a touch of condescension, and he held out a paper bag. Marian looked eagerly at the bag, then inquiringly at her nurse. "You needn't be afraid," said the small stranger, noticing her hesitation. " There can't be any objection to taking a thing from me. My name is Berrincott." " So is mine," said Marian, opening wide her eyes, in which astonishment had instantaneously dried up the tears.

" Is it ? " and a brilliant smile broke over the boy's face. " Then you must be my cousin." There followed an explanation, which ended by Bernard accompanying Marian and her nurse home to 31, Laurel Road. He was passing through London on his way from Harrow for his Christmas holidays, under charge of the family butler, and unhampered, therefore, by the presence of his father. The first step once taken, Bernard's visits in Laurel Road became an institution. Number 31 was not a specially lively house, and very likely he would have tired of it soon had it not possessed for him an attraction of its own. The fact is, that since the days of rocking-horses and wooden swords, Bernard had possessed a hankering after the military profession, a hankering which at home met with nothing but discouragement, for ever since he had been rejected in favour of a British officer, Simon had LOT 13 never entirely got over the feeling oi pique with which the entire British army inspired him.

Who knows, too, whether, had she not been a little dazzled by the glory of the wounded warrior, fresh from the Crimea, Maria Hilton would have made the same choice between the rich and the poor cousin ? Bernard's longings being what they were, it is clear that Uncle James and his game-leg and his Crimean stories could not fail very power fully to attract him. The boy made no secret of his visits in Laurel Road, and, considerably to his own surprise, they were not immediately put a stop to. This, too, had its reason. Simon had not seen Maria since the day on which she had told him that she could not marry him, and though it would be stretching a point to say that he still loved her, yet it is certain that he still felt about her a keen and somewhat spiteful curiosity. To gather from Bernard's talk the details of the narrow life she now led ; to learn, through some casual remark, that the cheek of his old love, which had once been pink and soft, was now shrunk and faded, that her bright eyes were dim, her clear voice broken — all this afforded him a strange relish.

When Bernard was nineteen and Marian twelve, her mother, who had long been an invalid, died ; and after that Bernard's visits ceased. They had always been more or less ignored, but now they were peremptorily for bidden. To Bernard his father's command did not make much difference ; he had plenty of other interests waiting for him ; but to Marian it made all the difference in the world, for in spite of being a Londoner, she was very much more solitary than most girls of her age. Compelled by his wounded leg to quit the army after a brief, though brilliant career, Captain Berrincott had selected the metropolis as the spot for pitching his tent, principally because there is no place like London for utter privacy, and because utter privacy was the article of which he was in search. Despite his success in love, his life, taken all round, was a failure.

Not only was there the collapse of his military hopes, but his wife's health had broken down not many years after their marriage, and of the five children that were born to them Marian alone survived. Strangers would describe him as crusty, and even crabbed, whereas in point of fact he was a secretly broken-hearted man, very nervous about being suspected of having feelings. Marian had grown into the sort of girl that James Berrincott's daughter could not well fail to grow into — silent, self-sufficing, and above all, reserved. She had a few acquaintances, but neither friend nor confidant. Was it likely she should want one ? Even as a child she had not been allowed to cry over her broken dolls ; was it likely that — supposing she had any emotion to express — she would even know how to set about expressing it ?

Ever since his misfortunes had begun to overtake him, James Berrincott had loathed the most distant approach to a "scene," and so deep-rooted was his dislike to the sight of tears, that in the old nursery days every quarrel used summarily to be decided by the formula: "The one that's crying is in the wrong ; the one that's laughing is in the right." c LOT 13. There were some people who declared that Marian's face was beautiful, but even these seldom did so at first sight, for there are faces that disclose themselves entirely at one glance, and there are others that in some undefinable way seem only to reveal themselves bit by bit — to " grow upon you," as the saying is. Marian belonged to the latter order of beauty. For many tastes her style of looks would have been too little pronounced ; for neither in stature nor in colouring did Marian come under the head of what is usually called "striking."

Most people like to be able to describe a woman in a few concise words ; above all, they prefer her to be distinctly labelled as blonde or as brunette. Marian was both, and neither. Her soft brown hair, cloudily dark in shadow, wanted only the touch of a sunbeam to appear as though powdered with golden dust. It was the same with her eyes ; they were generally considered to be grey, yet there were moments, and moods, and angles at which something like a blue fire seemed to smoulder within them. No one so dependent on mood and light as Marian. There were days on which the slender, pale girl, with the serious child-face, the lustreless brown hair, and the quiet grey eyes, might almost be passed over as insignificant ; others, again, when this golden-haired, blue-eyed creature was scarcely to be recognised as the same person.