Susan Drummond. A novel

Front matter

SUSAN DRUMMOND. % Hobel. BY MRS. J. H. RIDDELL, AUTHOR OF " GEORGE GE1TH OF FEN COURT," " THE MYSTERY IN PALACE GARDENS," ETC. LONDON : RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, ijittblts&rrs in ©roinarp to fjrr _Majr&tp ttjr ffi.urrn. 1885. [The right of Translation and all other rights reserved.] LONDON • -OBSON AND SON9, PRINTIl'S. I-ANCRAS KOADi N.W. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE i. An Off Day in the Park i n. Sir Geoffrey Chelston ...... 12 in. Gayre, Delone, Eyles, and Gayre .... 25 iv. Mr. Gayre's Brother-in-Law 34 v. A possible Samaritan 45 vi. Eliza Jubbins 53 vn. Will he propose? 64 vm. Father, Daughter, Uncle ..... 75 ix. Susan 82 x. Mr. Sudlow is advised for his Good . . -94 xi. " Should Auld Acquaintance be forgot?" . . 102 xn. High Festival 112 xm. Sir Geoffrey's Opinions 128 xiv. On the Way Home 141 xv.

Sir Geoffrey's Tactics 149 xvi. Landed 159 xvn. Between Wind and Water 169 xvin. The Blackness of Night 183 xix. Sir Geoffrey's Idea 195 xx. The Trial 203 xxi. " Events arrange Themselves " . . . ' . 216 xxii. The Widower . 227 xxiii. A Dog in the Manger 237 xxiv. A Great Surprise 251 xxv. Without Foils 261 xxvi. Beyond his Strength 275 XXVII. " HOW MUCH ARE YOU SORRY?" CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE xxvm. His Price ......... 297 xxix. On the Marine Parade 306 xxx. What Mr. Gayre wished 316 xxxi. " Have you ever been to Tooting?" . . . 323 xxxn. Awakening ........ 33S xxxm. Lucky at Cards, etc ...... 348 xxxiv. The lesser Evil ....... 358 xxxv. "All for Love and the World well lost!" . 369 xxxvi. Anything but Pleasant ...... 375 xxxvii. Mr. Gayre thanks Heaven ..... 3S2 xxxvm. Conclusion

Chapter I. An Off Day In The Park

Down in the country the meadows were yellow with buttercups, the hawthorns were in full blossom ; in the Hertfordshire woods, sweet-scented white and purple violets literally carpeted the turf; beside the meandering streams of Surrey wild flowers were spreading and blooming ; but still the spring had been late and ungenial, the accustomed easterly winds had held a longer carnival than usual, vegetation, on the whole, was back ward ; and as a natural consequence, Hyde Park, which seems specially sensitive to the influence of weather, could not, in the May of 1874, be considered looking its very best, as is sometimes the case in that " merrie " month sacred to catarrh, rheumatism, and bronchitis. The winter of 1873- 1874 was what is generally called "singularly mild." It was singularly disagreeable, at all events : snow and frost held aloof, and bitter blasts and raw unwholesome mists and damps prevailed instead.

That season will in one district of London be ever held memorable for a most dense and awful three days' fog, during which period a darkness like unto that of Egypt spread its pall over the whole of the East End. On New Year's night 1874, indeed, it seemed as though the English climate had determined to turn over a fresh and satisfactory leaf. Such a fine evening was surely never known be fore on any 1st of January; so magnificent a moon rarely, even in August, has shone on fields where the grain was ripe for the reaper's sickle ; but, like too many good resolutions made that day, the promise of amendment led to no lasting improvement, and winter dragged itself into the lap of spring ; and the spring itself was late and dreary ; and in the May of that year Hyde Park was not looking its best.

B Hyde Park is a place which appears to greatest advantage when seen in full dress, when the trees are full of leaf and the flowers in full bloom, and the Drive full of carriages and the Row full of riders, and the whole scene one of incessant motion, and constant change, and shimmering colour, and varying effects. At some periods and under certain conditions it looks more mournful than a desolate heath or a wide expanse of lonely moorland. There is a sky under which its aspect is depressing in the extreme. Even in the " season " there are times when the very genius of desolation seems to be brooding over the grass, and the trees, and the mud-coloured Row, and the Drive whence the last carriage has departed. It is then, plodding his lonely way homeward, the whole show over, with the sun setting behind him, and night coming on apace, the pedestrian who is not rich or fashionable or prosperous feels a fine despair oppressing him, and is inclined, as a comforting exercise, to recite aloud six verses taken from the ninth chapter of Ecclesiastes.

Judging from the face of a lady who was walking her horse along the Row, she had compassed this state of mind little more than an hour after noon on that specially dull May day in the prosperous year of grace eighteen hundred and seventy-four, when my story opens. Tittlebat Titmouse himself could not have looked more dissatisfied. Her ex pression was gloomy as the aspect of the heavens, which seemed to betoken rain ; and her listless dejected attitude accentuated the desolation of the Park, which was almost empty. A Drawing-room had drawn nearly all the rank and fashion in town off to St. James's ; and the few who at an earlier period of the day graced the Row were now gone home for luncheon, leaving but one solitary rose to bloom, almost un seen, in a desert peopled apparently only by nursemaids, children of tender years, and Life-guardsmen.

And this was not a rose that liked to blush unseen. Soli tudes were not places she would have affected of her own free will. She preferred to he amongst her kind, more especially when that kind included a considerable number of male admirers. A quiet life would certainly not have been her choice, and yet for the twenty years she had lived in this world a quiet life chanced to be her portion. She was a very singular-looking girl to be riding in the Park, apparently a total stranger. She seemed unknown, even by sight, to those who had, earlier in the day, passed and repassed her, and who now were gone away. Not a woman had spoken a word to her, not a man raised his hat. She had walked and cantered her horse round and round the Row, evincing a curious tendency to "hug" the railings, instead of venturing out into the middle of the ride.

A gray-haired groom attended upon her, keeping closer to his mistress than is the usual habit of grooms ; and the discontent which clouded her face assumed on his the proportions of absolute ill-humour. Yet, if beauty count for anything, she was a lady most grooms would have felt proud to follow ! As has been said, the Park was singularly empty. There were not any equipages worth noticing; the few equestrians had gone away, either because they feared rain or were hungry ; the usual loungers were elsewhere ; but still the young lady rode up and down, and round and round, with the dull steady persistence of a person on the treadmill. That she was not enjoying herself in the least might have been patent almost to a superficial observer ; the groom, who was enjoying himself even less, knew wherefore, and wondered why she did not end the ordeal and go home.

No fairer face was seen in the Row that season. One man, leaning upon the railings, decided no fairer face ever could have been seen anywhere. It was quite new to him. He had not beheld it before, and, while he stood watching her as she passed, he marvelled more and more who she could be, what she was, and whence she came. He was a man of thirty, with closely-cut light-brown hair, and rather starved moustache. He had the look of a man about town ; and, while evidently capti vated by the girl's appearance, he eyed her with a critical inves tigating glance, which spoke more for the coolness of his head than the warmth of his heart. He seemed to have no appointment to keep, or anything particular to do, for he waited on and on, watching lady and groom with a puzzled expression that certainly did not betray the full extent of the admiration he felt.

To him, over the grass, there came, with a quiet but not stealthy step, a man much his senior, who, saying, " Well, Sudlow, as usual, admiring rank and beauty," took up a position beside the person he so addressed. " I do not know much about the rank," answered Mr. Sud low, "but the beauty is undeniable ;" and he fastened a bolder gaze than he had previously ventured upon the girl, who was passing at the moment. She saw this and coloured, and yet there was a look in her eyes — a downcast, indefinable look — which told she did not feel wholly offended. The new-comer followed her progress thoughtfully. " She can't ride a bit," he remarked. Mr. Sudlow made no answer, but he turned his head and stared hard and inquiringly at the speaker, who, though no question had been asked, replied, " I should say not," and then they both remained silent till after she passed again, which she did this time at the side of the Row furthest from where they stood.

" She is very beautiful," said Mr. Sudlow. " No doubt, to those who admire that sort of thing." "What sort of thing?" asked the younger man. " If you can't see for yourself, it would be useless to try to explain," answered his friend, in a tone which had something annoying in its very calmness ; " but the girl is good-looking — beautiful if you like." " I wonder who she is ? Did you never see her before ?" The other shook his head. " Never ; and it would not grieve me if I never saw her again. What have we here ?" he added, as two persons, riding very fast indeed, came at a hard trot down the road lead ing across the Serpentine. " You'll get yourselves into trouble, my friends, if you don't mind what you are about," he added. But apparently the pair knew very well what they were about, for, reining in their horses, they walked as quietly down the Row as if they had been riding lambs instead of powerful hunters, that looked ridiculously out of place in Hyde Park, and carrying such light weights.

There was a lovely flavour of the country about the new comers. One, a lady, was mounted on the heavier of the animals — a roan with black legs, a grand chest and splendid action, well up to fifteen stone. For a moment Mr. Sudlow's acquaintance wondered why she rode the roan instead of the magnificent bay, upon which he fastened an appreciative gaze, but his wonder was not of long continuance. Just as the horses were passing the spot where they stood, the bay took umbrage at the sight of a stone roller which lay at the side of the Row. If it had been a wild beast he could not have made more fuss about the matter ; he shied almost across to the opposite railings ; he got up on his hind legs, and reared as if he meant to fall right over on his back; then he put down his fore-legs and kicked, till Mr. Sudlow telt sure his rider's last hour was come ; after that he tried to get his head and bolt ; and when he was balked of this inten tion he seemed for a minute to lift all his four feet off the ground at once, and dance upon nothing in the air.

Meanwhile the gentleman sat the horse as if he had been part of him, and his companion looked on without evincing the slightest discomposure or anxiety. " By Jove !" said the elder of the spectators under his breath, with an admiration which was as involuntary as it was genuine. •' People shouldn't bring such brutes into the Park," observed Mr. Sudlow, who had turned quite white, and who would, indeed, have speedily placed himself beyond all risk of danger had not his dread of ridicule been greater even than his cowardice. Then the centaur patted his horse on the neck as if he had done something praiseworthy, and the bay and the roan pro ceeded peacefully on their way side by side. At the same moment, the girl who had been for so long a time exercising herself on the Hyde Park treadmill, and who was just then retracing her way from Albert Gate, shrank past the pair, putting all the width of the ride between them.

No words could adequately describe the agony of terror into which the scene had thrown her. She had been coming on to meet the new-comers when the horse shied, and during his varied performances she sat with her eyes fastened on the rider, frightened almost to death, afraid to turn back, afraid the creature would rush madly upon her, afraid her own steed might next take alarm, suffering a thousand agonies in the space of about a minute, and for once in her life utterly un mindful of who might be looking at her, or how she looked. She had never even cast a glance at the roan, all her attention being concentrated on the bay, which she regarded in the light of a four-footed demon ; nor, indeed, did the lady on the roan particularly regard her : but as they passed the groom a sudden light seemed to dawn upon her mind, and she looked back.

" Why, that must be Lavender !" she exclaimed ; " and, yes— certainly — that is Margaret Chelston ;" and without more ado she wheeled her horse round, and, riding after the girl, said as she got close up to her, " Who would have thought of our meeting here, Margaret?" "That settles the matter," remarked Mr. Sudlow s com panion to that gentleman ; and Mr. Sudlow somewhat shakily answered, " Yes." Evidently there had been a doubt of some sort in the minds of both men which was now laid at rest. " I wonder who she can be, Gayre ?" said Mr. Sudlow. " Are you sure you have never seen her before ?" "Quite sure; and yet, oddly enough, her face seems familiar to me. O look ! this is very funny." It was rather funny. The girl on the hunter had put up a warning hand to keep her companion at a discreet distance, and then, placing the object of Mr. Sudlow's admiration in safety between herself and the railings, proceeded with her conversation, whilst the man who was thus debarred from the delights of feminine society philosophically fell back on Lavender, to the manifest discomfort of a groom who " knew his place " and " had been accustomed to what was fitting."

"It is long since I beheld so lovely a woman," observed Mr. Sudlow. " I never did," answered Mr. Gayre. " It is a pity you so seldom speak seriously." " I fail to see the particular application of your remark." " Why, it is not ten minutes since you said she might be very well for those who liked that sort of thing ; now you declare she is lovely." " O, I was talking of the other one." "Pooh !" exclaimed Mr. Sudlow. " There is no accounting for tastes," remarked Mr. Gayre. " So it seems," was the curt reply. " You need not be angry with me because I have not fallen in love with your beauty," said the elder man. "She is a very nice thing in girls, indeed. I should say she is not long from the country ; but she will soon know her way about town. I daresay, Sudlow, you may meet her at some party or other before you are much older."

" Do you really think it likely ?" "I do, indeed. I should not mind buying that horse," he added, following the bay with the eyes of a person who under stood horse-flesh. " What a curious seat the fellow has !" observed Mr. Sudlow, trying to emulate his friend's critical manner. AN OFF DAY IN THE PARK. 7 " Do you know the reason ?" asked Mr. Gayre, cruelly throwing him at once. " No ; do you?" retorted Mr. Sudlow. " Of course ; he has been accustomed to ride buck jumpers." •' And what the deuce are buck-jumpers ?" " It is a pity your grandfather is not alive to tell you," observed Mr. Gayre ; which was an extremely unkind cut, had Mr. Sudlow clearly understood the full meaning of his friend's remarks. "What are you going to do with yourself this evening?" asked Mr. Gayre after a pause, which Mr. Sudlow had devoted to the consideration of that conundrum concerning his grandfather.

" I do not know — nothing." " Come and dine with me, then." The fashion of Mr. Sudlow's face instantly underwent a change. It lighted up with pleasure and surprise, and he answered heartily, " I shall only be too glad. How very kind you are to me ! I can't imagine why you should be so kind." " Neither can I," was the answer. "You do not amuse and you do not instruct me. I have no daughter I want you to marry, and I have enough money of my own without trying to rob you of any of yours Farewell, then, till eight. If in the mean time you discover why I am civil to you, tell me." Left thus to follow his own devices, Mr. Sudlow, after a moment's hesitation, turned and walked after the lady who had attracted his admiration. " I knew it," said Mr. Gayre, glancing back ; and then, with a cynical smile curling his lip, he pursued his way, which happened to be Cityward.

He was accounted a great man in the City ; he was a great man anywhere, indeed, if money and greatness can be considered synonymous terms. If a stranger had asked any one of the many persons who touched hats to him, and waved hands at him, and made a point of stopping to say, " How d'ye do ? how are you ?" — as if their own existence depended upon hearing that the state of his health was satisfactory — who he was, the answer would have been, " That, sir, is Mr. Gayre, the banker — Gayre, Delone, Eyles, and Gayre, Lombard Street." Utterly ignorant of the wealth and wisdom they had passed by unheeded, the two young ladies rode slowly on, talking as they went. " Who in the world, Susan, is that person you are with ?" It was Miss Chelston who asked this question the moment the " person " thus spoken of was relegated to the improving society of Mr. Lavender.

" He is my cousin," answered Susan. " O, indeed ! which of them?" " Mrs. Arbery's son. He has just come back from Australia." "Did he bring his steed with him?" " No," said Susan, laughing ; " that pretty creature and this," stroking the roan as she spoke, " belong to a neighbour, who lets us exercise them." " Does he wish them exercised in the Row ?" asked Miss Chelston; "because if he does, I will never venture into it again." " No, it is too far for us," was the reply ; " but we should not do any harm to any one if we did come. Are you as timid about riding as you used to be ?" The beauty shrugged her shoulders. " I hate it," she answered. "Why do you ride, then?" was the natural question. " Why do we do a hundred and fifty things every day of our lives we would rather not do ?" she retorted.

" 0 Susan, pray keep your horse a little further off. He has not a nice expression of face at all. He looks as if he would bite. I can't think what could induce you to mount such a monster." " He is tall," agreed the other indifferently ; " but a hand or two does not much signify." " And where have you been living since your uncle's death?" said Miss Chelston, giving two young men who met them at the moment a full view of her face turned towards her companion, and her eyes raised with a bewitching expression of interest and sympathy. " You dear old thing, it was hard for you to have to leave the Hall." " It was not so hard for me to have to leave the Hall as for you to have to leave the Pleasaunce, Maggie," answered the other, with straightforward frankness and good sense. "I knew the day must come when it would be necessary for me to go ; but you — O, I felt so sorry for you !"

" Yes ; but, after all, I don't think things are much worse with us than ever they were. Indeed, I think on the whole they are better. As sor you, it is simply dreadful — to be brought up as you were and then left without a sixpence. I call it disgraceful of your uncle." " Don't say anything against uncle, please, to me," said Susan, involuntarily tightening her rein, and so causing the roan to spring forward, which movement elicited a little scream from Miss Chelston ; " and I am not left without sixpence," she added. " I have two thousand pounds saved from the wreck of my father's fortune. If uncle had known sooner that the great India house was going to fail, he would have arranged to leave me something ; but as it was — " " I know," interrupted Miss Chelston ; " he always intended you to marry his son."

"Who came home with a wife and two children," added Susan. " Dear uncle — dear, kind uncle !" " That is all very well," said Miss Chelston ; " but he might have left you some practical proof of his kindness. Even my father, who, as you know, is not remarkable for the interest he takes in the troubles of any one excepting himself, says it is a shame for you to be left out in the cold — a very, very shame;" and Miss Chelston nodded her pretty head to italicise the naughty words she would not utter in their native force and integrity. ' How is your father ?" asked Susan ; then, without waiting for a reply, she added, " the first ride I ever had in my life was on his old horse, Wild Indian. Do you remember Wild Indian ? It was my fourth birthday, and he took me all across the park and up the long beech avenue."

" And he has told me often enough since you were not frightened, and that you ought to have been his daughter instead of me. I wish with all my heart you had been." They did not speak for a minute; each apparently was busy with her own thoughts ; then Susan, looking at her old friend, said suddenly, and as if the fact had only just struck her, " You are prettier than ever, Maggie." "Do you think so?" answered Miss Chelston. " Yes, I always thought you were the most beautiful creature in the world ; but you are more beautiful now than you used to be. It is London, I suppose, and dress." " Dress improves every one," said the young lady, as a sort of general statement which she immediately applied to a particular case by asking, "What could induce you to come out in that hat and habit?" " What is the matter with them ?" asked the other, " Matter !

Why, they must be ten years old !' " I daresay they are, or more ; they are not mine. I tore my own habit to rags almost in Ireland." " Have you been staying in Ireland ?" " Yes, with the Dudleys. By the way, I wrote to you from their place, but I suppose you never got my letter. The girls hunted, and of course I went with them." " Of course you did. Does Mrs. Arbery hunt ?" " Good gracious, no ! Why, she must be nearly sixty." " I didn't know. I only thought that might be her habit. Seriously, Susan, you must buy yourself something fit to wear." " It is not worth while. I shall not have the chance of riding even borrowed horses long." " Dear me ! what will you do ?'' " Do without." " And you so fond of galloping about the country." " A man may be very fond of champagne, and still find himself able to exist without it.

Will Arbery says where he is, out in the Bush they drink nothing but tea." " Will Arbery is this latest cousin, I suppose ; any tender ness there ?" "Not the slightest. Pie has come home for a wife, I may tell you, and that intended wife's name is not Susan Drum mond." " Most unfortunate Susan ! whose cousins won't marry her, and who, for all her knowledge of horseman — or rather, horse womanship — has not, I see, yet learnt to hold her reins pro perly." " Yes, is not it stupid of me ? I have tried to break myself of that old trick ; but, do you know, I do not feel as if I had the slightest power over my horse when I take them the other way. Where are you living now, Maggie ?" " We have only a friend's house for a short time," was the reply. "When we are settled you must come and spend a long day."

" I shall be delighted," answered Miss Drummond. " You know Mrs. Arbery's address, don't you ?" "Yes ; Enfield, is it not?" " Enfield Highway," corrected the other. " Good heavens ! have you ridden all that distance to-day ?" " It is not so very far," laughed Miss Drummond. " And don't you want to get back before night ?" " There are many hours before night," answered Susan. "Still we ought to be making our way home. Just let me introduce Will to you. Sultan is perfectly quiet, I assure you." " Well, I don't know ; however, if I am killed my death will lie at your door. Your cousin won't come very near me, will he ?" The introduction was effected without any mishap, Sultan comporting himself during the ceremony as if he had never stood on his hind legs or lifted his hind heels in his life.

Then adieux were exchanged, and Miss Drummond and her cousin, having announced their intention of returning home via Cam den Road, turned their horses' heads towards Stanhope Gate, and were soon out of sight. With a sigh of relief Miss Chelston pursued her way to the Marble Arch, thinking pensively as she rode slowly along that it was a pity Susan Drummond had not the slightest idea of making herself fit to appear in decent society, and wishing she felt as little afraid of horses as that young lady. " Who do you think the girl is we saw in the Park to-day ?" Mr. Sudlow asked Mr. Gayre the same evening, as they sat tetedtete over their wine. " Which of them ?" returned the banker. " O, the one with the dark hair, and the dark-blue eyes, and the long lashes, and the damask-rose complexion." " Yes, go on ; who is she ?"

" Miss Chelston, the only daughter of Sir Geoffrey Chelston, of the Pleasaunce, near Chelston." " Of Sir Geoffrey Chelston !" repeated Mr. Gayre, setting down his claret. " God bless me !" " Why, do you know him ?" "I used to know him," was the unexpected reply. "He married my sister."

Chapter II. Sir Geoffrey Chelston

There have been, since the institution of that order, all sorts of baronets — even good. To the latter class, however, Miss Chelston's father certainly did not belong. He said himself he " was a good deal better than some, and not nearly so bad as most;" but, then, no one who was fortunate enough to be acquainted with Sir Geoffrey attached much weight to any of his statements. Had this estimate of himself been true — which it was not — the moral condition of the rest of the world must have been, indeed, regarded as lamentable in the extreme ; for Sir Geoffrey had, since his boyhood, been in the habit of doing those things which he ought not to have done ; whilst those things which he ought to have done he did not. Geoffrey is not a name which suggests a taste for the Turf, a fondness for the society of jockeys, blacklegs, and gamblers; an almost inconceivable amount of ignorance, except on the subject of " sport," horses, games of chance and skill — an abun dance of that disreputable lore which a man who has always been knocking about the world's least desirable haunts cannot fail to accumulate; to say nothing concerning a distaste, which almost amounted to hatred, for the pursuits, trammels, and traditions of a decent and orderly life.

There was no shame about the man, and there was no hope whatever of repentance — unless it might be a poor makeshift death-bed repentance, with a wasted life stretching behind, and an unknown eternity yawning in front. So long as a "chance remained sor him " — a chance, that is, of returning to the mud in which he loved to wallow — remorse was not likely to fasten its tooth upon him. His doings, his sayings, his sins, his short comings, were enough, in very truth, to have caused the scholarly ancestor from whom he inherited his name to rise from the grave, sold by this degenerate descendant to strangers, and return to see the ruin wrought by one man — one solitary man. There had been spendthrifts aforetime amongst the Chelstons, but no spendthrift like unto this. There had been sin ners — wicked, godless, graceless sinners ; but either they died young, or, taking thought to their ways betimes, reformed and settled down ere age came upon them.