The Luck of the Darrells. A novel

Front matter

TBaflantpne -Jpresff BALLANTVNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON A NOVEL BY JAMES PAYN AUTHOR OF f\ BY PROXY' 'THE CANON'S WARD* 'THICKER THAN WATER* ETC. NEW EDITION LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1 886. A 11 rights reserved CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. ON THE PLATFORM I II. IN THE CAB 7 III. FATHER AND DAUGHTER 13 IV. THE TWO FRIENDS 20 V. ' MOSTLY FRENCH ' 29 VI. ' THE PICK ' 39 VII. REGRETS .... 44 VIII. CHAPERONS 52 IX. THE BALL 59 X. THE CONSERVATORY 67 XI. INTERROGATIONS 74 XII. THE COUSINS 79 XIII. FROM EPSOM 91 XIV. PREMONITORY 101 XV. SUITORS 109 XVI. A GREENWICH DINNER Il8 XVII. BEFORE BREAKFAST 1 28 XVIII. NURSE ARKELL 134 XIX. A SOFT-HEARTED TRUSTEE 14 1 XX. LORD BUTTERMERE'S GENEROSITY . . . -151 XXI. AN INVITATION 1 59 XXII. CUTTING HER CABLE l68 XXIII. SPORETON JUNCTION 175 XXIV.

THE MAP OF THE COUNTRY 180 XXV. THE ARRIVAL CONTENTS VI CHAPTER PACE XXVI. A LITTLE DINNER-PARTY 194 XXVII. BEFORE BREAKFAST 200 XXVIII. MARIA AT WORK ... ... 208 XXIX. VISITING 217 XXX. THE ENDORSED CHEQUE 225 XXXI. RETROSPECTIVE 232 XXXII. SELF-SACRIFICE ........ 24I XXXIII. A CONFESSION . . . ... . . . 246 XXXIV. MR. MOSES JEPHSON 253 XXXV. ANOTHER'S JOY 259 XXXVI. MRS. BERTRAM 267 XXXVII. A SUMMONS 276 XXXVIII. AN APPEAL 284 XXXIX. OVERHEARD 28S XL. THE EMBARKATION 294 XLI. IN THE CHURCHYARD 3OO XLII. FEARS 306 XLIII. WATCHING 314 XLIV. DANGER 319 XLV. FOR HIS SAKE 327 XLVI. PARTED 334 XLVII. ON SHORE 340 XLVIII. THE HEIRESS

Chapter I. On The Platform

The tidal train has just steamed slowly into the Charing Cross station. The proportion of foreign passengers as compared with the native element is large, for it is early summer, and we English are not even preening our wings for the Continent, far less returning from it. As one listens to the jabber on the platform it is possible to imagine that the Channel tunnel has been long completed, the prophecies of the alarmists fulfilled, and our beloved metropolis in the hands of the alien. On the other hand, the new arrivals have by no means the air of con querors ; a few, indeed, who are familiar with London, or residents there, step quietly into the carriages awaiting them and leave their servants to look after the luggage, but the majority, with anxious and submissive looks, await the tardy distribution of bag and box.

The women glance appealingly from official to official, or, in language not understanded of the porters, endeavour, with bewitching Parisian smile, to attract their attention. The men, with curses not loud but deep, twirl their moustaches and affect a philosophic calm. There is no ' Hi, there ! that is my portmanteau ; ' ' Where the dickens are you going with that box ? ' they are on foreign soil, and depressed in spirits. Every one who leaves his own country undergoes a certain temporary degradation of B character : Englishmen most of all, because they have most independence to lose. On the other hand, the newly-arrived foreigner in England is generally dejected by the effect of recent sea-sickness. Quite apart from the characteristics of race it is as easy to distinguish the native element, by their mere manner among this surging throng, as from a flight of white swans to pick out a few black ones.

One of these latter, a young girl, stands out in especial contrast to the majority of her fellow-passengers. She is very young, and of a form so slight that, but for the wholesome colour on her cheek, it might well suggest delicacy of constitution. The eyes too have a brightness that, as regards health, is but too often as misleading as the wildfire of the marsh ; in her case, however, it is only caused by pleasurable expectancy. She is charmingly pretty, her face full of expression, and instinct with a roguish humour peculiar to English girls, though rare enough even with them. She has left her carriage, like the rest, but stands beside it looking to right and left with an eager air that presently fades into one of disappointment. Her face is so expressive that this change of feeling is as apparent as the fall of evening upon a fair land scape.

The dew comes into her blue eyes, the very tint of her bright hair seems to become less golden, her red lips lose their sunny smile. It is as clear as though she had told you that the person she has been expecting is very dear to her and has not arrived. The crowd around her are much too occupied with their own business to pay any attention to her, and would probably have been so had her distress of mind been far more poignant and pronounced. What is a girl that has been left till called for, and not been called for, compared with a portmanteau that has been called for and does not appear ? No, Messieurs les Francois are a polite people so far as lifting the hat is concerned, but as for lifting a finger to help a fellow-creature in trouble till their own affairs are regulated Sapristi ! they are not imbeciles, not they.

One person, however, though she is quite unconscious of the interest she is exciting in him, is watching her very atten tively. He is a tall, fine young fellow, as fair complexioned as herself by nature, but whom Indian suns have browned almost ON THE PLATFORM 3 to copper-colour ; he too has blue eyes, just now as he looks pityingly towards her, almost as tender as her own. On occasion they have flashed far otherwise, for they have had the light of battle in them. One hand is in a sling, for he has returned wounded from the wars, but with the other he plucks indecisively at his short, tawny moustache. ' Shall he offer to assist her, or shall he wait a little longer to give time for her father to put in an appearance ? ' He knows for whom she is waiting, for he has been her fellow passenger across the Channel and in the train from Folkestone, and so far she has confided in him.

He was fortunately able to be of some little help to her on board the steamer ; he had an extra rug which was of use to her in the rough passage, during which she had insisted on remaining on deck quite cheerily, while every one else was engaged, and very un pleasantly engaged, below. Their other fellow-passengers in the carriage had been foreigners, which had imperceptibly assisted in drawing the two young people together ; it had induced a sense of isolation as though they had been alone, yet without the embarrassment of being alone. They had not, however, got on quite so fast together as some young people I wot of would have done under similar circumstances. Hester Darrell was far too simple and natural a young woman to be shy ; her manners, though by no means reserved, were modest and quiet ; they had a dignity which neither good birth nor good training (though she had had the advantage of both) can bestow.

The young fellow, on his part, who had the good sense and good feeling to recognise this fact, had made no attempt at flirtation. He had neglected, in fact— or such would have been the general opinion of his class — to avail himself of his opportunities. He had, nevertheless, contrived to make a favourable impression upon his companion, of which he was not wholly unconscious ; and they had parted with an unexpressed regret. Hester had even shaken hands with him, which, perhaps, she would not have done had she possessed more knowledge of the world ; but when he had offered to look after her luggage at the terminus she had declined his help, because, she said, her father was to meet her. It would have been a great satisfaction to the young gentleman had she mentioned her father's name, but Hester had not thought it necessary to do so ; she had, I think, a secret consciousness that in holding out her hand to this young gentleman she had told him quite enough ; nevertheless, in doing so she had signified to him that she wished him good-bye for good and all, and it required some courage (of a different kind from that of which he had given his proofs) to make any advances to her anew.

The distress in her pretty face, however, became pre sently insupportable to him to witness, and he came up to her, raised hat in hand. ' Since there seems to have been some mistake about your father's coming,' he said respectfully, 'will you allow me to look after your luggage ? ' It is always the luggage on these occasions ; a humorous writer has, I hear, written an essay upon the Malignity of Inanimate Objects ; and, certainly, the manner in which they disappear when most wanted would seem to be due to wilful wickedness, but some inanimate objects, as in this case, have been known to do young people a good turn. One cannot say to an angel who has been entertaining us unawares (and no one could have been less conscious of her own charm than Hester Darrell), ' Let me look after you ; let me see your precious self into a four-wheeler ; ' but a good deal of affec tionate interest can be displayed about her boxes.

Our hero's proffer of assistance was made just at the right moment. A minute before would have been too soon, Hester's mind would have been disturbed by the prospect of her father's still possible arrival. The presence of a stranger would have interfered, she would have felt, with their rapturous meeting • and a minute later would have been almost too late. The dew of disappointment in her eyes would by that time have re duced itself into tears, a circumstance that would have been embarrassing. As it was, the tones of a voice she knew though ever so little, were very welcome to her in a perplexity which was fast assuming the proportions of a calamity. 'You are very good,' she answered, blushing. 'I cannot think why dear papa has not come. I am afraid,' she added naively, but with a smile, too, ' that he has forgotten all about me.' ON THE PLATFORM 5 ' That is not at all likely,' said the young soldier, simply. ' But in London people are not always masters of their time.' 'I suppose that must be it,' she replied, still looking piteously towards the entrance gate ; 'he must have had some pressing engagement.

But, indeed, you must not trouble your self about my goods and chattels ; you are the last person,' and she glanced significantly at his wounded hand, 'to be jostled in a crowd like this. It will be worse than Ram nugger.' He had told her on the journey, after the manner of all heroes since Othello's time, of certain incidents of the late campaign in India in which he had taken part. He had done so quite naturally and without boastfulness ; he had even omitted to say that his share in the proceedings had gained him the Victoria Cross. But, nevertheless, his narration had interested her ; she had even remembered the name of one of the battles. 'In these home conflicts, was his laughing reply, 'we fight by deputy.' A significant look, which to the official mind betokened half a crown at least, at once brought a porter to his side, who, deaf to all foreign blandishments, had had his eye on the young soldier from the first ' This young lady will give you the ticket for her luggage.

Just see to it, and put it on a four-wheeled cab.' Hereupon ensued some opportunity for conversation. ' I hope I am not keeping you from your friends,' said Hester, hesitating. 'Oh, no — not that that would matter — I mean,' he stam mered with the consciousness of having been on the brink of effusion, ' that I have no friends in London. I have been so long away from England, you see ; and as for the dear old governor, he lives in the country.' ' Then you are going into the country ? How I envy you. I cannot think how people can stay in London this summer weather when they can help it. For my part, though I have had little experience of it, I love life in a country house, especially if it is an old one.' ' Then you should see ours. It is very old, large, and rambling ; to say the truth, a little too large— it reminds me of barracks.' ' How wicked of you to talk so of your own home.' ' That's what the governor would say.

He adores it even to its very discomforts — the draughts, the mouldy tapestry, the hereditary ghost' ' Has it a ghost ? Oh ! that is delicious, indeed. We have no ghost in our family, but only a ghostly sort of motto : a tradition.' 'And what is the tradition?' And again Hester hesitated. If she told the tradition she must needs tell her name, and would Madame Langlais, her late preceptress, who had given her so many detailed directions as to her conduct en voyage, quite approve of confiding such a matter to a perfect stranger ? ' There is an old saying,' she said, ' in our family, that thc luck of it, ' whate'er it may be, Shall go by the sea, and shall come by the sea.' That is rather weird and eerie, is it not ? But still it is not so good as a ghost' 'Well, I don't know,' replied the young man, with an air of reflection. ' One wants cheerful society in a house to counter act a ghost and — especially when it is a female one, as in this case — ladies' society.' In his speech he dealt with generalities, but in his looks he was more particular ; they seemed to say to his companion, ' Now you would be the very person to counteract our ghost.' ' And I dare say you have plenty of ladies' society,' said Hester, in a tone of indifference, which, however, contended with a blush. ' Well, no ; ' here he sighed. ' The fact is we have none at all, though things did not use to be so.

The fact is, I am sorry to say ' At this moment, to the relief of the young man's very obvious embarrassment, appeared the obsequious porter with his barrow full of luggage, which, under Hester's inspection, he proceeded to place upon the cab. ON THE PLATFORM 7 ' I am greatly obliged to you,' said Hester to her polite companion ; and once more she held out her hand. ' What address shall I give the cabman ? ' he inquired. The question would have seemed a simple one enough to a much more wily person than she to whom it was addressed ; but there was an air of interest and expectancy in the young soldier's tone that gave the inquiry a tone of significance and put Hester on her guard. She felt that she had trodden on the very verge of Madame Langlais' line of propriety in giving him her hand twice over ; to have furnished him also with her address would have been to overstep it. ' I will not trouble you any further,' she said with a grateful smile, but also in a sufficiently resolute voice.

The colour mounted high into the young man's face, and he withdrew at once with a respectful bow. Then she turned up her pretty face towards that of the weather-beaten cabman's, and murmured, in a low, sweet tone (for the young soldier was still within* earshot), 'Piccadilly, 299a.' ' Eh ? ' echoed the cabman, protruding his great head from his great-coat as a turtle does from his shell ' 299a,' repeated Hester. ' All right, miss : ' the porter closed the door without slamming it (which showed what a fee he must have got from somebody), and the cab, top-heavy as a hermit crab, but not so speedy, crawled away with her.

Chapter II. In The Cab

I am inclined to think, judging from my own experience, that a good deal of mental work is done in cabs. Circumstances are not favourable to reading in them, conversation is impossible, and their internal decoration is not sufficiently artistic to distract the mind. In the short journey that now lay before her Hester Darrell gave herself more up to reflection than she had done in the whole transit between Paris and Charing Cross. She had, indeed, more to think about. In the first place, there was her father's non-arrival at the station, which, in the case of most daughters, would have given rise to some apprehension ; and secondly, there was the acquaintance she had made with the young soldier. The latter incident, it must be admitted, made much more impression on her than the former. She loved her father dearly, but she also knew his character, or some parts of it, exceedingly well, and the fact of his not having arrived in time to meet her did not at all astonish her.

Colonel Richard Darrell had many good points, if they could not have been absolutely called virtues, but punctuality was not one of them. He was often late even for his pleasures — and the welcoming of his daughter to her new home would certainly have been one of them ; while as to other appoint ments which had any tinge of unpleasantness in them, such as business ones, he might possibly be induced to make one, but it was contrary to his nature to keep it No one could say that he exhausted himself in any line of action, but he was capable of some effort in order to avoid facing anything of a disagreeable nature— an admirable plan, if the disagreeable thing can be avoided, and not only postponed ; but in real life this seldom happens. The system is exactly the reverse of that which obtains among children at pudding-time ; they pile into a corner of their plates all the plums for a bonne bouche at the finish : the gentlemen I have in my mind eat all their plums at first, and trust that their fate will not compel them to swallow at last all the less agreeable material they have thus accumulated.

Alas it is not so ; they have to clear their plate to the last morsel, and find their ' stickjaw ' anything but improved by keeping. Colonel Richard Darrell was as bold as a lion, but he had neverlookedadifficulty in the face, or even so much as conquered a whim. He had served with some repute, but his chief mili tary renown, while it lasted, was that he had been the youngest lieutenant-colonel in the British army. It did not last lon° for almost immediately on obtaining that rank he had sold his commission and entered another calling, in which he also acquired considerable distinction. At the time our story opens he was held to be the best-preserved ' Man about Town.' IN THE CAB 9 The Colonel ' knew everybody ' — a phrase which indicates at most some five hundred people all of one pattern — and had many friends, a lew of whom to his face and many behind his back called him Dick Darrell.

In his youth so attentive had he been to the gentler sex that the name of ' Look and Die,' which passes from one man of this stamp to another, like the succession to a throne, was universally accorded to him ; and yet he had not made the great match it unquestionably lay in his power to make, but married for love an orphan girl without dower. This circumstance was urged, not without reason, or at all events not without plausibility, in his favour. He could not, men said, be a self-seeking or greedy man ; he must, said women, have something of unselfishness, or even self-sacrifice, in his nature to have so acted. As it happened, they were quite right ; but in my opinion his marriage did not prove it. Hester Grantham was simply one of the whims which he could not conquer, and which, indeed, completely conquered him.

He made (as she fondly thought) the best of husbands, and when she died — which was in giving birth to his only daughter — he was inconsolable for weeks. Little Hester became her father's darling, the most precious possession he had in the world, but also one the custody of which was exceedingly in convenient Some men, though not many, have a natural gift for the guardianship of children ; but with well-preserved Men about Town it is far from common. As Mrs. Darrell had left a surviving sister, it might well be thought that she would have been some help in this perplexity; but the Colonel and Elizabeth Grantham ' that was ' (for her marriage had taken place soon after his own) were not on good terms. She had taken a very different view of her sister's union from that adopted by the world at large ; when people hinted at the Colonel's self-sacrifice, she told them in plain terms that he was 'a godless gambler,' in wedding whom her unhappy sister had imperilled her immortal soul.

A remark which had generally the effect of closing the conversation. If it were true, she was clearly right in concluding that the obligation (if any) lay upon the other side. For the rest, the Gran tham blood was at least as good as that of the Darrells' — a circumstance which Elizabeth dwelt upon with some inconsistency, considering that the future was so all important with her as compared with matters of this world— and as for the money, though the Colonel had at the time been in good circumstances, his habits were such as to render the continuance of his pros perity very doubtful. She had opposed herself to the marriage tooth and nail, and when it took place, in spite of her, had severed all connection between herself and her sister. To some women this would have been difficult to do, for Hester had no other relation in the world, and clung to her with pitiful tenacity ; but Elizabeth possessed high principles far out of the reach of sentimental pleading, and cut her cable, as it were, with a hatchet. ' Since you have chosen to ally yourself with a wicked man,' she said, ' you and I have shaken hands for ever.' And as even sweet-tempered Hester could not stand her husband being called a wicked man, the desired separation was effected.

Perhaps, when his wife was dead, the Colonel might have let bygones be bygones, and appealed, for his child's sake, to her aunt ; but in the meantime another gulf had been opened between them. Elizabeth had married, as the Colonel thought, beneath her ; that is to say, a man of large fortune, but who had had the misfortune to make it himself, and in the City. Mr. Abraham Barton was presumably not a bad man; but it must be admitted that his spiritual qualities were not on the surface. It was probably not from religious principles, but from the inferior but very natural motive of securing for himself peace and quietness, that he had taken up his wife's quarrel ; but, at all events, the breach between the two families was complete. Under these circumstances little Hester had been of neces sity from her earliest years committed to the care of hirelings, and on the whole they had done their duty by her.

Her sweet temper and bright ways had endeared her to most of them with whom she had come in contact, and not least to Madame Langlais, under whose care she had been placed for many years. Madame was an Englishwoman, who had once filled the post of governess to Mrs. Darrell when Hester Grantham and had afterwards set up as a schoolmistress on her own account. It is as natural for governesses to do so as for butlers IN THE CAB 11 to take public-houses, and only too often with the same disas trous result. The cause of Madame Langlais coming to grief was her marriage, in comparatively late life, with an absinthe loving Frenchman, who, before he drank himself to death, con trived to dissipate almost all her little property. She had been compelled to break up her educational establishment in Bays water and remove to Paris, whither some of her old pupils, including Hester Darrell, had joined her.

Hester had been residing there for the last two years, living a very quiet but not unpleasant life, cheered by pretty frequent visits from the Colonel. Contrasted with her monotonous, colourless existence these had been like gleams of sunshine in a wintry day. She always associated her father, who took her to the opera and theatres, and loaded her with presents, with gaiety and pleasure ; she repaid him with the most genuine love and gratitude, but with a certain modesty in her expectations very unusual in a ' father's darling.' She felt that there were some things not to be looked for in him : though he never forgot her, he would sometimes disappoint her ; his instability of character was perfectly well known to her, though under a euphonious periphrase which made it almost a virtue. ' Dear papa could never say " no " to anybody.' She knew that he was dreadfully careless and haphazard in ordinary matters, ard had a suspicion that he was rather extra vagant in his habits and fond of high play ; but she never thought of such matters in relation to herself at all.

They were weaknesses of 'dear papa's,' of course, but being part of himself she could not find it in her heart seriously to deplore them. A great philosopher has told us that when we once find the limits of our friend he straightway becomes a pond, but to Hester her father was still an ocean, into which, although she had discovered its shores, still ran the full river of her love. She was not displeased, and certainly not surprised, that the Colonel had not met her at the station. It was a circumstance, in fact, not worth thinking about, one way or another. Before the four-wheeled cab had reached Trafalgar Square, she had turned her thoughts— no — her thoughts had chosen for themselves another channel. Although the young soldier she had just left at the railway-station was, and of course could be, nothing to her, he was the last object on the retina of her mind, and it retained it.

When travellers come from the Pole and the Antipodes we often find them thus concerning themselves with some incident of their journey which has only just happened to them, and which seems to us stay-at-homes sufficiently commonplace and uninteresting. But to Hester Darrell her late companion was certainly not an uninteresting subject of thought, though it is probable she could not have made him a topic of conversation. He was very different from the military persons she had occasionally seen in her father's company. Even as a child they had struck her as carpet knights, less fitted for the field of battle than for the racecourse, and who preferred Pall Mall to active service ; but this young fellow had looked every inch a soldier, and spoken of his profession with enthusiasm ; he had been wounded too, for which in a competitive examination conducted by women the candidate gets high marks ; he had been very kind to her, and thoughtful for her comfort ; he had noticed and sympathised with her recent embarrassment, and at the same time had behaved with great delicacy and respect.

She felt she had been rather hard upon him in declining to confide to him her address, which as the Colonel had taken a furnished house for the season, could not, even had she revealed his name, have been obtained from the ' Court Guide ' Her reserve, it is true, would, she felt, meet with Madame Langlais' approbation, but that did not prevent her from feeling a touch of remorse. She feared that this young gentleman must think her a little prudish, and even a little ungratefuL He was certainly— well, not handsome perhaps — but distinguished-looking. He had been very bright and genial throughout the journey, and then just at last, as he was taking leave of her, his manner had altered, he had looked sorrowful and depressed. Of course that could have had nothing to do with their parting ; such an idea was too preposterous to be entertained for an instant.

It must have been some allusion that she had unconsciously made to his own affairs, and which had given him pain, poor fellow It had been certainly but a poor return for his kindness. The cab was in Piccadilly now, presumedly within a few IN THE CAB 13 doors of her destination, and yet her thoughts continued most unaccountably to dwell upon her late companion. It was when he spoke of his own home, she reflected, that his tone had become so grave ; a large old-fashioned house, it seemed, such as she herself delighted in ; she had passed a winter at Fromsham Hall, belonging to her father's friend, Lord Butter mere, and had enjoyed it immensely ; the house had been full of company, and there had been private theatricals in which she had taken part among the young people. Perhaps his home was like that.