Verner's Pride

There were other houses in Deerham that night, not quite so full of sociability as was Lady Verner's. For one, may be instanced that of the Misses West. They sat at the table in the general sitting-room, hard at work, a lamp between them, for the gas-burners above were high for sewing, and their eyes were no longer so keen as they had been. Miss Deborah was "turning" a table-cloth; Miss Amilly was darning sundry holes in a pillow-case. Their stock of household linen was in great need of being replaced by new; but, not having the requisite money to spare, they were doing their best to renovate the old.

The servant came in with the supper-tray, and laid it on the table. "Is the cold pork to come in?" asked she. "I have not brought it. I thought, perhaps, you'd not care to have it in to-night, ma'am, as Mr. Jan's out."

Miss Deborah cast her eyes on the tray. There was a handsome piece of cheese, and a large glass of fresh celery. A rapid calculation passed through her mind that the cold pork, if not cut for supper, would make a dinner the following day, with an apple or a jam pudding.

"No, Martha, this will do for to-night," she answered. "Call Master Cheese, and then draw the ale."

"It's a wonder he waits to be called," was Martha's comment, as she went out. "He is generally in afore the tray, whatever the meals may be, he is."

She went out at the side door, and entered the surgery. Nobody was in it except the surgery-boy. The boy was asleep, with his head and arms on the counter, and the gas flared away over him. A hissing and fizzing from Jan's room, similar to the sounds Lucy Tempest heard when she invaded the surgery the night of the ball at Deerham Hall, saluted Martha's ears. She went round the counter, tried the door, found it fastened, and shook the handle.

"Who's there?" called out Master Cheese from the other side.

"It's me," said Martha "Supper's ready."

"Very well. I'll be in directly," responded Master Cheese.

"I say!" called out Martha wrathfully, rattling the handle again, "if you are making a mess of that room, as you do sometimes, I won't have it. I'll complain to Mr. Jan. There! Messing the floor and places with your powder and stuff! It would take two servants to clear up after you."

Martha called out another wrathful warning, and withdrew. Master Cheese came forth, locked the door, took out the key, went indoors, and sat down to supper.

Sat down in angry consternation. He threw his eager glances to every point of the table, and could not see upon it what he was longing to see—what he had been expecting all the evening to see—for the terrible event of its not being there had never so much as crossed his imagination. The dinner had consisted of a loin of pork with the crackling on, and apple sauce—a dish so beloved by Master Cheese, that he never thought of it without a watering of the mouth. It had been nothing like half eaten at dinner, neither the pork nor the sauce. Jan was at the wedding-breakfast, and the Misses West, in Master Cheese's estimation, ate like two sparrows: of course he had looked to be regaled with it at supper. Miss West cut him a large piece of cheese, and Miss Amilly handed him the glass of celery.

Now Master Cheese had no great liking for that vulgar edible which bore his name, and which used to form the staple of so many good, old-fashioned suppers. To cheese, in the abstract, he could certainly have borne no forcible objection, since he was wont to steal into the larder, between breakfast and dinner, and help himself—as Martha would grumblingly complain—to "pounds" of it. The state of the case was just this: the young gentleman liked cheese well enough when he could get nothing better. Cheese, however, as a substitute for cold loin of pork, with "crackling" and apple sauce, was hardly to be borne, and Master Cheese sat in dumbfounded dismay, heaving great sighs and casting his eyes upon his plate.

"I feel quite faint," said he.

"What makes you feel faint?" asked Miss Deb.

"Well, I suppose it is for want of my supper," he returned. "Is—is there no meat to-night, Miss Deb?"

"Not any," she answered decisively. She had the pleasure of knowing Master Cheese well.

Master Cheese paused. "There was nearly the whole joint left at dinner," said he in a tone of remonstrance.

With all his propensity for bonne chère, Master Cheese was really of a modest nature, and would not go the length of demanding luxuries, if denied them by Miss Deb. He was fain to content himself with the cheese and celery, eating so much of it that it may be a question whether the withholding of the cold pork had been a gain in point of economy.

Laying down his knife at length, he put back his chair to return to the surgery. Generally he was not in so much haste; he liked to wait until the things were removed, even to the cloth, lest by a speedy departure he might miss some nice little dainty or other, coming in at the tail of the repast. It is true such impromptu arrivals were not common at Miss West's table, but Master Cheese liked to be on the sure side.

"You are in a hurry," remarked Miss Amilly, surprised at the unwonted withdrawal.

"Jan's out," returned Master Cheese. "Folks may be coming in to the surgery."

"I wonder if Mr. Jan will be late to-night?" cried Miss Deb.

"Of course he will," confidently replied Master Cheese. "Who ever heard of a wedding-party breaking up before morning?"

For this reason, probably, Master Cheese returned to the surgery, prepared to "make a night of it"—not altogether in the general acceptation of that term, but at his chemical experiments. It was most rare that he could make sure of Jan's absence for any length of time. When abroad in pursuance of his professional duties, Jan might be returning at any period; in five minutes or in five hours; there was no knowing; and Master Cheese dared not get his chemical apparatus about, in the uncertainty, Jan having so positively forbidden his recreations in the science. For this night, however, he thought he was safe. Master Cheese's ideas of a wedding festival consisted of unlimited feasting. He could not have left such a board, if bidden to one, until morning light, and he judged others by himself.

"She's getting downright mean, is that old Deb!" grumbled he; "especially if Jan happens to be out. Wasn't it different in West's time! He knew what was good, he did. Catch her daring to put bread and cheese on the table for supper then. I shall be quite exhausted before the night's over. Bob!"

Bob, his head still on the counter, partially woke up at the call—sufficiently so to return a half sound by way of response.

"Bob!" roared Master Cheese again. "Can't you hear?"

Bob, his eyes blinking and winking, came in, in answer: that is, as far as he could get in, for the litter lying about.

"Bring in the jar of tamarinds."

"The jar of tamarinds!" repeated Bob. "In here?"

"Yes, in here," said Master Cheese. "Now, you needn't stare. All you have got to do is to obey orders."

Bob disappeared, and presently returned, lugging in a big porcelain jar. He was ordered to "take out the bung, and leave it open." He did so, setting it in a convenient place on the floor, near Master Cheese, and giving his opinion gratuitously of the condition of the room. "Won't there be a row when Mr. Jan comes in and finds it like this!"

"My goodness!" exclaimed Miss Amilly. "It's never you yet, Mr. Jan!"

"Why shouldn't it be?" returned Jan, drawing forward a chair, and sitting down by them. "Did you fancy I was going to sleep there?"

"Master Cheese thought you would keep it up until morning."

"Oh! did he? Is he gone to bed?"

"He is in the surgery," replied Miss Amilly. "Mr. Jan, you have told us nothing yet about the wedding in the morning."

"It went off," answered Jan.

"But the details? How did the ladies look?"

"They looked as usual, for all I saw," replied Jan.

"What did they wear?"

"Wear? Gowns, I suppose."

"Oh, Mr. Jan! Surely you saw better than that! Can't you tell what sort of gowns?"

Jan really could not. It may be questioned whether he could have told a petticoat from a gown. Miss Amilly was waiting with breathless interest, her lips apart.

"Some were in white, and some were in colours, I think," hazarded Jan, trying to be correct in his good nature. "Decima was in a veil."

"Of course she was," acquiesced Miss Amilly with emphasis. "Did the bridemaids—"

What pertinent question relating to the bridemaids Miss Amilly was about to put, never was known. A fearful sound interrupted it. A sound nearly impossible to describe. Was it a crash of thunder? Had an engine from the distant railway taken up its station outside their house, and gone off with a bang? Or had the surgery blown up? The room they were in shook, the windows rattled, the Misses West screamed with real terror, and Jan started from his seat.

"It can't be an explosion of gas!" he muttered.

But what was the débris there, compared to the débris in the next room, Jan's! The window was out, the furniture was split, the various chemical apparatus had been shivered into a hundred pieces, the tamarind jar was in two, and Master Cheese was extended on the floor on his back, his hands scorched, his eyebrows singed off, his face black, and the end of his nose burning.

"Oh! that's it, is it?" said Jan, when his eyes took in the state of things. "I knew it would come to it."

"He have been and blowed hisself up," remarked Bob, who had stolen in after them.

"Is it the gas?" sobbed Miss Amilly, hardly able to speak for terror.

"No, it's not the gas," returned Jan, examining the débris more closely. "It's one of that gentleman's chemical experiments."

Deborah West was bending over the prostrate form in alarm. "He surely can't be dead!" she shivered.

"Not he," said Jan. "Come, get up," he added, taking Master Cheese by the arm to assist him.

He was placed in a chair, and there he sat, coming to, and emitting dismal groans.

"I told you what you'd bring it to, if you persisted in attempting experiments that you know nothing about," was Jan's reprimand, delivered in a sharp tone. "A pretty state of things this is!"

Master Cheese groaned again.

"Are you much hurt?" asked Miss Deb in a sympathising accent.

"Oh-o-o-o-o-o-h!" moaned Master Cheese.

"Is there anything we can get for you?" resumed Miss Deb.

"Oh-o-o-o-o-o-h!" repeated Master Cheese. "A glass of wine might revive me."

"Get up," said Jan, "and let's see if you can walk. He's not hurt, Miss Deb."

"What can this be, lying here?"

She was bending her head near the old bureau, which had been rent in the explosion, her eyes fixed upon some large letter or paper on the floor. They crowded round at the words. Jan picked it up, and found it to be a folded parchment bearing a great seal.

"Hollo!" exclaimed Jan.

On the outside was written "Codicil to the will of Stephen Verner."

"What is it?" exclaimed Miss Deborah, and even Master Cheese contrived to get his eyes open to look.

"It is the lost codicil," replied Jan. "It must have been in that bureau. How did it get there?"

How indeed? There ensued a pause.

"It must have been placed there"—Jan was beginning, and then he stopped himself. He would not, before those ladies, say—"by Dr. West."

But to Jan it was now perfectly clear. That old hunting for the "prescription," which had puzzled him at the time, was explained now. There was the "prescription"—the codicil! Dr. West had had it in his hand when disturbed in that room by a stranger: he had flung it back in the bureau in his hurry; pushed it back: and by some unexplainable means, he must have pushed it too far out of sight. And there it had lain until now, intact and undiscovered.

The hearts of the Misses West were turning to sickness, their countenances to pallor. That it could be no other than their father who had stolen the codicil from Stephen Verner's dying chamber, was present to their conviction. His motive could only have been to prevent Verner's Pride passing to Lionel, over his daughter and her husband. What did he think of his work when the news came of Frederick's death? What did he think of it when John Massingbird returned in person? What did he think of it when he read Sibylla's dying message, written to him by Amilly—"Tell papa it is the leaving Verner's Pride that has killed me?"

The first thing on the following morning the codicil was handed over to Mr. Matiss. He immediately recognised it by its appearance. But it would be opened officially later, in the presence of John Massingbird. Jan betook himself to Verner's Pride to carry the news, and found Mr. Massingbird astride on a pillar of the terrace steps, smoking away with gusto. The day was warm and sunshiny as the previous one had been.

"What, is it you?" cried he, when Jan came in sight. "You are up here betimes. Anybody dying, this way?"

"Not this morning," replied Jan. "I say, Massingbird, there's ill news in the wind for you."

"What's that?" composedly asked John, tilting some ashes out of his pipe.

"That codicil has come to light."

John puffed on vigorously, staring at Jan, but never speaking.

"The thief must have been old West," went on Jan. "Only think! it has been hidden all this while in that bureau of his, in my bedroom."

"What has unhidden it?" demanded Mr. Massingbird in a half-satirical tone, as if he doubted the truth of the information.

"An explosion did that. Cheese got meddling with dangerous substances, and there was a blow-up. The bureau was thrown down and broken, and the codicil was dislodged. To talk of it, it sounds like an old stage trick."

"Did Cheese blow himself up?" asked John Massingbird.

"Yes. But he came down again. He is in bed with burned hands and a scorched face. If I had told him once to let that dangerous play alone—dangerous in his hands—I had told him ten times."

"Where's the codicil?" inquired Mr. Massingbird, smoking away.

"In Matiss's charge. You'd like to be present, I suppose, at the time of its being opened?"

"I can take your word," returned John Massingbird. "This does not surprise me. I have always had an impression that the codicil would turn up."

"It is more than I have had," dissented Jan.

"I shall give you no trouble, old fellow," was John Massingbird's salutation. "You gave me none."

"Thank you," answered Lionel. Though what precise trouble it lay in John Massingbird's power to give him, he did not see, considering that things were now so plain.

"You'll accord me house-room for a bit longer, though, won't you?"

"I will accord it you as long as you like," replied Lionel, in the warmth of his heart.

"You know I would have had you stop on here all along," remarked Mr. Massingbird; "but the bar to it was Sibylla. I am not sorry the thing's found. I am growing tired of my life here. It has come into my mind at times lately to think whether I should not give up to you, Lionel, and be off over the seas again. It's tame work, this, to one who has roughed it at the diggings."

"You'd not have done it," observed Jan, alluding to the giving up.

"Perhaps not," said John Massingbird; "but I have owed a debt to Lionel for a long while. I say, old chap, didn't you think I clapped on a good sum for your trouble when I offered you the management of Verner's Pride?"

"I did," answered Lionel.

"Ay! I was in your debt; am in it still. Careless as I am, I thought of it now and then."

"I do not understand you," said Lionel. "In what way are you in my debt?"

"Let it go for now," returned John. "I may tell you some time, perhaps. When shall you take up your abode here?"

Lionel smiled. "I will not invade you without warning. You and I will take counsel together, John, and discuss plans and expediencies."

"I suppose you'll be for setting about your improvements now?"

"Yes," answered Lionel, his tone changing to one of deep seriousness, not to say reverence. "Without loss of time."

"No; but I never looked for it," said Lionel.

"Ah! Things turn up that we don't look for," concluded John Massingbird, smoking on as serenely as though he had come into an estate, instead of having lost one. "There'll be bonfires all over the place to-night, Lionel—left-handed compliment to me. Here comes Luke Roy. I told him to be here this morning. What nuts this will be for old Roy to crack! He has been fit to stick me, ever since I refused him the management of Verner's Pride."

And so, the trouble and the uncertainty, the ups and the downs, the turnings out and changes were at an end, and Lionel Verner was at rest—at rest so far as rest can be, in this lower world. He was reinstalled at Verner's Pride, its undisputed master; never again to be sent forth from it during life.

He had not done as John Massingbird did—gone right in, the first day, and taken up his place, sans cérémonie, without word and without apology, at the table's head, leaving John to take his at the side or the foot, or where he could. Quite the contrary. Lionel's refinement of mind, his almost sensitive consideration for the feelings of others, clung to him now, as it always had done, as it always would do, and he was chary of disturbing John Massingbird too early in his sway of the internal economy of Verner's Pride. It had to be done, however; and John Massingbird remained on with him, his guest.

Mr. Massingbird was not going alone. Luke Roy was returning with him. Luke's intention always had been to return to Australia; he had but come home for a short visit to the old place and to see his mother. Luke had been doing well at the gold-fields. He did not dig; but he sold liquor to those who did dig; at which he was making money rapidly. He had a "chum," he said, who managed the store while he was away. So glowing was his account of his prospects, that old Roy had decided upon going also, and trying his fortune there. Mrs. Roy looked aghast at the projected plans; she was too old for it, she urged. But she could not turn her husband. He had never studied her wishes too much, and he was not likely to begin to do so now. So Mrs. Roy, with incessantly-dropping tears, and continued prognostications that the sea-sickness would kill her, was forced to make her preparations for the voyage. Perhaps one motive, more than all else, influenced Roy's decision—the getting out of Deerham. Since his hopes of having something to do with the Verner's Pride estate—as he had in Stephen Verner's time—had been at an end, Roy had gone about in a perpetual state of inward mortification. This emigration would put an end to it; and what with the anticipation of making a fortune at the diggings, and what with his satisfaction at saying adieu to Deerham, and what with the thwarting of his wife, Roy was in a state of complacency.

"If ever I turn to work with a will and become a hundred-thousand-pound man, old fellow," he suddenly broke out, "I'll pay you back. This, and also what I got rid of while the estate was in my hands."

Lionel, who had been looking from the window in a reverie, turned round and laughed. To imagine John Massingbird becoming a hundred-thousand-pound man through his own industry, was a stretch of fancy marvellously comprehensive.

"I have to make a clean breast of it to-night," resumed John Massingbird, after puffing away for some minutes in silence. "Do you remember my saying to you, the day we heard news of the codicil's being found, that I was in your debt?"

"I remember your saying it," replied Lionel. "I did not understand what you meant. You were not in my debt."

"Yes, I was. I had a score to pay off as big as the moon. It's as big still; for it's one that never can be paid off; never will be."

Lionel looked at him in surprise; his manner was so unusually serious.

"Fifty times, since I came back from Australia, have I been on the point of clearing myself of the secret. But, you see, there was Verner's Pride in the way. You would naturally have said upon hearing it, 'Give the place up to me; you can have no moral right to it.' And I was not prepared to give it up; it seemed too comfortable a nest, just at first, after the knocking about over yonder. Don't you perceive?"

"I don't perceive, and I don't understand," replied Lionel. "You are speaking in an unknown language."

"I'll speak in a known one, then. It was through me that old Ste Verner left Verner's Pride away from you."

"What!" uttered Lionel.

"And the scandal?" asked Lionel quietly. "What may it have been?"

"False scandal," carelessly answered John Massingbird. "But I thought it was true when I spoke it. I told your uncle that it was you who had played false with Rachel Frost."

"Massingbird!"

"Don't fancy I went to him open-mouthed, and said, 'Lionel Verner's the man.' A fellow who could do such a sneaking trick would be only fit for hanging. The avowal to him was surprised from me in an unguarded moment; it slipped out in self-defence. I'd better tell you the tale."

"I think you had," said Lionel.

"You remember the bother there was, the commotion, the night Rachel was drowned. I came home and found Mr. Verner sitting at the inquiry. It never struck me, then, to suspect that it could be any one of us three who had been in the quarrel with Rachel. I knew that I had had no finger in the pie; I had no cause to think that you had; and, as to Fred, I'd as soon have suspected staid old Verner himself; besides, I believed Fred to have eyes only for Sibylla West. Not but that the affair appeared to me unaccountably strange; for, beyond Verner's Pride, I did not think Rachel possessed an acquaintance."

He stopped to take a few whiffs at his pipe, and then resumed, Lionel listening in silence.

"On the following morning by daylight I went down to the pond, the scene of the previous night. A few stragglers were already there. As we were looking about and talking, I saw on the very brink of the pond, partially hidden in the grass—in fact trodden into it, as it seemed to me—a glove. I picked it up, and was on the point of calling out that I had found a glove, when it struck me that the glove was yours. The others had seen me stoop, and one of them asked if I had found anything. I said 'No.' I had crushed the glove in my hand, and presently I transferred it to my pocket."

"Your motive being good-nature to me?" interrupted Lionel.

"Did you assume I threw her into the pond?" again interposed Lionel.

"Not a bit of it. What next, Lionel? The ignoring of some of the Commandments comes natural enough to the conscience; but the sixth—one does not ignore that. I believed that you and Rachel might have come to loggerheads, and that she, in a passion, flung herself in. I held the glove still in my pocket; it seemed to be the safest place for it; and I intended, before I left, to hand it over to you, and to give you my word I'd keep counsel. On the night of the inquest, you were closeted in the study with Mr. Verner. I chafed at it, for I wished to be closeted with him myself. Unless I could get off from Verner's Pride the next day, there would be no chance of my sailing in the projected ship—where our passages had been already secured by Luke Roy. By and by you came into the dining-room—do you remember it?—and told me Mr. Verner wanted me in the study. It was just what I wanted; and I went in. I shan't forget my surprise to the last hour of my life. His greeting was an accusation of me—of me! that it was I who had played false with Rachel. He had proof, he said. One of the house-girls had seen one of us three young men coming from the scene that night—and he, Stephen Verner, knew it could only be me. Fred was too cautious, he said; Lionel he could depend upon; and he bitterly declared that he would not give me a penny piece of the promised money, to take me on my way. A pretty state of things, was it not, Lionel, to have one's projects put an end to in that manner? In my dismay and anger, I blurted out the truth; that one of us might have been seen coming from the scene, but it was not myself; it was Lionel; and I took the glove out of my pocket and showed it to him."

"I never saw any man so agitated as Mr. Verner. Upon my word, had I foreseen the effect the news would have had upon him, I hardly think I should have told it. His face turned ghastly; he lay back in his chair, uttering groans of despair; in short, it had completely prostrated him. I never knew how deeply he was attached to you, Lionel, until that night."

"He believed the story?" said Lionel.

"Of course he believed it," assented John Massingbird. "I told it him as a certainty, as a thing about which there was no admission for the slightest doubt: I assumed it, myself, to be a certainty. When he was a little recovered, he took possession of the glove, and bound me to secrecy. You would never have forgotten it, Lionel, had you seen his shaking hands, his imploring eyes, heard his voice of despair; all lifted to beseech secrecy for you—for the sake of his dead brother—for the name of Verner—for his own sake. I heartily promised it; and he handed me over a more liberal sum than even I had expected, enjoined me to depart with the morrow's dawn, and bade me Godspeed. I believe he was glad that I was going, lest I might drop some chance word during the present excitement of Deerham, and by that means direct suspicion to you. He need not have feared. I was already abusing myself mentally for having told him, although it had gained me my ends: 'Live and let live' had been my motto hitherto. The interview was nearly over when you came to interrupt it, asking if Mr. Verner would see Robin Frost. Mr. Verner answered that he might come in. He came; you and Fred with him. Do you recollect old Verner's excitement?—his vehement words in answer to Robin's request that a reward should be posted up? 'He'll never be found, Robin; the villain will never be found, so long as you and I and the world shall last.' I recollect them, you see, word for word, to this hour; but none, save myself, knew what caused Mr. Verner's excitement, or that the word 'villain' was applied to you. Upon my word and honour, old boy, I felt as if I had the deeper right to it! and I felt angry with old Verner for looking at the affair in so strong a light. But there was no help for it. I went away the next morning—"

"I wish I had, now. But—it wasn't done. There! The knowledge that turns up in the future we can't call to aid in the present. If I had had a doubt that it was you, I should have spoken. We were some days out at sea on our voyage to Australia when I and Luke got comparing notes; and I found, to my everlasting astonishment, that it was not you, after all, who had been with Rachel, but Fred."

"You should have written home, to do me justice with Mr. Verner. You ought not to have delayed one instant, when the knowledge came to you."

"And how was I to send the letter? Chuck it into the sea in the ship's wake, and give it orders to swim back to port?"

"You might have posted it at the first place you touched at."

"Look here, Lionel. I never regarded it in that grave light. How was I to suppose that old Verner would disinherit you for that trumpery escapade? I never knew why he had disinherited you, until I came home and heard from yourself the story of the inclosed glove, which he left you as a legacy. It's since then that I have been wanting to make a clean breast of it. I say, only fancy Fred's deepness! We should never have thought it of him. The quarrel between him and Rachel that night appeared to arise from the fact of her having seen him with Sibylla; having overheard that there was more between them than was pleasant to her: at least, so far as Luke could gather it. Lionel, what should have brought your glove lying by the pond?"

"I am unable to say. I had not been there, to drop it. The most feasible solution that I can come to is that Rachel may have had it about her for the purpose of mending, and let it drop herself, when she jumped in."

"Ay. That's the most likely. There was a hole in it, I remember; and it was Rachel who attended to such things in the household. It must have been so."

"Will you forgive me, old chap?"

It was John Massingbird who spoke, interrupting his day dreams. Lionel shook them off, and took the offered hand stretched out.

"Yes," he heartily said. "You did not do me the injury intentionally. It was the result of a mistake, brought about by circumstances."

"No, that I did not, by Jove!" answered John Massingbird. "I don't think I ever did a fellow an intentional injury in my life. You would have been the last I should single out for it. I have had many ups and downs, Lionel, but somehow I have hitherto always managed to alight on my legs; and I believe it's because I let other folks get along—tit for tat, you see. A fellow who is for ever putting his hindering spoke in the wheel of others, is safe to get hindering spokes put into his. I am not a pattern model," comically added John Massingbird; "but I have never done wilful injury to others, and my worst enemy (if I possess one) can't charge it upon me."

True enough. With all Mr. John Massingbird's failings, his heart was not a bad one. In the old days his escapades had been numerous; his brother Frederick's, none (so far as the world knew); but the one was liked a thousand times better than the other.

"We part friends, old fellow!" he said to Lionel the following morning, when all was ready, and the final moment of departure had come.

"To be sure we do," answered Lionel. "Should England ever see you again, you will not forget Verner's Pride."

"I don't think it will ever see me again. Thanks, old chap, all the same. If I should be done up some unlucky day for the want of a twenty-pound note, you won't refuse to let me have it, for old times' sake?"

"Very well," laughed Lionel.

As a matter of course, the discovery of the codicil, and the grave charge it served to establish against Dr. West, could not be hid under a bushel. Deerham was remarkably free in its comments, and was pleased to rake up various unpleasant reports, which, from time to time, in the former days had arisen, touching that gentleman. Deerham might say what it liked, and nobody be much the worse; but a more serious question arose with Jan. Easy as Jan was, little given to think ill, even he could not look over this. Jan, if he would maintain his respectability as a medical man and a gentleman, if he would retain his higher class of patients, he must give up his association with Dr. West.

The finding of the codicil had been communicated to Dr. West by Matiss, the lawyer, who officially demanded at the same time an explanation of its having been placed where it was found. The doctor replied to the communication, but conveniently ignored the question. He was "charmed" to hear that the long-missing deed was found, which restored Verner's Pride to the rightful owner, Lionel Verner; but he appeared not to have read, or else not to have understood the very broad hint implicating himself, for not a word was returned to that part, in answer. The silence was not less a conclusive proof than the admission of guilt would have been; and it was so regarded by those concerned.

To this a bland answer was received. Dr. West was agreeable to the dissolution of partnership; but he had no intention of resuming practice in Deerham. He and his noble charge (who was decidedly benefiting by his care, skill, and companionship, he elaborately wrote), were upon the best of terms; his engagement with him was likely to be a long one (for the poor youth would require a personal guide up to his fortieth year, nay, to his eightieth, if he lived so long); and therefore (not to be fettered) he, Dr. West, was anxious to sever his ties with Deerham. He should never return to it. If Mr. Jan would undertake to pay him a trifling sum, say five hundred pounds, or so he could have the entire business; and the purchase-money, if more convenient, might be paid by instalments. Mr. Jan, of course, would become sole proprietor of the house (the rent of which had hitherto been paid out of the joint concern), but perhaps he would not object to allow those "two poor old things, Deborah and Amilly, a corner in it." He should, of course, undertake to provide for them, remitting them a liberal annual sum.

In writing this—fair, nay liberal, as the offered terms appeared to the sight of single-hearted Jan—Dr. West had probably possessed as great an eye as ever to his own interest. He had a shrewd suspicion that, the house divided, his, Dr. West's, would stand but a poor chance against Jan Verner's. That Jan would be entirely true and honourable in not soliciting the old patients to come to him, he knew; but he equally knew that the patients would flock to Jan unsolicited. Dr. West had not lived in ignorance of what was going on in Deerham; he had one or two private correspondents there; besides the open ones, his daughters and Jan; and he had learned how popular Jan had grown with all classes. Yes, it was decidedly politic on Dr. West's part to offer Jan terms of purchase. And Jan closed with them.

"I couldn't have done it six months ago, you know, Lionel," he said to his brother. "But now that you have come in again to Verner's Pride, you won't care to have my earnings any longer."

"Law!" cried Jan, "that's nothing. Wouldn't you have done as much for me? To go back to old West: I shall be able to complete the purchase in little more than a year, taking it out of the profits. The expenses will be something considerable. There'll be the house, and the horses, for I must have two, and I shall take a qualified assistant as soon as Cheese leaves, which will be in autumn; but there'll be a margin of six or seven hundred a year profit left me then. And the business is increasing. Yes, I shall be able to pay him out in a year, or thereabouts. In offering me these easy terms, I think he is behaving liberally. Don't you, Lionel?"

"That may be a matter of opinion, Jan," was Lionel's answer. "He has stood to me in the relation of father-in-law, and I don't care to express mine too definitely. He is wise enough to know that when you leave him, his chance of practice is gone. But I don't advise you to cavil with the terms. I should say, accept them."

"I have done it," answered Jan. "I wrote this morning. I must get a new brass plate for the door. 'Jan Verner, Surgeon, etc.,' in place of the present one, 'West and Verner.'"

"I think I should put Janus Verner, instead of Jan," suggested Lionel, with a half smile.

"Law!" repeated Jan. "Nobody would know it was meant for me if I put Janus. Shall I have 'Mr.' tacked on to it, Lionel?—'Mr. Jan Verner.'"

"Of course you will," answered Lionel. "What is going to be done about Deborah and Amilly West?"

"In what way?"

"As to their residence."

"You saw what Dr. West says in his letter. They can stop."

"It is not a desirable arrangement, Jan, their remaining in the house."

"They won't hurt me," responded Jan. "They are welcome."

Jan had opened his great eyes wonderingly at the words. "I marry!" uttered he. "What should bring me marrying?"

"You may be marrying some time, Jan."

"Not I," answered Jan. "Nobody would have me. They can stop on in the house, Lionel. What does it matter? I don't see how I and Cheese should get on without them. Who'd make the pies? Cheese would die of chagrin, if he didn't get one every day."

"I see a great deal of inconvenience in the way," persisted Lionel. "The house will be yours then. Upon what terms would they remain? As visitors, as lodgers—as what?"

Jan opened his eyes wider. "Visitors! lodgers!" cried he. "I don't know what you mean, Lionel. They'd stop on as they always have done—as though the house were theirs. They'd be welcome, for me."

"You must do as you like, Jan; but I do not think the arrangement a desirable one. It would be establishing a claim which Dr. West may be presuming upon later. With his daughters in the house, as of right, he may be for coming back some time and taking up his abode in it. It would be better for you and the Misses West to separate; to have your establishments apart."

"I shall never turn them out," said Jan. "They'd break their hearts. Look at the buttons, too! Who'd sew them on? Cheese bursts off two a day, good."

"As you please, Jan. My motive in speaking was not ill-nature towards the Misses West; but regard for you. As the sisters of my late wife, I shall take care that they do not want—should their resources from Dr. West fail. He speaks of allowing them a liberal sum annually; but I fear they must not make sure that the promise will be carried out. Should it not be, they will have no one to look to, I expect, but myself."

"They won't want much," said Jan; "just a trifle for their bonnets and shoes, and suchlike. I shall pay the house-bills, you know. In fact, I'd as soon give them enough for their clothes, as not. I dare say I should have it, even the first year, after paying expenses and old West's five hundred."

Miss West herself was thinking the same—that help from her father never would come.

This conversation between Jan and Lionel had taken place at Verner's Pride, in the afternoon subsequent to the arrival of Dr. West's letter. Deborah West had also received one from her father. She learned by it that he was about to retire from the partnership, and that Mr. Jan Verner would carry on the practice alone. The doctor intimated that she and Amilly would continue to live on in the house with Mr. Jan's permission, whom he had asked to afford them house-room; and he more loudly promised to transmit them one hundred pounds per annum, in stated payments, as might be convenient to him.

The letter was read three times over by both sisters. Amilly did not like it, but upon Deborah it made a painfully deep impression. Poor ladies! Since the discovery of the codicil they had gone about Deerham with veils over their faces and their heads down, inclined to think that lots in this world were dealt out all too unequally.

At the very time that Jan was at Verner's Pride that afternoon, Deborah sat alone in the dining-room, pondering over the future. Since the finding of the codicil, neither of the sisters had cared to seat themselves in state in the drawing-room, ready to receive visitors, should they call. They had no heart for it. They chose, rather, to sit in plain attire, and hide themselves in the humblest and most retired apartment. They took no pride now in anointing their scanty curls with castor oil, in contriving for their dress, in setting off their persons. Vanity seemed to have gone out for Deborah and Amilly West.

Deborah sat there in the dining-room, her hair looking grievously thin, her morning dress of black print with white spots upon it not changed for the old turned black silk of the afternoon. Her elbow rested on the faded and not very clean table-cover, and her fingers were running unconsciously through that scanty hair. The prospect before her looked, to her mind, as hopelessly forlorn as she looked.

"I had better ask Mr. Jan about it," she murmured. "It is of no use to remain in this uncertainty."

Rising from her seat, she proceeded to the side-door, opened it, and glanced cautiously out through the rain, not caring to be seen by strangers in her present attire. There was nobody about, and she crossed the little path and entered the surgery. Master Cheese, with somewhat of a scorchy look in the eyebrows, but full of strength and appetite as ever, turned round at her entrance.

"Is Mr. Jan in?" she asked.

"No, he is not," responded Master Cheese, speaking indistinctly, for he had just filled his mouth with Spanish liquorice. "Did you want him, Miss Deb?"

"I wanted to speak to him," she replied. "Will he be long?"

"He didn't announce the hour of his return," replied Master Cheese. "I wish he would come back! If a message came for one of us, I don't care to go out in this rain: Jan doesn't mind it. It's sure to be my luck! The other day, when it was pouring cats and dogs, a summons came from Lady Hautley's. Jan was out, and I had to go, and got dripping wet. After all, it was only my lady's maid, with a rubbishing whitlow on her finger."

"Be so kind as tell Mr. Jan, when he does come in, that I should be glad to speak a word to him, if he can find time to step into the parlour."

Miss Deb turned back as she spoke, ran across through the rain, and sat down in the parlour, as before. She knew that she ought to go up and dress, but she had not spirits for it.

"Cheese says you wish to see me, Miss Deb."

Miss Deb turned round from her listless attitude, and asked Mr. Jan to take a chair. Mr. Jan responded by partially sitting down on the arm of one.

"What is it?" asked he, rather wondering.

"I have had a letter from Prussia this morning, Mr. Jan, from my father. He says you and he are about to dissolve partnership; that the practice will be carried on by you alone, on your own account; and that—but you had better read it," she broke off, taking the letter from her pocket, and handing it to Jan.

He ran his eyes over it. Dr. West's was not a plain handwriting, but Jan was accustomed to it. The letter was soon read.

"It's true, Miss Deb. The doctor thinks he shall not be returning to Deerham, and so I am going to take to the whole of the practice," continued Jan, who possessed too much innate good feeling to hint to Miss Deb of any other cause.

"Yes. But—it will place me and Amilly in a very embarrassing position, Mr. Jan," added the poor lady, her thin cheeks flushing painfully. "I—we shall have no right to remain in this house then."

"You are welcome to remain," said Jan.

Miss Deb shook her head. She felt, as she said, that they should have no "right."

"I'd rather you did," pursued Jan, in his good-nature. "What do I and Cheese want with all this big house to ourselves? Besides, if you and Amilly go, who'd see to our shirts and the puddings?"

"When papa went away at first, was there not some arrangement made by which the furniture became yours?"

"No," stoutly answered Jan. "I paid something to him to give me, as he called it, a half-share in it with himself. It was a stupid sort of arrangement, and one that I should never care to act upon, Miss Deb. The furniture is yours; not mine."

"I shall get as rich as I want to, I dare say," was Jan's answer. "Things can go on just the same as usual, you know, Miss Deb, and I can pay the housekeeping bills. Your stopping here will be a saving," good-naturedly added Jan. "With nobody in the house to manage, except servants, only think the waste there'd be! Cheese would be for getting two dinners a day served, fish, and fowls, and tarts at each."

The tears were struggling in Deborah West's eyes. She did her best to repress them: but it could not be, and she gave way with a burst.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Jan," she said. "Sometimes I feel as if there was no longer any place in the world for me and Amilly. You may be sure I would not mention it, but that you know it as well as I do—that there is, I fear, no dependence to be placed on this promise of papa's, to allow us an income. I have been thinking—"

"Don't let that trouble you, Miss Deb," interrupted Jan, tilting himself backwards over the arm of the chair in a very ungraceful fashion, and leaving his legs dangling. "Others will, if he wo—if he can't. Lionel has just been saying that as Sibylla's sisters, he shall see that you don't want."

"You and he are very kind," she answered, the tears dropping faster than she could wipe them away. "But it seems to me the time is come when we ought to try and do something for ourselves. I have been thinking, Mr. Jan, that we might get a few pupils, I and Amilly. There's not a single good school in Deerham, as you know; I think we might establish one."

"So you might," said Jan, "if you'd like it."

"We should both like it. And perhaps you'd not mind our staying on in this house while we were getting a few together; establishing it, as it were. They would not put you out, I hope, Mr. Jan."

"Not they," answered Jan. "I shouldn't eat them. Look here, Miss Deb, I'd doctor them for nothing. Couldn't you put that in the prospectus? It might prove an attraction."

"Including physic," put in Jan.

"Medical attendance gratis, including physic," repeated Miss Deb. "Mr. Jan, it would be sure to take with the parents. I am so much obliged to you. But I hope," she added, moderating her tone of satisfaction, "that they'd not think it meant Master Cheese. People would not have much faith in him, I fear."

"Tell them to the contrary," answered Jan. "And Cheese will be leaving shortly, you know."

"True," said Miss Deb. "Mr. Jan," she added, a strange eagerness in her tone, in her meek, blue eyes, "if we, I and Amilly, can only get into the way of doing something for ourselves, by which we may be a little independent, and look forward to be kept out of the workhouse in our old age, we shall feel as if removed from a dreadful nightmare. Circumstances have been preying upon us, Mr. Jan: the care is making us begin to look old before we might have looked it."

Jan answered with a laugh. That notion of the workhouse was so good, he said. As well set on and think that he should come to the penitentiary! It had been no laughing matter, though, to the hearts of the two sisters, and Miss Deb sat on, crying silently.

How many of these silent tears must be shed in the path through life! It would appear that the lot of some is only made to shed them, and to bear.

Meanwhile the spring was going on to summer—and in the strict order of precedence that conversation of Miss Deb's with Jan ought to have been related before the departure of John Massingbird and the Roys from Deerham. But it does not signify. The Misses West made their arrangements and sent out their prospectuses, and the others left: it all happened in the spring-time. That time was giving place to summer when the father of Lucy Tempest, now Colonel Sir Henry Tempest, landed in England.

Since the marriage of Decima, Lucy had lived on alone with Lady Verner. Alone, and very quietly; quite uneventfully. She and Lionel met occasionally, but nothing further had passed between them. Lionel was silent; possibly he deemed it too soon after his wife's death to speak of love to another, although the speaking of it would have been news to neither. Lucy was a great deal at Lady Hautley's. Decima would have had her there permanently; but Lady Verner negatived it.

They were sitting at breakfast one morning, Lady Verner and Lucy, when the letter arrived. It was the only one by the post that morning. Catherine laid it by Lady Verner's side, to whom it was addressed; but the quick eyes of Lucy caught the superscription.

"Lady Verner! It is papa's handwriting."

Lady Verner turned her head to look at it. "It is not an Indian letter," she remarked.

"No. Papa must have landed."

Opening the letter, they found it to be so. Sir Henry had arrived at Southampton, Lucy turned pale with agitation. It seemed a formidable thing, now it had come so close, to meet her father, whom she had not seen for so many years.

"When is he coming here?" she breathlessly asked.

"To-morrow," replied Lady Verner; not speaking until she had glanced over the whole contents of the letter. "He purposes to remain a day and a night with us, and then he will take you with him to London."

"But a day and a night! Go away then to London! Shall I never come back?" reiterated Lucy, more breathlessly than before.

Lady Verner looked at her with calm surprise. "One would think, child, you wanted to remain in Deerham. Were I a young lady, I should be glad to get away from it. The London season is at its height."

Lucy laughed and blushed somewhat consciously. She thought she should not care about the London season; but she did not say so to Lady Verner. Lady Verner resumed.

Lucy toyed with her tea-spoon, toyed with her breakfast; but the capability of eating more had left her. The suddenness of the announcement had taken away her appetite, and a hundred doubts were tormenting her. Should she never again return to Deerham?—never again see Li—

"We must make a call or two to-day, Lucy."

The interruption, breaking in upon her busy thoughts, caused her to start. Lady Verner resumed.

"This morning must be devoted to business; to the giving directions as to clothes, packing, and such like. I can tell you, Lucy, that you will have a great deal of it to do yourself; Catherine's so incapable since she got that rheumatism in her hand. Thérèse will have enough to see to with my things."

"I can do it all," answered Lucy. "I can—"

"What next, my dear? You pack! Though Catherine's hand is painful, she can do something."

"Oh, yes, we shall manage very well," cheerfully answered Lucy. "Did you say we should have to go out, Lady Verner?"

"This afternoon. For one place, we must go to the Bitterworths. You cannot go away without seeing them, and Mrs. Bitterworth is too ill just now to call upon you. I wonder whether Lionel will be here to-day?"

It was a "wonder" which had been crossing Lucy's own heart. She went to her room after breakfast, and soon became deep in her preparations with old Catherine; Lucy doing the chief part of the work, in spite of Catherine's remonstrances. But her thoughts were not with her hands; they remained buried in that speculation of Lady Verner's—would Lionel be there that day?

The time went on to the afternoon, and he had not come. They stepped into the carriage (for Lady Verner could indulge in the luxury of horses again now) to make their calls, and he had not come. Lucy's heart palpitated strangely at the doubt of whether she should really depart without seeing him. A very improbable doubt, considering the contemplated arrival at Deerham Court of Sir Henry Tempest.

So Lady Verner ordered the carriage on, leaving a message for Jan that she wanted some more "drops" made up.

They paid the visit to Mrs. Bitterworth. Mr. Bitterworth was not at home. He had gone to see Mr. Verner. A sudden beating of the heart, a rising flush in the cheeks, a mist for a moment before her eyes, and Lucy was being whirled to Verner's Pride. Lady Verner had ordered the carriage thither, as they left Mrs. Bitterworth's.

They found them both in the drawing-room. Mr. Bitterworth had just risen to leave, and was shaking hands with Lionel. Lady Verner interrupted them with the news of Lucy's departure; of her own.

"Sir Henry will be here to-morrow," she said to Lionel. "He takes Lucy to London with him the following day, and I accompany them."

Lionel, startled, looked round at Lucy. She was not looking at him. Her eyes were averted—her face was flushed.

"But you are not going for good, Miss Lucy!" cried Mr. Bitterworth.

"She is," replied Lady Verner. "And glad enough, I am sure, she must be, to get away from stupid Deerham. She little thought, when she came to it, that her sojourn in it would be so long as this. I have seen the rebellion, at her having to stop in it, rising often."

Mr. Bitterworth went out on the terrace. Lady Verner, talking to him, went also. Lionel, his face pale, his breath coming in gasps, turned to Lucy.

"Need you go for good, Lucy?"

She raised her eyes to him with a shy glance, and Lionel, with a half-uttered exclamation of emotion, caught her to his breast, and took his first long silent kiss of love from her lips. It was not like those snatched kisses of years ago.

"My darling! my darling! God alone knows what my love for you has been."

"I am still a poor man, Lucy. I was waiting for Sir Henry's return, to lay the case before him. He may refuse you to me!"

"If he should—I will tell him—that I shall never have further interest in life," was her agitated answer.

And Lionel's own face was working with emotion, as he kissed those tears away.

At last! at last!