In the dining-room at Mrs. Cumberland's, with its window open to the garden and the sweet flowers, stood Ellen Adair. It was the favourite morning-room. Mrs. Cumberland, down in good time to-day, for it was scarcely eleven o'clock, had stepped into the garden, and disappeared amidst its remoter parts.
Ellen Adair, dressed in a cool pink muslin, almost as thin as gauze, stood in a reverie. A pleasant one, to judge by the soft blush on her face and the sweet smile that parted her lips. She was twirling the plain gold ring round and round her finger, thinking no doubt of the hour when it had been put on, and the words spoken with it. Bessy Rane had altogether refused to give back the ring she was married with, and Ellen retained the other.
The intimacy with Arthur Bohun, the silent love-making, had continued. Even now, she was listening lest haply his footsteps might be heard; listening with hushed breath and beating heart. Never a day passed but he contrived to call, on some plea or other, at Mrs. Cumberland's, morning, afternoon, or evening: and this morning he might be coming, for aught she knew. At the close of the past summer, Mrs. Cumberland had gone to the Isle of Wight for change of air, taking Ellen and her maid Jelly with her. She hired a secluded cottage in the neighbourhood of Niton. Singular to relate, Captain Bohun remembered that he had friends at Niton--an old invalid brother-officer, who was living there in great economy. On and off, during the whole time of Mrs. Cumberland's stay--and it lasted five months, for she had gone the beginning of September, and did not return home until the end of February--was Arthur Bohun paying visits to this old friend. Now for a day or two; now for a week or two; once for three weeks together. And still Mrs. Cumberland suspected nothing! It was as if her eyes were withheld. Perhaps they were: there is a destiny in all things, and it must be worked out. It is true that she did not see or suspect half the intimacy. A gentle walk once a-day by the sea was all she took. At other times Ellen rambled at will; sometimes attended by Jelly, alone when Jelly could not be spared. Captain Bohun took every care of her, guarding her more jealously than he would have guarded a sister: and this did a little surprise Mrs. Cumberland.
"We ought to feel very much obliged to Captain Bohun, Ellen," she said on one occasion. "It is not many a young man would sacrifice his time to us. Your father and his, and my husband, the chaplain, were warm friends for a short time in India: it must be his knowledge of this that induces him to be so attentive. Very civil of him!"
Ellen coloured vividly. Eminently truthful, she yet did not dare to say that perhaps that wasnotCaptain Bohun's reason for being attentive. How could she hint at Captain Bohun's love, clear though it was to her own heart, when he had never spoken a syllable to her about it? It was not possible. So things went on in the same routine: he and she wandering together on the sea-shore: both of them living in a dream of Elysium. In February, when they returned home, the scene was changed, but not the companionship. It was an early spring that year, warm and genial. Many and many an hour were they together in that seductive garden of Mrs. Cumberland's, with its miniature rocks, its velvety grass; the birds sang and their own hearts danced for joy.
But Mrs. Cumberland's eyes were not to be always closed.
It was not to be expected that so lovely a girl as Ellen Adair should remain long without a declared suitor. Especially when there was a rumour that she would inherit a fortune--though how the latter arose people would have been puzzled to say. A gentleman of position in the neighbourhood; no other than Mr. Graves, son of one of the county members; began to make rather pointed visits at Mrs. Cumberland's. That his object was Ellen Adair, and that he would most likely ask her to become his wife, Mrs. Cumberland clearly saw. She wrote to Mr. Adair in Australia, telling him she thought Ellen was about to receive an offer of marriage, in every way eligible. The young man was of high character, good family, and large means, she said: should she, if the proposal came, accept it for Ellen. By a singular omission, which perhaps Mrs. Cumberland was not conscious of, she did not mention Mr. Graves's name. But the proposal came sooner than Mrs. Cumberland had bargained for: barely was this letter despatched--about which, with her usual reticence, she said not a word to any one--when Mr. Graves proposed to Ellen and was refused.
It was this that opened Mrs. Cumberland's eyes to the nature of the friendship between Ellen and Captain Bohun. She then wrote a second letter to Mr. Adair, saying Ellen had refused Mr. Graves in consequence, as she strongly suspected, of an attachment to Arthur Bohun--son of Major Bohun, whom Mr. Adair once knew so well. That Arthur Bohun would wish to make Ellen his wife, there could be, Mrs. Cumberland thought from observation, no doubt whatever: might he be accepted? In a worldly point of view, Captain Bohun was not so desirable as Mr. Graves, she added--unless indeed he should succeed to his uncle's baronetcy, which was not very improbable, the present heir being sickly--but he would have enough to live upon as a gentleman, and he was liked by every one. This second letter was also despatched to Australia by the mail following the one that carried the first. Having thus done her duty, Mrs. Cumberland sat down to wait for Mr. Adair's answer, tacitly allowing the intimacy to continue, inasmuch as she did not stop the visits of Arthur Bohun. Neither he nor Ellen suspected what she had done.
And with the summer there had come another suitor to Ellen Adair. At least another was displaying signs that he would like to become one. It was Mr. Seeley, the doctor who had replaced Mr. Alexander. Soon after Mrs. Cumberland's return from Niton in February, she had been for a week or two alarmingly ill, and Mr. Seeley was called in as well as her son. He had remained on terms of friendship at her house; and it became evident that he very much admired Miss Adair.
Things were in this state on this summer's morning, and Ellen Adair stood near the window twirling the plain gold ting on her finger. Presently she came out of her reverie, unlocked a small letter-case, and began to write in her diary.
"Tuesday.--Mrs. Cumberland talks of going away again. She seems to me to grow thinner and weaker. Arthur says the same. He thinks----"
A knock at the front-door, and Mr. Seeley was shown in. He paid a professional visit to Mrs. Cumberland at least every other morning. Not as a professional man, he told her; but as a friend, that he might see how she went on.
Miss Adair shook hands with him, her manner cold. He saw it not; and his fingers parted lingeringly from hers.
"Mrs. Cumberland is in the garden, if you will go to her," said Ellen, affecting to be quite occupied with her writing-case. "I think she wants to see you; she is not at all well. You will find her in the grotto, or somewhere about."
To this Mr. Seeley answered nothing, except that he was in no hurry, and would look after Mrs. Cumberland by-and-by. He was a dark man of about two-and-thirty, with a plain, honest face; straightforward in disposition and manner, timid only when with Ellen Adair. He took a step or two nearer Ellen, and began to address her in low tones, pulling one of his gloves about nervously.
"I have been wishing for an opportunity to speak to you, Miss Adair. There is a question that I--that I--should like to put to you. One I have very much at heart."
It was coming. In spite of Ellen Adair's studied coldness, by which she had meant him to learn that he must not speak, she saw that it was coming. In the pause he made, as if he would wait for her permission to go on, she felt miserably uncomfortable. Her nature was essentially generous and sensitive; to have to refuse Mr. Seeley, or any one else, made her feel as humiliated as though she had committed a crime. And she could have esteemed the man apart from this.
They were thus standing: Mr. Seeley looking awkward and nervous, Ellen turning red and white: when Arthur Bohun walked in. Mr. Seeley, effectually interrupted for the time, muttered a good-morning to Captain Bohun and went into the garden.
"What was Seeley saying, Ellen?"
"Nothing," she rather faintly answered.
"Nothing!"
Ellen glanced up at him. His face wore the haughty Bohun look; his mouth betrayed scorn enough for ten proud Bohuns put together. She did not answer.
"If he was saying 'nothing,' why should you be looking as you did?--with a blush on your face, and your eyes cast down?"
"He had really said as good as nothing, Arthur. What he might have been going to say, I--I don't know. He had only that moment come in."
"As you please," coldly returned Arthur, walking into the garden in his turn. "If you do not think me worthy of your confidence, I have no more to say."
The Bohun blood was bubbling up fiercely. Not doubting Ellen; not in resentment against her--at least only so in the moment's anger: but in indignation that Seeley, a common village practitioner, should dare to lift his profane eyes to Ellen Adair. Captain Bohun had suspected the man's hopes for some short time past; there is an instinct in these things; and he felt outrageous over it. Tom Graves's venture had filled him with resentment; but he at least was a gentleman and a man of position.
Ellen, wonderfully disturbed, gently sat down to write again; all she did was gentle. And the diary had a few sentences added to it.
"That senseless William Seeley! And after showing him as plainly as I could, that it is useless--that I should consider it an impertinence in him to attempt to speak to me. I don't know whether it was for the worst or the best that Arthur should have come in just at that moment. For the best because it stopped Mr. Seeley's nonsense; for the worst because Arthur has now seen and is vexed. The vexation will not last, for he knows better. Here they are."
Once more Ellen closed her diary. "Here they are," applied to the doctor and Mrs. Cumberland. They were walking slowly towards the window, conversing calmly on her ailments, and came in. Mrs. Cumberland sat down with her newspaper. As Mr. Seeley took his departure to visit other patients, Arthur Bohun returned. Close upon that, Richard North was shown in. It seemed that Mrs. Cumberland was to have many visitors that morning.
That Richard North should find his time hang somewhat on hand, was only natural; he, the hitherto busy man, who had often wished the day's hours doubled, for the work he had to do in it. Richard could afford to make morning calls on his friends now, and he had come strolling to Mrs. Cumberland's.
They sat down: Arthur in the remotest chair he could find from Ellen Adair. She had taken up a bit of light work, and her fairy fingers were deftly plying its threads. Richard sat near Ellen, facing Mrs. Cumberland. He could not help thinking how lovely Ellen Adair was: the fact had never struck him more forcibly than to-day.
"How is the strike getting on, Richard?"
Mrs. Cumberland laid down her newspaper to ask the question. No other theme bore so much present interest in Dallory. From the time that North and Gass first established the works, things had gone on with uninterrupted smoothness, peace and plenty reigning on all sides. No wonder this startling change seemed as a revolution.
"It is still going on," replied Richard. "How the men are getting on, I don't like to think about. The wrong way, of course."
"Your proposition, to meet them half-way, was rejected, I hear."
"It was."
"What do they expect to come to?"
"To fortune, I suppose," returned Richard. "To refuse work andnotexpect a fortune, must be rather a mistake. A poor look-out at the best."
"But, according to the newspapers, Richard, one-half the working-classes in the country are out on strike. Do you believe it?"
"A great number are out. And more are going out daily."
"And what is to become of them all?"
"I cannot tell you. The question, serious though it is, never appears to occur to the men or their rulers."
"The journals say--living so much alone as I do, I have time to read many of them, and I make it my chief recreation--that the work is leaving the country," pursued Mrs. Cumberland.
"And so it is. It cannot be otherwise. Take a case of my own as an example. A contract was offered me some days ago, and I could not take it. Literallycould not, Mrs. Cumberland. My men are out on strike, and likely to be out; I had no means of performing it, and therefore could only reject it. That contract, as I happen to know, has been taken by a firm in Belgium. They have undertaken it at a cheaper rate than I could possibly have done it at the best of times: for labour is cheap there. It is quite true. The work that circumstances compelled me to refuse, has gone over there to be executed, and I and my men are playing in idleness."
"But what will be the end of it?" asked Mrs. Cumberland.
"The end of it? If you speak of the country, neither you nor I can foresee the end."
"I spoke of the men. Not your men in particular, but all those that we include under the name of British workmen: the great bodies of artisans scattered in the various localities of the kingdom. What is to become of these men if the work fails?"
"I see only one of three courses for them," said Richard, lifting his hand in some agitation, for he spoke from the depth of his heart, believing the subject to be of more awful gravity than any that had stirred the community for some hundreds of years. "They must eventually emigrate--provided the means to do so can be found; or they must become burdens upon public charity; or they must lie down in the streets and starve. As I live, I can foresee no better fate for them."
"And what of the country, if it comes to this?--if the work and the workmen leave it?"
Richard North shrugged his shoulders. It was altogether a question too difficult for him. He would have liked it answered from some one else very much indeed; just as others would.
"Lively conversation!" interposed Captain Bohun, in a half-satirical, half-joking manner, as he rose. It was the first time he had spoken. "I think I must be going," he added, approaching Mrs. Cumberland.
Richard made it the signal for his own departure. As they stood, saying adieu, Bessy Rane was seen for a moment at her own window. Mrs. Cumberland nodded.
"There's Bessy," exclaimed Richard. "I think I'll go and speak to her. Will you pardon me, Mrs. Cumberland, if I make my exit from your house this way?"
Mrs. Cumberland stepped outside herself, and Richard crossed the low wire fence that divided the two gardens. Arthur Bohun went to the door, without having said a word of farewell to Ellen Adair. He stood with it in his hand looking at her, smiled, and was returning, when Mrs. Cumberland came in again.
"Won't you come and say goodbye to me here, Ellen?"
The invitation was given in so low a tone that she gathered it by the form of the lips rather than by the ear; perhaps by instinct also. She went out, and they walked side by side in silence to the open hall-door. Dallory Ham, in its primitive ways and manners, left its house-doors open with perfect safety by day to the summer air. Outside, between the house and the gate, was a small bed planted with flowers. Arrived at the door, Captain Bohun could find nothing better to talk of than these, as he stood with her on the crimson mat.
"I think those lilies are finer than Mr. North's."
"Mrs. Cumberland takes so much pains with her flowers," was Ellen's answer. "And she is very fond of lilies."
They stepped out, bending over these self-same lilies. Ellen picked one. He quietly took it from her.
"Forgive me, Ellen," he murmured. "I am not a bear in general. Goodbye."
As they stood, her hand in his, her flushed face downcast, Mrs. North's open carriage rolled past. Madam's head was suddenly propelled towards them as far as safety permitted: her eyes glared: a stony horror sat on her countenance.
"Shameful! Disgraceful!" hissed madam. And Miss Matilda North, by her side, started up to see what the shame might be.
Arthur Bohun had caught the words--not Ellen--and bit his lips in a complication of feeling.
But all he did was to raise his hat--first to his mother, then to Ellen--as he went out at the gate. Madam flung herself back in her seat, and the carriage pursued its course up the Ham.
"You are keeping quality hours, Bessy--as our nurse used to say when we were children," was Richard North's salutation to his sister as he went in and saw the table laid for breakfast.
Mrs. Rane laughed. She was busy at work, sewing some buttons on a white waistcoat of her husband's.
"Oliver was called out at seven this morning, and has not come back yet," she explained.
"And you are waiting breakfast for him! You must be starving."
"I took some coffee when Molly had hers. How is papa, Richard?"
"Anything but well. Very much worried, for one thing."
"Madam and Matilda are back again, I hear?" continued Bessy.
"Three days ago. They have brought Miss Field with them."
"And madam has brought her usual temper, I suppose," added Bessy. "No wonder papa is suffering."
"That of course; it will never be otherwise. But he is troubling himself also very much about the works being stopped. I tell him to leave all such trouble to me, but it is of no use."
"When will the strike end, Richard?"
Richard shook his head. It was an unprofitable theme, and he did not wish to pursue it with Bessy. She had sufficient cares of her own, as he suspected, without adding to them. Three letters lay on the table, close to where Richard was sitting; they were addressed to Dr. Rane. His fingers began turning them about mechanically, quite in abstraction.
"I know the handwriting of two of them," remarked Bessy, possibly fancying he was curious on the point; "not of the third."
"The one is from America," observed Richard, looking at the letters for the first time.
"Yes; it's from Dr. Jones. He would like Oliver to join him in America."
"To join him for what?" asked Richard.
Bessy looked at him. She saw no reason why her brother should not be told. Dr. Rane wished it kept secret from the world; but this, she thought, could not apply to her good and trustworthy Richard. She opened her heart and told him all; not what they were going certainly to do, for ways and means were still doubtful, but what they hoped to be able to do. Richard, excessively surprised, listened in silence.
They had made up their minds to leave Dallory. Dr. Rane had taken a dislike to the place; and no wonder, Bessy added in a parenthesis, when he was not getting on at all. He intended to leave it as soon as the practice was disposed of.
"I expect this letter will decide it," concluded Bessy, touching one that bore the London postmark. "It is from a Mr. Lynch, who is wishing to find a practice in the country on account of his health. London smoke does not do for him, he tells Oliver. They have had a good deal of correspondence together, and I know his handwriting quite well. Oliver said he expected his decision to-day or tomorrow. He is to pay two hundred pounds and take the furniture at a valuation."
"And then--do I understand you rightly, Bessy?--you and Rane are going to America?" questioned Richard.
"Ohno," said Bessy with emphasis. "I must have explained badly, Richard. What I said was, that Dr. Jones, who has more practice in America than he knows what to do with, had offered a share of it to Oliver if he would join him. Oliver declined it. He would have liked to go, for he thinks it must be a very good thing; but Dr. Jones wants a large premium: so it's out of the question."
"But surely you would not have liked to emigrate, Bessy?"
She glanced into Richard's face with her meek, loving eyes, blushing a very little.
"I would go anywhere where he goes," she answered simply. "It would cost me pain to leave you and papa, Richard; especially papa, because he is old, and because he would feel it; but Oliver is my husband."
Richard drummed for a minute or two on the table-cloth. Bessy sewed on her last button.
"Then where does Rane think of pitching his tent, Bessy?"
"Somewhere in London. He says there is no place like it for getting on. Should this letter be to say that Mr. Lynch, takes the practice, we shall be away in less than a month."
"And you have never told us!"
"We decided to say nothing until it was a settled thing, and then only to you, and Mrs. Cumberland, and papa. Oliver does not want the world to know it sooner than need be."
"But do you mean to say that Rane has not told his mother?" responded Richard to this in some surprise.
"Not yet," said Bessy, folding the completed waistcoat. "It will be sure to vex her, and perhaps needlessly; for, suppose, after all, we do not go? That entirely depends upon the disposal of the practice here."
Bessy was picking up the threads in her neat way, and putting the remaining buttons in the little closed box, when Dr. Rane was heard to enter his consulting-room. Away flew Bessy to the kitchen, bringing in the things with her own loving hands--and, for that matter, Molly Green was at her upstairs work--buttered toast, broiled ham, a dainty dish of stewed mushrooms. There was nothing she liked so much as to wait on her husband. Her step was light and soft, her eye bright. Richard, looking on, saw how much she cared for him.
Dr. Rane came in, wiping his brow: the day was hot, and he tired. He had walked from a farm-house a mile beyond the Ham. A strangely weary look sat on his face.
"Don't trouble, Bessy; I have had breakfast. Ah, Richard, how d'ye do?"
"You have had breakfast!" repeated Bessy. "At the farm?"
"Yes; they gave me some."
"Oh dear! won't you take a bit of the ham, or some of the mushrooms, Oliver? They are so good. And I waited."
"I am sorry you should wait. No, I can't eat two breakfasts. You must eat for me and yourself, Bessy."
Dr. Rane sat down in his own chair at the table, turning it towards Richard, and took up the letters. Selecting the one from Mr. Lynch, he was about to open it when Bessy, who was now beginning her breakfast, spoke.
"Oliver, I have told Richard about it--what we think of doing?"
Dr. Rane's glance went out for a moment to his brother-in-law's, and met it. He made the best of the situation, smiled gaily, and put down the letter unopened.
"Are you surprised, Richard?" he asked.
"Very much, indeed. Had a stranger told me I was going to leave Dallory myself--and, indeed, that may well come to pass, with this strike in the air--I should as soon have believed it. Shall you be doing well to go, do you think, Rane?"
"Am I doing well here?" was the doctor's rejoinder.
"Not very, I fear."
"And, with this strike on, it grows worse. The wives and children fall ill, as usual, and I am called in; but the men have no money to pay me with. I don't intend to bring Bessy to dry bread, and I think it would come to that if we stayed here----"
"No, no; not quite to that, Oliver," she interposed. But he took no notice of her.
"Therefore I shall try my fortune elsewhere," continued Dr. Rane. "And if you would return thanks to the quarter whence the blow has originated, you must pay them to your stepmother, Richard. It is she who has driven me away."
Richard was silent. Dr. Rane broke the seal of Mr. Lynch's letter, and read it to the end. Then, laying it down, he took up the one from America, and read that. Bessy, looking across, tried to gather some information from his countenance; but Dr. Rane's face was one which, in an ordinary way, was not more easily read than a stone.
"Is it favourable news, Oliver?" she asked, as he finished the long letter, and folded it.
"It's nothing particular. Jones runs on upon politics. He generally gives me a good dose ofthem."
"Oh, I meant from Mr. Lynch," replied Bessy. "Is he coming?"
"Mr. Lynch declines."
"Declines, Oliver!"
"Declines the negotiation. And he is not much better than a sneak for giving me all this trouble, and then crying off at the eleventh hour," added Dr. Rane.
"Itisbad behaviour," said Bessy, warmly. "What excuse does he make?"
"You can see what he says," said Dr. Rane, pushing the letter towards her. Bessy opened it, and read it aloud for the benefit of Richard.
Mr. Lynch took up all one side with apologies. The substance of the letter was, that a practice had unexpectedly been offered to him at the seaside, which he had accepted, as the air and locality would suit his state of health so much better than Dallory. If he could be of service in negotiating with any one else, he added, Dr. Rane was to make use of him.
It was as courteous and explanatory a letter as could be written. But still it was a refusal: and the negotiation was at an end. Bessy Rane drew a deep breath: whether of relief or disappointment it might have puzzled herself to decide. Perhaps it was a mixture of both.
"Then, after all, Oliver, we shall not be leaving!"
"Not at present, it seems," was Dr. Rane's answer. And he put the two letters into his pocket.
"Perhaps you will be thinking again, Oliver, of America, now?" said his wife.
"Oh no, I shall not."
"Does Dr. Jones still urge you to come?"
"Not particularly. He took my refusal as final."
She went on, slowly eating some of the mushrooms. Richard said nothing: this projected removal seemed to have impressed him to silence. Dr. Rane took up the remaining letter and turned it about, looking at the outside.
"Do you know the writing, Oliver?" his wife asked.
"Not at all. The postmark's Whitborough."
Opening the letter, which appeared to contain only a few lines, Dr. Rane looked up with an exclamation.
"How strange! How very strange! Bessy, you and I are the only two left in the tontine."
"What!" she cried, scarcely understanding him. Richard North turned his head.
"That tontine that we were both put into when infants. There was only one life left in it besides ourselves--old Massey's son, of Whitborough. He is dead."
"What! George Massey? Dead!" cried Richard North.
Dr. Rane handed him the note. Yes: it was even so. The other life had dropped, and Oliver Rane's and his wife's alone remained.
"My father has called that an unlucky tontine," remarked Richard. "I have heard it said that if you want a child to live, you should put it into a tontine, for the tontine lives are sure to arrive at a green old age, to the mutual general mortification. This has been an exception to the rule. I am sorry about George Massey. I wonder what he has died of?"
"Last long, in general, do you say?" returned Dr. Rane musingly. "I don't know much about tontines myself."
"Neither do I," said Richard. "I remember hearing of one tontine when I was a boy: five or six individuals were left in it, all over eighty then, and in flourishing health. Perhaps that was why my father and Mr. Gass took up with one. At any rate, it seems that you and Bessy are the only two remaining in this."
"I wonder if a similar condition of things ever existed before as for a man and his wife to be the two last in a tontine?" cried Dr. Rane, slightly laughing. "Bessy, practically it can be of no use to us conjointly; for before the money can be paid, one of us must die. What senseless things tontines are!"
"Senseless indeed," answered Bessy. "I'd say something to it if we could have the money now. How much is it?"
"Ay, by the way, how much is it? What was it that each member put in at first, Richard? I forget. Fifty pounds, was it? And then there's the compound interest, which has been going on for thirty years. How much would it amount to now?"
"More than two thousand pounds," answered Richard North, making a mental calculation.
Dr. Rane's face flushed with a quick hot flush: a light shone in his eye: his lips parted, as with some deep emotions. "More than two thousand pounds!" he echoed under his breath. "Two thousand pounds! Bessy, it would be like a gold-mine."
She laughed slightly. "But we can't get it, you see, Oliver. And I am sure neither of us wishes the other dead."
"No--no; certainly not," said Dr. Rane.
Richard North said good-day and left. Just before turning in at the gates of Dallory Hall, he met a gig containing Lawyer Dale of Whitborough, who was driving somewhere with his clerk; no other than Timothy Wilks. Mr. Dale pulled up, to speak.
"Can it be true that George Massey is dead?" questioned Richard as they were parting.
"It's true enough, poor fellow. He died yesterday: was ill but two days."
"I've just heard it at Dr. Rane's. He received a letter this morning to tell him of it."
"Dr. Rane did? I was not aware they knew each other."
"Nor did they. But they were both in that tontine. Now that George Massey's gone, Dr. Rane and his wife are the only two remaining in it. Rather singular that it should be so."
For a minute Mr. Dale could not recollect whether he had ever heard of this particular tontine; although, being a lawyer, he made it his business to know everything; and he and Richard talked of it together. Excessively singular, Lawyer Dale agreed, that a tontine should be practically useless to a man and his wife--unless one of them died.
"Very mortifying, I must say, Mr. Richard North; especially where the money would be welcome. Two thousand pounds! Dr. Rane must wish the senseless thing at Hanover. I should, I know, if it were my case. Good-morning."
And quiet Timothy Wilks, across whom they talked, heard all that was said, and unconsciously treasured it up in his memory.
Richard carried home the news to his father. Mr. North was seated at the table in his parlour, some papers before him. He lifted his hands in dismay.
"Dead! George Massey dead! Dick, as sure as we are here, there must be something wrong about that tontine! Or they'd never drop off like this, one after another."
"It's not much more than a week ago, sir, that I met George Massey in Whitborough, and was talking to him. To all appearance he was as healthy and likely to live as I am."
"What took him off?"
"Dale says it was nothing more than a neglected cold."
"I don't like it; Dick, I don't like it," reiterated Mr. North, "Bessy may be the next to go; or Rane."
"I hope not, father."
"Well--I've had it in my head for ever so long that that tontine is an unlucky one; I think it is going to be so to the end. We shall see. Look here, Dick."
He pointed to some of the papers before him; used cheques apparently; pushing them towards his son.
"They sent me word at the bank that my account was overdrawn. I knew it could not be, and asked for my cheques. Dick, here are four or five that I never drew."
Richard took them in his fingers. The filling up was in madam's handwriting: the signature apparently in Mr. North's.
"Do you give Mrs. North blank cheques ready signed, sir?"
"No, never, Dick. I was cured of that, years ago. When she wants money, I sometimes let her fill in the cheque, but I never sign it beforehand."
"And you think you have not signed these?"
"Think! I know I have not. She has imitated my signature, and got the money."
Richard's face grew dark with shame; shame for his stepmother. But that Mr. North was her husband, it would have been downright forgery. Probably the law, if called upon, might have accounted it so now. He took time for consideration.
"Father, I think--pardon me for the suggestion--I think you had better let your private account be passed over to me. Allow it to lie in my name; and make my signature alone available--just as it is with our business account. I see no other safe way."
"With all my heart; and be glad to do it," acquiesced Mr. North, "but there's no account to pass. There's no account to pass, Dick; it's overdrawn."
A dinner-party at Dallory Hall. Arthur Bohun was in his chamber, lazily dressing for it. Not a large party, this: half-a-dozen people or so, besides themselves; and the hour six o'clock. Two gentlemen, bidden to it, would have to leave by train afterwards: on such occasions dinner of necessity must be early.
Mr. North and Richard did not approve of madam's dinners at the most favourable times: now, with all the care of the strike upon them and the trouble looming in the distance if that strike lasted: the breaking up of their business, the failure of their means: they looked on these oft-recurring banquets as especially reprehensible. They were without power to stop them; remonstrance availed not with madam. Sometimes the dinners were impromptu, or nearly so, madam inviting afternoon callers at the Hall to stay, or bringing home a carriage-full of guests with her. As was partly the case on this day.
Captain Arthur Bohun, who liked to take most things easily, dressing included, stood hair-brush in hand. He had moved away from the glass, and was looking from the open window. His thoughts were busy. They ran on that little episode of the morning, when madam, passing in her carriage, had seen him with Ellen Adair, and had chosen to display her sentiments on the subject in the manner described. That it would not end there, Arthur felt sure; madam would inevitably treat him to a little more of her mind. It was rather a singular thing--as if Fate had been intervening with its usual cross purposes--for circumstances so to have ordered it that madam should still be in ignorance of their intimacy. Almost always when Mrs. Cumberland was at home, it chanced that madam was away; and, when madam was at the Hall, Mrs. Cumberland was elsewhere. Thus, during Mrs. Cumberland's prolonged stay at Niton, madam's presence blessed her household; the very week that that lady returned to Dallory Ham, madam took her departure, and had only recently returned. She had spent the interval in Germany. Sidney North, her well-beloved son, giving trouble as usual to all who were connected with him, had found England rather warm for him in early spring, and had betaken himself to Germany. His chief point of sojourn was Homburg, and madam, with her daughter Matilda, had been making it hers since the spring. Mr. North, in the relief her absence brought him, had used every exertion to supply her with the money she so rapaciously sent home for. It would appear that the accommodation had not been sufficient, for--as was soon to be discovered by Richard--the cheques shown to him by his father had been drawn by her at Homburg. And so, as Fate or Fortune had willed it, Mrs. North had been out of the way of watching the progress of the intimacy between her son and Ellen Adair.
A quick knock at the chamber-door, and madam swept in, a large crimson rose, just brought from the greenhouse, adorning her jet-black hair, her white silk gown rustling and trailing after her. As well as though she had already spoken, Arthur knew what she had come for. He thought that she was losing no time and must have hurried over her toilette purposely. The carriage had not long returned home, for she and Matilda had been to a distance, and remained out to luncheon. Arthur, not moving from where he was, began brushing his hair haphazard.
"I suppose I am late, madam?"
"Was ityouthat I passed this afternoon in Dallory Ham, talking to some girl?" began madam, taking no notice of his remark.
"It was me, safe enough; I had been calling on Mrs. Cumberland," replied Arthur, carelessly. "Dick also. By the way you stared, madam, I fancied you scarcely knew me."
A little banter. Madam might take it seriously, or not, as she chose. She went round to the other side of the dressing-table, and stood opposite him at the window.
"What girl were you talking to?"
"Girl! I was with Miss Adair."
"Whoisshe, Arthur?"
"She is Mrs. Cumberland's ward."
"What do you know of her?"
"I know her as being at Mrs. Cumberland's. I see her when I go there."
Was he really indifferent? Standing there brushing away at his hair lazily, his apparently supreme indifference could not be exceeded. Madam scanned his face in momentary silence;hewas closely intent upon two sparrows, fighting over a reddening cherry on the branch of a tree.
"Fight away, young gentlemen; battle it out; you'll have all the better appetite for supper."
"Will you attend to me for a short time, Captain Bohun?" spoke madam, irritably.
"Certainly; I am attending," was the captain's ready answer.
Just for an instant madam paused. This was not one of the daily petty grievances that she made people miserable over, but a trouble to her of awful meaning, almost as of life or death. In this, her own grave interests, she could control her temper, and she thought it might be the better policy to do so whilst she dealt with it.
"Arthur, you know that you are becoming more valuable to me," she said, with calmness; and Arthur Bohun opened his surprised ears at the words and tone. "Since Sidney took up his abode away from England, and cannot come back to it, poor fellow, for the present you are all I have here. If I speak, it is for your welfare."
"Very good of you, I am sure," returned Arthur, seeing she waited for him to say something, and feeling how two-faced the words were, mother of his though she was. "What is it you wish to say?"
"It's about that girl, Miss--what do you call her?--Adair. Young men will be young men; soldiers especially; I know that; but wrong is wrong, and it cannot by the most ingenious sophistry be converted into right. It is quite wrong to play with these village girls, as you seem to be doing with Miss Adair."
Arthur threw back his head as though his pride were hurt. Madam had seen just the same movement in his father.
"I have no intention ofplayingwith Miss Adair."
A gleam shot from her eyes--half fear, half defiance. She bit her lip, and went on in a still softer tone.
"You cannot mean anythingworse, Arthur."
"I do not understand you, madam. Worse? Worse than what?"
"Anything serious. To play with village girls is reprehensible; but----"
"I beg your pardon, mother; this is quite unnecessary. The playing with village girls--whatever that may mean--is not a habit of mine, and never has been. The caution might be more appropriate if applied to your men-servants than it is to me."
"Allow me to finish, Arthur. To play with village girls is reprehensible; but to intend anything serious with one would be far more so in your case. Will you profit by the caution?"
"If you wish me to comprehend the word 'serious,' you must speak out. What does it mean?"
"It meansmarriage," she answered, with an outburst of temper--as far as tone might convey it. "I allude to this absurd intimacy of yours with Miss Adair. You must be intimate with the girl; your look and attitude, as I passed to-day, proved it."
"And if I did mean marriage, what then?"
He asked the question jokingly, laughing a little; but he was not prepared for the effect it had on his mother. Her eyes flashed fire, her lips trembled, her face turned white as death.
"Marriage! Withher?You must be dreaming, Arthur Bohun."
"Not dreaming; joking," he said, lightly. "You may be at ease, madam; I have no intention of marrying any one at present."
"You must never marry Miss Adair."
"No?"
"Arthur Bohun, you are treating all this with mockery," she exclaimed, beginning to believe that he really was so; and the relief was great, though the tacit disrespect angered her. "How dare you imply that you could think seriously of these village girls?--only to annoy and frighten me."
"You must be easily frightened to-day, madam. I don't think I did imply it. As to Miss Adair----"
"Yes, as to Miss Adair," fiercely interrupted madam. "Go on."
"I was about to say that, in speaking of Miss Adair, we might as well recognize her true position. It is not quite respectful to be alluding to her as a 'village girl.' She is a lady, born and bred."
"Perhaps you will next say that she is equal to the Bohuns?"
"I do not wish to say it. Don't you think this conversation may as well cease, madam?" added Arthur, after a short pause. "Why should it have been raised? One might suppose I had asked your consent to my marriage, whereas you know perfectly well that I am a poor man, with not the slightest chance of taking a wife."
"Poor men get engaged sometimes, Arthur, thinking they will wait--and wait. Seeing you with that girl--the world calls her good-looking, I believe--I grew into an awful fright for your sake. It would be most disastrous for you to marry beneath your rank--a Bohun never holds up his head afterwards, if he does that; and I thought I ought to speak a word of warning to you. You must take a suitable wife when you do marry--one fitted to mate with the future Sir Arthur Bohun."
"To mate with plain Arthur Bohun. To call me the future Sir Arthur is stretching possibility very wide indeed, madam," he added, laughing.
"Not at all. You will as surely succeed as that I am telling you so. Look at that puny James Bohun! A few years at most will see the last of him."
"I hope not, for his father's sake. Any way, he may live long enough to marry and leave children behind him. Is your lecture at an end, madam?" he jestingly concluded. "If so, perhaps you may as well leave me to get my coat on, or I shall have to keep dinner waiting."
"I have another word," said madam; "your coat can wait. Miss Dallory dines here."
"Miss Dallory! I thought she was in Switzerland. Did she come over in a balloon to dine with us?"
"She is staying with her brother Frank. I and Matilda called at Ham Court just now and brought her with us."
"Did you bring him also?"
"I did not see him; they said he was not in the way. But now why do I mention this?"
"As a bit of gossip for me, I suppose. It's very good of you. My coat and dinner can certainly wait."
"I have brought Miss Dallory here for your sake, Arthur Bohun," was the rejoinder, spoken with emphatic meaning. "Sheis the young lady you will do well to think of as your future wife."
Madam went out of the room with much stately rustle, and swept downstairs. Another minute, and the door opened again to admit Richard North. Captain Bohun had not progressed further in dressing, or stirred from his place, but was leaning against the window-frame, whistling softly.
"Madam's in a way, is she not?" began Richard, in low tones. "My window was open, Arthur, and I was obliged to catch a word here and there. I made all kinds of noises, but you did not take the hint."
"Shedidn't; and I would as soon you heard as not," was Captain Bohun's answer. "You are ready, I see, Dick."
"The course of true love never did run smooth, you know," said Richard, laughing.
"And never will. Whenever I read of the old patriarchal days, in which a man had only to fix on a wife and bring her home to his tent; and look on all that has to be considered in these--money, suitability of family, settlements--I wonder whether it can be the same world. Madam need not fear that I have any chance of marrying."
"Or you wouldn't long be a bachelor?"
"I don't know about that."
"You don't know! Why, you do know, and so do I. I've seen how it is for some weeks now, Arthur."
"Seen what?"
Richard smiled.
"Seen what?"
"How it is between you and Ellen Adair."
"You think you have?"
"Think! You love her, don't you?"
Arthur Bohun put down the hair-brush gently, and moved to take up his coat.
"Dick, old fellow, whether it will come to anything between us or not, I cannot tell," he said, his voice strangely deep, his brow flushing with emotion, "but I shall never care for any one else as I care for her."
"Then secure her," answered Dick.
"I might be tempted to do it, in spite of my mother, had I the wherewithal to set up a home; but I haven't."
"You have more than double what Rane and Bessy have."
"Rane and Bessy! But Bessy is one in a thousand. I couldn't ask a wife to come home to me on that."
"Just as you think well, of course. Take care, though, you don't get her snapped up. I should fear it, if it were my case. Ellen Adair is the loveliest girl I ever saw, and I think her the sweetest, I could only look at her as we sat in Mrs. Cumberland's room this morning. Other men will be finding it out, Arthur, if they have not already done so."
Arthur never answered. He had gone back to his former post, and was leaning against the window-frame, looking out dreamily.
"Madam objects, I presume?"
"I presume she would, if I put it to her," assented Arthur, as if the proposition admitted of no dispute.
"I don't see why she should do so, or you, either."
"I'm afraid, Dick, we Bohuns have our full share of family pride."
"But Mr. Adair is, no doubt, a gentleman?"
"Oh yes. That is, not in trade," added Arthur, carelessly.
"Well, a gentleman is a gentleman," said Richard.
"Of course. But I take it for granted that he holds no position in the world. And we Bohuns, you know----"
Arthur stopped. Richard North laughed. "You Bohuns would like to mate only with position. A daughter, for example, of the Lord-Lieutenant of the county."
"Exactly," assented Arthur, echoing the laugh, but very much in earnest for all that. "Madam has been recommending Miss Dallory to my notice."
"Who?" cried Richard, rather sharply.
"Miss Dallory."
"You might do worse," observed Richard, after a pause.
"No doubt of that. She is downstairs."
"Who is downstairs?"
"She. So madam has just informed me."
"There's the gong."
"And be hanged to it!" returned Arthur, getting into his coat. "I wish to goodness madam did not give us the trouble of putting on dinner dress every other day! Neither are entertainments seemly in your house during these troubled times."
"What's more, I don't see how they will be paid for, if the trouble continues," candidly spoke Richard. "Madam must be uncommonly sanguine to expect it."
"Or careless," returned Arthur Bohun. "Dick, my friend, it's a bad sign when a man has no good word to give his mother."
That every grain of filial affection had long gone out of his breast and been replaced by a feeling akin to shame and contempt, Arthur Bohun was only too conscious of. He strove to be dutiful; but it was at times a hard task. Living under the same roof as his mother, her sins against manners and good feeling were brought under his notice perpetually; he was more sensitively alive to them than even others could be.
Since Arthur Bohun had quitted the army and recovered from the long sickness that followed on his wound, Dallory Hall had been his ostensible home. Latterly he had made it really so; for Dallory Ham contained an attraction from which he could not tear himself. Ellen Adair had his heart's best love: and, far from her he could not wander. A pure, ardent love, honourable as every true passion must be in an honourable man, but swaying his every action with its power. Sir Nash Bohun invited him in vain. His aunt, Miss Bohun, with whom he was a great favourite, wondered why he went so rarely to see her; or, when he did go, made his visit a flying one. Arthur Bohun possessed a few hundreds a-year: about four: just enough to keep him as a gentleman: and he had none of the bad habits that run away with young men's money. Miss Bohun would leave him fairly well off when she died: so he was at ease as to the future. One day, after he had been at Dallory Hall for a few months, he put a hundred-pound banknote into Richard North's hands.
"What is this for?" questioned Richard.
Arthur told him. The embarrassments in the Hall's financial department, caused by madam, were lightly touched on: this was Arthur's contribution towards his own share of the housekeeping. In the surprise of the moment, Richard North's spirit rose, and fought against it. Arthur quietly persisted.
"As long as I pitch my tent amongst you here, I shall hand over this sum every six months. To you, Dick; there's no one else to be trusted with it. If I gave it to Bessy, she would be safe to speak about it, and it might be wiled out of her."
"I never heard such nonsense in my life," cried Richard. "You will not get me to take it. I wouldn't countenance anything of the sort."
"Yes you will, Dick, Yon wouldn't like me to take up my abode at the Dallory Arms. I declare on my honour I shall do so, if I am forced to be as a guest at the Hall."
"But, Arthur----"
"Dick, my friend, there's no need of argument. I mean what I say. Don't drive me away. The Dallory Arms would not be a very comfortable home; and I should drift away, goodness knows where."
"As if one inmate, more or less, made any difference in our home expenses."
"As if it did not. I have no right or claim whatever to be living on your father. Don't make me small in my own eyes, frère Richard. You know that you'd feel the same in my place, and do the same. No one need know of this but our two selves, Dick."
Richard gave in: he saw that Arthur was resolute: and after all, it was just. So he took the banknote into account, and told his father about it; and Arthur Bohun stayed on, his conscience at peace. Once, in one of madam's furious onslaughts, when she spared no one, she abused her son for staying at the Hall, and living upon her. Uponher!Arthur parried the attack with careless good-humour, merely saying he was Dick's guest. When Dick turned him out of the Hall, he should go.