Everybody's Favourite. A novel

Front matter

H iHovel. BY JOHN STRANGE WINTER, AUTHOR OF "BOOTLES' BABY," "A BLAMELESS WOMAN," " ARMY SOCIETY," "THE TRUTH-TELLERS," "GRIP," "A SEASIDE FLIRT," ETC. IN ONE VOLUME. LONDON : F. V. WHITE & CO., 14, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C. 1897. TRISTED BY KELLY AVD CO. LIMITED, 182, 183 AND 184, HIGH H0LB0RN, V.O. AND _I\aSTONON-TnA___-. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. — The King of Summerhayes . . . 1 II. — The Recorder's Secretary . . 14 III. — Welcome 28 IV.— Zoe 40 V. — First Love ...... 52 VI. — All in Uncertainty ... 66 VII. — The Elder Brother .... 77 VIII. — " Cherchez La Femme " . . . 95 IX. — At Arm's Length . . . .106 X. — The Fiat of Common-Sense . . 118 XI. — Alike in Liking . . . . .132 XII. — Mrs. Perciyat.'s Opinion . . . 147 XIII.— The Future Lady Hayes . . .160 XIV. — Congratulations — and Doubt . 171 XV. — The Realization of the Worst . 182 XVI. — Sudden Death . . . . 191 XVII.— Parole of Honour . . . .210 XVIII. — An Anxious Possession . . . 223 XIX. — Heart of Grace .... 239 XX.— Mizpah 249 XXI.— Terror 263 XXII.— Open at Last ! .... 276 XXIII. —Gervaise — Gervaise ....

CHAPTER L THE KING OF SUMMERHAYES.

" Coin by coin, unscrupulous Time Tells out the sura he owes. Eternity, that usurer of life, Still lending little, takes our all at last, And gives back nothing got." — Owex Meredith. The blinds at Summerhayes were closely drawn. The King of Summerhayes was dead. Another king reigned for the nonce in his stead — that king whom we call Death. Sir Geoffrey Hayes had for many years been known far and wide as the King of Summerhayes, that quaint Blankshire village lying under the shadow of the blue wolds, almost hidden in the tender pink and white, or the leafy green of its apple and cherry orchards. It was no such great property that over which he had ruled, but he had loved it from his earliest boyhood with a devotion which had magnified it in his eyes into a kingdom. And now he had gone, gone in the very flower and prime of his days, to that other country where king doms are different to the kingdoms of ibis world; he had gone to join his wife, from the shock of whose dea'h he had never quite recovered, and his body was going to lie beside hers in the quiet little churchyard unler the shadow of the old grey, ivy clad chuich.

Chapter II. The Recorder's Secretary

" A great deal of talent is lost to the world for the -want of a little courage." — Sydney Smith. Everybody in Northtowers said that it was a wonderful thing that the two Hayes boys should have settled down so completely to look upon the Re corder's house as their home ; and people said, too, that it was an even more remarkable circumstance that Mrs. Drummond, who had never had a child of her own, and had been from the time of her marriage the petted idol of her husband, should have taken up her motherly duties with such extraordinary and marked success. It might have been because they were nice boys in themselves ; indeed, everybody in Northtowers liked the two young Hayes. Possibly if there had only been one instead of two, and that one had been Basil instead of Walter, the liking would not have been so marked as it was.

Basil, at ten years old, with his modest patrimony of three hundred a year, might have passed in a crowd without any particular recognition ; but Walter, with his title, his place at Eton, his future as the King of Summer hayes, was altogether another person, and, for his sake, both the boys were universally accepted by the Northtowers people as immense fa 'rourites. Of the two Mrs. Drummond herself preferred Basil. Walter was always polite, reasonable, quiet, and, to a certain degree, worldly. There were depths in Walter which Mrs. Drummond was never able to gauge. He never disputed her edicts, never failed in his absolute courtesy to her, never got into scrapes, never forgot that he was Sir Walter Hayes of Summerhayes ; but at the same time, when Walter was ready to leave Eton and go to Sandhurst, Mrs. Drummond was fain to ackowledge to herself that she knew no more of him and his inmost nature than if he had spent the three past years under his father's wing instead of under her own.

With Basil everything was different. Mrs. Drummond knew to a nicety how much of his last sovereign had gone in " tuck " ; she knew all about his school fights, and even encouraged them and glorified them ; she knew in what directions Basil's predilections lay ; | she knew him as thoroughly as if he were her own son, instead of only being her nephew. To all intents and purposes she was Basil's mother ; but she was never anything more to her elder nephew than his guardian's wife. After leaving Eton, Walter Hayes went to Sand hurst, and in due time came into possession of his property, and practically Northtowers knew him no more. He usually, it is true, spent a week of his long leave with the Recorder and his wife, but he had long since ceased to look upon Northtowers as his natural home. Consequently the intercourse between the brothers grew less and less with every year that went by.

So, by the time that Basil arrived at man's estate, they were little more than strangers to each other. When I speak of arriving at man's estate, I mean, naturally, when the time came for him to leave school and make his choice of a profession. His natural instincts led him to follow his brother's footsteps and enter the army, but this was a course which met with the disapproval of both Mr. and Mrs. Drummond. " I don't see why I shouldn't go into the Service as well as Walter, Aunt Adelaide," Basil exclaimed, vexedly, when his aunt first expressed her objections to this plan. " Because, my dear boy, you can hardly afford to do so," she said, very kindly, and yet decidedly. " You forget that Walter is the head of the family, and is well enough off to please himself in most things. With you it is a question of ways and means.

When you come of age you will have three hundred a year — well, just a little more, because your expenses have not been quite so much as that ; but beyond a few hundreds of loose money, that is what you will come into — three hundred a year. Of course Walter, being the eldest son, has the place, and therefore he can please himself." " But a fellow could live very well with three hundred a year besides his pay." "A fellow might live," said Mrs. Drummond, sensibly, " but it would be a case of genteel starva tion ; you could not live as other men do who have much more ; you would start handicapped ; you would be very, very uncomfortable and unhappy, and my urgent advice to you, Basil, is to give up the army and turn your thoughts entirely in another direction." " In what direction, Aunt Adelaide ?

" he asked. " Well, my dear boy, in the direction in which money-making lies. What little money I have will one day be yours, but it is kinder and better to tell you now that my income is not much. I was only given five thousand pounds, which has always been considered the proper sum for the Summerhayes girls to take out of the estate. I was an only girl, it is true, and my aunts, although there were five of them, had not had a smaller amount ; but the estate was mortgaged for it, and your father was years paying off his aunts' shares, so that when my turn came it was not possible for me to have more because I was only one. Since then I have not always been fortunate in my little speculations, and the sum absolutely at my disposal is a good deal less now than it was at the time of my marriage."

She forbore to say that the Recorder had tried his hand at doubling her modest little patrimony, and that he had succeeded extremely badly, his business instincts being very much on a par with his journalistic abilities. In truth, however, Basil Hayes' only instinct was one of soldiering. Our French neighbours are never tired of telling us that we are a nation of shopkeepers ; and true it is. Yet it is no wild state ment to say that the thoughts of nine out of ten of our youths turn to the scarlet jacket of the soldier, and certain it is that when Basil Hayes, finding that his dream of entering the Service was impracticable, was called upon to make choice of some other pro fession, he found that he had no preferences. If he had been going into the army he would have gone to Sandhurst or to Woolwich as a matter of course, and his education would have been carried on straight from his school days ; as it was, he went home to the beautiful old house in Northtowers Close, and he lived for a time that wretched, uncomfortable, inglorious, objectionable life which we call " at a loose end."

" And what are you going to make of Basil ? " was a question which was put over and over again to Mrs. Drummond. 2* " Ah, that is just the difficulty," she replied, time after time. " His only idea is the army, but his being a younger son with no more than three hundred a year, makes it out of the question. I am sure I cannot tell what we are to do with him. I lie awake at night thinking about it, and wondering and wondering what would be the best plan — what to suggest." " But what does he feel inclined to do himself ? " asked the Dean's wife one day. " My dear Mrs. Blake," said the Recorder's wife, blandly, " he does not feel inclined to do anything ; that is the unfortunate part of it." " Why don't you put him into the Church ? " suggested Mrs. Blake. " The Church — well, that is not a bad idea.

Now that I come to think of it, Summerhayes Rectory is in the gift of his brother. The Church ! I must see how he feels about it." She promptly put the question before Basil. " Basil," she said to him one morning, when he lounged, good-looking and good-natured, into her own little sitting-room, " has it occurred to you that you might go into the Church ? " " The Church ! And qualify for a finger-post ? Oh, Aunt Adelaide ! " " Summerhayes Rectory is in Walter's gift." " Yes, but I don't want to go and live at Summer hayes as Walter's dependent ! Oh, no, thank you ! " So that scheme was knocked on the head, and Mrs. Drummond set her wits to work once more. " I sounded him about qualifying for the Church, dear," she remarked to her liege lord, in the privacy of their own apartment that evening, " but he does not seem to see it."

" I did not expect that he would," replied the Recorder. " He is not at all the sort of boy that one makes a parson of." " No. Well, somehow or other the Hayes never were cut out for parsons. I wish he would read for the Bar." " Take an opportunity of sounding him on that," said the Recorder. He was singularly sympathetic with boys who did not quite know their mStier. " How would you like to be a barrister, Basil ? " " A barrister ? That's not a bad idea. One might get a recordership, eh ? But, Aunt Adelaide, could one read for the Bar and live in London on three hundred a year ? " " No. 1 don't think you could," she said, quickly ; " but I will ask your uncle." " I mentioned the Bar to Basil, Roger," she said to him, when an opportunity presented itself for private conversation. " He did not seem unwilling, but he put one trenchant question before me. ' Can I,' he said, ' read for the Bar and live in London on three hundred a year ? ' " " Most decidedly not," returned the Recorder, "And in any case, Roger dear, is he not too young ?

" " Much too young ; eighteen is much too young to send a boy to London on his own hook, no matter how clever a man you place him with. How would it do, Adelaide, if I were to take him on for a couple of years as my secretary ? He could be studying law with me, and I could superintend his reading and give him enough to do to keep him out of mischief until the time came for him to eat his dinners." It was not a judicious arrangement ; but to the two people who were honestly trying to do their best for the boy, it seemed the most protective at the moment. And so Basil Hayes began to learn to be a man in the old city of Northtowers, where everybody knew his circumstances, where he had little or nothing to do, and where, by virtue of his guardian's position, and also the county position of his aunt and of his father, he was, socially speaking, very near to the top of the tree.

He was then nearly nineteen years old, a tall, finely-built young man, long of limb, broad in the shoulder, deep in the chest, and blessed with all the Hayes' good looks. He was enormously popular with all sorts and conditions of people, and nobody valued his popularity more than Mrs. Drummond, who, while she was devotedly attached to the Recorder, was painfully conscious always that personal popularity was not one of the circumstances of his life. He was open-handed and generous too, and herein again he appeared in strong contrast to his uncle and guardian ; for nobody had ever known the Recorder of North towers to give a farthing to anything or to anyone. He would invariably reply to all requests for help : "Ah, yes, indeed a most worthy object," he would say, in his most bland and unctuous voice ; " but I, of course, have so many claims upon me, I am afraid I cannot help you this time.

You must look to the richer people, to those who have no official claims upon them ; I have, of course, so many. Really I sometimes say to my wife, I seem to live with my hand in my pocket." "Wonderful man the Recorder," said a dis appointed seeker after subscriptions one day ; " he lives with his hand in his pocket, but, by Jove, no one ever knew him take it out." Now Basil Hayes, whatever his faults and failings, was not troubled with meanness or niggardliness. As a schoolboy he had always been more than ready to share his belongings with those less fortunately placed than himself, as a young man it never occurred to him to say " no " if the occasion warranted his saying " yes," and the money was actually in his pocket. So he became his uncle's secretary, and was sup posed to be studying law under that dignified person's direction.

And having settled down into that easy and pleasant position in life, there, I am sorry to say, Basil Hayes remained. When he was one and twenty he came into his kingdom, and being a young man strictly of honour, his first use of his cheque-book was to clear up all his infancy debts. They were not many — a few pounds here, a few pounds there, mostly for things he had found it quite impossible to do without, or to pay for from his minority allowance, which had but too easily slipped away in the sundry expenses of a popular young man. A good big tailor's bill was the most serious item, and, as I say, Basil's first use of his own cheque-book was to clear everyone of these off. It therefore soon became known in North towers that he was a young man of honour ; that his first independent act was to pay his few debts, his second to buy a handsome present for his aunt.

He became more popular than ever, and the question of his leaving Northtowers for London was scarcely ever mooted, certainly not seriously entertained by anyone. " Oh, yes," said Mrs. Drummond, in answer to inquiries on the subject, " Basil is going to London, and will eat his dinners all in due form. But not this year. You see, we are both so fond of him, and he has made himself so essential to the Re corder, that just now he would not like to go ; and we should miss him terribly, especially as dear Roger is not in very good health. Next year we shall have to think about it seriously. There is no time lost ; indeed, we are anxious not to be in a hurry, for London is full of temptations to a young man ; and Basil is so happy here ; he is just like our own son. But next year, next year, we must begin to think seriously about it."

But when the next year came there was still a shadow of excuse — a reasonable excuse, such an one as no living being could have taken exception to — and Basil Hayes remained at Northtowers, where he was far and away the most popular young man in the place. In truth, he was the head and front of everything. His duties with the Recorder were not heavy, his expenses, seeing that he lived with his aunt and uncle free of charge and had also a small sum as an honorarium, were exceedingly light ; they consisted, in fact, of those which were entirely personal. He had plenty of time, and he cultivated assiduously those pursuits which tend to make for a man a local reputation. Nothing was complete without the presence and co-operation of Basil Hayes. No cricket match, no football team, no hockey, tennis or golf club was worth speaking about unless Basil Hayes was in it.

He was an excellent amateur actor, a first-class shot, he drove well, and rode across country — when he could get a mount — as straight as a die. He could do everything except make money, and I doubt not that he would have done that too if he had once been put in the way of it. As it was, he stayed on and stayed on in the limited sphere of a not very large cathedral town, not so much from his own desire — because he, like every other young man, had more than a desire to see the world — but chiefly to suit the convenience of those who should have been the first to encourage him in any spirit of adventure which would lead him into a wider sphere.

Chapter III. Welcome

" The only way to have a friend is to be one." — Emerson. Breakfast at the Oriol House was fairly under way. The breakfast-room overlooked the Chantry garden, a quaint, triangular piece of turf, bordered by neat gravel paths, narrow flower beds, and shaded by a few fine old trees, which was sacred to the dwellers in the houses on one side of the Cathedral Close of Northtowers. Each of the houses in the Close had its bit, large or small, of private ground, but the Chantry garden was a semi-private possession, of which those privileged to enjoy it were exceedingly proud. Mrs. Drummond's breakfast-room not only looked into the Chantry garden, but that side of the house lay so that it got every gleam of morning sun shine. The sun was streaming in at the large oriel window that morning, although winter was not yet WELCOME. 29 passed, the trees had not begun to bud, or the jackdaws, high up in the cathedral towers, to busy themselves in nursery matters.

The room was singularly comfortable-looking, and was unmistakably the favourite sitting-room of a woman of taste, possessed of the means of gratifying the same. A bright fire blazed in the wide grate, a huge, smoke-grey Persian cat lay coiled like a ball of fluff on the black bear-skin rug ; the Recorder sat at one end of the table and Mrs. Drummond at the other — he occupied with the Morning Post, and she busy with the pages of a fashionable feminine journal. " Some more omelette, Adelaide ? " he suggested, looking at her over the top of his newspaper. " It is unusually good this morning. You ought to mention it to cook." " Yes, it is good, Roger ; I will have a little more. Another cup of tea, dear boy ? " She always called him "dear boy," although his beard was white and his close-cut hair had long since become scanty.

He replenished her plate and she his cup, and just then the door opened, and Basil Hayes came leisurely into the room. Mrs. Drummond looked up as he closed the door behind him. " My dear boy," she said, " you have missed the best omelette that we have had for weeks. How incorrigible you are." " Yes, Aunt Adelaide, I am rather late. I am so sorry," he replied, in a tone which carried its own condonation with it. " Good morning, Uncle Roger. Any news ? " "No, the usual thing," replied the Recorder, glancing slightingly down the columns of the paper. " Our men have had a bit of a brush in the hills, and things seem pretty dark in Egypt ; otherwise there is no news." " I have a bit of news for you, Basil," said Mrs. Drummond, as she handed him his coffee-cup. " Oh, have you, Aunt Adelaide ? And what is it ?

Good, I hope ? " " Oh, neither good nor bad — inclining to good, if anything. The Percivals are coming back to the Chantry." " The Percivals ! Back to the Chantry ! You don't WELCOME. 31 say so? The Percivals coming back after having let the Chantry all these years. Well, I am astonished. I wonder if Jack Percival will be as big a fool as he was before he went away ? " " Not very likely ; eight or nine years of foreign schools will have done wonders for him. Let me see, Roger, it must be eight or nine years since the Chantry was let ? " " Oh, quite that, quite that." " Well, I'm sure there was room for improve ment," remarked Basil indifferently. " He was a sop, of course, and a sap, too, by Jove ! But he was an out and out duffer — couldn't catch a cricket ball — ' Butter-fingers ' they used to call him, and he was a butter fingers, and as soft as they make 'em ; silly ass, too, you know.

Oh, there was room for improvement. How did you hear they were coming back ? " " I had a letter from Mrs. Percival this morning — just now. They are coming immediately. They have spent the last two years in Berlin. They have been very home-sick the last part of the time, but having let the house on lease they felt that they might as well stay there as anywhere else. She writes from London." " Oh ! Then they are back in England." " Oh, yes ; they have been in London several weeks, and are just waiting to have the house handed over to them." Basil Hayes cut himself a generous slice of ham before he made any very definite comment on his aunt's news. She watched him almost eagerly. "Well, unless they are very much altered," he said at last, " they will be very pleasant after the terrible people who have just gone away.

" And I suppose," he added, "that my old friend Zoe is quite a grown-up young lady now." " Oh, my dear boy, Zoe Percival must be eighteen or nineteen at least. Grown up? Yes, dear." " And when are they coming ? " Basil inquired. " Almost immediately. Oh, by the bye, dear boy, here is a letter for you ; it was under some of mine. It looks like Walter's writing." " So it is," said Basil, taking the letter from his aunt's hand. " It is a long time since he has WELCOME. 33 honoured me with an epistle ; and there isn't much in this one," he added, as he took out a thick sheet half covered with bold, black hand writing. " Oh, by Jove, what do you think ? " " Going to be married ? " " Something much more startling than that. The Nineteenth are ordered here ; they are to start almost immediately ; they expect their route almost every day."

" The Nineteenth — ordered here — to North towers ? Walter ordered here ? Oh, how delightful ! Roger, Roger ! Do you hear that ? Walter's regiment is ordered to Northtowers ! And to think that we were bewailing the departure of the Six teenth only yesterday ! Well, that is delightful ! I thought, as the Sixteenth were going to India, we should be sure to have a regiment newly returned from India in their place." " Oh, no," returned Basil Hayes, without hesi tation, " they would be sure to give them a dose of camp life first. That is the reason they are sending the Nineteenth here, so that those coming home may have room at Shorncliffe." "Ah, I daresay," remarked Mrs. Drummond, vaguely. She knew nothing about soldiers, and was only interested in the 19th Dragoon Guards because her nephew happened to be one of its officers.

It would enhance her position, of course, to have her nephew, Sir Walter Hayes, quartered in Northtowers, and on that account Mrs. Drummond was delighted at Basil's news. Her real interest, however, lay in the return of the Percival family, and she talked pleasantly on about them until the Recorder had taken his departure and Basil Hayes had followed in his wake. When she was once more alone she drew Mrs. Percival's letter from its envelope. " I am writing," it said, " to old Sarah, who, of course, has taken over the house from the Lindseys " — the Lindseys, by the bye, were the departed tenants of the Chantry — "and am telling her to get in things for our first meals, so that the cook we bring with us may not be too utterly strange. She is a French woman whom we have had in our service for the past six years ; she has faithfully followed our fortunes from one con- WELCOME. 35 tinental city to another, and resolutely declines to leave us now.

" I expect, my dear Mrs. Drummond," the letter went on, " that we shall find everything more or less at sixes and sevens after so long a tenancy. I have sent the linen off several days ago, so hope that old Sarah will be able to put us up the first night ; if not, of course we must go to an hotel. It seems rather a rush home at the last, but indeed we are all so homesick and so anxious to see the Chantry once more that now the house is free we cannot let a single day go by. We expect to arrive by the train reaching Northtowers at four o'clock, and we shall very eagerly look out for your kind, bright face, and that of the dear Recorder." " I was fond of the Lindseys, too," Mrs. Drum mond's thoughts ran ; " but one's old friends are one's real friends after all. She will eagerly look out for my kind, bright face, will she ?

Then, indeed, she shall see it ; she shall see it the moment that the train stops. Let me see, with a strange French woman coming into a strange kitchen — and probably most of the batterie de 3* cuisine worn out — it will be very awkward cooking a dinner that first night. I will just go in and tell old Sarah that they must all dine with us. Yes, I will go now." She slipped upstairs, and put on a hat and a fur lined cloak. She was an elderly woman to wear a hat — very few ladies of her age and position in Northtowers wore such headgear — but Mrs. Drum mond had always been of the opinion that whatever she chose to do became her. The hat certainly did, and it was a stylish, comely, and winsome woman who passed in at the entrance gate of the Chantry and rang the visitors' bell. A quiet, motherly looking person of about sixty years old answered the summons.

" Ah ! Sarah, is that you ? " said Mrs. Drummond, affably. " So we are to have the family back again, and immediately?" " Good-morning, m'm. Yes, m'm. I've just had a letter, and rare good news it is. But do come in, Mrs. Drummond, m'm ; I'm that pleased and that excited, I scarce know whether I'm on my head or my heels. I got the mistress's letter last night, WELCOME. 37 and I've got four charwomen at work this morning, trying to get the place made decent for them." " Well, now, I came in to have a little chat with you, Sarah," said Mrs. Drummond, in her pleasantest voice. "You know, of course, the family must dine with us on the night of their arrival. I should not dream of allowing them to have a scramble dinner, or to go to an hotel for it. And if you are not able to get the bedrooms done, I will have my spare beds aired and made up at once."