The Two Lancrofts

Front matter

SOME PRESS NOTICES OF THE FIRST EDITION. Athenæum. — " It is by work like this that we English, who affect to complacently despise our nearest Continental neighbours in other departments of national activity, such as politics and sport, are fain to confess the cultivated supremacy of Paris, amid all her vagaries, as the artistic centre of Europe and of the world. . . Saturday Revirui. — "As Mr. Keary has decided leanings in a patricular direction, he should be popular with the higher criticism. His book is the triumphant reposition of whatever is best in a certain literary church. . . . The interest or excitement of the book is mainly intellectual ; never sensitive or sensational . . . not the least of Mr. Keary's attainments, many and varied, is the possession of a literary equipment so many novelists have failed to acquire.

He is master of a scholarly English of passion tempered with reticence, pathos undiluted with pathology, and epigram freed of the new humour. It is not, therefore, remarkable that he should be the author of one of the most striking and original novels which have appeared for a long time." Spectator. — "The studio chapters in the Paris section of the novel are excellent, with much more of real knowledge than the similar chapter in David Grieve, and many of the single situations, such as the coming together of Willie and Thyrza and their final parting, have the warmth and reality of life." Daily Chronicle. — "It is, indeed, a singularly vigorous, original, and impressive book, which no one is likely to read with the tepid interest given to books which are at once less faulty and less strong.

" Liverpool Mercury. — "There is much delightful reading in the book, perhaps too much knowledge of life ; and several characters, that of Charlie, the girl student, in particular, very beautiful indeed ; thus the novel deserves attention, for it lures you on and on, until at last, by its new method of presentation, it is downright fascinating. Like the equally enjoyable ' Waverley,' it is the first part that is difficult, the rest is delight." St. fames' Gazette. — "With all its fine qualities, 'The Two Lancrofts ' will be a rock of offence to those who regard the history of the ' Young Person ' as the proper subject of the novelist. Mr. Keary does not deal with young persons; his people are real men and_ women of unmistakeable flesh and Wood." x^Jil. ' - BY C. F. KEARY AUTHOR OF "A MARIAGE DE CONVENANCE LONDON OSGOOD, McILVAINE & CO. 45, Albemarle Street, W. 1894 \All rights reserved]

Chapter I

" How old is your son ? " "Willie, oh, Willie? Let me see. He is — eight een. Yes ; he will be nineteen on the 24th of next November — next November." She gave a deep sigh. " Yes — nineteen. He goes to Oxford next October." Mrs. Lancroft said this last sentence more coherently than the previous ones, looking up rather keenly at her interlocutor as she did so. " Ah," was all that Mr. Bousfield replied. He felt a good deal of inward irritation — beyond even that which is incident to having remained in a house of mourning for twenty-four hours. But he congratulated himself on having mastered the feeling, and merely said, "Ah!" " Would you like me to take you to your room, Laura?" said her brother-in-law. "I think now that Bousfield and I can discuss the questions of business together." " Perfectly," said the co-executor.

" And as I fear I must catch the five o'clock train, I had better say good-bye." He spoke in the low tone which is appropriate to the house of mourning. " Good-bye, my dear friend." He pressed her hand gently as he said this. " Good-bye," Mrs. Lancroft sighed. She gave him another of those glances which seemed to have a p. certain expectancy in them. Then she went out slowly on the arm of her brother-in-law, the Rev. Godfred Lancroft. Mr. Bousfield's face kept the same expression of decorous sympathy after Mrs. Lancroft had left the room. He thought, " I wonder if I ought to have repeated what I said in my letter about my having lost one of my oldest and best friends. She seemed to expect me to say something. But it's so much easier to say those things in a letter. Poor Lancroft ! I'm very sorry for him, I must say ; but he certainly has been playing the fool in a terrible way with that farm of his."

Then the executor remembered what Mrs. Lancroft had said about the son going to college in October, and his irritation returned. " In a terrible way," he repeated to himself. Mr. Godfred Lancroft came back. " She is in her room ; I've left her with my wife and her daughter Carry," he said, speaking always in the hushed tones which ceremony required. "Dear me! it looks as if there was a sea fog coming up." Mr. Bousfield too looked out of the window — there were three deep narrow windows to the drawing-room of Speilby Abbey. Opposite him a broad grass walk, flanked by low weeping elms and standard roses, led straight to a wall built partly of brick and partly of stone, at the end of the garden. The elms, the roses, the bank of rhododendrons which shut off a walk along the end of the garden, lay all quite still in the June sunlight, into which a light mist was now beginning to creep.

And into Mr. Bousfield's practical mind there entered for a moment a vague recollection of some childhood legend, some story of a custom of " telling the bees " when the master of the house died. Through a door which was just visible in the wall opposite you passed on to a tract of no-man's land made up of bare sandhills ; and on the other side of the sandhills came the sea beach. Though the sea itself could not be seen from any of the windows of the Abbey, even on the stillest day such as this was, its monotonous low voice could be heard. Presently over the rhododendrons to the right Mr. Bousfield caught sight of a head moving, a head in a striped cricket-cap, whose owner appeared to be walking with slow and regular steps while he smoked. There were, in fact, two people at that corner of the garden, Willie Lancroft, the only surviving son of the house, and his cousin Hope, who was two years and more his senior.

Nobody but Hope Lancroft would have put himself in Willie's way in the circumstances ; for the two cousins really knew each other but slightly, and Hope had no distinct idea of playing the part of a consoler. If he had been asked why he was there he would probably have replied that he came there first ; and he might have added that he did not know that a man was supposed to say nothing to anybody because he had been to his father's funeral. As it was, ten minutes had passed without either of them speaking, the one walking up and down, the other seated on a bench, when Hope, who with his small wonderfully bright eyes had watched his cousin as he paced to and fro, spoke suddenly. "I suppose," he said, "in a position like that, one hardly knows what one feels." Willie started ; not, however, because of the indelicacy of the observation, but because of its truth.

Then he flushed. "If I were a woman," Hope went on, " I should find a lot of things to say. They go in much more for ready made things than we do, in dress and everything else." Hope was too young to make epigrams ; but he had leanings in that direction. Willie stopped in his walk, knocked out the ashes of his pipe, took a long vague look at his cousin, and replied not to the last observation but to the first one. " Yes," he said, and he gave a half sigh ; " you hardly know what you feel like — what anything is — " While Hope, following the bent of his own thoughts, E continued, " Well, the great thing that can be said for us is that we are not hypocritical. At least — " He did not finish the sentence ; a sudden thought made him smile to himself. And this time Willie caught the thought in its flight, though he answered by an apparently irrelevant remark.

" How long are you going to stay at Batters by?" "Oh, as long as I can this time. I've got," Hope went on, getting up from his seat and putting both hands in his trousers pockets, " a tremendous scheme on hand." " How do you mean ? What sort of a scheme ? " " It'll make them all sit up. I've told nobody about it yet." Hope was striding backwards and forwards across the grass pathway rather excitedly as he spoke. " You'll hear of it," he concluded, "in a month or two." Willie looked at him for a minute as if he expected he was going to say more. Then he put back his pipe into his mouth. He seemed to have forgotten his cousin, and, walking like an absent-minded person, he went in the direction of the drawing-room windows. "He's a lucky beggar," Hope said to himself, looking after him. For he, like Willie himself, if the latter allowed his thoughts to dwell upon the subject, had a vague notion that Willie had now come into an independent position and was master of his own future.

Of course Hope did not fancy, as he used to when a boy, that Speilby Abbey had belonged to his Uncle Robert. But he vaguely thought that the farm would manage itself, and that the house and all its appurtenances would come to Willie as the eldest son. There were some things about which Hope was very ignorant in those days ; and it was in ignorance that he said, " He's a lucky beggar," as he watched Willie's form retreating across the lawn. The sight of Willie Lancroft in the distance had brought the two executors back to business. " Mrs. Lancroft appears to hold very much to sending her son to college," Mr. Bousfield said. " But of course that's quite impossible." " I suppose it is — yes, I suppose it is," said the Rev. Godfred. His accent, like his sister-in-law's had some thing of a note of interrogation in it.

But it also im plied in advance, " Whatever you decide, I am prepared to agree to." " Oh, absolutely. There can be no question of that — none whatever." The co-executor spoke more decidedly still. For even the other's mild half-interrogation irritated him. " Why, when a man dies as good as a bankrupt ! " he went on to himself, fuming inwardly. " I shall never get back my three hundred pounds, I know that ; and don't expect to, of course. Poor Lancroft's welcome enough to that." Both remained silent for a minute. " My poor sister-in-law will be — ," Mr. Godfred Lancroft began again. " Well, of course there's no reason to speak of that matter immediately." He said this rather hurriedly, for Willie Lancroft appeared at that moment at the drawing-room window. ' ' Come in, Willie, come in," he said, cheerfully, forgetting himself for a moment ; and then, in a sombre voice, " Come in, my boy."

" Well, I must be seeing about my train," said Mr. Bousfield. "Well, my boy," he went on to Willie, imitating as nearly as possible the tone in which the uncle had last spoken, " I suppose you'll be going back to school. Your poor mother tells me you're getting on very well there. I'm glad to hear it ; I'm very glad to hear it. You must work hard, you know. Your mother and sisters may — will — er — lean upon you a good deal, I daresay. Now if you would just go round and see if the trap could be got ready for me." Willie Lancroft was in height above the average, broad-shouldered and exceptionally strongly built. He had heavy superciliary ridges which gave him, seen from a little distance, rather a sullen look. This was counter acted by the mild expression of his large blue eyes, as well as by a certain awkwardness and hesitancy of manner which often accompanies exceptional physical strength.

He gave many people who saw him for the first time the impression that he was rather dull. There was, however, among other things, his school record to negative any such theory. He was famous at Rugby for his verse-making in Greek, Latin, and English, and had this last term almost beaten the record in the number of times that he had been sent up for good. When a fellow is in the sixth, and in the fifteen at football, and is popularly supposed to be able to lick any other chap in the school — if sixth-form boys ever had to display their prowess in this respect — diffidence can hardly be a dominant note in his characher. Now, however, in the presence of these two executors, who had been settling all the family affairs, and had not once called him into council, Willie felt himself shrinking in size by cubic inches every minute.

He stood there large and heavy, awkward and blushing, inwardly resenting being called " my boy " by almost a stranger, but with not even the shadow of an idea how to assert himself. "You'd like a cup of tea before you go ? " said Uncle Godfred. " Willie, tell them to bring in tea." " What a fool I was not to offer the old bloke tea," thought Willie Lancroft, as he went to the door. " No, no tea. Nothing whatever, thank you. No, you needn't," Mr. Bousfield called out to Willie who was just going out ; " only speak about the trap, thank you." " Have we any more business matters to discuss ? " said the clergyman. The word " more " might have been omitted. " No, I don't think there is any use discussing business matters at present. Peard will prepare the accounts and bring them up to London. If you could meet me there, that would be the best way, and we could go into them together." " Yes, yes ; when you like. I quite trust your judg ment, you know," said Uncle Godfred.

Chapter II

A month after this conversation Mrs. Lancroft was sitting at breakfast in the library at the Abbey. She had only of late begun again to do this, deeming that it showed more respect for her husband's memory to breakfast in bed than in the library. During this past month her mind had been in a tumult. It would have taken a much cleverer person than she was to distinguish between all its component feelings at this or at any moment, and say what was poignant grief, what was discomfort only, an undreamt-of terror of loneliness and responsibility ; how much was preoccupation with what her new situation demanded of her, and fear of being in any way found wanting therein. This one thing alone is certain, that Mrs. Lancroft had acquired the habit of crying easily, and even of sometimes wiping her eyes and blowing her nose in anticipation of tears which in fact — though she did not notice it — never came.

Carry and Charlie, the two girls, were in the room when Mrs. Lancroft came in. They went up and kissed their mother j the good-natured, friendly Carry in her usual hearty way, which had at bottom a touch of indifference in it ; Charlie with all her nerves vividly on the watch for that funereal kiss in return, and the deep sigh following it which had become habitual with Mrs. Lancroft now. " Have you rung for prayers, Carry, dear ? " "Yes, mother. Shall I read them, or will you?" " I think you had better — if you don't mind," and Mrs. Lancroft gave another deep sigh. This formula, too, had been repeated every morning since Mrs. Lancroft came down, and every evening; to Carry there appeared nothing amiss in it. After prayers Mrs. Lancroft sat down at the breakfast table and filled the teapot ; then Jane — Banby the man servant had gone — brought in the letters, and each became absorbed in her own.

" Oh, Charlie ! Millicent Forbes has got leave to go to New — Newn — " " To college ? Oh, I'm so glad." They stopped suddenly, for Mrs. Lancroft was seen to be crying. " Oh, poor, poor Willie," she said, in a voice stifled by her pocket-handkerchief. " How disappointed his father would have been if he could have known this," and she broke down so that she could say no more. " Willie ! What has Willie done, mother ? " cried Charlie. "What is it, mother, dear? " and Carry, who had not yet sat down, went to Mrs. Lancroft's side. She made a motion as if to put her hand on her mother's shoulder, but thought better of it, and only remained standing by her side. " Read it," said Mrs. Lancroft, still sobbing. " Your father had settled everything, and Willie was so looking forward to October. Oh ! it is too terrible !

" Charlie had left her place and come up to Carry's side ; and the two sisters held the letter with trembling hands and read it together. It intimated, in as kind a way as was consistent with business-like brevity, that no doubt Mr. Godfred Lancroft had explained to his sister in-law how impossible, under the altered family circumstances, it would be for her son to go to college as had been intended. That, as his education was now practi cally complete, it became the duty of his trustees to consider whether he could not be placed in a position to earn something — however little at first — for himself, in order to lessen the burden which fell upon the estate ; and that the writer, Mr. Bousfield, believed that his in fluence would be able to secure the young man — though the competition for places of this description was very keen — a clerkship in the Union London and Provincial Bank, where, if he showed capacity and industry, he might soon rise to a position of trust and comfort.

" Oh, mother, why should Willie be obliged to give up going to college ? " said Charlie, her breath coming quickly. " You see what he says, darling. But I don't under stand how this can be. Your — dear - father, I know, had set aside a sum sufficient to pay for the whole of Willie's future education. He often used to speak of the sum — " and she began to use her pocket-handkerchief again. " I — I — think it — it was a thousand pounds, or two thousand. " " A thousand pounds ! Oh, mother. " " Well, it may have been less. I daresay I have forgotten. I am so stupid now, I cannot recollect any thing. " " Dear mammy, " said Carry, soothingly, and with a caressing movement which was not quite spontaneous. " Then why has Mr. Bousfield taken the money away ? " said Charlie, growing hot. She had so often read of fraudu lent executors in the old-fashioned novels which formed the chief literature of which Speilby Abbey boasted.

" I don't know, my darling. How can I know ? Your father trusted Mr. Bousfield implicitly. Give me a very little kedgeree, will you, dear Carry ?" "Does Uncle Godfred know, do you think?" said Carry, after half a minute's pause. " Oh, mother, write to him." "Yes, mother, write to him," said Charlie, excitedly. Her fancy had already carried her about as far as the trial and conviction of Mr. Bousfield. "Would not Mr. Peard know ? " said Carry. " No. We must ask Uncle Godfred," Charlie con tinued, still full of excitement. " I am sure he will look after Willie's money." " Your uncle has not been a great help to me, I must say," said Mrs. Lancroft, plaintively. " He has been quite as bad as Mr. Bousfield about making me sell the brougham and Norfolk, and in trying to find another tenant for this house — I have no doubt they both acted for the best."

" But if papa left this money for Willie to go to college with, it must be somewhere," insisted Charlie. "Well, you cannot be sure. I suppose if the trustees or executors thought right to take it, they had a perfect right to do so, as your father trusted them." " Take it, mother. Do you mean take it for them selves ? " " I don't know, dear. Of course they would not do anything they had not a legal right to do." " Oh, I am sure Uncle Godfred would never do that," said Carry. The scheme of sending for Uncle Godfred was ren dered unnecessary by the appearance of that executor the same day at luncheon. Battersby, where the Godfred Lancrofts lived, was only sixteen miles — one hour's journey on the slow branch line — from Speilby, and so a pretty frequent intercourse between the two families was possible ; though, as a matter of fact, it was only kept up between two members of the respective houses — Carry and Edith Lancroft, who were nearly of an age.

The present Mrs. Godfred Lancroft had not been anxious that too close an intimacy should exist between her household and that of her brother-in-law, who, " though," in the language of the set to which she belonged, " he was, of course, quite a gentleman," was only a farmer. There had been a time when Speilby Abbey, with its wide, roomy house and old-fashioned garden, its boat-house on the shore, its rookery and its great meadows, had been a magnificent place in the eyes of the Battersbys, as their cousins called them — still more so in the days when the Battersbys were not yet Battersbys, but lived at All-Syston. But these were the days before the children were of an age to understand the difference between a tenant in tail and a tenant on lease. During the last month that he had been charged with the duties of an executor, Uncle God fred had rather frequently come over from Battersby to Speilby for luncheon, as he did to-day.

When the clergyman came into the morning-room the sentiments of all the three inhabitants of it underwent an immediate change. It was of the nature of the Rev. Godfred Lancroft to produce such effects by his mere presence. The three women had been feeling almost hostile to him a moment before ; not on account of any supposed wrongful act of his own, but from the notion that he ought to have taken their part against Mr. Bous field, whereas he seemed rather to take Mr. Bousfield's side against his own family. But when Mrs. Lancroft looked at her brother's handsome bald forehead and mild blue eyes all the feeling died away. " How are you, dear Laura ? " and he pressed her hand. This form of address to his sister-in-law had be come almost stereotyped with him, yet was there something specially comforting and kind in it.

And the same thought came into the minds of all the three women, " After all, he is the only man to uphold us." Only Charlie put it slightly differently to herself, " the only man except Willie, and he cannot do much yet." Mrs. Lancroft began as soon as possible upon the letter. " I have had a most terrible letter from Mr. Bousfield," she said. " I don't know whether it is true what he says. But if Robert had been alive it would have broken his heart, I believe. He had planned for years to send his son to college. And my boy has done so well at Rugby. The last term's report was so excellent, except for that football accident. It came the very day my poor Robbie was taken ill. He was — so — pleased — I — remember." Mrs. Lancroft was wiping her eyes with her handkerchief as she said this. " Yes, my dear Laura, I wish — I wish very much it could be so," said her brother-in-law, in his melodious voice.

" But why can't it, Uncle Godfred ? " broke in Charlie, " when papa put by the money on purpose." " Hush, Charlie, don't interrupt," said her mother. " My dear, you can't expect to understand these things," said Mr. Lancroft, with a touch of asperity in his voice. " Of course, if poor Robbie had lived," he went on to his sister-in-law, " there would have been no difficulty about sending his son to Corpus, as he intended.- That is to say, most probably there would have been none. But things had not been going on well, as I explained to you. It was impossible for him to foresee, it is impossible for any of us, how things will turn out in these days. We clergymen suffer in just the same way from the fall of prices. My own income is most seriously diminished. I wish very much I saw some way of carrying out Robert's wishes with regard to his boy," be went on, returning to the matter in hand.

" Bousfield's written to me on the subject." " Oh ! What does he say to you ? In his letter to me he wants us actually to take Willie away from school at once and send him into a bank. You couldn't approve of such a plan. Fancy making a mere bank clerk of the boy at his age." " Ah, well — well, let me see Bousfield's letter." Uncle Godfred said this simply to gain time, for he felt sure that the contents of this letter were practically the same as those of the one written to himself. He settled his gold eye-glasses on his nose and read with deliberation, conscious all the time as he read that three other pair of eyes were fixed upon his face in anxiety and hope. He came presently to the passage, — " Mr. Lancroft will no doubt have already pointed out to you how impossible it is — " Why should he expect you to explain to me how impossible it is for my husband's wishes to be carried out ?

" said Mrs. Lancroft. By watching her brother-in-law's eyes she could tell what paragraph he was reading at any moment. " I don't know, I'm sure," said the clergyman, laying the letter down upon his knee and taking off his eye glasses. " I haven't, I don't profess to have, the same knowledge of business that Mr. Bousfield possesses. But I am bound to say I rely, we must rely, upon his judgment in matters of this sort." " Oh, Uncle Godfred ! " exclaimed Charlie, in dismay. She began to see her worst fears realized — the fraudu lent executor, the supine co-executor — and she could not restrain this exclamation. " Well, Charlie, really," said the uncle, testily, " I think I may be allowed to understand these matters better than you." " How silly you are, Charlie," said the elder sister. " But, Uncle Godfred, what has Mr. Bousfield done with the money, then ?

" " What money do you mean, Carry ? " he asked. " The money my dear husband left for Willie's expenses at Oxford," said Mrs. Lancroft. " I thought it was the duty of the executors to carry out the wishes of — of the dead at any cost." " To themselves " she would have liked to add, but refrained. She wiped her eyes again as she spoke. " Of course, of course," her brother-in-law answered, solemnly. " I should rather say to do their very utmost to carry them out. And that is what Bousfield and I are endeavouring to do, rest assured of that. If it had been possible consistently with making a home for you and the girls, I am sure that Bousfield would have been as anxious as I am to carry out my poor brother's wishes in this par ticular." "No, Godfred, he would not," said Mrs. Lancroft. " Do you know I saw it in his face the first day he was here after " — and she dropped her voice — " after he became executor.

I saw in his face that he did not wish Willie to go to Oxford." " Oh, my dear Laura, I think you're mistaken on that point." " No, I am not, Godfred, I assure you. If I could be quite sure," she went on, half to herself, " that he had not done something with that money." " My dear Laura ! What, stolen it, do you mean ? " "Oh, no, I don't mean stolen it for himself; but kept it back in some way." " Come, come, Laura. Don't you see that the first thing we executors have to do is to secure a provision, an adequate provision for you and the girls, who could not possibly provide for yourselves. The men — the males of a family must necessarily come second to such an object as this. It does seem an opening for Willie, I must say. College life leads a young man into a great deal of temptation. I rejected the idea in the case of my son."