Hush Money ... Second edition

Front matter

ARABELLA KENEALY'S NOVELS SOME MEN ARE SUCH GENTLEMEN Crown Svo, cloth, 6s. Fifth Edition. Academy— %V1*. take up a book by Miss Arabella Kenealy confidently expect ing to be amused, and in her latest work we are not disappointed. The story is so brightly written tbat our interest Is never allowed to flag. The heroine, Lois Clinton, is sweet and womanly. ... The tale is told with spirit and vivacity, and shows no little skill in its descriptive passages.' Pall Mall Gazette—' A book to be read breathlessly from beginning to end. It is decidedly original ... its vivid interest. The picture of the girl is admir ably drawn. The style is bright and easy.' Literary World— A really good story, original, well written and strong. A really excellent and engaging story. The materials are rare, and, we must admit, ideal . . . can be read with interest and enjoyment.' Daily Chronicle — ' Miss Kenealy has original ideas, a nice faculty of literary expression. . . .

Her description of the old house where dwelt her strange young heroine, is quite admirable. . . . There is a quaintness and an air of romance about the whole story, which are very pleasant to note and to remember.' Truth—1 Its heroine is at once original and charming.' DR JANET OF HARLEY STREET Crown Svo, cloth, zs. 6d. Picture Boards, zs. This Book ran through Six Editions in the Six Shilling form. Daily Chronicle — 'It is a clever book, and well worth reading ; it can outstrip the ordinary novel by many knots per day (to pursue the metaphor), and it may make one or two people think who are unaccustomed to that exercise. Miss Kenealy has imagined an interesting character, and renlised her vividly.' Pall MaU Gazette— 'In "Dr Janet of Harley Street," Dr Arabella Kenealy has shown that the art of writing lively fiction is not the least of her many accom plishments- Moreover, she has achieved the rare distinction of producing a novel which is didactic and not dull.

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Chapter I The Home Coming

' Will he hunt ? Will he ride ? Will he shoot ? Or gamble ? Or smoke and drink brandy ? Or polka, or play on the flute, Like a regular drawing-room dandy ? Will he lead a gay bachelor's life, Drive a tandem or p'r'aps four-in-hand, Or take one of the girls for a wife, And quietly farm his own land ! ' The express train from London, due at Marshtown at six o'clock, glided into the station. Several curious inhabitants of the gossipy little town were loitering on the platform, awaiting the arrival of someone — someone, too, whom they had never seen, and whose appearance would probably surprise them not a little, and disappoint them a good deal. Within the last month the octogenarian owner of Willow Marsh, a small property situated about two miles from the town, had died, and his successor and heir, a distant cousin, was expected to arrive to-day.

Willow Marsh had been virtually closed for so long on account of the age of the late Mr Bolderson, that the whole neighbourhood was on the qui vive about the new inmate, county and town taking alike a keen interest in his advent, though no one had any formal acquaintance with him. Some show of greeting, too, had been made. Bunting was hung about the station, and a primitive-looking, trium- A phal arch, covered with laurels, and bearing the words, 'Welcome to Willow Marsh,' in large red letters on a white ground, had been erected across the exit from the station, under which the newly-arrived heir must pass to reach the little open carriage that was waiting for him. The carriage was in keeping with the arch. It, too, was primitive and rickety, having been in daily use for well-nigh thirty years.

Before the train had thoroughly stopped, Stephen Bolder son stepped out and looked anxiously around at the little crowd of loiterers, with the air of a man who was seeking how he might escape observation. He was not in the least like what anyone had expected, since the general hope and belief had been that he would be a gay bachelor. He was a man about forty-four, tall, well-developed about the shoulders, and bearing the unmistakable stamp of gentle birth ; good-looking to boot, for his features were delicately cut, and his hair, of which he had a quantity, was just tinged with grey about the temples ; but there was such an expres sion of sadness, such a hunted, anxious look on his face, that it immediately crushed all idea of gaiety from the minds of those who looked at him. A man with a history had come into their midst, and if there were exciting episodes at Willow Marsh, they would be of a far different nature from any that had been expected.

He did not make a genial remark to anyone, though several pressed round him with offers of assistance and words of kindly welcome, but he smiled when he saw the arch and the carriage, though the smile scarcely betokened pleasure. His luggage consisted of a hat-box and a portmanteau, and was put into the carriage by a porter who received a few coppers, instead of the large tip he had expected ; but Stephen Bolderson said he should himself prefer to walk to the house. The coachman ventured to explain that there was a short cut across some fields, but was told that his master knew the way perfectly well. Altogether the home coming was a failure, and so all the on-lookers thought as they watched him stride off towards the aforesaid fields. ' Knows the road well, do he,' muttered the porter, looking at his pence, which he did not appear to be prepared to pocket with alacrity. 'Well, blessed if I ever seed him afore, and it's more nor ten years since I've been on this line.

Shouldn't much mind neither if I never seed him again. To think that the comin' into Willow Marsh is only worth a few ha'pence.' ' Bless ye, Giles, he'll improve,' said an old man, who was regarded as the Marshtown oracle. ' When a chap ain't had no coin to bless hisself with, he can't dive deep at first.' ' Did ye ever see him afore, Dick Venables ? ' asked Giles, who was considerably perplexed. ' If ever I did it must be a-nigh thirty years ago. There was a Bolderson, a sea-captain or summat, who corned to the Willows with a boy — he died soon after, I heard — p'r'aps this yere is the boy.' ' Humph,' muttered Giles, who could not forego grumbling, ' he might ha' given us summat to drink his health with ; he won't have no luck in that there damp, mouldy Willow Marsh — no one ever has for the matter o' that.' 'And we as thought as it was to be smartened up and gay,' grumbled another of the bystanders. ' Best have got some liquor with the money as was subscribed for this ere " harch " ; lend a hand, lads, and let's take the bloomin' thing down.' 'Lor' bless ye, no,' replied Dick Venables, 'not without the Vicar's leave, since he it was who started the puttin' up.

It's strange he beant come to welcome. Ah, there he is a-coomin' now — a bit late ; somehow the Vicar's allus a bit late,' and Dick Venables laughed, as though a good many things he knew about the Vicar amused him. And so they might, for the Vicar was as jolly and portly and genial as the newly-arrived Stephen Bolderson was sombre and gaunt and reserved. ' Well, my lads — train in yet ? ' In less than five minutes the Vicar was master of the situation, as far as the knot of men standing by the door of the station knew it themselves, and though he tried to treat the matter cheerily, as was his wont, he was evidently by no means delighted at what he had heard. ' I wish I had been here myself,' he murmured, ' but somehow I am always late, so much business. Yes, take the arch down, my men, it has done its work, and come up to the Vicarage.

Mrs Haldane will give you some supper.' The Reverend Ferdinand Salt was trying to make the best HUSH MONE Y 4 of it, as he did of most of the ills of life, but probably he was no better pleased than the men were that the arrival of the new master of Willow Marsh should be such a failure. Mr Salt was a vicar of the true, old-fashioned type, hearty in all social requirements, somewhat lax in clerical matters, and by no means over-burdened with mental capacity. He was a man of about sixty-five, and had been Vicar of Marshtown for over twenty years, but not so long as to remember the time when Stephen Bolderson, still a boy, used to bird-nest in the hedges round Willow Marsh. He walked away in a meditative mood. This man's com ing, his strange behaviour and what would come of it was rather a hard problem for Vicar Salt, and would have seemed a harder one if he could, himself unseen, have followed Stephen Bolderson across the fields that divided the town from Willow Marsh.

He certainly looked anything but like a man who had just inherited a nice little property of some fifteen hundred a year, and was on his way to take possession, for he walked along with a slow, ungainly step, his head bent forward, his arms crossed behind him, like a man in a dream, rather than one just entering on a new phase in life, and who would naturally, it would be supposed, have looked about him, and gazed with some interest at his new possessions. The world had scarcely treated Stephen Bolderson kindly. Up to the present time he had been a poor man. He could not rouse himself into the belief that good fortune had at last overtaken him. Had it ? That was the question that was perplexing his mind as he sauntered slowly across the fields, through which he had rambled in happier days when a boy.

Would good fortune ever sit smilingly at his hearth ? He thoroughly disbelieved that such a happy change in his life was possible. He reached Willow Marsh at last, and a dreary old place it was. It seemed to be cut off from civilisation by a sort of moat, or swamp, which emitted at times such odours as to a modern practical mind would have at once sug gested typhoid and malaria, but as the inmates of Willow Marsh were rarely ill, and the late owner had long passed the allotted span of human life, people were wont to say that the moat was healthy. In front of the house and on one side it was overhung by weeping willows, which, though they bent gracefully to the ground, were scarcely emblems of cheerfulness. Passing across a grassy carriage-way between these willows, you reached a lawn and garden, which were very capable of being made bright with colour, and thus enlivening a truly dismal spot.

But at the time of Stephen Bolderson's arrival, the whole place was such a wilderness of tangled shrub and briar that it had the appearance of having been forgotten by mortals. The house itself was low, white and long, with a green verandah in front of the dining and drawing-rooms, which were on either side of the porch ; and it might easily have been mistaken for a farmhouse, since number less fowls and ducks made the verandah and gardens their own. Picturesque, though of a sort of weird beauty, was the place. Neglected and forgotten though it appeared to be, as Stephen Bolderson reached the door the sun came out and lighted up the green verandah and the white walls, surmounted as they were by a red-tiled roof. How well he remembered it all ; it was unchanged, only age had imprinted its mark and made everything look drearier and dirtier.

He gave a single knock at the open door, and then walked into the hall. The household, which consisted of an old woman and a boy, was, of course, expecting him, and the old woman came forward, brushed up for the occasion from her usual state of daily drabbiness, and wearing a cap exceedingly bedecked with pink ribands, which jarred considerably, they were so little in keeping with the moth and dust of ages in which Willow Marsh abounded, and which raised a wonder in Stephen Bolderson's mind as to why she was not in mourning for her late master. He forgot how prone even faithful servants are to wor ship the rising sun, and this bit of gay colour had been purchased expressly in his honour. She made an old-fashioned curtsey, said a few words of welcome, which were unanswered, and threw wide the drawing-room door.

The place had been swept and gar nished and put in trim order, still rustiness and faded tints prevailed. Stephen Bolderson shuddered in spite of him self. Was this place henceforward to be his home ? The woman saw the shudder, and as she took stock of the new-comer she thought that the era on which they were HUSH MONEY entering would scarcely be gayer than the one that had just ended. She did not belong to the educated classes, and had never read Fontenelle, or been told in so many words ' that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach,' but instinctively she knew it, and, wishing to make a favourable impression on her new master, she informed him 'there was a tidy bit of luncheon ready i' the dining-room ; perhaps he'd be hungry-like after his journey ? ' ' Thank you,' he said, curtly, and followed her into the opposite room, glad to get away from the gloom and decay of that mouldy drawing-room.

In truth, Mrs Cubitt had done her best, and the succulent repast that was set forth in home-like want of style, was nevertheless tempting, and prevented the room from oppressing him with its bald cheerlessness. Nor, dreary-looking mortal though he was, in thorough keeping with his new possessions, did he do injustice to Mrs Cubitt's good fare, quaffing, too, a becker of home brewed with much relish. The old woman waited on him herself, and fed him so thoroughly well that the rigidity of his manner relaxed somewhat, and his tongue was loosened. After all he must learn something of the people among whom he had come to dwell, and who could tell him better than this old lady, who had lived at Willow Marsh for the best part of twenty years ? She informed him that she had come there the very Martinmas after Vicar Salt.

Wasn't the Vicar at the station to greet the maister? Stephen Bolderson shook his head, and asked what sort of a man the Vicar was. 'Well, he's more or less a favourite, still his meanings and his acts don't always pull together,' she replied, sententiously. Mr Bolderson smiled. ' Does anyone act up to his intentions ? ' he asked. But this question taken in the abstract was beyond Mrs Cubitt's study, so she set it on one side, and went on garrulously, now that some liberty had been given her ' It's just like this, sir. The Vicar, he's always a-goin' to do, but somehow it doesn't get done. Now, there's Squire Wallis, of Hazel Court, he as is nearest neighbour to Willow Marsh, if he says he'll do it, why it's done afore you know where you are.' ' And which do you like best, the Vicar or the Squire ? ' asked Mr Bolderson, amused, in spite of his apparent despondency, at the way in which Mrs Cubitt took stock of her neighbours ; but she was not going to compromise herself. ' Lor', sir, bless you, they're both pleasant gentlemen, and it ain't for me to judge.

I hope as you'll find them kindly acquaintances. Hazel Court is a rare, pretty, pleasant place, lots of amusement goin' on, but then there's young people there to keep the fun warm. Mr Alan he be a cheery-spoken young gentleman, and Miss Sicele she is a sweet young lady.' ' Ah, I am glad there are young people so near, they will be companions for my child.' ' Your child, sir ? ' and the poor woman was so astonished that she had some difficulty in remaining steadily on her old legs. ' My child ; yes. Ah, you did not know that I have a daughter. I have lived abroad for so many years that no one knows anything about me here. Yet I wonder my cousin never mentioned it.' 'Then, sir — you beant — excuse me for the question — you beant a gay bachelor as people have said ? ' ' Not gay. Never gay, my good Mrs Cubitt, and a widower.' This then was the explanation of the new-comer's gloom and sadness — or at least so Mrs Cubitt thought. 'A widower — poor, dear man, but perhaps he'll marry again.

He is young enough, and good-looking enough, for any pretty lady to take a fancy to him. But a child, daughter, no I don't want no daughter here. Lor', it's a blow and 'ull end in my departure, I suppose. Maids and fallals don't suit my ways, I'd never stand 'em. And how old is the daughter, I'd like to know?' But Stephen Bolderson had apparently vouchsafed all the information he intended to give for the present, for he retired once more into his shell of gloom and assumed a manner that did not encourage conversation. So^Mrs Cubitt was forced to return to her back premises and brood, in a by no means happy frame of mind, over the arrival of the young lady who would, she expected, oust her from her comfortable quarters at Willow Marsh and put a stop to the little pickings she knew so well how to make out of a bachelor's household.

HUSH MONE Y Having got rid of her, Stephen Bolderson took a well coloured short pipe from his pocket and sat down by the window to smoke. Every ray of light that had shone on a naturally genial face during his conversation with the housekeeper was ex tinguished, and, as he looked out on the tangled lawn, and the surrounding possessions which were now his, it was evident that he experienced none of the pleasure that usually accompanies a new inheritance. Mrs Cubitt, in the privacy of her ' room,' was allowing her imagination to run riot on the subject of ' the poor gentle man bein' a widower.' But she was totally wrong in her surmises ; the pretty French girl who had been Stephen Bolderson's wife had died when her baby was born, sixteen years ago. Those sixteen years had been too chequered for strong recollection to have much place in them ; the episode of his married life was merely a faded memory, while present realities had filled its former place.

A man of little over forty, unless he be a woman-hater, scarcely prefers a solitary life, and Stephen Bolderson was no woman-hater — had he been so he might have been a happier man. ' Wallis,' he murmured, as the clouds deepened on his brow. ' She said Wallis of Hazel Court. Can they be the same people or relations? If so, what a new complication. Are one's early shortcomings never to be repaired ? Has the sun of happiness set for ever ? ' Then there was a long silence, the silence as of night ; save for an occasional whiff from the short clay pipe it might have been supposed that Stephen Bolderson slept. But he was all too wakeful for his own peace's sake, thinking out the problem of the future, and how he might once again become a free man. At last he sprang up, and dashing away the pipe with an impetuous movement, it fell on the hearth and was shattered to atoms.

This was scarcely a good omen. But old friend though it was, labour of love though it had been to colour it and render it perfect as he now deemed it, he was too much carried away by the strong emotions of the hour to bestow on it even a regretful thought. He strode up and down the room, activity of brain en forcing activity of body. ' I will take the law into my own hands and knock down the barriers that fetter me,' he remarked. ' Why should I lead this miserable existence, and be the puppet of a man who is even more degraded and blameful than I am myself? Of what use is money if he cannot be squared ? Of what use is life if I am condemned to pass it away from the woman I love ? The die shall be thrown. I will risk everything to win, and if I lose — but I cannot lose — the ebb-tide has turned.

Chapter II The Wooing

Rachel Milner was the childless widow of the late John Milner, R.A., who had died in the very zenith of his fame ; but before fame had had the practical result of filling his coffers with gold. His widow's competency, if competency it could be called, was a very modest one ; but she was simple in her habits, and had, moreover, a keen eye for artistic effects, which she managed to evolve out of the smallest materials ; and a tiny house which she had fitted up at Chelsea, not a hundred yards from Cheyne Walk, was noted among her acquaintances for its snug homeliness and general artistic prettiness. There Rachel Milner settled down, to lead, as she anticipated, a placid, contented existence, away from the stirring elements of life, except as she might be brought into con tact with them by seeking to alleviate the troubles of others ; and for a time the map of her days as she had traced it was rigidly followed.

Then she met Stephen Bolderson, and the shadows that darkened his pathway seemed more or less to gather about her own. People wondered what had happened to Rachel Milner that she was so unlike her former self, but no one could answer this question, and most assuredly she could not have done so herself. She loved Stephen Bolderson, ay, she loved him as she had never loved John Milner, whom she had married when she was too young to know what stormy passion meant ; but was that any reason why she should be utterly miserable ? It must be something about Stephen Bolderson himself that made her so. What was the secret that enshrouded his life ? For that there was a secret Mrs Milner felt very certain. That he loved her she knew full well, since he had told her so many times ; but he had never asked her to marry him.

He always seemed to hold back on the brink as if there was something that kept him from taking the final plunge. She knew nothing about his antecedents, since he had never told her aught of his married life, or of the existence of his daughter, though Rachel Milner was of that loving, maternal type that she would have taken the child at once to her heart and poured forth on her the mother's love, which had as yet found no outlet. But she always thought Mr Bolderson was a bachelor — spoke to him, and of him, as such, and was never contradicted in the statement. That he was backward in putting the momentous question, which, if answered in the affirmative, would unite their destinies, she ascribed entirely to want of means. If only money were plentiful, she felt certain that the cloud would be lifted from his brow, and, with his restoration to happiness, Mrs Milner had no doubt but her own bright days would return.

This was what she tried to make herself believe, but she was forced at times to acknowledge that she sought in vain, for she could not divest her mind of the dread that a bur den heavier than that of mere want of money oppressed the man she loved, and created such a barrier between them that it seemed likely to mar both their lives. Strange, too, that this impediment, whatever its cause, strengthened Rachel Milner's love for this man until it filled her whole being, and, from a cheery, pleasant woman, ready to make herself agreeable and useful to everyone, she became so wrapped in her own meditations that her intimates could not imagine what was the matter with her, and, believing her to be ill, were always urging her to see some celebrated physician. But Mrs Milner knew full well that no drugs or pigments would avail for her complaint, and that the only change — change being another freely-offered prescription— that would avail would be a change in her fortunes. 'If she could only make some money,' she thought. ' Other women in these later years had taken kindly to pro fessions and trades.

Why should not she keep a restaurant, a cafe chantant, an art store, or some attractive fin-de-siecle business ? She had been revolving the matter most seriously of late, for during ten days she had seen and heard nothing of Stephen Bolderson. One afternoon, before the usual hour for visitors, a ring came at the door-bell, and the tidy parlour maid, who, with the cook, constituted Mrs Milner's entire establishment, ushered him into the pretty drawing-room, where she was idling languidly on the sofa, the day being hot, revolving in her mind the details of some of the numerous schemes which she had under consideration. Rachel thought she had never seen him look handsomer than he did to-day, or, as her quick woman's eye descried, better dressed. Something had happened, of that she felt very certain ; still, the sad, preoccupied look had not left his brow, though it almost seemed as if he were making an effort to banish it, as if he were determined to be even with his misery — what ever its cause — instead of allowing it to crush him.

He took the hand she extended and pressed it warmly. ' Dear Mrs Milner,' he murmured, 'I am so glad to find you alone. But you look tired and worried.' ' Did she look more worried than usual ? ' she wondered ; ' or had Stephen Bolderson become more observant, for he had never alluded to such a subject before ? ' ' I have not seen you for more than a week ? ' she answered ; simply. 'I have been wondering what had become of you.' Rachel Milner was one of those natural people who never affect to be other than they are. She loved this man, and she did not, therefore, coquette and pretend to be totally in different, as many another woman would have done. He smiled, and appeared grateful for the implied welcome. Nevertheless, the clouds did not wholly lift. ' Do you not think a little fresh air would do you good ? ' he said. ' Pretty though this room is, a change is sometimes beneficial. ' Where is he going to send me ? ' she wondered, answer ing meanwhile, ' that she was well content to remain in her home, especially since he had come to enliven her some what.' A spook-like smile, most people would have called it, de veloped into a laugh, as he said, — ' Then you decline in advance to come on the river — to Richmond or Maidenhead — and dine ? ' ' Mr Bolderson ! ' was all she could say, so aghast was she with astonishment.

Never had he suggested such a thing to her before, and where the money was coming from to pay for such an un wonted piece of extravagance puzzled her. He was now thoroughly amused, and threw off his usual dejection and lassitude as he had never done before. Truly something had happened. She saw it in the twinkle of his eye. ' Why should you be so surprised at my invitation to you to come and dine with me ? ' he asked. ' Other men of my position dine at these places with the ladies of their acquaint ance. Why should not you and I, who have been friends for a long time now ? ' 'Men of his position! AVhat was his position?' she wondered. All that she could think of was pauper and workhouse, but she did not wish to insult him, so she said, speaking slowly and in a low voice,— ' I will come, of course, if you wish it, only I do not know — ' She stopped.