Julian Karslake's Secret, etc

Front matter

H -Hovel. BY MRS. J. H. NEEDELL, AUTHOR OF "STEPHEN ELLICOTT'S DAUGHTER," "THE STORY OF PHILIP METHUEN," "PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN." " It is open to us as a possibility, but closed against us as a right, to follow the lower when the higher calls." LONDON : FREDERICK WARNE AND CO. AND NEW YORK. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Uncle Helstone i II. Ashlands 12 III. The Vicar of Roosden Magna 21 IV. Father and Daughter 34 V. Forced Interview 62 VI. Driven by Circumstances 83 VII. Sybil's Visit 117 VIII. Family Secrets 145 IX. Court Gardens 177 X. Sybil's Marriage 200 XI. Harry Karslake 224 XII. At any Personal Cost 228 XIII. The New Year 264 XIV. Her Pledge 287 XV. Sybil's Flight 3r3 XVI. A Generous Friend 343 XVII. A Mother's Prayer 3s8 XVIII. Meeting His Parishioners 3S9 XIX. Face to Face 41° XX. Dark Hours 436 XXI. A Visit to the Rectory 462 XXII. Conclusion

Chapter I. Uncle Helstone

Two men were sitting together over the dreary embers of a dying fire, in the early twilight of a November afternoon. A small table stood between them, covered with loose piles of closely written manuscript, from which the elder of the two had been reading aloud with such absorbed interest in his employment as to be quite unconscious of the ill-disguised impatience of his listener. He now leaned back in his chair with a gesture of physical weariness, and, laying his long, flexible fingers caressingly on the sheets by his side, sur veyed his companion with an expression divided be tween wistfulness and irritation. "You do not seem so much impressed by the extracts I have read as I expected," he said ; "but then you are scarcely qualified to be a competent critic. You will at least undertake my commis sion ?

" "I will undertake it, of course, only I wash my hands of all responsibility as regards success or failure. You will be wise to expect the latter." He rose as he spoke, pulling up the collar of his coat, and shivering with intention. "You have let the fire down with a vengeance, Dorrimore, oblivious of vulgar sensations in your intellectual zeal ; and yet if ever a cheerful blaze were wanted, it is in such a den as this. I never come here but I wonder how life sustains itself under such conditions." He went up to the window and peered out into the semi-darkness ; there was just light enough to discern the outline of objects. A lawn of unusual extent — level as the theodolite could make it — ■ and surrounded on three sides with a belt of evergreens. The choice pines and delicate conifers were overgrown and irregular for want of judicious pruning and thinning out, and the outlines of the flower-beds — once cut with geometric exact ness in the velvet turf — were now scarcely visible in the long unmown grass, and were destitute of growth save where weeds had made an easy con quest of the soil.

The broad gravelled walk which divided the house from the lawn was saturated with moisture, and so thickly coated with rank vegetation as to be scarcely distinguishable from the grass itself. The whole outlook had that singularly forlorn and depressing aspect produced by a scene originally planned for luxury and pleasure, but abandoned to absolute neglect. To look within was to confirm the impression. The room was large and lofty, with ample conven iences for the library of a wealthy and exacting stu dent, but the book-shelves of curiously carved oak, reaching from floor to ceiling, were for the most part empty, except in one corner where a few score of volumes were scattered over the affluent space. Pedestals, intended for bust or statue, stood void and purposeless, and deep in dust, save where their blank surfaces were utilized as receptacles for do mestic litter, thus giving the finishing touch of incongruity and disorder to the scene.

The once polished floor of the same sombre wood was dirt stained and carpetless, and the large mullioned window, facing west, was without blind or drapery of any description. A substantial library-table cov ered with books and papers, and the thickly padded chair which matched it, and in which the elder man was seated, were the only comfortable articles of furniture in the bare and meagre apartment. Mr. Dorrimore watched his companion with an air of contemptuous impatience. He had an author's passion for his work, and wished to discuss it, but it was hard to force the subject on the obvious indif ference of the other. When he at length turned round from his post of observation, it was to make the altogether irrelevant remark: — "It is evident the children don't often play round here." " I should think not.

Sybil takes care my leisure is not disturbed." "And who takes care of Sybil's leisure? What does she do with herself in a hole of the earth like this ? " He moved away from the window and came back to the fireplace, throwing on a log of wood from a pile in the corner, and scattering the smouldering ashes right and left. " If you could manage to tuck me up anywhere for the night, Dorrimore, I would have a chat with Sybil and a romp with the children." "The thing is impossible, though I am more sorry than I can express. We swarm with animal life, and Hannah rules us with a rod of iron. I dare not suggest such an idea." "Then, during the half-hour it will take you to pack up your papers, and the driver to put in his wretched hack, I will, at any rate, find my way to the nursery. The swarm would not forgive me if they knew Uncle Helstone had come and gone with out counting them over.

Perhaps there may be one or two missing since I was here last." Mr. Dorrimore rose from his chair as if to oppose his intention, but there was something in the easy determination of the other that did not look like denial, and he sat down again. Helstone glanced round the room to see if he could discover anything in the shape of a light, and observing a small spirit-lamp on the high mantel above his head, took it down and prepared to light it at the failing embers with considerable solicitude. "I look on these lamps," he remarked, "as an invention of the Evil One — they betray you into darkness on the least provocation. I should prefer a dip and flat candlestick if — I were a student." " They are cheaper even than dips ; a flat candle stick is an investment in comparison." "You will excuse my leaving you in the dark, for I have not a moment to spare.

Will you ring for another light, and order the trap round ? If I am to catch my train to-night I must be off in half an hour. Thanks. I know my way." He crossed the long room with a firm, elastic tread. Outside of it he stood in a large, bare hall of fine proportions, and with a tessellated pavement of black and white marble. A livid ray of light from the faint sunset sky fell across the floor, and touched the lowest steps of the ample stone staircase which rose with a circular sweep to the upper stories of the house. Helstone cleared the shallow ascent with a few inclusive strides, cherishing his feeble lamp carefully from the perils of the strong currents of air that met him on the wide landings. He crossed a long cor ridor with closed doors on either side, and made his way, being evidently familiar with the locality, to a room at the extreme end of the house, and from the half-open door of which came the cheerful guidance of peals of childish laughter, and the ruddy glow of firelight.

He deposited his lamp in an angle of the wall, pushed the door open a little wider, and peeped in unobserved. A large long room, with a wide unshuttered mullioned window at one end, and at the other a blazing fire of ash and fir-cones roaring up the huge chimney, and casting fantastic effects of dancing lights and shadows. A round oaken table, without cloth, but bright as elbow grease could make it, was spread for tea, which was evidently to consist of the home-made loaf, fresh butter, and pitcher of new milk which were already placed upon it. Spoons and knives were obviously at a premium, and the crockery was of the most promiscuous and inadequate description ; but that was of small conse quence to the eager spirits and healthy appetites that were soon to gather round the board. Look at the group ; as full of vitality, mental and physical, as the warmest friends of the human race could wish them.

Two lads, who, looked like twins, so exactly were they matched in height and feature, stood in a loose embrace and attitude of critical attention, watching what appeared to be a dramatic repre sentation of Mother Hubbard and her dog. A girl of about seventeen, was enacting the drama aided by a clever little Skye terrier, with so much spirit and success as to call forth shouts of laughter from a trio of younger children, who occupied the floor between her and the firelight. At the moment Helstone looked in, the clog had reached the flute-playing phase of his history, the flute being represented by a carefully whittled stick ; and was standing on end, grasping the same between his front paws with a grave propriety — the outcome of many previous failures — which brought down rounds of applause from the house.

But the girl's face, with its expression of half-stupefied astonish ment passing slowly into triumphant recognition of the gifts displayed by the remarkable quadruped, was admirable, though probably thrown away as too fine a touch upon her audience. Helstone, however, clapped his hands with enthusiasm, and thus betrayed his concealment. There was a moment's sudden, almost dread silence, then, as the children recognized him, there was a shout of wel come and a promiscuous rush. The room rang with rapturous shouts of "Uncle Helstone! Uncle Hel stone ! " from the boys' clear treble to the tender pipe of the four-year-old girl. "There ! there ! " he cried, struggling to free him self from the encircling limbs that were either grasping or scaling his six feet of height, " let me breathe ! I have only half an hour to spare, and lots to say.

Sybil, are you glad to see me ? " " Too glad ! Papa never told us you were coming ; " and the girl lifted up a face so radiant with spirit and expression that its beauty seemed quite a secondary consideration. "Of course you will have some tea? Sit down, children, and show how well I have taught you to behave. I hope you like new milk and brown bread, for that is what we always have." " And so would I too if I could get them. Why, here are luxuries money can't buy, — your own butter and Hannah's matchless bread ! " He drew up a chair to the table and began to attack the loaf. "It's well money can't buy them," said Sybil with a delicate smile, " or we should stand small chance of getting them." "And," cried one of the boys, "isn't it a burning shame, Uncle Helstone ? Papa says he shall sell Viper, for a man has offered five pounds for him, and, more than that, he isn't worth the tax.

Not — worth the — tax ! " He spoke with a flushed cheek and in a tone of trenchant derision, but Helstone could see it was only bis incipient manhood that kept back the tears from his eyes, and the sob from his voice. He glanced at Sybil, who was busy pouring out the milk into the respective vessels, and distributing them with noise less dexterity, and he fancied her lip quivered a little. "Ah, well," he said coolly, "I didn't know it was Mother Hubbard's dog when I bid for it. However, I can't go back from a bargain ; your father must have his price, and the animal is mine to do what I like with. Will you take him back again, Sybil, as a present from me — to please the children?" There was a shout of triumph, and a simultaneous rush upon the ransomed treasure. Sybil's eyes sparkled with delight.

"Will I? It is the very kindest thing you could have done for us. But — are you very rich, Uncle Helstone ? Can you afford it — quite conveniently ? " " Rich as a Jew, Sybil, whenever inclination comes into play. But order the children back to their places, and, while they are munching their bread and butter, come into the window-seat and let us have five-minutes' talk together." He drew her away to the further end of the apart ment, and, making her sit down on the broad bench in the deep embrasure of the mullioned window, stood before her, looking at her with a mixed expression of curiosity and tenderness. "Then it's the same old game," he said at last; " the master washes his hands of all responsibility, and leaves the vulgar cares of family life to you and old Hannah ? I am bound to own you don't look like sinking under the burden.

I have barely time to say two words — is there anything you or the children want ? Are you fairly happy, child ? " "As the days are long, and often I don't find them half long enough for what I have to do. Do we want anything ? Heaps of things that Uncle Helstone could not give us, but that we all do very well without. Jack and Tom could not laugh more merrily had they the best new overcoats in the world, and, to my mind, Bertie, Lucy, and baby could not look prettier under any circumstances whatever." "And you?" surveying the slight, tall figure from head to foot, with a vague, masculine percep tion that the dress she wore was somehow inadequate in warmth, texture, and effect. " I ? What does it signify ? I have a better frock than this, and we never by any chance see anybody. When I am teaching the children, or papa is teaching me, or I am reading to him, my appearance doesn't count for much."

Insensibly the bright voice dropped a little, and, as she met Helstone's intense gaze of observation, the color suddenly flushed into her face. " I see what it is," she said, with a little laugh ; "you are thinking how shabby I look." "Heaven forbid you should know what I was thinking! But," looking at his watch impatiently, " do you still teach the boys ? " "At present. Papa says he can't afford to send them to school, and that I can ground them in the rudiments as well as he. Besides, they are very quick. He still gives me lessons, and he must have time for his great work." Helstone's lip curled. " How great ? I am taking a portion up to town to show to some of the savants, and sound a publisher. It will not succeed of course ; that is," seeing the swift look of dismay on her face, " too many have attempted the task before to encourage the hope that Mr. Dorrimore will succeed where they have failed.

But you needn't attach much weight to my opinion. I am not a Greek scholar like him and you, Sybil." " No," said she quietly, "and you lose a great deal thereby — for yourself, I mean — we could not like you better." At this moment the door opened, and Hannah, the inclusive help of the household, came in to say the trap had just gone round to the front door, and master had sent her to tell Mr. Helstone. "But goodness knows, sir," she added, "it's a treat for sore eyes to see you once more, and how pleased the blessed babbies must have been !" Helstone shook the good woman cordially by the hand, dexterously conveying into the honest palm a substantial token of his good will, which he well knew from former experience would be employed in the children's service, and with some difficulty got himself away from the clamor of affectionate lamen tation.

His last words were to the twins, and they were sotto voce : — " Write to me, boys, if things go wrong, or you or your sister want anything. Hannah knows my address/'

Chapter II. Ashlands

Eight years before the incidents just related Herbert Dorrimore had deliberately given up his professional struggles as an all-but-briefless barrister, and withdrawn himself and his family from their hard experiences of London existence, under the con ditions of debt and poverty, to the profound seclu sion of country life in a remote south-western county. A friend had offered him the old manor-house, known in the neighborhood as Ashlands, for a merely nominal rent, induced to the step by the conviction that Dorrimore was a scholar and genius overweighted by vulgar cares, who only needed the opportunities of leisure and retirement to do great things, and remunerative thinsrs as well. In point of fact the chief subsistence of the family depended not on his profession, which had never brought him in a hundred guineas since he had been called to the bar some fifteen years before, but on the proceeds of his fitful and eccentric pen ; and, since his specialty was neither the reviewing of novels nor the writing of leading articles, his work could be carried on as well in the provinces as the capital.

ASHLANDS. 13 Dorrimore caught at the offer eagerly, without much consultation with his wife, who, according to his estimate, had early merged her individuality — never strongly marked — into that of her children, and seemed to have absorbed every human interest in the cares and compensations of her rapidly filling nursery. The eighteen months that Mrs. Dorrimore lived after their removal to Ashlands were the happiest in her experience since marriage. By the sale of every article of value they possessed, their old liabilities were wiped out, and although the result was that their new home was furnished with a meagreness that left them destitute of many of the necessary accessories of life, yet this was little to her mind in comparison with the blessed freedom from that pecu niary care which had sapped the springs of health and cheerfulness during her London career.

Then, again, she had been country born and bred, and made the best of the certainly favorable circumstances in which she found herself so unexpectedly placed. There was a farm of about twelve acres attached to the house, and she had the rare good fortune to find an honest, hard-working couple who were equal to the management of the small demesne between them. The woman was frugal, capable, and industrious, and made no objection to undertake the duties of the house single-handed, save for the efficient help rendered by her tall, fair, and energetic mistress. The man was above his class in intelligence, and gave good advice as to the best and most productive course to be adopted with the land. Under his instructions two cows were purchased, which were as much as Mrs. Dorrimore's finances would allow, and in order to do this she surreptitiously disposed of certain trinkets that still survived the wreck of their fortunes.

The pasture would have borne six, but for such a consummation they had to await the tardy multiplication of benignant nature, which the poor lady herself never lived to see fully realized. By such means not only was the house liberally supplied with new milk and butter, as well as with homely fresh vegetables from the excellent kitchen garden, — new and rare luxuries to the town-reared family, — but there was a gradually increasing sur plus of these commodities for sale, on the product of which all other additions to their commissariat and family necessities depended. Occasionally their means would be augmented by casual investments, such as the purchase of a few suck-lambs, bought each season from the nearest shepherd, ostensibly as playthings for the children, but with an ultimate view to the profit of the household.

As for Mr. Dorrimore, he by degrees made it to be understood that his literary privacy was inviolable, and that he shook himself free from all participation in the practical conduct of affairs. He gave his wife, whose new-developed energy occasioned a half contemptuous surprise, carte blanche to manage matters as she pleased, so long as he was spared all consultation and annoyance ; at long intervals he ASHLANDS. 15 would give her money, perhaps ten or twenty pounds at a time, according to the proceeds of some unusually successful article ; and this was his chief contribu tion to the expenses of his family. The pity was he would not write what he knew would pay, unless driven by stress of pecuniary pressure to the humili ation of literary pot -boiling, his whole heart and in tellect being absorbed in the laborious task of a new translation of the Iliad.

He was an admirable Greek scholar it is true, but he had neither the breadth of mind, nor delicate subtlety of brain, nor native gift of rhythm, sufficient to insure brilliant success or paramount supe riority over those who had ploughed the same field before him. One other duty he performed, — the education of his eldest child, to which he devoted himself with an ardor excited and sustained by the brilliant capacity and singular beauty of the little girl. Sybil Dorri more had been her father's pupil from the time she was four years old. He taught her the Greek before the English alphabet, and pleased himself with the idea of reproducing in her the prodigies of erudition attained by other gifted children under similar ex periences. He had his reward : at an age when other children are stumbling over the multiplication table, she had tripped lightly across the pons asi norum, with brain alert and adequate for the pursuit of that beloved science which divided his zeal with classical scholarship.

At fourteen she had pharaphrased Lucretius, and her eager and precocious intellect had forced her into premature and passionate sympathy with the majestic sublimity of Æschylus. It was well for the result of this severe and sus tained mental pressure that nature had endowed her with a superb physical constitution, and that her in terest in outdoor pursuits and occupations led to her being in the open air as much as possible, and quali fied her intense student life. Then her affections were of a warm, natural, and generous type : she loved her little brothers and sisters with a magnanimous unselfishness that made scarcely any denial or effort hard in their service. Indeed, she did not know, so limited was her experience of other lives, how unusual were the requirements made upon her. After her mother's death the burden of the house hold management fell upon her childish shoulders, so far as mental prevision went.

Hannah, indeed, constituted herself the all-but-ubiquitous house-mistress of the establishment, in which no other change occurred except the providing of a nurse-girl for the lovely six months' old baby, which poor Mrs. Dorri more had left behind her. The student-father buried himself more profoundly in his library than before, salving his conscience against its reproaches for his selfish apathy by de voting nearly the whole of his narrow personal in come to the physical needs of his family, and reducing his own wants within the narrowest com pass. They led a strange, self-reliant life. No one ASHLANDS. 17 visited them, except at rare intervals their mother's kinsman, Gilbert Helstone, and they never went out to other houses. Their home was, as we have said, in a remote part of a south-western county, and a mile from the village, in which there was no other gentleman's house but the vicarage.

One or two farmhouses stood near, but it was certain that neither Mr. Dorri more nor Sybil would care to make friends of their occupants ; and the few county families of the dis trict altogether refused to acknowledge their impoverished and scrambling existence. It was a strange experience for a beautiful and gifted girl : she stepped out of childhood into the adult and exhausting anxieties of narrow means; and if in her case they did not quench the brightness of her spirit, it was simply because of the abundant elasticity and resolution of her natural endowments, in addition to her positive ignorance of different conditions. It often happened that, when constrained to make a direct appeal to her father for money, she was met by a statement of his absolute inability to meet her requirements, while on those rare occasions when he was able to do otherwise he was apt to survey her from head to foot with a discontented expression, and to add the injunction that part of the fund should be spent " in buying herself something decent to wear."

But there were so many of them that wanted decent apparel, and Sybil always seized these occasions to set them all up in new boots and shoes, which was a terrible pull upon the fund ; and Hannah also was sure to have in reserve some pressing de mand which absorbed the residue. But, after all, they cared little for dress or company either; they were as happy as the birds of the air, and as full of resource as active brains and bright natures could make them ; and in their different and desultory ways the whole brood loved books and study, whenever from any cause the outdoor world was under a ban. Sybil in great measure was the family tutor, but they all had the happy art — only to be found amongst children at the same time clever and neglected — of teaching themselves and of teaching one another.

The twin boys were about this time twelve years old, five years younger than their eldest sister: a boy and two girls having been born and died be tween them. One of her chief anxieties was the education and career of her brothers, whom her father still obstinately persisted in considering and treating as children. It was probably with some vague idea of helping their future that, as time passed and developed her nascent capacities, she be took herself secretly to authorship. She had suc ceeded in furnishing after a fashion the large disused drawing-room of the house, which had the same aspect and proportions as her father's study ; and she passed hours of concentrated occupation and delight over an old library table which had been transferred for her use to this apartment, and was in perfect keeping with its heterogeneous contents.

ASHLANDS. 19 And of what value, do you ask, were the crude lucubrations of a girl in her eighteenth year, and which girl was also a recluse ? Stop a moment, and consider what some of our most honorable names in literature have not only promised but achieved at that age, and take into account likewise the training she had received. She had been drilled from infancy in linguistic criticism on the basis of the most subtle and complete of human tongues. Not only could she read Greek tragedy, but she had been taught to scan its heights and plumb its depths with a disci plined faculty which stood her in good stead when it came to finding adequate expression for her own ideas. Grant that her personal experience of life was singularly narrow, her imagination was vigorous and intuition keen : ignorant of the social world in its practical manifestations, she was versed in the literature of the day under all its multiform aspects, — new books being the only luxury that ever found its way into their house, — and was well read in the dramas of the old playwrights, and the virile romances of the last generation.

Add something more : she had studied and loved Shakespeare from a child ; that is to say, she had sat at the feet of the master whose mind is still the horizon beyond which none of us — poet, philosopher, or otherwise — are able to project our own. Enough : what she wrote was printed and paid for, she being naturally well acquainted with the modes of negotiation between writer and editor ; and the small sums thus obtained were a valuable addition to their straitened means. From some scarcely defined motive, Sybil kept the secret of her authorship and its success, and the im pression in the family was, when these casual wind falls occurred, that the father's hand had bestowed them.

Chapter III. The Vicar Of Roosden Magna

" Let the children read the New Testament, Sybil, and teach them the Lord's Prayer." This was the sum of Herbert Dorrimore's religious solicitude in regard to his family, and so far Sybil, in the first flush of mental and physical strength, was unconscious of moral or spiritual deficiency. Her healthful and highly endowed organization was not of the type that possesses inherently a profound sense of the supernatural ; there was no strong bias in her mind towards " obstinate questionings," no eager looking before or after, no tendency towards mystic aspiration. She was thoroughly content with what this perishable and imperfect world gave her. It naturally followed from this training, that attend ance upon the formal services of the church had never been considered by the household in the light of either a duty or a privilege, and circumstances had hitherto forbidden its taking rank as a pleasure.