XV. A TROUBLED MIND
Just one fortnight from the very day that witnessed the sailing of Frederick Massingbird and his wife, Mr. Verner was taken alarmingly ill. Fred, in his soliloquy that afternoon, when you saw him upon the gate of the ploughed field,--"Old stepfather's wiry yet, and may last an age,"--had certainly not been assisted with the gift of prevision, for there was no doubt that Mr. Verner's time to die had now come.
Lionel had thrown his sorrow bravely from him, in outward appearance at any rate. What it might be doing for him inwardly, he alone could tell. These apparently calm, undemonstrative natures, that show a quiet exterior to the world, may have a fire consuming their heartstrings. He did not go near the wedding; but neither did he shut himself up indoors, as one indulging lamentation and grief. He pursued his occupations just as usual. He read to Mr. Verner, who allowed him to do so that day; he rode out; he saw people, friends and others whom it was necessary to see. He had the magnanimity to shake hands with the bride, and wish her joy.
It occurred in this way. Mrs. Verner declined to attend the ceremony. Since the news of John's death she had been ailing both in body and mind. But she desired Frederick to take Verner's Pride in his road when driving away with his bride, that she might say her last farewell to him and Sibylla, neither of whom she might ever see again. Oh, she'd see them again fast enough, was Fred's response; they should not be away more than a year. But he complied with her request, and brought Sibylla. About three o'clock in the afternoon, the ceremony and the breakfast over, the carriage, with its four horses, clattered on to the terrace, and Fred handed Sibylla out of it. Lionel was crossing the hall at the moment of their entrance; his horse had just been brought round for him. To say he was surprised at seeing them there would not be saying enough; he had known nothing of the intended call. They met face to face. Sibylla wore a sweeping dress of silk; a fine Indian shawl, the gift of Mrs. Verner, was folded round her, and her golden hair fell beneath her bonnet. Her eyes fell, also, before the gaze of Lionel.
Never had she looked more beautiful, more attractive; and Lionel felt it. But, had she been one for whom he had never cared, he could not have shown more courtly indifference. A moment given to the choking down of his emotion, to the stilling of his beating pulses, and he stood before her calmly self-possessed; holding out his hand, speaking in a low, clear tone.
"Allow me to offer you my good wishes for your welfare, Mrs. Massingbird."
"Thank you; thank you very much," replied Sibylla, dropping his hand, avoiding his eye, and going on to find Mrs. Verner.
"Good-bye, Lionel," said Frederick Massingbird. "You are going out, I see."
Lionel shook his hand cordially. Rival though he had proved to him, he did not blame Frederick Massingbird; he was too just to cast blame where it was not due.
"Fare you well, Frederick. I sincerely hope you will have a prosperous voyage; that you will come safely home again."
All this was over, and they had sailed; Dr. West having exacted a solemn promise from his son-in-law that they should leave for home again the very instant that John's property had been realised. And now, a fortnight after it, Mr. Verner was taken--as was believed--for death. He himself believed so. He knew what his own disorder was; he knew that the moment the water began to mount, and had attained a certain height, his life would be gone.
"How many hours have I to live?" he inquired of Dr. West.
"Probably for some days," was the answer.
What could it have been that was troubling the mind of Mr. Verner? That it was worldly trouble was certain. That other trouble, which has been known to distract the minds of the dying, to fill them with agony, was absent from his. On that score he was in perfect peace. But that some very great anxiety was racking him might be seen by the most casual observer. It had been racking him for a long time past, and it was growing worse now. And it appeared to be what he could not, or would not, speak of.
The news of the dangerous change in the master of Verner's Pride circulated through the vicinity, and it brought forth, amidst other of his friends, Mr. Bitterworth. This was on the second day of the change. Tynn received Mr. Bitterworth in the hall.
"There's no hope, sir, I'm afraid," was Tynn's answer to his inquiries. "He's not in much pain of body, but he is dreadfully anxious and uneasy."
"What about?" asked Mr. Bitterworth, who was a little man with a pimpled face.
"Nobody knows, sir; he doesn't say. For myself, I can only think it must be about something connected with the estate. What else can it be?"
"I suppose I can see him, Tynn?"
"I'll ask, sir. He refuses visitors in his room, but I dare say he'll admit you."
Lionel came to Mr. Bitterworth in the drawing-room. "My uncle will see you," he said, after greetings had passed.
"Tynn informs me that he appears to be uneasy in his mind," observed Mr. Bitterworth.
"A man so changed, as he has been in the last two years, I have never seen," replied Lionel. "None can have failed to remark it. From entire calmness of mind, he has exhibited anxious restlessness; I may say irritability. Mrs. Verner is ill," Lionel added, as they were ascending the stairs. "She has not been out of bed for two days."
Not in his study now; he had done with the lower part of the house for ever; but in his bed-chamber, never to come out of it alive, was Mr. Verner. They had got him up, and he sat in an easy-chair by the bedside, partially dressed, and wrapped in his dressing-gown. On his pale, worn face there were the unmistakable signs of death. He and Mr. Bitterworth were left alone.
"So you have come to see the last of me, Bitterworth!" was the remark of Mr. Verner.
"Not the last yet, I hope," heartily responded Mr. Bitterworth, who was an older man than Mr. Verner, but hale and active. "You may rally from this attack and get about again. Remember how many serious attacks you have had."
"None like this. The end must come; and it has come now. Hush, Bitterworth! To speak of recovery to me is worse than child's play. I know my time has come. And I am glad to meet it, for it releases me from a world of care."
"Were there any in this world who might be supposed to be exempt from care, it is you," said Mr. Bitterworth, leaning towards the invalid, his hale old face expressing the concern he felt. "I should have judged you to be perfectly free from earthly care. You have no children; what can be troubling you?"
"Would to Heaven I had children!" exclaimed Mr. Verner; and the remark appeared to break from him involuntarily, in the bitterness of his heart.
"You have your brother's son, your heir, Lionel."
"He is no heir of mine," returned Mr. Verner, with, if possible, double bitterness.
"No heir of yours!" repeated Mr. Bitterworth, gazing at his friend, and wondering whether he had lost his senses.
Mr. Verner, on his part, gazed on vacancy, his thoughts evidently cast inwards. He sat in his old favourite attitude; his hands clasped on the head of his stick, and his face bent down upon it. "Bitterworth," said he presently "when I made my will years ago, after my father's death, I appointed you one of the executors."
"I know it," replied Mr. Bitterworth. "I was associated--as you gave me to understand--with Sir Rufus Hautley."
"Ay. After the boy came of age,"--and Mr. Bitterworth knew that he alluded to Lionel--"I added his name to those of Sir Rufus and yourself. Legacies apart, the estate was all left to him."
"Of course it was," assented Mr. Bitterworth.
"Since then, I have seen fit to make an alteration," continued Mr. Verner. "I mention it to you, Bitterworth, that you may not be surprised when you hear the will read. Also I would tell you that I made the change of my own free act and judgment, unbiassed by any one, and that I did not make it without ample cause. The estate is not left to Lionel Verner, but to Frederick Massingbird."
Mr. Bitterworth had small round eyes, but they opened now to their utmost width. "What did you say?" he repeated, after a pause, like a man out of breath.
"Strictly speaking, the estate is not bequeathed to Frederick Massingbird; he will inherit it in consequence of John's death," quietly went on Mr. Verner. "It is left to John Massingbird, and to Frederick after him, should he be the survivor. Failing them both----"
"And I am still executor?" interrupted Mr. Bitterworth, in a tone raised rather above the orthodox key for a sick-room.
"You and Sir Rufus. That, so far, is not altered."
"Then I will not act. No, Stephen Verner, long and close as our friendship has been, I will not countenance an act of injustice. I will not be your executor, unless Verner's Pride goes, as it ought, to Lionel Verner."
"Lionel has forfeited it."
"Forfeited it!--how can he have forfeited it? Is this"--Mr. Bitterworth was given to speak in plain terms when excited--"is this the underhand work of Mrs. Verner?"
"Peace, Bitterworth! Mrs. Verner knows nothing of the change. Her surviving son knows nothing of it; John knew nothing of it. They have no idea but that Lionel is still the heir. You should not jump to unjust conclusions. Not one of them has ever asked me how my property was left; or has attempted, by the smallest word, to influence me in its disposal."
"Then, what has influenced you? Why have you done it?" demanded Mr. Bitterworth, his voice becoming more subdued.
To this question Mr. Verner did not immediately reply. He appeared not to have done with the defence of his wife and her sons.
"Mrs. Verner is not of a covetous nature; she is not unjust, and I believe that she would wish the estate willed to Lionel, rather than to her sons. She knows no good reason why it should not be willed to him. And for those sons--do you suppose either of them would have gone out to Australia, had he been cognisant that he was heir to Verner's Pride?"
"Why have you willed it away from Lionel?"
"I cannot tell you," replied Mr. Verner, in a tone of sharp pain. It betrayed to Mr. Bitterworth what sharper pain the step itself must have cost.
"It is this which has been on your mind, Verner--disturbing your closing years?"
"Ay, it is that; nothing else!" wailed Mr. Verner, "nothing else, nothing else! Has it not been enough to disturb me?" he added, putting the question in a loud, quick accent. "Setting aside my love for Lionel, which was great, setting aside my finding him unworthy, it has been a bitter trial to me to leave Verner's Pride to a Massingbird. I have never loved the Massingbirds," he continued, dropping his voice to a whisper.
"If Lionel were unworthy,"--with a stress upon the "were,"--"you might have left it to Jan," spoke Mr. Bitterworth.
"Lady Verner has thrown too much estrangement between Jan and me. No. I would rather even a Massingbird had it than Jan."
"If Lionel were unworthy, I said," resumed Mr. Bitterworth. "I cannot believe he is. How has he proved himself so? What has he done?"
Mr. Verner put up his hands as if to ward off some imaginary phantom, and his pale face turned of a leaden hue.
"Never ask me," he whispered. "I cannot tell you. I have had to bear it about with me," he continued, with an irrepressible burst of anguish; "to bear it here, within me, in silence; never breathing a word of my knowledge to him, or to any one."
"Some folly must have come to your cognisance," observed Mr. Bitterworth; "though I had deemed Lionel Verner to be more free from the sins of hot-blooded youth than are most men. I have believed him to be a true gentleman in the best sense of the word--a good and honourable man."
"A silent stream runs deep," remarked Mr. Verner.
Mr. Bitterworth drew his chair nearer to his friend, and, bending towards him, resumed solemnly--
"Verner's Pride of right (speaking in accordance with our national notions) belonged to your brother, Sir Lionel. It would have been his, as you know, had he lived but a month or two longer; your father would not have willed it away from him. After him it would have been Lionel's. Sir Lionel died too soon, and it was left to you; but what injunction from your father accompanied it? Forgive my asking you the question, Stephen."
"Do you think I have forgotten it?" wailed Mr. Verner. "It has cost me my peace--my happiness, to will it away from Lionel. To see Verner's Pride in possession of any but a Verner will trouble me so--if, indeed, we are permitted in the next world still to mark what goes on in this--that I shall scarcely rest quiet in my grave."
"You have no more--I must speak plainly, Stephen--I believe that you have no more right in equity to will away the estate from Lionel, than you would have were he the heir-at-law. Many have said--I am sure you must be aware that they have--that you have kept him out of it; that you have enjoyed what ought to have been his, ever since his grandfather's death."
"Have you said it?" angrily asked Mr. Verner.
"I have neither said it nor thought it. When your father informed me that he had willed the estate to you, Sir Lionel being dead, I answered him that I thought he had done well and wisely; that you had far more right to it, for your life, than the boy Lionel. But, Stephen, I should never sanction your leaving it away from him after you. Had you possessed children of your own, they should never have been allowed to shut out Lionel. He is your elder brother's son, remember."
Mr. Verner sat like one in dire perplexity. It would appear that there was a struggle going on in his own mind.
"I know, I know," he presently said, in answer. "The worry, the uncertainty, as to what I ought to do, has destroyed the peace of my later days. I altered my will when smarting under the discovery of his unworthiness; but, even then a doubt as to whether I was doing right caused me to name him as inheritor, should the Massingbirds die."
"Why, that must have been a paradox!" exclaimed Mr. Bitterworth. "Lionel Verner should inherit before all, or not inherit at all. What your ground of complaint against him is, I know not; but whatever it may be, it can be no excuse for your willing away from him Verner's Pride. Some youthful folly of his came to your knowledge, I conclude."
"Not folly. Call it sin--call it crime," vehemently replied Mr. Verner.
"As you please; you know its proper term better than I. For one solitary instance of--what you please to name it--you should not blight his whole prospects for life. Lionel's general conduct is so irreproachable (unless he be the craftiest hypocrite under the sun) that you may well pardon one defalcation. Are you sure you were not mistaken?"
"I am sure. I hold proof positive."
"Well, I leave that. I say that you might forgive him, whatever it may be, remembering how few his offences are. He would make a faithful master of Verner's Pride. Compare him to Fred Massingbird! Pshaw!"
Mr. Verner did not answer. His face had an aching look upon it, as it leaned out over the top of his stick. Mr. Bitterworth laid his hand upon his friend's knee persuasively.
"Do not go out of the world committing an act of injustice; an act, too, that is irreparable, and of which the injustice must last for ever. Stephen, I will not leave you until you consent to repair what you have done."
"It has been upon my mind to do it since I was taken worse yesterday," murmured Stephen Verner. "Our Saviour taught us to forgive. Had it been against me only that he sinned, I would have forgiven him long ago."
"You will forgive him now?"
"Forgiveness does not lie with me. It was not against me, I say, that he sinned. Let him ask forgiveness of God and of his own conscience. But he shall have Verner's Pride."
"Better that you should see it in its proper light at the eleventh hour, than not at all, Stephen," said Mr. Bitterworth. "By every law of right and justice, Verner's Pride, after you, belongs to Lionel."
"You speak well, Bitterworth, when you call it the eleventh hour," observed Mr. Verner. "If I am to make this change you must get Matiss here without an instant's delay. See him yourself, and bring him back. Tell him what the necessity is. He will make more haste for you than he might for one of my servants."
"Does he know of the bequest to the Massingbirds?"
"Of course he knows of it. He made the will. I have never employed anybody but Matiss since I came into the estate."
Mr. Bitterworth, feeling there was little time to be lost, quitted the room without more delay. He was anxious that Lionel should have his own. Not so much because he liked and esteemed Lionel, as that he possessed a strong sense of justice within himself. Lionel heard him leaving the sick-room, and came to him, but Mr. Bitterworth would not stop.
"I cannot wait," he said. "I am bound on an errand for your uncle."
XVI. AN ALTERED WILL
Mr. Bitterworth was bound to the house of the lawyer, Mr. Matiss, who lived and had his office in the new part of Deerham, down by Dr. West's. People wondered that he managed to make a living in so small a place; but he evidently did make one. Most of the gentry in the vicinity employed him for trifling things, and he held one or two good agencies. He kept no clerk. He was at home when Mr. Bitterworth entered, writing at a desk in his small office, which had maps hung round it. A quick-speaking man, with dark hair and a good-natured face.
"Are you busy, Matiss?" began Mr. Bitterworth, when he entered; and the lawyer looked at him through the railings of his desk.
"Not particularly, Mr. Bitterworth. Do you want me?"
"Mr. Verner wants you. He has sent me to bring you to him without delay. You have heard that there's a change in him?"
"Oh, yes, I have heard it," replied the lawyer. "I am at his service, Mr. Bitterworth."
"He wants his last will altered. Remedied, I should say," continued Mr. Bitterworth, looking the lawyer full in the face, and nodding confidentially.
"Altered to what it was before?" eagerly cried the lawyer.
Mr. Bitterworth nodded again. "I called in upon him this morning, and in the course of conversation it came out what he had done about Verner's Pride. And now he wants it undone."
"I am glad of it--I am glad of it, Mr. Bitterworth. Between ourselves--though I mean no disrespect to them--the young Massingbirds were not fit heirs for Verner's Pride. Mr. Lionel Verner is."
"He is the rightful heir as well as the fit one, Matiss," added Mr. Bitterworth, leaning over the railings of the desk, while the lawyer was hastily putting his papers in order, preparatory to leaving them, placing some aside on the desk, and locking up others. "What was the cause of his willing it away from Lionel Verner?"
"It's more than I can tell. He gave no clue whatever to his motive. Many and many a time have I thought it over since, but I never came near fathoming it. I told Mr. Verner that it was not a just thing, when I took his instructions for the fresh will. That is, I intimated as much; it was not my place, of course, to speak out my mind offensively to Mr. Verner. Dr. West said a great deal more to him than I did; but he could make no impression."
"Was Dr. West consulted, then, by Mr. Verner?"
"Not at all. When I called at Verner's Pride with the fresh will for Mr. Verner to execute, it happened that Tynn was out. He and one of the other servants were to have witnessed the signature. Dr. West came in at the time, and Mr. Verner said he would do for a witness in Tynn's place. Dr. West remonstrated most strongly when he found what it was; for Mr. Verner told him in confidence what had been done. He, the doctor, at first refused to put his hand to anything so unjust. He protested that the public would cry shame, would say John Massingbird had no human right to Verner's Pride, would suspect he had obtained it by fraud, or by some sort of underhand work. Mr. Verner replied that I--Matiss--could contradict that. At last the doctor signed."
"When was this?"
"It was the very week after John started for Australia. I wondered why Mr. Verner should have allowed him to go, if he meant to make him his heir. Dr. West wondered also, and said so to Mr. Verner, but Mr. Verner made no reply."
"Mr. Verner has just told me that neither the Massingbirds nor Mrs. Verner knew anything of the fresh will. I understood him to imply that no person whatever was cognisant of it but himself and you."
"And Dr. West. Nobody else."
"And he gave no reason for the alteration--either to you or to Dr. West?"
"None at all. Beyond the assertion that Lionel had displeased him. Dr. West would have pressed him upon the point, but Mr. Verner repulsed him with coldness. He insisted upon our secrecy as to the new will; which we promised, and I dare say have never violated. I know I can answer for myself."
They hastened back to Verner's Pride. And the lawyer, in the presence of Mr. Bitterworth, received instructions for a codicil, revoking the bequest of the estate to the Massingbirds, and bestowing it absolutely upon Lionel Verner. The bequests to others, legacies, instructions in the former will, were all to stand. It was a somewhat elaborate will; hence Mr. Verner suggested that that will, so far, could still stand, and the necessary alteration be made by a codicil.
"You can have it ready by this evening?" Mr. Verner remarked to the lawyer.
"Before then, if you like, sir. It won't take me long to draw that up. One's pen goes glibly when one's heart is in the work. I am glad you are willing it back to Mr. Lionel."
"Draw it up then, and bring it here as soon as it's ready. You won't find me gone out," Mr. Verner added, with a faint attempt at jocularity.
The lawyer did as he was bid, and returned to Verner's Pride about five o'clock in the afternoon. He found Dr. West there. It was somewhat singular that the doctor should again be present, as he had been at the previous signing. And yet not singular, for he was now in frequent attendance on the patient.
"How do you feel yourself this afternoon, sir?" asked Mr. Matiss, when he entered, his greatcoat buttoned up, his hat in his hand, his gloves on; showing no signs that he had any professional document about him, or that he had called in for any earthly reason, save to inquire in politeness after the state of the chief of Verner's Pride.
"Pretty well, Matiss. Are you ready?"
"Yes, sir."
"We'll do it at once, then. Dr. West," Mr. Verner added, turning to the doctor, "I have been making an alteration in my will. You were one of the former witnesses; will you be so again?"
"With pleasure. An alteration consequent upon the death of John Massingbird, I presume?"
"No. I should have made it, had he been still alive. Verner's Pride must go to Lionel. I cannot die easy unless it does."
"But--I thought you said Lionel had done--had done something to forfeit it?" interrupted Dr. West, whom the words appeared to have taken by surprise.
"To forfeit my esteem and good opinion. Those he can never enjoy again. But I doubt whether I have a right to deprive him of Verner's Pride. I begin to think I have not. I believe that the world generally will think I have not. It may be that a Higher Power, to whom alone I am responsible, will judge I have not. There's no denying that he will make a more fitting master of it than would Frederick Massingbird; and for myself I shall die the easier knowing that a Verner will succeed me. Mr. Matiss, be so kind as read over the deed."
The lawyer produced a parchment from one of his ample pockets, unfolded, and proceeded to read it aloud. It was the codicil, drawn up with all due form, bequeathing Verner's Pride to Lionel Verner. It was short, and he read it in a clear, distinct voice.
"Will you like to sign it, sir?" he asked, as he laid it down.
"When I have read it for myself," replied Mr. Verner.
The lawyer smiled as he handed it to him. All his clients were not so cautious. Some might have said, "so mistrustful."
Mr. Verner found the codicil all right, and the bell was rung for Tynn. Mrs. Tynn happened to come in at the same moment. She was retreating when she saw business a-gate, but her master spoke to her.
"You need not go, Mrs. Tynn. Bring a pen and ink here."
So the housekeeper remained present while the deed was executed. Mr. Verner signed it, proclaiming it his last will and testament, and Dr. West and Tynn affixed their signatures. The lawyer and Mrs. Tynn stood looking on.
Mr. Verner folded it up with his own hands, and sealed it.
"Bring me my desk," he said, looking at Mrs. Tynn.
The desk was kept in a closet in the room, and she brought it forth. Mr. Verner locked the parchment within it.
"You will remember where it is," he said, touching the desk, and looking at the lawyer. "The will is also here."
Mrs. Tynn carried the desk back again; and Dr. West and the lawyer left the house together.
Later, when Mr. Verner was in bed, he spoke to Lionel, who was sitting with him.
"You will give heed to carry out my directions, Lionel, so far as I have left directions, after you come into power."
"I will, sir," replied Lionel, never having had the faintest suspicion that he had been near losing his inheritance.
"And be more active abroad than I have been. I have left too much to Roy and others. You are young and strong; don't you leave it to them. Look into things with your own eyes."
"Indeed I will. My dear uncle," he added, bending over the bed, and speaking in an earnest tone, "I will endeavour to act in all things as though in your sight, accountable to God and my own conscience. Verner's Pride shall have no unworthy master."
"Try to live so as to redeem the past."
"Yes," said Lionel. He did not see what precise part of it he had to redeem, but he was earnestly anxious to defer to the words of a dying man. "Uncle, may I dare to say that I hope you will live yet?" he gently said.
"It is of no use, Lionel. The world is closing for me."
It was closing for him even then, as he spoke--closing rapidly. Before another afternoon had come round, the master of Verner's Pride had quitted that, and all other pride, for ever.
XVII. DISAPPEARED
Sweeping down from Verner's Pride towards the church at Deerham came the long funeral train--mutes with their plumes and batons, relays of bearers, the bier. It had been Mr. Verner's express desire that he should be carried to the grave, that no hearse or coaches should be used.
"Bury me quietly; bury me without show," had been his charge. And yet a show it was, that procession, if only from its length. Close to the coffin walked the heir, Lionel; Jan and Dr. West came next; Mr. Bitterworth and Sir Rufus Hautley. Other gentlemen were there, followers or pall-bearers; the tenants followed; the servants came last. A long, long line, slow and black; and spectators gathered on the side of the road, underneath the hedges, and in the upper windows at Deerham, to see it pass. The under windows were closed.
A brave heir, a brave master of Verner's Pride! was the universal thought, as eyes were turned on Lionel, on his tall, noble form, his pale face stilled to calmness, his dark hair. He chose to walk bare-headed, his hat, with its sweeping streamers, borne in his hand. When handed to him in the hall he had not put it on, but went out as he was, carrying it. The rest, those behind him, did not follow his example; they assumed their hats; but Lionel was probably unconscious of it, probably he never gave it a thought.
At the churchyard entrance they were met by the Vicar of Deerham, the Reverend James Bourne. All hats came off then, as his voice rose, commencing the service. Nearly one of the last walked old Matthew Frost. He had not gone to Verner's Pride, the walk so far was beyond him now, but fell in at the churchyard gate. The fine, upright, hale man whom you saw at the commencement of this history had changed into a bowed, broken mourner. Rachel's fate had done that. On the right as they moved up the churchyard, was the mound which covered the remains of Rachel. Old Matthew did not look towards it; as he passed it he only bent his head the lower. But many others turned their heads; they remembered her that day.
In the middle of the church, open now, dark and staring, was the vault of the Verners. There lay already within it Stephen Verner's father, his first wife, and the little child Rachel, Rachel Frost's foster-sister. A grand grave this, compared to that lowly mound outside; there was a grand descriptive tablet on the walls to the Verners; while the mound was nameless. By the side of the large tablet was a smaller one, placed there to the memory of the brave Sir Lionel Verner, who had fallen near Moultan. Lionel involuntarily glanced up at it, as he stood now over the vault, and a wish came across him that his father's remains were here, amidst them, instead of in that far-off grave.
The service was soon over, and Stephen Verner was left in his resting-place. Then the procession, shorn of its chief and prominent features, went back to Verner's Pride. Lionel wore his hat this time.
In the large drawing-room of state, in her mourning robes and widow's cap, sat Mrs. Verner. She had not been out of her chamber, until within the last ten minutes, since before Mr. Verner's death; scarcely out of her bed. As they passed into the room--the lawyer, Dr. West, Jan, Mr. Bitterworth, and Sir Rufus Hautley--they thought how Mrs. Verner had changed, and how ill she looked; not that her florid complexion was any paler. She had, indeed, changed since the news of John Massingbird's death; and some of them believed that she would not be very long after Mr. Verner.
They had assembled there for the purpose of hearing the will read. The desk of Mr. Verner was brought forward and laid upon the table. Lionel, taking his late uncle's keys from his pocket, unlocked it, and delivered a parchment which it contained to Mr. Matiss. The lawyer saw at a glance that it was the old will, not the codicil, and he waited for Lionel to hand him also the latter.
"Be so kind as read it, Mr. Matiss," said Lionel, pointing to the will.
It had to be read; and it was of no consequence whether the codicil was taken from the desk before reading the original will, or afterwards, so Mr. Matiss unfolded it, and began.
It was a somewhat elaborate will--which has been previously hinted. Verner's Pride, with its rich lands, its fine income, was left to John Massingbird; in the event of John's death, childless, it went to Frederick; in the event of Frederick's death, childless, it passed to Lionel Verner. There the conditions ended; so that, if it did lapse to Lionel, it lapsed to him absolutely. But it would appear that the contingency of both the Massingbirds dying had been only barely glanced at by Mr. Verner. Five hundred pounds were left to Lionel: five hundred to Jan; five hundred to Decima; nothing to Lady Verner. Mrs. Verner was suitably provided for, and there were bequests to servants. Twenty-five pounds for "a mourning ring" were bequeathed to each of the two executors, Sir Rufus Hautley, and Mr. Bitterworth; and old Matthew Frost had forty pounds a year for his life. Such were the chief features of the will; and the utter astonishment it produced on the minds and countenances of some of the listeners was a sight to witness. Lionel, Mrs. Verner, Jan, and Sir Rufus Hautley were petrified.
Sir Rufus rose. He was a thin, stately man, always dressed in hessian boots and the old-fashioned shirt-frill. A proud, impassive countenance was his, but it darkened now. "I will not act," he began. "I beg to state my opinion that the will is an unfair one--"
"I beg your pardon, Sir Rufus," interrupted the lawyer. "Allow me a word. This is not the final will of Mr. Verner; much of it has been revoked by a recent codicil. Verner's Pride comes to Mr. Lionel. You will find the codicil in the desk, sir," he added to Lionel.
Lionel, his pale face haughty, and quite as impassive as that of Sir Rufus, for anything like injustice angered him, opened the desk again. "I was not aware," he observed. "My uncle told me on the day of his death that the will would be found in his desk; I supposed that to be it."
"It is the will," said Mr. Matiss. "But he caused me to draw up a later codicil, which revoked the bequest of Verner's Pride. It is left to you absolutely."
Lionel was searching in the desk. The few papers in it appeared to be arranged with the most methodical neatness: but they were small, chiefly old letters. "I don't see anything like a codicil," he observed. "You had better look yourself, Mr. Matiss; you will probably recognise it."
Mr. Matiss advanced to the desk and looked in it. "It is not here!" he exclaimed.
Not there! They gazed at him, at the desk, at Lionel, half puzzled. The lawyer, with rapid fingers, began taking out the papers one by one.
"No, it is not here, in either compartment. I saw it was not, the moment I looked in; but it was well to be sure. Where has it been put?"
"I really do not know anything about it," answered Lionel, to whom he looked as he spoke. "My uncle told me the will would be found in his desk. And the desk has not been opened since his death."
"Could Mr. Verner himself have changed its place to somewhere else?" asked the lawyer, speaking with more than usual quickness, and turning over the papers with great rapidity.
"Not after he told me where the will was. He did not touch the desk after that. It was but just before his death. So far as I know, he had not had his desk brought out of the closet for days."
"Yes, he had," said the lawyer. "After he had executed the codicil on the evening previous to his death, he called for his desk, and put the parchment into it. It lay on the top of the will--this one. I saw that much."
"I can testify that the codicil was locked in the desk, and the desk was then returned to the closet, for I happened to be present," spoke up Dr. West. "I was one of the witnesses to the codicil, as I had been to the will. Mr. Verner must have moved it himself to some safer place."
"What place could be safer than the desk in his own bedroom?" cried the lawyer. "And why move the codicil and not the will?"
"True," assented Dr. West. "But--I don't see--it could not go out of the desk without being moved out. And who would presume to meddle with it but himself? Who took possession of his keys when he died?" added the doctor, looking round at Mrs. Verner.
"I did," said Lionel. "And they have not been out of my possession since. Nothing whatever has been touched; desk, drawers, every place belonging to him are as they were left when he died."
Of course the only thing to do was to look for the codicil. Great interest was excited; and it appeared to be altogether so mysterious an affair that one and all flocked upstairs to the room; the room where he had died! whence the coffin had but just been borne. Mrs. Tynn was summoned; and when she found what was amiss, she grew excited; fearing, possibly, that the blame might in some way fall upon her. Saving Lionel himself, she was the only one who had been alone with Mr. Verner; of course, the only one who could have had an opportunity of tampering with the desk. And that, only when the patient slept.
"I protest that the desk was never touched, after I returned it to the closet by my master's desire, when the parchment was put into it!" she cried. "My master never asked for his desk again, and I never so much as opened the closet. It was only the afternoon before he died, gentlemen, that the deed was signed."
"Where did he keep his keys?" asked Mr. Bitterworth.
"In the little table-drawer at his elbow, sir. The first day he took to his bed, he wanted his keys, and I got them out of his dressing-gown pocket for him. 'You needn't put them back,' he says to me; 'let them stop inside this little drawer.' And there they stayed till he died, when I gave them up to Mr. Lionel."
"You must have allowed somebody to get into the room, Mrs. Tynn," said Dr. West.
"I never was away from the room above two minutes at a time, sir," was the woman's reply, "and then either Mr. Lionel or Tynn would be with him. But, if any of 'em did come in, it's not possible they'd get picking at the master's desk to take out a paper. What good would the paper do any of the servants?"
Mrs. Tynn's question was a pertinent one. The servants were neither the better nor the worse for the codicil; whether it were forthcoming, or not, it made no difference to them. Sir Rufus Hautley inquired upon this point, and the lawyer satisfied him.
"The codicil was to this effect alone," he explained. "It changed the positions of Mr. Lionel and Mr. John Massingbird, the one for the other, as they had stood in the will. Mr. Lionel came into the inheritance, and Mr. Frederick Massingbird to five hundred pounds only. Mr. John was gone--as everybody knows."
"These two, Mr. Lionel and Frederick Massingbird, were the only parties interested in the codicil, then?"
"The only two. John Massingbird's name was mentioned, but only to revoke all former bequests to him."
"Then--were John Massingbird alive, he could not now succeed to the estate!" cried Sir Rufus.
"He could not, Sir Rufus," replied the lawyer. "He would be debarred from all benefit under Mr. Verner's will. That is, provided we can come across the codicil. Failing that, he would succeed were he in life, to Verner's Pride."
"The codicil must be found," cried Mr. Bitterworth, getting heated. "Don't say, 'if we can come across it,' Matiss."
"Very good, Mr. Bitterworth. I'm sure I should be glad to see it found. Where else are we to look?"
Where else, indeed! That Mr. Verner could not get out of the room to hide the codicil was an indisputable fact; and nobody else seemed to know anything whatever about it. The only one personally interested in the suppression of the codicil was Frederick Massingbird; and he, hundreds of miles away, could neither have secured it nor sent his ghost to secure it. In a less degree, Mrs. Verner and Dr. West were interested; the one in her son, the other in that son's wife. But the doctor was not an inmate of Verner's Pride; and Mrs. Tynn could have testified that she had been present in the room and never left it during each of the doctor's professional visits, subsequent to the drawing out of the codicil. As for Mrs. Verner, she had not been out of her bed. Mr. Verner, at the last, had gone off suddenly, without pain, and there had been no time to call his wife. Mrs. Tynn excused the negligence by saying she did not think her master had been quite so near his end; and it was a true excuse. But no one dreamed of attaching suspicion to Mrs. Verner, or to Dr. West. "I'd rather it had been Lionel to succeed than Frederick," spoke the former, honestly, some faint idea that people might think she was pleased suggesting the avowal to her. "Lionel has more right than Fred to Verner's Pride."
"More right!" ejaculated Dr. West warmly. "Frederick Massingbird has no right, by the side of Lionel Verner. Why Mr. Verner ever willed it away from Lionel we could not understand."
"Fred needn't take it--even if the codicil can't be found--he can give it back to Lionel by deed of gift," said practical Jan. "I should."
"That my master meant Mr. Lionel to succeed, is certain," interposed Tynn, the butler. "Nearly the last word he said to me, before the breath went out of his body, was an injunction to serve Mr. Lionel faithfully at Verner's Pride, as I had served him. There can be no difficulty in Mr. Lionel's succeeding, when my master's intentions were made so plain."
"Be quiet, Tynn," said Lionel. "I succeed by means of legal right to Verner's Pride, or I will not succeed at all."
"That's true," acquiesced the lawyer. "A will is a will, and must be acted upon. How on earth has that codicil got spirited away?"
How indeed! But for the plain fact, so positive and palpable before them, of the codicil's absence, they would have declared the loss to be an impossibility. Upstairs and down, the house was vainly searched for it; and the conclusion was at length unwillingly come to that Mr. Verner had repented of his bequest, had taken the codicil out of the desk, and burned it. The suggestion came from Mr. Bitterworth; and Mrs. Tynn acknowledged that it was just possible Mr. Verner's strength would allow him to accomplish so much, while her back was turned. And yet, how reconcile this with his dying charges to Lionel, touching the management of the estate?
The broad fact that there was the will, and that alone to act upon, untempered by a codicil, shone out all too clearly. Lionel Verner was displaced, and Frederick Massingbird was the heir.
Oh, if some impossible electric telegraph could but have carried the news over the waves of the sea, to the ship ploughing along the mid-path of the ocean; if the two fugitives in her could but have been spirited back again, as the codicil seemed to have been spirited away, how triumphantly would they have entered upon their sway at Verner's Pride.
XVIII. PERPLEXITY
It was a terrible blow; there was no doubt of that; very terrible to Lionel Verner, so proud and sensitive. Do not take the word proud in its wrong meaning. He did not set himself up for being better than others, or think everybody else dirt beneath his feet; but he was proud of his independence, of his unstained name--he was proud to own that fine place, Verner's Pride. And now Verner's Pride was dashed from him, and his independence seemed to have gone out with the blow, and a slight seemed to have fallen upon him, if not upon his name.
He had surely counted upon Verner's Pride. He had believed himself as indisputably its heir, as though he had been Stephen Verner's eldest son, and the estate entailed. Never for a moment had a doubt that he would succeed entered his own mind, or been imparted to it from any quarter. In the week that intervened between Mr. Verner's death and burial, he had acted as entire master. It was he who issued orders--from himself now, not from any other--it was he who was appealed to. People, of their own accord, began to call him Mr. Verner. Very peremptory indeed had been a certain interview of his with Roy the bailiff. Not, as formerly, had he said, "Roy, my uncle desires me to say so and so;" or, "Roy, you must not act in that way, it would displease Mr. Verner;" but he issued his own clear and unmistakable orders, as the sole master of Verner's Pride. He and Roy all but came to loggerheads that day; and they would have come quite to it, but that Roy remembered in time that he, before whom he stood, was his head and master--his master to keep him on, or to discharge him at pleasure, and who would brook no more insubordination to his will. So Roy bowed, and ate humble pie, and hated Lionel all the while. Lionel had seen this; he had seen how the man longed to rebel, had he dared: and now a flush of pain rose to his brow as he remembered that in that interview he had not been the master; that he was less master now than he had ever been. Roy would likewise remember it.
Mr. Bitterworth took Lionel aside. Sir Rufus Hautley had gone out after the blow had fallen, when the codicil had been searched for in vain, had gone out in anger, shaking the dust from his feet, declining to act as executor, to accept the mourning-ring, to have to do with anything so palpably unjust. The rest lingered yet. It seemed that they could not talk enough of it, could not tire of bringing forth new conjectures, could not give vent to all the phases of their astonishment.
"What could have been your offence, that your uncle should alter his will, two years ago, and leave the estate from you?" Mr. Bitterworth inquired of Lionel, drawing him aside.
"I am unable to conjecture," replied Lionel. "I find by the date of this will that it was made the week subsequent to my departure for Paris, when Jan met with the accident. He was not displeased with me then, so far as I knew----"
"Did you go to Paris in opposition to his wish?" interrupted Mr. Bitterworth.
"On the contrary, he hurried me off. When the news of Jan's accident arrived, and I went to my uncle with the message, he said to me--I remember his very words--'Go off at once; don't lose an instant,' and he handed me money for the journey and for my stay; for Jan, also, should any great expense be needed for him; and in an hour I was away on my route. I stayed six months in Paris, as you may remember--the latter portion of the time for my own pleasure. When I did return home, I was perfectly thunderstruck at the change in my uncle's appearance, and at the change in his manners to me. He was a bowed, broken man, with--as it seemed to me--some care upon his mind; and that I had offended him in some very unfortunate way, and to a great extent, was palpable. I never could get any solution to it, though I asked him repeatedly. I do not know, to this hour, what I had done. Sometimes I thought he was angry at my remaining so long away; but, if so, he might have given me a hint to return, or have suffered some one else to give it, for he never wrote to me."
"Never wrote to you?" repeated Mr. Bitterworth.
"Not once, the whole of the time I was away. I wrote to him often; but if he had occasion to send me a message, Mrs. Verner or Fred Massingbird would write it. Of course, this will, disinheriting me, proves that my staying away could not have been the cause of displeasure--it is dated only the week after I went."
"Whatever may have been the cause, it is a grievous wrong inflicted on you. He was my dear friend, and we have but now returned from laying him in his grave, but still I must speak out my sentiments--that he had no right to deprive you of Verner's Pride."
Lionel knit his brow. That he thought the same; that he was feeling the injustice as a crying and unmerited wrong, was but too evident. Mr. Bitterworth had bent his head in a reverie, stealing a glance at Lionel now and then.
"Is there nothing that you can charge your conscience with; no sin, which may have come to the knowledge of your uncle, and been deemed by him a just cause for disinheritance?" questioned Mr. Bitterworth, in a meaning tone.
"There is nothing, so help me Heaven!" replied Lionel, with emotion. "No sin, no shame; nothing that could be a cause, or the shade of a cause--I will not say for depriving me of Verner's Pride, but even for my uncle's displeasure."
"It struck me--you will not be offended with me, Lionel, if I mention something that struck me a week back," resumed Mr. Bitterworth. "I am a foolish old man, given to ponder much over cause and effect--to put two and two together, as we call it; and the day I first heard from your uncle that he had had good cause--it was what he said--for depriving you of Verner's Pride, I went home, and set myself to think. The will had been made just after John Massingbird's departure for Australia. I brought before me all the events which had occurred about that same time, and there rose up naturally, towering above every other reminiscence, the unhappy business touching Rachel Frost. Lionel"--laying his hand on the young man's shoulder and dropping his voice to a whisper--"did you lead the girl astray?"
Lionel drew himself up to his full height, his lip curling with displeasure.
"Mr. Bitterworth!"
"To suspect you never would have occurred to me. I do not suspect you now. Were you to tell me that you were guilty of it, I should have difficulty in believing you. But it did occur to me that possibly your uncle may have cast that blame on you. I saw no other solution of the riddle. It could have been no light cause to induce Mr. Verner to deprive you of Verner's Pride. He was not a capricious man.'
"It is impossible that my uncle could have cast a shade of suspicion on me, in regard to that affair," said Lionel. "He knew me better. At the moment of its occurrence, when nobody could tell whom to suspect, I remember a word or two were dropped which caused me to assure him I was not the guilty party, and he stopped me. He would not allow me even to speak of defence; he said he cast no suspicion on me."
"Well, it is a great mystery," said Mr. Bitterworth. "You must excuse me, Lionel. I thought Mr. Verner might in some way have taken up the notion. Evil tales, which have no human foundation, are sometimes palmed upon credulous ears for fact, and do their work."
"Were it as you suggest, my uncle would have spoken to me, had it been only to reproach," said Lionel. "It is a mystery, certainly, as you observe; but that is nothing to this mystery of the disappearance of the codicil----"
"I am going, Lionel," interrupted Jan, putting his head round the room door.
"I must go, too," said Lionel, starting from the sideboard against which he had been leaning. "My mother must hear of this business from no one but me."
Verner's Pride emptied itself of its mourners, who betook themselves their respective ways. Lionel, taking the long crape from his hat, and leaving on its deep mourning band alone, walked with a quick step through the village. He would not have chosen to be abroad that day, walking the very route where he had just figured chief in the procession, but to go without delay to Lady Verner was a duty. And a duty was never willingly omitted by Lionel Verner.
XIX. THE REVELATION TO LADY VERNER
IN the drawing-room at Deerham Court, in their new black dresses, sat Lady Verner and Decima; Lucy Tempest with them. Lady Verner held out her hand to Lionel when he entered, and lifted her face, a strange eagerness visible in its refinement.
"I thought you would come to me, Lionel!" she uttered. "I want to know a hundred things.--Decima, have the goodness to direct your reproachful looks elsewhere; not to me. Why should I be a hypocrite, and feign a sorrow for Stephen Verner which I do not feel? I know it is his burial-day as well as you know it; but I will not make that a reason for abstaining from questions on family topics, although they do relate to money and means that were once his. I say it would be hypocritical affectation to do so. Lionel," she deliberately continued, "has Jan an interest in Verner's Pride after you, or is it left to you unconditionally? And what residence is appointed for Mrs. Verner?"
Lionel leaned over the table, apparently to reach something that was lying on it, contriving to bring his lips close to Decima. "Go out of the room, and take Lucy," he whispered.
Decima received the hint promptly. She rose as of her own accord. "Lucy, let us leave mamma and Lionel alone. We will come back when your secrets are over," she added, turning round with a smile as she left the room, drawing Lucy with her.
"You don't speak, Lionel," impatiently cried Lady Verner. In truth he did not; he did not know how to begin. He rose, and approached her.
"Mother, can you bear disappointment?" he asked, taking her hand, and speaking gently, in spite of his agitation.
"Hush!" interrupted Lady Verner. "If you speak of 'disappointment' to me, you are no true son of mine. You are going to tell me that Stephen Verner has left nothing to me. Let me tell you, Lionel, that I would not have accepted it--and this I made known to him. Accept money from him! No. But I will accept it from my dear son,"--looking at him with a smile--"now that he enjoys the revenues of Verner's Pride."
"It was not with money left, or not left, to you, that I was connecting disappointment," answered Lionel. "There is a worse disappointment in store for us than that, mother."
"A worse disappointment!" repeated Lady Verner, looking puzzled. "You are never to be saddled with the presence of Mrs. Verner at Verner's Pride, until her death!" she hastily added. A great disappointment, that would have been; a grievous wrong, in the estimation of Lady Verner.
"Mother, dear, Verner's Pride is not mine."
"Not yours!" she slowly said. "He surely has not done as his father did before him?--left it to the younger brother, over the head of the elder? He has never left it to Jan!"
"Neither to Jan nor to me. It is left to Frederick Massingbird. John would have had it, had he been alive."
Lady Verner's delicate features became crimson; before she could speak, they had assumed a leaden colour. "Don't play with me, Lionel," she gasped, an awful fear thumping at her heart that he was not playing with her. "It cannot be left to the Massingbirds!"
He sat down by her side, and gave her the history of the matter in detail. Lady Verner caught at the codicil, as a drowning man catches at a straw.
"How could you terrify me?" she asked. "Verner's Pride is yours, Lionel. The codicil must be found."
"The conviction upon my mind is that it never will be found," he resolutely answered. "Whoever took that codicil from the desk where it was placed, could have had but one motive in doing it--the depriving me of Verner's Pride. Rely upon it, it is effectually removed ere this, by burning, or otherwise. No. I already look upon the codicil as a thing that never existed. Verner's Pride is gone from us."
"But, Lionel, whom do you suspect? Who can have taken it? It is pretty nearly a hanging matter to steal a will!"
"I do not suspect any one," he emphatically answered. "Mrs. Tynn protests that no one could have approached the desk unseen by her. It is very unlikely that any one could have burnt it. They must, first of all, have chosen a moment when my uncle was asleep; they must have got Mrs. Tynn from the room; they must have searched for and found the keys; they must have unlocked the desk, taken the codicil, relocked the desk, and replaced the keys. All this could not be done without time, and familiarity with facts. Not a servant in the house--save the Tynns--knew the codicil was there, and they did not know its purport. But the Tynns are thoroughly trustworthy."
"It must have been Mrs. Verner----"
"Hush, mother! I cannot listen to that, even from you. Mrs. Verner was in her bed--never out of it; she knew nothing whatever of the codicil. And, if she had, you will, I hope, do her the justice to believe that she would be incapable of meddling with it."
"She benefits by its loss, at any rate," bitterly rejoined Lady Verner.
"Her son does. But that he does was entirely unknown to her. She never knew that Mr. Verner had willed the estate away from me; she never dreamed but that I, and no other, would be his successor. The accession of Frederick Massingbird is unwelcome to her, rather than the contrary; he has no right to it, and she feels that he has not. In the impulse of the surprise, she said aloud that she wished it had been left to me; and I am sure these were her true sentiments."
Lady Verner sat in silence, her white hands crossed on her black dress, her head bent down. Presently she lifted it----
"I do not fully understand you, Lionel. You appear to imply that--according to your belief--no one has touched the codicil. How, then, can it have got out of the desk?"
"There is only one solution. It was suggested by Mr. Bitterworth; and, though I refused credence to it when he spoke, it has since been gaining upon my mind. He thinks my uncle must have repented of the codicil after it was made, and himself destroyed it. I should give full belief to this were it not that at the very last he spoke to me as the successor to Verner's Pride."
"Why did he will it from you at all?" asked Lady Verner.
"I know not. I have told you how estranged his manner has been to me for the last year or two; but wherefore, or what I had done to displease him, I cannot think or imagine."
"He had no right to will away the estate from you," vehemently rejoined Lady Verner. "Was it not enough that he usurped your father's birth-right, as Jacob usurped Esau's, keeping you out of it for years and years, but he must now deprive you of it for ever? Had you been dead--had there been any urgent reason why you should not succeed--Jan should have come in. Jan is the lawful heir, failing you. Mark me, Lionel, it will bring no good to Frederick Massingbird. Rights, violently diverted out of their course, can bring only wrong and confusion."
"It would be scarcely fair were it to bring him ill," spoke Lionel, in his strict justice. "Frederick has had nothing to do with my uncle's bequeathing the estate to him."
"Nonsense, Lionel! you cannot make me believe that no cajolery has been at work from some quarter or other," peevishly answered Lady Verner. "Tell the facts to an impartial person--a stranger. They were always about him--his wife and those Massingbirds--and at the last moment it is discovered that he has left all to them, and disinherited you."
"Mother, you are mistaken. What my uncle has done, he has done of his own will alone, unbiassed by others; nay, unknown to others. He distinctly stated this to Matiss, when the change was made. No, although I am a sufferer, and they benefit, I cannot throw a shade of the wrong upon Mrs. Verner and the Massingbirds."
"I will tell you what I cannot do--and that is to accept your view of the disappearance of the codicil," said Lady Verner. "It does not stand to reason that your uncle would cause a codicil to be made, with all the haste and parade you speak of, only to destroy it afterwards. Depend upon it, you are wrong. He never took it."
"It does appear unlikely," acquiesced Lionel, after some moments of deliberation. "It was not likely, either, that he would destroy it in secret; he would have done it openly. And still less likely, that he would have addressed me as his successor in dying, and given me charges as to the management of the estate, had he left it away from me."
"No, no; no, no!" emphatically returned Lady Verner. "That codicil has been stolen, Lionel."
"But, by whom?" he debated. "There's not a servant in the house would do it; and there was no other inmate of it, save myself. This is my chief difficulty. Were it not for the total absence of all other suspicion, I should not for a moment entertain the thought that it could have been my uncle. Let us leave the subject, mother. It seems to be an unprofitable one, and my head is weary."
"Are you going to give the codicil tamely up for a bad job, without further search?" asked Lady Verner. "That I should live--that I should live to see Sibylla West's children inherit Verner's Pride!" she passionately added.
Sibylla West's children! Lionel had enough pain at his heart, just then, without that shaft. A piercing shaft truly, and it dyed his brow fiery red.
"We have searched already in every likely or possible place that we can think of; to-morrow morning, places unlikely and impossible will be searched," he said, in answer to his mother's question. "I shall be aided by the police; our searching is nothing compared with what they can do. They go about it artistically, perfected by practice."
"And--if the result should be a failure?"
"It will be a failure," spoke Lionel, in his firm conviction. "In which case I bid adieu to Verner's Pride."
"And come home here; will you not, Lionel?"
"For the present. And now, mother, that I have told you the ill news, and spoiled your rest, I must go back again."
Spoiled her rest! Ay, for many a day and night to come. Lionel disinherited! Verner's Pride gone from them for ever! A cry went forth from Lady Verner's heart. It had been the moment of hope which she had looked forward to for years; and, now that it was come, what had it brought?
"My own troubles make me selfish," said Lionel, turning back when he was half out at the door. "I forgot to tell you that Jan and Decima inherit five hundred pounds each."
"Five hundred pounds!" slightingly returned Lady Verner. "It is but of at piece with the rest."
He did not add that he had five hundred also, failing the estate. It would have seemed worse mockery still.
Looking out at the door, opposite to the ante-room, on the other side of the hall, was Decima. She had heard his step, and came to beckon him in. It was the dining-parlour, but a pretty room still; for Lady Verner would have nothing about her inelegant or ugly, if she could help it. Lucy Tempest, in her favourite school attitude, was half-kneeling, half-sitting on the rug before the fire; but she rose when Lionel came in.
Decima entwined her arm within his, and led him up to the fire-place. "Did you bring mamma bad news?" she asked. "I thought I read it in your countenance."
"Very bad, Decima. Or I should not have sent you away while I told it."
"I suppose there's nothing left for mamma, or for Jan?"
"Mamma did not expect anything left for her, Decima. Don't go away, Lucy," he added, arresting Lucy Tempest, who, with good taste, was leaving them alone. "Stay and hear how poor I am; all Deerham knows it by this time."
Lucy remained. Decima, her beautiful features a shade paler than usual, turned her serene eyes on Lionel. She little thought what was coming.
"Verner's Pride is left away from me, Decima."
"Left away from you! From you?"
"Frederick Massingbird inherits. I am passed over."
"Oh, Lionel!" The words were not uttered angrily, passionately, as Lady Verner's had been; but in a low, quiet voice, wrung from her, seemingly, by intense inward pain.
"And so there will be some additional trouble for you in the housekeeping line," went on Lionel, speaking gaily, and ignoring all the pain at his heart. "Turned out of Verner's Pride, I must come to you here--at least, for a time. What shall you say to that, Miss Lucy?"
Lucy was looking up at him gravely, not smiling in the least. "Is it true that you have lost Verner's Pride?" she asked.
"Quite true."
"But I thought it was yours--after Mr. Verner."
"I thought so too, until to-day," replied Lionel. "It ought to have been mine."
"What shall you do without it?"
"What, indeed!" he answered. "From being a landed country gentleman--as people have imagined me--I go down to a poor fellow who must work for his bread and cheese before he eats it. Your eyes are laughing, Miss Lucy, but it is true."
"Bread and cheese costs nothing," said she.
"No? And the plate you put it on, and the knife you eat it with, and the glass of beer to help it go down, and the coat you wear during the repast, and the room it's served in?--they cost something, Miss Lucy."
Lucy laughed. "I think you will always have enough bread and cheese," said she. "You look as though you would."
Decima turned to them. She had stood buried in a reverie, until the light tone of Lionel aroused her from it. "Which is real, Lionel? This joking, or that you have lost Verner's Pride?"
"Both," he answered. "I am disinherited from Verner's Pride; better perhaps that I should joke over it, than cry."
"What will mamma do? What will mamma do?" breathed Decima. "She has so counted upon it. And what will you do, Lionel?"
"Decima!" came forth at this moment from the opposite room, in the imperative voice of Lady Verner.
Decima turned in obedience to it, her step less light than usual. Lucy addressed Lionel.
"One day at the rectory there came a gipsy woman, wanting to tell our fortunes; she accosted us in the garden. Mr. Cust sent her away, and she was angry, and told him his star was not in the ascendant. I think it must be the case at present with your star, Mr. Verner."
Lionel smiled. "Yes, indeed."
"It is not only one thing that you are losing; it is more. First, that pretty girl whom you loved; then, Mr. Verner; and now, Verner's Pride. I wish I knew how to comfort you."
Lucy Tempest spoke with the most open simplicity, exactly as a sister might have done. But the one allusion grated on Lionel's heart.
"You are very kind, Lucy. Good-bye. Tell Decima I shall see her some time to-morrow."
Lucy Tempest looked after him from the window as he paced the inclosed courtyard. "I cannot think how people can be unjust!" was her thought. "If Verner's Pride was rightly his, why have they taken it from him?"
XX. DRY WORK
Certainly Lionel Verner's star was not in the ascendant--though Lucy Tempest had used the words in jest. His love gone from him; his fortune and position wrested from him; all become the adjuncts of one man, Frederick Massingbird. Serenely, to outward appearance, as Lionel had met the one blow, so did he now meet the other; and none, looking on his calm bearing, could suspect what the loss was to him. But it is the silent sorrow that eats into the heart; the loud grief does not tell upon it.
An official search had been made; but no trace could be found of the missing codicil. Lionel had not expected that it would be found. He regarded it as a deed which had never had existence, and took up his abode with his mother. The village could not believe it; the neighbourhood resented it. People stood in groups to talk it over. It did certainly appear to be a most singular and almost incredible thing, that, in the enlightened days of the latter half of the nineteenth century, an official deed should disappear out of a gentleman's desk, in his own well-guarded residence, in his habited chamber. Conjectures and thoughts were freely bandied about; while Dr. West and Jan grew nearly tired of the particulars demanded of them in their professional visits, for their patients would talk of nothing else.
The first visible effect that the disappointment had, was to stretch Lady Verner on a sick-bed. She fell into a low, nervous state of prostration, and her irritability--it must be confessed--was great. But for this illness, Lionel would have been away. Thrown now upon his own resources, he looked steadily into the future, and strove to chalk out a career for himself; one by which--as he had said to Lucy Tempest--he might earn bread and cheese. Of course, at Lionel Verner's age, and reared to no profession, unfamiliar with habits of business, that was easier thought of than done. He had no particular talent for literature; he believed that, if he tried his hand at that, the bread might come, but the cheese would be doubtful--although he saw men, with even less aptitude for it than he, turning to it and embracing it with all the confidence in the world, as if it were an ever-open resource for all, when other trades failed. There were the three professions; but were they available? Lionel felt no inclination to become a working drudge like poor Jan; and the Church, for which he had not any liking, he was by far too conscientious to embrace only as a means of living. There remained the Bar; and to that he turned his attention, and resolved to qualify himself for it. That there would be grinding, and drudgery, and hard work, and no pay for years, he knew; but, so there might be, go to what he would. The Bar did hold out a chance of success, and there was nothing in it derogatory to the notions in which he had been reared--those of a gentleman.
Jan came to him one day about the time of the decision, and Lionel told him that he should soon be away; that he intended to enter himself at the Middle Temple, and take chambers.
"Law!" said Jan. "Why, you'll be forty, maybe, before you ever get a brief. You should have entered earlier."
"Yes. But how was I to know that things would turn out like this?"
"Look here," said Jan, tilting himself in a very uncomfortable fashion on the high back of an arm-chair, "there's that five hundred pounds. You can have that."
"What five hundred pounds?" asked Lionel.
"The five hundred that Uncle Stephen left me. I don't want it. Old West gives me as much as keeps me in clothes and that, which is all I care about. You take the money and use it."
"No, Jan. Thank you warmly, old boy, all the same; but I'd not take your poor little bit of money if I were starving."
"What's the good of it to me?" persisted Jan, swaying his legs about. "I can't use it: I have got nothing to use it in. I have put it in the bank at Heartburg, but the bank may go smash, you know, and then who'd be the better for the money? You take it and make sure of it, Lionel."
Lionel smiled at him. Jan was as simple and single-hearted in his way as Lucy Tempest was in hers. But Lionel must want money very grievously indeed, before he would have consented to take honest Jan's.
"I have five hundred of my own, you know, Jan," he said. "More than I can use yet awhile."
So he fixed upon the Bar, and would have hastened to London but for Lady Verner's illness. In the weak, low state to which disappointment and irritability had reduced her, she could not bear to lose sight of Lionel, or permit him to depart. "It will be time enough when I am dead; and that won't be long first," was the constant burden of her song to him.
He believed his mother to be little more likely to die than he was, but he was too dutiful a son to cross her in her present state. He gathered certain ponderous tomes about him, and began studying law on his own account, shutting himself up in his room all day to do it. Awfully dry work he found it; not in the least congenial; and many a time did he long to pitch the whole lot into the pleasant rippling stream, running through the grounds of Sir Rufus Hautley, which danced and glittered in the sun in view of Lionel's window.
He could not remain at his daily study without interruptions. They were pretty frequent. People--tenants, workmen, and others--would persist in coming for orders to Mr. Lionel. In vain Lionel told them that he could not give orders, could not interfere; that he had no longer anything to do with Verner's Pride. They could not be brought to understand why he was not their master as usual--at any rate, why he could not act as one, and interpose between them and the tyrant, Roy. In point of fact, Mr. Roy was head and master of the estate just now, and a nice head and master he made! Mrs. Verner, shut up in Verner's Pride with her ill health, had no conception what games were being played. "Let be, let be," the people would say. "When Mr. Fred Massingbird comes home, Roy'll get called to account, and receive his deserts;" a fond belief in which all did not join. Many entertained a shrewd suspicion that Mr. Fred Massingbird was too much inclined to be a tyrant on his own account, to disapprove of the acts of Roy. Lionel's blood often boiled at what he saw and heard, and he wished he could put miles between himself and Deerham.
XXI. A WHISPERED SUSPICION
Dr. West was crossing the courtyard one day, after paying his morning visit to Lady Verner, when he was waylaid by Lionel.
"How long will my mother remain in this weak state?" he inquired.
Dr. West lifted his arched eyebrows. "It is impossible to say, Mr. Lionel. These cases of low nervous fever are sometimes very much protracted."
"Lady Verner's is not nervous fever," dissented Lionel.
"It approaches near to it."
"The fact is, I want to be away," said Lionel.
"There is no reason why you should not be away, if you wish it," rejoined the physician. "Lady Verner is not in any danger; she is sure to recover eventually."
"I know that. At least, I hope it is sure," returned Lionel. "But, in the state she is, I cannot reason with her, or talk to her of the necessity of my being away. Any approach to the topic irritates her."
"I should go, and say nothing to her beforehand," observed Dr. West. "When she found you were really off, and that there was no remedy for it, she must perforce reconcile herself to it."
Every fond feeling within Lionel revolted at the suggestion. "We are speaking of my mother, doctor," was his courteously-uttered rebuke.
"Well, if you would not like to do that, there's nothing for it but patience," the doctor rejoined, as he drew open one of the iron gates. "Lady Verner may be no better than she is now for weeks to come. Good-day, Mr. Lionel."
Lionel paced into the house with a slow step, and went up to his mother's chamber. She was lying on a couch by the fire, her eyes closed, her pale features contracted as if with pain. Her maid Therese appeared to be busy with her, and Lionel called out Decima.
"There's no improvement, I hear, Decima."
"No. But, on the other hand, there is no danger. There's nothing even very serious, if Dr. West may be believed. Do you know, Lionel, what I fancy he thinks?"
"What?" asked Lionel.
"That if mamma were obliged to exert and rouse herself--were like any poor person, for instance, who cannot lie by and be nursed--she would be well directly. And--unkind, unlike a daughter as it may seem in me to acknowledge it--I do very much incline to the same opinion."
Lionel made no reply.
"Only Dr. West has not the candour to say so," went on Decima. "So long as he can keep her lying here, he will do it; she is a good patient for him. Poor mamma gives way, and he helps her to do it. I wish she would discard him, and trust to Jan."
"You don't like Dr. West, Decima?"
"I never did," said Decima. "And I believe that, in skill, Jan is quite equal to him. There's this much to be said of Jan, that he is sincere and open as if he were made of glass. Jan will never keep a patient in bed unnecessarily, or give the smallest dose more than is absolutely requisite. Did you hear of Sir Rufus Hautley sending for Jan?"
"No."
"He is ill, it seems. And when he sent to Dr. West's, he expressly desired that it might be Mr. Jan Verner to answer the summons. Dr. West will not forgive that in a hurry."
"That comes of prejudice," said Lionel; "prejudice not really deserved by Dr. West. Since the reading of the will, Sir Rufus has been bitter against the Massingbirds; and Dr. West, as connected with them, comes in for his share of the feeling."
"I hope he may not deserve it in any worse way than as connected with them," returned Decima, with more acrimony than she, in her calm gentleness, was accustomed to speak.
The significant tone struck Lionel. "What do you mean, Decima?"
Decima glanced round. They were standing at the far end of the corridor at the window which overlooked the domains of Sir Rufus Hautley. The doors of the several rooms were closed, and no one was about. Decima spoke in a whisper--
"Lionel, I cannot divest myself of the opinion that--that----"
"That what?" he asked, looking at her in wonder, for she was hesitating strangely, her manner shrinking, her voice awe-struck.
"That it was Dr. West who took the codicil."
Lionel's face flushed--partially with pain; he did not like to hear it said, even by Decima.
"You have never suspected so much yourself?" she asked.
"Never, never. I hope I never shall suspect it. Decima, you perhaps cannot help the thought, but you can help speaking of it."
"I did not mean to vex you. Somehow, Lionel, it is for your sake that I seem to have taken a dislike to the Wests----"
"To take a dislike to people is no just cause for accusing them of crime," he interrupted. "Decima, you are not like yourself to-day."
"Do you suppose that it is my dislike which caused me to suspect him. No, Lionel. I seem to see people and their motives very clearly; and I do honestly believe"--she dropped her voice still lower--"that Dr. West is a man capable of almost anything. At the time when the codicil was being searched for, I used to think and think it over, how it could be--how it could have disappeared. All its points, all its bearings, I deliberated upon again and again. One certain thing was, the codicil could not have disappeared from the desk without its having been taken out. Another point, almost equally certain to my mind, was that my Uncle Stephen did not take it out, but died in the belief that it was in, and that it would give you your inheritance. A third point was, that whoever took it must have had some strong motive for the act. Who (with possible access to the desk) could have had this motive, even in a remote degree? There were but two--Dr. West and Mrs. Verner. Mrs. Verner I judge to be incapable of anything so wrong; Dr. West I believe to be capable of even worse than that. Hence I drew my deductions."
"Deductions which I shall never accept, and which I would advise you to get rid of, Decima," was his answer. "My dear, never let such an accusation cross your lips again."
"I never shall. I have told you; and that is enough. I have longed to tell you for some time past. I did not think you would believe me."
"Believe it, you should say, Decima. Dr. West take the codicil! Were I to bring myself to that belief, I think all my faith in man would go out. You are sadly prejudiced against the Wests."
"And you in their favour," she could not help saying. "But I shall ever be thankful for one thing--that you have escaped Sibylla."
Was he thankful for it? Scarcely, while that pained heart of his, those coursing pulses, could beat on in this tumultuous manner at the bare sound of her name.
In the silence that ensued--for neither felt inclined to break it--they heard a voice in the hall below, inquiring whether Mr. Verner was within. Lionel recognised it as Tynn's.
"For all I know he is," answered old Catherine. "I saw him a few minutes agone in the court out there, a-talking to the doctor."
"Will you please ask if I can speak to him."
Lionel did not wait further, but descended to the hall. The butler, in his deep mourning, had taken his seat on the bench. He rose as Lionel approached.
"Well, Tynn, how are you? What is it?"
"My mistress has sent me to ask if you'd be so kind as come to Verner's Pride, sir?" said Tynn, standing with his hat in his hand. "She bade me say that she did not feel well enough, or she'd have written you a note with the request, but she wishes particularly to see you."
"Does she wish to see me to-day?"
"As soon as ever you could get there, sir, I fancy. I am sure she meant to-day."
"Very well, Tynn. I'll come over. How is your mistress?"
"She's very well, sir, now; but she gets worried on all sides about things out-of-doors."
"Who worries her with those tales?" asked Lionel.
"Everybody almost does, sir, as comes a-nigh her. First it's one complaint that's brought to the house, of things going wrong, and then it's another complaint--and the women servants, they have not the sense to keep it from her. My wife can't keep her tongue still upon it, and can't see that the rest do. Might I ask how her ladyship is to-day, sir?"
"Not any better, Tynn. Tell Mrs. Verner I will be with her almost immediately."
Lionel lost little time in going to Vender's Pride. Turned from it as he had been, smarting under the injustice and the pain, many a one would have haughtily refused to re-enter it, whatever might have been the emergency. Not so Lionel. He had chosen to quit Verner's Pride as his residence, but he had remained entirely good friends with Mrs. Verner, calling on her at times. Not upon her would Lionel visit his displeasure.
It was somewhat curious that she had taken to sit in the old study of Stephen Verner; a room which she had rarely entered during his lifetime. Perhaps some vague impression that she was now a woman of business, or ought to be one, that she herself was in sole charge for the absent heir, had induced her to take up her daily sitting amidst the drawers, bureaux, and other places which had contained Mr. Verner's papers--which contained them still. She had, however, never yet looked at one. If anything came up to the house, leases, deeds, other papers, she would say: "Tynn, see to it," or "Tynn, take it over to Mr. Lionel Verner, and ask what's to be done." Lionel never refused to say.
She was sitting back in Mr. Verner's old chair, now, filling it a great deal better than he used to do. Lionel took her hand cordially. Every time he saw her he thought her looking bigger and bigger. However much she may have grieved at the time for her son John's death, it had not taken away either her flesh or her high colour. Nothing would have troubled Mrs. Verner permanently, unless it had been the depriving her of her meals. Now John was gone, she cared for nothing else in life.
"It's kind of you to come, Lionel," said she. "I want to talk to you. What will you have?--some wine?"
"Not anything," replied Lionel. "Tynn said you wished to see me for something particular."
"And so I do. You must take the management of the estate until Fred's at home."
The words grated on his ear, and his brow knit itself into lines. But he answered calmly--
"I cannot do that, Mrs. Verner."
"Then what can I do?" she asked. "Here's all this great estate, nobody to see after it, nobody to take it in charge! I'm sure I have no more right to be teased over it than you have, Lionel."
"It is your son's."
"I asked you not to leave Verner's Pride. I asked you to take the management of out-door things! You did so, between your uncle's death and his burial."
"Believing that I was taking the management of what was mine," replied Lionel.
"Why do you visit upon me the blame of all that has happened?" pursued Mrs. Verner. "I declare that I knew nothing of what was done; I could not believe my own ears when I heard Matiss read out the will. You should not blame me."
"I never have blamed you for it, Mrs. Verner. I believe you to be as innocent of blame in the matter as I am."
"Then you ought not to turn haughty and cold, and refuse to help me. They are going to have me up before the Justice Courts at Heartburg!"
"Have you up before the Justice Courts at Heartburg!" repeated Lionel, in great astonishment.
"It's all through Roy; I know it is. There's some stupid dispute about a lease, and I am to be had up in evidence. Did you hear of the threat?"
"What threat?" asked he.
"Some of the men are saying they'll burn down Verner's Pride. Roy turned them off the brick-yard, and they threaten they'll do it out of revenge. If you would just look to things and keep Roy quiet, nothing of this would happen."
Lionel knew that.
"Mrs. Verner," he said, "were you the owner of Verner's Pride, I would spare no pains to help you. But I cannot act for Frederick Massingbird."
"What has Fred done to you?" she asked quickly.
"That is not the question--he has done nothing," answered Lionel, speaking more rapidly still. "My management would--if I know anything of him--be essentially different from your son's; different from what he would approve. Neither would I take authority upon myself only to have it displaced upon his return. Have Roy before you, Mrs. Verner, and caution him."
"It does no good. I have already had him. He smoothes things over to me, so that black looks white. Lionel, I must say that you are unkind and obstinate."
"I do not think I am naturally either one or the other," he answered, smiling. "Perhaps it might answer your purpose to put things into the hands of Matiss, until your son's return."
"He won't take it," she answered. "I sent for him--what with this court business and the threat of incendiarism, I am like one upon thorns--and he said he would not undertake it. He seemed to fear contact with Roy."
"Were I to take the management, Mrs. Verner, my first act would be to discharge Roy."
Mrs. Verner tried again to shake his resolution. But he was quite firm. And, wishing her good-day, he left Verner's Pride, and bent his steps towards the village.
XXII. PECKABY'S SHOP
On passing through Deerham from Verner's Pride, a little below the shop of Mrs. Duff, you come upon an opening on the left hand, which led to quite a swarm of cottages. Many of the labourers congregated here. If you took this turning, which was called Clay Lane, and continued your way past the cottages in a straight line over the fields, you would arrive at the residence of the gamekeeper, Broom, leaving some brick-fields to the right, and the Willow Pool, which had been the end of poor Rachel Frost, on the left. But, unless you climbed hedges, you could not get to the pool from this quarter without going round, near the gamekeeper's. The path which led to Verner's Pride past the pool, and which Rachel had taken that unfortunate night, had its commencement higher up in the village, above Mrs. Duff's. A few cottages were scattered again beyond the gamekeeper's, and one or two on this side it; but we have nothing to do with them at present.
A great part of the ill-feeling rife on the estate was connected with these brick-fields. It had been a great mistake on Mr. Verner's part ever to put Roy into power; had Mr. Verner been in the habit of going out of doors himself, he would have seen this, and not kept the man on a week. The former bailiff had died suddenly. He, the bailiff, had given some little power to Roy during his lifetime; had taken him on as a sort of inferior helper; and Mr. Verner, put to shifts by the bailiffs death, had allowed Roy so to continue. Bit by bit, step by step, gradually, covertly, the man made good his footing: no other was put over his head, and in time he came to be called Roy the bailiff, without having ever been formally appointed as bailiff. He drew his two pounds per week--his stipulated wages--and he made, it is hard to say what, besides. Avarice and tyranny were the predominant passions of Roy's mind; bad qualities, and likely to bring forth bad fruits when joined to petty power.
About three years previous to Mr. Verner's death, a stranger had appeared in Clay Lane, and set up a shop there. Nearly every conceivable thing in the shape of eatables was sold in it; that is, such eatables as are in request among the poor. Bread, flour, meat, potatoes, butter, tea, sugar, red herrings, and the like. Soap and candles were also sold; and afterwards the man added green vegetables and coals, the latter doled out by the measure, so much a "kipe." The man's name was Peckaby; he and his wife were without family, and they managed the shop between them. A tall, strong, brawny man was he; his wife was a remarkably tall woman, fond of gossip and of smart caps. She would go gadding out for hours at a stretch, leaving him to get through all the work at home, the preparing meals, the serving customers.
Folks fly to new things; to do so is a propensity inherent in human nature; and Mr. Peckaby's shop flourished. Not that he was much honoured with the complimentary "Mr."; his customers brought it out short--"Peckaby's shop." Much intimacy had appeared to exist from the first between him and Roy, so that it was surmised they had been previously acquainted. The prices were low, the shop was close at hand, and Clay Lane flocked to it.
New things, however, like new faces, are apt to turn out no better than the old; sometimes not as good. And thus it proved with Peckaby's shop. From rather underselling the shops of the village, Peckaby's shop grew to increase its charges until they were higher than those of anybody else; the wares also deteriorated in value. Clay Lane awoke to this by degrees, and would have taken its custom away; but that was more easily contemplated than done. A good many of its families had been allowed to get on Peckaby's books, and they also found that Roy set his face against their leaving the shop. For Roy to set his face against a measure was a formidable affair, not readily contended with: the labourers did not dare to fly in his face, lest he should make an excuse to take their work from them. He had already discharged several. So Clay Lane, for the most part, found itself tied to Peckaby's shop, and to paying some thirty per cent. beyond what they would have paid at the old shops; added to which was the grievance of being compelled to put up with very inferior articles. Dissatisfaction at this state of things had long been smouldering. It grew and grew, threatening to break out into open rebellion, perhaps to bloodshed. The neighbourhood cried shame upon Roy, and felt inclined to echo the cry upon Mrs. Verner; while Clay Lane openly avowed their belief that Peckaby's shop was Roy's shop, and that the Peckaby's were only put in to manage it.
One fearfully hot Monday morning, in the beginning of July, Lionel Verner was passing down Clay Lane. In another week he would be away from Deerham. Lady Verner's illness had commenced near the latter end of April, and it was growing towards the end of June before she began to get better, or would give Lionel leave to depart. Jan, plain-speaking, truth-telling Jan, had at length quietly told his mother that there was nothing the matter with her but "vexing and temper." Lady Verner went into hysterics at Jan's unfilial conduct; but, certain it was, from that very time she began to amend. July came in, and Lionel was permitted to fix the day for his departure.
Lionel was walking down Clay Lane. It was a short cut to Lord Elmsley's house over the hills, a mile or two distant. Not a very suitable day for a walk. Had Lionel been training for a light jockey, without any superfluous weight, he might have dispensed with extra covering in his exercise, and done as effectually without it. A hotter day never was known in our climate; a more intensely burning sun never rode in the heavens. It blazed down with a force that was almost unbearable, scorching and withering all within its radius. Lionel looked up at it; it seemed to blister his face and dazzle his eyes; and his resolution wavered as he thought of the walk before him. "I have a great mind not to go," said he mentally. "They can set up their targets without me. I shall be half dead by the time I get there." Nevertheless, in the indecision, he still walked on. He thought he'd see how affairs looked when he came to the green fields. Green! brown, rather.
But Lionel found other affairs to look at before he reached the fields. On turning a sharp angle of Clay Lane, he was surprised to see a crowd collected, stretching from one side of it to the other. Not a peaceable crowd evidently, although it was composed for the most part of the gentler sex; but a crowd of threatening arms and inflamed faces, and swaying white caps and noisy tongues. The female population of Clay Lane had collected there.
Smash! went the breaking of glass in Lionel's ears as he came in view; smash! went another crash. Were Peckaby's shop windows suffering? A misgiving that it must be so, crossed the mind of Lionel, and he made few steps to the scene of warfare.
Sure enough it was nothing less. Three great holes were staring in so many panes, the splinters of glass lying inside the shop-window, amidst butter and flour, and other suchlike articles. The flour looked brown, and the butter was running away in an oily stream; but that was no reason why a shower of broken glass should be added to improve their excellences. Mr. Peckaby, with white gills and hair raised up on end, stood, the picture of fear, gazing at the damage, but too much afraid to start out and prevent it. Those big men are sometimes physical cowards. Another pane smashed! the weapon used being a hard piece of flint coal, which just escaped short of Mr. Peckaby's head, and Lionel thought it time to interfere. He pushed into the midst of them.
They drew aside when they saw who it was. In their hot passions--hot and angry then--perhaps no one, friend or enemy, would have stood a chance of being deferred to but Lionel Verner. They had so long looked upon him as the future lord of Verner's Pride that they forgot to look upon him as anything less now. And they all liked Lionel. His appearance was as oil poured upon troubled waters.
"What is the meaning of this? What is the matter?" demanded Lionel.
"Oh, sir, why don't you interfere to protect us, now things is come to this pass? You be a Verner!" was the prayer of remonstrance from all sides that met his words.
"Give me an explanation," reiterated Lionel. "What is the grievance?"
The particular grievance of this morning, however easy to explain, was somewhat difficult to comprehend, when twenty tongues were speaking at once--and those, shrill and excited ones. In vain Lionel assured them that if one, instead of all, would tell it, he should understand it sooner; that if their tone were subdued, instead of loud enough to be heard yonder at the brick-fields, it might be more desirable. Excited women, suffering under what they deem a wrong, cannot be made quiet; you may as well try to put down a rising flood. Lionel resigned himself to his fate, and listened; and at this stage of the affair a new feature of it struck his eye and surprised him. Scarcely one of the women but bore in her hand some uncooked meat. Such meat! Lionel drew himself and his coat from too close proximity to it. It was of varied hues, and walking away alive. Upon plates, whole or broken, upon half-saucers, upon dust-pans, upon fire-shovels, held at the end of tongs, hooked on to a fork, spread out in a coal-box; anyhow so as to avoid contact with fingers, these dainty pieces were exhibited for inspection.
By what Lionel could gather, it appeared that this meat had been purchased on Saturday night at Peckaby's shop. The women had said then, one and all, that it was not good; and Mr. Peckaby had been regaled with various open conjectures, more plain than polite, as to the state of the animal from which it had been supplied. Independent of the quality of the meat, it was none the better, even then, for having been kept. The women scented this; but Peckaby, and Peckaby's wife, who was always in the shop with her husband on a Saturday night, protested and vowed that their customers' noses were mistaken; that the meat would be perfectly good and fresh on the Sunday, and on the Monday too, if they liked to keep it so long. The women, somewhat doubtfully giving ear to the assurance, knowing that the alternative was that or none, bought the meat and took it home. On Sunday morning they found the meat was--anything you may imagine. It was neither cookable nor eatable; and their anger against Peckaby was not diminished by a certain fact which oozed out to them; namely, that Peckaby himself did not cut his Sunday's dinner off the meat in his shop, but sent to buy it of one of the Deerham butchers. The general indignation was great; the men, deprived of their Sunday's meat, joined in it; but nothing could be done until Monday morning. Peckaby's shop was always hermetically sealed on a Sunday. Mr. Verner had been stringent in allowing no Sunday traffic on the estate.
Monday came. The men went to their work as usual, leaving their wives to deal with the matter. Behold them assembled with their meat, kept for the occasion in spite of its state, before the shop of Peckaby. But of redress they could get none; Peckaby was deaf; and Lionel arrived to find hostilities commenced. Such was the summary of the story.
"You are acting very wrongly," were Lionel's first words to them in answer. "You should blame the meat, not Peckaby. Is this weather for keeping meat?"
"The weather didn't get to this heat till yesterday in the afternoon," said they--and Lionel could not deny the fact. Mrs. Dawson took up the word.
"Our meat warn't bought at Peckaby's; our meat were got at Clark's, and it were sweet as a nut. 'Twere veal, too, and that's the worst meat for keeping. Roy 'ud kill us if he could; but he can't force us on to Peckaby's rubbish. We defy him to't."
In point of defying Roy, the Dawsons had done that long ago. There was open warfare between them, and skirmishes took place occasionally. The first act of Roy, after it was known that Lionel was disinherited, had been to discharge old Dawson and his sons from work. How they had managed to live since was a mystery; funds did not seem to run low with them; tales of their night-poaching went about, and the sons got an odd job at legitimate work now and then.
"It's an awful shame," cried a civil, quiet woman, Sarah Grind, one of a very numerous family, commonly called "Grind's lot," "that we should be beat down to have our victuals and other things at such a place as Peckaby's! Sometimes, sir, I'm almost inclined to ask, is it Christians as rules over us?"
Lionel felt the shaft levelled at his family, though not personally at himself.
"You are not beaten down to it," he said. "Why do you deal at Peckaby's? Stay a bit! I know what you would urge: that by going elsewhere you would displease Roy. It seems to me that if you would all go elsewhere, Roy could not prevent it. Should one of you attempt to go, he might; but he could not prevent it if you all go with one accord. If Peckaby's things are bad--as I believe they are--why do you buy them?"
"There ain't a single thing as is good in his place," spoke up a woman, half-crying. "Sir, it's truth. His flour is half bone-dust, and his 'taturs is watery. His sugar is sand, and his tea is leaves dried over again, while his eggs is rotten, and his coals is flint."
"Allowing that, it is no good reason for your smashing his windows," said Lionel. "It is utterly impossible that that can be tolerated."
"Why do he palm his bad things off upon us, then?" retorted the crowd. "He makes us pay half as much again as we do in the other shops; and when we gets them home, we can't eat 'em. Sir, you be Mr. Verner now; you ought to see as we be protected."
"I am Mr. Verner; but I have no power. My power has been taken from me, as you know. Mrs. Verner is--"
"A murrain light upon her!" scowled a man from the outskirts of the crowd. "Why do she call herself Mrs. Verner, and stick herself up for missis at Verner's Pride, if she is to take no notice on us? Why do she leave us in the hands of Roy, to be--"
Lionel had turned upon the man like lightning.
"Davies, how dare you presume so to speak of Mrs. Verner in my presence? Mrs. Verner is not the source of your ills; you must look nearer to you, for that. Mrs. Verner is aged and ailing; she cannot get out of doors to see into your grievances."
At the moment of Lionel's turning to the man, he, Davies, had commenced to push his way towards Lionel. This caused the crowd to sway, and Lionel's hat, which he held carelessly in his hand, having taken it off to wipe his heated brow, got knocked down. Before he could stoop for its rescue, it was trampled out of shape; not intentionally--they would have protected Lionel and his things with their lives--but inadvertently. A woman picked it up with a comical look of despair. To put on that again was impossible.
"Never mind," said Lionel good-naturedly. "It was my own fault; I should have held it better."
"Put your handkercher over your head, sir," was the woman's advice. "It'll keep the sun off."
Lionel smiled, but did not take it. Davies was claiming his attention; while some of the women seemed inclined to go in for a fight, which should secure the hat.
"Could Mr. Verner get out o' doors and look into our grievances, the last years of his life, any more, sir, nor she can?" he was asking, in continuation of the subject.
"No, sir; he couldn't, and he didn't; but things wasn't then brought to the pitch as they be now."
"No," acquiesced Lionel, "I was at hand then, to interpose between Roy and Mr. Verner."
"And don't you think, sir, as you might be able to do the same thing still?"
"No, Davies. I have been displaced from Verner's Pride, and from all power connected with it. I have no more right to interfere with the working of the estate than you have. You must make the best of things until Mr. Massingbird's return."
"There'll be some dark deed done, then, afore many weeks is gone over; that's what there'll be!" was Davies's sullen reply. "It ain't to be stood, sir, as a man and his family is to clam, 'cause Peckaby--"
"Davies, I will hear no more on that score," interrupted Lionel. "You men should be men, and make common cause in that one point for yourselves against Roy. You have your wages in your hand on a Saturday night, and can deal at any shop you please."
The man--he wore a battered old straw hat on his head, which looked as dirty as his face--raised his eyes with an air of surprise at Lionel.
"What wages, sir? We don't get ours."
"Not get your wages?" repeated Lionel.
"No, sir; not on a Saturday night. That's just it--it's where the new shoe's a-pinching. Roy don't pay now on a Saturday night. He gives us all a sort o' note, good for six shilling, and we has, us or our wives, to take that to Peckaby's, and get what we can for it. On the Monday, at twelve o'clock, which is his new time for paying the wages, he docks us of six shilling. That's his plan now; and no wonder as some of us has kicked at it, and then he have turned us off. I be one."
Lionel's brow burned; not with the blazing sun, but with indignation. That this should happen on the lands of the Verner's! Hot words rose to his lips--to the effect that Roy, as he believed, was acting against the law--but he swallowed them down ere spoken. It might not be expedient to proclaim so much to the men.
"Since when has Roy done this?" he asked. "I am surprised not to have heard of it."
"This six weeks he have done it, sir, and longer nor that. It's get our things from Peckaby's or it's not get any at all. Folks won't trust the likes of us, without us goes with the money in our hands. We might have knowed there was some evil in the wind when Peckaby's took to give us trust. Mr. Verner wasn't the best of masters to us, after he let Roy get on our backs--saving your presence for saying it, sir; but you must know as it's truth--but there's things a-going on now as 'ud make him, if he knowed 'em, rise up out of his grave. Let Roy take care of hisself, that he don't get burned up some night in his bed!" significantly added the man.
"Be silent, Davies! You--"
Lionel was interrupted by a commotion. Upon turning to ascertain its cause, he found an excited crowd hastening towards the spot from the brick-fields. The news of the affray had been carried thither, and Roy, with much intemperate language and loud wrath, had set off at full speed to quell it. The labourers set off after him, probably to protect their wives. Shouting, hooting, swearing--at which pastime Roy was the loudest--on they came, in a state of fury.
But for the presence of Lionel Verner, things might have come to a crisis--if a fight could have brought a crisis on. He interposed his authority, which even Roy did not yet dispute to his face, and he succeeded in restoring peace for the time. He became responsible--I don't know whether it was quite wise of him to do so--for the cost of the broken windows, and the women were allowed to go home unmolested. The men returned to their work, and Mr. Peckaby's face regained its colour. Roy was turning away, muttering to himself, when Lionel beckoned him aside with an authoritative hand.
"Roy, this must not go on. Do you understand me? It must not go on."
"What's not to go on, sir?" retorted Roy sullenly.
"You know what I mean. This disgraceful system of affairs altogether. I believe that you would be amenable to the law in thus paying the men, or in part paying them, with an order for goods; instead of in open, honest coin. Unless I am mistaken, it borders very closely upon the truck system."
"I can take care of myself and of the law, too, sir," was the answer of Roy.
"Very good. I shall take care that this sort of oppression is lifted off the shoulders of the men. Had I known it was being pursued, I should have stopped it before."
"You have no right to interfere between me and anything now, sir."
"Roy," said Lionel calmly, "you are perfectly well aware that the right, not only to interfere between you and the estate, but to invest me with full power over it and you, was sought to be given me by Mrs. Verner at my uncle's death. For reasons of my own I chose to decline it, and have continued to decline it. Do you remember what I once told you--that one of my first acts of power would be to displace you? After what I have seen and heard to-day, I shall deliberate whether it be not my duty to reconsider my determination, and assume this, and all other power."
Roy's face turned green. He answered defiantly, not in tone, but in spirit--
"It wouldn't be for long, at any rate, sir; and Mr. Massingbird, I know, 'll put me into my place again on his return."
Lionel did not reply immediately. The sun was coming down upon his uncovered head like a burning furnace, and he was casting a glance round to see if any friendly shade might be at hand. In his absorption over the moment's business he had not observed that he had halted with Roy right underneath its beams. No, there was no shade just in that spot. A public pump stood behind him, but the sun was nearly vertical, and the pump got as much of it as he did. A thought glanced through Lionel's mind of resorting to the advice of the women, to double his handkerchief cornerwise over his head. But he did not purpose staying above another minute with Roy, to whom he again turned.
"Don't deceive yourself, Roy. Mr. Massingbird is not likely to countenance such doings as these. That Mrs. Verner will not, I know; and, I tell you plainly, I will not. You shall pay the men's wages at the proper and usual time; you shall pay them in full, to the last halfpenny that they earn. Do you hear? I order you now to do so. We will have no underhanded truck system introduced on the Verner estate."
"You'd like to ruin poor Peckaby, I suppose, sir!"
"I have nothing to do with Peckaby. If public rumour is to be credited, the business is not Peckaby's, but yours--"
"Them that says it is a pack of liars!" burst forth Roy.
"Possibly. I say I have nothing to do with that. Peckaby--"
Lionel's voice faltered. An awful pain--a pain, the like of which, for acute violence, he had never felt--had struck him in the head. He put his hand up to it, and fell against the pump.
"Are you ill, sir?" asked Roy.
"What can it be?" murmured Lionel. "A sudden pain has attacked me here, Roy," touching his head; "an awful pain. I'll get into Frost's, and sit down."
Frost's cottage was but a minute's walk, but Lionel staggered as he went to it. Roy attended him. The man humbly asked if Mr. Lionel would be pleased to lean upon him, but Lionel waved him off. Matthew Frost was sitting indoors alone; his grandchildren were at school, his son's wife was busy elsewhere. Matthew no longer went out to labour. He had been almost incapable of it before Mr. Verner's annuity fell to him. Robin was away at work: but Robin was a sadly altered man since the death of Rachel. His very nature appeared to have changed.
"My head! my head!" broke from Lionel, as he entered, in the intensity of his pain. "Matthew, I think I must have got a sun-stroke."
Old Matthew pulled off his straw hat, and lifted himself slowly out of his chair. All his movements were slow now. Lionel had sat himself down on the settle, his head clasped by both hands, and his pale face turned to fiery red--as deep a crimson as Mrs. Verner's was habitually.
"A sun-stroke?" echoed old Matthew, leaning on his stick, as he stood before him, attentively regarding Lionel. "Ay, sir, for sure it looks like it. Have you been standing still in the sun, this blazing day?"
"I have been standing in it without my hat," replied Lionel. "Not for long, however."
"It don't take a minute, sir, to do the mischief. I had one myself, years before you were born, Mr. Lionel. On a day as hot as this, I was out in my garden, here, at the back of this cottage. I had gone out without my hat, and was standing over my pig, watching him eat his wash, when I felt something take my head--such a pain, sir, that I had never felt before, and never wish to feel again. I went indoors, and Robin, who might be a boy of five, or so, looked frightened at me, my face was so red. I couldn't hold my head up, sir; and when the doctor came, he said it was a sun-stroke. I think there must be particular moments and days when the sun has this power to harm us, though we don't know which they are nor how to avoid them," added old Matthew, as much in self-soliloquy as to Lionel. "I had often been out before, without my hat, in as great heat; for longer, too; and it had never harmed me. Since then, sir, I have put a white handkerchief inside the crown of my hat in hot weather. The doctor told me to do so."
"How long did the pain last?" asked Lionel, feeling his pain growing worse with every moment. "Many hours?"
"Hours?" repeated old Matthew, with a strong emphasis on the word. "Mr. Lionel, it lasted for days and weeks. Before the next morning came, sir, I was in a raging fever; for three weeks, good, I was in my bed, above here, and never out of it; hardly the clothes smoothed a-top of me. Sun-strokes are not frequent in this climate, sir, but when they do come, they can't be trifled with."
Perhaps Lionel felt the same conviction. Perhaps he felt that with this pain, increasing as it was in intensity, he must make the best of his way home, if he would get home at all. "Good-day, Matthew," he said, rising from the bench. "I'll go home at once!"
"And send for Dr. West, sir, or for Mr. Jan, if you are no better when you get there," was the parting salutation of the old man.
He stood at the door, leaning on his stick, and watched Lionel down Clay Lane. "A sun-stroke, for sure," repeated he, slowly turning in, as the angle of the lane hid Lionel from his view.
XXIII. DAYS AND NIGHTS OF PAIN
In his darkened chamber at Deerham Court lay Lionel Verner. Whether it was a sun-stroke, or whether it was but the commencement of a fever, which had suddenly struck him down that day, certain it was, that a violent sickness attacked him, and he lay for many, many days--days and weeks as old Frost had called it--between life and death. Fever and delirium struggled with life, which should get the mastery.
Very little doubt was there, that his state of mind increased the danger of his state of body. How bravely Lionel had struggled to do battle with his great anguish, he might scarcely have known himself, in all its full intensity, save for this illness. He had loved Sibylla with the pure fervour of feelings young and fresh. He could have loved her to the end of life; he could have died for her. No leaven was mixed with his love, no base dross; it was refined as the purest silver. It is only these exalted, ideal passions, which partake more of heaven's nature than of earth's, that tell upon the heart when their end comes. Terribly had it told upon Lionel Verner's. In one hour he had learned that Sibylla was false to him, was about to become the wife of another. In his sensitive reticence, in his shrinking pride, he had put a smiling face upon it before the world. He had watched her marry Frederick Massingbird, and had "made no sign." Deep, deep in his heart, fifty fathom deep, had he pressed down his misery, passing his days in what may be called a false atmosphere--showing a false side to his friends. It seemed false to Lionel, the appearing what he was not. He was his true self at night only, when he could turn, and toss, and groan out his trouble at will. But, when illness attacked him, and he had no strength of body to throw off his pain of mind, then he found how completely the blow had shattered him. It seemed to Lionel, in his sane moments, in the intervals of his delirium, that it would be far happier to die, than to wake up again to renewed life, to bear about within him that ever-present sorrow. Whether the fever--it was not brain fever, though bordering closely upon it--was the result of this state of mind, more than of the sun-stroke, might be a question. Nobody knew anything of that inward state, and the sun-stroke got all the blame--save, perhaps, from Lionel himself. He may have doubted.
One day Jan called in to see him. It was in August. Several weeks had elapsed since the commencement of his illness, and he was so far recovered as to be removed by day to a sitting-room on a level with his chamber--a wondrously pretty sitting-room over Lady Verner's drawing-room, but not so large as that, and called "Miss Decima's room." The walls were panelled in medallions, white and delicate blue, the curtains were of blue satin and lace, the furniture blue. In each medallion hung an exquisite painting in water colours, framed--Decima's doing. Lady Verner was one who liked at times to be alone, and then Decima would sit in this room, and feel more at home than in any room in the house. When Lionel began to recover, the room was given over to him. Here he lay on the sofa; or lounged on an easy-chair; or stood at the window, his hands clasping hold of some support, and his legs as tottering as were poor old Matthew Frost's. Sometimes Lady Verner would be his companion, sometimes he would be consigned to Decima and Lucy Tempest. Lucy was pleased to take her share of helping the time to pass; would read to him, or talk to him; or sit down on her low stool on the hearth-rug and only look at him, waiting until he should want something done. Dangerous moments, Miss Lucy! Unless your heart is cased in adamant, you can scarcely be with that attractive man--ten times more attractive now, in his sickness--and not get your wings singed.
Jan came in one day when Lionel was sitting on the sofa, having propped the cushion up at the back of his head. Decima was winding some silk, and Lucy was holding the skein for her. Lucy wore a summer dress of white muslin, a blue sprig raised upon it in tambour-stitch, with blue and white ribbons at its waist and neck. Very pretty, very simple it looked, but wonderfully according with Lucy Tempest. Jan looked round, saw a tolerably strong table, and took up his seat upon it.
"How d'ye get on, Lionel?" asked he.
It was Dr. West who attended Lionel, and Jan was chary of interfering with the doctor's proper patients--or, rather, the doctor was chary of his doing so--therefore Jan's visits were entirely unprofessional.
"I don't get on at all--as it seems to me," replied Lionel. "I'm sure I am weaker than I was a week ago."
"I dare say," said Jan.
"You dare say!" echoed Lionel. "When a man has turned the point of an illness, he expects to get stronger, instead of weaker."
"That depends," said Jan. "I beg your pardon, Miss Lucy; that's my foot caught in your dress, isn't it?"
Lucy turned to disentangle her dress from Jan's great feet. "You should not sway your feet about so, Jan," said she pleasantly.
"It hasn't hurt it, has it?" asked Jan.
"Oh, no. Is there another skein to hold, Decima?"
Decima replied in the negative. She rose, put the paper of silk upon the table, and then turned to Jan.
"Mamma and I had quite a contention yesterday," she said to him. "I say that Lionel is not being treated properly."
"That's just my opinion," laconically replied Jan. "Only West flares up so, if his treatment is called in question. I'd get him well in half the time."
Lionel wearily changed his position on the sofa. The getting well, or the keeping ill, did not appear to interest him greatly.
"Let's look at his medicine, Decima," continued Jan. "I have not seen what has come round lately."
Decima left the room and brought back a bottle with some medicine in it.
"There's only one dose left," she remarked to Jan.
Jan took the cork out and smelt it; then he tasted it, apparently with great gusto, as anybody else might taste port wine; while Lucy watched him, drawing her lips away from her pretty teeth in distaste at the proceeding.
"Psha!" cried Jan.
"Is it not proper medicine for him?" asked Decima.
"It's as innocent as water," said Jan. "It'll do him neither good nor harm."
And finally Jan poured the lot down his own throat.
Lucy shuddered.
"Oh, Jan, how could you take it?"
"It won't hurt me," said literal Jan.
"But it must be so nasty! I never could have believed any one would willingly drink medicine. It is bad enough to do it when compelled by sickness."
"Law!" returned Jan. "If you call this nasty, Miss Lucy, you should taste some of our physic. The smell would about knock you down."
"I think nothing is worse than the smell of drugs," resumed Lucy. "The other day, when Lady Verner called in at your surgery to speak to you, and took me with her, I was glad to get into the open air again."
"Don't you ever marry a doctor, then, Miss Lucy."
"I am not going to marry one," returned Lucy.
"Well, you need not look so fierce," cried Jan. "I didn't ask you."
Lucy laughed. "Did I look fierce, Jan? I suppose I was thinking of the drugs. I'd never, never be a surgeon, of all things in the world."
"If everybody was of your mind, Miss Lucy, how would people get doctored?"
"Very true," answered Lucy. "But I don't envy them."
"The doctors or the people?" asked Jan.
"I meant the doctors. But I envy the patients less," glancing involuntarily towards Lionel as she spoke.
Jan glanced at him too. "Lionel, I'll bring you round some better stuff than this," said he. "What are you eating?"
"Nothing," put in Decima. "Dr. West keeps him upon arrowroot and beef-tea, and such things."
"Slops," said Jan contemptuously. "Have a fowl cooked every day, Lionel, and eat it all, if you like, bones and all; or a mutton--chop or two; or some good eels. And have the window open and sit at it; don't lounge on that sofa, fancying you can't leave it; and to-morrow or the next day, borrow Mrs. Verner's carriage----"
"No, thank you," interposed Lionel.
"Have a fly, then," composedly went on Jan. "Rouse yourself, and eat and drink, and go into the air, and you'll soon be as well as I am. It's the stewing and fretting indoors, fancying themselves ill, that keeps folks back."
Something like a sickly smile crossed Lionel's wan lips. "Do you remember how you offended your mother, Jan, by telling her she only wanted to rouse herself?"
"Well," said Jan, "it was the truth. West keeps his patients dilly-dallying on, when he might have them well in no time. If he says anything about them to me, I always tell him so; otherwise I don't interfere; it's no business of mine. But you are my brother, you know."
"Don't quarrel with West on my account, Jan. Only settle it amicably between you, what I am to do, and what I am to take. I don't care."
"Quarrel!" said Jan. "You never knew me to quarrel in your life. West can come and see you as usual, and charge you, if you please; and you can just pour his physic down the sink. I'll send you some bark: but it's not of much consequence whether you take it or not; it's good kitchen physic you want now. Is there anything on your mind that's keeping you back?" added plain Jan.
A streak of scarlet rose to Lionel's white cheek.
"Anything on my mind, Jan! I do not understand you."
"Look here," said Jan, "if there is nothing, you ought to be better than this by now, in spite of old West. What you have got to do is to rouse yourself, and believe you are well, instead of lying by, here. My mother was angry with me for telling her that, but didn't she get well all one way after it? And look at the poor! They have their illnesses that bring 'em down to skeletons; but when did you ever find them lie by, after they got better? They can't; they are obliged to go out and turn to at work again; and the consequence is they are well in no time. You have your fowl to-day," continued Jan, taking himself off the table to depart; "or a duck, if you fancy it's more savoury; and if West comes in while you are eating it, tell him I ordered it. He can't grumble at me for doctoring you."
Decima left the room with Jan. Lucy Tempest went to the window, threw it open, drew an easy-chair, with its cushions, near to it, and then returned to the sofa.
"Will you come to the window?" said she to Lionel. "Jan said you were to sit there, and I have put your chair ready."
Lionel unclosed his eyelids. "I am better here, child, thank you."
"But you heard what Jan said--that you were not going the right way to get well."
"It does not much matter, Lucy, whether I get well, or whether I don't," he answered wearily.
Lucy sat down; not on her favourite stool, but on a low chair, and fixed her eyes upon him gravely.
"Do you know what Mr. Cust would say to that?" she asked. "He would tell you that you were ungrateful to God. You are already half-way towards getting well."
"I know I am, Lucy. But I am nearly tired of life."
"It is only the very old who say that, or ought to say it. I am not sure that they ought--even if they were a hundred. But you are young. Stay! I will find it for you."
He was searching about for his handkerchief. Lucy found it, fallen on the floor at the back of the sofa. She brought it round to him, and he gently laid hold of her hand as he took it.
"My little friend, you have yet to learn that things, not years, tire us of life."
Lucy shook her head.
"No; I have not to learn it. I know it must be so. Will you please to come to the window?"
Lionel, partly because his tormentor (may the word be used? he was sick, bodily and mentally, and would have lain still for ever) was a young lady, partly to avoid the trouble of persisting in "No," rose, and took his seat in the arm-chair.
"What an obstinate nurse you would make, Lucy! Is there anything else, pray, that you wish me to do?"
She did not smile in response to his smile; she looked very grave and serious.
"I would do all that Jan says, were I you," was her answer. "I believe in Jan. He will get you well sooner than Dr. West."
"Believe in Jan?" repeated Lionel, willing to be gay if he could. "Do you mean that Jan is Jan?"
"I mean that I have faith in Jan. I have none in Dr. West."
"In his medical skill? Let me tell you, Lucy, he is a very clever man, in spite of what Jan may say."
"I can't tell anything about his skill. Until Jan spoke now I did not know but he was treating you rightly. But I have no faith in himself. I think a good, true, faithful-natured man should be depended on for cure, more certainly than one who is false-natured."
"False-natured!" echoed Lionel. "Lucy, you should not so speak of Dr. West. You know nothing wrong of Dr. West. He is much esteemed among us at Deerham."
"Of course I know nothing wrong of him," returned Lucy, with some slight surprise. "But when I look at people I always seem to know what they are. I am sorry to have said so much. I--I think I forgot it was to you I spoke."
"Forgot!" exclaimed Lionel. "Forgot what?"
She hesitated at the last sentence, and she now blushed vividly.
"I forgot for the moment that he was Sibylla's father," she simply said.
Again the scarlet rose in the face of Lionel. Lucy leaned against the window-frame but a few paces from him, her large soft eyes, in their earnest sympathy, lifted to his. He positively shrank from them.
"What's Sibylla to me?" he asked. "She is Mrs. Frederick Massingbird."
Lucy stood in penitence. "Do not be angry with me," she timidly cried. "I ought not to have said it to you, perhaps. I see it always."
"See what, Lucy?" he continued, speaking gently, not in anger.
"I see now much you think of her, and how ill it makes you. When Jan asked just now if you had anything on your mind to keep you back, I knew what it was."
Lionel grew hot and cold with a sudden fear. "Did I say anything in my delirium?"
"Nothing at all--that I heard of. I was not with you. I do not think anybody suspects that you are ill because--because of her."
"Ill because of her!" he sharply repeated, the words breaking from him in his agony, in his shrinking dread at finding so much suspected. "I am ill from fever. What else should I be ill from?"
Lucy went close to his chair and stood before him meekly.
"I am so sorry," she whispered. "I cannot help seeing things, but I did not mean to make you angry."
He rose, steadying himself by the table, and laid his hand upon her head, with the same fond motion that a father might have used.
"Lucy, I am not angry--only vexed at being watched so closely," he concluded, his lips parting with a faint smile.
In her earnest, truthful, serious face of concern, as it was turned up to him, he read how futile it would be to persist in his denial.
"I did not watch you for the purpose of watching. I saw how it was, without being able to help myself."
Lionel bent his head.
"Let the secret remain between us, Lucy. Never suffer a hint of it to escape your lips."
Nothing answered him save the glad expression that beamed out from her countenance, telling him how implicitly he might trust to her.
XXIV. DANGEROUS COMPANIONSHIP
Lionel Verner grew better. His naturally good constitution triumphed over the disease, and his sick soreness of mind lost somewhat of its sharpness. So long as he brooded in silence over his pain and his wrongs, there was little chance of the sting becoming much lighter; it was like the vulture preying upon its own vitals; but that season of silence was past. When once a deep grief can be spoken of, its great agony is gone. I think there is an old saying, or a proverb--"Griefs lose themselves in telling," and a greater truism was never uttered. The ice once broken, touching his feelings with regard to Sibylla, Lionel found comfort in making it his theme of conversation, of complaint, although his hearer and confidant was only Lucy Tempest. A strange comfort, but yet a natural one, as those who have suffered as Lionel did may be able to testify. At the time of the blow, when Sibylla deserted him with coolness so great, Lionel could have died rather than give utterance to a syllable betraying his own pain; but several months had elapsed since, and the turning-point was come. He did not, unfortunately, love Sibylla one shade less; love such as his cannot be overcome so lightly; but the keenness of the disappointment, the blow to his self-esteem--to his vanity, it may be said--was growing less intense. In a case like this, of faithlessness, let it happen to man or to woman, the wounding of the self-esteem is not the least evil that must be borne. Lucy Tempest was, in Lionel's estimation, little more than a child, yet it was singular how he grew to love to talk with her. Not for love of her--do not fancy that--but for the opportunity it gave him of talking of Sibylla. You may deem this an anomaly; I know that it was natural; and, like oil poured upon a wound, so did it bring balm to Lionel's troubled spirit.
He never spoke of her save at the dusk hour. During the broad, garish light of day, his lips were sealed. In the soft twilight of the evening, if it happened that Lucy was alone with him, then he would pour out his heart--would tell of his past tribulation. As past he spoke of it; had he not regarded it as past, he never would have spoken. Lucy listened, mostly in silence, returning him her earnest sympathy. Had Lucy Tempest been a little older in ideas, or had she been by nature and rearing less entirely single-minded, she might not have sat unrestrainedly with him, going into the room at any moment, and stopping there, as she would had he been her brother. Lucy was getting to covet the companionship of Lionel very much--too much, taking all things into consideration. It never occurred to her that, for that very reason, she might do well to keep away. She was not sufficiently experienced to define her own sensations; and she did not surmise that there was anything inexpedient or not perfectly orthodox in her being so much with Lionel. She liked to be with him, and she freely indulged the liking upon any occasion that offered.
"Oh, Lucy, I loved her! I did love her!" he would say, having repeated the same words perhaps fifty times before in other interviews; and he would lean back in his easy-chair, and cover his eyes with his hand, as if willing to shut out all sight save that of the past. "Heaven knows what she was to me! Heaven only knows what her faithlessness has cost!"
"Did you dream of her last night, Lionel?" answered Lucy, from her low seat where she generally sat, near to Lionel, but with her face mostly turned from him.
And it may as well be mentioned that Miss Lucy never thought of such a thing as discouraging Lionel's love and remembrance of Sibylla. Her whole business in the matter seemed to be to listen to him, and help him to remember her.
"Ay," said Lionel, in answer to the question. "Do you suppose I should dream of anything else?"
Whatever Lucy may or may not have supposed, it was a positive fact, known well to Lionel--known to him, and remembered by him to this hour--that he constantly dreamed of Sibylla. Night after night, since the unhappy time when he learned that she had left him for Frederick Massingbird, had she formed the prominent subject of his dreams. It is the strict truth; and it will prove to you how powerful a hold she must have possessed over his imagination. This he had not failed to make an item in his revelations to Lucy.
"What was your dream last night, Lionel?"
"It was only a confused one; or seemed to be when I awoke. It was full of trouble. Sibylla appeared to have done something wrong, and I was defending her, and she was angry with me for it. Unusually confused it was. Generally my dreams are too clear and vivid."
"I wonder how long you will dream of her, Lionel? For a year, do you think?"
"I hope not," heartily responded Lionel. "Lucy, I wish I could forget her?"
"I wish you could--if you do wish to do it," simply replied Lucy.
"Wish! I wish I could have swallowed a draught of old Lethe's stream last February, and never recalled her again!"
He spoke vehemently, and yet there was a little undercurrent of suppressed consciousness deep down in his heart, whispering that his greatest solace was to remember her, and to talk of her as he was doing now. To talk of her as he would to his own soul: and that he had now learned to do with Lucy Tempest. Not to any one else in the whole world could Lionel have breathed the name of Sibylla.
"Do you suppose she will soon be coming home?" asked Lucy, after a silence.
"Of course she will. The news of his inheritance went out shortly after they started, and must have got to Melbourne nearly as soon as they did. There's little doubt they are on their road home now. Massingbird would not care to stop to look after what was left by John, when he knows himself to be the owner of Verner's Pride."
"I wish Verner's Pride had not been left to Frederick Massingbird!" exclaimed Lucy.
"Frankly speaking, so do I," confessed Lionel. "It ought to be mine by all good right. And, putting myself entirely out of consideration, I judge Frederick Massingbird unworthy to be its master. That's between ourselves, mind, Lucy."
"It is all between ourselves," returned Lucy.
"Ay. What should I have done without you, my dear little friend?"
"I am glad you have not had to do without me," simply answered Lucy. "I hope you will let me be your friend always!"
"That I will. Now Sibylla's gone, there's nobody in the whole world I care for, but you."
He spoke it without any double meaning: he might have used the same words, been actuated by precisely the same feelings, to his mother or his sister. His all-absorbing love for Sibylla barred even the idea of any other love to his mind, yet awhile.
"Lionel!" cried Lucy, turning her face full upon him in her earnestness, "how could she choose Frederick Massingbird, when she might have chosen you?"
"Tastes differ," said Lionel, speaking lightly, a thing he rarely did when with Lucy. "There's no accounting for them. Some time or other, Lucy, you may be marrying an ugly fellow with a wooden leg and red beard; and people will say, 'How could Lucy Tempest have chosen him?'"
Lucy coloured. "I do not like you to speak in that joking way, if you please," she gravely said.
"Heigh ho, Lucy!" sighed he. "Sometimes I fancy a joke may cheat me out of a minute's care. I wish I was well, and away from this place. In London I shall have my hands full, and can rub off the rust of old grievances with hard work."
"You will not like London better than Deerham."
"I shall like it ten thousand times better," impulsively answered Lionel. "I have no longer a place in Deerham, Lucy. That is gone."
"You allude to Verner's Pride?"
"Everything's gone that I valued in Deerham," cried Lionel, with the same impulse--"Verner's Pride amongst the rest. I would never stop here to see the rule of Fred Massingbird. Better that John had lived to take it, than that it should have come to him."
"Was John better than his brother?"
"He would have made a better master. He was, I believe, a better man. Not but that John had his faults, as we all have."
"All!" echoed Lucy. "What are your faults?"
Lionel could not help laughing. She asked the question, as she did all her questions, in the most genuine, earnest manner, really seeking the information. "I think for some time back, Lucy, my chief fault has been grumbling. I am sure you must find it so. Better days may be in store for us both."
Lucy rose. "I think it must be time for me to go and make Lady Verner's tea. Decima will not be home for it."
"Where is Decima this evening?"
"She is gone her round to the cottages. She does not find time for it in the day, since you were ill. Is there anything I can do for you before I go down?"
"Yes," he answered, taking her hand. "You can let me thank you for your patience and kindness. You have borne with me bravely, Lucy. God bless you, my dear child."
She neither went away, nor drew her hand away. She stood there--as he had phrased it--patiently, until he should release it. He soon did so, with a weary movement: all he did was wearisome to him then, save the thinking and talking of the theme which ought to have been a barred one--Sibylla.
"Will you please to come down to tea this evening?" asked Lucy.
"I don't care for tea; I'd rather be alone."
"Then I will bring you some up."
"No, no; you shall not be at the trouble. I'll come down, then, presently."
Lucy Tempest disappeared. Lionel leaned against the window, looking out on the night landscape, and lost himself in thoughts of his faithless love. He aroused himself from them with a stamp of impatience.
"I must shake it off," he cried to himself; "I will shake it off. None, save myself or a fool, but would have done it months ago. And yet, Heaven alone knows how I have tried and battled, and how vain the battle has been!"
XXV. HOME TRUTHS FOR LIONEL
The cottages down Clay Lane were ill-drained. It might be nearer the truth to say they were not drained at all. As is the case with many another fine estate besides Verner's Pride, while the agricultural land was well drained, no expense spared upon it, the poor dwellings had been neglected. Not only in the matter of draining, but in other respects, were these habitations deficient: but that strong terms are apt to grate unpleasingly upon the ear, one might say shamefully deficient. The consequence was that no autumn ever went over, scarcely any spring, but somebody would be down with ague, with low fever; and it was reckoned a fortunate season if a good many were not prostrate.
The first time that Lionel Verner took a walk down Clay Lane after his illness was a fine day in October. He had been out before in other directions, but not in that of Clay Lane. He had not yet recovered his full strength; he looked ill and emaciated. Had he been strong, as he used to be, he would not have found himself nearly losing his equilibrium at being run violently against by a woman, who turned swiftly out of her own door.
"Take care, Mrs. Grind! Is your house on fire?"
"It's begging a thousand pardons, sir! I hadn't no idea you was there," returned Mrs. Grind, in lamentable confusion, when she saw whom she had all but knocked down. "Grind, he catches sight o' one o' the brick men going by, and he tells me to run and fetch him in; but I had got my hands in the soap-suds, and couldn't take 'em convenient out of it at the minute, and I was hasting lest he'd gone too far to be caught up. He have now."
"Is Grind better?"
"He ain't no worse, sir. There he is," she added, flinging the door open.
On the side of the kitchen, opposite to the door, was a pallet-bed stretched against the wall, and on it lay the woman's husband, Grind, dressed. It was a small room, and it appeared literally full of children, of encumbrances of all sorts. A string extended from one side of the fire-place to the other, and on this hung some wet coloured pinafores, the steam ascending from them in clouds, drawn out by the heat of the fire. The children were in various stages of un-dress, these coloured pinafores doubtless constituting their sole outer garment. But that Grind's eye had caught his, Lionel might have hesitated to enter so uncomfortable a place. His natural kindness of heart--nay, his innate regard for the feelings of others, let them be ever so inferior in station--prevented his turning back when the man had seen him.
"Grind, don't move, don't get off the bed," Lionel said hastily. But Grind was already up. The ague fit was upon him then, and he shook the bed as he sat down upon it. His face wore that blue, pallid appearance, which you may have seen in aguish patients.
"You don't seem much better, Grind."
"Thank ye, sir, I be baddish just now again, but I ain't worse on the whole," was the man's reply. A civil, quiet, hard-working man as any on the estate; nothing against him but his large flock of children, and his difficulty of getting along any way. The mouths to feed were many--ravenous young mouths, too; and the wife, though anxious and well-meaning, was not the most thrifty in the world. She liked gossiping better than thrift; but gossip was the most prevalent complaint of Clay Lane, so far as its female population was concerned.
"How long is it that you have been ill?" asked Lionel, leaning his elbow on the mantel-piece, and looking down on Grind, Mrs. Grind having whisked away the pinafores.
"It's going along of four weeks, sir, now. It's a illness, sir, I takes it, as must have its course."
"All illnesses must have that, as I believe," said Lionel. "Mine has taken its own time pretty well, has it not?"
Grind shook his head.
"You don't look none the better for your bout, sir. And it's a long time you must have been a-getting strong. Mr. Jan, he said, just a month ago, when he first come to see me, as you was well, so to say, then. Ah! it's only them as have tried it knows what the pulling through up to strength again is, when the illness itself seems gone."
Lionel's conscience was rather suggestive at that moment. He might have been stronger than he was, by this time, had he "pulled through" with a better will, and given way less. "I am sorry not to see you better, Grind," he kindly said.
"You see me at the worst, sir, to-day," said the man, in a tone of apology, as if seeking to excuse his own sickness. "I be getting better, and that's a thing to be thankful for. I only gets the fever once in three days now. Yesterday, sir, I got down to the field, and earned what'll come to eighteen pence. I did indeed, sir, though you'd not think it, looking at me to-day."
"I should not," said Lionel. "Do you mean to say you went to work in your present state?"
"I didn't seem a bit ill yesterday, sir, except for the weakness. The fever, it keeps me down all one day, as may be to-day; then the morrow I be quite prostrate with the weakness it leaves; and the third day I be, so to speak, well. But I can't do a full day's work, sir; no, nor hardly half of a one, and by evening I be so done over I can scarce crawl to my place here. It ain't much, sir, part of a day's work in three; but I be thankful for that improvement. A week ago, I couldn't do as much as that."
More suggestive thoughts for Lionel.
"He'd a got better quicker, sir, if he could do his work regular," put in the woman. "What's one day's work out o' three--even if 'twas a full day's--to find us all victuals? In course he can't fare better nor we; and Peckaby's, they don't give much trust to us. He gets a pot o' gruel, or a saucer o' porridge, or a hunch o' bread with a mite o' cheese."
Lionel looked at the man. "You cannot eat plain bread now, can you, Grind?"
"All this day, sir, I shan't eat nothing; I couldn't swallow it," he answered. "After the fever and the shaking's gone, then I could eat, but not bread; it seems too dry for the throat, and it sticks in it. I get a dish o' tea, or something in that way. The next day--my well day, as I calls it--I can eat all afore me."
"You ought to have more strengthening food."
"It's not for us to say, sir, as we ought to have this here food, or that there food, unless we earns it," replied Grind, in a meek spirit of contented resignation that many a rich man might have taken a pattern from. "Mr. Jan he says, 'Grind,' says he, 'you should have some meat to eat, and some good beef-tea, and a drop o' wine wouldn't do you no harm,' says he. And it makes me smile, sir, to think where the like o' poor folks is to get such things. Lucky to be able to get a bit o' bread and a drain o' tea without sugar, them as is off their work, just to rub on and keep theirselves out o' the workhouse. I know I'm thankful to do it. Jim, he have got a place, sir."
"Jim,--which is Jim?" asked Lionel, turning his eyes on the group of children, supposing one must be meant.
"He ain't here, sir," cried the woman. "It's the one with the black hair, and he was six year old yesterday. He's gone to Farmer Johnson's to take care o' the pigs in the field. He's to get a shilling a week."
Lionel moved from his position. "Grind," he said, "don't you think it would be better if you gave yourself complete rest, not attempting to go out to work until you are stronger?"
"I couldn't afford it, sir. And as to its being better for me, I don't see that. If I can work, sir, I'm better at work. I know it tires me, but I believe I get stronger the sooner for it. Mr. Jan, he says to me, says he, 'Don't lie by never, Grind, unless you be obliged to it; it only rusts the limbs.' And he ain't far out, sir. Folks gets more harm from idleness nor they do from work."
"Well, good-day, Grind," said Lionel, "and I heartily hope you'll soon be on your legs again. Lady Verner shall send you something more nourishing than bread, while you are still suffering."
"Thank ye kindly, sir," replied Grind. "My humble duty to my lady."
Lionel went out. "What a lesson for me!" he involuntarily exclaimed. "This poor half-starved man struggling patiently onward through his sickness; while I, who had every luxury about me, spent my time in repining. What a lesson! Heaven help me to take it to my heart!"
He lifted his hat as he spoke, his feeling at the moment full of reverence; and went on to Frost's. "Where's Robin?" he asked of the wife.
"He's in the back room, sir," was the answer. "He's getting better fast. The old father, he have gone out a bit, a-warming of himself in the sun."
She opened the door of a small back room as she spoke; but it proved to be empty. Robin was discerned in the garden, sitting on a bench; possibly to give _him_self a warming in the sun--as Mrs. Frost expressed it. He sat in a still attitude, his arms folded, his head bowed. Since the miserable occurrence touching Rachel, Robin Frost was a fearfully changed man; never, from the hour that the coroner's inquest was held and certain evidence had come out, had he been seen to smile. He had now been ill with ague, in the same way as Grind. Hearing the approach of footsteps, he turned his head, and rose when he saw it was Lionel.
"Well, Robin, how fares it? You are better, I hear. Sit yourself down; you are not strong enough to stand. What an enemy this low fever is! I wish we could root it out!"
"Many might be all the healthier for it, sir, if it could be done," was Robin's answer, spoken indifferently--as he nearly always spoke now. "As for me, I'm not far off being well again."
"They said in the village you were going to die, Robin, did they not?" continued Lionel. "You have cheated them, you see."
"They said it, some of 'em, sir, and thought it, too. Old father thought it. I'm not sure but Mr. Jan thought it. I didn't, bad as I was," continued Robin, in a significant tone. "I had my oath to keep."
"Robin!"
"Sir, I have sworn--and you know I have sworn it--to have my revenge upon him that worked ill to Rachel. I can't die till that oath has been kept."
"There's a certain sentence, Robin, given us for our guidance, amid many other such sentences, which runs somewhat after this fashion: 'Vengeance is mine,'" quietly spoke Lionel. "Have you forgotten who it is says that?"
"Why did he--the villain--forget them sentences? Why did he forget 'em and harm her?" retorted Robin. "Sir, it's of no good for you to look at me in that way. I'll never be baulked in this matter. Old father, now and again, he'll talk about forgiveness; and when I say, 'weren't you her father?' 'Ay,' he'll answer, 'but I've got one foot in the grave, Robin, and anger will not bring her back to life.' No, it won't," doggedly went on Robin. "It won't undo what was done, neither: but I'll keep my oath--so far as it is in my power to keep it. Dead though he is, he shall be exposed to the world."
The words "dead though he is" aroused the attention of Lionel. "To whom do you allude, Robin?" he asked. "Have you obtained any fresh clue?"
"Not much of a fresh one," answered the man, with a stress upon the word "fresh." "I have had it this six or seven months. When they heard he was dead, then they could speak out and tell me their suspicions of him."
"Who could? What mystery are you talking?" reiterated Lionel.
"Never mind who, sir. It was one that kept the mouth shut, as long as there was any good in opening it. 'Not to make ill-blood,' was the excuse gave to me after. If I had but knowed at the time!" added the man, clenching his fist, "I'd have went out and killed him, if he had been double as far off!"
"Robin, what have you heard?"
"Well, sir, I'll tell you--but I have not opened my lips to a living soul,-not even to old father--The villain that did the harm to Rachel was John Massingbird!"
Lionel remained silent from surprise.
"I don't believe it," he presently said, speaking emphatically. "Who has accused him?"
"Sir, I have said that I can't tell you. I passed my word not to do it. It was one that had cause to suspect him at the time. And it was never told me--never told me--until John Massingbird was dead!"
Robin's voice rose to a sound of wailing pain, and he raised his hands with a gesture of despair.
"Did your informant know that it was John Massingbird?" Lionel gravely asked.
"They had not got what is called positive proof, such as might avail in a Court of Justice; but they was morally certain," replied Robin; "and so am I. I am only waiting for one thing, sir, to tell it out to all the world."
"And what's that?"
"The returning home of Luke Roy. There's not much doubt that he knows all about it; I have my reasons for saying so, and I'd like to be quite sure before I tell out the tale. Old Roy says Luke may be expected home by any ship as comes; he don't think he'll stop there, now John Massingbird's dead."
"Then, Robin, listen to me," returned Lionel. "I have no positive proof, any more than it appears your informant has; but I am perfectly convinced in my own mind that the guilty man was not John Massingbird, but another. Understand me," he emphatically continued, "I have good and sufficient reason for saying this. Rely upon it, whoever it may have been, John Massingbird it was not."
Robin lifted his eyes to the face of Lionel.
"You say you don't know this, sir?"
"Not of actual proof. But so sure am I that it was not he, that I could stake all I possess upon it."
"Then, sir, you'd lose it," doggedly answered Robin. "When the time comes that I choose to speak out--"
"What are you doing there?" burst forth Lionel, in a severely haughty tone.
It caused Robin to start from his seat.
In a gap of the hedge behind them, Lionel had caught sight of a human face, its stealthy ears complacently taking in every word. It was that of Roy the bailiff.
XXVI. THE PACKET IN THE SHIRT-DRAWER
Mrs. Tynn, the housekeeper at Verner's Pride, was holding one of those periodical visitations that she was pleased to call, when in familiar colloquy with her female assistants, a "rout out." It appeared to consist of turning a room and its contents topsy-turvy, and then putting them straight again. The chamber this time subjected to the ordeal was that of her late master, Mr. Verner. His drawers, closets, and other places consecrated to clothes, had not been meddled with since his death. Mrs. Verner, in some moment unusually (for her) given to sentiment, had told Tynn she should like to "go over his dear clothes" herself. Therefore Tynn left them alone for that purpose. Mrs. Verner, however, who loved her personal ease better than any earthly thing, and was more given to dropping off to sleep in her chair than ever, not only after dinner but all day long, never yet had ventured upon the task. Tynn suggested that she had better do it herself, after all; and Mrs. Verner replied, perhaps she had. So Tynn set about it.
Look at Mrs. Tynn over that deep, open drawer full of shirts. She calls it "Master's shirt-drawer." Have the shirts scared away her senses? She has sat herself down on the floor--almost fallen back as it seems--in some shock of alarm, and her mottled face has turned as white as her master's was, when she last saw him lying on that bed at her elbow.
"Go downstairs, Nancy, and stop there till I call you up again," she suddenly cried out to her helpmate.
And the girl left the room, grumbling to herself; for Nancy at Verner's Pride did not improve in temper.
Between two of the shirts, in the very middle of the stack, Mrs. Tynn had come upon a parcel, or letter. Not a small letter--if it was a letter--but one of very large size, thick, looking not unlike a government despatch. It was sealed with Mr. Verner's own seal, and addressed in his own handwriting--"For my nephew, Lionel Verner. To be opened after my death."
Mrs. Tynn entertained not the slightest doubt that she had come upon the lost codicil. That the parcel must have been lying quietly in the drawer since her master's death, was certain. The key of the drawer had remained in her own possession. When the search after the codicil took place, this drawer was opened--as a matter of form more than anything else--and Mrs. Tynn herself had lifted out the stack of shirts. She had assured those who were searching that there was no need to do so, for the drawer had been locked up at the time the codicil was made, and the deed could not have been put into it. They accepted her assurance, and did not look between the shirts. It puzzled Mrs. Tynn, now, to think how it could have got in.
"I'll not tell Tynn," she soliloquised--she and Tynn being somewhat inclined to take opposite sides of a question, in social intercourse--"and I'll not say a word to my mistress. I'll go straight off now and give it into the hands of Mr. Lionel. What a blessed thing!--If he should be come into his own!"
The inclosed paved court before Lady Verner's residence had a broad flower-bed round it. It was private from the outer world, save for the iron gates, and here Decima and Lucy Tempest were fond of lingering on a fine day. On this afternoon of Mary Tynn's discovery, they were there with Lionel. Decima went indoors for some string to tie up a fuchsia plant, just as Tynn appeared at the iron gates. She stopped on seeing Lionel.
"I was going round to the other entrance, sir, to ask to speak to you," she said. "Something very strange has happened."
"Come in," answered Lionel. "Will you speak here, or go indoors? What is it?"
Too excitedly eager to wait to go indoors, or to care for the presence of Lucy Tempest, Mrs. Tynn told her tale, and handed the paper to Lionel. "It's the missing codicil, as sure as that we are here, sir."
He saw the official-looking nature of the document, its great seal, and the superscription in his uncle's handwriting. Lionel did not doubt that it was the codicil, and a streak of scarlet emotion arose to his pale cheek.
"You don't open it, sir!" said the woman, as feverishly impatient as if the good fortune were her own.
No. Lionel did not open it. In his high honour, he deemed that, before opening, it should be laid before Mrs. Verner. It had been found in her house; it concerned her son. "I think it will be better that Mrs. Verner should open this, Tynn," he quietly said.
"You won't get me into a mess, sir, for bringing it out to you first?"
Lionel turned his honest eyes upon her, smiling then. "Can't you trust me better than that? You have known me long enough."
"So I have, Mr. Lionel. The mystery is, how it could ever have got into that shirt-drawer!" she continued. "I can declare that for a good week before my master died, up to the very day that the codicil was looked for, the shirt-drawer was never unlocked, nor the key of it out of my pocket."
She turned to go back to Verner's Pride, Lionel intending to follow her at once. He was going out at the gate when he caught the pleased eyes of Lucy Tempest fixed on him.
"I am so glad," she simply said. "Do you remember my telling you that you did not look like one who would have to starve on bread-and-cheese."
Lionel laughed in the joy of his heart. "I am glad also, Lucy. The place is mine by right, and it is just that I should have it."
"I have thought it very unfair, all along, that Verner's Pride should belong to her husband, and not to you, after--after what she did to you," continued Lucy, dropping her voice to a whisper.
"Things don't go by fairness, Lucy, in this world," said he, as he went through the gate. "Stay," he said, turning back from it, a thought crossing his mind. "Lucy, oblige me by not mentioning this to my mother or Decima. It may be as well to be sure that we are right, before exciting their hopes."
Lucy's countenance fell. "I will not speak of it. But, is it not sure to be the codicil?"
"I hope it is," cordially answered Lionel.
Mrs. Tynn had got back before him. She came forward and encountered him in the hall, her bonnet still on.
"I have told my mistress, sir, that I had found what I believed to be the codicil, and had took it off straight to you. She was not a bit angry; she says she hopes it is it."
Lionel entered. Mrs. Verner, who was in a semi-sleepy state, having been roused up by Mary Tynn from a long nap after a plentiful luncheon, received Lionel graciously--first of all asking him what he would take--it was generally her chief question--and then inquiring what the codicil said.
"I have not opened it," replied Lionel.
"No!" said she, in surprise. "Why did you wait?"
He laid it on the table beside her. "Have I your cordial approval to open it, Mrs. Verner?"
"You are ceremonious, Lionel. Open it at once; Verner's Pride belongs to you, more than to Fred; and you know I have always said so."
Lionel took up the deed. His finger was upon the seal when a thought crossed him; ought he to open it without further witnesses? He spoke his doubt aloud to Mrs. Verner.
"Ring the bell and have in Tynn," said she; "his wife also; she found it."
Lionel rang. Tynn and his wife both came in, in obedience to the request. Tynn looked at it curiously; and began rehearsing mentally a private lecture for his wife, for acting upon her own responsibility.
The seal was broken. The stiff writing-paper of the outer cover revealed a second cover of stiff writing-paper precisely similar to the first; but on this last there was no superscription. It was tied round with fine white twine. Lionel cut it, Tynn and Mrs. Tynn waited with the utmost eagerness; even Mrs. Verner's eyes were open wider than usual.
Alas! for the hopes of Lionel. The parcel contained nothing but a glove, and a small piece of writing-paper, folded once. Lionel unfolded it, and read the following lines:--
"This glove has come into my possession. When I tell you that I know where it was found and how you lost it, you will not wonder at the shock the discovery has been to me. I hush it up, Lionel, for your late father's sake, as much as for that of the name of Verner. I am about to seal it up that it may be given to you after my death; and you will then know why I disinherit you. S.V."
Lionel gazed on the lines like one in a dream. They were in the handwriting of his uncle. Understand them, he could not. He took up the glove--a thick, fawn-coloured riding-glove--and remembered it for one of his own. When he had lost it, or where he had lost it, he knew no more than did the table he was standing by. He had worn dozens of these gloves in the years gone by, up to the period when he had gone in mourning for John Massingbird, and, subsequently, for his uncle.
"What is it, Lionel?"
Lionel put the lines in his pocket, and pushed the glove toward Mrs. Verner. "I do not understand it in the least," he said. "My uncle appears to have found the glove somewhere, and he writes to say that he returns it to me. The chief matter that concerns us is"--turning his eyes on the servants--"that it is not the codicil!"
Mrs. Tynn lifted her hands. "How one may be deceived!" she uttered. "Mr. Lionel, I'd freely have laid my life upon it."
"It was not exactly my place to speak, sir: to give my opinion beforehand," interposed Tynn; "but I was sure that was not the lost codicil, by the very look of it. The codicil might have been about that size, and it had a big seal like that; but it was different in appearance."
"All that puzzled me was, how it could have got into the shirt-drawer," cried Mrs. Tynn. "As it has turned out not to be the codicil, of course there's no mystery about that. It may have been lying there weeks and weeks before the master died."
Lionel signed to them to leave the room: there was nothing to call for their remaining in it. Mrs. Verner asked him what the glove meant.
"I assure you I do not know," was his reply. And he took it up, and examined it well again. One of his riding gloves, scarcely worn, with a tear near the thumb; but there was nothing upon it, not so much as a trace, a spot, to afford any information. He rolled it up mechanically in the two papers, and placed them in his pocket, lost in thought.
"Do you know that I have heard from Australia?" asked Mrs. Verner.
The words aroused him thoroughly. "Have you? I did not know it."
"I wonder Mary Tynn did not tell you. The letters came this morning. If you look about"--turning her eyes on the tables and places--"you will find them somewhere."
Lionel knew that Mary Tynn had been too much absorbed in his business to find room in her thoughts for letters from Australia. "Are these the letters?" he asked, taking up two from a side-table.
"You'll know them by the post-marks. Do sit down and read them to me, Lionel. My sight is not good for letters now, and I couldn't read half that was in them. The ink's as pale as water. If it was the ink Fred took out, the sea must have washed into it. Yes, yes, you must I read both to me, and I shall not let you go away before dinner."
He did not like, in his good nature, to refuse her. And he sat there and read the long letters. Read Sibylla's. Before the last one was fully accomplished, Lionel's cheeks wore their hectic flush.
They had made a very quick and excellent passage. But Sibylla found Melbourne hateful. And Fred was ill; ill with fever. A fever was raging in a part of the crowded town, and he had caught it. She did not think it was a catching fever, either, she added; people said it arose from the over-population. They could not as yet hear of John, or his money, or anything about him; but Fred would see into it when he got better. They were at a part of Melbourne called Canvas Town, and she, Sibylla, was sick of it, and Fred drank heaps of brandy. If it were all land between her and home, she should set off at once on foot, and toil her way back again. She wished she had never come! Everything she cared for, except Fred, seemed to be left behind in England.
Such was her letter. Fred's was gloomy also, in a different way. He said nothing about any fever; he mentioned, casually, as it appeared, that he was not well, but that was all. He had not learned tidings of John, but had not had time yet to make inquiries. The worst piece of news he mentioned was the loss of his desk, which had contained the chief portion of his money. It had disappeared in a mysterious manner immediately after being taken off the ship--he concluded by the light fingers of some crimp, or thief, shoals of whom crowded on the quay. He was in hopes yet to find it, and had not told Sibylla. That was all he had to say at present, but would write again by the next packet.
"It is not very cheering news on the whole, is it?" said Mrs. Verner, as Lionel folded the letters.
"No. They had evidently not received the tidings of my uncle's death, or we should have heard that they were already coming back again."
"I don't know that," replied Mrs. Verner. "Fred worships money, and he would not suffer what was left by poor John to slip through his fingers. He will stay till he has realised it. I hope they will think to bring me back some memento of my lost boy! If it were only the handkerchief he used last, I should value it."
The tears filled her eyes. Lionel respected her grief, and remained silent. Presently she resumed, in a musing tone--
"I knew Sibylla would only prove an encumbrance to Fred, out there; and I told him so. If Fred thought he was taking out a wife who would make shift, and put up pleasantly with annoyances, he was mistaken. Sibylla in Canvas Town! Poor girl! I wonder she married him. Don't you?"
"Rather so," answered Lionel, his scarlet blush deepening.
"I do; especially to go to that place. Sibylla's a pretty flower, made to sport in the sunshine; but she never was constituted for a rough life, or to get pricked by thorns."
Lionel's heart beat. It echoed to every word. Would that she could have been sheltered from the thorns, the rough usages of life, as he would have sheltered her.
Lionel dined with Mrs. Verner, but quitted her soon afterwards. When he got back to Deerham Court, the stars were peeping out in the clear summer sky. Lucy Tempest was lingering in the courtyard, no doubt waiting for him, and she ran to meet him as soon as he appeared at the gate.
"How long you have been!" was her greeting, her glad eyes shining forth hopefully. "And is it all yours?"
Lionel drew her arm within his own in silence, and walked with her in silence until they reached the pillared entrance of the house. Then he spoke--
"You have not mentioned it, Lucy?"
"Of course I have not."
"Thank you. Let us both forget it. It was not the codicil. And Verner's Pride is not mine."
XXVII. DR. WEST'S SANCTUM
For some little time past, certain rumours had arisen in Deerham somewhat to the prejudice of Dr. West. Rumours of the same nature had circulated once or twice before during the progress of the last half dozen years; but they had died away again, or had been hushed up, never coming to anything. For one thing, their reputed scene had not lain at the immediate spot, but at Heartburg; and distance is a great discouragement to ill-natured tattle. This fresh scandal, however, was nearer. It touched the very heart of Deerham, and people made themselves remarkably busy over it--none the less busy because the accusations were vague. Tales never lose anything in carrying, and the most outrageous things were whispered of Dr. West.
A year or two previous to this, a widow lady named Baynton, with her two daughters, no longer very young, had come to live at a pretty cottage in Deerham. Nothing was known of who they were, or where they came from. They appeared to be very reserved, and made no acquaintance whatever. Under these circumstances, of course, their history was supplied for them. If you or I went and established ourselves in a fresh place to-morrow, saying nothing of who we were, or what we were, it would only be the signal for some busybody in that place to coin a story for us, and all the rest of the busybodies would immediately circulate it. It was said of Mrs. Baynton that she had been left in reduced circumstances; had fallen from some high pedestal of wealth, through the death of her husband; that she lived in a perpetual state of mortification in consequence of her present poverty, and would not admit a single inhabitant of Deerham within her doors to witness it. There may have been as little truth in it as in the greatest canard that ever flew; but Deerham promulgated it, Deerham believed in it, and the Bayntons never contradicted it. The best of all reasons for this may have been that they never heard of it. They lived quietly on alone, interfering with nobody, and going out rarely. In appearance and manners they were gentlewomen, and rather haughty gentlewomen, too; but they kept no servant. How their work was done, Deerham could not conceive: it was next to impossible to fancy one of those ladies scrubbing a floor or making a bed. The butcher called for orders, and took in the meat, which was nearly always mutton-chops; the baker left his bread at the door, and the laundress was admitted inside the passage once a week.
The only other person admitted inside was Dr. West. He had been called in, on their first arrival, to the invalid daughter--a delicate-looking lady, who, when she did walk out, leaned on her sister's arm. Dr. West's visits became frequent; they had continued frequent up to within a short period of the present time. Once or twice a week he called in professionally; he would also occasionally drop in for an hour in the evening. Some people passing Chalk Cottage (that was what it was named) had contrived to stretch their necks over the high privet hedge which hid the lower part of the dwelling from the road, and were immensely gratified by the fact of seeing Dr. West in the parlour, seated at tea with the family. How the doctor was questioned, especially in the earlier period of their residence, he alone could tell. Who were they? Were they well connected, or ill connected, or not connected at all? Were they known to fashion? How much was really their income? What was the matter with the one whom he attended, the sickly daughter, and what was her name? The questions would have gone on until now, but that the doctor stopped them. He had not made impertinent inquiries himself, he said, and had nothing at all to tell. The younger lady's complaint arose from disordered liver; he had no objection to tell them that; she had been so long a sufferer from it that the malady had become chronic; and her name was Kitty.
Now, it was touching this very family that the scandal had arisen. How it arose was the puzzle; since the ladies themselves never spoke to anybody, and Dr. West would not be likely to invent or to spread stories affecting himself. Its precise nature was buried in uncertainty, also its precise object. Some said one thing, some another. The scandal, on the whole, tended to the point that Dr. West had misbehaved himself. In what way? What had he done? Had he personally ill-treated them--sworn at them--done anything else unbecoming a gentleman? And which had been the sufferer? The old lady in her widow's cap? or the sickly daughter? or the other one? Could he have carelessly supplied wrong medicine; sent to them some arsenic instead of Epsom Salts, and so thrown them into fright, and danger, and anger? Had he scaled the privet hedge in the night, and robbed the garden of its cabbages? What, in short, was it that he had done? Deerham spoke out pretty broadly, as to the main facts, although the rumoured details were varied and obscure. It declared that some of Dr. West's doings at Chalk Cottage had not been orthodox, and that discovery had followed.
There are two classes of professional men upon whom not a taint should rest; who ought, in familiar phrase, to keep their hands clean--the parson of the parish, and the family doctor. Other people may dye themselves in Warren's jet if they like; but let as much as a spot get on him who stands in the pulpit to preach to us, or on him who is admitted to familiar intercourse with our wives and children, and the spot grows into a dark thundercloud. What's the old saying? "One man may walk in at the gate, while another must not look over the hedge." It runs something after that fashion. Had Dr. West not been a family doctor, the scandal might have been allowed to die out: as it was, Deerham kept up the ball, and rolled it. The chief motive for this, the one that influenced Deerham above all others, was unsatisfied curiosity. Could Deerham have gratified this to the full, it would have been content to subside into quietness.
Whether it was true, or whether it was false, there was no denying that it had happened at an unfortunate moment for Dr. West. A man always in debt--and what he did with his money Deerham could not make out, for his practice was a lucrative one--he had latterly become actually embarrassed. Deerham was good-natured enough to say that a handsome sum had found its way to Chalk Cottage, in the shape of silence-money, or something of the sort; but Deerham did not know. Dr. West was at his wits' end where to turn to for a shilling--had been so, for some weeks past; so that he had no particular need of anything worse coming down upon him. Perhaps what gave a greater colour to the scandal than anything else was the fact that, simultaneously with its rise, Dr. West's visits to Chalk Cottage had suddenly ceased.
Only one had been bold enough to speak upon the subject personally to Dr. West, and that was the proud old baronet, Sir Rufus Hautley. He rode down to the doctor's house one day; and, leaving his horse with his groom, had a private interview with the doctor. That Dr. West must have contrived to satisfy him in some way, was undoubted. Rigidly severe and honourable, Sir Rufus would no more have countenanced wrongdoing, than he would have admitted Dr. West again to his house, whether as doctor or anything else, had he been guilty of it. But when Sir Rufus went away, Dr. West attended him to the door, and they parted cordially, Sir Rufus saying something to the effect that he was glad his visit had dispelled the doubt arising from these unpleasing rumours, and he would recommend Dr. West to inquire into their source, with a view of bringing their authors to punishment. Dr. West replied that he should make it his business to do so. Dr. West, however, did nothing of the sort; or if he did do it, it was in strict privacy.
Jan sat one day astride on the counter in his frequent abiding-place, the surgery. Jan had got a brass vessel before him, and was mixing certain powders in it, preparatory to some experiment in chemistry, Master Cheese performing the part of looker-on, his elbows, as usual, on the counter.
"I say, we had such a start here this morning," began young Cheese, as if the recollection had suddenly occurred to him. "It was while you had gone your round."
"What start was that?"
"Some fellow came here, and--I say, Jan," broke off young Cheese, "did you ever know that room had got a second entrance to it?"
He pointed to the door of the back room--a room which was used exclusively by Dr. West. He had been known to see patients there on rare occasions, but neither Jan nor young Cheese was ever admitted into it. It opened with a latch-key only.
"There is another door leading into it from the garden," replied Jan. "It's never opened. It has got all those lean-to boards piled against it."
"Is it never opened, then?" retorted Master Cheese. "You just hear. A fellow came poking his nose into the premises this morning, staring up at the house, staring round about him, and at last he walks in here. A queer-looking fellow he was, with a beard, and appeared as if he had come a thousand miles or two, on foot. 'Is Dr. West at home?' he asked. I told him the doctor was not at home; for, you see, Jan, it wasn't ten minutes since the doctor had gone out. So he said he'd wait. And he went peering about and handling the bottles; and once he took the scales up, as if he'd like to test their weight. I kept my eye on him. I thought a queer fellow like that might be going to walk off with some physic, like Miss Amilly walks off the castor oil. Presently he comes to that door. 'Where does this lead to?' said he. 'A private room,' said I, 'and please to keep your hands off it.' Not he. He lays hold of the false knob, and shakes it, and turns it, and pushes the door, trying to open it. It was fast. Old West had come out of there before going out, and catch him ever leaving that door open! I say, Jan, one would think he kept skeletons there."
"Is that all?" asked Jan, alluding to the story.
"Wait a bit. The fellow put his big fist upon the latch-key-hole--I think he must have been a feller of trees, I do--and his knee to the door, and he burst it open. Burst it open, Jan! you never saw such strength."
"I could burst any door open that I had a mind to," was the response of Jan.
"He burst it open," continued young Cheese, "and burst it against old West. You should have seen 'em stare! They both stared. I stared. I think the chap did not mean to do it; that he was only trying his strength for pastime. But now, Jan, the odd part of the business is, how did West get in? If there's not another door, he must have got down the chimney."
Jan went on with his compounding, and made no response.
"And if there is a door, he must have been mortal sly over it," resumed the young gentleman. "He must have gone right out from here, and in at the side gate of the garden, and got in that way. I wonder what he did it for?"
"It isn't any business of ours," said Jan.
"Then I think it is," retorted Master Cheese. "I'd like to know how many times he has been in there, listening to us, when we thought him a mile off. It's a shame!"
"It's nothing to me who listens," said Jan equably. "I don't say things behind people's backs, that I'd not say before their faces."
"I do," acknowledged young Cheese. "Wasn't there a row! Didn't he and the man go on at each other! They shut themselves up in that room, and had it out."
"What did the man want?" asked Jan.
"I'd like to know. He and old West had it out together, I say, but they didn't admit me to the conference. Goodness knows where he had come from. West seemed to know him. Jan, I heard something about him and the Chalk Cottage folks yesterday."
"You had better take yourself to a safe distance," advised Jan. "If this goes off with a bang, your face will come in for the benefit."
"I say, though, it's you that must take care and not let it go off," returned Master Cheese, edging, nevertheless, a little away. "But about that room? If old West----"
The words were interrupted. The door of the room in question was pushed open, and Dr. West came out of it. Had Master Cheese witnessed the arrival of an inhabitant from the other world, introduced by the most privileged medium extant, he could not have experienced more intense astonishment. He had truly believed, as he had just expressed it, that Dr. West was at that moment a good mile away.
"Put your hat on, Cheese," said Dr. West.
Cheese put it on, going into a perspiration at the same time. He thought nothing less than that he was about to be dismissed.
"Take this note up to Sir Rufus Hautley's."
It was a great relief; and Master Cheese received the note in his hand, and went off whistling.
"Step in here, Mr. Jan," said the doctor.
Jan took one of his long legs over the counter, jumped off, and stepped in--into the doctor's sanctum. Had Jan been given to speculation, he might have wondered what was coming; but it was Jan's method to take things cool and easy, as they came, and not to anticipate them.
"My health has been bad of late," began the doctor.
"Law!" cried Jan. "What has been the matter?"
"A general disarrangement of the system altogether, I fancy," returned Dr. West. "I believe that the best thing to restore me will be change of scene--travelling; and an opportunity to embrace it has presented itself. I am solicited by an old friend of mine, in practice in London, to take charge of a nobleman's son for some months--to go abroad with him."
"Is he ill?" asked literal Jan, to whom it never occurred to ask whether Dr. West had first of all applied to his old friend to seek after such a post for him.
"His health is delicate, both mentally and bodily," replied Dr. West. "I should like to undertake it: the chief difficulty is leaving you here alone."
"I dare say I can do it all," said Jan. "My legs get over the ground quick. I can take to your horse."
"If you find you cannot do it, you might engage an assistant," suggested Dr. West.
"So I might," said Jan.
"I should see no difficulty at all in the matter if you were my partner. It would be the same as leaving myself, and the patients could not grumble. But it is not altogether the thing to leave only an assistant, as you are, Mr. Jan."
"Make me your partner, if you like," said cool Jan. "I don't mind. What'll it cost?"
"Ah, Mr. Jan, it will cost more than you possess. At least, it ought."
"I have got five hundred pounds," said Jan. "I wanted Lionel to have it, but he won't. Is that of any use?"
Dr. West coughed. "Well, under the circumstances----But it is very little! I am sure you must know that it is. Perhaps, Mr. Jan, we can come to some arrangement by which I take the larger share for the present. Say that, for this year, you forward me----"
"Why, how long do you mean to be away?" interrupted Jan.
"I can't say. One year, two years, three years--it may be even more than that. I expect this will be a long and a lucrative engagement. Suppose, I say, that for the first year you transmit to me the one-half of the net profits, and, beyond that, hand over to Deborah a certain sum, as shall be agreed upon, towards housekeeping."
"I don't mind how it is," said easy Jan. "They'll stop here, then?"
"Of course they will. My dear Mr. Jan, everything, I hope, will go on just as it goes on now, save that I shall be absent. You and Cheese--whom I hope you'll keep in order--and the errand boy: it will all be just as it has been. As to the assistant, that will be a future consideration."
"I'd rather be without one, if I can do it," cried Jan; "and Cheese will be coming on. Am I to live with 'em?"
"With Deb and Amilly? Why not? Poor, unprotected old things, what would they do without you? And now, Mr. Jan, as that is settled so far, we will sit down, and go further into details. I know I can depend upon your not mentioning this abroad."
"If you don't want me to mention it, you can. But where's the harm?"
"It is always well to keep these little arrangements private," said the doctor. "Matiss will draw up the deed, and I will take you round and introduce you as my partner. But there need not be anything said beforehand. Neither need there be anything said at all about my going away, until I actually go. You will oblige me in this, Mr. Jan."
"It's all the same to me," said accommodating Jan. "Whose will be this room, then?"
"Yours, to do as you please with, of course, so long as I am away."
"I'll have a turn-up bedstead put in it and sleep here, then," quoth Jan. "When folks come in the night, and ring me up, I shall be handy. It'll be better than disturbing the house, as is the case now."
The doctor appeared struck with the proposition.
"I think it would be a very good plan, indeed," he said. "I don't fancy the room's damp."
"Not it," said Jan. "If it were damp, it wouldn't hurt me. I have no time to be ill, I haven't. Damp--Who's that?"
It was a visitor to the surgery--a patient of Dr. West's--and, for the time, the conference was broken up, not to be renewed until evening.
Dr. West and Jan were both fully occupied all the afternoon. When business was over--as much so as a doctor's business ever can be over--Jan knocked at the door of this room, where Dr. West again was.
It was opened about an inch, and the face of the doctor appeared in the aperture, peering out to ascertain who might be disturbing him. The same aperture which enabled him to see out, enabled Jan to see in.
"Why! what's up?" cried unceremonious Jan.
Jan might well ask it. The room contained a table, a desk or two, some sets of drawers, and other receptacles for the custody of papers. All these were turned out, desks and drawers alike stood open, and their contents, a mass of papers, were scattered everywhere.
The doctor could not, in good manners, shut the door right in his proposed new partner's face. He opened it an inch or two more. His own face was purple: it wore a startled, perplexed look, and the drops of moisture had gathered on his forehead. That he was not in the most easy frame of mind was evident. Jan put one foot into the room: he could not put two, unless he had stepped upon the papers.
"What's the matter?" asked Jan, perceiving the signs of perturbation on the doctor's countenance.
"I have had a loss," said the doctor. "It's the most extraordinary thing, but a--a paper, which was here this morning, I cannot find anywhere. I must find it!" he added, in ill-suppressed agitation. "I'd rather lose everything I possess, than lose that."
"Where did you put it? When did you have it?" cried Jan, casting his eyes around.
"I kept it in a certain drawer," replied Dr. West, too much disturbed to be anything but straightforward. "I have not had it in my hand for--oh, I cannot tell how long--months and months, until this morning. I wanted to refer to it then, and got it out. I was looking it over when a rough, ill-bred fellow burst the door open----"
"I heard of that," interrupted Jan. "Cheese told me."
"He burst the door open, and I put the paper back in its place before I spoke to him," continued Dr. West. "Half an hour ago I went to take it out again, and I found it had disappeared."
"The fellow must have walked it off," cried Jan, a conclusion not unnatural.
"He could not," said Dr. West; "it is quite an impossibility. I went back there"--pointing to a bureau of drawers behind him--"and put the paper hastily in, and locked it in, returning the keys to my pocket. The man had not stepped over the threshold of the door then; he was a little taken to, I fancy, at his having burst the door, and he stood there staring."
"Could he have got at it afterwards?" asked Jan.
"It is, I say, an impossibility. He never was within a yard or two of the bureau; and, if he had been, the place was firmly locked. That man it certainly was not. Nobody has been in the room since, save myself, and you for a few minutes to-day when I called you in. And yet the paper is gone!"
"Could anybody have come into the room by the other door?" asked Jan.
"No. It opens with a latch-key only, as this does, and the key was safe in my pocket."
"Well, this beats everything," cried Jan. "It's like the codicil at Verner's Pride."
"The very thing it put me in mind of," said Dr. West. "I'd rather--I'd rather have lost that codicil, had it been mine, than lose this, Mr. Jan."
Jan opened his eyes. Jan had a knack of opening his eyes when anything surprised him--tolerably wide, too, "What paper was it, then?" he cried.
"It was a prescription, Mr. Jan."
"A prescription!" returned Jan, the answer not lessening his wonder. "That's not much. Isn't it in the book?"
"No, it is not in the book," said Dr. West. "It was too valuable to be in the book. You may look, Mr. Jan, but I mean what I say. This was a private prescription of inestimable value--a secret prescription, I may say. I would not have lost it for the whole world."
The doctor wiped the dew from his perplexed forehead, and strove, though unsuccessfully, to control his agitated voice to calmness. Jan could only stare. All this fuss about a prescription!
"Did it contain the secret for compounding Life's Elixir?" asked he.
"It contained what was more to me than that," said Dr. West. "But you can't help me, Mr. Jan. I would rather be left to the search alone."
"I hope you'll find it yet," returned Jan, taking the hint and retreating to the surgery. "You must have overlooked it amongst some of these papers."
"I hope I shall," replied the doctor.
And he shut himself up to the search, and turned over the papers. But he never found what he had lost, although he was still turning and turning them at morning light.
XXVIII. MISS DEBORAH'S ASTONISHMENT
One dark morning, near the beginning of November--in fact, it was the first morning of that gloomy month--Jan was busy in the surgery. Jan was arranging things there according to his own pleasure; for Dr. West had departed that morning early, and Jan was master of the field.
Jan had risen betimes. Never a sluggard, he had been up now for some hours, and had effected so great a metamorphosis in the surgery that the doctor himself would hardly have known it again: things in it previously never having been arranged to Jan's satisfaction. And now he was looking at his watch to see whether breakfast time was coming on, Jan's hunger reminding him that it might be acceptable. He had not yet been into the house; his bedroom now being the room you have heard of, the scene of Dr. West's lost prescription. The doctor had gone by the six o'clock train, after a cordial farewell to Jan; he had gone--as it was soon to turn out--without having previously informed his daughters. But of this Jan knew nothing.
"Twenty minutes past eight," quoth Jan, consulting his watch, a silver one, the size of a turnip. Jan had bought it when he was poor: had given about two pounds for it, second-hand. It never occurred to Jan to buy a better one while that legacy of his was lying idle. Why should he? Jan's turnip kept time to a moment, and Jan did not understand buying things for show. "Ten minutes yet! I shall eat a double share of bacon this morning.--Good-morning, Miss Deb."
Miss Deb was stealing into the surgery with a scared look and a white face. Miss Deb wore her usual winter morning costume, a huge brown cape. She was of a shivery nature at the best of times, but she shivered palpably now.
"Mr. Jan, have you got a drop of ether?" asked she, her poor teeth chattering together. Jan was too good-natured to tell Deerham those teeth were false, though Dr. West had betrayed the secret to Jan.
"Who's it for?" asked Jan. "For you? Aren't you well, Miss Deb? Eat some breakfast; that's the best thing."
"I have had a dreadful shock, Mr. Jan. I have had bad news. That is--what has been done to the surgery?" she broke off, casting her eyes around it in wonder.
"Not much," said Jan. "I have been making some odds and ends of alteration. Is the news from Australia?" he continued, the open letter in her hand helping him to the suggestion. "A mail's due."
Miss Deborah shook her head. "It is from my father, Mr. Jan. The first thing I saw, upon going into the breakfast parlour, was this note for me, propped against the vase on the mantel-piece. Mr. Jan"--dropping her voice to confidence--"it says he is gone! That he is gone away for an indefinite period."
"You don't mean to say he never told you of it before!" exclaimed Jan.
"I never heard a syllable from him," cried poor Deborah. "He says you'll explain to us as much as is necessary. You can read the note. Mr. Jan, where's he gone?"
Jan ran his eyes over the note; feeling himself probably in somewhat of a dilemma as to how much or how little it might be expedient to explain.
"He thought some travelling might be beneficial to his health," said Jan. "He has got a rare good post as travelling doctor to some young chap of quality."
Miss Deborah was looking very hard at Jan. Something seemed to be on her mind; some great fear. "He says he may not be back for ever so long to come, Mr. Jan."
"So he told me," said Jan.
"And is that the reason he took you into partnership, Mr. Jan?"
"Yes," said Jan. "Couldn't leave an assistant for an indefinite period."
"You will never be able to do it all yourself. I little thought, when all this bustle and changing of bedrooms was going on, what was up. You might have told me, Mr. Jan," she added, in a reproachful tone.
"It wasn't my place to tell you," returned Jan. "It was the doctor's."
Miss Deborah looked timidly round, and then sunk her voice to a lower whisper. "Mr. Jan, why has he gone away?"
"For his health," persisted Jan.
"They are saying--they are saying--Mr. Jan, what is it that they are saying about papa and those ladies at Chalk Cottage?"
Jan laid hold of the pestle and mortar, popped in a big lump of some hard-looking white substance, and began pounding away at it. "How should I know anything about the ladies at Chalk Cottage?" asked he. "I never was inside their door; I never spoke to any one of 'em."
"But you know that things are being said," urged Miss Deborah, with almost feverish eagerness. "Don't you?"
"Who told you anything was being said?" asked Jan.
"It was Master Cheese. Mr. Jan, folks have seemed queer lately. The servants have whispered together, and then have glanced at me and Amilly, and I knew there was something wrong, but I could not get at it. This morning, when I picked up this note--it's not five minutes ago, Mr. Jan--in my fright and perplexity I shrieked out; and Master Cheese, he said something about Chalk Cottage."
"What did he say?" asked Jan.
Miss Deborah's pale face turned to crimson. "I can't tell," she said. "I did not hear the words rightly. Master Cheese caught them up again. Mr. Jan, I have come to you to tell me."
Jan answered nothing. He was pounding very fiercely.
"Mr. Jan, I ought to know it," she went on. "I am not a child. If you please I must request you to tell me."
"What are you shivering for?" asked Jan.
"I can't help it. Is--is it anything that--that he can be taken up for?"
"Taken up!" replied Jan, ceasing from his pounding, and fixing his wide-open eyes on Miss Deborah. "Can I be taken up for doing this?"--and he brought down the pestle with such force as to threaten the destruction of the mortar.
"You'll tell me, please," she shivered.
"Well," said Jan, "if you must know it, the doctor had a misfortune."
"A misfortune! He! What misfortune! A misfortune at Chalk Cottage?"
Jan gravely nodded. "And they were in an awful rage with him, and said he should pay expenses, and all that. And he wouldn't pay expenses--the chimney-glass alone was twelve pound fifteen; and there was a regular quarrel, and they turned him out."
"But what was the nature of the misfortune?"
"He set the parlour chimney on fire."
Miss Deborah's lips parted with amazement; she appeared to find some difficulty in closing them again.
"Set the parlour chimney on fire, Mr. Jan!"
"Very careless of him," continued Jan, with composure. "He had no business to carry gunpowder about with him. Of course they won't believe but he flung it in purposely."
Miss Deborah could not gather her senses. "Who won't?--the ladies at Chalk Cottage?"
"The ladies at Chalk Cottage," assented Jan. "If I saw all these bottles go to smithereens, through Cheese stowing gunpowder in his trousers' pockets, I might go into a passion too, Miss Deb."
"But, Mr. Jan--this is not what's being said in Deerham?"
"Law, if you go by all that's said in Deerham, you'll have enough to do," cried Jan. "One says one thing and one says another. No two are ever in the same tale. When that codicil was lost at Verner's Pride, ten different people were accused by Deerham of stealing it."
"Were they?" responded Miss Deborah abstractedly.
"Did you never hear it! You just ask Deerham about the row between the doctor and Chalk Cottage, and you'll hear ten versions, all different. What else could be expected? As if he'd take the trouble to explain the rights of it to them! Not that I should advise you to ask," concluded Jan pointedly. "Miss Deborah, do you know the time?"
"It must be half-past eight," she repeated mechanically, her thoughts buried in a reverie.
"And turned," said Jan. "I'd be glad of breakfast. I shall have the gratis patients here."
"It shall be ready in two minutes," said Miss Deborah meekly. And she went out of the surgery.
Presently young Cheese came leaping into it. "The breakfast's ready," cried he.
Jan stretched out his long arm, and pinned Master Cheese.
"What have you been saying to Miss Deb?" he asked. "Look here; who is your master now?"
"You are, I suppose," said the young gentleman.
"Very well. You just bear that in mind; and don't go carrying tales indoors of what Deerham says. Attend to your own business and leave Dr. West's alone."
Master Cheese was considerably astonished. He had never heard such a speech from easy Jan.
"I say, though, are you going to turn out a bashaw with three tails?" asked he.
"Yes," replied Jan. "I have promised Dr. West to keep you in order, and I shall do it."
XXIX. AN INTERCEPTED JOURNEY
Dr. West's was not the only departure from Deerham that was projected for that day. The other was that of Lionel Verner. Fully recovered, he had deemed it well to waste no more time. Lady Verner suggested that he should remain in Deerham until the completion of the year; Lionel replied that he had remained in it rather too long already, that he must be up and doing. He was eager to be "up and doing," and his first step towards it was the proceeding to London and engaging chambers. He fixed upon the first day of November for his departure, unconscious that that day had also been fixed upon by Dr. West for his. However, the doctor was off long before Lionel was out of bed.
Lionel rose all excitement--all impulse to begin his journey, to be away from Deerham. Somebody else rose with feelings less pleasurable; and that was Lucy Tempest. Now that the real time of separation had come, Lucy awoke to the state of her own feelings; to the fact, that the whole world contained but one beloved face for her--that of Lionel Verner.
She awoke with no start, she saw nothing wrong in it, she did not ask herself how it was to end, what the future was to be; any vision of marrying Lionel, which might have flashed across the active brain of a more sophisticated young lady, never occurred to Lucy. All she knew was that she had somehow glided into a state of existence different from anything she had ever experienced before; that her days were all brightness, the world an Eden, and that it was the presence of Lionel that made the sunshine.
She stood before the glass, twisting her soft brown hair, her cheeks crimson with excitement, her eyes bright. The morrow morning would be listless enough; but this, the last on which she would see him, was gay with rose hues of love. Stay! not gay; that is a wrong expression. It would have been gay but for that undercurrent of feeling which was whispering that, in a short hour or two, all would change to the darkest shade.
"He says it may be a twelvemonth before he shall come home again," she said to herself, her white fingers trembling as she fastened her pretty morning-dress. "How lonely it will be! What shall we do all that while without him? Oh, dear, what's the matter with me this morning?"
In her perturbed haste, she had fastened her dress all awry, and had to undo it again. The thought that she might be keeping them waiting breakfast--which was to be taken that morning a quarter of an hour earlier than usual--did not tend to expedite her. Lucy thought of the old proverb: "The more haste, the less speed."
"How I wish I dare ask him to come sooner than that to see us! But he might think it strange. I wonder he should not come! there's Christmas, there's Easter, and he must have holiday then. A whole year, perhaps more; and not to see him!"
She passed out of the room and descended, her soft skirts of pink-shaded cashmere sweeping the staircase. You saw her in it the evening she first came to Lady Verner's. It had lain by almost ever since, and was now converted into a morning dress. The breakfast-room was empty. Instead of being behind her time, Lucy found she was before it. Lady Verner had not risen; she rarely did rise to breakfast; and Decima was in Lionel's room, busy over some of his things.
Lionel himself was the next to enter. His features broke into a glad smile when he saw Lucy. A fairer picture, she, Mr. Lionel Verner, than even that other vision of loveliness which your mind has been pleased to make its ideal--Sibylla!
"Down first, Lucy!" he cried, shaking hands with her. "You wish me somewhere, I dare say, getting you up before your time."
"By how much--a few minutes?" she answered, laughing. "It wants twenty minutes to nine. What would they have said to me at the rectory, had I come down so late as that?"
"Ah, well, you won't have me here to torment you to-morrow. I have been a trouble to you, Lucy, take it altogether. You will be glad to see my back turned."
Lucy shook her head. She looked shyly up at him in her timidity; but she answered truthfully still.
"I shall be sorry; not glad."
"Sorry! Why should you be sorry, Lucy?" and his voice insensibly assumed a tone of gentleness. "You cannot have cared for me; for the companionship of a half-dead fellow, like myself!"
Lucy rallied her courage. "Perhaps it was because you were half dead that I cared for you," she answered.
"I suppose it was," mused Lionel, aloud, his thoughts cast back to the past. "I will bid you good-bye now, Lucy, while we are alone. Believe me that I part from you with regret; that I do heartily thank you for all you have been to me."
Lucy looked up at him, a yearning, regretful sort of look, and her eyelashes grew wet. Lionel had her hand in his, and was looking down at her.
"Lucy, I do think you are sorry to part with me!" he exclaimed.
"Just a little," she answered.
If you, good, grave sir, had been stoical enough to resist the upturned face, Lionel was not. He bent his lips and left a kiss upon it.
"Keep it until we meet again," he whispered.
Jan came in while they were at breakfast.
"I can't stop a minute," were his words when Decima asked him why he did not sit down. "I thought I'd run up and say good-bye to Lionel, but I am wanted in all directions. Mrs. Verner has sent for me, and there are the regular patients."
"Dr. West attends Mrs. Verner, Jan," said Decima.
"He did," replied Jan. "It is to be myself, now. West is gone."
"Gone!" was the universal echo. And Jan gave an explanation.
It was received in silence. The rumours affecting Dr. West had reached Deerham Court.
"What is the matter with Mrs. Verner?" asked Lionel. "She appeared as well as usual when I quitted her last night."
"I don't know that there's anything more the matter with her than usual," returned Jan, sitting down on a side-table. "She has been going in some time for apoplexy."
"Oh, Jan!" uttered Lucy.
"So she has, Miss Lucy--as Dr. West has said. I have not attended her."
"Has she been told it, Jan?"
"Where's the good of telling her?" asked Jan. "She knows it fast enough. She'd not forego a meal, if she saw the fit coming on before night. Tynn came round to me, just now, and said his mistress felt poorly. The Australian mail is in," continued Jan, passing to another subject.
"Is it?" cried Decima.
Jan nodded.
"I met the postman as I was coming out, and he told me. I suppose there'll be news from Fred and Sibylla."
After this little item of information, which called the colour into Lucy's cheek--she best knew why--but which Lionel appeared to listen to impassively, Jan got off the table--
"Good-bye, Lionel," said he, holding out his hand.
"What's your hurry, Jan?" asked Lionel.
"Ask my patients," responded Jan, "I am off the first thing to Mrs. Verner, and then shall take my round. I wish you luck, Lionel."
"Thank you, Jan," said Lionel. "Nothing less than the woolsack, of course."
"My gracious!" said literal Jan. "I say, Lionel, I'd not count upon that. If only one in a thousand gets to the woolsack, and all the lot expect it, what an amount of heart-burning must be wasted."
"Right, Jan. Only let me lead my circuit and I shall deem myself lucky."
"How long will it take you before you can accomplish that?" asked Jan. "Twenty years?"
A shade crossed Lionel's countenance. That he was beginning late in life, none knew better than he. Jan bade him farewell, and departed for Verner's Pride.
Lady Verner was down before Lionel went. He intended to take the quarter-past ten o'clock train.
"When are we to meet again?" she asked, holding her hand in his.
"I will come home to see you soon, mother."
"Soon! I don't like the vague word," returned Lady Verner. "Why cannot you come for Christmas?"
"Christmas! I shall scarcely have gone."
"You will come, Lionel?"
"Very well, mother. As you wish it, I will."
A crimson flush--a flush of joy--rose to Lucy's countenance. Lionel happened to have glanced at her. I wonder what he thought of it!
His luggage had gone on, and he walked with a hasty step to the station. The train came in two minutes after he reached it. Lionel took his ticket, and stepped into a first-class carriage.
All was ready. The whistle sounded, and the guard had one foot on his van-step, when a shouting and commotion was heard. "Stop! Stop!" Lionel, like others, looked out, and beheld the long legs of his brother Jan come flying along the platform. Before Lionel had well known what was the matter, or had gathered in the hasty news, Jan had pulled him out of the carriage, and the train went shrieking on without him.
"There goes my luggage, and here am I and my ticket!" cried Lionel. "You have done a pretty thing, Jan. What do you say?"
"It's all true, Lionel. She was crying over the letters when I got there. And pretty well I have raced back to stop your journey. Of course you will not go away now. He's dead."
"I don't understand yet," gasped Lionel, feeling, however, that he did understand.
"Not understand," repeated Jan. "It's easy enough. Fred Massingbird's dead, poor fellow; he died of fever three weeks after they landed; and you are master of Verner's Pride."