CHAPTER V.
MR. SCRATCHELL GOES TO LONDON.
Theshort days and fireside evenings of December, and the festivities of Christmas, were to Sir Kenrick Culverhouse brief and fleeting as a dream when one awakeneth. He had never been so happy in his life. To ride across the dull brown moorland with Beatrix, looking down upon the smiling village nestling in the hollow of the dark hills; to sit by her side in the lamplight listening while she read or played; these things made the sum of his delight. Life had nothing for him beyond or above them. And thus the weeks slipped by till February, and the 10th of February was to be Sir Kenrick’s wedding day. He had improved wonderfully in health by this time. His bent back had straightened itself. He was able to endure the fatigue of a day’s fishing, in the wintry wind and rain. He wasaltogether a changed man. Yorkshire breezes had done much for him, but happiness had done more.
‘How he loves you!’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer to Beatrix one day, in a rapture of admiration for herprotégée. ‘I never saw a man so devoted.’
‘Do you really think he is so very fond of me?’ asked Beatrix, gravely.
‘My dear, how sad and distressed you look! as if his love were a thing to be sorry about. Yes, I do think and know so. Can you for a moment doubt it?’
‘I have fancied that our marriage was on both sides rather one of convenience than inclination. He can give me the protection of an honourable name, my fortune can free his estate. We like each other very much, and, I hope, esteem each other. But I don’t think there is much love on either side. He makes pretty speeches, of course. That is a compliment to my sex and my fortune. Don’t you remember Mr. Dulcimer telling us that Solon made it a law that heiresses should be treated with particular respect?’
‘I know nothing about Solon,’ exclaimed theVicar’s wife, getting angry, ‘but I know that poor young man is passionately in love with you. Why, child, he idolizes you. One can see it with half an eye.’
‘Then I am very sorry for him,’ said Beatrix, and there was an earnestness in her tone that startled the easy-tempered Mrs. Dulcimer.
‘Sorry that your affianced husband is devoted to you! My dear Beatrix, you must be going out of your mind.’
‘I sometimes think I am,’ answered Beatrix, in a low voice.
This conversation occurred about a fortnight before the wedding day. It made Mrs. Dulcimer very uncomfortable, but she said no word about it to anybody, not even to her chosen confidante, Rebecca.
Was it possible, poor Mrs. Dulcimer asked herself, that this match, the crowning glory of all her efforts, was going to turn out ill?
Beatrix sent for Mr. Scratchell next day, and received him alone in her morning-room.
‘I suppose you know that Sir Kenrick’s estate is heavily encumbered?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ answered the lawyer, ‘of course that will be considered in the settlements. It will be my care to protect your interests.’
‘Never mind my interests or the settlements, yet awhile. I want to pay off those mortgages before there is any question of settlements.’
‘You pay them off, before you are Sir Kenrick’s wife! My dear Miss Harefield, what an extraordinary notion!’
‘I cannot see that. My money is to release the estate sooner or later. That is an understood thing between Sir Kenrick and me. Why should I not do it before I am his wife? I, Beatrix Harefield, for him as my future husband, am surely able to pay off these mortgages.’
‘As the title deeds are deposited with Sir Kenrick’s bankers, under an engagement to execute a formal deed when requested, anybody can pay off the mortgage,’ answered the lawyer, ‘but there is some hazard in such a proceeding. Suppose Sir Kenrick were to die before your wedding day, or were to offend you. Marriages are sometimes broken off, you know. At the church door even. Then again, supposeyou were married without a settlement, and Sir Kenrick were to die without having made a will in your favour. Failing a son of yours, the estate would go to his cousin Cyril. Ah, I see that fact rather startles you,’ said the unconscious lawyer, perceiving that Beatrix paled at the mention of her lost lover’s name.
‘These are serious considerations,’ urged Mr. Scratchell. ‘I should strongly recommend you not to touch those mortgages with your little finger until you have two or three sons of your own. Why should you throw away fifty thousand pounds for Mr. Cyril Culverhouse’s ultimate benefit?’
‘It will be for Sir Kenrick’s benefit as long as he lives.’
‘Yes, but Sir Kenrick may not be a long-lived man. I don’t want to make you unhappy about him, but I don’t think he looks like one. And then there are the fortunes of war. He may be killed in battle. He had a narrow escape last time. It would be absurd for you to risk fifty thousand pounds upon such a life as his.’
‘Absurd or not, I am going to run the risk,’answered Beatrix, with a firmness that frightened Mr. Scratchell. In a twelvemonth I shall be of age to do what I like with my money, without consulting anybody. You may just as well make yourself agreeable while I am in your power, and let me have my own way.’
Mr. Scratchell hesitated, sorely perplexed. To make himself disagreeable to Beatrix, even in the endeavour to protect her interests, might be fatal. Women are such self-willed, unreasonable creatures, he argued within himself. If he thwarted her in this ridiculous whim, she might resent his conduct all her life. In a year, as she had reminded him, she would be sole mistress of her fortune. She might dismiss him from his agency, which would be simple and unmitigated ruin. He was as dependent upon the Harefield estate for sustenance as a barnacle on a ship’s bottom. In a word he could not afford to offend her.
‘You have another trustee to consult,’ he suggested.
‘Mr. Dulcimer? Oh, I know he will consent.’
‘Because he’s a fool.’
‘No, because he’s a generous-minded man, and would like to see Sir Kenrick’s estate set free.’
‘Humph!’ muttered the lawyer. ‘It’s a foolish business altogether. And pray where is the money to come from?’
‘Have I not stocks or shares, or something that can be turned into money immediately?’
‘Yes, you have a nice little fortune in consols and railway debentures. We might scrape up about thirty thousand that way, perhaps.’
‘Then you can mortgage the Lincolnshire estate for the other twenty thousand.’
‘Mortgage one estate—your own—to set free your husband’s! Was there ever anything so preposterous?’
‘I take a warm interest in one estate, and no interest in the other,’ answered Beatrix. ‘What is the good of property if one cannot do what one likes with it?’
‘My dear Miss Harefield, that is the spendthrift’s argument.’
‘I am no spendthrift, but I want to gratify myself in this one matter. Now, dear Mr. Scratchell, praybe agreeable. Go up to London this afternoon—see Sir Kenrick’s bankers—sell out the stocks and shares and things—raise the twenty thousand on the Lincolnshire land—and get everything done by this day week.’
‘Impossible, my dear young lady.’
‘Nothing is impossible to a clever family solicitor; you can do the preliminary act by deposit of my deeds. Remember, Mr. Scratchell, if you accomplish this thing for me, I shall always consider myself deeply bound to you. It is a favour I shall never forget.’
‘I don’t think I shall be serving you well in this business.’
‘You will be doing what I wish. I’ll run and put on my bonnet, and we’ll go at once to Mr. Dulcimer to get his consent. You must catch the two o’clock train from Great Yafford. My carriage can drive you over.’
Beatrix rang and ordered the carriage to be got ready immediately, and to follow them on to the Vicarage. Her impetuosity bewildered Mr. Scratchell. She ran out of the room, and reappeared in a minute orso in her bonnet and fur jacket. He felt himself revolving in a whirlpool. To leave his home at half an hour’s notice, and go tearing off to London! He was rather pleased at the idea of a visit to London at a client’s expense. Travelling, hotel charges, everything would be paid for him on the highest level. He had not seen the metropolis for ten years. It would be an outing such as he had never had in his life before. He began to hope that Mr. Dulcimer would consent to his ward’s wild scheme.
They found the Vicar in his beloved library, surrounded with bulky folios, his feet on the fender, and his mind a thousand miles away, with the primitive Aryan races. He was tracing the footsteps of a nomadic Indian tribe from fertile valleys eastward of the Caspian, through Persia and Asia Minor, to the shores of the Hellespont, where they were to crop up by and by as the Heraclidæ.
‘My dear Beatrix,’ he said, ‘the more I ruminate upon the subject, the more I am convinced that the Mosaic account is true, and that all the races of men have come from one common centre—in the East.’
‘Then how do you account for the woolly-headedniggers, and the Laplanders, and the people with pink eyes?’ inquired Mr. Scratchell.
‘Climate, my dear sir, climate. A question of atmospheric influences.’
‘Dear Mr. Dulcimer, I have come to ask you a favour,’ said Beatrix.
‘It is granted beforehand, dear child,’ said the Vicar, kissing her hand.
The Aryan races had been particularly amenable to Mr. Dulcimer that morning, and the Vicar, always good-tempered, was absolutely overflowing with benevolence.
‘Oh, but this is a very serious matter,’ interposed Mr. Scratchell, anxious to do his duty. ‘You’ll have to give it your grave consideration.’
‘I’m all attention,’ replied Mr. Dulcimer, with one eye on the Heraclidæ.
Beatrix explained her desire to set Sir Kenrick’s estate free.
‘Well, my love, you have always intended to pay off those charges after your marriage, have you not?’ asked the Vicar, with a business-like air.
‘Certainly.’
‘Then I cannot see that it makes any difference whether you pay them off before or after. Scratchell can protect your future interests in framing your marriage settlements. Be sure you see to that, Scratchell. It is somewhat Quixotic, my dear Beatrix, to take time by the forelock in this way, but it can do no harm, and it will afford Kenrick another evidence of your generous character.’
Mr. Scratchell did not feel himself called upon to explain to the Vicar all those objections which he had already expounded to Beatrix. If these people liked to make fools of themselves, it was not for him to hinder them. His own interest clearly lay in pleasing Miss Harefield. To do otherwise would be to take the bread out of the mouths of his innocent offspring. And then there was the tempting idea of a holiday in London, and the prospect of a longish bill of costs at the end of all. Decidedly it would be sheer madness stubbornly to oppose this romantic young lady’s caprice.
Miss Harefield’s carriage was waiting at the Vicarage gate.
‘It’s a quarter past twelve,’ she said, looking ather watch. ‘You have just an hour and three quarters to pack your carpet bag and drive to the station. Pray don’t miss the two o’clock train. You know where to find Sir Kenrick’s lawyers?’
‘Yes.’
‘Remember, Sir Kenrick is to know nothing about what we are doing. You are to make that a condition with his bankers. He is to know nothing till I choose to tell him. It will not be later than our wedding-day.’
‘But the settlement?’
‘I will have no settlements,’ said Beatrix, impatiently.
‘My dear Miss Harefield, you must be mad.’
‘At any rate I will have no settlement that can interfere with my payment of those incumbrances. That is a free gift to Sir Kenrick, as much as if I were to give you a hundred-pound note. I never want to hear about it, or to think about it. I look upon the fifty thousand pounds as gone—sunk at the bottom of a well.’
‘You are a most extraordinary young lady.’
‘If you waste your time in wondering at me, you will lose the London train.’
Mr. Scratchell got into the carriage obediently, and was driven to his own house, where his apparition in a landau drawn by a pair of spirited horses caused wonder and consternation in all the household. That wonder increased when Mr. Scratchell informed his family that he was going to London on particular business for Miss Harefield, that he wanted a carpet bag packed with three or four shirts—his best—meaning those that were not too conspicuously frayed at the edges of the pleats and collars—and that his wife and children were to look sharp, and were not to bother him with questions.
Poor Mrs. Scratchell ran off in a flutter to explore her husband’s wardrobe, in which everything was more or less the worse for wear, except the new suit he had bought for his daughter’s wedding. The girls and boys meanwhile surrounded their father, like the merchant’s daughters in the story of Beauty and the Beast, each anxious that he should bring something from London.
‘Bring me a new dress, papa. If you are going on Miss Harefield’s business you will get lots of money,’ pleaded Clementina.
‘Do bring me a winter bonnet, papa, black velvet lined with pink,’ asked Flora.
‘You might get us a cricket bat, father,’ said Adolphus, a boy who always spoke of himself in the plural, as if to give prominence to his insignificance.
‘Go and cut me some sandwiches, girls, and mix me a little weak gin and water in a bottle,’ said Mr. Scratchell. ‘It will be night before I get to London.’
‘And then you will go to an hotel, I suppose? Won’t you be grand!’ cried Clementina, who fancied that the people who stayed at hotels were a splendid and luxurious race apart from the mass of mankind.
‘I shall stay at Sam’s Coffee-house in the Strand,’ said Mr. Scratchell, with a conscientious air. ‘I am not going to waste Miss Harefield’s money on fine hotels.’
A quarter of an hour later and Mr. Scratchell had torn himself from the bosom of his family, and was being driven at a brisk trot towards Great Yafford.