A Dog with a Bad Name

Chapter I

The heavy mists of the April night had crept through the doors and windows of Waring ham Hall, and deepened the gloom of the big, bare-looking rooms, when the death-cry of its master rang through the house, startling the two Misses Otway, as they sat in the drawing room underneath, penetrating to the servants' hall, where the old servants sat cowering, on the alert for the unusual after the strange arrivals and surprises of the evening. There was a horrible silence in the death chamber for a few moments ; only one of the three living occupants of it had any idea Avhat A'OL. II. o that last strange cry uttered by Sir Charles might mean. The old housekeeper, whose gray, wan face bore the seal of some great terror, Avas the most composed of the three ; she disengaged the almost fainting Geraldine from the lifeless arms that still held her, and, turning to James, in whose ears the terrible cry still rang, she Avhispered in her quivering old voice — " Won't you take her downstairs, sir ?

" He started, looked from the old Avoman to the young one, and, touched by the girl's mute misery, glad of something to do to dispel the eerie feeling of a nameless horror, which in him took the place of grief at the strange end of the uncle who had never cared about him, he led her gently from the room and doAvn the staircase. But, though he held her arm affectionately in his, and mechanically spoke kind and soothing Avords to her, his mind was occupied — now that the shock of the death scene was past — by a hundred strange and per plexing questions. There Avas some mystery here, of which perhaps that sudden death had sealed the solution for ever. Why, if his uncle had expected to see him, as his calling him by his name had seemed to indicate, had he ex perienced a shock so great at sight of him that it was probably the immediate cause of his death ?

And Avhat was the meaning of his calling Geraldine, in that earnest tone of deep and joyful gratitude, his daughter, his OAvn child ? It had not sounded like a vague term of affection, that trembling, sobbing heart-cry ; it had struck James at once, as he heard it, as raising a perplexing question, to which perhaps noAv the ansAver would never be given. He could see that neither of these mysteries oc cupied the girl on his arm, whose whole heart and mind were entirely absorbed in her pas sionate grief. She was trying hard to keep from crying, and her frame was trembling with the effort ; but the sobs would rise to her lips, and, hang her head as she would, he could see the tears falling. " Don't cry, there's a dear," whispered he gently, but ineffectually, as he stopped with her at the foot of the staircase while she dried her eyes.

" He was very good, you know, wasn't he ? So he is sure to be all right," said he, in a shy but soft attempt to administer religious consolation. " Oh yes, I am not afraid of that ! He was the best man that ever lived. You don't knoAv Iioav good he Avas ! " she Avhispered earnestly, looking up with red swollen eyes which touched James, who was soft-hearted about women's tears, and did not notice, in his anxiety to comfort her, hoAv they spoilt her pretty face. " No," he said rather shortly. " I've no doubt he was very good to you — nobody could help it. But you should not be so miserable, Deldee dear ; you knoAv he can't have been very happy living here with my aunts ! " " Oh, James, Iioav could he bear it ? " she asked, a sudden sense of the marvellous stop ping her tears for the moment, as she looked up at him with an aAvestruck expression of face.

" Heaven knoAvs ! " said he solemnly, " What will they say ? They don't know ; you will have to tell them ! " " Yes. Would you mind coming in with me, Deldee ? I can't leave you now, and I won't let them bite you, and — and, to tell you the truth, I would rather not face the hags alone. I don't knoAv what they will do." " Ye-es, I'll go in Avith you ; only don't — don't let the hard one speak to me now, or I shall break down, or fly at her, or run away ; I — I really couldn't bear it, if she were to— to begin again now ! " And the girl shuddered. " What, has she attacked you already to night ? The she-devil ! " he added below his breath. " No, don't be afraid ; she shan't annoy you again." So, fortified by their mutual support, the Avoman leaning on the man's strong arm, but communicating to him her own firm spirit, they entered the drawing-room together.

Elizabeth, who had followed James out of the library Avhen he left her, was sitting on the sofa beside her sister, feeling for once the need of a human touch in the horror with Avhich the piercing cry, Avhose significance she did not yet understand, had filled her. She looked up as the door opened, and her face contracted as her nephew and the girl she hated advanced up the room together. Something in their faces gave her warning before either spoke. She started up and tried to speak, but could not. " Hoav is Charles ? " moaned the shivering Eleanor, Avhose head Avas half buried among the cushions of the sofa. " It was very unkind of you to let the doctor go away Avithout seeing me. I want a doctor quite as badly as Charles does." " Yes, aunt ; uncle Charles will never want a doctor again."

She gave a little cry, and sell to moaning and weeping, Avhile her sister, very quiet, very still, but with a fever of anxiety burning brightly in her hard eyes, Avent up to him, laid her hand on his arm, and beckoned him aside. He glanced at Deldee, Avho slipped away, and, kneeling doAvn beside the poor down-broken old Avoman on the sofa, applied herself to comforting her as Avell as she could with smelling-salts and caressing hands. Elizabeth, meanAvhile, led her nepheAV to the other end of the room. " What was — the meaning of — that cry ? " she asked, her voice not quite steady. " Was it— Charles ? " " Yes, it was the last sound my uncle uttered, and he uttered it on seeing — me. He seemed to knoAv I was near, for he called me by my name ; yet, when I appeared, he started up Avith the cry you heard, as if in terror ; and then he fell back — dead.

Can you explain this?" It was very dark at the end of the room where they were standing ; but James, Avho spoke slowly, with his eyes fixed upon his aunt's face, saw her first look of utter beAvilder ment give place to a glimmer of intelligence, as if a possible clue to the mystery — not by any means a full solution, but still a clue — had occurred to her. " Can you think of any explanation ? " he asked again, as she gave no answer to his first question. " None," she replied, this time promptly. And it was on her nephew's lips to tell her that she lied. As, however, this course would certainly have produced no good result, he checked himself, and only said rather drily — " I am sorry you cannot help me, because there was another rather curious point upon which I had thought of consulting you."

Each maintained a guarded attitude, and the glances they exchanged at this moment were alight with mutual mistrust. Elizabeth turned tOAvards him Avith an impulsive shoAv of con fidence. " Don't force me to speak too soon, or I may spoil the value of what I only partly knoAv by helping it out with Avrong guesses. I have a suspicion, a very strong suspicion ; as soon as I make it a certainty, if I do make it a certainty, you shall know it. Now, Avhat have you to tell me ? " " Nothing. I have to ask you something. Who is Geraldine's father ? " In spite of herself, Elizabeth started. He caught her arm. " Quick — speak ! You do know something this time ! " " Yes, I do," she answered, recovering her serenity. " But it is something you will not like to hear." " Never mind. But tell me the truth."

" Geraldine's father, I have every reason to believe, is Lindley Fielding." " Lindley ! That scoundrel ! Impossible ! " A DOG AVITII A BAD NAME. 9 cried James aloud, startling the two women at the sofa. " Hush ! " cried his aunt. " Don't shout so ! She does not know." " But it is not true. Good Heavens, I never heard such nonsense ! " " Why call it nonsense ? Compare her face Avith his mother's portraits, and you will no longer say so. As for his character, that does not affect her, you know," she added, with something almost like eagerness in her voice. " But Avhat reason have you for supposing this ? My uncle never thought so, I am sure." " If you had been here for the whole of the last two days, and had seen Lindley, and heard the confident manner in which he talked, you would agree with me.

He came here with the determination to persuade poor Charles to adopt the girl ; you were no longer in the way to oppose such a project ; the way was clear. We shall probably hear more of the matter in a sew days, when Lindley appears, or gets some one to appear for him, with the will he professes to have seen Charles make." James was silent for a few instants. " It is a very extraordinary business," said he at last, " and not quite so simple as you describe, I fancy ! Surely, if the girl had been Lindley's child, we should have heard some thing of this before. Noav, I have a different theory to suggest, which accounts just as Avell for her resemblance to Aunt Henrietta." " And that is " said Elizabeth, trying to hide her deep anxiety. " Well, I'll think it over, and tell you the result of my reflections and inquiries.

In the meantime, aunt, if only out of consideration for my uncle's- [deep affection for her, I must beg you to treat her kindly- — I will even say I insist upon it." Elizabeth looked up at her nephew curiously. He was assuming the airs of mastership very promptly ; a great change seemed to have come over him already since that intervieAv in the library, in which she had felt for the greater part of the time that the reins Avere in her OAvn hands as surely as they had been when she was dealing with her brother. James Avas easily led, as he had said ; but was it already decided that it Avas not she Avho Avas to lead him ? She must prepare for a struggle for authority, she saw ; in the meantime, dutiful and prompt submission was the best plan. " There is no need to insist upon that point, James," she said quietly.

" If poor Charles had not adopted the extraordinary plan of hiding her away from us, which of course puts out of the question the theory of a secret marriage Avhich Lindley may try to set up, Ave should have opened our arms to the girl years ago. Now that you adopt the more sensible plan of appealing to our kindness, she shall have no reason to complain of her reception." And, glad to close the tctc-d-tctc, Elizabeth straightAvay left him to folloAv her while she made her way to the sofa, and, pressing Geral dine gently doAvn again as the girl tried to rise from the kneeling position in Avhich she was still consoling Miss Eleanor, she said, in a tone Avhich would have won the girl's heart but for that cruel scene of an hour ago Avhich the elder lady seemed to have forgotten — " Don't move, my child.

We need all the sympathy your Avarm young heart can give us now." And she put her slender white hand on the girl's shoulder as [Geraldine instinctively recoiled, and said in a Ioav voice in her ear — " I have been mad Avith anxiety and grief this evening. If I said anything to pain you in my paroxysm of sorrow when you so unex pectedly came upon us in our trouble, forgive me, dear child. You cannot measure misery like mine." This Avas true ; but Geraldine found it difficult not to shrink from her caresses, difficult to tell the necessary courteous falsehood that it did not matter. For she could not forgive this woman Avhose cruelty had Avrung her heart, and whose handsome blue eyes remained hard through her cooing conciliatory speeches. The little selfish, groaning, exacting Eleanor, Avho had unconsciously revelled in the attentions and soft touch and soft speech of the young girl, seemed an angel of light compared with her still handsome and stately sister.

"Will you stay here to-night? It is late for you to return to Copsley, and I will myself take you safely back to Miss Gretton to-morrow morning," Elizabeth said solicitously, being rather anxious for an opportunity of making fuller amends to this hateful interloper, who threatened, Avhatever course affairs might take, to become a stronger power than ever at Waringham. " Oh no, thank you ! Mrs. Bamber has asked me to spend the night at the Vicarage, and Mr. Reginald Bamber has promised — to come and fetch me," said Geraldine rather shyly. " Reginald Bamber ! " broke in James, in a not altogether pleased tone. " Oh, does he loaf about the Vicarage still ? He is old enough to be out in the world, I should think. Why, he must be over thirty by this time ! " " Oh yes ; he is in partnership with a pub lishing firm in New York !

" said Geraldine, eager to defend her friend from the charge of loafing. " He is only here on a visit ; he is going back soon ; he told me so." " Oh ! " said James. " And he is going to take you to the Vicarage to-night ? Oh, Avell, I'll save him the trouble ; I'll take you there myself! The carriage will be round in a minute to take me to the station, and I can drop you on my Avay." He did not speak very good temperedly. Reginald Bamber and he had never been very good friends ; Reginald never quarrelled Avith anybody, and this fact had been a constant source of irritation to James, who was hot-tempered and strong-limbed, and had always been rather fond, in his boyhood, of a row Avith a fight as the climax. His ill-humour increased when Geraldine said hesitatingly — " I think I must Avait for him, James, as he promised.

You see it was he who brought me here." " He brought you here ! How Avas that ? " " He drove over to Copsley with a message from " Her voice trembled ; she could not pronounce the dear name again yet. " A message to say I — was sent for." Before James could add another question, his aunt Elizabeth changed the subject. " But surely, you are not going away to night, James ? She was getting more and more puzzled as to the circumstances of his visit, and yet none of them dared broach the subject with him. "Yes, I am," he answered obstinately. " What should I stay here for ? My spirits are Ioav enough already, and my presence is not likely to raise yours much, I should think. I have a room at an hotel in Ipswich." Once more the air of gloomy undecided restlessness, Avhich the shock of the death-scene upstairs and the need of comforting Deldee had for a short time dispersed, was settling on him.

Again his eyes Avere fixed vacantly upon the opposite Avail, and his fingers played list lessly Avith the antimacassar on the back of a chair in front of him. The three women looked at him shyly, their minds all filled with the same question. Before any one spoke again, the door-bell rang. " Reginald Bamber, I suppose ? " said Eliza beth. But it Avas not Reginald ; it was his father, the Vicar. It was so long before any one was announced that James, growing impatient, went out into the hall and found Mr. Bamber divest ing himself carefully of macintosh, muffler, respirator, and overshoes. It was a very exceptional event for him to go out at all after the evening dews had begun to fall ; but he A DOG AVITII A BAD NAME. had been anxious about his old friend Sir Charles and the curious state of affairs up at the Hall, and so had represented to his son that it would be more proper for him to escort Miss Lindley to the Vicarage himself.

He had just learnt the baronet's death and James's arrival from the butler, and all he could find breath to utter in his guttural sepulchral voice was " Good gracious ! " He was saying it for the fourth or fifth time as the young man came out and greeted him. " I'm very glad to see you, my dear boy! " said the Vicar, bewildered, shaking hands with him cordially, however. " Come for — for a long stay, I hope ? " he hazarded, hovering, as the butler and every one else had hovered, betAveen the ideas of a ticket-of-leave and of escape. James's answer suggested the latter as the correct view. " No, I'm going away already. This place is a sepulchre for the living as well as the dead ; I should go mad if I stayed here a week." " But at such a time as this it Avould be more becoming to stay — if you could manage it," hinted the Vicar, knowing that an escaped A DOG WITH A BAD NAME. 17 convict has other points besides his OAvn con venience to consider.

" I have done with questions of conve nience," said James, shortly. " I don't knoAv Avhat instinct made me come back here at all ; a much stronger one prompts me to get aAvay from it as fast as I can." "And Avhere are you going? "asked the Vicar, in a practical tone. " I don't knoAv, and I don't care. As fas away as I can get from every one aaAio has ever knoAvn me — to the bottom of the sea, perhaps." " Oh, nonsense ! " said the Vicar, shaking his head in much irritation. " A most absurd, most unmanly idea. A misspent youth or a fatal act cannot be retrieved at the bottom of the sea." James began to look sullen. " There is no retrieval possible for me," he said. " I'm ruined ; done for. If I still stick to life, it will not be to retrieve my own faults, but to revenge myself on the man who encouraged me to indulge in them."

" Dear me — most unchristian, most unchris- VOL. II. tian ! " muttered the Vicar, shaking the moisture off his macintosh. " His errors, Avhatever they may be, are not your affair ; they will be more dispassionately considered in another quarter. You are a young man in the prime of your youth, Avith a strong pair of arms and a chest that I would give anything for. You have thrown away your position — Avell, get another. Take a spade and go to one of the colonies, as many a better and a better-born man too, for the matter of that, has done before you. What is the good of revenge ? It will only put you back again where you have just come from ; you Avill be exceedingly uncomfortable until you have got it, and a good deal more uncom fortable still afterwards. Take my advice, my dear boy, and give it up."

The Vicar had by this time taken off his overcoat and his woollen gloves, and turned doAvn his trousers. James accompanied him as far as the drawing-room door, and there said — "You Avill find my aunts and Miss — Miss — and Geraldine in there, Mr. Bamber. Will you excuse me while I go up and speak to the housekeeper ? I have to catch a train to Ipswich to-night, and I must see Mrs. Symes before I go." The Vicar, after a look at the gloomy vacant expression of the young man's face, felt strongly averse from letting him go ; but, having no excuse to offer for detaining him, he was obliged to enter the drawing-room alone. His first remark, however, after he had offered his heartfelt condolences to the sisters, Avho were both sobbing now, while Geraldine sat, tearless and anxious, a little apart from the group, was — " We must not forget the living in our grief for the dead, Elizabeth — that young fellow, your nephew, ought in my opinion to be Avatched."

At these Avords Geraldine started up, and, unnoticed except by the Vicar, crept to the door and made her escape into the hall. She had scarcely got to the staircase when she met Johnson coming out of the dining-room. " Have you seen Mr. James, Johnson ? " she Avhispered, " I met Sir James just now, Miss Geraldine," corrected the butler respectfully, "on his Avay upstairs. He asked where Mrs. Symes was, as he desired to speak Avith her." " Oh ! " said she, hesitating. But Johnson Avas an old friend in whom she might confide ; so, after a moment, she asked timidly, " Did he seem quite — quite calm, Johnson ? " " Oh yes, ma'am, he seemed calm enough — too calm to my thinking, considering we've just lost — the — the best of gentlemen ! " quavered the old servant. " He is too unhappy himself to seel it as keenly as we do, you know, Johnson," said she, not very steadily.

" He is more to be pitied than any of us, I think. He says you used to be kind to him once ; don't join the rest in being hard to him now." " Well, he's got a better defender than me in you, ma'am ! " " Why, yes ; don't you know that if it hadn't been for him, I should never have seen — seen him again," she Avent on earnestly ; " that he brought me in and led me upstairs himself? Oh, I Avould forgive him anything anything in the Avorld, just for that ! " A DOG WITH A BAD NAME. 21 " It does seem strange, Miss Geraldine, don't it, that both times it should have been Master James that brought you into Waringham Hall — a sort of fate-like, ma'am, if one was superstitious ? " " Both times ! What do you mean, John son ? " asked the girl, suddenly trembling. He saw that he had gone too far. If the grief and the surprises of the evening had not played havoc Avith his usual discretion, he would never have let slip that unlucky remark.

Her interest once roused by such a question as that, nothing but the truth would content her ; and, as she let him know that she had learnt part of the truth about her parentage, he at last most reluctantly told her that it Avas Master James who had sound her — he declined to say where ■ — but Avho had brought her to the hall nineteen years ago, and had thus been the means of introducing her to Sir Charles. She listened Avithout a Avord of comment, or any other sound than an occasional faint sob, as the tears rained down her cheeks. " And now Master — Sir James will be most dreadfully angry with me for telling you, Miss A DOG AVITII A BAD NAME. 22 Geraldine ; but it slipped out somehow — I don't knoAv how — in spite of myself." " He shall not be angry with you, Johnson," the girl assured him, taking the old servant's hand in hers.

" Or, even if he is at first, you shall not suffer for this, I promise you. You have rendered me a service I shall never forget." " Thank you, ma'am," said he, reverentially, much impressed by the resolute dignity with Avhich the young lady spoke. And he retired, leaving her still standing in the hall, at the bottom of the carved oak stair case, looking mechanically at the great pictures on the Avails, Avith her head and her heart in a tumult of new thoughts, new feelings. When at last she heard James's footsteps in the cor ridor above, she felt her limbs trembling and a choking sensation in her throat, Avhich warned her that she Avould find it difficult to keep her voice under control. He came lounging doAvn with an angry, disappointed expression of face. He had ques tioned the old housekeeper searchingly con cerning the events of the evening ; but she had answered him in a manner which impressed him Avith the conviction that she had been skilfully tampered with, and that she was in possession of important facts which nothing he could say would induce her to disclose.

By nature rather a slow-witted, stupid woman, she had by some means been persuaded or threatened into that strongest of safeguards, silence ; and it appeared that whatever events of interest had taken place in the course of the evening had occurred while she was "in the next room." But, in the face of this mechanically given excuse, the leaden colour her features had assumed, the stiff con traction of the deep lines round her eyes and mouth, bore witness to some great terror through which she had passed, which had set its seal upon her for the rest of her days. So that, baffled in his inquiries, oppressed by the mystery which deepened tenfold the gloom of the death-stricken household, he descended the stairs, anxious to get out of the place as quickly as possible. " Johnson, Johnson, is the phaeton round yet ?

" he called, in an instinctively subdued voice as he came down, hearing a sound in the hall below him. But it was not the butler Avho came sonvard out of the shadow as he reached the bottom step ; it Avas Geraldine. " Oh, James, you are not going ! " she cried, as she seized his hand. " Don't go while you are so unhappy — don't ; I can't bear the thought of it. You must stay and hear what I have to say ; you must stay and let me thank you — I have only just found out Avhat I have to thank you for." " Why, what is that ? " asked he very gently, utterly beAvildered by the passionate gratitude Avhich shone in her face and thrilled her Ioav voice, and made the touch of her fingers electric Avith deep feeling. "Everything, everything — my guardian's loA^e and care and kindness — everything that has made my life worth living — everything but life itself.

Oh, James, have you forgotten Avhat you did for me nineteen years ago ? " "Deldee, Avho has told you?" he asked, taking her hands, and looking with swimmino eyes into the girl's face. " Never mind ; I know. It Avas you Avho brought me to Waringham ; it was you Avho took me out of poverty ; it was you who gave me to — him ! It was you, Avasn't it ? " " Yes," replied James in a low voice ; " it was I, Deldee. You were hardly more than a baby, and a A^ery naughty baby too, when I found you and fell in love Avith you and carried you off, nineteen years ago. I thought you Avere a fairy, and so did my uncle. There was quite a fight between us and some other people as to who should have you ; and you came of your own accord to my uncle and me. He Avas superstitious about you, and thought you would bring luck to Waringham ; but it would indeed take a fairy to do that."

" Did he think that, James ? " she asked in a Avhisper, with fiery earnestness in her dark eyes. " That I was a fairy — that I could bring luck to people ? " " So you will, my child, to some man ; you will bring all the luck and all the happiness that a man can enjoy to — to Reginald Bamber, perhaps ! " he ended bitterly. " No, James," said she earnestly, while a deep flush rose into her face ; " not to Reginald Bamber. I know what you mean ; but you are wrong. Fairies don't marry, and I shall not marry ; but I shall not go away to live in the clouds ; I shall stay to live the life of a woman here in the world, but with only one thought, only one determination — to repay some day — I don't knoAv when, I don't know yet quite how — the debt of all I OAve to you." The earnestness and fire of the girl as she made this strange declaration, with the dreamy poetry of a child, and yet Avith the passionate intensity of a woman, kept James for a feAV moments silent, reading dimly in her eyes the story of what the rash impulses of an ill-spent youth had lost him.