Rachel Langton

Part I Chap

PAGE I. — The Meeting at the Railway Station, . i II. — Strangers of One Household, . . n III. — 'Out of Her Element,' . . .22 IV. — 'We don't want Their Inheritance,' . 32 V. — ' The Last Chapter of a Melancholy Tale,' 43 VI. — A Lost Young King, . . . -53 VII. — Arthur's Discovery, . . . .61 VIII. — The Inevitable, ..... 73

Part II

I. — Life's Changes, . . . . .85 II. — Agatha Etheredge and Her Visitor, 102 III. — New-fangled Doings, . . . 12S IV. — Rachel Langton meets Her Match in Essex Etheredge, .... 142 V. — The Ryelands Play and the Schoolroom Recital, . . . . .158 vi CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE VI. — A Quarrel between Mother and Son, . 175 VII. — Condolences and Congratulations, . . 189 VIII.— Sophy Green and Her Work, . . 204 IX.— Sophy at Closer Quarters, . . .221 X. — A Young Reformer. The Usurpation of the Rector's Schoolroom, . . 238 XI. — 'The Blood of a Murdered Man,' . . 253 XII. — Standing to His Guns, . . . 269 XIII. — Paying the Penalty, .... 2SS XIV. — Essex Etheredge's Private Opinion, .

PART I CHAPTER

I THE MEETING AT THE RAILWAY STATION THE April evening was sharp and cold yet sweet, with a chilly sweetness which contained the wel come promise of the coming summer, when Mr Langton of Langton Hall made his appearance at the railway station nearest to his house. He was a familiar figure on the platform, a person to be readily recognised and to be treated with due respect as the chief landowner of the district. He was an elderly man, not hale and active for his sixty years ; his close-cut hair was white, his complexion was sallow instead of ruddy. His overcoat was buttoned up after the fashion in which a man might guard himself from a bitter wintry blast, and not from a mere April sting, in which there was an admixture of balm. He stooped as he walked, and used a stick to help him in the slight lameness which chronic gout had made permanent.

The station-master and the few people who were A about rather wondered to see Mr Langton alone, or only attended by the servant in livery, waiting on the platform at a respectful distance, while out side the station the Langton carriage was drawn up. Of late years the squire had seldom gone abroad unattended by his daughter, or by his sole surviving son — that is, when Mr Arthur was not at college. In addition there was some speculation as to what could bring Mr Langton to the station when the time was close to his dinner-hour, for the family at the Hall were old-fashioned and conser vative in their habits, and still dined at seven. Such speculation, if known to its object, did not seem to disturb him as he walked leisurely up and down with his hands behind his back, and peered from under his white eyelashes at the closed daisies on the railway bank, and the wallflowers and polyanthuses in the station-master's garden.

He was a man slow to receive an impression, and equally slow to let it go — an autocrat in his way, and yet an autocrat with a sense of his own im potency. For he had been over-mastered by circumstances, or the will of Providence, and forced to submit and make the best of misfortunes for which he had no mind. Mr Langton was full of troubled thoughts, with more pain than pleasure in them. He was recalling the memory of his two dead sons, who, in the course of nature, ought to have survived him. Neither of the two had been what fathers, like the squire, consider satisfactory. Richard, the heir, who had died last, only a few months before, so that the squire still wore mourning for him, had been thoroughlyself ish and dissipated, and more or less alienated from his family ever since he grew up.

Gerald, the second son, though not exactly a mauvais suj'et, had been a vexation in other ways. He had been thoughtless and improvident ; he had contracted an unsuitable marriage, and had died on the eve of starting for one of the colonies, leaving a penniless widow with a baby, on whose account, as being of his own flesh and blood, the squire had felt bound to continue the allowance originally granted to the father. And, for the first time since it was given, the annual sum had been punctually acknowledged and as far as the donor knew, never exceeded in the receiver's expenses. Mrs Gerald was an entire stranger to her husband's family. Even his death had not drawn her and them nearer. The squire had been prevented by illness from attending his son's deathbed, as in other circumstances he would not have failed to do ; and Arthur had happened to be abroad.

Richard had always managed to avoid trying scenes, till the last one of all came to him, without the choice of sparing himself. For any thing further it had not occurred to Mr Langton to send his only daughter in the room of the men of the family. Thus Mrs Gerald had been suffered to become a widow, as she had been allowed to be made a wife, without the support of her husband's kindred. She might have remained an absolute stranger had it not been for Richard Langton's death, which greatly altered the position of his nephew, and, through the child, that of his mother. Gerald's child of four years had become the old squire's heir-at-law. It was necessary that he should be brought forward and educated according to his prospects. Mr Langton did not hesitate on that point, though, with his usual deliberation, it took him several months to make the various arrangements which ended in his being at Langton railway station, awaiting the arrival of his daughter in-law and her child.

The two were to become, whatever the incongruities of the situation, per manently resident under his roof. Mrs Gerald had not denied the squire's claim on the child, or declined to come with him to the Hall, but she had not shown any greater alacrity in acceding to the request than Mrs Langton had displayed in making it. The whole thing was a dry and formal yielding to necessity, and to doing the best which could be done under the circumstances. Mr Langton anticipated no pleasure from making his daughter-in-law's acquaintance, a performance which was decidedly awkward at this late date. He had settled in his own mind from the first, that she must be a forward, designing young woman who had taken advantage of Gerald's credu lity and carelessness. He had slightly modified his bad opinion of her, so as to attribute to her some common sense and good taste when she had neither intruded on him personally nor made any attempt to extract a larger income from him during the three years of her widowhood.

This was so far well, but it was not much, and Mr Langton had decided to bear the first brunt of the meeting alone. He would not suffer either his son Arthur or his daughter Agatha to accompany him to the station. He would have no more witnesses than he could help to the effort he was making, and to his inevit able recoil from it. He had always been a reserved man, and of late years the tendency had acquired a tinge of morbid shyness. He did not even look forward with great hope to assuming the guardianship of his first and only grandchild. He had got out of touch with children. He felt as if this one would only plague him in his ailing age. Mr Langton was doing his duty — an unpalatable duty — that was all. As he walked slowly up and down the platform, holding himself aloof from his neighbours, it oc curred to him all at once, that he might have some difficulty in identifying his relatives.

It would be decidedly unpleasant for him to have to hail a succession of unprotected females, utter strangers, with a set form of inquiry, — ' Have I the pleasure of addressing Mrs Gerald Langton ? ' For aught that he knew there might be more than one young widow (Mrs Gerald was not older than Agatha) with a little child in her care in the train. Let him see, it was little more than three years since the death of his son Gerald — long enough time, in these days, for a widow to have cast aside every atom of her weeds ; and this widow was just the sort of woman, according to her father-in-law's estimate, to have flung them off, on the first excuse, in order to set herself out for another husband. The squire put out his nether lip with a movement of strong disgust, as he indulged in the gratuitously offensive supposition.

She was so far a lady, to be sure, at least her father had held the profession of a gentleman. But there are shades and degrees in the profession of a gentleman. From a few inquiries which Mr Langton had considered it incumbent on him to make at the time of his son's marriage, he had learned that the future Mrs Gerald's father, though entitled to call himself a clergyman of the Church of England, had never risen in the ecclesi astical ranks beyond the grade of a curate. As for the income of his curacy, it had been so inadequate to the wants of a large family, that his eldest daughter had gone out as a governess, and taken pupils, in order that her salary might supplement her father's. At this moment the bell rang, and the train, with a rush, ran up to the platform. Mr Langton, who belonged properly to the old coaching and posting days, was a little startled and confused by the noise and hurry.

He drew back and waited for a moment. After all there were not many passengers to Langton, and not one stepped out of a first-class carriage. Had the woman missed the train ? a woman's trick, but not the less objectionable on that account. Had he overlooked anybody ? His eyes were not so good as they had been, and he was put about, naturally. No, there was certainly no such little group as he had pictured. Stay, there was a widow by her dress, a young woman carrying a big child in her arms, who, in spite of the encumbrance, stepped lightly out of a third-class carriage, and after a swift glance round, advanced straight to him. ' I am Rachel Langton,' she said quietly. Her face was pale, but she did not falter. ' My luggage is in the luggage-van next the engine — a porter is putting it out.

I think you are Mr Langton. I am sorry, sir, that you have had the trouble of coming to meet me.' ' Not at all,' he said, with stiff gravity. ' Here, Rollaston,' calling to his man, 'see after Mrs Gerald Langton's luggage. It is addressed, I pre sume ? Take my arm, madam. I am distressed that I cannot relieve you from the burden of the child. Where is his servant ? What ! ' he ejacul ated, in dismayed response to the look on her face, ' you do not mean that you have come all this distance without one? Travelled from the north of England by yourself, and had the boy on your hands all the way ?' The squire spoke more in surprise than in anger, though there was a mixture of the two feelings in his voice. ' I thought it better not to bring a maid-servant,' she said, in the same clear calm tone, which had little self-assertion in it, and was the reverse of clamor ous ; yet Mr Langton felt, in the middle of his bewilderment and displeasure, it would be difficult to put the speaker down. ' She might not have suited here.

Besides we had only one at Hares gill. I have been accustomed to have the boy with me, constantly and I am strong. I do not mind his weight.' Then she smiled a slightly depreca tory smile. ' I have always travelled third-class before, and I am afraid it did not strike me till I had started that you might not like your grandson to arrive in such a fashion.' ' If he was with his mother it was all right,' muttered Mr Langton, with old-fashioned but freezing politeness. She looked strong, in spite of her figure, which, though tall, was slight, and in spite of the absence of colour in her cheeks. She was a well-knit woman with reserves of health — not flaunted at you in crim son buxomness, but filling you with conviction, as it showed out of her clear, grey eyes, her wavy, abundant brown hair, and the firm, rounded contour of her pale face.

Mrs Gerald was not at all what the squire had imagined ; he saw that at a glance. He had to begin all over again in his contemplation of the relations which he proposed to establish between them. He could not say that he was disappointed, but he could not readily accommodate himself to new ideas. He was not helped by the presence of the child, who was hanging on his mother's shoulder half asleep and wholly bashful. Certainly his mother did not obtrude the boy on his grandfather's notice, become voluble over his attractions, or melt over a fancied resemblance to his dead father, as one might have expected ; though, for that matter, so far as Mr Langton could see the child's face, he was more like his mother than his father. It was what some people would call a whey face, with a square chin and a baby mouth more straight than pouting, under his very plain hat.

There was one point of similarity between the squire and his daughter-in-law which was not enough in itself to cause them to relax to each other, which indeed was rather against relaxation. They were both formal — a peculiarity more striking in a young woman than in an old man. She had deliberately addressed him as 'Sir,' just as he had been surprised into addressing her as ' Madam.' He insisted on handing her into the carriage, notwithstanding his lameness and the obstacle of the child in her arms. The couple sat down in opposite corners, looked out of opposite windows, and appeared prepared, if they spoke at all, to start a stereotyped conversation on the weather, the penalties of travelling, the time at which the tra vellers ought to arrive at the Hall, as if the speakers had not another source of interest in common.

Chapter II Strangers Of One Household

' There they come,' cried Arthur and Agatha Langton in one voice, as they saw from the great old oriel window of the drawing-room the carriage coming up the avenue. He was but a pleasant, cheery - looking lad of two-and-twenty ; she was a beautiful woman, six years older. She had been practically mistress of the house since her mother's death, before Agatha left the schoolroom, and she had been a second mother to Arthur, who adored her. In her perfectly-fitting black cash mere morning gown, she was a dainty, dark-eyed little creature, with a suppleness of motion and grace of gesture which were excellent substitutes for the willowy elegance or the stately majesty of a tall or a large-limbed woman. She was more distinguished by her exceedingly gentle and gracious manners, than by a strong mind, or an original intellect.

She had all the culture and refinement of long generations centred in her, with the attractions and advantages of such cul ture, together with its limitations. She was a product of the highest civilisation, thoroughly unn affected, winning in every way, and dearly loved by those who knew her best, all the more so be cause they were conscious that they had cost her a great sacrifice — against which she had never murmured. ' Poor old governor,' said Arthur, as the brother and sister proceeded to the porch to meet the guests, ' he must have had a bad quarter of an hour. And, upon my word, I do not know if he is the more to be pitied of the two. It cannot have been agreeable for her either, though it may be true that she ought not to have married Gerald. A woman and a stranger — a widow — poor old Gerry's widow — the mother of an unlucky little fatherless kid.' ' An unlucky little kid that will oust you and me, Attie,' said Agatha, with a slightly reproach ful shake of the head, but she added with instant candour, ' I don't mean to say he is not entitled to do it.

I am not going to complain of his prior claim, poor little mortal. I intend to look upon him from the first as the future head of the house, my small king, the king-to-be of all of us. He is our brother's child — all that is left to us of Gerald — of Dick, too, when it comes to that. I propose, as the Americans say, to be real right down fond of that child.' ' He is his mother's child, as well as Gerald's ; you are not going to forget that,' he reminded her, shrewdly. ' I suspect I sha'n't be able,' answered Agatha, with the faintest discontented sigh — suppressed the next instant. ' I shall have to ask her permis sion to be fond of him ; but I will do it, never fear, dear, she shall have her due.' ' I don't doubt it, Sis,' said Arthur, with affec tionate conviction. There was no more said till the carriage drove up.

The moment it stopped, the brother and sister were ready with their greetings. ' Here you are,' cried Arthur, heartily, thrusting forward his closely-cropped brown head. ' Let me help you out, and bid you welcome to Lang ton.' ' How are you, Rachel ? How tired you must be. I hope the little man has not fretted,' said Agatha's soft voice. And both speeches were made with perfect sincerity. ' Thank you, I am not at all knocked up, and Caleb has behaved quite as well as could be expected,' Mrs Gerald replied quietly. The squire could not help making a wry face behind the speaker's back. He had known the child's name of course, but when he heard it spoken he realised more strongly that there had never been a Caleb before among the Reginalds, Basils and Arthurs on the title-roll of the Langtons of Langton Hall.

Yet surely the world-wide fame of the son of Jehhunneh, whose name, as Mr Langton understood, had been borne by Mrs Gerald's father, far outshone the local glory of any Langton of them all. Arthur and Agatha received a shock from the meeting similar to that which the squire had ex perienced on his introduction to Gerald's widow, though their anticipations had been vague, and, on the whole, more charitable. They were of young England and recognised a greater variety of young women with a greater diversity of aims than were summed up in the squire's circumscribed list. Virtually it resolved itself into two broad, easily classed definitions. There was the modest, un assuming young woman who adorned, by the per formance of her duty, the sphere in which she was born, and was content to remain in it.

And there was the bold, aggressive young woman who pushed herself into circles with which she was not familiar, and brazened out her success in the faces of the outraged members of those circles. Mrs Gerald's perfect self-possession, her air as of one who stood there, fearless in her self-defence, with a certain dry, almost dogged, irresponsiveness to their advances, took her new brother and sister aback. She entered the hall, still carrying the half-asleep child, whom she had not given up in answer to any of their overtures. As the light of the lamps, already lit, fell full upon mother and child, it showed that she continued to wear a widow's dress in its utmost rigour, though of plain, inex pensive materials. Her crape veil, thrown back over her shoulders, helped to frame a strong face — very handsome but for a rigidity of line, and a suspicion of bloodlessness in the pallor which bore no other sign of unhealthiness.

It was neither a coarse nor a weak type of face. ' She ought to have known better than to marry out of her rank,' thought Agatha with lightning quickness. ' What description of woman is she ? ' flashed across Arthur's plastic mind. ' As stunning as Sis in a different way ; but what is her way ? Not that of a tragedy queen — a world too simple and sensible looking for that — rather the incarnation of common sense, with a dash of enthusiasm or fanaticism somewhere. She can be as stern as Fate, I take it. I'm a little bit sorry for the small chap who is her property, in the first place.' The light in the hall with its deers' antlers, dark pictures, and two mysterious black figures holding lamps, the crowd of strange faces — their number indefinitely increased by those of of the servants hovering in the background, all were too much for the child.

He began to wink violently, his lips quivered, and he clutched his chubby arms round his mother's bent neck. ' Caleb, I'm ashamed of you — a big boy of four years old. You must not cry, I am here,' she told him in short, preremptory sentences, and the pre liminary stage of a wail came to a sudden conclusion. ' Oh ! you must both be worn out,' cried Agatha, looking really distressed at a form of suffering she could not assuage. 'What had you rather do — come straight into the drawing-room and have a cup of tea, or shall I send it up to your room, and then you can lie down before dinner? But first, do trust me with the darling, indeed, I shall take the greatest care of him, and you are not fit to carry him upstairs.' ' Oh ! yes I am, a great deal fitter than you are,' said Mrs Gerald, glancing with the ghost of a smile at Agatha's dainty proportions.

The speaker had no rudeness, only a lingering frosti ness in her tone. There was certainly earnestness, almost piteous earnestness, in her assurance as she went on, ' I do trust you, Miss Langton, but the child has been accustomed to his mother waiting upon him. If you will excuse us this one evening, when everything and everybody are new to him, if I may put him to bed, and stay with him — though he is not easily frightened — he will be all right to-morrow night.' ' Oh dear ! yes,' cried Agatha and Arthur simul taneously, while the squire in the background mumbled his acquiescence. ' Do exactly what you like,' Agatha continued with her natural sweet graciousness. ' You are at home, remember. We shall be very sorry to lose your company, oi course, but it is only a pleasure deferred. What we should like best is that you and this pet should make yourselves perfectly comfortable.

Just one ■7 thing, Rachel,' in accents of gentle reproach, ' not " Miss Langton," " Agatha," we are sisters.' ' Yes, Agatha, thank you for your kindness.' It was said with a sort of responsive graciousness, but the concession was neither spontaneous nor cordial. It was a more dignified graciousness even than Agatha's ; and while the unmarried woman's dignity was totally unconscious and was balanced by her invincible gentleness, the married woman— whatever independence of character she possessed, was dignified advisedly, as an additional precaution in her position. The three Langtons looked questioningly at each other when they, by one consent, repaired to the drawing-room for a few minutes, before separating to dress for dinner. ' I am afraid she will turn out an impracticable, troublesome person, who will never see what the boy's station requires, or that I am doing the best I can for him,' said the squire, gloomily. ' It is a great deal too early to judge — is it not, father ? ' said Agatha, the consoler ; ' at least she is evidently devoted to her son.

She will soon be able to understand what is best in his interest. She does not look stupid, and she is an educated woman. Apart from that, one must always rever ence a mother's affection, even though it assert itself injudiciously. ' I told you so, Attie,' Agatha said in confidence to her brother on the first opportunity. ' She has p no conception of the ordinary usages of society. The idea of declining my father's company, and excusing herself, on the first occasion of our dining enfamille, that she might put the child to bed with her own hands, because he was accustomed to her doing it ! All mothers would like to do it, I dare say, but they have to restrain their inclinations, when the mothers are above the grade of working people. It is an office which Gerald's wife, or widow, ought never to have taken upon herself, she owed it to him to refrain.

How could she fulfil the task, consistently with her duty to Gerald, and to such guests as they must have intended to receive, some time, surely, even in Otago or Queensland ? ' ' Poor mother,' said Arthur, hastily. Mrs Gerald had been a woman brought up in a hard school, in which there were no superfluities, while the very necessaries of life were at all times barely supplied, and were frequently wanting. She had known from earliest girlhood the pinching hardships and sore affronts of genteel poverty, the harassing struggle to make both ends meet, the haunting, wearing anxiety for the future. Under these burdens her father, a good though neither an enterprising nor a prudent man, had ultimately sunk, overborne by work, insufficient rest and nourishment, and never absent care. She had possessed, for a time, youth's immunity to the worst part of the family troubles, but she had seen their effects on her father and her invalid mother, until at last she had been drawn within the vortex, and the iron had entered into her soul.

If she had not been from girlhood deeply religious, as her father had been before her, her strong nature would probably have been embittered with an extreme measure of the cynicism, which is so striking an element of the life of this generation. As it was, she was simply grave and stern, neither bitter nor sour. She had fought so long with the hard primi tive realities of life, that its silken obligations, its fine lights and shades, its elaborate forms and ceremonies, its sentimental grievances and imagin ary woes, either did not exist for her, or were viewed by her as indifferently as if they did not exist. She was aware that she had not been fit to enter a world which set great store on observances, precedents and traditions, a large part of whose daily serious duties would have been wholly imma terial to a working man or woman honestly labour ing to fill children's hungry mouths, and clothe their shivering backs.

Rachel Langton was not only essentially a high minded woman, she was technically well educated. She knew more of music and painting than Agatha knew, though neither of the women was a born musi cian or artist. Mrs Gerald was more thoroughly acquainted with English history and literature, more grammatically accurate, though less colloquially fluent in French and German. She had sat at rich men's tables, in a subordinate place, to be sure, yet, perhaps, because of the subordination^ else because she was so full of other and what appeared to her far more important things than the trifles for which she could not care a straw, she was supremely ignoranton the thousand points connected with the savoir vivre and savoir faire of the class to which her husband belonged. She could not tell, and it was a matter of utmost indifference to her, what person ought tobe the first to enter and to leave in a room full of com pany.

She did not know one wine glass from another, which might be of less consequence, since she never drank wine. She blundered unblushingly between fish and fruit knives and forks. In her father's house, as she would have coolly explained to anyone who cared to listen, there had been no such accessories. She did not eat peas with a knife, or swallow soup noisily, but she dropped her table-napkin, and forgot to use her finger-glass, while her sister - in - law looked on with gentle wonder and distress, and the servants were shocked. Mrs Gerald was unacquainted with any farther colours for horses than black, brown and white ; she could not distinguish a landau from a brougham, while it did not serve to account altogether for her obliviousness, that she had never been taught to ride and disliked driving.

She called the coats of the gentleman of the hunt, when she men tioned them at all, ' red,' not ' pink.' She could not even put a letter into an envelope according to incontrovertible rules. She was puzzled to make out how all Agatha's busy days and fully occupied nights were spent when she was not in attendance on her father waiting on him with filial tenderness. Why must she spend hours arranging the flowers for the drawing - room, and the dining - table ? What obligation was there on her to take that drive, the carriage coming to the door as regularly as clockwork ; or ride that ride, the groom appearing as punctually on the scene as the coachman ; or write those piles of merely polite notes, or read the club books which she did not care for, or embroider that elaborate piece of work which would be out of fashion almost before the embroidery was finished.