Far above rubies (Vol. 3 of 3)

What a cruel world it is; what a hard, wicked, misjudging, uncharitable, mercenary world! Thus Heather Dudley reflected, while, without waiting for Lucy or Leonard, she walked homewards with Lally, the hot tears filling her eyes and coursing down her cheeks as she recalled Mrs. Croft’s insulting words, as she came gradually to comprehend the full meaning of her insolent accusation.

She could not help crying; the world’s cruelty and the world’s wickedness were new experiences to her.

The maladies of being thought ill of, of having her most innocent notions misconstrued, of hearing intentions imputed to her which she was utterly incapable of harbouring, had not fallen to her when young, and now taken in her maturer years they seemed so severe that it was almost impossible for her to endure them patiently.

To be accused of toadying any person; that it should for a moment be supposed she could ever have mentioned the name of her family to Mr. Stewart, when, lest it might even seem as though she were thereby preferring any claim to old acquaintanceship on him, she had sedulously avoided all allusions to her former home, or any of her early recollections.

“I—I—do such a thing!” she thought; “I pay court to him for his money; I, who detest money; I, who could live on the merest pittance anywhere and be happy; and who would rather live on a pittance than mix amongst hard, cruel, mercenary people; and to imply that I was such a wretch as to school my innocent child in deceit and affectation. Ah!” she reflected, softening a little; “it is plain she never was a mother; if she had been, she could not have imputed trickery of that kind to me;” which speech showed, not how much Heather knew of mothers, but how little she knew of the world. “It was cruel, though—” thus the mental strain ran on—“cruel to imagine such a thing; cruel to express it;” and Heather would probably have continued making these statements silently to her own heart, whilst her tears flowed as fast as her thoughts, had Lally not caused a diversion by stating:

“You walk too quick, ma; you tire me.” Then Heather sat down upon one of the benches and caught Lally to her; she was ashamed that even for a moment her own anger should have made her forget the child’s possible weariness. She had gone on, dragging Lally after her, and the little one was both warm and tired with the unwonted exercise.

“Are you hot, too, ma?” she asked, trying to push up her mother’s veil, an attempt which Heather strove too late to resist. “Oh! you’ve been crying, ma; you’ve been vexed; was it tall wicked lady? Never mind—Lally’s better—arn’t you glad Lally’s nearly better as well? Do not cry, pease, mamma—pease—pease.”

And the poor, little, eager face puckered itself up to weep also; and the brown eyes—which had in them at times a look of Heather—filled with tears, and the thin arms twined themselves about her mother’s neck, and Lally became altogether very piteous on the subject of her mother’s grief.

Looking out over the dancing sea, so bright, so sunshiny, so smooth, clasping her first-born to her heart, Heather felt that there was reason in the child’s words; that, seeing Lally’s health even partially restored, she had no right to weep or lament over any mere worldly grievance.

What was Mrs. Croft to her, that she should attach weight to her angry sentences, her slanderous accusations? What were they all—Mr. Stewart, and his nephew and niece? Nothing but people whom she had met for a day or two, and should perhaps meet again never more. Why should she fret over a false and libellous charge? If she were capable of such conduct as that whereof Mrs. Croft had accused her, she might then weep, but not otherwise.

She would endeavour for the future to avoid St. Leonard’s. Her children should keep down by the East Parade, or amuse themselves on the Castle Hill, for the few days she purposed remaining at Hastings. No one should say she put herself or them in the way of rich people—at least, no one should say so with even a shadow of a foundation of truthfulness.

She would not do what she had in the first smart of the blow intended—pack up, and leave Hastings by the next train—but she would never subject herself to such an imputation again. She could, and she would, be out for the future when Mr. Stewart called, and she might walk at such hours and in such directions as should separate her and hers altogether from their more wealthy acquaintances.

It is quite unnecessary to add that she and Lucy had a thoroughly comfortable and exhaustive conversation on the subject that same evening after the children were in bed; in the course of which Lucy expressed her opinion, not merely that dear Heather was quite right in her decision about Mr. Stewart, but also concerning the girls at Berrie Down.

“We should all be ever so much happier together in town,” the young lady opined; “together anywhere. Could not Arthur let Berrie Down, or put in a care-taker, as Mr. Black has so often suggested? not but that it would seem terrible to leave the Hollow altogether; still, if we are not to live there, what is the use of having it lying empty?” In reply to which Heather could only answer: “There is no place in the world like Berrie Down.” And then the pair had a little sympathetic cry, which did them both a considerable amount of good.

After all, they had spent a very pleasant month at Hastings; and though a cloud had towards the last darkened their sky, still who can expect fair weather to continue day after day?

Is not it the inevitable rule that storms must come, if only to clear the air; that women should shed tears in order that their eyes may be all the brighter afterwards? What right had Mrs. Dudley to look for a succession of sunshiny hours, when Douglas Croft, who was popularly supposed to be the most lucky fellow on earth, met with nothing but contrary winds and heavy rains during the short periods in the year he and his wife reluctantly spent together?

If there were any state of life in which Mrs. Douglas Croft would have been content, that state had still to be discovered; if there were anything her husband could have done to please her, he had certainly never hit upon it.

Did he keep the windows shut, she wondered what he was made of to sit in such a suffocating room; did he fling them wide open in the morning, he knew she detested a draught, and the sight of that glitter on the sea; did he wish to ride, she thought he might have more consideration than to propose his wife mounting a hired horse; did he suggest driving, she wondered, if he were so fond of seeing the country, he had not brought down his servants and carriages, as other people did; did he offer to walk with her, she was invariably tired; did he even mention leaving the house without her, she thought, “considering he favoured her with so little of his society, he might remain indoors for half an hour in the course of the day; did he go out in a boat, she might as well have married a London tradesman; did he finally ask her what the devil she would have him do, since he had come to the slowest place on earth to please her and not himself, she replied, that if he had not sufficiently gentlemanly, or even manly, feeling to know how to treat his wife properly, it was a pity he ever married any one higher in rank than some poor factory girl.”

“I could not have married you, remember,” answered Mr. Croft, “had you not first jilted Dudley;” whereupon she sighed, “Poor Arthur!” and declared “he never would have broken a woman’s heart.”

“You would very soon have broken his,” retorted her husband; “though, upon my honour, Dudley is the only man I should not have pitied seeing married to you.”

“Because you admire that creature with red hair, whom he chose after me! after me by way of contrast, I suppose. Oh! she has not red hair? I confess I was under the delusion she had; but no doubt your opportunities of judging have been greater than mine. She is a very pretty woman, you say; of course you think every woman pretty, excepting your own wife. She is the kind of creature some men do admire, and she has that manner—that meek, mild, submissive, milk-and-water manner—which always makes me long to strike her and ask how she likes that. I do detest those amiable hypocrites. It is a pity you cannot get rid of me, and marry her.”

“If I were to marry all the women I admire, I should have as many wives as Brigham Young,” answered Mr. Croft; “besides, I am not quite certain that Mrs. Dudley is my style. She has too much of the angel about her; certainly, ‘extremes meet’; but still, after you, that change would be almost too severe:” and so the pair were wont to wrangle on, while Mr. Stewart sat calmly reading the Times, or else remarked that he never so much regretted his single condition as when he witnessed his nephew’s connubial felicity.

“It is all his fault,” Mrs. Croft was in the habit of asserting, to which Mr. Stewart invariably made reply:

“I know that, my dear Arabella, perfectly well; no wife ever is in fault.”

“Mrs. Dudley could not be, we may suppose,” Mrs. Croft snapped back, on the day following her quarrel with Heather.

“If she could, she must differ greatly from the remainder of her sex,” answered Mr. Stewart, who was, Mrs. Croft frequently assured those lady friends that she honoured with her confidence, “one of the most disagreeable, cynical old bores a woman ever had to tolerate for the sake of his money.”

On the whole, visits from his niece were amongst the number of those blessings with which Mr. Stewart could very readily have dispensed. He liked his nephew, and he pitied him; but Mrs. Croft was decidedly de trop in any house which held at the same time Allan Stewart, Esquire, of Layford.

Very frequently, people wondered why uncle and nephew kept up separate establishments, but then it was remembered that more than once Mr. Stewart had openly regretted the fact of his only near relation having married a woman whom he never could regard in the light of a daughter.

Of this fact Mrs. Croft was perfectly well aware, and she felt madly jealous accordingly, when she beheld the increasing intimacy between Heather and her godfather.

“She will supplant you to a certainty, Douglas,” the amiable wife remarked.

“Well, my love, if she do, I dare say we can still, with economy, manage to exist,” answered Mr. Croft. “Upon strict principles of justice, indeed, I think Dudley ought to have my uncle’s money; I won you from him, you remember; now, it seems to me, he ought to have a turn. Do not fret yourself about the matter, Arabella—I take it philosophically—why cannot you do the same?”

“The same! I have no patience with such absurdity; but I think I have showed Mrs. Dudley there is one of the family, at least, clever enough to see what she is trying for.”

“Do you not think it possible for a woman to be too clever, occasionally?” inquired her husband; “because it occurs to my mind you have overshot the mark by the merest trifle. My uncle did not know the touching relation in which he stood to Mrs. Dudley, until you quarrelled with her. Very possibly he would never have known, had I not, in consequence of that little flourish up the Marina, told him.”

“You—told him?”

“Yes, my love; I considered it was only right he should know the great provocation you had received, so that he might not think the slight coolness between you and Mrs. Dudley originated in any fault on your side. He quite understands your feelings, and appreciates them fully.”

“Douglas, you are either mad or infatuated.”

“Do not moot the former idea before my uncle, or he may cut me off with a shilling, and so deprive you of all chance of ever managing his estates. For myself, I do not care for more money; I am thinking of going out to Australia, and taking a sheepfarm; of doing the Arcadian for a few years, during which time you will marry some one else, and I shall enjoy a bachelor’s existence by way of variety. I am growing horribly tired of the monotony of civilised life. I wonder if I could join a mission as a muscular Christian, and go out to convert the heathen. I should like to see how a fellow with a lot of wives manages them. I should preach the same doctrines as——”

But at this point Mrs. Croft swept out of the room, and her husband took advantage of her absence to seize his hat and leave the house, and march away in a blazing sun to Hastings, where, according to the programme she had sketched for her own guidance, Heather was not at home.

“I am getting confoundedly tired of this,” Mr. Croft remarked to his uncle next day, as they lounged together along the Marina; “suppose we swear business requires our immediate presence in town; cannot we have letters by the five o’clock post, compelling us to go up by the express to-morrow morning? Madam in town is bad enough, but madam at a watering-place, or in the country, is scarcely to be borne.”

“What a choice you made, Douglas!” said his uncle, in a tone of plaintive rebuke.

“Did I choose at all? I doubt it,” was the reply. “Since my marriage, I often should have liked to choose; but perhaps, had power been given me to do so, I might only have made a worse mess of it. The best of a marriage like mine is, it makes a man so philosophical. It leaves one nothing to wish for, nothing to desire; jealousy, over-affection, anxiety about the dear creature’s health; sleepless nights if her finger aches; torturing doubts if another fellow is over-zealous in finding her shawls—from all these troubles I am exempt. My domestic life leaves me nothing to fret about. Like that young man in Longfellow’s poem,—

only I do not carry two locks of hair about with me and sentimentalize concerning them, so that in one respect I have an advantage over the widower.”

“If your wife were in heaven, I do not think you would carry one of her curls done up in note-paper in your left-hand waistcoat pocket, after the fashion of a man I once knew,” remarked Mr. Stewart a little grimly.

“Well, now, do you know I think I should,” answered Mr. Croft; “when a woman is so kind as to die, it seems to me the least in common gratitude her husband can do, is to use his handkerchief freely, and publicly preserve little mementoes of her—the stalk of the last bunch of grapes she ate, for instance, her box of rouge, or the puff wherewith she powdered her face. To me there is something inexpressibly touching about relics; most probably because they are useless. I always notice people admire and reverence things which are utterly useless, that is one reason I am so fond of my wife. Oh! Arabella; oh, my beloved! there she stands at the window awaiting my return. Signalling for it, too, by all that’s wonderful; shall we go and ascertain the cause of that waving cambric?” And Mr. Stewart agreeing, the pair crossed the road and entered the house, when they soon discovered the reason of Mrs. Croft’s anxiety for their return in the shape of a telegram for Mr. Stewart, which had arrived about an hour previously.

“It is from Dudley,” said that gentleman, placing the paper in his nephew’s hand. “Nice kettle of fish, is not it? We can catch the next train, I suppose?”

“What is the matter; what has happened?” inquired Mrs. Croft.

“Nothing, except that a gentleman on our board will not be reasonable,” answered Mr. Stewart. “He wants talking to, I think. Come, Douglas—that is, if you are coming with me. Good-bye, Arabella, we shall be down again to-morrow.”

“Good-bye, my dear,” repeated Mr. Croft. “Comfort yourself, as I do, that the parting is not for ever;” and the pair hurried off to St. Leonard’s Station, talking as they went about the telegram, which Mr. Stewart now tore up into little scraps, and scattered to the wind.

“My mind always misgave me concerning him,” said Mr. Stewart. “I asked Black specially if he had authority for putting his name on the direction.”

“It is an old trick of Black’s, I believe, that of using names without permission,” answered Mr. Croft; “you will see Frank, I suppose, and try to alter his purpose?”

“Yes, that is why I am now going to town; and I asked you to accompany me, thinking you would be glad of a holiday.”

“You are very kind. I do not fancy I should have much cared for a tête-à-tête with madam by the sad sea waves; and Mrs. Dudley refuses to be at home to me.”

“You can scarcely blame her for that,” remarked his uncle.

“I am not blaming her, only I think it is carrying the theory of husband and wife being one, a little too far. However, if such be her will, I must resign myself to it.”

They were standing on the platform at St. Leonard’s as Mr. Croft spoke thus, and even as he spoke, the train came out of the first tunnel and stopped to take up its passengers.

“Why, good heavens, there is Mrs. Dudley,” exclaimed Mr. Croft. “Can you make room for us?” he asked, eagerly opening the door of the compartment she occupied. “Are you all returning to town? I had not the slightest expectation of meeting you here.”

“We always meant to return to-day,” answered Heather, after she had spoken to Mr. Stewart, and the two gentlemen were seated vis-à-vis. “But I thought you were going to remain for some time longer?”

“So we are, unhappily, I believe,” he replied, putting up the window in order to keep the smoke out of the carriage while passing through the second tunnel. “I only wish,” he added, as they sped on out into the sunshine again, “we were not going to remain. I think St. Leonard’s the most wearisome spot on the face of the whole earth.”

“And we have enjoyed our visit so much!” said Heather.

“But then ladies have resources within themselves of which we men know nothing,” he answered.

“I cannot agree with that,” Heather replied; “we may have resources at home, but certainly not in lodgings; and there is one thing you can do which we cannot—smoke; Lucy and I, for instance, could not have amused ourselves for a whole evening walking up and down the Parade slowly puffing cigars, as I have seen you and Mr. Stewart doing.”

“No, but you could let your dresses sweep the ground,” answered Mr. Croft. “I often fancy that swish-swish of my wife’s train must produce the same soothing effect upon her nerves as a cigar does on mine. Now, Miss Lally, you have not spoken one word to me for the last four days, and my heart is broken in consequence. Will you be good and talk to me now?” and Mr. Croft put out his hand to the little girl, who came tumbling over from the opposite corner to make up friends again with her old admirer, who took her on his knee, and instituted particular inquiries into the state of her health.

“Was she better—much better—able to run half a mile without getting tired?”

“Yes,” she declared, “more than ’at; ’ook at mine face; ma says it has got fat;” and she put up her little hands to her cheeks, and so drew all the flesh forward for Mr. Croft to contemplate.

“Fat, are you, little one?” broke in Mr. Stewart; “not much of that, I fear; let me look at you. She does seem considerably better,” he added, addressing Mrs. Dudley. “You will take her to see Mr. Henry, though, will you not?”

Heather answered that she certainly should, whereupon Lally insisted on knowing exactly who Mr. Henry was, and being informed a doctor, declared she would rather not see him. “Other doctor gave me nasty stuff to drink, sour, and Lally did not like him.”

“Very ungrateful on your part,” remarked Lucy, “for Doctor Chickton was exceedingly kind to you.”

“Didn’t like him,” repeated the child, determinedly; “said sour stuff wasn’t bad to take, and it was dre’ful; said it would make Lally well, and it didn’t. He told ’tories, he did.”

“Are you glad you are going back to London?” inquired Mr. Stewart.

“No,” said Lally, “don’t like it either. I’d like to go home and see the chick-a-biddies, and Dash, and Nip and Nep, and the ponies, and Ned;” and so the child talked on, her eyes dancing with delight as she spoke of the old home any other little girl might almost have forgotten in the time, while Mr. Stewart looked thoughtfully in her face flushed with excitement, and wondered what value his friend, Mr. Rymner Henry, might set on her chances of life.

Mr. Croft delighted greatly in Lally. He encouraged her to be what her mamma called naughty, to chatter away at express speed, to tell him all about Berrie Down, and Aggy, and Laura, “and then there used to be Bessie, you know,” added the child. “Ah! Bessie was good to Lally. She singed to her, and dressed the beau-ful-lest dolls; but Lally will never see Bessie no more—no, never no more;” and the little face began to twitch, and the lips to tremble, and then the brown eyes filled with tears, and finally Lally lifted up her voice and wept.

“What is the matter?” inquired Mr. Stewart, who had been engaged in a conversation with Lucy. “What have you done, Douglas, to cause such grief?”

“I want to see Bessie,” sobbed the child.

“And who is it that is so cruel as to prevent your seeing her?” asked Mr. Stewart.

“She is not with us now,” explained Mrs. Dudley. “She was staying at the Hollow for some months before we left Hertfordshire, and Lally grew very fond of her. I cannot imagine why she so continually talks about her now, though; I do not fancy other children have such tenacious memories. Sometimes for weeks together she will never mention Bessie’s name, and then she breaks out as you see. I wish she would not do it. It is very bad for her, fretting so much after any one. Lally, my darling, you must be patient; whenever Bessie can come to see you, she will.”

“No,” moaned Lally, “no more. Bessie will come to Lally back again, never no more.”

There was something terribly pathetic about the child’s grief even to those who knew nothing whatever of Bessie, or of the circumstances connected with her departure.

“Can’t she come and see the child?” asked Mr. Stewart, a little testily. “Surely, if she be at all within reach, such a yearning as this might be gratified.”

“Perhaps so,” Heather answered, “if we knew where she was; but I have never heard from her since she last left Berrie Down.”

“Did you part in anger then?” Mr. Stewart inquired, true to his theory concerning women’s quarrels.

“In anger!” Heather repeated in astonishment, “when we all loved Bessie as though she had been one of our own household! Why she does not write to me, I cannot tell, only I know she has some good reason for her silence; and I would rather not talk about her any more, or, perhaps, like Lally, I shall begin to be foolish and cry too.” An explanation necessitated by the fact that Mrs. Dudley was crying partly because of her child’s grief, and partly because she never could speak of Bessie without a feeling of bitter sorrow.

After that there fell a sudden silence on the party, during the continuance of which Heather employed herself in adjusting Master Leonard’s collar, which was crooked to an unimaginable extent; Mr. Stewart read the newspaper; Lucy looked at Heather; and Mr. Croft, his chin resting on Lally’s head, gazed out of the window, his thoughts wandering the while miles, and miles away.

“Do you expect Mr. Dudley to meet you?” asked Mr. Stewart, when the train had passed New Cross, and was speeding on through Bermondsey.

“No,” Heather answered; “but his brother will be at the station.”

“Oh! he has brothers.”

“Two,” Heather explained; and a few minutes afterwards she was introducing Alick to Mr. Stewart, who looked on him not ungraciously, while Mr. Croft stood a little apart, apparently by no means desirous of making Mr. Alexander Dudley’s acquaintance.

“We are detaining you,” Heather said, at length, to Mr. Stewart; who remarked, as he bade her “Good-bye,” that he also was going to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and should probably arrive there first.

Then she turned and looked for Mr. Croft, who, unable longer to avoid the situation, now came forward, and assisted her into a cab.

As he did so, Alick, with a sudden amazement, recognised him.

“Who is that gentleman?” he asked Heather; while the object of this inquiry followed Mr. Stewart into a hansom, which immediately drove off.

“Mr. Croft—Mr. Douglas Aymescourt Croft. Why? Do you know him; have you ever seen him before?”

“I think I have once,” Alick answered, remembering for certain he had met that same individual rather more than twelve months previously, on the Sunday afternoon when he walked across to North Kemms church with Bessie, and she left her prayer-book behind her in the pew.