Money's Worth. A novel, in a prologue and three books

Prologue

AND THREE BOOKS. BY TOM HOOD, AUTHOR OF "A GOLDEN HEART," " A LOST LINK," "CAPTAIN MASTEES'S CHILDREN," ETC. ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: TINSLEY, BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND, W.C. 1870. {All Rights reserved.) WYMAN AND SONS, PBINTEBS, GHEAT QUEEN STBEET, LINCOLN'S INW FIBLD3, LONDON, TV.C. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XIII. THE LOVELY LEONTINE IN A NEW" CHARACTER . 5 XIV. ANOTHER MOVE .22 THE THIRD BOOK— CONTENT. I. " DOTH NOT A MEETING LIKE THIS MAKE AMENDS 1 " 43 II. A CHANGE IN THE BILL AT THE DROMUS . . 59 III. SOWING THE W7IND . . . . ..75 IV. MOGRIDGE MANAGES TO " SQUARE IT " . . 92 V. " EMPLOYMENT FOR THE GENTLEMEN OF THE LONG ROBE " 106 VI. HASSARD ONCE MORE ON THE WING . . .123 VII. REAPING THE WHIRLWIND . . . .138 vni. Lancelot's labour lost . . . .173 IX. " RUBBED OUT !

" . . . . . . 188 X. EXIT CHANTICLEER ! ...... 202 XI. A HOMERIC STRUGGLE . . . . . 21 S XII. LANCELOT LOOKS EASTWARD .... 230 XIII. IN WHICH SCARDRAKE FAILS TO RECOGNIZE ESTHER 240 XIV. IN WHICH LANCELOT SIGHTS THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. ....... 262 XV. IN WHICH LANCELOT IS LEFT AT WORK . .

CHAPTER XIII. THE LOVELY LEONTINE IN

A NEW CHARACTER. In the afternoon of the eventful day when he and Elwin met again at the Leicester Theatre, old Scardrake felt so unsettled, that, finding it utterly impossible to apply himself to business, he went home to Brixton, to the no small as tonishment of Esther, who had become accus tomed by this time to his stopping away until late in the evening. There had been, as has been recorded in pre vious chapters, a coolness between Esther and her father ; and the breach widened day by day, until he found his home so distasteful that he spent his evenings, as a rule, at his club or at the theatre. This was a pleasant enough arrangement for him, but it did not conduce much III. B to Esther's happiness. It was true that she and her father had few sympathies nowadays, but his company was, nevertheless, better than none at all.

In the solitude of the long evenings she had nothing to divert her thoughts from the past, and the memories which came crowd ing back again, like so many ghosts, in the long silence of the gloaming, were bitter and dis quieting. She could not still the voice of self accusation, and she could not shut the eyes of conscience against the vivid picture of a dying woman's face — the face of the rival whom she had as surely killed as if she had struck the knife into her heart actually, instead of meta phorically. So Esther, weary of her long solitary even ings, was no less pleased, perhaps, than asto nished at her father's early return home. She received him graciously — more graciouslv than was her wont. As for Scardrake, he was so full of the strange event of the day that the coldest reception would not have prevented his telling her all that had happened.

He did not forget to dwell on the abject state to which Elwin was reduced, nor did he omit to declare with many a solemn oath his determina tion to hunt his victim down. Scardrake's desire for revenge had been rendered more acute by the frequent rebuffs and disappointments he had encountered. They had intensified his fury, and given to his pursuit of vengeance the keenness and zest, which to man — essentially a " hunting animal," let Mr. Freeman argue as long as he pleases — become so much the more delightful the longer and more arduous the chase. But with Esther the case was different. Her first thirst for revenge was strongly imbued with jealousy ; and she had drunk deeply — darkly, of the cup of vengeance — even to the bitter lees ! The feeling inspired by dis appointed love, by a sense of wrong and treachery, was vindictive, not implacable.

Now when the man, whom she would have slain in the first outburst of her wounded pride and disappointed love, was brought to the dust, the ashes of her heart were warm again with a spark of the old fire — only a tiny spark of pity, it is true, but yet a relic of the bygone affection. She was too proud, however, to let even her father see that the man who had deceived her had still the power to stir her sympathy. But inwardly she rebelled against her father's desire to crush the unhappy, broken-down wretch altogether. * What wrong had Herbert Elwin E done to him, compared with the wrong he had done to her, that where she could forgive, he should be so unrelenting ? But she said not a word, partly from pride, as I have said ; and partly because she knew her father too well to dream that any intercession of hers could prevail with him now.

At one time a word would have sufficed from her ; but since then their paths had diverged, her. influence was lost for ever. None fight more desperately than deserters — none are so pertinacious in denouncing their late faith as converts. In the same way, none differ so widely or so obstinately as quondam friends, between whom the bond of sympathy, that once seemed in divisible as the link that connects the Siamese Twins, has been snapped by a careless word or a random deed ! Scardrake, however, did not suspect the change in his daughter's feelings on this ques tion, and made no attempt to conceal the steps he had taken to secure Elwin, by putting the detectives on his trail, with the intention of accusing him of an attempt to burn the theatre. For several weeks after this — as long, in short, as Scardrake employed the detectives — Esther was in constant anxiety.

Day after day she inquired of her father if there was any trace of the fugitive. He used to smile at her eagerness, believing that she shared his desire for vengeance— as a beast of prey looks on with satisfaction whilst its young ones dis play the first evidence of their innate ferocity. But day after day went by, and the detectives were still at fault. Esther could scarcely analyze her state of mind ; for, while she wished him to escape, she felt a sort of vague longing to see once again the man who had been so large a part of her life, who had filled her past with dreams and sad recollections, and had darkened her future with despair and disappointment. She grew utterly weary of her home now. The elegant villa at Brixton had too many memories of the old times. She longed to get away from it, and its sad associations.

She begged her father to let her go back to Spin caster, where she had spent her childhood. Scardrake had still retained an estate there, situated a short distance out of the town. It had been part of his wife's property, and he had kept it, because he believed that, though only a small and not very valuable estate to begin with, it would become a place of worth and importance when Spincaster, with a rapidly increasing population, growing prosperity, and an improving trade, should have so far extended as to make the estate desirable for building purposes. It was convenient too ; for as he still had some irons in the fire at Spincaster, it was necessary for him to go down there sometimes, and he found the old house a pleasant enough place to stay in while he was transacting his business. He was so universally hated in Spincaster, that to stay at an hotel, or spend an hour more than was absolutely necessary in the town, would have subjected him to many unpleasantnesses.

He was not over-sensitive, but a man must have a moral epidermis as thick as a rhinoceros-hide not to wince when he finds himself shunned as if he were a walk ing pestilence — and in Spincaster Scardrake was thus shunned by all save those wrhose mis fortune it was to be compelled to do business with him. Now, although under these circumstances he found the old house, situated as it was a little distance from Spincaster, a very welcome retreat when he was obliged to go there, Scar drake did not feel much inclined to take up a permanent abode in the immediate vicinity of a town where he was beyond all question the best-hated person in existence. So when Esther begged of him to give up the Brixton villa and retire to Spincaster, he resolutely set his face against the proposition. She was young yet, he declared, and he hoped to see her married and settled before long-, and it would not be a good way of bringing about that desirable consummation to bury her in an out-of-the-way country house.

Esther declared that she should never marry. Her father pooh-poohed the notion. She urged that at any rate there was as much chance of her finding a husband in a large place like Spincaster, as anywhere else, to which Scar drake replied, with a very strong asseveration, that nobody there was likely to marry her. As Esther had not been at Spincaster since she was quite a girl, and therefore was ignorant of her father's unpopularity there — to put as mildly as possible the state of feeling towards him in that locality — she was a little at a loss to account for the very violent way in which the matrimonial chances of Spincaster were denounced. However, she saw it was of no use urging the point any further just then, and so let the subject drop, hoping for a more favour able opportunity for repeating the request.

Scardrake dismissed the subject too, thinking it was only a passing whim. He was so full of the lawsuit in which he was engaged with money's woeth. 12 Moss on behalf of the Lovely Leontine that he had little thought for anything else. He was not a little furious when he discovered that Captain Hassard had given him the slip. He learnt the fact from Mrs. Hassard. That flabby-minded lady, as soon as she was compelled to acknowledge to herself that the Captain had again deserted her, thought it would be rather clever than otherwise to write to Scardrake and tell him, appealing to his mercy not to ruin her by prosecuting the cause, and seizing the few poor things which con stituted her all ! Of course, her appeal was useless. Scar drake, thinking that he might be able. to turn her weakness to advantage, pretended to be very sorry for her, and promised to assist her.

But, he assured her, in this business he was not the leading actor — Mr. Moss was really engaged, and it was he who was conducting the case. All that he, Scardrake, could do was to endeavour to mollify Mrs. Clayter, and obtain easv terms after the case was decided. Failing that, he would do his best to assist Mrs. Hassard out of the difficulty. Mrs. Hassard was too weak-minded not to be imposed on by these pretended offers of aid, and even went so far as to call on Scardrake, who satisfied himself by a very few questions that she really knew nothing of the Captain's whereabouts, intentions, or movements. However, he con soled himself with the reflection that, after all, it was not the Captain whom he had such a grudge against, but his rival, Lancelot Oldham, and Violet, whom he longed to humble as she had humiliated him.

As a matter of course, when he next saw the Lovely Leontine, he told her of the Captain's disappearance. But he did not say anything about Lancelot — indeed, she would not allow him, for she was furious at the Captain's escape, and rated Scardrake soundly for letting him slip through his fingers. Altogether, she was so disagreeable, that he was glad to bring the interview to a speedy close, merely assuring her that there was every hope of catching the Captain before long. He knew this was not true, but he thought it would pacify her. But the Lovely Leontine knew the Captain better than old Scardrake supposed, and she felt that he was too old a campaigner to be so easily caught when he had once given them the slip. She called the next day on Jerusha Moss, and gave him a sound rating too. He was not acquainted, as Scardrake was, with her motives in seeking to establish her claims to the Clayter estate; so he frankly confessed that he thought she would hardly care to press her case now that the money was gone, and the only redress she could claim was from the trustees, Avho were men of straw.

" Why this Captain Hassard, ma'am,"' said Moss, "isn't worth a penny. You can sell him up, and that's all. His furniture's new, it's true ; but a sale never brings in anything like the price things cost, however new they may be. As to the other fellow, Oldham, he's only a newspaper fellow — a penny-a-liner, or something of that sort." "Oldham!" said the Leontine; "what is his Christian name ? " Moss referred to the papers, and informed her it was Lancelot. "Lancelot Oldham!" said she, musingly; " it must be the same. I wonder if Scardrake knows. Mr. Moss," she added, suddenly, " take no more steps in this matter till you hear from me. I am inclined to think what you said is true, and that it is needless expense to pursue a shadow. If ever this Hassard turns up again, we can always revive the action, I suppose ?

" She did not wait for an answer to this question — did not even bid Jerusha " Good day," but hurried downstairs, and ordered her coach man to drive straight to Scardrake's. He was out, the clerks said, and one of them expressed his belief that he would not return to the office that day. " Do you think he has gone home ? " inquired the lady. The clerk supposed he had. Old Scardrake purposely kept his clerks in igno rance of his habits and movements as much as possible, in the belief that their uncertainty about him would keep them in awe, and prevent them from wasting their time, or playing truant. Merely waiting to ascertain the address at Brixton, the Lovely Leontine hurried out of the office and bade her coachman drive to Scar drake's private residence. Scardrake was not at home, to her great disappointment.

She inquired when he was expected, and the answer was that he was uncertain. She was just about to drive off, when a thought seemed suddenly to strike her. " Is Miss Scardrake at home ? " she asked. The footman replied in the affirmative. Without more ado she got out of the brougham, and before the astonished servant could open his mouth, had walked past him into the hall. " Show me into a room, and tell Miss Scar drake a lady wishes to see her particularly ! " The footman obeyed somewhat reluctantly. He was a little afraid of the effect of such an announcement on Esther's temper, for she seldom saw callers, and was, as a rule, denied to strangers especially. " Did she give no name — no card ? " asked Esther, when, with fear and trembling, he had conveyed the message. " No, ma'am ; she said you wouldn't know it " — which was a fiction, as we are aware ; but it seemed the only way out of the difficulty, so he adopted it in sheer desperation.

Esther was annoyed, but she determined to see her mysterious visitor. So she sailed into the drawing-room with dignity, and gave the Lovely Leontine a distant and freezing bow. ' To what do I owe this visit, madam ? " she asked, motioning the other to be seated, but remaining standing herself, as a hint that the interview must be a brief one. Her visitor did not answer for some time, and did not heed the invitation to be seated. She stood gazing earnestly at Esther, who began to feel not quite comfortable in undergoing such a close scrutiny. " You are Miss Scardrake ? " said her visitor, not without a trace of agitation in her voice. "lam." " Esther — that is your Christian name, is it not? Yes, Esther!" said the stranger, repeating the word, as if there was some tender association in the sound.

Esther did not speak, for she was wondering who her visitor was, and how she came to know her name. " You do not remember your mother ? " asked the other. " She died when I was very young," said Esther. " Who told you so ? Did he tell you so ? " " My father said so ! " " It was a lie, then ! " said the other, fiercely. " Madam ! " said Esther, with some severity. She fancied her visitor must be mad, and moved towards the bell. " It was a lie — a wicked lie ! Your father's wife died, it is true — but not your mother." "I do not understand you, madam ! " said Esther, laying her hand on the bell. But before she could ring, the other stopped her, and flinging her arms round her, with a sudden burst of tears, exclaimed, " Esther — Esther, Jam your mother ! " Esther was completely taken by surprise, and sank speechless on the sofa ; while the other falling on her knees at her feet, half hid her face in Esther's lap, and with sobs, and tears, and in broken accents told the story of her betrayal and of her abandonment of her child.

Esther, though at a loss what to do, and un certain whether to believe or disbelieve, had enough of the woman in her nature to weep from sympathy, while the other poured forth her regrets and reproaches. " I have been deceived and wronged, all my life. I have no friend in the world — no one to love me, if you refuse ! " sobbed the mother. Esther could not resist the appeal, and had just flung her arms round the Lovely Leontine's neck, when the door opened suddenly and Scardrake entered. It appeared that he and the Lovely Leontine had crossed each other, for he was goinofroni his office to Moss's, as she drove from Moss's office to his. When he learnt from Jerusha that she had ordered him to stay the proceedings, and had expressed an intention of consulting him, he hastened back to his own chambers, to learn that Miss Leontine had called there, and had gone away with the intention of looking for him at Brixton.

The moment he entered the room he divined what had taken place, and he was anything but pleased. He had calculated on the mother's long separation from Esther, and supposed that not even the tiniest spark of the maternal in stinct had survived. He had given the Lovely Leontine credit for self-command and common sense enough to make her refrain from reviving the past. And, indeed, he might have relied on her, for she had had no intention of revealing her relation to Esther ; but she had been Avorried and upset of late, and her nerves were shaken. Her interview with Moss had recalled old times to her memory, and the sight of Esther, and the feeling that, lonely as she was, she had a claim on her daughter's affection, had overcome her resolution. In his anger, Scardrake said enough to con vince Esther of the truth of the story to which she had been listening in doubt.

She, too, felt lonely and miserable ; and there came a new and strange sense of comfort with the know ledge of a mother's sympathy and love. She clung to her instinctively ; Scardrake saw it, and it did not make him more amiable. Angry words and cruel charges were exchanged, until Esther interposed as peacemaker. Then Scardrake remembered the reason of his coming, and asked why Moss had been in structed to stay proceedings. " Because I believe that Lancelot Oldham, whom you would crush by them, is my sister's child. Is that not so ? " But Scardrake declared he did not know; and to do him justice, I believe he was in ignorance of the relationship. At any rate, he did not withhold the address, though possibly he felt that, as Esther knew where Mrs. Hassard lived, , his refusal would only delay, and not prevent, the inquiry which the Lovely Leontine, of many aliases, desired to institute.

When her mother rose to go, Esther — to Scardrake's rage and disappointment — an nounced her intention of accompanying her. It was in vain that he threatened and implored — not so much from affection as from the wish to avoid the scandal to which Esther's determi nation would lead; the mother and daughter seemed anxious to make up by the fervour of their attachment now for the long years of their separation. When they were gone, Scardrake felt a sense of desolation so new, so strange, and so overpowering, that he was fairly unmanned. And indeed, though one cannot sympathize with the old villain, it is impossible to avoid feeling some sort of pity for him, when one sees him thus deserted, amid the wreck of his cherished schemes, and in the bitterness of disappointed revenge. "I give it up !

It's no use fighting ! " he said to himself savagely ; " the best thing I can do is to crawl away to some hole where no one knows me — and die ! " in. o

CHAPTER XIV. ANOTHER MOVE.

The ceaseless worry and terror in which Lancelot now lived, with the threats of Moss and Scardrake constantly hanging over his head, told upon him seriously. He had not explained to Violet the full extent of his liability, for he wanted the courage to blight her young and hopeful life with so dark and apparently so hopeless an out-look. But he brooded over his trouble, alone and in secret, until he almost persuaded himself that the world was right, and he was wrong ; that he should not have linked Violet's fate with his by marrying her on his slender and uncertain income. It was his love that blinded him to the truth, but he was none the less on that account a traitor to his wife ! He forgot that the loving woman would sooner share the struggles — nay, the poverty — of the man she loves, than wait until he can offer her the calm haven of an assured independence, where her love will never be proved by adversity.

A wo man's nature is 'such that she never can feel that her love is proved worthy until it has passed through the fiery furnace of tribulation. In short, to man, love means admiration, pride, emulation — -a host of things ! To a woman, it means simply sacrifice. To her, to love is to give, to submit, to suffer for the beloved. To him, it is to win, to achieve, to conquer for the beloved. In plainer terms, woman's love is the abnegation — man's the glorification — of self! Lancelot brooded over his trouble, and became so impressed with the wrong he had done Violet, that he felt absolute pain in her presence. Her loving words, her tender caresses seemed to stab him ! It was an un reasonable sensibility — a morbid feeling — but he could not shake it off ; and it made him not only wretched, but weak.

It incapacitated him for work — as the harass of Moss and Scar drake's persecution might well have done alone. Combined with this self-upbraiding, their per secution prostrated him ; for at home, where he should have found comfort, and respite, and consolation, he found only deeper cause for bitter remorse and self-reproach. c Unfortunately the luxury of private grief, in personal cases, is one denied to the journalist, as it is to the actor. It would never do, of course, to allow Clown to wash little rivulet courses in his bismuth, because his wife is lying dead at home; Pantaloon must bear his buffets with a smiling face, though his children want bread, and he can see no pros pect but a workhouse — or a suicide's grave when the pantomime season is at an end ! In the same way, the proprietor of The Cockcroiv could not excuse Lancelot if his leaders wanted brightness, or his reports failed in briskness, because the wolf or the bailiff seemed to be sitting at the front door of his humble home.

Heginbotham saw that Lancelot's pen began to lack its accustomed deftness, and he soon learnt that this failure had been noted by the higher powers. So he warned his friend, and by so doing only aggravated the evil. " So they're beginning to complain of my work ! " said Lancelot. " Well, I suppose I am written-out ; and they will discharge me. I am so accustomed to ill-luck now, Heg, that I never expect anything else ! " " Pooh, my boy ! Stuff and nonsense ! " said old Heg, " I tell you it's all right. You're a little out of sorts, and you don't hit it off in your work quite so happily as usual. Temporary derangement — possibly bile. Try Cockle ! " But Lancelot was too depressed to be roused by old Heg's mild chaff. It was as much as his friend could do to prevent him from send ing in his resignation.

He would rather do that, he said, than be dismissed; and as they complained he had better go. But Hegin botham contrived to dissuade him from this suicidal act, by setting forth that as he, Hegin botham, had informed him of the opinion of the authorities, which was expressed in strict confidence, he would get into serious disgrace, if Lancelot, by acting on what he had told him, proved that he (Heg) had broken faith with them. Lancelot admitted the justice of this, and promised not to get Heginbotham into a scrape. But he went away with the dismal conviction that he was likely to lose his post on the paper. The effect on his spirits was the reverse of cheerful, and he could no longer conceal the anxiety he felt from the watchful eyes of Violet. She pressed him for an explanation of its cause, and by degrees prevailed on him to tell her all his trouble.

But when he wound it all up by reproaching himself for dragging her down money's WOKTH. to privation and distress, she put her hand before his mouth, and playfully forbade him to speak more. She assumed a cheerful air, for she saw that if he was not roused from his dejection, he would worry himself into a serious illness. " My dear Lancelot, you must have been dreaming that you have married a Peeress ! Dragging me down to want ! Why, I never knew anything else. Was not I a poor struggling governess — with a home where I was not happy? Don't you think, dear, that I would sooner — ah, far sooner, share your lot, with all its cares and anxieties, than have all that miserable money of my aunt's, without you ? A wife is not what Mr. Heginbotham calls ■ a fair-weather friend,' to stay with you only while there is sunshine.

You do me an injustice when you conceal your cares from me, for you deprive me of my right to try to cheer and comfort you. Let us look at these troubles together, and see how they are to be met ! " Lancelot felt his courage revive when he saw how bravely Violet could face the difficulties which had so unnerved him. " We must not spend a penny more than we can help," said Violet, with a woman's readiness to practise small economies, " and lay by what we can for the rainy day. But we'll not believe it is coming, for all that." " There will be no escaping it, Violet. I know old Scardrake, and that old harpy, Moss, too well not to know they will have their pound of flesh if they cannot get their pound of money ; and, as your father has got out of the way, the whole of their vengeance will fall on my devoted head !

" " Well, cannot we undertake to pay it back by degrees ? We must have my mother to live with us, and realize all we can by the sale of the things at Norwood. They ought to bring in a handsome sum — they cost enough, in all con science ! That would be something as a first instalment." " My dear Violet, you ought to know, from your own experience of the low prices we gave in our happy furniture-hunting days, that when once a thing becomes ' second hand ' — though it has scarcely been used at all — its value is diminished immensely." " I think we ought to give up this house, and go into lodgings, or try and look about for something cheaper," said Violet. As they talked the matter over thus, it seemed to Lancelot that the horizon was already becoming brighter. How true is it that the hardest grief to bear is the grief without community — :' For as ale and porter when flat are restored, Till a sparkling, bubbling bead they afford, So sorrow is cheered by being poured From one vessel into another."