CHAPTER III
PROFFERED AID.
Alice Heathcote had noticed that for a week past Captain Bradshaw had been unusually absent and moody. He had, however, upon the first occasion, when she had inquired if anything were the matter, answered so sharply, “Nothing, my dear, what makes you get such ideas in your head?” that she had not again approached the subject, and rather put it down to an access of her uncle’s chronic complaint of liver.
They were one evening at a small dinner party at the house of an old friend. During a pause in the conversation at dessert, their host remarked, “Shocking bad business that of the ‘Indian’, Bradshaw.”
“Very,” Captain Bradshaw said, curtly.
“You had no shares in it, I hope?”
“Not a penny,” Captain Bradshaw answered.
“Bad business for your nephew Frank. I hear he’s completely done for. Furniture advertised! Fine young fellow, sorry for him—haven’t seen much of him of late. However, it doesn’t matter so much in his case. He’s got a good uncle, eh, Bradshaw?”
“Frank and myself have had a difference,” Captain Bradshaw said stiffly; “I have not spoken to him since his marriage.”
“God bless my soul!” the host said, in much confusion; “I beg your pardon—never dreamt of it—never, upon my life. You have been away so long, you see.”
“It is of no consequence,” Captain Bradshaw said, calmly; “we will change the subject.”
Alice Heathcote had heard all this in silence; she felt that she was very pale, and was grateful when the hostess, to break the awkward silence that ensued, rose as Captain Bradshaw finished speaking, and gave the signal for the ladies to retire. Alice took up a book as an excuse for being silent, sat down upon an ottoman apart from the others, and thought over what she had heard. Frank ruined. The furniture to be sold. Was it possible? What would Frank do? What could he do? Frank had been very wicked, very, very wrong, but still he had for many years been her playmate and brother. Could it be possible that he was absolutely ruined, had nothing to live on? What would he do? and with a wife, too, the wife of whom he used to talk so lovingly and proudly to her; and a little child, too. No, no, whatever Frank had done he must not want. While she was so rich, Frank at any rate should never be poor; but how could she do it? Alice was still thinking over this when the gentlemen came upstairs. The host came and took his seat on the ottoman by her.
“My dear Miss Heathcote, I am very sorry I made such a terrible mistake at dinner. But I had no idea of it. I understand now why Maynard came here so seldom—dropped our acquaintance, in fact. I was rather hurt about it, as an old friend, and that is why I did not ask him and his wife to meet you to-day. He had refused me twice. But what is this all about? I always made sure he was to be Captain Bradshaw’s heir.”
“I cannot tell you what it is about, Mr. Pierce,” Alice said, simply, “but I am afraid it will never be made up. Please tell me is he really ruined?”
“I am afraid so; in fact I am sure of it. He himself once mentioned to me that he was a large shareholder in the ‘Indian’ and I happened to meet him the day before yesterday, and as an old friend, you know, spoke to him about it, and said I hoped he was not hit hard. ‘I am, indeed’ he said, ‘about as hard as can be. When the calls are made, every penny I have goes.’”
“Did he seem very low spirited, Mr. Pierce?”
“Oh, no,” her host said; “he seemed just as usual; spoke out in his cheery sort of way, as if it was a matter of no very great importance to himself that he was talking about; and I naturally supposed, as I had always looked upon him as Captain Bradshaw’s heir, that he was by no means anxious about the future. And you say that there is no chance of the quarrel being made up? I am sorry, indeed! such a nice lad as he was, and such a fine fellow as he had grown up. If there is anything I can do, Miss Heathcote; if as an old friend, I can try to bring matters round, you may rely upon me.”
“Thank you,” Alice said; “but it would not be of the slightest use. It would make matters worse, indeed. No, nothing can be done.”
Another of the gentlemen now coming up, the conversation was changed, and shortly afterwards Captain Bradshaw’s carriage was announced. Neither spoke upon their way home, and the only words exchanged as they separated upon the stair, were “Good night, uncle;” “Good night, Alice. You look tired.” The next morning Alice looked pale and ill, but her uncle made no observation. They were silent at breakfast, at last Alice said resolutely,—
“Uncle, you will not be angry with me?”
“I don’t know, Alice; I hope not.”
“I have always been a good girl, Guardy, haven’t I?”
“Yes, Alice, a very good girl.”
“I have never teased you, or wanted to have my own way, have I?”
“Well, Alice, you have not teased me more than was reasonable that a young woman should do, and I don’t know that I ever particularly wanted you to go any way you did not yourself like.”
Captain Bradshaw spoke playfully, but he quite guessed what Alice was going to say, and was fully prepared to resist her.
“Uncle, you had heard before of Frank having lost all his money?”
“Yes, I had heard it before, Alice,” Captain Bradshaw said, and then muttered to himself, “and serve him right too.”
“Uncle,” Alice said, pleadingly, “can you bear to think of Frank with his young wife and a baby being in want, in absolute want?”
“He must do as other people do, my dear, and work for his living. He is strong enough.”
Alice saw that it was useless trying to move her uncle, and that if she persisted he would only get into a passion, and make what she had quite resolved to do the more difficult.
“Uncle Harry, you know that I quite think with you about Frank. Quite agree with you that he can never be to us what he formerly was, without he explains and expresses repentance and sorrow for the past; and if I know anything at all of Frank, if he could not, or would not, do it when you first wrote to him, and when he was comfortably off, he will not do it now.”
“I quite agree with you there, Alice.”
“Well, uncle, I don’t wish to influence you at all, but for the sake of old times, for the sake of the boy I loved as a girl, I will not let him want. I believe, uncle, that I have absolute control over my fortune?”
“Yes, Miss Heathcote,” her uncle said, coldly, “I am sorry to say that you have.”
“Oh, uncle,” Alice said, bursting into tears, “don’t speak so to me; you are the only person I have to love in the world, but I must help Frank.”
“Well, my dear,” the old man said, more kindly, “have your own way. ‘A wilful woman,’ you know; but mind, I don’t oppose you simply because I can’t. If I could, I would. I tell you that fairly; but if in spite of that you choose to have your own way, I shall not quarrel with you about it. I have had quarrelling enough in my time, God knows, and I am not going to quarrel with you.”
“Thank you, uncle,” Alice said, brightening up. “I am sorry I can’t do as you want me. I am really. But I cannot help it. I have fifty thousand pounds, haven’t I?”
“Yes, Alice.”
“If I want to get some of it—and I do want—how do I set about it?”
“The money is invested in my name, Alice, as your trustee. It was so put when you were a child, and has never been altered, because I was able to sign for your dividends without troubling you. If you want any of it out, you give me authority, I write to a broker, and give him authority, and he manages it.”
“Will you please to write, uncle, and tell him to sell out ten thousand pounds? Don’t look angry, uncle, please don’t.”
“Well, Alice, I will do as you desire me; but mind, Frank won’t take it.”
“Oh, uncle, don’t say that,” Alice cried; indeed she had worried so much over the difficulty of persuading her uncle to consent to her wishes that she had never thought of the probability or otherwise of Frank’s accepting it.
“Well, do you think it likely yourself, Alice?”
“But he mustn’t know it comes from me, uncle.”
“Well, my dear, have your own way; I will carry out your wishes as you desire; but, mark my words, Frank won’t take it. Frank may have done a blackguard dishonourable action once, but we can’t have been altogether mistaken in him. We cast him off when he was well off, he will not receive assistance from us now.”
“No, he would not for himself, uncle, but he has others to think of now.”
“Very well, my dear,” Captain Bradshaw said, coldly; “try.”
Two or three days after this, as Frank and his wife were sitting by the fire after tea, talking about their now rapidly approaching change, a letter was brought in. Frank opened it. He gave a low whistle of surprise.
“What is it, Frank?”
“Messrs. Hankey beg to inform Mr. Frank Maynard that a sum of ten thousand pounds (£10,000) has been paid in to open an account in his name. Will he please to give an early call at the Bank to complete the necessary formalities. Messrs. Hankey are not at liberty to state the name of the person by whom the money has been paid in.”
“What do you think of that, Katie? Of course it comes from Captain Bradshaw. I am surprised, I confess. I did not think he would have given in.”
Kate looked thoughtfully into the fire.
“Are you sure he has given in, Frank?”
“Well, I suppose so, Katie. There is no one else among my circle of acquaintances who is likely to have paid anonymously ten thousand pounds on my account. Mind, I am not saying that we are going to take it. That’s a thing to be talked over. Unless he apologises amply and fully for his conduct, of course it would be out of the question; and even then——”
Katie glanced up at her husband. He evidently had no thought that the offer could have come from anyone else. Katie’s woman’s instinct had at once guessed the truth, and a little jealous pang had shot through her that another woman should help her husband. To help him with money, too! As she thought of Alice’s proud, cold face as she had passed Frank in the street only a month or two before, a feeling of anger took the place of jealousy.
“Don’t you see, Frank, it is not your uncle, it is Miss Heathcote has sent you this.”
“Do you think so, Kate? Well, it is likely enough; she was always the kindest-hearted girl possible.”
His wife pouted her lip a little, and her colour rose.
“Well, Frank, of course you know her better than I do. I only saw her once, and after that I would rather go out as a servant than take money from her. I call it a wilful impertinence, Frank. I call it a downright insult. A woman, whom you have known from a child, and who cut you dead in the streets the other day, to send you money now you are poor! Frank, it is a downright insult,” and the blood mounted in Kate’s cheek, and her eyes flashed very indignantly.
Frank looked at her, first in surprise, then in amusement.
“Come here, Katie.” His wife did not move. “Come here, Katie; do as you are told; come and let me look at you.”
“No, Frank, I’m not going to be talked over,” Kate said, sturdily; but she came nevertheless.
“You jealous little woman. You have never forgiven Alice for being silly enough to care for me years ago.”
“Yes, I have forgiven her, Frank. There was nothing to forgive in it. She had just as much right to fall in love with you as I had. I would have loved her very much for your sake if she would have let me. I should not have minded her doing as her guardian told her, and ceasing to see you; but I do mind—yes, Frank, I do mind—her passing you as she did. She looked hard and cold, not the face of some one who dared not look, but the face of one who would not; and then now to send you money out of pity, just as she might give to a beggar in the streets; no wonder I am angry, Frank,” and Katie looked very indignant indeed.
“There is a good deal in what you say, Katie, and no doubt I ought to be more angry than I am. I hardly know why I am not, except I am essentially an easy going man. Very likely I should be angry if I were in your place. You do not know Alice Heathcote as I do. I have known her since she was a little girl, and I loved her as a sister, Katie. You must remember that. A man may be blind to the faults of one he loves as a wife, but men are always hard upon their sisters. Now I looked upon Alice as a sister, and I know she is a very true, very affectionate, very thoughtful girl, not given to sudden likes and dislikes, or to be moved by sudden impulses. I am certain then, Kate, as certain as I sit here, that some extraordinary mistake, at the nature of which I cannot even guess, has arisen. Alice might obey Captain Bradshaw, and hold no communication with me, but she would never, I would wager my life, look cold or hard when she met me. If Alice Heathcote no longer loves me as a, brother, it is because she has in some strange way been morally convinced that I am not worthy of her esteem; and if I know Alice—and I think I do know her—it has cost her no slight pain before she came to the conclusion.”
Kate was softened. “Perhaps you are right, Frank, but you must make allowances for me. You know it is galling to a wife that her husband should be assisted by a woman who used to love him. No one would like that, Frank. You know you would not like it, now, if anyone who was once in love with me—and you don’t know how much I used to flirt before I knew you—were to come forward now and offer me money—especially if he had, you considered, behaved very badly in other respects.”
“No, Katie,” Frank said heartily, “I certainly should not. I should consider it to be a confoundedly impertinent interference, and should be monstrously inclined to punch his head for him.”
Kate laughed happily. “Oh, you easy-going man! There, Frank, now you have granted that, and so excused me, let us talk rationally about it. Do you mean to take the money or not?”
“Of course not, Katie; I never dreamt of it.”
“Why didn’t you say so at once then, you tiresome boy, and not tease me into a rage?”
“You never gave me a chance, Katie,” Frank laughed. “No, dear, I would not have taken it from Captain Bradshaw, much less from Alice. Although I should like to stay in England for your sake,—it will be a hard life for you abroad, little woman.”
“That’s an old subject,” Kate said, cheerfully. “Now, Frank, get out your books again, and let us go into the intricate question of where we shall go.”
“We have quite decided against the United States and Canada, haven’t we?”
“Yes, Frank. I should not like to be among people who would talk of us in a contemptuous sort of way as Britishers; and I can’t bear cold. It lies between the Cape, Australia, and New Zealand.” And so they took out their books again, and studied maps, and the price of land, and the question of provisions and labour, until it was time to go to bed. The next day Frank happened to be going near Mr. Bingham’s office. He liked his uncle, but he did not see much of him, for Mr. Bingham was a good deal away, and their lives lay in completely different circles. They had met once before since the failure of the Bank, so that Mr. Bingham was acquainted with the state of Frank’s affairs.
“And so, Frank, you are still talking of going abroad?”
“Yes,” Frank said; “there is nothing else that I can see for it. I confess, that for myself I rather like the thought, it is just the sort of life to suit me; but my wife will, I know, be sorry to leave England. She is very cheerful, you know, and so on, but I can see she dreads it a little. It is so different for a woman, you see, to what it is for a man.”
“I’ve been thinking, Frank, that it is a pity you don’t make up your mind to set to at work in England. Fred and I have plenty of work all over the country; we can’t be everywhere at once, and it would be a very great advantage to us to have some one we can rely upon as ourselves. Of course you don’t understand engineering work, but for earthworks, for example, mere pick and barrow work, the men only want a good ganger, and the master’s eye over them. I have just got a contract for twenty miles of railway in Yorkshire; now if you like to come down, I will make a fair calculation, and give you the earthwork. The great thing with navvies is for them to like the man they work for. You are just the sort of man they would be likely to get on with. You will save me one or two inspectors, and this sort of work is always done cheaper by piece work. It is a good thing to get into, you know, Frank; you would not perhaps make very much the first job, but you would learn the business, and be able to do well afterwards.”
Frank was silent a short time.
“I am very much obliged to you, uncle, and personally I should like nothing better. In fact it is just the sort of thing to suit me. It is your contract, uncle, not Fred’s? because, you see, I don’t mind working under you or any man older than myself, but I should not like working under a fellow of my own age, especially a cousin.”
“It is mine, Frank. Between ourselves, I have determined to keep this matter in my own hands. Fred and I don’t always agree.”
“But to take a contract for work of that sort requires capital, does it not, uncle?”
“Very little, Frank. You see the men are paid once a week, or once a fortnight, as the case may be, and the work is measured up, and paid for by the contractor once a month. So in fact you would only require a fortnight’s pay for the men. Of course at first the work begins upon a small scale, as it is impossible, until the cuttings are fairly opened, to put very many men on. Two or three hundred pounds would be enough for a beginning.”
“I could manage that,” Frank said. “I have spoken to the official assignee of the Bank, and have told him I am ready to give up every halfpenny I have to meet the call, but that I must have the proceeds of my furniture to pay other little debts, and so on, and I expect after I have cleared them off to have a hundred and fifty or two hundred pounds left. If I had been going to emigrate, I should have asked my wife’s friends to have helped me with as much more. One can ask friends to help when one is going abroad for good. Well, uncle, of course I cannot decide at once, but I will let you know to-morrow or next day.”
“Do, Frank; it is a good thing to get into, I can assure you, and as we are likely to have plenty of work, I think it is a really good opening; far better than going out to the colonies.”
Frank went round to Prescott’s room. “Prescott, old man, I want you to come round and dine this evening; there is something I want to ask the opinion of you and Katie about.”
Prescott came down accordingly. Frank did not broach the subject until after dinner was over.
“Now, Katie, I want your opinion upon an offer I have had to-day, and I have asked Prescott down on purpose to take part in our councils. So I will state the case. Prescott shall give his opinion, and you shall decide. I have had an offer to stay in England.” His wife looked up eagerly. “For myself, I am ready either to refuse or accept the offer with equal willingness. It is the sort of work that would suit me, and which I should like—in fact it is a good deal like the work I should have abroad, an active out-of-door life. My uncle Bingham has asked me if I would like to go down to undertake the earthworks, that is the looking after the navvies on a line he has got the contract for in Yorkshire. I should take the sub-contract of the earthworks, and as he says, learn the business. In time I should be capable of undertaking larger and more important works, and he has plenty of opportunities for pushing me on. Now, what do you think of it?” Neither Kate nor Prescott answered. “Now, Prescott, what is your opinion of it?”
“Well, Frank, it is a difficult matter to give an opinion upon. I was always in favour of your emigrating, for the simple reason that I did not see anything here which was likely to suit you. But I never disguised from myself that you both, your wife particularly, would have to encounter many hardships. It appears to me that this may really lead to something. Railway contracting is a profitable business, and if your uncle really chooses to push you, it is as he says a good opening. Now in Australia or the Cape, taking a farm of five hundred acres, as you think of doing, and getting it into cultivation, is the work of years. There is no future in it. You will no doubt make a living, even a comfortable competency, but there seems little chance of your ever making enough to come back to England to live upon your means. There is another thing to be said. If this should turn out badly, if you should lose what little money you take down with you, your friends will all help, and you can but go to Australia after all.”
“Now, what do you say, Katie?”
“Oh, I quite agree with Arthur, Frank. I don’t want to go away and never see our friends again.”
“Very well,” Frank said, “then that’s settled; hurrah for railroads!”
In another week the sale took place at the Maynards. A sale is not a picturesque sight, with its dirty Jew brokers, its unwashed hangers-on, its close, crowded atmosphere, its voluble auctioneer, and its eager bidders. But it is a sad business for those who look in the slightest degree below the surface. Here are the ruins of a household. Almost every one of the articles so carelessly examined, so slightingly looked at, so jeeringly commented upon, has its own little history, its reminiscences, which make it sacred to those who have to part with it. The little child’s chair, the water-colour drawing which your wife gave you ere yet she was your wife, the chair she always sat in—these and a hundred other things are sacred relics to you, while they are caviare to the world around.
Frank and Kate had gone into lodgings upon the previous day, having paid off the servants and handed over the house to the broker. With one of their followers only had they not parted. Frank had called Evan in and said,—
“Evan, here are your wages up to next week. That will make the month from the time I gave you notice. I am sorry to part with you, lad, but of course it can’t be helped. Whenever you want a character, you have only to refer to me.”
Evan made no sign of taking up the money. “Please, Mr. Maynard,” he said, “I’m not going.”
“But you must go, Evan. I am a poor man, and can’t keep a servant any longer. I am going down to work on a railway.”
“Well, Mr. Maynard, I shall go down too. I can get some work on the line, I dare say, and I can come in to help of an evening. After what you have done for me, sir, after what you did for Aunt Bessy, I’m not going to leave you now. Lor, sir, mother won’t take me in if I was to go home and tell her I’d left you. No, sir, where you go, I go. If I can’t be your servant, I can do a few odd jobs, and make myself useful between times.”
And so, as Evan positively refused to be separated from his old master, it was arranged that he should go down and work on the line. A fortnight afterwards Frank and his wife started for Yorkshire.