The Vengeance of James Vansittart

Front matter

' ' The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs which there is no law to remedy, but then let a man take heed This is certain, that he who studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well. Private revenges do for the most part miscarry ; vindictive persons living, as it were, the life of witches ; who, as they are mischievous, so end they unfortunate. " Bacon's Essays. BY MRS. J. H. NEEDELL AUTHOR OF LUCIA, HUGH, AND ANOTHER," " THE STORY OF PHILIP METHUEN," " STEPHEN ELLICOTT'S DAUGHTER," " PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMAN," ETC. " Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still." Beaumont and Fletclier. LONDON HUTCHINSON & CO. 34 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. THE DOCTOR AND HIS PATIENTS - - - I II. THE FAILURE OF HERBERT CHARTERIS - - 13 III.

STIMULUS TO ACTION 21 IV. THE ORDEAL OF JAMES VANSITTART - - • 33 V. THE PATIENCE OF HATE 43 VI. AN INTERVIEW 5 1 VII. MAURICE VANSITTART GOES TO ASHMEAD- - 56 VIII. DIANA BURNS HER SHIPS BEHIND HER - - 66 IX. REPRIEVED TOO LATE 79 X. A MAN'S DISCIPLINE 9 1 XI. " TO HAVE AND TO HOLD ; FOR BETTER FOR WORSE" IOO XII. THE MUTTERINGS OF THE STORM - - - 107 XIII. THE EMPTYING OF THE VIAL - - - - Il6 XIV. STORM AND STRESS 126 XV. THE WORKING OF THE LEAVEN - - - - 1 35 XVI. A VISIT TO ONSLOW GARDENS - - - - 142 XVII. A BROKEN MAN RUMINATES - - - - 150 XVIII. MAURICE MAINTAINS HIS RIGHTS - - - 1 58 XIX. FATHER AND DAUGHTER 167 XX. LOVER AND FRIEND 177 XXI. THE GOADS AND STINGS OF FORTUNE - - 1 85 XXII. THE EVE OF A SETTLEMENT - - - - 193 XXIII. WEIGHED, AND FOUND WANTING - - - 202 XXIV. THE CLOSE GRIND OF EXPERIENCE - - - 214 XXV.

DIANA TAKES A RESOLUTION - - - . CONTENTS. chap. PAGE XXVI. A CATASTROPHE 230 XXVII. HOPE AND FEAR ON THE WATCH - - - 243 XXVIII. HUSBAND AND WIFE 252 XXIX. A BAD MAN'S EXTREMITY .... 259 XXX. THE PERTURBATIONS OF DESIRE - - - 268 XXXI. JAMES VANSITTART BRIBES HIGH - - - 279 XXXII. HARD BESTED 293 XXXIII. A MAN'S COWARDICE 298 XXXIV. A SHOCK OF TEMPTATION ... - 304 XXXV. DIANA'S COURAGE FAILS - - - - - 315 XXXVI. HESTER OFFERS CONSOLATION - - - 327 XXXVII. A BRAVE WOMAN'S WEAKNESS- ... 335 XXXVIII. MAURICE CONSENTS TO DO GOOD TO HIMSELF 344 XXXIX. THORPE-BREDY MANOR HOUSE - - - 35 1 XL. MAURICE GOES TO COOMBE HALL - - 359 XLI. PEACE GAINED AND LOST - 368 XLII. KICKING AGAINST THE PRICKS - - - 378 XLIII. THE STRENGTH OF WEAKNESS - - - 390 XLIV. A LIFE SAVED AND LOST - THE VENGEANCE OE JAMES VANSITTART.

Chapter I. The Doctor And His Patients

A summer midnight on the South Devon coast. It was one of Nature's brief pauses of completion, for, at the moment, the tidal river was at the full flow — heaving be neath the moon's rays like molten steel — but within the next the ebb would already have set in. So bright and cloudless was the heaven that the trees on the opposite side stood out in sharp relief; here a group of poplars pierced the air, while there one could distinguish where the fans of a chestnut drooped or a silvery beech shimmered. To the left, at about a mile's distance, a precipitous range of sandstone cliffs frowned down upon the sultry sea, whose waves languidly lapped their base. The sea was in pro found shadow, for the moon was low, and her golden pathway now lay direct across the river. At the open window of a house which commanded this view a girl was standing in an intent and listening attitude.

She stood as upright as one of the young pine trees op posite, and the whole effect of her personality, though but A imperfectly seen in the moonlight, was that of radiant and vigorous youth animated by a resolute and dominant spirit. The apartment behind her was large, and dimly lighted by a small lamp in the farthest corner, and its furniture and appointments, which were at once substantial, old-fashioned, and well worn, gave unmistakable evidence of its being the chief living room of a large family. Children's toys and school-books were heaped promiscu ously on the floor in one of the wall recesses, while cricket bats and croquet-mallets were stacked in another. A work basket of ominous dimensions, full of undarned socks and stockings, stood in the bay of the large window, with an open volume turned face downwards upon it, and investigation would have shown that the zeal of the student had considerably interfered with the industry of the house wife.

But there was no sign of vulgarity anywhere, and in the centre of the massive dinner-table, covered by its ink-stained, faded cloth, was a beautiful blue bowl full of Marshal Niel roses, perfect in form and colour, which had grown against a red sun-baked wall on which blight and smirch refused to settle. We have said that the girl was listening intently, and at this moment a sound — the closing of a door above, followed by the descent of footsteps — reached her ears. She turned from the window at once, and took a step forward in the room as if to meet an unexpected visitor. She had not long to wait ; the door was opened by a firm hand, and Austyn Lloyd, the village doctor, came in. " I saw a light here," he said, " but did not expect to find you up. I meant to have sent you a message by Mrs. Jefford.

Your father is better. He will get about again almost as well as ever." " For how long ? " she asked. " He is dying, not of this or that, but of slow heart-break. The heart-break that comes of pulling against collar up-hill when strength and THE DOCTOR AND HIS PATIENTS. 3 hope are gone. Doctor, advise me ! I have sat up on purpose to see you alone." He glanced round towards the open window at the scene outside, flooded with moonlight, then at the aspect of the room within, and at the tall, pale, beautiful figure which con fronted him with pain and determination in every line of her face. He was distinctly reluctant to do as she asked, but it would have been hard to resist her look of trust and appeal ; besides, to help others was his trade. " Well," he said, with a grim smile, " I suppose it must come sooner or later; but " — pulling out his watch and look ing at it — " do you know how very much ' later ' it is ?

Why, a new day is begun ! " She made a little impatient movement of the shoulders. "And for how long, sir, have you been in the habit of regarding times and seasons ? " she asked. " Come outside and talk ; poor dad might hear our voices, and be worried." She stepped through the open window upon the verandah, which ran round three sides of the house, and took her place upon a rustic bench which filled one of its angles, looking round for the doctor to follow her. But before doing so he picked up an old woollen shawl that was lying on the head of the sofa, and made her wrap it carefully about her head and shoulders. " May I smoke ? " he asked, producing pipe and tobacco as he spoke ; " it assists thought, and I know you are going to bother me." "How much do you know? What have you heard — from father ?

" " Oh, it is not from ' father ' only ! " he returned. " The air is full of it ; it seems as if the very stones in the village street cried out, and Jaffer tells Hobbs and Hobbs his neigh bour, with a sly poke in the ribs. Old Jabez has taken upon himself a queer touch of dignity, and even the children crow and bridle with suppressed exultation when I meet them. ' Missie ' has been to London town to see her lady grandmother, and has come home agaiu at last, after turning the heads of some of the grand folk and dancing with a Royal Prince, with an offer of marriage in her pocket from the great parti of the season — or of any season — young Maurice Vansittart, nephew and heir of the old Californian millionaire." She sat quite still without answering, or seeming in any way to resent the banter of his speech, and he as he smoked he watched her covertly.

He had known her from childhood, and that childhood had been so curiously isolated and forlorn that he had come to stand to her as guide and helper in all the queer and complex difficulties of her daily life. He had not only ministered to her bodily needs (and for that matter, to those of her younger brothers and sisters, carrying them successively through all the disorders incident to infancy, and in this case the full tale had been counted out to each), but she owed her mental development to him. He had been her tutor in the very elements of knowledge, and her intellectual director as her vigorous mind ex panded. Every line and feature of the erect form and muffled head beside him was intimately familiar to him, and was regarded by him, not as lover, but as physicist, as of the highest type of beauty.

He marked now, as, indeed, he never failed to mark when they were together, the broad, luminous brow, the fine setting of the eyes in their orbits, the proud, sensitive lips, and the exquisite modelling of chin and throat, at once firm and delicate, as we see them portrayed in some of the choicer intaglios of ancient Rome. Colours were blurred in the softness of the moonshine, but he knew to the strictest line of distinction the tone of colour of her brown eyes and of her rippled and abundant hair, which he had often mentally compared to that of a well-sunned hazel nut. " Is it true ? " he asked, in another tone, as she still kept silent. " True that Mr. Vansittart has asked me to marry bim ? " THE DOCTOR AND HIS PA TIENTS. 5 she answered, without hesitation or any sign of girlish con fusion ; " yes, it is true, but I have not yet given him his answer.

I am waiting to talk the matter over with you. But first I must tell you something." She waited for him to speak, but went on as she perceived that he was drawing steadily at his pipe. " I came home last Wednesday, as you know, and found Jabez waiting for me at the station, with the old pony cart, instead of my dear dad. I questioned him about the matter, and he told me "the master" was too busy in the hay-field to spare time to come. There I found him when I got home, though the day's work ought to have been done, and the helpers were tired and sullen. He was doing his best to put his spirit into them, and was talking to them and chaffing them in that delightful way of his which, while he seems to put himself on their level, only marks the differ ence. You know ? " she asked, wistfully. The doctor nodded.

She went on. " He was feverishly anxious to get the last load up, for the weather looked like rain. When I came into the field and went up to him to kiss him he only nodded and smiled, and grasped my hand for a moment. ' My girl,' he said, ' we will have our innings presently ; take a rake now ! ' But the next moment he sent me into the house, having discovered that his own shoes were wet through with the night dew. That night we sat up late talking. I have been away three months, and during all that time there was no one to whom he could open his heart — at least, as he does to me. It was the old, old story — only worse ! Interest overdue, and mortgagees threatening to foreclose. You know how he clings to the hope of leaving the little estate to his children; to lose it now, after the struggle of long years, will be more than he can bear, for he has borne so much already.

Every thing, Dr. Lloyd, is in arrears — rent, tradesmen's bills, school fees. We ought not to have sent the younger boys to school, clever as they are. I could have gone on teaching them — what you taught me !— " The voice dropped a little, but she recovered herself in stantly. "Hence came, you see, that dreadful anxiety about the rick, worth perhaps thirty pounds at most, and I have seen Lady Meredith give as much for an evening frock for me ! All this was bad, and made me feel as if I had been committing a crime in forgetting and enjoying myself in town." " It has been enjoyment, then ? " he interrupted " You were sorry to come home ? " " I never conceived of such enjoyment," was her answer, " or, rather, it has all been like the fulfilment of my most splendid dreams. How was I, living here, to know how full and rich and exhilarating life can be ?

Here, I am con scious of faculties which seem superfluous, of desires and re pinings that make me impatient and miserable, and almost wicked at times ; there — how shall I express it ? I felt like a creature that has been hungering and thirsting all its life, and was fed to satisfaction for the first time." The doctor smoked on with apparent tranquillity, but be low the surface he was considerably stirred. Diana sat beside him, motionless, in spite of the intensity of her speech, her head erect and her eyes looking straight before her, with the fixed gaze that means the vision is in ward. The stillness of the night was impressive ; not a leaf stirred nor a fish leaped ; the tide ebbed in whispers ; the moon was almost down. " Do you remember," she said at length, in a sort of dreamy whisper, " that when I was a little girl I once ran away to beg my way to Exeter, because I knew that the ' Elijah ' was to be sung in the Cathedral ?

Of course I was balked and brought back, but within these few months I have not only heard the ' Elijah,' but I have been to the opera twice a week. Do you quite know — you who know everything — what that means to me ? It means pleasure poignant to the point of anguish ; but are not all our best pleasures like that ? I have seen some of the greatest pictures in the world, and heard men speak and preach THE DOCTOR AND HIS PATIENTS. 7 whose names I have worshipped from a child. Then I have been at splendid dinners in splendid houses, the fas tidious luxury of which was like a page out of the ' Arabian Nights,' and all the men and women there seemed to find life nothing but a holiday and a game. I have danced the whole night through, going from one scene of fairyland to another, still more enchanting — " " With the Prince always in attendance ?

" " Yes, he was always in attendance, but I don't think he added much to the glamour. He is not a striking personage — like you," she added, gravely ; " but, none the less, what he offers would be a crime for me to refuse. But let me go on about my father, for you do not yet know the worst — the thing which has made him ill." Her voice softened and her attitude relaxed ; he could see the tears glisten in her eyes. " The day after I came home — that was the day before yesterday — he went to Illingworth, as you know. It was the half-yearly market, and he was buoyed up with the hope of meeting a man there, a rich miller, with whom he had dealings years ago, and who was under some sort of obliga tion to him. At least, dad felt sure he was disposed to be friendly, and he had made up his mind to ask him to lend him a certain sum of money, counting upon his consent.

I was cruel enough to suggest a doubt, for his confidence cut me to the heart. Isn't it strange that all the bitter experiences of his life have not been enough to destroy his sanguine belief that he will get what he wants, while I have learnt, ever since I was a child, that the thing I most dread is what will happen ? He started early to get the advantage of going in the mail-cart, and this simple piece of economy hurt me just because he took it so as a matter of course. He was to dine at the farmers' ordinary, where he hoped to meet his friend, and return by the last train, walking the two miles between this and the station." She made a little pause of hesitation, but, encouraged by Lloyd's close and sympathetic attention, went on again. " I will tell you everything, as I always have done, though I have a sense of humiliation in doing it.

To some it would be betraying a trust, but you stand to me as father confessor. I sat up for him, of course, but the hour passed, and he did not come. I had a meal prepared for him, and had let Molly go home at her usual time, and the children were asleep in bed. I got so uneasy at last that I put on my hat and walked half-way to the station to meet him, but in vain, and I dared not go farther, lest either of the children should wake up and be frightened. I went back, and sat down by the open window to watch and wait. " At last, towards midnight, I saw him coming. He was almost creeping along, so slow and halting was his gait. It was that of a man tired to exhaustion, and crushed with discouragement. Somehow, I did not dare to run out and meet him ; I waited where I was till he came in, and then some instinct held me from looking in his face.

He saw me, but took no notice — just crawled to the sofa and turned his face to the wall. Doctor, I heard him sob ! " She turned her pale, excited face fully towards her com panion, her eyes alight, nostrils and lips quivering, but she still maintained her self-control. " I have had my dreams," she said, " my splendid am bitions. You have fed them. I renounce them all ! " She made a movement of her hands suggestive of surrender. " I shall marry Mr. Vansittart, and help my people." She got up and shivered a little. " It is growing cold," remarked the doctor, quietly ; " it is just the hour when vitality is at its lowest ebb. We will go back into the room. I should like to ask you one or two questions before I go." They went in ; he taking his seat in a shabby but none the less comfortable easy-chair which always stood in the same place for the master's use ; the girl beginning to pace slowly up and down the room.

She wore a long gray silk gown which rustled as she THE DOCTOR AND HIS PATIENTS. 9 walked ; it was one of her grandmother's gifts, and Austyn Lloyd smiled to himself as the thought occurred to him that it was the first time that sound had been associated in his mind with Diana Charteris. He perceived that the gown fitted admirably, and added to the distinction of her appearance (though Diana was stately in serge and cotton), and then he mocked at himself that, at a crisis like this, such a trifle should fix his attention. " I shall never forget that night," Diana resumed ; " the pity of it all, the shame, the humiliation ! I got him to speak to me at last. He had met the miller at dinner, as he expected, talked to him — you know how persuasive my father's tongue can be — and then wine and fellowship open a man's heart.

Poor dad rejoiced inasmuch as he got the promise he wanted ; they were to meet at a fixed time in Mr. Dacre's office, and on the strength of his expectation he gave the lawyer a promissory note for the arrears of interest. Then he sat and waited hour after hour, afraid to leave lest he should miss the man, and devoured with anxiety lest he should not come. When the time for the last train was due he went out, and just as he came down the office steps he caught sight of the miller in his smart gig, driving fast in the direction of his home. My father was desperate with excitement, and called after him ; at first the other pre tended neither to hear nor see, but he finally stopped and shouted from his seat that he was very sorry, but could not do it. ' He had been to the bank, and they refused to advance the amount.' Dad knew he had a heavy balance, and that it was a miserable excuse for his breach of promise.

When he got to the station, spirit-broken, after what interval God knows, the train was gone, and he had to walk home." " Poor soul ! " apostrophised the doctor, under his breath. " Oh," cried Diana, stopping before him with flashing eyes, " do not pity him so contemptuously ! I cannot bear it. Ever since I can remember he has been under the harrow of debt and anxiety, and lhat takes the manhood out of the bravest. But he has been brave ! How he has toiled and slaved in his fields and gardens— aye, and in other ways known only to himself and me — unwearied, un resting, as long as there was work to do that would raise or save a shilling ! He has denied himself every pleasure and indulgence in life, has lived like a peasant, and dressed like one, too, that we— brats— might be clothed and fed.

And there are so many of us, and we all took it as a matter of course. But now my opportunity is come — if not too late — if not too late." " Have you told your father so ? " " Not yet. I waited to speak to you. ' She hesitated. " Tell me what you think. I cannot say ' advise me,' for — I have made up my mind." " Then what I think is superfluous. If I dared, without offence, I should say, ' Poor soul ' again, meaning you, Diana." He got up, as if to go away, then sat down again. " I will advise you," he said ; " it is not too late. My advice is wait a little till your father is better again — he will soon be better — and the pain of this cruel incident is abated." "In order that I may change my mind and shirk my duty?" "That is where you make the mistake! It is not the duty of any creature to enter upon a fraudulent contract, and no motive of self-sacrifice — that ignis-fatuus which leads so many astray — can justify it.

You propose to benefit your family, and to do the man you marry an irreparable in jury. I understand that Mr. Vansittart is very much attached to you, also that the regard is on one side only. As, I presume, you wish me to speak plainly, may I ask what equivalent you are prepared to offer for his disinterested ness and affection ? " Diana met his eyes without flinching. " I am not in the least confounded," she replied. " You are arguing from your own nature, dear doctor, and, therefore, you may take it for granted you are arguing wrong. Mr, THE DOCTOR AND HIS PATIENTS. 11 Vansittart, after the manner of his kind, has fallen desperately in love with a girl of whom he knows nothing, but that her looks and ways please him. He does not stop to find out what I am ; I may be spiteful, selfish and untruth ful, but I don't think it would matter !

He wants me as his wife, as he might want to win the Cup at Ascot, and he bribes me accordingly with his fortune. He has never said to me, 'I will not marry you unless you love me,' but, ' Marry me on your own terms.' This sets me free from any scruple of conscience." " But will not, I presume, make the restraints of the future less binding?" " I have not thought much about that. In society, as I have been seeing it lately, the marriage tie is not a very irksome one, and — " She stopped short, looked up, and met his eyes ; a sort of sob rose in her throat, and she turned away her head. " It is all in vain, dear doctor ; we cannot live this life any longer, and, I repeat, I have made up my mind. But, for your sake — remembering, as I always shall, your way of thinking and living — I mean to try — to be good."

She lifted her beautiful vivid face, softened to tears, to his, which was set and sombre. His veiled eyes hid the passion for the girl he had befriended, that had long consumed his peace. He had often kissed her as a child, though, naturally, the habit had long fallen into disuse, but at this moment there was something in her attitude, at once tender and appealing, which seemed to bridge the years, and almost to solicit the encouragement of his caress. It was a temptation hard to resist, but he resisted it. He put his hand upon her head with the gesture of bene diction — "God help you!" he said, solemnly. "We shall fight this battle over again, Diana. Good-night," and he de parted. " God help us both ! " he muttered to himself as he walked homewards in the gathering gloom ; " would it not be well to open her eyes, and show her that my part in life is that of a warning rather than an example ? "

Chapter II. The Failure Of Herbert Charteris

There had been a time when Herbert Charteris, a man of ruined fortunes and broken spirit, had thought it possible to hide not only his own diminished head in the profound seclusion of the Devonshire village where he had fixed his abode, but the heads of his children likewise. He had lost at a stroke the wife he adored and the lucrative official post he had held under the Colonial branch of the Government. The latter calamity had come about by an action that looked like fraud, but was, in fact, the result of negligence and folly only, and he found no escape from the consequences. He was one of those men who hold themselves so much above their work (being alone in that opinion,) that they never condescend to a mastery of its details, and hence arose the trouble that wrecked his life. He inherited a small estate in a remote corner of South Devon, which brought him in some three or four hundred a year, being singularly well* let to a capable, hard-working tenant ; but upon this property, hitherto unburdened, he had been constrained to raise money on mortgage to meet certain imperative obligations arising from his misfortune.

(It was always in the light of a misfortune pure and simple that Herbert Charteris regarded his breach of trust.) But at this crisis a stroke of good luck occurred. Some friend told him of an old-fashioned house with a good garden and apple orchard, and a few acres of grass land about it, which was to be let at almost a nominal rent, not twelve miles distant from his own property, and the J3 man caught at the idea with eagerness. His strongest desire at the time was to turn his back upon the society which had shown an unmistakable intention of turning its back upon him, and the retreat suggested possessed distinct advantages. With a few cows to graze as well as to milk, a pig or two, poultry, and unlimited vegetables, they would be able to live on the pittance that was left him. The children were all under ten years of age, and what could be better for them than plain food and pure air?

They had no expectations, unless Lady Meredith, their maternal grandmother, who had never forgiven her daughter for marrying against her will, should relent ; but it was scarcely to be wondered at that the miserable fiasco which closed the public life of Herbert Charteris should still more firmly close that lady's heart against him and his family. Under these changed conditions the eldest girl, Diana, must learn to be useful — her mother, even in the days of their affluence, had set her a noble example — and he be lieved himself to be the fortunate possessor of an unde veloped genius for farming. A man and his wife in that corner of the world could be hired for next to nothing, and so moderate were his own demands in his present demoralised position, that all he asked was to be let alone. Some men of forty-five would have resolved to retrieve their position, and would have found irresistible stimulus to the effort in the stern fact of six portionless children ; but it had never been this man's way to look far ahead, and he had very small faculty of resilience.