“Showery weather to-day, miss,” was Ben Gibbon’s salutation.
“Yes, it is,” answered Katrine, with intense civility—for how could she tell what the man might know?
“I suppose I shall find Mr. Barbary at home?”
“Oh, yes,” faintly spoke she, and passed on her way.
II
We started for Evesham under a sharp shower, the Squire driving Bob and Blister in the large phaeton. Tod sat with him, I and the groom behind. Not a shadow of doubt lay on any one of us that we should bring back Don in triumph—leaving Dick Standish to be dealt with according to his merits. But, as the Squire remarked later, we were not a match for Dick in cunning.
“Keep your eyes open, lads,” the Squire said to us as we approached the town. “And if you see Dick Standish, with or without the dog, jump out and pounce upon him. You hear, Giles?”
“No need to tell me to do it, sir,” answered Giles humbly, clenching his fists; he had been eating humble pie ever since Tuesday night. “I am ready.”
But Dick Standish was not seen. Leaving the carriage and Giles at the inn, we made our way to the police station. An officer named Brett attended to us. It was curious enough, but the first person we saw inside the station was Tobias Jellico, who had called in on some matter of business that concerned his shop.
“We had your message yesterday, sir,” said Brett to the Squire, “and we lost no time in seeing after Standish. But it is not your dog that he has with him.”
“Not my dog!” repeated the Squire, up in arms at once. “Don’t tell me that, Brett. Whose dog should it be but mine? Come!”
“Well, sir, I never saw your dog; but Tomkins, one of our men, who has often been on duty at Church Dykely, knows it well,” rejoined Brett. “We had Standish and the dog up here, and Tomkins at once said it was not your dog at all, so we let the man go. Mr. Jellico also says it is not yours; I was talking to him about it now.”
“What I said was this,” put in Jellico, stepping forward, and speaking with meek deprecation. “If Squire Todhetley’s dog has been described to me correctly, the dog I saw with Standish yesterday can’t be the same. It is a great big ugly dog, with tan marks about his white coat——”
“Ugly!” retorted the Squire, resenting the aspersion, for he fully believed it to be Don.
“It is not at all an ugly dog, it’s a handsome dog,” spoke up Brett. “Perhaps Mr. Jellico does not like dogs.”
“Not much,” confessed Jellico.
“How came you to say yesterday at Church Dykely that it was the same dog?” Tod asked the man.
“If you please, sir, I didn’t exactly say it was; I said I made no doubt of it,” returned Jellico, mild as new milk. “It was in this way: Perkins the butcher was standing at his shop door as I passed down the street. We began talking, and he told me about the poachers having been out on the Tuesday night, and that Squire Todhetley had lost his fine Newfoundland dog; he said it was thought the Standishes were in both games. So then I said I had met Dick Standish with just such a dog that morning as I was a-coming out of Evesham. I had never seen the Squire’s dog, you perceive, gentlemen; but neither Mr. Perkins nor me had any doubt it was his.”
“And it must be mine,” returned the Squire, hotly. “Send for the dog, Brett; I will see it. Send for Standish also.”
“I’ll send, sir,” replied Brett, rather dubiously, “and get the man here if he is to be had. The chances are that with all this bother Standish has left the town and taken the dog with him.”
Brett was a talkative man, with a mottled face and sandy hair. He despatched a messenger to see after Standish. Jellico went out at the same time, telling Brett that his business could wait till another day.
“I know it is my dog,” affirmed the Squire to Brett while he waited. Nothing on earth, except actual sight, would have convinced him that it was not his. “Those loose men play all sorts of cunning tricks. Dick Standish is full of them. I shouldn’t wonder but he has painted the dog; done his black marks over with brown paint—or green.”
“We’ve a dyer in this town, Squire,” related Brett; “he owns a little white curly dog, and he dyes him as an advertisement for his colours, and lets him run about on the pavement before the shop door. To-day the dog will be a delicate sky-blue, to-morrow a flaming scarlet; the next day he’ll be a beautiful orange, with a green tail. The neighbours’ dogs collect round and stand looking at him from a respectful distance, uncertain, I suppose, whether he is of the dog species, or not.”
I laughed.
“Passing the shop the other day, I saw the dog sitting on the door-step,” ran on Brett. “He was bright purple that time. An old lady, driving by in her chariot, caught sight of the dog and called to the coachman to pull up. There she sat, that old lady, entranced with amazement, staring through her eye-glass at what she took to be a phenomenon in nature. Five minutes, full, she stared, and couldn’t tear herself away. It is true, gentlemen, I assure you.”
Mr. Dick Standish was found, and brought before us. He looked rather more disreputable than usual, his old fustian coat out at elbows, a spotted red handkerchief twisted loosely round his neck. The dog was with him, and it was not ours. A large, fine dog, as already described, though much less handsome than Don, and out of condition, his curly coat a yellowish white, the marks on it of real tan colour, not painted.
Dick’s account, after vehemently protesting he had nothing to do with the poaching affair on Tuesday night, was never for a minute out of his bed—was this: The dog belonged to one of the stable-helpers at Leet Hall; but the man had determined to have the dog shot, not being satisfied with him of late, for the animal had turned odd and uncertain in his behaviour. Dick Standish heard of this. Understanding dogs thoroughly, and believing that this dog only wanted a certain course of treatment to put him right, Standish walked to Church Leet on Wednesday morning last from Church Dykely, and asked the man, Brazer, to give him the dog—he would take him and run all risks. Brazer refused at first; but, after a bit, agreed to let Standish keep the dog for a time. If he cured the dog, Brazer was to have him back again, paying Standish for his keep and care; but if not satisfied with the dog, Standish might keep him for good. Standish brought the dog away, and took him straight to Evesham, walking the whole way and getting there about nine o’clock in the evening. He was doctoring the dog well, and hoped to cure him.
Whether this tale was true or whether it wasn’t, none of us could contradict it. But there was an appearance of fear, of shuffling in the man’s manner, which seemed to indicate that something lay behind.
“It’s every word gospel, ain’t it, Rove, and no lie nowhere,” cried Standish, bending to pat the dog, while the corner of his eye was turned to regard the aspect of the company. “You’ve blown me up for many things before now, Squire Todhetley, but there’s no call, sir, to accuse me this time.”
“When did you hear about this dog of Brazer’s, and who told you of it?” inquired Tod, in his haughty way.
“’Twas Bill Rimmer, sir; he telled me on Tuesday night,” replied Dick. “And I said to him what a shame it was to talk of destroying that there fine dog, and that Brazer was a soft for thinking on’t. And I said, young Mr. Todhetley, that I’d be over at Church Leet first thing the next morning, to see if he’d give the dog to me.”
“It is not my dog, I see that,” spoke the Squire, breaking the silence that followed Dick’s speech; “and it may be the stableman’s at Leet Hall; that’s a thing readily ascertained. Do you know where my dog is, Dick Standish?”
“No, I don’t know, sir,” replied the man in a very eager tone; “and I never knowed at all, till fetched to this police station yesterday, that your dog was a-missing. I’ll swear I didn’t.”
There was nothing more to be done, but to accept the failure, and leave the station, after privately charging the police to keep an eye on clever Mr. Dick Standish, his haunts, and his movements.
In the afternoon we drove back home, not best pleased with the day’s work. A sense of having been done, in some way or other not at present explicable, lay on most of us.
It appeared that the groom shared this feeling strongly. In passing through the yard, I came upon him in his shirt sleeves, seated outside the stable door on an inverted bucket. His elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, he looked the image of despair. The picture arrested me. Mack was rubbing down the horses; a duty Giles rarely entrusted to anybody. He was fond of Don, and had been ready to hang himself ever since Tuesday night.
“Why, Giles! what’s the matter?”
“Matter enough, Master Johnny, when a false villyan like that Dick Standish can take the master, and the police their-selves, and everybody else, in!” was his answer. “I felt as cock-sure, sir, that we should bring home Don as I am that the sky above us is shining out blue after the last shower.”
“But it was not Don, you see, Giles.”
“He wasn’t; the dog Standish had to show,” returned Giles, with a peculiar emphasis. “Dick had got up his tale all smooth and sleek, sir.”
“How do you know he had?”
“Because he told it me over again—the one he said he had been telling at the police station, Master Johnny. I was standing outside the inn yard while you were all in at lunch, and Standish came by as bold as brass, Brazer’s dog, Rover, leashed to his hand.”
“I suppose it is Brazer’s dog?”
“Oh, it’s Brazer’s dog, that’un be,” said Giles, with a deep amount of scorn; “I know him well enough.”
“Then how can it be Don? And we could not bring home another man’s dog.”
Giles paused. His eyes had a far-off look in them, as if seeking for something they could not find.
“Master Johnny,” he said, “I can’t rightly grasp things. All the way home I’ve been trying to put two and two together, I am trying at it still, and I can’t do it anyhow. Don’t it seem odd to you, sir, that Standish should have got Brazer’s dog, Rover, into his hands just at the very time we are suspecting he has got Don into ’em?”
I did not know. I had not thought about it.
“He has that dog of Brazer’s as a blind. A blind, and nothing else, sir. He has captured our dog, safe and sure, and is keeping him hid up somewhere till the first storm of the search is over, when he’ll be able to dispose of him safely.”
I could not see Giles’s drift, or how the one dog could help to conceal the possession of the other.
“Well, sir, I can’t explain it better,” he answered; “I can’t fit the pieces of the puzzle into one another in my mind yet. But I am positive it is so. Dick Standish has made up the farce about Brazer’s dog and got him into his hands to throw dust in our eyes and keep us off the scent of Don.”
I began to see the groom might be right; and that the Standishes, sly and crafty, were keeping Don in hiding.
Mrs. Todhetley had met us with a face of concern. Lena’s throat was becoming very bad indeed, and Mr. Duffham did not like the look of it at all. He had already come twice that day.
“I think, Johnny,” said the mother to me, “that we had better stop Miss Barbary’s coming to-morrow; Mr. Duffham does not know but the malady may be getting infectious. Suppose you go now to the cottage and tell her.”
So I went off to do so, and found her ill. On this same Friday afternoon, having occasion to ask some question of her father, who was in the garden, she found him planting greens on the plot of ground—the grave—under the summer-apple tree. Before she could speak, a shudder of terror seized her; she trembled from head to foot, turned back to the kitchen, and sat down on the nearest chair.
Old Joan pronounced it to be an attack of ague; Miss Katrine, she said, must have taken a chill. Perhaps she had. It was just then that I arrived and found her shivering in the kitchen. Joan ran up to her room in the garret to bring down some powder she kept there, said to be a grand remedy for ague.
It was getting dusk then; the sun had set. To me, Katrine seemed to be shaking with terror, not illness. Mr. Barbary, in full view of the window, was planting the winter greens under the summer-apple tree.
“What is it that you are frightened at?” I said, propping my back against the kitchen mantelpiece.
“I must ask you a question, Johnny Ludlow,” she whispered, panting and shivering. “Was it you who came and stood inside the gate there in the middle of last night?”
“Yes it was. And I saw what Mr. Barbary was doing—there. I could not make it out.”
Katrine left her chair and placed herself before me. Clasping her piteous hands, she besought me to be silent; to keep the secret for pity sake—to be true. All kinds of odd ideas stole across me. I would not listen to them; only promised her that I would tell nothing, would be true for ever and a day.
“It must have been an accident, you know,” she pleaded; “it must have been an accident.”
Joan came back, and I took my departure. What on earth could Katrine have meant? All kinds of fancies were troubling my brain, fit only for what in these later days are called the penny dreadfuls, and I did my best to drive them out of it.
The next morning Katrine was really ill. Her throat was parched, her body ached with fever. As to Lena, she was worse; and we, who ought to have gone back to school that day, were kept at home lest we should carry with us any infection.
“All right,” said Tod. “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.” He did not believe in the infection; told me in private that Duffham was an old woman.
Can any one picture, I wonder, Katrine Barbary’s distress of mind, the terrible dread that had taken possession of it? Shuddering dread, amounting to a panic: dread of the deed itself, dread for her father, dread of discovery.
On the following morning, Sunday, a letter was delivered at Caramel Cottage for Mr. Reste, the postmark being London, the writing in the same hand as the last—Captain Amphlett’s. Mr. Barbary took it away to his gun-room; Katrine saw it, later in the day, lying on the deal-table there, unopened.
The next Thursday afternoon, Lena being then almost well—for children are dying to-day and running about again to-morrow—I called at the Cottage to ask after Katrine. We heard she had an attack of fever. The weather was lovely again; the October sky blue as in summer, the sun hot and bright.
Well, she did look ill! She sat in the parlour at the open window, a huge shawl on, and her poor face about half the size it was before. What had it been, I asked, and she said ague; but she was much better now and intended to be at the Manor again on Monday.
“Sit down please, Johnny. I suppose Lena has been glad of the holiday?”
“She just has. That young lady believes French was invented for her especial torment. Have you heard from Mr. Reste, Katrine?——What does he say about his impromptu flitting?”
She turned white as a ghost, never answering, looking at me strangely. I thought a spasm might have seized her.
“Not yet,” she faintly said. “Papa thinks—thinks he may have gone abroad.”
While I was digesting the words, some vehicle was heard rattling up the side lane; it turned the corner and stopped at the gate. “Why, Katrine,” I said, “it is a railway fly from Evesham!”
A little fair man in a grey travelling-suit got out of the fly, came up the path, and knocked at the door. Old Joan answered it and showed him into the room. “Captain Amphlett,” she said. Katrine looked ready to die.
“I must apologize for intruding,” he began, with a pleasant voice and manner. “My friend Edgar Reste is staying here, I believe.”
Katrine was taken with a shivering fit. The stranger looked at her with curiosity. I said she had been ill with ague, and was about to add that Edgar Reste had left, when Mr. Barbary came in. Captain Amphlett turned to him and went on to explain: he was on his way to spend a little time in one of the Midland shires, and had halted at Evesham for the purpose of looking up Edgar Reste—from whom he had been expecting to hear more than a week past; could not understand why he did not. Mr. Barbary, with all the courtesy of the finished gentleman, told him, in reply to this, that Edgar Reste had left Caramel Cottage a week ago.
“Dear me!” cried the stranger, evidently surprised. “And without writing to tell me. Was his departure unexpected?”
Mr. Barbary laughed lightly. That man would have retained his calmest presence of mind when going down in a wreck at sea. “Some matter of business called him away, I fancy,” he replied.
“And to what part of England was he going?” asked Captain Amphlett, after a pause. “Did he say?”
Mr. Barbary appeared to have an impulsive answer on his lips, but closed them before he could speak it. He glanced at me, and then turned his head and glanced at Katrine, as if to see whether she was there, for he was sitting with his back to her. A thought struck me that we were in the way of his plain speaking.
“He went to London,” said Mr. Barbary.
“To London!” echoed the Captain. “Why, that’s strange. He has not come to London, I assure you.”
“I can assure you it is where he told me he was going,” said Mr. Barbary, smiling. “And it was to London his luggage was addressed.”
“Well, it is altogether strange,” repeated Captain Amphlett. “I went to his chambers in the Temple yesterday, and Farnham, the barrister who shares them with him, told me Reste was still in Worcestershire; he had not heard from him for some time, and supposed he might be returning any day now. Where in the world can he be hiding himself? Had he come to London, as you suppose, Mr. Barbary, he would have sought me out the first thing.”
Whiter than any ghost ever seen or heard of, had grown Katrine as she listened. I could not take my eyes from her terrified face.
“I do not comprehend it,” resumed Captain Amphlett, looking more helpless than a rudderless ship at sea. “Are you sure, sir, that there is no mistake; that he was really going to London?”
“Not at all sure; only that he said it,” returned Mr. Barbary in a half mocking tone. “One does not inquire too closely, you know, into the private affairs of young men. We have not heard from him yet.”
“I cannot understand it at all,” persisted Captain Amphlett; “or why he has not written to me; or where he can have got to. He ought to have written.”
“Ah, yes, no doubt,” suavely remarked Mr. Barbary. “He was careless about letter-writing, I fancy. Can I offer you any refreshment?”
“None at all, thank you; I have no time to spare,” said the other, rising to depart. “I suppose you do not chance to know whether Reste had a letter from me last Tuesday week?”
“Yes, he had one. It had some bank-notes in it. He opened it here at the breakfast table.”
Quite a relief passed over Captain Amphlett’s perplexed face at the answer. “I am glad to hear you say that, Mr. Barbary. By his not acknowledging receipt of the money, I feared it had miscarried.”
Bidding us good afternoon, and telling Katrine (at whose sick state he had continued to glance curiously) that he wished her better, the stranger walked rapidly out to his fly, attended by Mr. Barbary.
“Katrine,” I asked, preparing to take my own departure, “what was there in Captain Amphlett to frighten you?”
“It—it was the ague,” she answered, bringing out the words with a jerk.
“Oh—ague! Well, I’d get rid of such an ague as that. Good-bye.”
But it was not ague; it was sheer fear, as common sense told me, and I did not care to speculate upon it. An uneasy atmosphere seemed to be hanging over Caramel Cottage altogether; to have set in with Edgar Reste’s departure.
A day or two later our people departed for Crabb Cot for change of air for Lena, and we returned to school, so that nothing more was seen or heard at present of the Barbarys.
III
December weather, and snow on the ground, and Caramel Cottage looking cold and cheerless. Not so cheerless, though, as poor Katrine, who had a blue, pinched face and a bad cough.
“I can’t get her to rouse herself, or to swallow hardly a morsel of food,” lamented Joan to Mr. Duffham. “She sits like a statty all day long, sir, with her hands before her.”
“Sits like a statue, does she?” returned Duffham, who could see it for himself, and for the hundredth time wondered what it was she had upon her mind. He did his best, no doubt, in the shape of tonics and lectures, but he could make nothing of his patient. Katrine vehemently denied that she was worrying herself over any sweetheart—for that’s how Duffham delicately shaped his questions—and said it was the cold weather.
“The voyage will set her up, or—break her up,” decided Duffham, who had never treated so unsatisfactory an invalid. “As to not having anything on her mind, why she may tell that to the moon.”
Katrine was just dying of the trouble. The consciousness of what the garden could disclose filled her with horror, whilst the fear of discovery haunted her steps by day and her dreams by night. She could not sleep alone, and Joan had brought her mattress down to the room and lay on the floor. When the sun shone, Mr. Barbary would compel her to sit or walk in the garden; Katrine would turn sick and faint at sight of that plot of ground under the apple tree, and the winter greens growing there. At moments she thought her father must suspect the source of her illness; but he gave no sign of it. Since Captain Amphlett’s visit, no further inquiry had been made after Edgar Reste. Katrine lived in daily dread of it. Now and then the neighbours would ask after him. Duffham had said one day in the course of conversation: “Where’s that young Reste now?” “Oh, in London, working on for his silk gown,” Mr. Barbary lightly answered. Katrine marvelled at his coolness.
Upon getting back to the Manor for Christmas we heard that Mr. Barbary was quitting Church Dykely for Canada. “And the voyage will either kill or cure the child,” said Duffham, for it was he who gave us the news; “she is in a frightfully weak state.”
“Is it ague still?” asked Mrs. Todhetley.
“It is more like nerves than ague,” answered Duffham. “She seems to live in a chronic state of fear, starting and shrinking at every unexpected sound. I can’t make her out, and that’s the truth; she denies having received any shock.—So you have never found Don, Squire!” he broke off, leaving the other subject.
“No,” said the Squire angrily. “Dick Standish has been too much for us this time. The fellow wants hanging. Give him rope enough, and he’ll do it.”
Brazer’s dog was returned to him, safe and sound, but our dog had never come back to us, and the Squire was looking out for another. Dick Standish protested his innocence yet; but he had gone roving the country with that other dog, and no doubt had sold Don to somebody at a safe distance. Perhaps had dyed him a fine gold first; as the dyer dyed his dog at Evesham.
“Now, Miss Katrine, there’s not a bit of sense in it!”
It was Christmas Eve. Katrine was sitting in the twilight by the parlour fire, and Joan was scolding. She had brought in a tray of tea with some bread-and-butter; Katrine was glad enough of the tea, but said she could not eat; she always said so now.
“Be whipped if I can tell what has got into the child!” stormed Joan. “Do you want to starve yourself right out?—do you want to——”
“There’s papa,” interrupted Katrine, as the house door was heard to open. “You must bring in more tea now, Joan.”
This door opened next, and some one stood looking in. Not Mr. Barbary. Katrine gazed with dilating eyes, as the firelight flickered on the intruder’s face: and then she caught hold of Joan with an awful cry. For he who had come in bore the semblance of Edgar Reste.
“Why, Katrine, my dear, have you been ill?”
Katrine burst into hysterical tears as her terror passed. She had been taking it for Mr. Reste’s apparition, you see, whereas it was Mr. Reste himself. Joan closed the shutters, stirred the fire, and went away to see what she could do for him in the shape of eatables after his journey. He sat down by Katrine, and took her poor wan face to his sheltering arms.
In the sobbing excitement of the moment, in the strangely wonderful relief his presence brought, Katrine breathed forth the truth; that she had seen him, as she believed, buried under the summer-apple tree; had believed it all this time, and that it had been slowly killing her. Mr. Reste laughed a little at the idea of his being buried, and cleared up matters in a few brief words.
“But why did you never write?” she asked.
“Being at issue with Mr. Barbary, I would not write to him: and I thought, Katrine, that the less you were reminded of me the better. I waited in London until my luggage came up, and then went straight to Dieppe, without having seen any one I knew; without having even shown myself at my Chambers——”
“But why not, Edgar?” she interrupted. Mr. Reste laughed.
“Well, I had reasons. I had left a few outstanding accounts there, and was not then prepared to pay them and I did not care to give a clue to my address to be bothered with letters.”
“You did not even write to Captain Amphlett. He came here to see after you.”
“I wrote to him from Dieppe; not quite at first, though. Buried under the apple-tree! that is a joke, Katrine!”
It was Christmas Eve, I have said. We had gone through the snow, with Mrs. Todhetley, to help the Miss Pages decorate the church, and the Squire was alone after dinner, when Mr. Reste was shown in.
“Is it you!” cried the Squire in hearty welcome. “So you have come down for Christmas!”
“Partly for that,” answered Mr. Reste. “Partly, sir, to see you.”
“To see me! You are very good. I hope you’ll dine with us to-morrow, if Barbary will spare you.”
“Ah! I don’t know about that; I’m afraid not. Anyway, I have a tale to tell you first.”
Sitting on the other side the fire, opposite the Squire, the wine and walnuts on the table between them, he told the tale of that past Tuesday night.
He had gone out with Barbary in a fit of foolishness, not intending to do any harm to the game or to join in any harm, though Barbary had insisted on his carrying a loaded gun. The moon was remarkably bright. Not long had they been out, going cautiously, when on drawing near Dyke Neck, they became aware that some poachers were already abroad, and that the keepers were tracking them; so there was nothing for it but to steal back again. They had nearly reached Caramel Cottage, and were making for the side gate, when a huge dog flew up, barking. Barbary called out that it was the Squire’s dog, and——
“Bless me!” interjected the Squire at this.
“Yes, sir, your dog, Don,” continued Mr. Reste. “Barbary very foolishly kicked the dog: he was in a panic, you see, lest the noise of its barking should bring up the keepers. That kick must have enraged Don, and he fastened savagely on Barbary’s leg. I, fearing for Barbary’s life, or some lesser injury, grew excited, and fired at the dog. It killed him.”
The Squire drew a deep breath.
“Not daring to leave the dog at the gate, for it might have betrayed us, we drew him across the yard to the brewhouse, and locked the door upon him. But while doing this, Ben Gibbon passed, and thereby learnt what had happened. The next day, Barbary and I had some bickering together. I wanted to come to you and confess the truth openly; Barbary forbade it, saying it would ruin him: we could bury the dog that night or the next, he said, and nobody would ever be the wiser. In the evening, Gibbon came in; he was all for Barbary’s opinion, and opposed mine. After he left, I and Barbary had a serious quarrel. I said I would leave there and then; he resented it, and followed me into the yard to try to keep me. But my temper was up, and I set off to walk to Evesham, telling him to send my traps after me, and to direct them to Euston Square Station. I took the first morning train that passed through Evesham for London, and made my mind up on the journey to go abroad for a week or two. Truth to confess,” added the speaker, “I felt a bit of a coward about the dog, not knowing what proceedings you might take if it came to light, and I deemed it as well to be out of the way for a time. But I don’t like being a coward, Mr. Todhetley, it is a role I have never been used to, and I came down to-day to confess all. Barbary is going away, so it will not damage him: besides, it was really I who killed the dog, not he. And now, sir, I throw myself upon your mercy. What do you say to me?”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know,” said the Squire, who was in a rare good humour, and liked the young fellow besides. “It was a bad thing to do—poor faithful Don! But it’s Christmas-tide, so I suppose we must say no more about it. Let bygones be bygones.”
Edgar Reste grasped his hand.
“Barbary’s off to Canada, we are told,” said the Squire. “A better country for him than this. He has not been thought much of in this place, as you probably know. And it’s to be hoped that poor little maiden of his will get up her health again, which seems, by all accounts, to be much shattered.”
“I think she’ll get that up now,” said Mr. Reste, with a curious smile. “She is not going out with him, sir; she stays behind with me.”
“With you!” cried the Squire, staring.
“I have just asked her to be my wife, and she says, Yes,” said Mr. Reste. “An old uncle of mine over in India has died; he has left me a few hundreds a year, so that I can afford to marry.”
“I’m sure I am glad to hear it,” said the Squire, heartily. “Poor Don, though! And what did Barbary do with him?”
“Buried him in his back garden, under the summer-apple tree.”
Coming home from our night’s work at this juncture, we found, to our surprise, a great dog fastened to the strong iron garden bench.
“What a magnificent dog!” exclaimed Tod, while the mother sprang back in alarm. “It is something like Don.”
It was very much like Don. Quite as large, and handsomer.
“I shall take it in, Johnny; the Pater would like to see it, There, mother, you go in first.”
Tod unfastened the dog and took it into the dining-room, where sat Mr. Reste. The dog seemed a gentle creature, and went about looking at us all with his intelligent eyes. Mrs. Todhetley stroked him.
“Well, that is a nice dog!” cried the Squire. “Whose is it, lads?”
“It is yours, sir, if you will accept him from me,” said Mr. Reste. “I came across him in London the other day, and thought you might like him in place of Don. I have taught him to answer to the same name.”
“We’ll call him ‘Don the Second’—and I thank you heartily,” said the Squire, with a beaming face. “Good Don! Good old fellow! You shall be made much of.”
He married Katrine without much delay, taking her off to London to be nursed up; and Mr. Barbary set sail for Canada. The bank-notes, you ask about? Why, what Katrine saw in her father’s hands were but half the notes, for Mr. Reste divided them the day they arrived, giving thirty pounds to his host, and keeping thirty himself. And Dick Standish, for once, had not been in the fight; and the Squire, meeting him in the turnip-field on Christmas Day, gave him five shillings for a Christmas-box. Which elated Dick beyond telling; and the Squire was glad of it later, when poor Dick had gone away prematurely to the Better Land.
And all the sympathy Katrine had from her father, when he came to hear about the summer-apple tree, was a sharp wish that she could have had her ridiculous ideas shaken out of her.
A TRAGEDY
I.—GERVAIS PREEN
I
Crabb Cot, Squire Todhetley’s estate in Worcestershire, lay close to North Crabb, and from two to three miles off Islip, both of which places you have heard of already. Half way on the road to Islip from Crabb, a side road, called Brook Lane, branched straight off on the left towards unknown wilds, for the parts there were not at all frequented. Passing a solitary homestead here and there, Brook Lane would bring you at the end of less than two miles to a small hamlet, styled Duck Brook.
I am not responsible for the name. I don’t know who is. It was called Duck Brook long before my time, and will be, no doubt, long after I have left time behind me. The village rustics called it Duck Bruck.
Duck Brook proper contains some twenty or thirty houses, mostly humble dwellings, built in the form of a triangle, and two or three shops. A set of old stocks for the correction of the dead-and-gone evil-doers might be seen still, and a square pound in which to imprison stray cattle. And I would remark, as it may be of use further on, that the distance from Duck Brook to either Islip or Crabb was about equal—some three miles, or so; it stood at right angles between them. Passing down Brook Lane (which was in fact a fairly wide turnpike road) into the high road, turning to the right would bring you to Crabb; turning to the left, to Islip.
Just before coming to that populous part of Duck Brook, the dwelling places, there stood in a garden facing the road a low, wide, worn house, its bricks dark with age, and now partly covered with ivy, which had once been the abode of a flourishing farmer. The land on which this lay belonged to a Captain Falkner—some hundred acres of it. The Captain was in difficulties and, afraid to venture into England, resided abroad.
A Mr. Preen lived in the house now—Gervais Preen, a gentleman by descent. The Preens were Worcestershire people; and old Mr. Preen, dead now, had left a large family of sons and daughters, who had for the most part nothing to live upon. How or where Gervais Preen had lately lived, no one knew much about; some people said it was London, some thought it was Paris; but he suddenly came back to Worcestershire and took up his abode, much to the general surprise, at this old farmhouse at Duck Brook. It was soon known that he lived in it rent-free, having undertaken the post of agent to Captain Falkner.
“Agent to Captain Falkner—what a mean thing for a Preen to do!” cried Islip and Crabb all in a breath.
“Not at all mean; gentlemen must live as well as other people,” warmly disputed the Squire. “I honour Preen for it.” And he was the first to walk over to Duck Brook and shake hands with him.
Others followed the Squire’s example, but Mr. Preen did not seem inclined to be sociable. He was forty-five years old then; a little shrimp of a man with a dark face, small eyes like round black beads, and a very cross look. He met his visitors civilly, for he was a gentleman, but he let it be known that he and his wife did not intend to visit or be visited. The Squire pressed him to bring Mrs. Preen to a friendly dinner at Crabb Cot; but he refused emphatically, frankly saying that as they could not afford to entertain in return, they should not themselves go out to entertainments.
Thus Gervais Preen and his wife began their career at Duck Brook, keeping themselves to themselves, locked up in lavender, so to say, as if they did not want the world outside to remember their existence. Perhaps that was the ruling motive, for he owed a few debts of long standing. One or two creditors had found him out, and were driving, it was said, a hard bargain with him, insisting upon payment by degrees if it could not be handed over in a lump.
But there was one member of the family who declined to keep herself laid up in lavender, and that was the only daughter, Jane. She came to Crabb Cot of her own accord, and made friends with us; made friends with Mrs. Jacob Chandler and her girls, and with Emma Paul at Islip. She was a fair, lively, open-natured girl, and welcomed everywhere.
Mr. and Mrs. Preen and Jane were seated at the breakfast-table one fine morning in the earliest days of spring. A space of about two years had gone by since they first came to Duck Brook. Breakfast was laid, as usual, in a small flagged room opening from the kitchen. A piece of cold boiled bacon, three eggs, a home-made loaf and a pat of butter were on the table, nothing more luxurious. Mrs. Preen, a thin woman, under the middle height, poured out the coffee. She must once have been very pretty. Her face was fair and smooth still, with a bright rose tint on the cheeks, and a peevish look in her mild blue eyes. Jane’s face was very much like her mother’s, but her blue eyes had no peevishness in them as yet. Poor Mrs. Preen’s life was one of rubs and crosses, had been for a long while, and that generally leaves its marks upon the countenance. When Mr. Preen came in he had a letter in his hand, which he laid beside his plate, address downwards. He looked remarkably cross, and did not speak. No one else spoke. Conversation was seldom indulged in at meal times, unless the master chose to begin it. But in passing something to him, Jane’s eyes chanced to fall on the letter, and saw that it was of thin, foreign paper.
“Papa, is that from Oliver?”
“Don’t you see it is?” returned Mr. Preen.
“And—is anything different decided?” asked Mrs Preen, timidly, as if she were afraid of either the question or the answer.
“What is there different to decide?” he retorted.
“But, Gervais, I thought you wrote to say that he could not come home.”
“And he writes back to say that he must come. I suppose he must. The house over there is being given up; he can’t take up his abode in the street. There’s what he says,” continued Mr. Preen, tossing the letter to the middle of the table for the public benefit. “He will be here to-morrow.”
A glad light flashed into Jane’s countenance. She lifted her handkerchief to hide it.
Oliver Preen was her brother; she and he were the only children. He had been partly adopted by a great aunt, once Miss Emily Preen, the sister of his grandfather. She had married Major Magnus late in life, and was left a widow. Since Oliver left school, three years ago now, he had lived with Mrs. Magnus at Tours, where she had settled down. She was supposed to be well off; and the Preen family—Gervais Preen and all his hungry brothers and sisters—had cherished expectations from her. They thought she might provide slenderly for Oliver, and divide the rest of her riches among them. But a week or two ago she had died after a short illness, and then the amazing fact came out that she had nothing to leave. All Mrs. Magnus once possessed had been sunk in an annuity on her own life.
This was bad enough for the brothers and the sisters, but it was nothing compared with the shock it gave to him of Duck Brook. For you see he had to take his son back now and provide for him; and Oliver had been brought up to do nothing. A mild young man, he, we understood, not at all clever enough to set the Thames on fire.
Mr. Preen finished his breakfast and left the room, carrying the letter with him. Jane went at once into the garden, which in places was no better than a wilderness, and ran about the sheltered paths that were out of sight of the windows, and jumped up to catch the lower branches of trees, all in very happiness. She and Oliver were intensely attached to one another; she had not seen him for three years, and now they were going to meet again. To-morrow! oh, to-morrow! To-morrow, and he would be here! She should see him face to face!
“Jane!” called out a stern voice, “I want you.”
In half a moment Jane had appeared in the narrow front path that led between beds of sweet but common flowers from the entrance gate in the centre of the palings to the door of the house, and was walking up demurely. Mr. Preen was standing at an open window.
“Yes, papa,” she said. And Mr. Preen only answered by looking at her and shutting down the window.
The door opened into a passage, which led straight through to the back of the house. On the left, as you entered, was the parlour; on the right was the room which Mr. Preen used as an office, in which were kept the account books and papers relating to the estate. It was a square room, lighted by two tall narrow windows. A piece of matting covered the middle of the floor, and on it stood Mr. Preen’s large flat writing-table, inlaid with green leather. Shelves and pigeon-holes filled one side of the walls, and a few chairs stood about. Altogether the room had a cold, bare look.
It was called the “Buttery.” When Mr. and Mrs. Preen first came to the house, the old man who had had charge showed them over it. “This is the parlour,” he said, indicating the room they were then looking at; “and this,” he added, opening the door on the opposite side of the passage, “is the Buttery.” Jane laughed: but they had adopted the name.
“I want these letters copied, Jane,” said Mr. Preen, who was now sitting at his table, his back to the fire, and the windows in front of him; and he handed to her two letters which he had just written.
Jane took her seat at the table opposite to him. Whenever Mr. Preen wanted letters copied, he called upon her to do it. Jane did not much like the task; she was not fond of writing, and was afraid of making mistakes.
When she had finished the letters this morning she escaped to her mother, asking how she could help in the preparations for Oliver. They kept one maid-servant; a capless young lady of sixteen, who wore a frock and pinafore of a morning. There was Sam as well; a well-grown civil youth, whose work lay chiefly out of doors.
The day passed. The next day was passing. From an early hour Jane Preen had watched for the guest’s arrival. In the afternoon, when she was weary of looking and looking in vain, she put on a warm shawl and her pink sun-bonnet and went out of doors with a book.
A little lower down, towards the Islip Road, Brook Lane was flanked on one side by a grove of trees, too dense to admit of penetration. But there were two straight paths in them at some distance from each other, which would carry you to the back of the grove, and to the stream running parallel with the highway in front; from which stream Duck Brook derived its name. These openings in the trees were called Inlets curiously. A few worn benches stood in front of the trees, and also behind them, and had been there for ages. If you took your seat upon one of the front benches, you could watch the passing and re-passing (if there chanced to be any) on the high road; if you preferred a seat at the back, you might contemplate the pellucid stream and the meads beyond it, like any knight or fair damsel of romance.
This was a favourite resort of Jane Preen’s, a slight relief from the dullness at home. She generally sat by the stream, but to-day faced the road, for she was looking for Oliver. It was not a frequented road at all, but I think this has been said; sometimes an hour would pass away and not so much as a farmer’s horse and cart jolt by, or a beggar shambling on foot.
Jane had brought out a favourite book of the day, one of Bulwer Lytton’s, which had been lent to her by Miss Julietta Chandler. Shall we ever have such writers again? Compare a work over which a tremendous fuss is made in the present day with one of those romances or novels of the past when some of us were young—works written by Scott, and Bulwer, and others I need not mention. Why, they were as solid gold compared with silver and tinsel.
Jane tried to lose herself in the romantic love of Lucy and Paul, or in the passionate love-letters of Sir William Brandon, written when he was young; and she could not do so. Her eyes kept turning, first to that way of the road, then to this: she did not know which way Oliver would come. By rail to Crabb station she supposed, and then with a fly onwards; though being strange to the neighbourhood he might pitch upon any out-of-the-way route and so delay his arrival.
Suddenly her heart stopped beating and then coursed on to fever heat. A fly was winding along towards her in the distance, from the direction of Crabb. Jane rose and waited close to the path. It was not Oliver. Three ladies and a child sat in the fly. They all stared at her, evidently wondering who she was and what she did there. She went back to the bench, but did not open her book again.
It must be nearing four o’clock: she could tell it by the sun, for she had no watch: and she thought she would go in. Slowly taking up the book, she was turning towards home, which was close by, when upon giving a lingering farewell look down the road, a solitary foot passenger came into view: a gentlemanly young man, with an umbrella in his hand and a coat on his arm.
Was it Oliver? She was not quite sure at first. He was of middle height, slight and slender: had a mild fair face and blue eyes with a great sadness in them. Jane noticed the sadness at once, and thought she remembered it; she thought the face also like her own and her mother’s.
“Oliver?”
“Jane! Why—is it you? I did not expect to find you under that peasant bonnet, Jane.”
They clung to each other, kissing fondly, tears in the eyes of both.
“But why are you walking, Oliver? Did you come to Crabb?”
“Yes,” he said. “I thought I might as well walk; I did not think it was quite so far. The porter will send on my things.”
There was just a year between them; Oliver would be twenty-one in a month, Jane was twenty-two, but did not look as much. She took his arm as they walked home.
As she halted at the little gate, Oliver paused in surprise and gazed about: at the plain wooden palings painted green, which shut in the crowded, homely garden; at the old farmhouse.
“Is this the place, Jane?”
“Yes. You have not been picturing it a palace, have you?”
Oliver laughed, and held back the low gate for her. But as he passed in after her, a perceptible shiver shook his frame. It was gone in a moment; but in that moment it had shaken him from head to foot. Jane saw it.
“Surely you have not caught a chill, Oliver?”
“Not at all; I am warm with my walk. I don’t know why I should have shivered,” he added. “It was like the feeling you have when people say somebody’s ‘walking over your grave.’”
Mr. Preen received his son coldly, but not unkindly; Mrs. Preen did the same; she was led by her husband’s example in all things. Tea, though it was so early, was prepared at once, with a substantial dish for the traveller; and they sat down to it in the parlour.
It was a long room with a beam running across the low ceiling. A homely room, with a coarse red-and-green carpet and horse-hair chairs. A few ornaments of their own (for the furniture belonged to the house), relics of better days, were disposed about; and Jane had put on the table a glass of early primroses. The two windows, tall and narrow, answered to those in the Buttery. Oliver surveyed the room in silent dismay: it wore so great a contrast to the French salons at Tours to which he was accustomed. He gave them the details of his aunt’s death and of her affairs.
When tea was over, Mr. Preen shut himself into the Buttery; Mrs. Preen retired to the kitchen to look after Nancy, who had to be watched, like most young servants, as you watch a sprightly calf. Jane and Oliver went out again, Jane taking the way to the Inlets. This time she sat down facing the brook. The dark trees were behind them, the clear stream flowed past in a gentle murmur; nothing but fields beyond. It was a solitary spot.
“What do you call this place—the Inlets?” cried Oliver. “Why is it called so?”
“I’m sure I don’t know: because of those two openings from the road, I suppose. I like to sit here; it is so quiet. Oliver, how came Aunt Emily to sink all her money in an annuity?”
“For her own benefit, of course; it nearly doubled her income. She did it years ago.”
“And you did not know that she had nothing to leave?”
“No one knew. She kept the secret well.”
“It is very unfortunate for you.”
“Yes—compared with what I had expected,” sighed Oliver. “It can’t be helped, Jane, and I try not to feel disappointed. Aunt Emily in life was very kind to me; apart from all selfish consideration I regret and mourn her.”
“You will hardly endure this dreary place after your gay and happy life at Tours, Oliver. Duck Brook is the fag-end of the world.”
“It does not appear to be very lively,” remarked Oliver, with a certain dry sarcasm. “How was it that the Pater came to it?”
“Well, you know—it was a living, and we had nothing else.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When Uncle Gilbert died, there was no other of our uncles, those who were left, who could help papa; at least they said so; and I assure you we fell into great embarrassment as the weeks went on. It was impossible to remain in Jersey; we could pay no one; and what would have been the ending but for papa’s falling in with Captain Falkner, I can’t imagine. Captain Falkner owns a good deal of land about here; but he is in difficulties himself and cannot be here to look after it; so he offered papa the agency and a house to live in. I can tell you, Oliver, it was as a godsend to us.”
“Do you mean to say that my father is an agent?” cried the young man, his face dyed with a red flush.
Jane nodded. “That, and nothing less. He looks after the estate and is paid a hundred pounds a-year salary, and we live rent free. Lately he has taken something else, something different; the agency of some new patent agricultural implements.”
Oliver Preen looked very blank. He had been living the life of a gentleman, was imbued with a gentleman’s notions, and this news brought him the most intense mortification.
“He will expect you to help him in the Buttery,” continued Jane.
“In the what?”
“The Buttery,” laughed Jane. “It is the room where papa keeps his accounts and writes his letters. Letters come in nearly every morning now, inquiring about the new agricultural implements; papa has to answer them, and wants some of his answers copied.”
“And he has only a hundred a year!” murmured Oliver, unable to get over that one item of information. “Aunt Emily had from eight to nine hundred, and lived up to her income.”
“The worst is that we cannot spend all the hundred. Papa has back debts upon him. Have you brought home any money, Oliver?”
“None to speak of,” he answered; “there was none to bring. Aunt Emily’s next quarter’s instalment would have been due this week; but she died first, you see. She lived in a furnished house; and as to the few things she had of her own, and her personal trinkets, Aunt Margaret Preen came down and swooped upon them. Jane, how have you managed to put up with the lively state of affairs here?”
“And this lively spot—the fag-end of the world. It was Emma Paul first called it so. I put up with it because I can’t help myself, Oliver.”
“Who is Emma Paul?”
“The daughter of Lawyer Paul, of Islip.”
“Oh,” said Oliver, slightingly.
“And the nicest girl in the world,” added Jane. “But I can tell you this much, Oliver,” she continued, after a pause: “when we came first to Duck Brook it seemed to me as a haven of refuge. Our life in Jersey had become intolerable, our life here was peaceful—no angry creditors, no daily applications for debts that we could not pay. Here we were free and happy, and it gave me a liking for the place. It is dull, of course; but I go pretty often to see Emma Paul, or to take tea at Mrs. Jacob Chandler’s, and at Crabb Cot when the Todhetleys are staying there. Sam brings the gig for me in the evening, when I don’t walk home. You will have to bring it for me now.”
“Oh, there’s a gig, is there?”
“Papa has to keep that for his own use in going about the land: sometimes he rides.”
“Are the debts in Jersey paid, Jane?”
A shadow passed over her face, and her voice dropped to a whisper.
“No. It makes me feel very unhappy sometimes, half-frightened. Of course papa hopes he shall not be found out here. But he seems to have also two or three old debts in this neighbourhood, and those he is paying off.”
The sun, setting right before them in a sea of red clouds, fell upon their faces and lighted up the sadness of Oliver’s. Then the red ball sank, on its way to cheer and illumine another part of the world, leaving behind it the changes which set in after sunset. The bright stream became grey, the osiers bordering it grew dark. Oliver shook himself. The whole place to him wore a strange air of melancholy. It was early evening yet, for the month was only February; but the spring had come in with a kindly mood, and the weather was bright.
Rising from the bench, they slowly walked up the nearest Inlet, side by side, and gained the high road just as a pony-chaise was passing by, an elderly gentleman and a young lady in it; Mr. and Miss Paul.
“Oh, papa, please pull up!” cried the girl. “There’s Jane Preen.”
She leaped out, almost before the pony had stopped, and ran to the pathway with outstretched hands.
“How pleasant that we should meet you, Jane! Papa has been taking me for a drive this afternoon.”
Oliver stood apart, behind his sister, looking and listening. The speaker was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen, with a blushing, dimpled face, a smiling mouth displaying small white teeth, shy blue eyes, and bright hair. Her straw hat had blue ribbons and her dress was one of light silk. Never in his life, thought Oliver, had he seen so sweet a face or heard so sweet a voice.
“Have you been for a walk?” she asked of Jane.
“No,” answered Jane. “We have been down the Inlet, and sitting to watch the sun set. This is my brother, Emma, of whom you have heard. He arrived this afternoon, and has left Tours. Will you allow me to introduce him to you? Oliver, this is Miss Paul.”
Mr. Oliver Preen was about to execute a deep bow at a respectful distance, after the manner of the fashionable blades of Tours, and swung off his hat to begin with; but Emma Paul, who was not fashionable at all, but sociable, inexperienced and unpretending, held out her hand. She liked his looks; a slender young fellow, in deep mourning, with a fair, mild, pleasing face.
“Papa,” she said, turning to the gig, which had drawn up close to the foot-path, “this is Mr. Oliver Preen, from France. He has come home, Jane says.”
John Paul, a portly, elderly gentleman, with iron-grey hair and a face that looked stern to those who did not know him, bent forward and shook hands with the stranger.
Emma began plunging into all sorts of gossip, for she liked nothing better than to talk. Jane liked it too.
“I have been telling Oliver we call Duck Brook the fag end of the world, and that it was you who first said it,” cried Jane.
“Oh, how could you?” laughed Emma, turning her beaming face upon Oliver. And they might have gone on for ever, if left alone; but Mr. Paul reminded his daughter that it was growing late, and he wanted to get home to dinner. So she lightly stepped into the low chaise, Oliver Preen assisting her, and they drove off, Emma calling to Jane not to forget that they were engaged to drink tea at North Villa on the morrow.
“What’s Preen going to do with that young fellow?” wondered the lawyer, as he drove on.
“I’m sure I don’t know, papa,” said Emma. “Take him into the Buttery, perhaps.”
Old Paul laughed a little at the idea. “Not much more work there than Preen can do himself, I expect.”
“When I last saw Jane she said she thought her brother might be coming home. It may be only for a visit, you know.”
Old Paul nodded, and touched up the pony.
Oliver stood in the pathway gazing after the chaise until it was out of sight. “What a charming girl!” he cried to his sister. “I never saw one so unaffected in all my life.”
II
If the reader has chanced to read the two papers entitled “Chandler and Chandler,” he may be able to recall North Villa, and those who lived in it.
It stood in the Islip Road—hardly a stone’s throw from Crabb Cot. Jacob Chandler’s widow lived in it with her three daughters. She was empty-headed, vain, frivolous, always on the high ropes when in company, wanting to give people the impression that she had been as good as born a duchess: whereas everyone knew she had sprung from small tradespeople in Birmingham. The three daughters, Clementina, Georgiana, Julietta, took after her, and were as fine as their names.
But you have heard of them before—and of the wrong inflicted by their father, Jacob Chandler, upon his brother’s widow and son. The solicitor’s business at Islip had been made by the elder brother, Thomas Chandler; he had taken Jacob into partnership, and given him a half share without cross or coin of recompense: and when Thomas died from an accident, leaving his only son Tom in the office to succeed him when he should be of age, Jacob refused to carry out the behest. Ignoring past obligations, all sense of right or wrong, he made his own son Valentine his partner in due course of time, condemning Tom, though a qualified solicitor, to remain his clerk.
It’s true that when Jacob Chandler lay on his death-bed, the full sense of what he had done came home to him: any glaring injustice we may have been committing in our lives does, I fancy, often take hold of the conscience at that dread time: and he enjoined his son Valentine to give Tom his due—a full partnership. Valentine having his late father’s example before him (for Jacob died), did nothing of the kind. “I’ll raise your salary, Tom,” said he, “but I cannot make you my partner.” So Tom, thinking he had put up with injustice long enough, quitted Valentine there and then. John Paul, the other Islip lawyer, was only too glad to secure Tom for his own office; he made him his manager and paid him a good salary.
About two years had gone on since then. Tom Chandler, a very fine young fellow, honest and good-natured, was growing more and more indispensable to Mr. Paul; Valentine was growing (if the expression may be used) downwards. For Valentine, who had been an indulged son, and only made to work when he pleased, had picked up habits of idleness, and other habits that we are told in our copy-books idleness begets. Gay, handsome, pleasant-mannered, with money always in his pocket, one of those young men sure to be courted, Valentine had grown fonder of pleasure than of work: he liked his game at billiards; worse than that, he liked his glass. When a client came in, ten to one but a clerk had to make a rush to the Bell Inn opposite, to fetch his master; and it sometimes happened that Valentine would not return quite steady. The result was, that his practice was gradually leaving him, to be given to Mr. Paul. All this was telling upon Valentine’s mother; she had an ever-haunting dread of the poverty which might result in the future, and was only half as pretentious as she used to be.
Her daughters did not allow their minds to be disturbed by anxiety as yet; the young are less anxious than the old. When she dropped a word of apprehension in their hearing, they good-humouredly said mamma was fidgety—Valentine would be all right; if a little gay now it was only what other young men were. It was a pleasant house to visit, for the girls were gay and hospitable; though they did bedeck themselves like so many peacocks, and put on airs and graces.
Jane Preen found it pleasant; had found it so long ago; and she introduced Oliver to it, who liked it because he sometimes met Emma Paul there. It took a very short time indeed after that first meeting by the Inlets for him to be over head and ears in love with her. Thus some weeks went on.
More pure and ardent love than that young fellow’s for Emma was never felt by man or woman. It filled his every thought, seemed to sanctify his dreary days at Duck Brook, and made a heaven of his own heart. He would meet her at North Villa, would encounter her sometimes in her walks, now and then saw her at her own house at Islip. Not often—old Mr. Paul did not particularly care for the Preens, and rarely gave Emma leave to invite them.
Emma did not care for him. She had not found out that he cared for her. A remarkably open, pleasant girl in manner, to him as to all the world, she met him always with frank cordiality—and he mistook that natural cordiality for a warmer feeling. Had Emma Paul suspected his love for her she would have turned from it in dismay; she was no coquette, and all the first love of her young heart was privately given to someone else.
At this time there was a young man in Mr. Paul’s office named Richard MacEveril. He was a nephew of Captain MacEveril of Oak Mansion—a pretty place near Islip. Captain MacEveril—a retired captain in the Royal Navy—had a brother settled in Australia. When this brother died, his only son, Richard, came over to his relatives, accompanied by a small income, about enough to keep him in coats and waistcoats.
The arrival very much put out Captain MacEveril. He was a good-hearted man, but afflicted with gout in the feet, and irascible when twinges took him. Naturally the question arose to his mind—how was he to put Richard in the way of getting bread and cheese. Richard seemed to have less idea of how it was to be done than his uncle and aunt had. They told him he must go back to Australia and find a living there. Richard objected; said he had only just left it, and did not like Australia. Upon the captain’s death, whenever that should take place, Richard would come into a small estate of between two and three hundred a-year, of which nothing could deprive him; for Captain MacEveril had no son; only a daughter, who would be rich through her mother.
Richard was a gay-mannered young fellow and much liked, but he was not very particular. He played billiards at the Bell Inn with Valentine Chandler, with young Scott, and with other idlers; he hired horses, and dashed across country on their backs; he spent money in all ways. When his own ready money was gone he went into debt, and people came to the Captain to ask him to liquidate it. This startled and angered the old post-captain as no twinge of gout had ever yet done.
“Something must be done with Dick,” said Mrs. MacEveril.
“Of course it must,” her husband wrathfully retorted; “but what the deuce is it to be?”
“Can’t you get John Paul to take him into his office as a temporary thing? It would keep him out of mischief.”
Mrs. MacEveril’s suggestion bore fruit. For the present, until something eligible should “turn up,” Dick was placed in the lawyer’s office as a copying clerk. Mr. Paul made a favour of taking him in; but he and Captain MacEveril had been close friends for many a year. Dick wrote a bold, clear hand, good for copying deeds.
He and Oliver became intimate. It is said that a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind, and they could feel for one another. Both were down in life, both had poverty-stricken pockets. They were of the same age, twenty-one, and in appearance were not dissimilar—fair of face, slight in person.
So that Oliver Preen needed no plea for haunting Islip three or four times a week. “He went over to see Dick MacEveril,” would have been his answer had any inquisitive body inquired what he did there: while, in point of fact, he went hoping to see Emma Paul—if by delightful chance he might obtain that boon.
Thus matters were going on: Oliver, shut up the earlier part of the day in the Buttery with his father, answering letters, and what not; in the latter part of it he would be at Islip, or perhaps with Jane at North Villa. Sometimes they would walk home together; or, if they could have the gig, Oliver drove his sister back in it. But for the love he bore Emma, he would have found his life intolerable; nothing but depression, mortification, disappointment: but when Love takes up its abode in the heart the dreariest lot becomes one of sunshine.