Taken to Heart. A novel

Front matter

TAKEN TO HEART % Bobtt BY THE HOX. FREDEFJCA PLUNKET LONDON JOHN AND ROBERT MAXWELL MILTON HOUSE, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET AND 35 ST. BRIDE STREET, E.C. [All rights reserved] LONDON: BOBSOM AND SONB, PRINTERS, PAKCRAS ROAD, ir.TT. CONTEXTS. CHAP. PAGE i. Beechwood and its Owner . . . 1 h. Mr. Vaughan's Friend . . . .11 hi. Philip Raymond's Request ... 25 iv. Guardian and Ward 35 v. Breakers Ahead . ... . .58 vi. Plans of Escape 79 vii. Seeking and Finding .... 92 vni. The Companion 101 ix. Turn of the Tide 122 x. Tommy's Education 133 xi. Sir Harry Vaughan 145 xn. Lady "Wylmington's Ball . . . .168 xin. Tommy in Trouble 194 xiv. The Hauntfd Cottage .... 209 xv. The Widow 227 xvi. Up the Trout- Stream .... 238 xvn. Tommy's Theory 2G4 xvm. What came of it 274 xix. Dark Clouds 294 xx. The Silver Lining 312 xxi. The Wedding 334 xxn. Mr. Vaughan speaks out .... 343 xxiii. Miss Smith's Story 358 xxiv. Married at Last

Chapter I Beechwood And Its Owner

A fine October day was drawing to its close. The sun had almost set, and only a few parting rays yet lingered on the trees of Mr. Vaughan's domain, and gilded the windows of his pretty Elizabethan house, throwing for the moment a still warmer glow on the autumn tints of the foliage and the red bricks of the building, and enhancing the brilliancy of various beds of scarlet geraniums dotted about over the close-shaven grass of the pleasure-ground. Beech wood was by no means a large place, belonging to the class termed "villa residences" rather than to the more honourable order of "parks," and making no attempt to imitate a grandeur which it failed to possess. The house did not present an imposing appearance from the road, but lay modestly hidden B amongst its encircling beech-trees. The gate and lodge, situated almost in the village of X , were small and unpretending, and the approach to the dwelling followed no devious windings calculated to delude the arriving visitor into the idea that he was driving a long way, but led boldly through the trees and across the sloping lawn, and took him to his aim, the hall-door, without delay or circum ambulation.

The element of size lacking in this abode was, however, amply made up for in other ways, and Beechwood had, after all, like most of us, its own pretensions too, and a strong point on which to pride itself. The distinguishing characteristic of the place presented itself at a glance even to the eyes of a casual observer. The reigning spirit was that of order and regularity. Everything was in its right place and right quantity : nothing superfluous, and nothing wanting. The smooth green lawn was swept every morning with rigid punctuality ; the many-coloured flower-beds had been cut with geo metrical precision, and not a gap could be detected amongst the gay ranks of their occupants; the gravel-walks were a marvel of neatness, and their ivy-borders irreproachably straight ; a dead leaf was an exception of rare occurrence, and a weed an offence almost unknown.

Nor were the less visible parts of the establishment at all behindhand with their more prominent neighbours. The kitchen garden was a model of abundance and variety ; the fowl-yard a prosperous world, in which pompous cocks, each in his own kingdom, strutted about amid their respective family circles, and crowed defiance at their rivals on the other side of the wire netting frontier. Mr. Vaughan's three sleek cows looked the picture of well-to-do respectability, and his two brown horses shone like highly-polished mahogany, and had probably never done a day's hard work in their lives. With such outward surroundings, the style of the interior of Beechwood House is easy to be imagined, and it were unnecessary to allude to the well-appointed table, orderly servants, and com fortably-furnished rooms of the residence, but that one more peculiarity remains to be noted.

There was a certain appearance of rigidity about the place ; a look of unbroken regularity, of Median and Persian adherence to laws, as if everything were done by rule, and no margin allowed for fancy and caprice ; and this feature, which obtruded itself on the beholder even out of doors, became almost oppressive within. It pervaded the whole house, from th» entrance-hall, with its severe row of high-backed chairs, to the flowerless drawing-room, where not an ornament was out of its appointed place, and not a table or footstool even had been disturbed from the decorum of its morning arrangement. It has been said above that nothing wras wanting in this establishment; but in one respect that may have been not quite a correct expression. There was something wanting, and before long, suggested to the mind of the observer by the very absence of all its accom panying tokens, the idea would arise that what he instinctively missed and desired was a softening presence, a milder influence, "an Eve in this garden, a ruling grace," who would smooth away all the inexorable formality of the house, make every thing a degree less tidy, and a great many degrees more comfortable, and litter the rooms with. all those nameless womanly trifles that give elegance and completeness to a habitation.

Yes, appearances did not belie facts : Beechwood had no mistress, and Mr. Vaughan was an old bachelor. That he should be so was not the fault of the ladies of his acquaintance, many of whom would have undertaken the charge of himself and his house gladly, had he given^them the option, and probably have contributed more or less to his happiness. But he did not seem to view the matter in that light ; and though very good friends with them all, he kept his tongue through divers provocations under strict control, and never suffered it to form a sound which the most sanguine could construe into a proposal. Though a second son, he was known to be well provided for, being heir to Beechwood and a very fair property on his mother's side ; and when, on her husband Sir Roland Vaughan's death, that lady came to reside at her own house, she asked her younger son to live with her, and Mr. Vaughau became from that time forth, even during Lady Vaughan's life, the ostensible owner of the place and property.

The deepest affection subsisted between the mother and son, and during the remaining four years of her life nothing seemed wanting to Mr. Vaughan's happiness. After her death he was unable to bear the desolation of his empty home, and, shutting up the house, he wandered about through various regions of the old world and the new for the space of two years, after which time he returned once more to Beechwood, and settled down asain to the same life as that which he had been leading before. But the grief he had endured, though undemonstrative, was very deep, and had left its shadow behind on his pale face and somewhat serious manner. Now was the time to catch him, thought several provident mothers with marriageable daughters to dispose of. Thirty-eight, just a nice sensible age, a nice-looking man, too, and with a very tolerable unencumbered property at his back.

"Poor dear man! How lonely he must feel! Left to cope unaided with the butchers and the bakers, and the fishmongers and the grocers, and all the various little household troubles of daily life!" If sympathy, advice, and kind offers of assistance had been available to console Mr. Vaughan, he might soon have become the happiest of men, with every want attended to, and all cares removed from his shoulders by the ministering hands of pre sumptive wives and mothers-in-law. But he re mained obdurate, stupidly blind, they said, to his own interests. He received the sympathy gratefully where it seemed genuine, quietly where not so, listened patiently to the advice which, however, he rarely followed, and declined all offers of assistance gently but decisively. "Poor foolish man!" then said these baffled ones, retiring discomfited ; " how little he knows what is before him !

It is all very well now, while he is comparatively young and strong ; but wait till he is old and gouty and stupid, and cross and weak; then some designing cook or housekeeper will get about him, and rule him and rob him and neglect him, and perhaps marry him or murder him!" Meanwhile the unconscious subject of all these ill-omened prophecies went his way contentedly through life, and seemed determined to adhere per manently to that state which is called " single," and to which the term " blessedness " is so often added. By degrees time with gentle hand closed the aching wound that death had made, and Mr. Vaughan gradually relaxed the severity of his first seclusion, and began again to mix as of old among his country friends and acquaintances, and to take his accustomed place at their hospitable boards.

Nearly ten years passed over his devoted head, and as yet no avenging Nemesis had descended to wreak on him the punishments foretold by the injured portion of his female acquaintance. He was already in his forty-eighth year, on a certain October afternoon, when he is first presented to the reader's notice, and as he sat in an easy-chair in his comfortable oak-panelled library, no one would have thought of pronouncing him either old, gouty, or cross, still less stupid or weak. There are some middle-aged people, men and women alike, who are essentially retrospective in their appearance. On first seeing them, we invo luntarily think of what they may have been. We look on them almost as remnants of themselves, and remark that one has great traces of beauty left, that another must have had a very good figure before he or she grew so stout, and so on.

Now, there was nothing of this deterioration suggested by Mr. Vaughan's aspect. He did not look young, it is true ; but there was a vigour in his crisp and abundant iron-gray hair, his thick whiskers of a slightly darker shade, his clear hazel eyes, and his spare but firmly knit figure which forbade any thoughts of decay. The verdict pronounced on him ten years before still accorded with his person. He was a very nice looking man, perhaps too thin and sharp-featured to be called handsome, but making up in expression for what he lacked in form, and possessing a calm refined face, sensible and thoughtful when at rest, and genially kind when lightened by a smile. His dress partook largely of the character of the place, and was so scrupulously neat as to give him rather a precise appearance, for which he was sometimes laughed at by his neighbours.

Detractors said that he was packed up every night in a bandbox, to keep him out of the dust ; and even his great friend and ally, Lady Wylmington, had once been heard to wonder almost longingly whether he had ever in the whole course of his life got a fall in the mud, or had his hat blown off and his hair ruffled. Such, in exterior, was the owner of Beechwood ; his manner on ordinary occasions being cheerful and kindly, though very undemonstrative, and perhaps, on first acquaintance, somewhat formal. But this was no ordinary occasion on which he is first introduced to the reader, and Mr. Vaughan scarcely re sembled himself as he fidgeted uneasily in his chair or paced to and fro through the room, stopping at each turn to have a look at one of the windows, from which part of the avenue was visible.

A most wonderful and unprecedented event was about to take place on that momentous afternoon, one unheard-of in the annals of Beechwood since he had been its master. Mr. Vaughan had taken a step, or rather had been induced to take a step, the probable consequences of which no mortal could venture to anticipate. It might turn out a good move and add to his daily happiness, but of this he felt very doubtful. It might prove such a false move as from henceforth to ruffle the peaceful tenor of his life and spoil his quiet home ; at any rate, it was a move in the dark, and whether for weal or woe, who could tell ? All he knew was that he believed it to be his duty, and could see no way to any other course ; therefore he must take this one, and make the best of the untried future which now lay dim and threatening before him.

Chapter II

mr. Vaughan's friend To explain the position in which Mr. Vaughan found himself placed, it will be necessary to glance back at his early years, and to trace rapidly, from its commencement to its close, the one great friend ship of his youth, which, strong as it was singular, had long endured through conditions totally adverse to its existence, and had been fraught to him with much pleasure, and still more pain. The intimacy began from boyhood, when in their school-days Henry Vaughan and Philip Raymond were never to be seen apart, and, making common cause, stood loyally by each other, through good report and evil, in prosperity and in trouble. During their college life they were equally united ; the young men held together almost to the exclusion of other associates, and, on leaving Oxford, both got appoint ments in one of the Government offices in London ; they took rooms together, and at first spent most of their leisure hours in each other's society.

Except, perhaps, on the principle that extremes meet, there never was a more unaccountable attachment, nor one the two component parts of which were so utterly unlike. In fact, to describe one friend's character correctly, it would only have been necessary to take the exact contrary of all the other's most prominent points in order to arrive at a fair estimate. Careless, good-humoured, unscrupulous, Philip Raymond learned easily, forgot quickly, aimed at no high standard of perfection, and skimmed a little knowledge at many sources, without caring to dive deep into one. Easily swayed for good or evil, he was a pleasant companion in whatever society he happened to be thrown, but, unfortunately, only too ready to sacrifice any little principle he might be possessed of to the first temptation that came in his way.

With the tendency of weak objects to lean on something firmer than themselves, Philip Raymond's pliant nature inclined him to cling, ivy-like, to the steady support afforded by his friend ; and it was to this power of the strong will over the feebler that in his early years he probably owed his safety. But by degrees other influences were brought to bear on him. Other companions, fascinated by his pleasant manner, sought to draw him towards them ; other hands were held out in friendship to his, and slowly, but surely, the young man emancipated himself from his mentor's steady guidance, and began his headlong course on the downhill road to ruin. In vain did Henry Vaughan put forth all his strength to try and arrest his friend ; the very weakness of this latter's character, which once had retarded, now served but to accelerate his fall.

He listened at first penitently to his companion's ad monitions, and made many promises of amendment, not one of which he ever kept. By degrees he began to tire of Mr. Vaughan's perpetual reproofs, which were perhaps administered a little too authoritatively. After a while they were received with laughter and returned with sarcasms, which led to mutual re criminations, and angry words became of common recurrence between the two ill-matched friends. " Don't buy that silver-mounted dressing-bag, Phil. — the one you were looking at yesterday." " Why not, I should like to know? I want to buy it very much." " Why not ? You know very well. Because you have not a penny to pay for it." " No ! And who told you I wanted to pay for it now ? I never said I did." " But when can you pay for it ? You know you have more debts at this present moment than you are able to meet."

"Well, let the fellow wait for the money till he gets it. He is far richer than I am." " That is no reason why you should take his goods away from him. I call that dishonest." " Dishonest, Henry !" " Yes, as much and more so than if a hungry man stole a loaf from the baker." " Why," said Philip Raymond, laughing, " according to that theory half the men one meets are thieves." " They are, and the worse thieves for being gentlemen." " My dear fellow, you have the most antediluvian notions ! You must have been hanging about before the Flood, and have picked them up from old Noah. You should learn to get along with the times, and not be so old-fashioned." " Thank you. I had rather remain as I am ; and if all people's notions are like yours, Phil., I think a second Flood would be the best thing for us."

" Yes, that we poor sinners may all be swamped, I suppose, and you sit high and dry in your calm superiority, and watch us sinking." And Mr. Ray mond seized his hat and stick and dashed out of the room, shutting the door with a bang that made all the smaller articles on the tables jump as if startled. Not long after, he gave up his appointment in the Civil Service, to Mr. Vaughan's no small indignation. " I can't help it, Henry," he replied, in answer to sundry expostulations, " I can't help it. I really can't waste my life in that musty old place any longer. I was born for something else." " Well, you were born to eat and drink, and to wear clothes, I suppose ; and how are you to do that, may I ask, if you earn nothing?" " Oh, never mind, you old croaker. Something will turn up, you'll see.

I am to inherit a little money some of these days, you know. In the mean time I must live by my wits." "Your wits!" sighed Mr. Vaughan. "I wish you had less wit and more sense." " Oh, not so much as you, my dear boy," said young Raymond, with a mock shudder. " I could not stand it." From this time forth the two young men saw less of each other, and often whole days passed during which they never met. Henry Vaughan felt the growing coolness deeply, and at first made sundry efforts to lessen it, but his advances were not responded to. He was too proud to repeat them always in vain, and began to acquiesce sadly in the new state of affairs. One evening, however, he was agreeably surprised by Philip's sudden appearance, who, dashing into the room with a return of his former friendliness, began gaily, " Now, you old Solomon, I hope you will be satisfied.

I have found my vocation at last. Got a profession, and mean to stick to it, and make lots of money. I invite you to my first swell dinner when I buy a house in Park Lane." "I shall be most happy, I am sure," said Mr. Vaughan, looking up cheerfully. " What have you gone in for now, Phil. ?" " I have got an engagement at the Adelphi Theatre. It is only for small parts to begin with ; but it is the first rung of the beanstalk ladder, and I shall go up it like Jack." " An actor !" said Mr. Vaughan, his face lengthening considerably. " Yes. What have you against it ?" " My dear Phil., is it not rather a come-down for you ?" "From the heights of Government clerkship, I suppose ! What do you say to Kemble and Mac ready and Kean ?" "I say they were stars." "Well, and what is to prevent my being a star too, some of these days ?"

" Think how they worked !" "Yes, and so shall I too, and be very prudent. To begin with, I have given up my rooms here. They are too far off from my work, and, besides, they are too expensive for me at first. There, what do you say to that for prudence ? I wish you would just pay what is due for me here, like a good fellow, and I'll settle with you by and by. I've got rooms along with one of our young men down there. They seem such a jolly good set." " Phil.," said Mr. Vaughan, starting up and lay ing his hand on the other's shoulder, " don't give me up quite for all those new friends. Come and see me sometimes, will you ?" " That I will, you dear old fellow. I'll come constantly, and tell you of all my successes, and you must look in of a night and see me act, too ; not just yet, but when I get a good part.

It will make my heart bound to hear your applause." But like many of its predecessors, this promise of Philip Raymond's, easily given and soon forgotten, was not destined to be fulfilled. After waiting patiently for two or three weeks in the vain hope of a visit from his friend, Mr. Vaughan went several c times in search of him to his new abode, a comfort less-looking room in which, late or early, the owner seemed never to be present. At last, one night, he did succeed in his object, but under circumstances that made him almost wish that the visit, like all former ones, had been a failure. On this occasion he waited for nearly an hour in the empty room till he heard some one coming noisily up the stairs, and presently Philip Raymond staggered in and dropped down on the nearest seat, intoxicated to a degree which precluded all hope of any rational intercourse.

Feeling that nothing could then be done, Mr. Vaughan withdrew, but the next day wrote a long letter of remonstrance to his friend, and implored of him to fix a time when he might be found at home and sober. To this epistle he received no answer ; and he could not bring himself to repeat his un expected visit to the lodging, and run the risk of again beholding the wretched occupant in the same condition. Once he went to the theatre ; but though, with a heavy heart, he sat out a comedy and two farces, the actor whom he sought did not take part in any of them ; and so the separation became complete between the former constant companions, and nearly two years passed during which they neither saw nor heard anything of each other. At last the long silence was broken by a letter from Philip Raymond.

He was in a great difficulty, he wrote, the worst trouble he had ever been in. He owed the sum of 100L, and he had not one penny to meet the debt. His creditor, " a horrid brute of a fellow," would wait no longer, and threat ened, if he did not get the money by the following Monday, to have all the furniture seized for pay ment. "I should not mind it so much for myself," he continued — "I am used to hard treatment — but it is of my poor wife I am thinking. I believe you do not know that I am married. My wife is a dancer. I daresay you would not think much of her, but she is good enough for me. She is the best little woman in the world, and has worked so hard to keep off this ruin ; and now to have her turned out into the street is more than I can bear ! Do help me once more, and I swear to you that it shall be a lesson to me for life, and that if I am got out of this mess I will turn over a new leaf henceforth."

Mr. Vaughan had not 100L to spare ; his salary was not large, and his father had never been very liberal to him ; but he could not bear to refuse this appeal, and wrote at once to his mother, enclosing the letter and begging of her to let him have the sum required. " I know you have long given up all hopes of him," he added, "and will not change your opinion now for his protestations of amendment; but I have suffered so much about him, and I cannot yet abandon him quite. If not for his sake, then for mine, dearest mother, send me the 100L, and let me give him one chance more." This appeal brought the desired cheque by return of post, and it was forwarded to Philip Raymond, who wrote a letter overflowing with gratitude and good resolutions. He and his wife were both very busy just then, he said, and generally out ; but he hoped to turn up soon and renew his thanks in per son.

As he evidently did not wish to be called on, Mr. Vaughan refrained from doing so ; but he felt bitterly disappointed as week after week passed and still the longed-for visitor did not make his appearance. There followed another break of nearly a year in the young men's desultory intercourse, and then Mr. Vaughan received a second begging-letter from his quondam friend, which saddened him even more by its style than by the tenor of its contents. The process of deterioration was going on rapidly in Philip Raymond's character. He seemed to feel no shame in applying again for pecuniary aid to one whose advice and remonstrances he openly disre garded. He alluded lightly, even jocosely, to his former vows of reformation. He was keeping them after a fashion, he said — " Rome was not built in a day, you know " — and he wanted only 501. this time.

In future he would learn to live quite within his income ; his prospects were beginning to improve, and he expected a great opening soon. If his dear Henry would just, like a good fellow, give him a lift over the present difficulty, all would go right ; and he concluded, " As I know well what a prudent old boy you are, if you prefer to lend me the money, it will do just as well. I am sure to repay it sooner or later, and am sorry to trouble you at all ; but I happen to be confoundedly hard up just now." Mr. Vaughan read this effusion once in strong disap proval, and then tried it again with the hope that it might improve on a second perusal ; but the result was precisely the reverse, and the camel's back which had borne so many unreasonable burdens gave way at last under this by no means inconsiderable straw.

The " prudent old boy " could rise no more at appeals to his long-rejected friendship, and, taking up his pen, wrote in very concise terms, declining to make any further presents or advances of money, and ter minated his letter for the first time without expressing a wish to see or hear again from his corre spondent. Thus ended tbis ill-assorted friendship; and the two young men, who had once been inseparable, went their several ways through life, and met no more on earth. About a year later Mr. Vaughan's heart smote him, and, moved by latent pity for the prodigal who had formerly been so dear to him, he directed his footsteps for the last time to the house where he had once seen him ; but Philip Raymond had dis appeared from his old rooms, and another lodger now occupied them. " The fact is, sir," said the landlady severely, " I could keep Mr. Raymond no longer.

He brought such a disorderly lot to the house ; and once his wife died, I could not get a penny out of him for my rent." " Is his wife dead ? I am sorry to hear it," said Mr. Vaughan, calling to mind the praise which Philip had given her. "Yes, the poor little thing!" said the woman, softening. "Died of her confinement, and ill-usage after it." " Oh, not ill-usage? Don't say that !" said Mr. Vaughan, almost imploringly. "Well, I don't mean that he beat her, sir, or indeed harmed her at all ; but she died of ill-usage, I call it all the same, toiling and slaving for him, and he just let her kill herself. She was a good little soul, out and out, and he made a great noise about her when she was gone ; but of what use was that?" " None, indeed," said Mr. Vaughan sadly. " Did the child live ?" " Yes, sir. A little girl, as pretty a baby as you could see."

" And what has become of him ?" "I don't know. You see, I could not help turn ing him out in spite of the baby. I'm a widow, and have my own children to provide for." " Of course, of course. I don't blame you. But you don't know where he has gone ?" "No, sir. To the bad, you may be quite sure, wherever he is." And with this figurative and un fortunately rather cosmopolitan address Mr. Vaughan was forced to be satisfied. A few years later Sir Roland Vaughan died, and, as already told, Lady Vaughan asked her second son to come and live with her. He gave up his appoint ment in London, went to reside at Beechwood, and by degrees the image of Philip Raymond, which had troubled him for so many years, began to fade from his daily life. There are thoughts of past events that we love to dwell on, and memories of bygone hours which we keep treasured away in the casket of our brain, and bring out at times to con over and enjoy again, even though their light may have faded long since, and it be only the after-glow that is left to us.