Mount Eden. A romance

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Chapter I. Evelyn

She was not a pretty girl by any manner of means, at all events at that period of her life. Her most striking features were a large and somewhat heavy nose, and a wide mouth. But her chin was firm and well moulded, and she had a pair of large liquid eyes, set in a noble forehead. Her hair — of a reddish tinge, and of which she possessed an unusual quantity — was all pushed off her face in a most unbecoming fashion, and her plain, black dress was relieved by nothing more ornamental than a frill of common lace about the throat. Yet there was nothing ordinary about her, unless it were the look of extreme weariness with which she surveyed the scene before her. It was evening, at the close of one of the hottest days in July, and she was leaning with both elbows on the sill of her bedroom window, trying to inhale a breath of fresh air, and looking expectantly up the street as she did so. Such a bedroom as it was, too ! An attic at the very top of a dingy lodginghouse in a back street of Liverpool, with a sloping roof that concentrated all the sun’s rays, and made it like an oven at that time of the year. Whitewashed walls that offered no relief to the wearied eye ; a small iron bedstead, a strip of carpet, a common deal washstand and table — these composed the luxuries of Evelyn’s sleeping apartment. In the ceiling was a trap-door that led out upon the roof of the house, and had been placed there in case of fire. Evelyn often looked at it, and wished she could get through and sit upon the house-top, and feel the air circling all around her. Once she had mounted on a chair and slipped the bolt and lifted the trap-door, but the dirt and

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dust had frightened her from venturing further, and she had never tried to open it again. As she looked out of her window now, and noted the begrimed pavement, strewn with orange peel and dirty pieces of paper ; watched the women, with their filthy children, standing in clusters of three and four at the corners of the street ; listened to the vendors crying shell-fish, garden roots, and decaying fruit and vegetables, and inhaled the various smells that saluted her nostrils, she drew back into the shelter of her humble room with a sensation of disgust. She had lived amongst such scenes for years past, but she had never grown accustomed to them. Liverpool, as it presented itself to her, was the most horrible place in all the world, and she would shut her eyes sometimes and try to recall the country scenes in which she had once dwelt. It was not so very long ago, after all, since she had been there ; though sometimes, in her desolation, it seemed ages. Evelyn was seventeen years old, and half that time she had lived where she now was, till the past had faded to a misty, far-off dream. On her window-sill there stood three stunted, unhappy-looking little plants — a verbena, a scarlet geranium, and a musk. She had bought them as mere seedlings, and had carefully tended them ever since, and they had so far rewarded her care as to advance to maturity and blossom. Often, when she had a minute to spare, she would rub her fingers over the leaves of the verbena, or bury her nose in the scarlet geranium, and try and bring back some recollection of the place in which she had delighted long ago. The stream where the large blue forget-me-nots grew, and the fields laden with ripe corn, and the nut-bushes and wild briar roses that hung over the country road ; and she would long, with a feverish longing, to get away from her present surroundings, and be (if it were only a servant) in the fresh, cool country again. That is, she would have so longed, had it not been for one thing that bound her to Liverpool. As the remembrance of it arose, a faint color came into the girl’s cheeks, and she hid her face in the musk plant and geranium, that, like herself, were struggling for existence in the close, murky air of her bedroom window.

“ Evelyn ! ’’called a shrill voice from the narrow staircase. The girl started from her reverie.

“ Yes, Aunt Maria.”

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s

“ Where are you ? What are you doing ? ”

Evelyn opened the door and confronted the questioner.

“ Nothing, aunt — that is, nothing in particular.”

“ Good gracious me ! ” cried Miss Rayne, “ you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Here am I, toiling morning, noon and night to keep a decent home above our heads, and you can sit down and do ‘ nothing in particular ! ’ ”

“ It is only for the moment. I have been working, too,” replied Evelyn, with a quiet dignity that always made her seem older than her aunt when it came to an argument between them. “ I have made the pastry for to-morrow, and I have mended all Will’s shirts,” pointing to a heap of linen on the bed.

“ Will’s shirts, indeed ! ” exclaimed Miss Rayne, with a sniff. “ Let Will find some one else to mend his shirts.”

“ Oh, aunt, how can he, with the miserable salary that Uncle Caryll gives him ? ”

“ Well, he must ask for more pay, then. When Mr. Caryll begged me, as a favor, to take the lad into my house, and board and lodge him for a pound a week, he didn’t say anything about the mending of his linen. Will takes quite enough advantage of my kindness as it is. -He’s not my nephew, you must remember.”

“No, aunt, but he’s my cousin.”

“ Rubbish ! That doesn’t oblige you to turn into his factotum. You are my own brother’s child, and as* such I’m bound to take an interest in you ; but except that your poor mother was one of them, these Carylls have no claim on me. Indeed, I often wish I had kept out of their way altogether.”

“ Uncle Caryll doesn’t trouble us much,” said Evelyn, in a low voice.

“ No, my dear ; that’s just where it is. A man rolling in money, without kith or kin, as you may say (except this lad and yourself), and he barely keeps him, and takes no more notice of you than if you were so much dirt. Why are all his favors (such as they are) to be conferred upon William Caryll ? What have you done that you should be left out? You’re quite as much his flesh and blood as your cousin. His sister’s daughter is as near to him any day as his brother’s son. And you’re a Caryll, too, all over, whilst Will takes after his mother’s family.”

“ He hasn’t done so much for Will, either,” said the girl, as she folded up the shirts, preparatory to putting

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them away. “ He has made him a clerk in his counting-house, and gives him a pound a week for his clothes and pocket-money.”

“ And pays me precisely the same sum for keeping him in food and lodging. It’s disgraceful ! ” interposed Miss Rayne excitedly ; “ and some one ought to tell the old man so. Particularly — if what folks say is true — and he means to leave Mount Eden to Will.”

“ Aunt ! ” cried Evelyn, dropping the shirts upon the bed again, “ is that really the case ? ”

“ Well, my dear, it was told me in confidence, so you must be sure not to repeat it ; but Mr. Gamble was called in to witness your uncle’s will the other day, and from a few words dropped by the lawyer, and from a few more he couldn’t help seeing, he quite thinks Mr. Caryll has nominated your cousin his heir, instead of his son Hugh.”

“ Poor Cousin Hugh. But is it quite — quite sure, auntie, that he will never be heard of again ? ”

“ As sure as anything can be in this world. The poor boy ran away to sea, and was drowned by the upsetting of a boat in the surf in the Bay of Callao. His body was never found again. They say the boat must have hit him on the head as it turned over. It was a terrible shock at the time for your poor uncle, but it is five years and more since it occurred. Hugh would have been three-andtwenty had he lived ; but since he is gone, and we none of us can take our money away with us, it is only natural Mr. Caryll should think of those who have a claim upon him.”

“ I am so glad ! I hope it is true,” said Evelyn, with a suspicious sound in her voice like tears. “ How happy it will make poor Will. And he is so fit for the position, too. He hates work. He would always be miserable as a poor man.”

“Well, I’ve no patience with you, Evelyn,” replied her aunt testily. “ Instead of being angry with your uncle for his injustice to yourself, you can only think of the benefit that will accrue to your cousin. And what has he done to deserve it more than you, I should like to know? ”

“ Oh, he is a man , or he will be,” said Evelyn, with her grave smile. “ He will help Uncle Caryll in his business, and, I daresay, take a deal of trouble off his hands. I couldn’t do that, you know ; and it is only fair that Will should have his reward. And uncle is not an old man.

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He is not sixty. He may live for twenty years yet. Will may have a long apprenticeship to serve before he comes into Mount Eden.”

“ Mount Eden, indeed,” snorted Miss Rayne. “ It's sickening to think of that boy coming into Mount Eden. Why, the porter’s lodge would be too good for him.”

“ Is it such a beautiful place as all that, Aunt Maria ? Have you ever been there ? ”

“ Once — in your father’s lifetime, and then only for a day. But it’s the most beautiful place you ever saw, Evelyn. More like Paradise than anything else. It’s rightly named. But it should have come to you (or, at the least, the half of it), and I’ll maintain that to my dying day.^if

“ To me ! O aunt, what nonsense ! ” cried Evelyn, with a blush that deepened as she heard the rattle of the front door lock ; “ there’s Will,” she added, taking a step towards the stairs. But her aunt barred*the way.

“ Now, Evelyn,” she said, “ I am not going to let you lower yourself by fussing over that boy till you’ve done your duty. Mr. Gamble is going to the theatre to-night, and wants a nice little supper fetched against he comes home. And Miss Fletcher says she can’t eat Sarah’s toast, so you must make it for her yourself. I can’t afford to lose my lodgers through your running about after Will Caryll.”

Evelyn sighed, but made no remonstrance.

“ What am I to fetch for Mr. Gamble’s supper, aunt ? ”

“ Well, I should think half a pound of Bologna sausage, and a little salad, would be about the thing; or you might get him some fish, if it’s cheap to-night, and potato cakes. Mr. Gamble likes fish for his supper, I know.”

“ Eve ! ” shouted a youthful voice from the dining-room floor; “ Eve, where are you? Come down and give me my tea; I’m in a hurry.”

The girl made for the door.

“ Now, Evelyn, remember I depend on you for Mr. Gamble’s supper and Miss Fletcher’s toast.”

“ I will attend to them both, auntie.”

“ And no bacon for that boy’s tea, mind. He’s eaten more than a pound of bacon in a couple of days. I never agreed, when I took him in for twenty shillings a week, to find him in more than bread and butter.”

“ But he is so hungry,” remonstrated Evelyn, with her hand on the door.

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“ Let him go to his rich uncle, then, and ask for more money. It’s not coming out of my pocket, I can tell you ; I don’t like him well enough. No bacon, mind, and no cold meat. If he wants an egg he can have it, but my means will go no further. There he is calling again. I never heard anything like it in my life. One would think the whole house belonged to him, but he isn’t at Mount Eden yet, and he’ll have to find that out,” said Miss Rayne indignantly, as she marched off to her own room.

Evelyn dashed after her, and flew downstairs. In the back dining-room — the only apartment which their poverty permitted them to reserve for their own use — stood a young man— a lad, indeed, in years, being .only twenty, but tall and upright as a dart, and handsome as a statue. His fair hair curled close to his head. He had bright, blue eyes, rather too pronounced and wide open, a delicate straight nose, with closed nostrils, a small mouth, with thin lips, a narrow jaw, and a pointed chin. Doubtless he was good looking, — unusually so, — but something in his expression deteriorated from his beauty. It lay partly in the shifting glance of the eyes, which never seemed to look one straight in the face, and partly in the weakness of the mouth, which was sufficiently open to show two very white teeth in front.

But Evelyn Rayne saw none of these defects. For the last two years she had been thrown into daily intimate communion with her cousin, Will Caryll, and, in her eyes, he was simply perfection, though she had never let any one guess that she thought so. This serious, old-fashioned, and somewhat ordinary-looking girl had a depth of feeling in her unknown to her companions, who, whilst they twisted her to their own convenience, had no idea of the thoughts that sank deep into her mind, and took root and grew there.

“ I say, Eve, this is too bad ! ” exclaimed young Caryll, as she entered the room. “ Here am I waiting for my tea, and in a deuce of a hurry to get out again, and there’s not a sign of it. Where’s that fool Sarah ? Why hasn’t she laid the cloth ? ”

“ My dear Will, it is only just six o’clock, and you never have your tea till half-past. It shall be on the table in five minutes. Why are you in such a hurry to-night?”

“ I’m going out.”

Evelyn’s face fell. It was evident the news was a disappointment to her.

“ Oh ! Then the best thing I can do is to go and help Sarah.”

“ Are my shirts ready ? ”

“Yes. I laid them on my bed. Shall you want anything more ”

“ Only a clean white tie. And I think there’s a button off my new gloves.”

“Your ties are in the left-hand drawer, and I sewed the button on your gloves last week.”

“ Thanks, that’s a good girl. And now, do let me have my tea. And, I say, Eve, is there anything to eat in the house, — something substantial, I mean, — cold meat or bacon ? ”

“ I will manage it,” she answered cheerfully, as she left the room.

It was more of an effort than some might imagine for her to answer cheerfully at that moment. She had been looking forward all day to her cousin’s return, and to a pleasant evening spent with him. For it was Saturday, and on Saturday Will Caryll received his weekly stipend, and always seemed in better spirits for it. He had not to get up so early on the following morning, either, so it did not signify how late he stayed up at night, and on Saturdays he had been used to take his cousin Evelyn for long strolls, riding on the omnibus or street tram, into the surrounding country, leaving dingy, smoky Liverpool far behind, and wandering about all the summer evening with her upon his arm.

These were the girl’s happiest moments, — would prove, perhaps, to be the happiest moments of all her life, — although she was unconscious why they were so. And now, Will was going out somewhere by himself, and she must find her Saturday evening’s recreation in toasting Miss. Fletcher’s bread, or catering for Mr. Gamble’s supper. But she did not grumble, even to herself. She heaved more than one sigh as she prepared her cousin’s tea-tray, but even then she felt a certain pleasure in producing coppers from her own pocket and running round the corner to buy a few shrimps to make his meal more palatable to him. And she sat down afterwards to peel them, whilst he ate, and would have asked no better fate than thus to minister to his wants for the remainder of her life.

IO

CHAPTER II. love’s young dream.

Will Caryll was very reticent on the subject of where he was going that night. He ate his shrimps as fast as Evfilyn could peel them, and chatted to her of the events of the past day, animadverting strongly on his uncle’s meanness and strict surveillance , which prevented a fellow ever having a moment to himself.

“ And he’s so beastly suspicious, too,” he wound up with, “ that he never believes a word one says. He asked me the other day where I dined, and I told him, and I found out afterwards that he’d actually been round to the place to learn if it was true. As if a fellow would tell a lie about a stupid thing like that ! ”

“ O Will, that is horrible ! ” said Evelyn, her grave eyes dilated witli indignation. “ I could not stand being suspected of an untruth. Didn’t it make you very angry? Didn’t you tell him you are too honorable and too much of a gentleman to stoop to a falsehood? ”

“ My dear girl, it's no good telling the old fool anything. He wouldn’t believe me if I did — he’s as obstinate as a mule. The only way to deal with him is to get all you can, and do as little as you need.”

“ Oh, but that’s not right,” cried Evelyn.

“Ah, well, well, you know what I mean. You must stick up for yourself if you don’t want to be put upon. I plucked up courage the other day to ask the old gentleman for an increase of salary. He glared at me as if I had offered to poison him. ‘ A pound a week is not much pay for a fellow of my age, Uncle Roger,’ said I.

“ ‘ A pound a week, sir ! What do you mean ? ’ he exclaimed. ‘ I pay a pound a week to Miss Rayne for your board and lodging, and that makes two pounds a week — one hundred and four pounds a year, — double what you’re worth.”

“1 suggested he should pay the two pounds into my own

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II hands, and let me provide for myself, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He said I shouldn’t pay for my keep at all, then, and the bills would come back into his hands. Did you ever hear of such an ogre, Eve ? I’m sick to death of it all. Sometimes I think I’ll give him notice, and look out for a situation for myself. I’d like to see his face when I sent in my resignation.”

“ No, no, Will ! you musn’t do that,” exclaimed Evelyn, remembering what her aunt had told her. “Try and be patient, there’s a dear boy. Uncle Roger, can do so much for you if you keep good friends. It would be folly to quarrel with him.”

“ Of course he must do something for me. I am quite aware of that. Since Hugh is dead, I am the next heir, and ought to come in for everything when the old man kicks. So Pitman says.” %

“Who is Pitman?”

“ The chief clerk. I believe he knows more -than he will tell me, for he’s very close. But, anyway, it seems a beastly shame, if I’m to have all that money some day, — fifteen thousand a year, Pitman says, if it’s a penny, — that I can’t handle a little more o'f it now. A pound a week ! Why, it hardly pays for my dinner ! And I have a tailor’s bill three yards long.”

“ Oh, Will, however will you pay it ? ”

“ I must leave it to pay itself, Eve. There’s no way out of it. And to see the piles of money that go through uncle’s office every day ! ”

“ But that has nothing to do with you, Will, no more than if it were through the office of anybody else. It isn’t yours.”

“ I know that as well as you do, but it’s a great temptation.”

Evelyn looked at him wonderingly. Such a thing could never prove a temptation to her.

“ Well, I must be off,” cried Will Caryll, as he bolted the last shrimp. “ Is there any hot water in my room ? ”

“ I will fetch it for you at once,” she answered, as she went downstairs.

In a few minutes he was out of the house, banging the hall door after him as if he were glad to get free.

He had good reason to keep his intentions a secret from his cousin. He knew that she would have reason to dis-

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pute and oppose them. For he had two theatre tickets in his pocket, and he wanted to take a pretty milliner’s girl (with whom he had scraped up a questionable acquaintance in the street) to the play. He was looking forward to posing as the “ masher swell ” to “ Emily,” and impressing her with a sense of his importance in the commercial world. But when he arrived at the girl’s residence, he found himself doomed to disappointment. Emily had been “ one too many ” for him. Some other fellow, older than Will Caryll, and probably with more money in his pocket, had already made his appearance on the scene, and the faithless milliner had left the house under his protection.

Will gnashed his teeth when the truth was rudely blurted out to him. There are times in the masculine career when it seems a terrible calamity to be too young, and one’s youth presses on the brain like a barrier to liberty. This was one of them. Will tried to be easy on the matter, and to turn it off as a thing of no consequence, but he lamentably failed, and no one who saw him could have mistaken what he felt. But as he turned away with a careless whistle, his cousin Evelyn came into his mind. The pretty milliner had failed him, but Eve would not do so, and there were the tickets in his pocket, burning into his very soul ; it would never do to waste them. So, half-anhour later, just as Evelyn Rayne returned home with Mr. Gamble’s supper, she encountered Will Caryll on the doorstep.

“ Will ! ” she exclaimed, with pleased surprise ; “ what brings you home so early ? ”

He could not tell the truth. Fie knew it would lower him in her eyes, and he was too conceited to wish to lose even the least modicum of admiration from any one of the sex. So he temporised by asking her, with one of his sunny smiles, —

44 Cannot you guess ? ”

“ Indeed, I cannot.”

“ I went out to buy some tickets for the theatre. I want to take you there to-night to see 4 Human Nature.’ Make haste and put on your things. We must start at once.”

Evelyn looked confounded.

44 O Will, why didn’t you tell me of it before ? ”

Visions of tuckers she might have tacked in, and rib-

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*3 bons she might have ironed out, flashed on her imagination, and almost melted her to tears. She felt she was not fit to go out to a place of amusement with him.

“ What’s up now, Eve ? ” he demanded.

“ O Will, do you think I shall look nice enough ? I have not been to the theatre for years — not since Mr. Gamble took auntie and me to the pantomime at the Rotunda. I have nothing to wear but my Sunday frock. And will Aunt Maria let me go ? I am half afraid she will say no ! ”

“ Cut in and ask her, then, and don’t keep me waiting all night,” retorted Will. “ But it will be a shame, if she refuses. Why, you never have any amusement from one week’s end to another. Tell her that Uncle Roger gave me the tickets, and desired that you should use one of them.”

“ But did he ? I thought you said you bought them ? ” returned Evelyn, regarding him with her grave, questioning eyes.

“ So I did ; but uncle gave me the money, so it comes to the same thing.”

“ Oh, and you said he was so mean ! ”

“ Well, a couple of tickets for the dress circle is no great gift. But make haste and get leave, Eve, or I shall go without you.”

Evelyn flew on the wings of the wind into the presence of her aunt. She was rosy with excitement, and her great eyes glowed like two stars.

“ Aunt Maria, uncle has sent two tickets for the theatre for Will and me. May I go ? ”

“ Theatre tickets, child ! What theatre ? ”

“ I don’t know, but it’s to see ‘ Human Nature.’ May I go?"

“ Have you got Mr. Gamble’s supper?”

“ Yes, yes. Such a nice little lobster. Quite fresh, and only ninepence. And a beautiful lettuce and some watercress.”

“ And Miss Fletcher has had her tea ? ”

“ O aunt, half-an-hour ago, and she said the toast was delicious.”

“ Well, I really don’t se6 why you shouldn’t go, then, but you must come straight home afterwards. To think of Mr. Caryll sending you a ticket ! He may be going to remember his duty to you after all. Who knows ? ”

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Little did Evelyn Rayne care’ about her uncle remembering his duty to her at that moment. Her cousin filled up every crevice of her heart. The prospect of an evening spent with Will at the theatre in the present, was more attractive than the hope of any amount of revenue in the future.

“ Then I may go ? ” she cried eagerly.

“ Yes, if your cousin promises to take proper care of you ; but don’t yield to any of his persuasions, Evelyn. I haven’t much faith in William Caryll. If he doesn’t bring you straight home from the theatre, just jump into an omnibus and come back by yourself. Do you understand me ? ”

“ Of course I do, auntie ; but Will will bring me straight home. Oh, how good it is of you to let me go.”

Her warm heart was overflowing with gratitude to every one who combined to afford her this simple pleasure. How much people lose who have the means to gratify all their inclinations. They exchange eagerness for indifference — enthusiasm for satiety — expectation for knowledge. They give up, in fact, all the zest of life for a languid trouble. Their riches have become a punishment too hard to bear.

“ Auntie says I may go, Will,” exclaimed Evelyn delightedly, as she rushed past him in the passage ; “ and I will not keep you ten minutes.”

When she came downstairs again, in her best dress and hat, and a muslin fichu tied carelessly about her throat, Will Caryll was pleased to approve of her appearance.

“ You don’t look half bad when you’re properly dressed, Eve,” he observed, in a patronizing tone ; “ it’s a shame Miss Rayne keeps you so shabby.”

“ Don’t say that, Will,” she answered, as they turned out of the hall door and hurried on their way. “ Auntie gives me as much as she can afford, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am to be a burden to her. How I wish I were a boy, and could work for myself as you do. But I have had no education to speak of. I am utterly useless, except to help to look after the house.”

“ That’s the best thing a woman can do,” said Will, “and, when you marry, you’ll find the truth of it.”

A crimson wave of color surged up into Evelyn’s face.

“ Marry ! Oh, I never shall do that, Will. I can’t. Aunt Maria has kept me ever since I was a little child. My father died, and left nothing behind him, — absolutely