The mention of Matthew Kelvin's name by Miss Bellamy touched a chord of recollection in the mind of Gerald Warburton, but some time elapsed before he could trace back in his memory to the particular occasion on which he had heard it last. He had been groping about for some time, when suddenly a single flash revealed to him everything that he was looking for. It showed him a country inn in the Lake district, and two men, weather-bound by the unceasing rain, perforce dependent on each other for companionship and the practice of those minor social virtues which such an occasion should undoubtedly call forth. They meet as strangers meet under such circumstances, but by the end of the third day they seem to have known each other for years. Glad as they are on the fourth morning to find that the clouds have dispersed and that the hill-tops can be seen again, they do not part without a certain feeling of regret, or without a cordial grip of the hand and a hope that, unlikely as such a thing seems, they may one day meet again. One of those men is Matthew Kelvin, the other is Gerald Warburton. Kelvin, at parting, had given Gerald his address, and had begged of him that, should he ever find himself in the neighbourhood of Pembridge, he would not fail to look him up. Gerald, at the time, had no address to give. In fact, it was not as Gerald Warburton, but under the name of "Jack Pomeroy," that he had made Kelvin's acquaintance.
A year or two previously, in the course of one of his rare interviews with his father, the latter had said to Gerald: "You are a disgrace to the name of Warburton!"
"If that is the case, sir," said Gerald, bitterly, "it shall be disgraced no longer."
When he next went out into the world, it was as John Pomeroy. His full name was Gerald John Warburton. So he took the John and tacked it to a name that had been common in his mother's family for generations; and it was as Jack Pomeroy, a vagabondising young artist, rather out at elbows, as clever young men often are, but a decidedly amusing companion for a wet day, that he had made Kelvin's acquaintance.
"I wonder whether he will know me again," muttered Gerald to himself, as he walked down the main street of Pembridge on his way to Mr. Kelvin's office. "There was a little about him that I liked, and a great deal that I didn't like. His joviality was merely on the surface; it had no foundation in his disposition. It was a mere will-o'-the-wisp, flickering fitfully over the darker depths of his character. Me he tolerated as one tolerates a droll when tired of one's own company, and with nothing more serious to do. For the time being he even made believe to be a Bohemian himself. It was a phase of character that he had rarely encountered before, and for forty-eight hours it fascinated him; forty-eight hours later he would have turned his back on it and me with a sneer.
"It is indeed a strange chance that has brought us together again after so long a time! I will tell him neither my name nor my errand for a little while. I will go to him as the Jack Pomeroy in whose society he once spent three days of bad weather. I will even pretend to be hard up, and to stand in need of a helping-hand. Probably he will order me out of the office; perchance he will ask me to dinner and put a sovereign into my hand at parting. It will be time enough to tell him my real business after I have put him to the test. Besides which, by concealing my identity for a little while, I may perhaps be able to glean some information as to his reason for keeping back for so long a time the contents of the sealed packet from Eleanor." It was in pursuance of this idea that Gerald had put on for the nonce an older suit of clothes than common, and had locked up in his portmanteau at the hotel his watch and chain and scarf-pin. He found Kelvin's office in due course, and made his way into the entrance-hall, and was there received by Mr. Piper.
That young gentleman was what he himself would have called "down in the dumps." The obligations of gentility extend from the highest stratum of society to the lowest, and Mr. Piper felt that this morning he had lost caste in the eyes of Mr. Hammond--his guide, philosopher, and--in a far-off, Olympian kind of way--his friend. Mr. Hammond, walking down a by-street on his way to business, had come suddenly on Pod, who, in company with several other youths, was scraping with a knife the sweet interstices of an empty sugar-cask that was standing on the pavement in front of a grocer's shop. Unseen till he laid his gloved hand on Pod's shoulder, Mr. Hammond had said to him: "Here's a penny for you, Piper, to buy some sweetmeats with, but do, for goodness' sake, leave the sugar-cask alone." And so, with a smile and a sneer, had gone daintily on his way. Pod felt as if he could have bitten his head off, had such an anatomical feat been at all possible. He would not have cared half so much had he been seen by anyone else--even by Kelvin himself. But to have been seen thus ignominiously engaged by the elegant, the scented, the fastidious Mr. Hammond! Besides which, this was not the first occasion on which Mr. Hammond had found him engaged in a pursuit derogatory to that assumption of manhood and gentility which it was the secret ambition of his life to maintain in the eyes of his patron. On his way home, one evening, Pod had been overtaken by a temptation which he found it impossible to resist. The temptation on this occasion took the shape of marbles. Pod had fallen in with three or four of his old schoolmates engaged in a game of knuckle-down, and, fired by the recollection of his prowess in olden days, had for once flung gentility to the winds.
Carefully depositing in a corner his chimney-pot hat, for the next ten minutes he was a boy again. This time, also, it was Mr. Hammond's voice which recalled him to a consideration of how far he had forgotten himself. "Well done, Piper," he said, as he came suddenly round the corner. "With practice and perseverance you will make a tolerable player. By-the-by, I promised to buy you something on your birthday. What shall it be? A hoop, or a kite, or a pretty coloured ball that you and the baby can amuse yourselves with in wet weather?"
This had been very galling to Pod, especially when said before his schoolmates; and now, to-day, he had given Mr. Hammond an opportunity of sneering at him for the second time. This Mr. Hammond was Matthew Kelvin's one articled pupil. Attracted by Pod's shrewdness, and keen common sense, he had "taken him in hand," as he himself phrased it; although whether such taking in hand would ultimately prove beneficial to Pod, seemed somewhat doubtful at present. Mr. Hammond found Pod useful as a go-between in his love-affairs. He was engaged to a young lady against the wishes of her friends. Any letters sent by him through the post were intercepted, and it was only by trusting to Pod's skill and diplomacy as a messenger that he could contrive to communicate with her at all. In such a case as this, Pod might be trusted implicitly, and Hammond knew it. He was rewarded chiefly with cigars, and now and then with an odd half-crown, or a pair of soiled lavender kid gloves; which latter articles, when cleaned, looked almost as good as new, and although somewhat large, created quite a sensation among Pod's friends and acquaintances, when worn by him on his evening stroll along the Ladies' Walk. Then Mr. Hammond had made Pod a present of an old silver-mounted meerschaum, which, although he found it somewhat full-flavoured at present, he would doubtless be able to smoke with comfort when he should have practised on it for five or six months longer.
But far beyond any pecuniary reward was to be counted the happiness of being in Mr. Hammond's confidence, and the inestimable boon of his society. Since Mr. Hammond had taken him by the hand, Pod felt himself to be quite a different sort of person--he had, as it were, emerged from the grub into the butterfly. The world and he were on altogether different terms from what they had been on twelve months ago. A year ago, for instance, he would not have thought of wearing a chimney-pot hat, or of wearing stand-up paper collars of the same shape as Mr. Hammond's, or of carrying a slim silk umbrella to and from business. To be sure, the umbrella, however elegant and even useful it might seem when folded tightly up, was in reality so worn and dilapidated as to be quite incapable of being opened; but as this was a secret known to Pod alone, it did not matter greatly. Then it was surely a brilliant stroke of inventiveness to allow himself to be seldom seen in the town without a Times newspaper under his arm--generally three or four days old; but that was of no consequence. To be so seen seemed to add a foot to his stature, and it is impossible to say how much to his consequence.
But with all his precocious ways, Pod was a good son to his mother--a poor hard-working widow with a large family, of whom Pod was the eldest. He did his best to help her in every way, and would nurse the baby for hours together when he got home of an evening. He was not unmindful that his education had been a poor one, and three evenings a week he attended a night school, where he laid a tolerable foundation both of French and Latin; but of this he said nothing to Mr. Hammond. Neither did he say anything of the numerous books he was in the habit of obtaining from the town library, and over which he would pore of a night long after everyone else in the house was fast asleep.
Gerald Warburton was duly ushered by Pod into the private office.
"If you can wait a minute or two, Mr. Kelvin won't be long," he said, as he handed Gerald a chair and a newspaper.
Five minutes later, Matthew Kelvin opened the door and walked in. Gerald rose as he entered, smiled, and held out his hand. For a moment or two Kelvin was evidently at a loss.
"I seem to know your face," he said, "and yet you must excuse me if for the moment I fail to recollect where I have seen it before."
"Don't you recollect Jack Pomeroy and the Jolly Anglers' at Grasmere?"
"Of course, of course!" shaking him by the hand. "How one's memory fails as one grows older! But sit down and tell me how you have been getting on all this long time."
"Oh, with the proverbial luck of the rolling stone," said Gerald, as he resumed his seat.
Kelvin by this time had been able to note his visitor's appearance--to note that his clothes, although originally well-made, were now worn and shabby: and Kelvin never liked a man who did not dress well; to note that there was not a single item of jewellery visible, that his scarf was without a pin, and his pocket minus a watch, and that altogether there was a decidedly impecunious look about his unwelcome Bohemian acquaintance. In Kelvin's estimation, a man who could not afford to carry a gold watch was hardly worth knowing. He elevated his eyebrows, and felt sure in his own mind that before ten minutes were over he should be called upon to disburse five guineas.
"That's the worst of making chance travelling acquaintances," he said to himself. "They are sure to turn up at some future date, and want you to do something for them. So many people want you to do something for them!"
"Not quite made your fortune, then?" he said aloud.
Gerald's only answer was an expressive shrug of the shoulders.
"When I saw you last you talked about going to the Antipodes. What has brought you back again?"
"Partly that lack of pence with which all really great men are afflicted, and partly a little private business which required my presence at home."
"You are a born Bohemian, Pomeroy--one of those incorrigibles on whom argument and advice alike are thrown away."
"Utterly thrown away--utterly; and I glory in the confession."
"And what are your prospects for the future?"
"I am happy to say that I have no prospects in particular. Never had such things in my life."
"Nor any present necessities?"
"Ah! now you touch me on a tender point."
"How can I be of service to you? Is there anything I can do for you in a modest way?"
"Well--you may invite me to dinner if you like."
"That I'll do willingly. I suppose if the dinner were supplemented with an offer of a five-pound note you would not feel offended."
"Offended! Not a bit of it," said Gerald, with a laugh. "But remember this, Kelvin, I have not asked you for money."
"Oh, I fully appreciate your delicacy of feeling," answered Kelvin, not without a sneer. "Well, we dine at six sharp. No company, only my mother and my cousin."
Gerald rose and took up his hat.
"I suppose you would find it somewhat difficult," said Kelvin, "after vagabondising about the world for so long a time, to settle down to any quiet steady employment--too monotonous, and that sort of thing--eh?"
"I don't know so much about that," said Gerald. "Certainly liberty is sweet, and it is pleasant to be one's own master. Besides which, as yet I have given no hostages to fortune, and having only my own unworthy self to look after, I dare say that I should find it difficult to settle down into a steady, sober, tax-paying citizen, who sits on a stool from one year's end to another, and who knows the amount of his income to a penny. No, I am afraid that I should find such a life slightly tedious."
Kelvin laughed.
"Why don't you go in for marrying an heiress." he said.
"You talk, mon ami!--talk as if heiresses were as plentiful as blackberries."
"I don't think your heiress is a difficult fish to catch, especially by such a clever angler as I do not doubt that you are. But then you must make up your mind to be indifferent to good looks, and good breeding, and a few other simple et ceteras."
"Ah! there's the rub."
"But do you mean to say that the idea of marrying for money is one that you have never turned over in your mind?"
"I can't say that exactly; but my ideas on the point have been very hazy ones indeed--quite nebulous, I assure you--nothing solid or tangible about them."
"Nebulosity of ideas is a very bad thing in anybody. The sooner you bring them down from the clouds and condense them into a practical shape the better. First catch--not your hare, but your heiress; then bring all your powers of fascination to bear upon her, and then----"
"My powers of fascination, indeed! You talk of me as if I were a rattlesnake."
Again Kelvin laughed, then recollecting an appointment, he looked at his watch.
"Well, don't forget to be here at six sharp," he said.
And with that Gerald went.
"A dinner, a five-pound note, and exit Jack Pomeroy; that is what Kelvin means," said Gerald to himself. "Well, he might have treated me worse than that. I'll not tell him who I really am till the last minute. I wonder what his motive can be for keeping back the information from Eleanor. But I suppose I shall know all about it by to-morrow at this time."
Gerald passed a by no means unpleasant evening. Neither Mrs. Kelvin nor Olive had ever been further from home than Paris. They were eager in their questions about the different strange places which Gerald had visited on his travels, and he was by no means loth to gratify their curiosity. What pleased Kelvin most was to see his mother so lively and full of spirits.
"Give me a look in at the office about eleven to-morrow," he said to Gerald, as they parted at the door.
Half an hour later, Kelvin received a telegram which necessitated his starting for Scotland by the 7 a.m. train next morning.. He was down betimes to breakfast; but early as it was, Olive was there before him, waiting to pour out his tea and attend to all his little wants.
"I shall not be able to see Pomeroy," he said. "You can explain to him bow I have been called away, and tell him that if he will leave his address I will write to him on my return."
"Have you any idea of doing something for him?" asked Olive.
"My idea is to send him a five-pound note and have done with him."
"You were mentioning, the other day, that Sir Thomas Dudgeon was in want of an amanuensis and secretary. It seems to me that Mr. Pomeroy would be just the man for such a position."
"Oh, he's got ability enough for such a berth, I daresay. But, in the first place, I believe the fellow is too much of a Bohemian ever to settle down steadily to anything; and, in the second place, I know nothing about either himself or his antecedents. How would it be possible for me to recommend a man to Sir Thomas respecting whom I know nothing?"
"However much of a Bohemian, as you call it, Mr. Pomeroy may have been, he has both the manners and education of a gentleman; and I daresay that he would be able to satisfy you as to his respectability. Aunt was quite taken with him last evening, and when I went into her room this morning she desired me to tell you that she would take it as a kindness to herself if you would interest yourself for Mr. Pomeroy in whatever way you might think would benefit him most."
"Of course, if I thought it would please my mother, I might stretch a point in his favour, though really----"
"It would please my aunt greatly if you would do so. It struck me that this situation at Sir Thomas Dudgeon's would be just the thing for Mr. Pomeroy."
"But, really, I don't at all see how I can recommend a man about whom I know nothing."
"You are going away; Mr. Pomeroy is to call here at eleven; let me see him in your place, and if he can satisfy me as to the respectability of himself and his connections, may I promise him the situation in your name?"
"Really, Olive, you seem very much interested in this man."
"I am interested in him, Matthew."
"Take care that your interest in him does not deepen into something far more dangerous; take care that you don't lose your heart to him."
Olive's colourless cheek flushed for a moment, but she answered quite calmly:--
"Your warning on that point is quite unnecessary, Matthew. But you have not answered my question."
Kelvin looked at his watch, and then rose hurriedly. It was later than he had thought. He had barely time to catch his train.
"Do as you like about it," he said, not without a touch of irritation in his voice. "When my mother and you lay your heads together and conspire against me, I know that I may as well give in at once. Mind you, I don't think this fellow is worth half the trouble that you two women are taking about him."
"Blind--blind as ever!" muttered Olive to herself as she stood at the window and watched Kelvin hurrying down the street in the direction of the station. "A woman of my own age and any brains at all would detect ray motive at once, but a man can rarely see beyond his nose."
As already explained, Mr. Piper had a tiny glass-fronted office, or rather den, all to himself, at the far end of the passage which led from the main entrance to Matthew Kelvin's premises. In the wall that divided the sanctum of Mr. Piper from that of his employer, was a small window of ground glass, which had originally been intended as a means of communication between one office and the other. Of late years, however, it had never been so used, Mr. Kelvin having adopted the modern invention of India-rubber tubes as the readiest and most convenient method of making known his wishes either to Mr. Piper or to the clerks in the general office. Since the little window had fallen into disuse, a thick green curtain had been hung across it, in order that the privacy of Kelvin's office might be still further secured; but, as it so happened, the object in view came at last, to be defeated through this very precaution.
One cold morning, Mr. Piper, while sparring at an imaginary opponent in order to keep up the circulation of his system, sent his elbow incautiously through one of the panes of the little window. There was no great harm done: a shilling or two would pay for the damage; but, for all that, Pod thought it best not to let Mr. Kelvin know of the accident. He knew that Kelvin was going out of town in the course of a few days, and he would take that opportunity of having the window mended at his own expense. Meanwhile, the curtain would effectually hide what had happened from his employer's notice.
In thus making his calculations, there was, however, one point which, to give Pod his due, had altogether escaped his notice. So long as the broken window remained unmended, the privacy of Kelvin's office was altogether gone. Pod had only to put his ear to the fractured pane in order to hear every word that was spoken in the other room. There was nothing but the curtain between him and the speakers. Pod, as a rule, would not have thought it worth his while to listen--would not have condescended to listen; but happening one day accidentally to overhear a few words of a certain conversation, he was induced to listen more attentively, and the result was that he quietly reached his pencil and notebook and took down the whole of the conversation in shorthand.
"If I don't spoil their little game, my name's not Pod Piper!" he said to himself with an air of energy as he shut up his notebook. "The pair of cowardly vipers!"
The conversation stenographed by Mr. Piper, and denounced by him in such emphatic terms, was that which took place between Olive Deane and Gerald Warburton on the forenoon of the day following the visit of the latter to Kelvin's house. When Gerald called at eleven o'clock he was told that the lawyer had been suddenly summoned away, but that Miss Deane was desirous of speaking to him. Inwardly wondering what Miss Deane could have to say to him, he sat down, but was not kept long waiting. Pod went to tell her that Mr. Pomeroy was there, and Olive came at once.
"My cousin has been called from home quite unexpectedly," she said; "and he asked me to see you in his stead."
"He could not have chosen a----"
"No compliments, if you please, Mr. Pomeroy. I think that neither you nor I care greatly for that sort of thing. Besides, I am here to discuss a matter of business with you. Pray pardon the question, but are my cousin and I right in assuming that if some situation could be found for you, the duties of which would not be onerous, which would bring you into contact with 'good' people, and which might open up for you a channel to something far better in the future, you would not be unwilling, after due consideration, to accept it?"
Gerald hesitated. With the knowledge that ten thousand pounds would fall into his pocket in the course of a few days, he might well pause before answering such a question.
"Really, Miss Deane, you quite take me by surprise. I have led a vagabond existence for so many years, that the idea of a situation of any kind that would at all cramp that freedom of action to which I have been so long used, and which has become so sweet to me, could not but be somewhat distasteful. Still, if I ever do intend to settle down into a respectable member of the community, it is quite time I began to think of doing so, and the picture just drawn by you is not without its allurements. You will not therefore, I hope, think me presumptuous if I ask you to favour me with a few more particulars."
"I will be quite candid in the matter with you," said Olive. "The situation to which I refer is that of amanuensis and secretary to Sir Thomas Dudgeon, the newly-elected member for Pembridge. My cousin has the management of Sir Thomas's affairs, and has been asked to find some one suitable for the situation in question."
Gerald was at a loss what to say. The mention of Sir Thomas's name at once brought to his mind what Miss Bellamy had told him--how Eleanor Lloyd had been taken up by Lady Dudgeon, was now living with the family, and was to go to London with them when they moved there for the season. But how would all that be when Miss Lloyd should be proved to be penniless?
"You hesitate," said Olive, after a few moments. "You hardly know whether to say Yes or No."
"You are right--I don't," said Gerald, frankly. "At the same time, my warmest thanks are due to you and Mr. Kelvin for thinking of me in the way you have."
"Take time to think over what I have said. Don't give me an answer now. Suppose you either call and see me, or let me have a line from you by to-morrow morning? Or shall you want a still longer time before making up your mind?"
"Thanks," said Gerald, with a laugh; "but till to-morrow will be quite long enough."
"Matthew mentioned something to me of the conversation that passed between you and him," said Olive, with a smile. "He told me of his suggestion that you should elevate your fortunes by marrying an heiress."
"It was very unfair on Kelvin's part to tell tales out of school."
"But seriously, why should you not marry an heiress?"
"Seriously, I know of no reason why I should not, except this--that all the ladies with whom I have the happiness to be acquainted are very little better off than myself."
"Should you agree to become Sir Thomas Dudgeon's secretary, you will have an opportunity, while under his roof, of ingratiating yourself with a veritable heiress."
"Come, come, the plot is thickening fast," said Gerald, and he hitched his chair a little nearer Miss Deane.
"Yes, a veritable heiress, young and charming into the bargain, and one whose affections, I have every reason to believe, are totally disengaged."
"Pardon me for saying so," said Gerald, "but it seems highly improbable to me that any relative of Sir Thomas Dudgeon would condescend to look upon that gentleman's secretary in the light of a suitor for her hand."
"The lady in question is no relative of Sir Thomas--she is merely a visitor under his roof; but a visitor who will probably stay there till a husband shall take her away to a home of her own. Why should not you be that husband, Mr. Pomeroy?"
"Why not, indeed! But would it be a breach of confidence if you were to tell me the lady's name?"
"It would be no breach of confidence," said Olive, "although it was not my intention to reveal to you the lady's name at present. However, having been frank with you so far, I may as well continue to be so. The lady to whom I refer is Miss Eleanor Lloyd--of course, a perfect stranger to you. Her father died a few months ago, and left her a fortune of twenty thousand pounds."
All Gerald's self-control was needed to keep him from betraying himself to the pair of keen eyes that were fixed so steadily on him. He turned his head away, and affected to be deeply considering the words he had just heard. He wanted time to recover himself.
Up to a few moments ago, not the slightest suspicion had entered his mind that the offer which Kelvin had made him through Miss Deane had sprung from anything but a feeling of genuine friendship on the lawyer's part; and even when Olive had propounded her theory that he ought to recoup his fortunes by marrying an heiress, he had looked upon it as so much quiet chaff on her part, never thinking that any serious meaning was attached to her words.
But the mention of Eleanor Lloyd's name had changed all this. Suddenly he seemed to see a pitfall at his feet. His mind, ever active in moments of emergency, at once whispered certain questions to him, not one of which he could answer to his own satisfaction. What object had Kelvin in view in offering to procure for a man whom he I knew only as a nameless adventurer a situation of trust and responsibility in the house of such a man as Sir Thomas Dudgeon? What object had Olive Deane in view in trying to persuade this same nameless adventurer to make love to and win the hand of Eleanor Lloyd? Was it with Kelvin's knowledge and sanction that Miss Deane was thus trying to persuade him? or was she doing it merely in furtherance or some hidden scheme of her own? Was Miss Deane aware, as Kelvin undoubtedly was, that Eleanor was not the heiress people believed her to be, nor any relation of Jacob Lloyd; and if so, what could her object possibly be in trying to bring Jack Pomeroy and Miss Lloyd together? Finally, came the oft-recurring questions: Why had not Kelvin written to him as Gerald Warburton, the real heir; and why had he neglected to reveal the contents of the sealed packet to Eleanor? There seemed to be something under the surface that at present he could in no wise fathom. He could not rid his mind of the suspicion that there was some hidden link of connection between the concealment of the sealed packet by Kelvin, and the evident desire of Olive Deane that he should win Eleanor for his wife. And yet how could there be any such link of connection? In any case, he would meet stratagem with stratagem. It should be a case of diamond cut diamond.
He would still be Jack Pomeroy to them, and would seem, for a little while at least, to fall in with all their views and wishes.
"Really, Miss Deane," he said at last, "you have piqued my curiosity in the strangest possible way. I hardly know in what terms to answer you, The position of this Miss Lloyd, who is so far above me in the social scale, would seem to render utterly absurd and Quixotic on my part any advances that I might make with the view of ultimately winning her hand."
"Of course, if you are lacking in boldness and audacity," said Miss Deane, with the faintest possible sneer, "those are qualities which no one can lend you for the occasion, and the sooner we bring our interview to an end the better. But if your hesitation arises from the fact of your being short of funds, you need be under no apprehension on that score. Pardon me for speaking so plainly, but my cousin gave me to understand that you were not one of the richest of individuals--he insinuated, in fact, that you were almost penniless."
"Not for the first time in my life, Miss Deane--in fact, I rather like being penniless, it keeps the circle of one's friends and acquaintances so limited and select."
"To begin with--my cousin Matthew must lend you fifty pounds."
"Fifty pounds! I like the first item of your programme vastly."
"The first necessity in your case is that you should have the dress and appearance of a gentleman."
"I quite agree with you, Miss Deane. We owe much to our tailor--in the way of gratitude."
"I have said nothing to you respecting your friends and connections. I have assumed all along that you would be able to satisfy Sir Thomas on those points, should he ever choose to question you respecting them--which I don't for one moment think that he will do."
"On the points you speak of, I do not doubt that I could satisfy either Sir Thomas Dudgeon or any one else."
"Such being the case, and with the manners, dress, and appearance of a gentleman, it seems to me that you would have the campaign almost entirely in your own hands. You would be under the same roof with Miss Lloyd--an inestimable advantage in your case. You would be in the habit of seeing her daily, and might make yourself agreeable to her in many ways. Under such circumstances, where would be the harm if, now and then, you were to hint vaguely at your expectations--at your rich relations--at your fashionable friends? Neither would you altogether omit an occasional mention of your undergraduate days at Cambridge, nor of your travels abroad."
"My dear Miss Deane, you might safely leave all the delicate little details, all the nuances of the picture, to me."
"I am quite sure of that. Miss Lloyd is nothing but a simple, country-bred girl: you are a man of the world. Voilà tout."
Gerald rose.
"I may just mention this," said Olive: "Miss Lloyd will be of age in a few months. She will then be entirely her own mistress, and can give her hand, and her twenty thousand pounds with it, to the man she likes best, and no one will have the right or power to say her nay."
"Kelvin himself could not have stated the case more clearly."
"You will let me hear from you, Mr. Pomeroy, by to-morrow morning at the latest?"
"There will be no need for you to wait till to-morrow morning, Miss Deane."
"Does that mean that you have made up your mind already?"
"It does."
"And the answer is----?"
"The answer is, that if Matthew Kelvin can obtain this situation for me, I will gladly accept it. To tell the truth, I am somewhat tired of the nomadic sort of life that I have been leading since I was quite a lad. I think I am sufficiently tamed to settle quietly down to work--provided there is not too much of it, and I am allowed to have pretty much my own way."
"Any person who chooses to assert himself can have his own way with Sir Thomas Dudgeon. I am glad that you have decided to accept the position. I feel quite sure that you will have no cause to regret doing so."
"It is you who have persuaded me. I feel sure that Kelvin would not have succeeded as you have."
"Don't forget what I have told you about Miss Lloyd."
"I am not at all likely to do so. I am all anxiety to see her."
"When do you go back to town?"
"This afternoon, by the five o'clock express.
"You will leave me an address before you go, by means of which my cousin can communicate with you. You may expect to hear from me in a week at the latest."
Gerald pencilled down the address of a London friend, to which any letters for him might be sent. A few minutes later he took his leave.
This conversation it was that Mr. Piper thought it worth his while to take down in shorthand.
"My cousin Matthew's revenge shall be worthy of the name," said Olive to herself; as soon as she was alone. "Let this Eleanor Lloyd but engage herself to Pomeroy--let her marry him if she will--and on the day that Matthew tells her the secret of her birth, he can tell her also that the man to whom she has given her heart is but a sorry impostor, whose sole object in marrying her was to obtain possession of that money which is hers no longer. When that day comes, may I be there to see! Her proud beauty shall be humiliated to the dust."
When Gerald got back to London, he told Miss Bellamy everything that had happened. She quite concurred with him that it looked very much as if some strange conspiracy were afoot; but what the nature and objects of it might be they were altogether at a loss to imagine. In any case, it could do no harm for Gerald to retain his incognito for a little while longer.
A few days later, Gerald received by post a bank-note for fifty pounds, with Miss Deane's compliments. Mr. Kelvin had not yet got back home, she wrote, but would doubtless communicate with Mr. Pomeroy immediately after his return. Mr. Pomeroy pinned one note to the other, and having sealed them up in an envelope, he put them carefully away in his writing-desk.
A day or two later, Ambrose Murray called upon him at his rooms. "If you have nothing better to do," he said, "I wish you would give up the day to me. I want to visit my wife's grave. She lies among some of her own people in a little country churchyard, about a couple of miles from Welwyn. To me such a journey seems quite a formidable undertaking, and I want you, if you will, to go with me."
Gerald at once assented. They took the train from King's Cross to Welwyn, and then walked the remainder of the distance. When the churchyard was found, Gerald left Mr. Murray to himself for half an hour.
It was still broad daylight when they got back to the station. They were pacing the platform slowly, waiting for their train, when the up express came rushing past at the rate of forty miles an hour. They stood for a moment to watch it. Suddenly Ambrose Murray gripped his companion by the arm.
"Look! look!" he cried. "That's the man! As I live, that's the face of Max Jacoby!"
Gerald looked, but already the train had gone too far to allow him to distinguish any particular face.
"But after twenty years?" said Gerald.
"I should know him at the end of a thousand years!" exclaimed Murray, his whole frame trembling with excitement. "Max Jacoby is still among the living. The next thing to do is to find him."
When Matthew Kelvin reached home from his journey, he was certainly surprised at the budget of news which his mother had ready for him.
"Where's Olive?" was the first question he asked, as he sat down to his dinner, after kissing his mother, and satisfying himself that she was no worse in health than when he left her.
"She's gone to see the Leightons, and won't be back till to-morrow, so that I shall have my dear boy all to myself this evening. It was very considerate of Olive, I must say."
Mrs. Kelvin was a handsome, stately old lady, with silvery hair and gold-rimmed spectacles. She wore a richly brocaded dress, a China crape shawl--even in the house she always wore a shawl--and a black lace cap of elaborate construction. To see her sitting in her easy chair by the fire, no one would have suspected her of being an invalid; but for many years past she had suffered from a spinal complaint which almost entirely disabled her from walking.
"But we shall soon lose Olive now," added Mrs. Kelvin, a moment or two later.
"Indeed! bow's that?" asked Kelvin, indifferently.
"She is going to Stammars, as governess to Lady Dudgeon's two little girls. At her own terms, too--a hundred guineas a year."
"Well done, Olive!" cried the lawyer. "A clever girl, very; but I'm afraid that she and Lady Dudgeon won't agree long together."
"She may perhaps have a private reason of her own for so readily accepting Lady Dudgeon's offer. Mind, dear, I only say she may have; I don't say she has."
Matthew Kelvin knew that it was expected of him to show some curiosity in the matter.
"Shall I be set down as unduly inquisitive," he said, "if I ask you to tell me what you suppose this private reason to be?"
"I think it quite possible that Olive may be willing to go to Stammars, because--well, because Mr. Pomeroy will be there also."
Mrs. Kelvin drew her shawl round her with quite a relish, and shook her head meaningly at her son.
"Because Mr. Pomeroy will be there also!" said Mr. Kelvin, like a man who could hardly believe his ears. "Who says that Mr. Pomeroy is going to Stammars?"
In the pressure of far more important matters, he had almost forgotten the existence of an individual of so little consequence as Jack Pomeroy.
"Why, Matthew, dear, I thought it was all arranged that as soon as you came home, Mr. Pomeroy was to be made Sir Thomas Dudgeon's secretary, or something of that kind; and Olive and I have advanced him fifty pounds to provide him with an outfit. You know you told me yourself that you didn't suppose he had a shilling in the world."
It tested all Mr. Kelvin's powers of self-control to keep down an explosion of temper. He remembered in time that any outbreak on his part would be sure to upset his mother and make her ill for several days, so for a minute or two he did not speak. He put down his knife and fork, and sipped at his claret, as if in deep thought.
"Fifty pounds is a great deal of money, mother," he said at last.
"It is a great deal of money, Matthew, of course; but Mr. Pomeroy understands that he is to pay the amount back out of his salary."
"The whole affair seems to be cut and dried, and I have not even spoken to Sir Thomas about the man!" he said, not without a touch of impatience. "For anything I know to the contrary, Sir Thomas may have filled up the situation himself, while I have been away."
"I am sorry, dear, if I have done anything against your wishes; but really I thought I was managing everything for the best."
Matthew Kelvin could see a tear in a corner of his mother's eye, and he could not bear that.
"There, there, mother, don't put yourself out of the way," he said. "Fifty pounds won't ruin us, even though we should never get a penny of it back."
"But Mr. Pomeroy was such a nice young man!" continued Mrs. Kelvin. "So good-looking and well-educated; so gentlemanly in every way."
"Some of the most unmitigated scamps I have ever met with were very nice young men indeed," returned Matthew. "Not that I know anything to Pomeroy's discredit; at the same time, I know nothing very greatly to his credit. He has been a Bohemian--a wanderer to and fro on the face of the earth for years; and to introduce such a man, about whom, be it remembered, I know absolutely nothing, into the household of Sir Thomas Dudgeon, is a serious responsibility."
"Oh, I believe Olive satisfied herself thoroughly as to the respectability of Mr. Pomeroy and his connections."
Mr. Kelvin smiled grimly at the idea of Olive Deane getting more information about himself out of Jack Pomeroy than that individual might be inclined to give; but, as we have already seen, Olive never troubled herself with any such unnecessary details.
"If women would but refrain from meddling with matters that they don't understand, what a blessing it would be!" said Kelvin to himself.
"What was that you said just now about Olive and this fellow Pomeroy?" he asked, presently.
"Why, simply this: that I rather fancy Olive has contracted a penchant in that quarter. Something has given me that idea, but I may be quite mistaken."
Mr. Kelvin shrugged his shoulders.
"Of course she is old enough to choose for herself," he said, "and, as a rule, I think Olive is quite capable of taking care of her own interests: but if she should ever fall in love, I should like it to be with a man that one knows something about, and not with a mere adventurer."
"I can't help thinking that you are a little too hard on Mr. Pomeroy. It is a long time since I was so taken with any one as I was with him. A modest, sensible, well-informed young man I set him down as, and a gentleman withal, or else I don't know what a gentleman is."
"I suppose we men of law see with different spectacles from anybody else," said Matthew. "Suspicion is part of our stock-in-trade."
"I was certainly very much taken with Mr. Pomeroy," returned Mrs. Kelvin; "but at the same time my suspicion with regard to Olive made me interest myself more in his case than I should otherwise have done."
Mrs. Kelvin was not a woman to readily abandon any point that she had set her mind on carrying. Before bidding her son goodnight, she won from him a promise that he would do his best to obtain for Mr. Pomeroy the coveted situation.
Olive Deane was quite aware that her cousin would be greatly annoyed when he should come to ascertain what had been done during his absence, and she wisely left to his mother the task of telling him. Certainly she would have been anything but satisfied--anything but pleased--had she heard the conversation between her aunt and her cousin. The reference to a possible liking on her part for Pomeroy would have touched her pride to the quick. Very, very different was the feeling at work deep down in her heart.
Mrs. Kelvin, in fact, had been altogether mistaken with regard to the reasons which had induced Olive to accept the situation of governess to Lady Dudgeon's children. Olive had no option but to accept it--or felt that she had not. When Lady Dudgeon made her the offer, and when her aunt said, "It would be a capital situation for you, and were I you I should certainly accept it," Olive felt that she was not at liberty to do otherwise--not at liberty to live an idle life any longer. She had always given her aunt to understand that she was merely taking a few weeks' rest before looking out for another situation. Here was an excellent situation ready to her hand. How was it possible that she should refuse it?
And yet--and yet no one but herself knew how bitter it was to her to have to quit that roof; no one but herself knew how infinitely sweet to her had been those few weeks of sojourn with her cousin and her aunt! She had loved Matthew Kelvin with an undivided love from the time when, as girl and boy, they had played together. It was a love that had grown with her growth, and had rooted itself more firmly in her heart with each passing year.
She was clear-sighted enough to know that never since the time of that brief, romantic episode at Redcar, when she had had him all to herself for a blissful fortnight, had Matthew Kelvin felt for her anything warmer than a mere cousinly, or, at the most, a quiet, brotherly affection. She was sufficiently versed in worldly knowledge to be aware that the chances that she, a poor governess, neither very young nor very handsome, should ever become the wife of her ambitious, well-to-do cousin were about as remote as it was possible for them to be. And yet, for all that, a dim, faint hope had always held possession of her heart--so dim and so faint, that she herself seemed to be hardly aware of its existence--that among the unknown chances and changes of the future, that out of the involvement and evolution of the great unrehearsed drama of life, with its unforeseen exits and entrances, such a happy climax might somehow--she could not tell how--be brought about.
She had got into the way of looking upon her cousin as a man not likely to marry. If this view of his character struck the foundation from her own hopes, it seemed to preclude fear from any other quarter. When, therefore, Matthew told her the story of his love for, and rejection by, Eleanor Lloyd, it came upon her with all the force of an astounding revelation. Happily there seemed no likelihood of Miss Lloyd altering her determination not to accept Mr. Kelvin; therefore, as far as she--Olive--was concerned, she would not look upon the campaign as entirely lost even now.
Many a husband has been won through his rejection by a rival. Men at such times are prone to seek the first pleasant shelter that offers itself to them. They want to lie quiet and heal them of their wounds; and there are plenty of women in the world ready to act the part of physician to the wounds inflicted by another, provided only that the wounded knight will agree to wear no other gage than theirs in time to come.
Such a physician would Olive gladly have become, rather than lose her knight, if he would but have consented to such a method of treatment. But Mr. Kelvin was no soft-hearted swain who thinks the world is no longer good for anything because a certain pair of white arms refuse to coil themselves round his neck. It is true that he had told her of his wounds, but he had expressed no desire to be healed of them; he had given Olive no encouragement whatever to offer herself as his nurse. He had expressed himself very bitterly with regard to the person who had so wounded him, and Olive had done her best to intensify that bitterness; but that was all. She felt that she was not one step nearer the capture of her cousin's heart than on that day, now several weeks ago, when he had first told her of his love for Miss Lloyd. But was that love really dead? Was it not, unknown to himself, still smouldering in his heart, ready at the slightest provocation to burst into a flame tenfold more ardent than before?
She felt instinctively that no other woman would ever become the wife of Matthew Kelvin so long as Eleanor Lloyd remained unmarried; and this feeling it was that was at the bottom of the plot for inducing Pomeroy to make love to the latter. That dangerous rival once out of the way for ever, Olive's ambitious scheme would not look so entirely hopeless as it did just now.
Chagrined as Olive was at having to quit her cousin's roof with the hidden purpose of her life no nearer its accomplishment than before, she yet acknowledged to herself that she would much rather go to Stammars than anywhere else. She had all a woman's curiosity to see that other woman about whom she had been told so much, and who had been in her thoughts, day and night, ever since she had heard the first mention of her name. At Stammars, too, she would have an opportunity of seeing Matthew now and then when he should come there to visit Sir Thomas on business. Then, she would be on the spot, ready, with deft fingers, to tie up any threads of her plot which might be accidentally broken, or to hasten Pomeroy's footsteps along the path she wanted him to tread, should it prove needful to do so. In any case, she need not stay there longer than was necessary for the carrying out of her own views. At any time she could pick a quarrel with Lady Dudgeon, throw up her situation, and go back for a while to the shelter of her aunt's roof.
Five days after her cousin's return, Olive Deane found herself duly installed in her new home, and two days after that Mr. John Pomeroy made his appearance at Stammars.
Mr. Kelvin, despite his irritation and chagrin at what had taken place during his absence, did not fail to carry out the promise he had made to his mother. The situation was still open, and Sir Thomas at once promised it to Pomeroy. Then Kelvin wrote to the latter, telling him when he would be expected at Stammars, but not in any way alluding to the loan of fifty pounds. As a matter of course, on passing through Pembridge, Gerald called to see Kelvin, but the lawyer was not at home--purposely. He had done his duty by his mother, but he had no wish to see the man who had caused him so much annoyance; he only hoped that Pomeroy would do nothing to disgrace his recommendation. For the present he washed his hands of him.
Mr. Kelvin had not been without his own thoughts all this time as to the course he had taken at Olive's suggestion in keeping from Miss Lloyd the contents of the sealed packet sent him by Miss Bellamy. He was not usually a man whose mind vacillated with regard to any of his intentions or purposes. "There's no shilly-shallying about Matthew," his mother would often say. "When he sees his point he goes straight at it: fire and water would hardly keep him back."
But in this matter of the sealed packet he did shilly-shally painfully, blowing hot and cold by turns, making up his mind one day that he would tell everything, and being as stedfastly determined the next that he would do nothing of the kind. He was not unaware of the meanness of what he was doing; it was altogether foreign to his notions of right and wrong, to act with anything but the strictest honour towards his clients, rich or poor. Still, about this particular case there was something so exceptional as to remove it out of the ordinary category of purely professional business--that is what he said to himself: but the real reason was that his own feelings were more deeply interested than they had ever been before. Under such circumstances it is by no means difficult to argue oneself into the belief that although the action on which we are engaged may not be positively meritorious, it is, at least, one from which no one will suffer. "I am only doing Miss Lloyd a negative wrong," Kelvin would sometimes say to himself. "If anything, she ought to thank me for keeping the secret from her as long as possible." Having put off the revelation for so long a time, he shrank more than ever from telling her now. One morning on getting up he would swear to himself that he had never loved Eleanor Lloyd as he loved her now: next morning he would vow that he had never hated any human being as he hated her. He had been rendered very wretched by Miss Lloyd's rejection of his suit; but with all his unhappiness he had never till now lost his own sense of self-respect: not that he would have admitted for a single moment that he had so lost it. He made believe, even to himself, that it was still as safely in his possession as ever it had been. But the acute consciousness of its loss which came over him at odd times--only to be at once thrust into the background with a firm hand--by no means tended to mitigate the intensity of his determination to be avenged, in one form or another, on the woman to whom he owed this strange new feeling, which not seldom made him shrink within himself, as though he were in reality little better than a whipped cur.
Stammars, the residence of Sir Thomas Dudgeon, was, as a family mansion, still quite in its infancy, being something under twenty years old. Sir Thomas had stuck to the old house as long as it was safe for him to do so; but when, during a night of terrible storm, a great part of it was blown about his ears, he began to see that it would not be advisable to delay his removal much longer. So, on a windy knoll about half a mile from the old house, the new mansion was built. It was built with all modern conveniences and appliances. The rooms were large and lofty, and had huge plate-glass windows with venetian blinds. Round about were gardens, and shrubberies, and hothouses, with a view beyond over miles of pleasant Hertfordshire scenery. Everybody expressed themselves as being enchanted with the house, and yet everybody felt that it lacked one essential. There was no homelike comfort about it. Whether it was that the rooms were too big and the fire-places too few; whether it was that the house was built so high above the surrounding country as to be exposed to every wind that blew, and so had never been able to get itself warmed through; or from whatever other cause it might arise, certain it is that Stammars never seemed otherwise than cold and comfortless. Each room in the house seemed to have its own particular draught, while the wind seemed to be for ever playing at hide-and-seek up and down the great wide corridors and staircases, banging every now and then a bedroom door, or creeping with snake-like motion under any piece of carpet that had not been firmly nailed down.
The old mansion of Stammars had dated back for upwards of four centuries, and had originally been the home of the Fyzackerleys, one of the most ancient families in the county. So ancient, indeed, had the Fyzackerleys at length become that they had died out, and the estate had been brought to the hammer. The fortunate purchaser was the present Sir Thomas's grandfather, at that time a sugar refiner in the Minories, and some five years subsequently Lord Mayor of London. While filling the latter office he had the good fortune to be knighted, and later still by two or three years he was created a baronet. Why such an honour had been conferred on the worthy but obscure sugar refiner, no one seemed to know. There was some question about it at the time, and certain people went so far as to whisper that the baronetcy had been given in return for a loan of twenty thousand pounds made to a certain august personage, who would have found repayment of the same a somewhat inconvenient matter. But such a report was probably the invention of pure malice. Be that as it may, the sugar refiner took his title and his money down to Stammars; and there he died, and there in due course he was buried. After him came his son, and then, in the ordinary course of events, his grandson, the present Sir Thomas Dudgeon and the third baronet of that name.
Sir Thomas, at this time, was close upon sixty years of age, and was a short-statured, podgy man, with white hair, and a red, good-natured face. He almost invariably wore a black tail-coat, black waistcoat, pepper-and-salt trousers, and shoes. He wore starched check neckcloths, and pointed collars that nearly touched his ears. His hats were always of fluffy, white beaver and as they were very rarely brushed, they gave him a certain shaggy and unkempt appearance. He had a trick of whistling under his breath when he had nothing better to do, and of jingling the keys and loose change in his pocket. It was a peculiarity of Sir Thomas that his shoes always creaked when he walked. No one could tell why every pair of shoes that he had should do so, but they did. At Stammars everybody was so accustomed to this creaking that if by any possibility he had become possessed of a noiseless pair, his family would certainly have been alarmed: they would have taken it as an omen that something dreadful was about to happen. It was told in Pembridge as a good thing that when Sir Thomas was presented to his Sovereign, his shoes creaked so loudly that the eyes of all the great functionaries were turned on him in horror; but that the little man backed smilingly out of the royal presence, blandly unconscious of the consternation he had excited. When we first make his acquaintance he had just been elected member for Pembridge, in place of the late Mr. Rackstraw, who had represented that borough for more than twenty years. Parliament would meet in February, when the family would go up to town, and Sir Thomas would take his oaths and his seat, and do his best to justify the hopes of his Pembridgian supporters, that he would speedily become one of the shining lights of his country's senate.
Lady Dudgeon was a tall, large-boned woman, some half dozen years younger than her husband. She had a loud, rough-edged voice, and a magisterial cross-examining manner. She was never happier than when laying down the law to some of her servants or dependents, or scolding them for an infringement of one or another of the innumerable rules and regulations with which she strove to fence round the daily lives of all those over whom she had any control. Had she been a man, Lady Dudgeon would infallibly have developed into a Justice of the Peace, and as such have been a terror to all the evil-doers of the neighbourhood. With two exceptions, everybody at Stammars, her husband included, stood in awe of her. Those exceptions were her eldest daughter, Sophia, aged thirteen; and Eleanor Lloyd.
Lady Dudgeon had only two children living--the aforesaid Sophia, and Caroline, who was two years younger than her sister. For their behoof it was that an engagement had been entered into with Olive Deane. They were two handsome, resolute girls, full of high spirits and mischief who looked upon governesses as their natural enemies. Three ladies of this profession they had already worried into resigning their position at Stammars, and they had looked forward with considerable glee to worrying Miss Deane in like manner.
It was on a complaint from Madame Ribaud, who was governess number two, respecting some terrible act of mutiny, that Sophia obtained a signal victory over her mother, and from that time she had never let go the advantage thus gained. In consequence of Madame's complaint, Lady Dudgeon had taken Sophia by the hand, and had led her away with the avowed intention of shutting her up in a certain dark closet under the stairs, and there leaving her to do penance during the whole of a long summer's day--a day when the sun was shining and all the birds in the shrubbery were calling to her to go out of doors and be one with them.
"Mamma, you are not going to shut me up in that horrid hole?" said Sophia, when the door had been flung open for her to enter.
"I certainly am going to shut you up here," said Lady Dudgeon, with a portentous shake of her head.
"Then do you know what I shall do, mamma?"
"I don't know what you will do, Sophia, neither do I care."
"You are going to have a dinner-party on Friday," said Sophia, with determination. "In the middle of the dinner I will walk into the room and tell everybody that you wear a wig and have five false teeth!"
Lady Dudgeon glared down into the girl's bold face as if she could hardly believe the evidence of her ears. What Sophia had just stated she had hitherto fondly believed to be a secret known to her husband and her maid alone.
"You naughty, vile girl," she stammered out. "I will send you right away from home to a school on the Continent, and you shall not come back any more until you are quite grown up."
"All right, mamma; I'll go," said the undaunted girl; "but I'll write to everybody by post and tell them about the wig and the teeth;" and, as Lady Dudgeon knew, her daughter was just the girl to carry out the threat. Her ladyship was puzzled. "Look here, mamma," said Sophy: "between you and me, Ribaud's nothing but an old stupid, and no more fit to be a governess than I am. You take my advice, and send her about her business. I'm going to get my rope and have a jolly skip round the laurels."
And almost before her ladyship knew what had happened, she had been well hugged, and found herself alone, staring blankly into the closet under the stairs.
A few days later Madame Ribaud received a month's notice, and Lady Dudgeon never attempted extreme measures with Sophia after that time.
It is not improbable that she had this very incident in her mind during her first interview with Miss Deane after the latter's arrival at Stammars. "I place them entirely in your hands," said her ladyship, in reference to her two girls. "Exercise whatever discipline over them you may think best, only don't box their ears, and don't trouble me. If you find that they are becoming your master instead of you being theirs, don't come and complain in the expectation that I shall assist you to maintain an authority that you are not strong enough to keep in your own hands. Should such a contingency arise, it would be better for you to resign your situation at once."
For the first two or three days all went tolerably well, but hardly to Olive's satisfaction. There were no overt signs of rebellion, but the girls seemed unaccountably stupid. Whether their stupidity arose from inattention, from weakness of memory, or from a natural lack of intelligence, she was for some time at a loss to judge. But, by-and-by, she began to suspect that this stupidity was merely an assumption on their part purposely to annoy her, and that all the time they were laughing at her in their sleeves. But at such a game as that, Olive knew that her patience was far more than a match for theirs, and so it turned out. Miss Deane seemed so quiet and easy, that there was evidently no fun to be got out of her without trying something more practical than stumbling over one's French verbs, or making mistakes in the spelling of one's copies. Thus it fell out on a certain morning when Miss Deane was going out for a walk, that she found it impossible to get her arms into the sleeves of her waterproof On examination, it was found that the sleeves had been sewn up at the wrist. Miss Deane hung the waterproof up without a word, and took off her bonnet. Then she said, "I think, young ladies, we will not go for our usual walk this morning." Sophy and Carry, half frightened and half defiant, were nudging each other and making believe that it was great fun.
When they got back into the schoolroom, said Miss Deane: "As you young ladies appear to be so fond of playing off practical jokes on other people, you cannot reasonably object to one being played off on you. You will, if you please, write out in detail and learn by heart, pages twenty-five to twenty-nine of the irregular verbs in your French Instruction Book. And you will not leave the room till you can repeat the lesson to my satisfaction."
The two girls made a face at each other, but said nothing. It was not the first time they had had a big task set them for a punishment, but they had always contrived to win the day either by force or stratagem, and they did not doubt their ability to do so in the present case.
By luncheon time they had got the lesson written out. It was not pleasant to have to sacrifice their luncheon, but they were prepared to submit to that: dinner would make up for everything. They did not expect that Miss Deane would let them go down to dinner as usual, but they did expect that she would go down herself, as Madame Ribaud had done in similar cases. When this had happened, one of the housemaids had always supplied them surreptitiously with a basket of provisions, which they had drawn up to their window by means of a cord, and had afterwards feasted on in secret. No dinners had ever tasted half so sweet. Thus provisioned, they had been able to set Madame Ribaud at defiance, who, indeed, had never the heart to extend their quarantine beyond the usual hour for tea, and would then set her rebels free, with a little sigh and an ominous shake of her head. As it had happened before, so would it fall out again, thought the girls; but they did not know Olive Deane.
Between luncheon and dinner-time they dawdled over their lesson, skimming it carelessly over a few times, but employing themselves more in drawing caricatures than in anything else. After a time the dinner-bell rang--they dined early at Stammars when there was no company--but apparently Miss Deane took no notice.
"Did you not hear the dinner-bell, Miss Deane?" asked Caroline, timidly.
"Yes, I heard it; but I don't want any dinner to-day. I am going to stay here with you."
The girls looked at each other. Carry's eyes flushed with tears; but Sophy clenched her sharp white teeth, and said something under her breath. All the same, she was as hungry as a young wolf. Both the girls, in fact, were blessed with fine, healthy appetites, which they took care to indulge on every possible occasion; and now their appetites cried out in a way that it was almost impossible to resist.
Candles were lighted, and the afternoon wore itself wearily on till tea-time came round. Anxious eyes were turned on Miss Deane. Surely she would go down to tea; if not, what could she be made of? But no, Miss Deane merely changed one book for another, and went on with her reading, totally unconcerned.
Carry snivelled a little in secret, but Sophy looked as fierce as a young brigand. Presently Sophy wrote a little note, and flung it across to her sister. "If she doesn't let us out soon, I'll kill her and roast her for supper."
This made poor Carry tremble violently. She fully believed in her sister's ability to carry out her terrible threat. And so another wretched hour doled itself wearily out.
Sophy's wolf was becoming very ravenous indeed. She saw clearly that her enemy was too strong for her. By-and-by she tossed a scrap of paper to her sister, on which she had written the words: "It's no use. She carries too many guns for us"--this was a favourite phrase of her father. "I'm going to learn my task, and I advise you to do the same."
Three-quarters of an hour later, Sophy walked up to Miss Deane and held out her book in silence. Then she went through her task without a single mistake. She took back the book, made Miss Deane an elaborate curtsey, and marched out of the room with the dignified air of a young duchess.
Carry did not manage so well. She broke down when about half-way through, and burst into tears. Olive quietly shut the book, drew the girl to her and kissed her, and then bade her run off and get some supper.
From that day forth, Miss Deane and her pupils were on the best possible terms.