Second-Cousin Sarah

Book I

— Continued. REUBEN CULWICK. CIIAPTER PACE XXIV. Mr. Culwick shows his weakness . . 3 XXV. A Sermon 20 XXVI. The old Idea 28 XXVII. Very Sudden 37 XXVIII. The Bearer of Good Tidings ... 50 XXIX. Beginning her New Life ... 59

Book II. Two Teaks Afterwards

I. A Sunday Service 73 II. Unyielding 84 III. With John Jennings 90 IV. Face to face again . . . .105 V. The Second-Cousins .... 113 VI. Visitors at Sedge Hill . . . 128 VII. Council of War CONTEXTS. VI CHATTER FACE VIII. A Deeper Perplexity .... 159 IX. A late Visitor 172 X. The Welcome Back . . . .182 XL Reuben's Idea . . . • .189 XII. Danger 201 XIII. Sarah is Missed 210 XIV. With the Enemy 220 XV. Reuben loses Faith .... 229 XVI. Misunderstood ..... 242 XVH. Tom Eastbell is alarmed . . . 255 XVIH. More Shadow book: i. (continued.) REUBEN CULWICK. VOL. II. B SECOND-COUSIN SARAH.

CHAPTER XXIV. MR.

CULWICK SHOWS HIS WEAKNESS. HIMON CULWICK walked into the parlour and sat down, crossing two big hands (on which glittered half a dozen diamond rings) upon his stick. John Jennings closed the door, and whilst standing with his back towards it, contrived to lock it and slip the key into his coat tails. Reuben's father was captured ; he must not leave till Lucy had seen him, or Reuben had come back, and he would make sure of him, at least, till he had stepped up-stairs and told Lucy what a distinguished guest was waiting in the parlour. B2 SECOND-COUSIN SARAH.

CHAPTER XXIV. MR.

CULWICK SHOWS HIS WEAKNESS. QIMON CULWICK walked into the parlour and sat down, crossing two big hands (on which glittered half a dozen diamond rings) upon his stick. John Jennings closed the door, and whilst standing with his back towards it, contrived to lock it and slip the key into his coat tails. Reuben's father was captured ; he must not leave till Lucy had seen him, or Reuben had come back, and he would make sure of him, at least, till he had stepped up-stairs and told Lucy what a distinguished guest was waiting in the parlour. B2 " I'll send my sister down to you, sir, at once. You'll find she can talk to you better than I can," he said, before disappearing up the staircase, which took up a deal of room in the' back-parlour. Simon Culwick muttered something that might have passed for assent to anyone of an imaginative turn of mind, and then moved his head to and fro, as a mechanical figure might have done, and took stock of the home upon which he had intruded.

The broad face retained its expression of stolidity, although there were little quiverings of the eyelids that seemed to suggest some faint interest, or some passing surprise in things which came beneath his notice : the poverty, for instance, that was apparent in the worn furniture, and the old floorcloth from which the pattern had been scuf fled years ago — the pale-faced lanky girl working at something which reminded him of maccaroni unduly developed — the intensely black hue of the ceiling, the cracked condition of the looking-glass on the mantelpiece, and the murkiness and obscurity of a dull old picture hanging by a half-frayed blind cord above it. He was a man of observation, though he took in everything with extraordinary slowness and gravity, as though he preferred his ideas to filter through his brain.

He did nothing in a hurry ; he had done nothing in a hurry for years, with the exception of flying into a pas sion at the opposition that encountered him at times, despite the respect and reverence to which his wealth should have entitled him. Sarah Eastbell, ignorant of the visitor's name and position, glanced furtively at her great uncle when she was sure that he was not looking at her, and thought what au overgrown and ugly man he was, and wondered why he was so pale, and whether even in his own heart he could imagine that those big slabs of iron-grey whiskers — pork-chop whiskers — were any orna ment to his exterior man. There had been high words in the shop between the visitor and Mr. Jennings ; there was money to pay away, and Mr. Jennings had gone up-stairs to find it, or, failing in his search; to send down his sister to explain the necessity of calling again.

In her father's time she remembered very vividly rencontres of this character. This heavy gentle man with the broad face was the poor-rate, or the water-rate, or the man who meant to cut the gas off, and he was not going to stand any more of Mr. Jennings's nonsense. Then the glitter of jewelry upon the fat fingers attracted her, and she thought he could hardly be the " rates ;" he must be a Jew broker come to bid for the furniture, or to cart it away on account of the payments not having been punctually kept up. Suddenly his deep voice bayed forth at her and startled her. " What do you want for it ?" he said ; and she looked at him now, and discovered that he was staring at the picture above the looking glass. "For that, sir?" she answered; "I don't think it's for sale." ""What's the good of it up there?"

" I don't know, sir." " Nor anyone else," he said scornfully ; " the gas, and smoke, and flies have made a mass of dirt of it." "It's not dirt — Miss Jennings scrubbed it last Saturday," replied Sarah, in defence of the family cleanliness. " Scrubbed it !" cried Mr. Simon Culwick, be traying extraordinary animation now. " Yes — with soap and water." " Good God !" ejaculated Mr. Culwick. He was utterly amazed and thrown off his guard. The sudden announcement of the death of his son would not have prostrated him half as much ; he breathed with difficulty, and the eyes in his head seemed more than ever dis posed to come out of it. This was an exceed ingly funny old gentleman, thought Sarah Eastbell. Suddenly he composed himself, and all his excitement sank a long way within him, and left him as heavy as before, even a trifle sleepy, if Sarah might judge by the drooping charac ter of the thick eyebrows.

" Soap and water are not the best things for pictures," he said in a low growl, " although it smartens them up a little. But that's a poor daub, which nothing would hurt a great deal." Sarah thought so too, but did not answer. Mr. Culwick looked round the room again, and gazed thoughtfully out of window at the distant summer-house, its acute angle to wards total ruin interesting him a little. Sud denly the white face was upturned towards the painting again. " If it were ever so good, it would spoil up there," he said. "Indeed, sir!" " I might make a bid for it before 1 went away, bad as it is, if your brother would not mind taking it down presently," he continu ed ; " it's impossible to make out what it is like from this distance." " It's a girl's head, I think." " It might as well be a sheep's," growled Mr. Culwick.

" Can't you get it down now before your brother comes ?" " He is not my brother — only one of those who have been kind to me in this house." " Oh !— »they are kind people here, then ?" he inquired, still looking at the picture. " Very good, and very kind." "And very rich," he added scornfully, and with not too much good taste. " No, sir ; very poor. That makes their kindness and goodness all the more grateful to me," she said thoughtfully, " and all the more precious to God." " Eh — what ?" said the big man, taken aback by the sudden earnestness with which his com panion spoke. " And if you have come to do them a bad turn, I — I — hope you'll think about it twice, sir," cried Sarah, leaning forward with the tears swimming in her eyes, " for they are honest, hard-working people, and deserving of your charity."

"I have nothing to give them," he said very firmly, in reply. " If you have nothing to take away from them, that will do. They only wish to be left alone, to have time given them to turn round." "Oh, do they?" and once more the eyes glanced at the picture which had attracted so much of his attention, and even weakened the motive force that had moved this huge mass of man's flesh to Hope Street, Camberwell ; " does Mr. Reuben Culwick want time to turn round too?" " He, sir !" exclaimed Sarah with a musical little laugh, " why, no." " I wish he did ; he would be more tractable and respectful," muttered the father to him self. " Mr. Reuben Culwick is a gentleman," cried Sarah, full of eloquence now, "a real born gentleman ; the son of the richest man in Worces ter." " Has he told you that ?" said Simon Culwick with more eagerness.

" No, but I know it for myself. I have lived some time in Worcester, where Reuben's father is well known." "I should think he was !" said the other con ceitedly. " He is not a gentleman like the son — not a bit of a gentleman — but a proud, hard man, without a morsel of love for his own boy." " You must have had all this stuff from Reu ben. He talks against his father all day here, I see." " He never mentions his name. Once when I spoke of his father he was very angry Avith me." " And who are you ?" he rejoined. "A poor girl that he tried to rescue from the streets — his second-cousin — very much below him in the world, who was first afraid of him, but who has learned to love him very much. If I am ever saved," she cried enthusiastically — " and Lucy thinks I shall be — it will be Cousin Reuben who led me to the light, when there was nothing but darkness about my awful life.

He want time to turn round!" she cried scornfully, " why, he's above all help from mortal man, sir !" "He saved you, and you are his second cousin. What's your name?" Simon Culwick said sharply. " Sarah Eastbell." " The girl who tried to pass bad money down in Worcester ?" " Ah ! — yes ! That's true, sir, most of it." " But not all of it," said the thin hard voice of Lucy Jennings, who had come down-stairs noiselessly. "There was no guilty knowledge. The money was given her to pass by a scoun drel." " It is the usual story — everyone trumps up that excuse." " Her story will be believed ; it has been al ready believed," said Lucy. " I don't care whether it is or not. It is no business of mine," replied Simon Culwick. " Yes, it is," said Miss Jennings, flatly contra dicting him, to his indignation and surprise, " for that child is your sister's grand-daughter, and you have the honour of your family to con sider."

" Confusion !" exclaimed Mr. Culwick, his face darkening as he spoke ; "what's the honour of my family to me ? I can't look after it— I don't i know anything of my sister's relations — to my own sister, I haven't spoken for years. Hasn't my son Reuben told you that? — he seems to have kept you well posted up in my affairs." " Your son has not told us much ; his mo ther, who died in this house, was more com municative." Simon Culwick started at the mention of his wife's name. "Ay— I don't doubt it." The bushy brows were knitted again omin ously, and there was a suppressed emotion in his voice, which he found it difficult to dis guise, and which Lucy Jennings was quick enough to detect. She did not address him again, but took a seat near Sarah Eastbell, and left him to himself. He was a sufficient study for her, without breaking in upon his reverie.

He was worth watching, and thinking about. A word from this man could change the whole future of another man's life — lift Reuben Cul wick from respectable indigence to riches — set him apart from this narrow sphere for ever. "What had he come for but to clasp his son to that broad chest, and offer his forgiveness and for getfulness for all the past wherein they had not agreed ? This was the return visit to Reuben's at Sedge Hill some weeks ago ; the old man was lonely, and remembered at last that his own flesh and blood had stronger claims upon him than the rest of the world. And yet she did not like his face ; the more she looked at it the less she liked it, and him to whom it belonged. It was an apathetic and yet miserable face, into which no one would look for charity or brother ly love ; there was a poverty of expression in it, that said very little ; and there was an arro gance, or self-conceit, or something akin to it, that said too much.

His head began to move again amidst the creases of his thick black stock in its old me chanical fashion, and the eyes were upturned to the picture once more. " Do you want to sell that thing ?" he said to Lucy. " What thing?" " That old painting over the looking-glass." "Is it worth anything?" asked Lucy, curi ously. "A couple of pounds, perhaps, if it were touched up. I would not mind giving a couple of pounds for it, as a speculation." " It's worth considering," said Lucy. Mr. Culwick regarded Miss Jennings with more interest. " I'll take it away with me, if you like," he added ; and Lucy Jennings looked hard at him. " My father used to speak of that picture," said Lucy, " but when I tried to sell it, there was only five shillings offered at Jones's." "About its value; but still I don't mind a couple of sovereigns."

" It isn't mine to sell." " What — whose picture is it, then ?" " My brother John's." " Will he part with it for two pounds ?" " He would part with his soul for two pounds almost," said Lucy acrimoniously. Mr. Culwick relapsed into silence, and Lucy looked at the picture instead of at him, as if curious to see where the gentleman had dis covered two pounds' worth of value in the article. Presently he said, " Where is your brother ?" " Busy," said Lucy. " Can't he take it down — can't you get it ?" he went on with anxiety ; " I'm too heavy to stand on these shaky chairs, or I would reach it down myself." The love of the man for pictures seemed af fecting his mind ; he woke up to so much inter est and anxiety concerning John Jennings's one specimen. He had met with a surprise here, and it had taken the thoughts of his son out of his head, till Lucy recalled him to him self.

" If you will go up-stairs to your son's room, and wait for him, I will bring the picture to you." " Doesn't he live with you ? Has he apart ments here ?" " To be sure. You did not think that he shared our troubles as well as his own, and made our home and our lives part of his ?" "I have never thought about it," was the answer. He thought of little save himself, Lucy Jen nings fancied, and she was about to tell him so, with that charming outspokenness which was one of her most forcible traits of character, when she restrained her tongue. "Where's his room?" asked Mr. Culwick, after this. " The first-floor front up those stairs." Mr. Culwick rose at once, and toiled with diffi culty up the stairs, like a man anxious to be rid of objectionable company. He went into his son's room, where the appointments surprised him by contrast with the room which he had quitted ; where there was evidence of comfort, if not of luxury, and where there were many shelves ef books.

He walked to the table, and looked down at the letters and papers; he walked to the window, and looked out into Hope Street ; he walked to the mantelpiece, and peered in a short-sighted way at a photograph, from which VOL. II. C he suddenly bobbed his head back as though he had been stung. It was the portrait of his wife, reverently enshrined in a gold frame. There was a huge arm-chair in the room, into which he cautiously lowered himself, and set his hat by his side ; but he arose with the alacrity of youth again as Lucy entered with the picture in her hand. " I am glad you have got it down. Great Heaven, what a state it is in !" he said, taking it from her hands ; " you have rubbed it most infernally." " I hope it will amuse you till your son re turns," said Lucy ; "and I give him the good news that you are waiting for him."

" Good news !" he repeated, in an ironical tone, as he stooped over the picture. " It will be good news, surely," said Lucy, " for you have come to this house in a contrite spirit." " In a what ?" "In a spirit of peace and good-will — to forgive him, and to ask forgiveness, in return for your own hardness of heart-to forget the past, and be friends." " Pooh ! Nothing of the sort." c2

CHAPTER XXV.

A SERMON. spHE reputed wealth of Simon Culwick, of -*■ Sedge Hill, Worcester, his position in the county, or his opinion of himself, did not exercise any restraint upon the peculiarities of the young woman who confronted him ; who leaned across the table, and unceremoniously snatched from his hands the painting that she had placed between them. There was no respect for persons in the mind of Lucy Jen nings, especially when her blood was up. " What do you mean by nothing of the sort?" she exclaimed, and at the ominous flash ing of her eyes Simon Culwick's lower jaw dropped; "haven't you come in all humility, and kindness, and Christian charity to this house ?" " Certainly not," said Mr. Culwick, making a stand for it. " Not to take Reuben back to your home V " No." " Not to reinstate him ?"

" No." " To wound him and his pride afresh, per haps ?" " That's very likely." " Sit down, please, while I talk to you," said Lucy very feverishly, and at the young woman's excitement Mr. Culwick glared in mute amaze ment. He subsided into the easy-chair at her suggestion, however, and Lucy Jennings laid the picture on the table, took a chair facing him, and planted her thin hands on her knees. " Have you ever thought what is to become of you, old man, when you are closer to the grave than you are now." " Eh !" said Simon Culwick. " When you are dying, and all your pride and wealth are not worth that," she continued, with a quick snap of her fingers, so close to his face that he winced, and drew back his head with alacrity. " When all the money which you have made will not afford you one moment's comfort," she went on, " and all the dark deeds of your life will rise up to appal you."

Mr. Culwick turned pale, and breathed hard. He was not prepared for this onslaught ; he was wholly dumbfoundered. " When you will be alone, awfully alone, with out one good thought of your life for a sinking soul to rest a hope upon. Mercy of heaven, man, have you not given one thought to all this ?" " You — you wretched woman !" cried Mr. Culwick, finding breath to reply, and clutching the arms of the chair with both hands, and shaking them in his rage, " how dare you speak to me? Do you know that — that I have never been talked to in this way in my life — that this is au unwarrantable liberty from one in your position to mine ?" " I don't care for your position," cried Lucy Jennings ; " I wouldn't change my position for yours for twice your money — for fifty times all that you have hoarded together, and hardened your soul with.

What are you but a selfish old sinner? — who broke his wife's heart, and turned an only son out of doors, and who must stand before his God — ay, sooner than he thinks, perhaps," she added, with an angry bang upon the table that shook the whole house, and took Mr. Jennings down-stairs with a head-long plunge, under the impression that his stock had exploded — " to answer for both crimes." " Look here," shouted Simon Culwick, " I have had enough of this." "You will hear me out," said Lucy, backing against the door with her chair, as he rose from his seat; "you have come of your own free-will to this house, where no one is likely to be afraid of you. You are here boasting of your want of affection, bragging of the possibility of wound ing one afresh whose life you have already dark ened, and I will tell you what is to become ot you hereafter."

" You are a fanatic. You're raving mad," said Simon Culwick, dropping into his seat again. " My mission has been amongst much pover ty and crime, and I have grown old and irrita ble in my efforts to preach and pray to those who hate to listen." "I should think they did." " But in all my life's experience," she con tinued, without heeding him, " I have not met a man so full of uncharitableness as you." " You know nothing about me — you " " Don't interrupt me. Listen for a few minutes, and then say what you will." Simon Culwick ground his teeth, but he did not interfere again. She was certainly mad, and it was wise policy, he had heard, to allow mad people to have their own way, so far as it was consistent with personal safety. He had chanced upon a spitfire, a terrible woman, who shrieked at him terrible things ; it was his own fault for coming into low neighbourhoods, aud he must bear with it as best he might.

The woman was a nightmare which he could not shake away ; there was a fearful eloquence of description in her, too, that commanded attention, cut down his pride, and shook his confidence in his great grand self. All this might cling to his memory — though he would never own it, for her impudence — throughout all his after years, till he came to his grave, concerning which the woman raved so freely. It was a bitter sermon, with no quarter in it, and he shut his eyes, and feigned to sleep — a weak attempt at imposition, for he shuddered visibly after every sentence. " There, I have no more to say," she exclaim ed at last. "Now think of it, and do your duty, as I have done mine, before it is too late." There was a slamming of the door, and he opened his eyes to find that his tormentor had gone.

He rose at once, and took his hat. " What a horrible creature !" he muttered ; "I will not stop another moment." He was half-way towards the door when the picture attracted his attention again, and he stopped. It was his ruling passion ; past success in business, present power, future happiness, were not upon his mind now in any great degree. He went back to the picture, and knitted his brows at it, as a man might do intensely puzzled with a problem of more than ordinary difficulty; he took it to the window ; he placed it on the table, and hid himself in the curtain-folds, be hind the light, to gaze at it ; he put his hat on the floor, and sat down with the picture in front of him, and began rubbing it carefully with the palm of his hand ; finally he thrust his hands in to his pockets, and stared at it, forgetful of time and place, and of the main object of his visit.

He was a man possessed by one idea. There were feet ascending the stairs now, lightly and springily, and he might have remembered their echo if he had listened, but he was past listening. There was a voice he should have recollected as belonging to old days, when he had been proud of his son, and almost loved him, but he did not hear it. It was far beyond his dream-world, upon which another " original " had dawned. It was only when the handle turned sharply, and the door opened, that he awoke to the consciousness of where he was, and what figure had come into the room, from the world that was so different from his own. "Father," said Reuben Culwick, as he ad vanced towards him.

CHAPTER XXVI. THE OLD IDEA.

sPHE son went towards his father in the same •*■ cordial manner which he had adopted in his memorable Worcester visit, and offered his hand to him. The father half hesitated, as in the old fashion, and then shook hands with Reuben coldly and limply. It was evident that warmth of heart had not brought him to Hope Street ; there was no regret for past mistakes — for long years of disunion — to be detected in the greeting. " You have come to see me, then," said Reu ben, " and I am glad." " You haven't much to be glad about at present," replied the father; "I was in the neighbourhood, and I thought that I would call and see where you were lodging, and what you were doing. I haven't come from Worcester expressly to see you." " It does not matter ; pray don't apologize," said Reuben lightly, as he took his seat at the desk, opened it, and glanced carelessly at the letters and papers which had arrived.

" I'm not apologizing. I never apologized to anyone in my life. Why should I?" " Why should you not, if you have done any one an injury ?" was the calm rejoinder. Reuben placed his papers aside, clasped his hands upon his desk, and regarded his father steadily. These two men never agreed ; they seemed to have met even then especially to aggravate one another, thought Lucy, who had not been able to resist the temptation of taking her place on the mat outside the door. She was interested in the result of the interview. It was doubtful if Reuben would ever relate the particulars. It was not idle curiosity, but a deep concern for the welfare of her lodger, that placed her there as listener. Good might sollow her full acquaintance with all the details, certainly no harm ! " I never did you an injury ; you did all you could to humiliate and defy me," said Simon Culwick.

" It is hardly a clear statement of affairs, father, but I will not contest the argument. I called and apologised last May, if you remember?" " Humph, it was an apology !" said the father ironically. Reuben did not reply. There was a quick answer on his tongue, but he repressed it. He had no more to say until his father had ex plained the object of his unlooked for visit. He had no wish to irritate him; on the contrary, he would be glad to make peace, and end the unnatural difference between them, at any sac rifice, except that of self-respect. If Simon Culwick had come of his own free-will, and in the fulness of his heart, he would be happy presently ; but the nature of his greeting, the method of his address, warned him that it was not the father's love for the son that had brought them face to face.

He had never been loved. The father had seen long ago his pre ference for the mother, and hated him for it ; he was almost certain that Simon Culwick was beyond the power of loving any being upon earth, Simon Culwick, perhaps, excepted. The father was not apparently in a hurry to state his business. Idle curiosity might have led him to the place, for he said, after a long pause, " This is a very wretched hovel for a man like you to exist in." And his mother to die in, sternly and persistently refusing to the last to make any claim for assistance to her husband, Reuben could have added, but he kept back the retort which came uppermost. " I have grown used to it," was the reply. " You were brought up like a gentleman — you might have been a gentleman now — and yet you are in this hole." "And still a gentleman, if you will allow me to say as much as that," added Reuben Culwick significantly.