Like the man and woman in the toy weather-house, Mr. Schröder's two houses never were "to the fore" at the same time. When the one was lighted, the other was gloomy; when the one was tenanted, the other was empty; when the one was decorated, the other was comfortless. As the second breath of summer came floating over Kensington Gardens, after the may- and apple-blossoms had disappeared, but long before dust and drouth had settled down on the greensward and the umbrageous walks of the parks; when there was evinced among young men a perpetual desire to dine at the Star-and-Garter at Richmond, and an undying hatred of passing the Sunday within the metropolis; when Mr. Quartermaine began to wonder where he should stow all his visitors, and Mr. Skindle of the Orkney Arms began to think of building; when fashionable people thought it no more harm to sit in their carriages outside Grange's, than to call diamonds 'dimonds,' or ribbon 'ribbin;' when the Sunday-afternoon attendance at the Zoological Gardens began to exceed the week-day; when green-peas began to have some taste, and asparagus to be something else beside stalk and stick,--then the glory of the Saxe-Coburg-Square establishment showed strong symptoms of waning. The usual amount of solemn dinner-party had been gone through; every body necessary had been asked to balls, music, andconversazioni; Mrs. Schröder's taste and Mr. Schröder's wealth had been exhibited constantly at the Opera and at some of the most fashionable gatherings in London; and one, if not both, of them longed for a little quiet. This resulted in the renting of Uplands, when blank misery fell upon the establishment in Saxe-Coburg Square. All the ornaments and nicknacks were removed and put away; the chandeliers were shrouded in big holland bags; the shutters were put up; and the spurious Schröder ancestors scowled dimly from the wall over a great desert of dining-table, no longer shining with snowy damask or sparkling silver and glass. The staff of servants,--the French cook and the Italian confectioner; the ponderous butler, so frequently mistaken by Mrs. Schröder's West-end friends for a City magnate; the solemn footman, large-whiskered, large-calved, ambrosial, and most offensive; the lady's-maid and the buttons,--all, down to the kitchen-maid, who lived in a perpetual state of grease and dripping, and who was preparing herself for "plain cook, good," in theTimescolumn of 'Want Places,'--all went away into what the said kitchen-maid was heard to designate "that rubbiging country;" and an old woman, weird, puffy, dusty, with old black silk stitched about her head where her hair should have been, and with bits of beard sticking on her chin, came and took up her abode in the housekeeper's room and "kep' 'ouse" herself.
But when October was well set in, and the days grew short, and the showers not unfrequent; when, even if there were no showers, the heavy mists of morn and dews of night left the ground moist and dank and plappy; when weird night-winds rose and sighed Banshee-like over the hushed fields; when the lawn lost its soft verdure and grew brown and corrugated; when the trees, which during the summer had so picturesquely fringed the lawn and framed the distance, now gaunt and dismal, swayed mournfully to and fro, drearily rattling their stripped limbs,--then a general inclination to return back to the comfort of London began to be manifested by all the inhabitants of Uplands. It was all very pleasant when Mr. Schröder had spun his chestnuts up the leafy lanes, or over the breezy hills, in the summer; but it was a very different thing when he had to come the same road from town in a close carriage, with the rain pattering against the windows, and with no gas for the last three miles of the journey. It was dull work for Mrs. Schröder and whatever female companion she might happen to have, with nothing to do but yawn over novels, or listlessly thrum the piano, or watch the gardeners filling their high barrows with dead leaves and unceasingly sweeping the lawns and paths. She could have relieved her tedium by a little shopping, she thought; but there were no shops--at least what she called shops--within miles of Uplands. As to the servants, they all hated the place; there were no military for the females, and the policemen were all mounted patrols, who "just looked round at night on 'orseback, and never had no time for a gossip, or a bit of supper, or anythink friendly;" while the male domestics were removed from their clubs and all the other delights which a town-life afforded. So, to the great joy of all, the word was given to march; and the whole establishment descended on Saxe-Coburg Square leaving Uplands to the care of the Scotch gardener, who removed his wife and family up from one of the lodges, and encamped in the kitchen and adjacent rooms.
Mrs. Schröder was by no means ill-pleased at the return to town. The moving gave her no trouble; she had merely to walk into her rooms and find every thing arranged for her; and she was in hopes that a salutary change would be effected in at least one arrangement which was beginning to worry her. The truth is, that during the last week of their stay at Uplands it had begun to dawn upon Mrs. Schröder that Charles Beresford's attentions were not what they should be. She had more than once endeavoured to think out the subject; but her intellects were none of the brightest, and she got frightened, and either began to cry, or let every thing go by the board in the grand certainty that "it would be all right in the end." But of late she had felt the necessity of taking some steps to bring the acquaintance between her and her admirer to some proper footing. This had not come on her entirely of her own accord. She had noticed that her husband (whose attentions to her increased day by day from the time when his heart seemed to soften so suddenly and so strangely towards her) seemed to regard the presence of the Commissioner with obvious impatience. Mr. Schröder never, indeed, said any thing to his wife on the subject; but he evidently chafed when Beresford was in the house: and if Mrs. Schröder and Beresford were at all thrown together apart from the general company, they were sure to see Mr. Schröder's eyes fixed upon them. Others of her friends had not been so reticent. Captain Lyster had hinted once or twice, what Barbara Churchill had several times roundly spoken out--that Beresford was avaurien, whose attentions were compromising to any married woman; and that if he had the smallest spark of gentlemanly feeling in him, he would desist from paying them. So Mrs. Schröder, who was nothing but a very silly weak little woman (there are few women who are really bad, even among those who have erred: the Messalinas and the Lady Macbeths are very exceptional cases), and who really had a sincere affection for her husband, had made up her mind that she was behaving badly, and had determined to break gradually, but uncompromisingly, with Mr. Beresford and his attentions. She had been so completely hoodwinked by the fraternal relations which, at Mr. Simnel's suggestion, the Commissioner had cultivated, that it was not until immediately previous to their quitting Uplands that she saw the danger she had been running, and felt horribly incensed with Mr. Beresford for his part in the affair.
They had been back for some days in Saxe-Coburg Square, and Alice Schröder was nestling in her easy-chair after luncheon, wondering when the opportunity would occur in which she could plainly point out to Mr. Beresford that he must altogether alter his conduct for the future, when Mrs. Churchill was announced, and Barbara entered the room.
She was very pale, walked very erect, and held out her two hands to Alice as she advanced.
"Why, Barbara! Barbara darling!" said impulsive little Alice, "I'm so delighted to--why, what's the matter, dear? how strange and odd you look!"
"I want you to have me here for a few days, Alice, if you will."
"Why, of course, dear! I'm so glad you've come at last; it wasn't for the want of asking, you know. And Mr. Churchill will be here to dinner, dear, at seven, eh?"
"Mr. Churchill will not come at all, Alice," said Barbara very gravely. "I am here alone."
"But he knows you've come here, doesn't he?"
"You don't understand me yet, Alice. I have left my husband."
"Left your husband! oh, Barbara, how dreadful! how could you!" and Alice Schröder's face exhibited such signs of unmistakable terror, that for the first time the magnitude of the step she had taken, and the apparent impossibility of its recall, seemed to flash upon Barbara. A rush of tears blinded her eyes; and she held out her hands appealingly, as she said, "You--you don't shrink from me, Alice?"
Astonishment, nothing more, had caused Mrs. Schröder's trepidation; in an instant she had rushed forward and wound her arms round Barbara's neck, saying, "Shrink from you, my darling? why, what madness to suppose such a thing! Where should you come but to my house, in such a case? Besides, it's nothing, darling, I suspect, but a temporary little foolish quarrel. Mr. Churchill will be here to dinner, and take you home with him afterwards."
But Barbara shook her head and burst into tears, saying that it was a matter which admitted of no compromise and no amicable settlement. And then, between floods of crying, she told Alice the outline of the quarrel; dwelling specially upon Frank's refusal to give up the letter he had received, or to say who was his correspondent. Alice seemed deeply impressed with the atrocity of Frank's conduct, though she doubted whether she herself would have had the courage to take such a decided step as leaving her home ("You always said I was wanting in spirit, Barbara; and indeed I should not have known where to go to"). She recollected Barbara's having been upset at a letter which had come to Frank at Bissett, before they were engaged; and she was full of "O my's!" and general wonderment, as to who could have written both these mysterious epistles.
"Very odd," she said--"very odd, and very unpleasant. You're sure it was a woman's hand, dear? People do make such mistakes about that sometimes. Most dreadful, indeed! Well, that's one blessing, I've often thought, with Gustav, and is some compensation for his grayness and his being so much older, and that sort of thing. For grayness is better than jealousy, isn't it, dear? and I'm sure it's pleasanter to think of your husband at whist than waltzing, as some of them do--whirling about the room as though there were no such thing as the marriage service And letters too, that's awful! I'm so glad you came here, Barbara darling; and so will Gustav be, when he comes in. We must tell him all about it. I tell him every thing now, he issokind."
He wasverykind, this heavy-headed elderly German merchant. When he came in, his wife at once told him what had occurred; and when he met Barbara in the drawing-room, before dinner, he took her hands in both of his, and pressed his lips gravely on her forehead, and bade her welcome, and told her to consider his house as her home. For Mr. Schröder had, in his strange old-fashioned way, a very keen sense of honour and of the respect due to women; and he felt, from the story that had been told to him, that Barbara's feelings had to a certain extent been outraged. He had never held much good opinion of the literary craft: he could not understand a calling which did not employ clerks and keep ledgers and day-books, which did not minister to any absolute requirement, and which only represented something visionary and fanciful. He shared in a very widespread notion that themoraleof people engaged in that and similar pursuits was specially liable to deterioration; and he took what he understood to be Frank Churchill's defection from the paths of propriety as an indorsement of his idea, and a proof that he had been right in its adoption. He happened to let fall some remark to this effect, a few words only, and not strongly or savagely put, but they had immense weight with Barbara Churchill.
For they immediately recalled to her recollection her several interviews with her aunt, Miss Lexden, when she first announced the engagement with Frank, and she remembered the acrimony with which the old lady had spoken of the class to which her intended husband belonged. The very words her aunt had used were ringing in her ears. "If I were to see you with broken health, with broken spirits, ill-used, deserted--as is likely enough, for I know these people,--I would not lift one finger to help you after your degradation of me!" "For I know these people!" Too well she knew them, it appears, when she predicated what had actually occurred. Not deserted, though; that at least could never be cast in her teeth. It was she who had taken the initiative:--she who had broken the bonds and--what could the world say to that? Would it not denounce her conduct as strange, unwomanly, and unwifelike? And if it did, what did she care? Her pride, her spirit, had often been spoken of; and she felt in no way ashamed of having permitted herself to be swayed by them in this great trial of her life. There must be many who would thoroughly understand her conduct, and sympathise with her; and even if there were none, she had the courage and the determination to stand alone. That she must to a great extent have right on her side--that what she had done could not be looked upon as extravagant or unjustifiable--was proved, she argued to herself, by the kind reception she had met with at the hands of Mr. Schröder, a man who, as she judged from all she had heard and seen of him; would not be likely lightly to pass over any breach of decorum. How or where the rest of her life was to be passed engrossed very little of her attention at first. She knew that there was no chance of reconciliation with her aunt; nor did she wish it. She had quarrelled with her husband, certainly, and would never be induced to live with him again; but her cheek flushed when she remembered what insults had been heaped upon Frank by her aunt; and she thought almost tenderly of him as she decided that after these insults nothing would induce her to humiliate herself to Miss Lexden's caprices. The thought of writing to Sir Marmaduke Wentworth crossed her mind; but Alice Schröder had told her that Sir Marmaduke was laid up with a dangerous illness in the Pyrenees; it would be very inopportune to worry him, then, with domestic dissensions; and moreover Barbara was in very great doubt as to whether the old gentleman, were he able, would not take an active part in promoting a peace, and whether he would not strongly disapprove of, and openly condemn, the course she had taken. He had a very high opinion of Frank Churchill, who was his godson; and unless it could be distinctly proved that he had committed himself--unless it could be distinctly proved--could it? what proof was there? had not her pride and spirit involved her in a snare? how could she make her case good before an unbiassed judge? There was the letter, and the letter in the same handwriting which he had received at Bissett; but she had no actual proofs that they were not such as should have been sent to any properly-conducted man. Great Heaven, if she had been too precipitate! if she had brought about anexposéby rashness and wretched jealousy; if she had wrongly suspected that kind and generous soul, and cruelly stabbed him without hearing his defence! As Barbara turned these matters in her mind, sitting in her bedroom on the first night of her arrival in Saxe-Coburg Square, she felt the whole current of her being setting towards Frank; and she covered with her tears and kisses his miniature which hung in a locket at her watch-chain. Must this be the end of it? could her fatal folly--if folly it were--darken the rest of her life? Oh, no! she could never acknowledge her error,--that would be impossible; her pride would never permit her to take the first steps towards a reconciliation: but Frank would come--she knew it; he would come and ask her to return; and she would go; and the rest of their life should be unclouded happiness.
But Frank did not come; and the next morning when Barbara found the hours wearing very slowly by, and no solution of her wretchedness arrived at; when little Alice Schröder's well-meant chatter --well-meant, intended to be consolatory, but still chatter after all--had utterly failed in giving the smallest consolation; when Captain Lyster had called, and having been properly prepared by Mrs. Schröder before he saw Barbara, had evidently the greatest difficulty in assuming ignorance and unconcern; when the day had worn on, and no progress had been made by her in any one way,--the bitter spirit rose in her more strongly than ever, and she felt more and more impressed as to the righteousness of her cause. The fact that Frank had not come to her, crying "peccavi," and imploring her to return, had, to a very great extent, convinced her that he must have been grievously in the wrong. Fully prepared not merely to forgive him what he had not done, but to be generous enough to meet him half way in an advance which ought to have been made by her alone, she was annoyed beyond description at his making no sign; and each hour that passed over her head strengthened her obstinacy and deepened her misery.
So several days went by. Barbara resolutely refused to go out; nothing could induce her to be seen in public, and none were admitted to the house save the intimate male friends of the family. Barbara stipulated, at once, that no women should be let in, and Alice, who believed in the most marvellous degree in Barbara, agreed to it. She did, indeed, suggest one female name, the name of a lady in whom she was sure, she said, Barbara would find great comfort; but Barbara, who had some acquaintance with the person in question, hissed out, "Cat!" with such ferocity, that little Alice never dared again to open the question. The men-friends were restricted to two or three, among whom Barbara was glad, for Alice's sake, to find Captain Lyster, and equally glad not to find Mr. Beresford. She remembered Lyster's confidence to her at Uplands (she had reason to remember it, she thought with bitterness), and that confidence, though accidentally distressing to herself, had impressed her with a high notion of the Captain's truth and honour. She felt as though she would have liked to have talked to him about her own troubles; but she did not know how to start the subject, and Lyster never gave her the smallest chance.
On the fourth day after Barbara's arrival, Mrs. Schröder asked her guest, as usual, if she would drive out after luncheon, and having received the usual negative, declared that she could not stand it any longer, but that air she must have. Barbara would excuse her? Of course Barbara would; nothing she liked so much as being left alone. Then Mrs. Schröder determined on riding, and ordered her horse and groom round to the door, and went out for a ride.
She though& she would go for a stretch round the suburban lanes; it was better and more fitted for an unaccompanied lady than the Park. So turning in at Queen's Gate, she skirted the Row, and riding over the Serpentine bridge turned up towards Westbourne Terrace, at the end of which, leisurely riding along, she saw Mr. Beresford. He saw her too, and in an instant was at her side; sitting his horse to perfection, and bowing with perfect ease and grace. He asked her where she was riding, and begged to be allowed to accompany her. She had a refusal on the tip of her tongue; then recollected that she might never have another chance of speaking to him as frankly and decidedly as she had made up her mind to speak. So she consented. During the ride, she spoke earnestly and well; Beresford tried sophistry and special pleading; but they had little chance with her, so thoroughly in earnest was she. It was while in the height of his argument that they passed the lodge-gates of The Den, and were seen by Kate Mellon.
Mrs. Schröder rode home that evening in a happier frame of mind than she had been in for months. She felt that she had effectually settled all Mr. Beresford's pretentious, and that she might meet her husband without the smallest shadow on her brow. Her joy was a little dashed by the receipt of a letter from her husband, which was put into her hand as she alighted from her horse. It said that an Egyptian prince, with whom the house had large transactions, had arrived at Southampton, and that he, Gustav, as representing the house, was compelled to go down and do the honours to him; that he had telegraphed to his brother to relieve him as soon as possible; and that he hoped to be back the next day.
Mrs. Schröder's hopes were realised. In the course of the next afternoon a cab drove up to the door in Saxe-Coburg Square, and Mr. Schröder descended from it. His wife, who had rushed to the balcony at the sound of wheels, noticed that his step was slow, and that--a thing she had never seen him do before--he leant upon the cabman's arm. When he entered the room she rushed to him, and, embracing him, asked him how he was.
"I am well, my darling," he answered; "quite well, but that I have rheumatism, or something like it. A curious pain--dead, dull, stupid pain--in my left arm and shoulder. Rheumatism, of course! And you, Barbara, my dear; you are well? That's right; no news with you, of course? Ah! I have been thinking much about you in the train, and we will talk to-morrow of your affairs. Well, Alice, what news? Did you persuade Barbara to drive yesterday?"
"No, she refused again; so I went out on horseback."
"Ah, ah! that was right. Alone?"
"I went alone; but I met Mr. Beresford."
"Beresford! I hate that name; he is a bad man. Bad! bad!"
And Mr. Schröder shook his hand in the air, and was obviously very much excited.
"Gustav," said Mrs. Schröder, "I'm very sorry that--"
"Ah, you don't know! More of this Beresford another time. A bad man, my dear! Now I must look through my letters. Dinner at seven, eh?"
And with a bow, Mr. Schröder descended to his library.
The clock had struck seven, the gong had boomed through the house, and Alice and Barbara were standing at the dining-table; the place at the head being vacant.
"You had better tell your master, Pilkington," said Mrs. Schröder to the great butler; "he is probably in his dressing-room."
The great butler condescended to inform his mistress that he did not think his master had left the libery.
Mrs. Schröder then bade him find his miter, and tell him they were waiting dinner.
The butler left the room, and the next moment came running back, with a face whiter than his own neckcloth. Barbara saw him ere he had crossed the threshold; in an instant she saw that something had happened; and motioning the butler to precede her, walked to the library, followed by Mrs. Schröder.
Fallen prone on his face, across the library-table, lay Mr. Schröder, dead, with an open letter rustling between his stiffening fingers.
As Kate Mellon had soliloquised, some time had elapsed since Mr. Simnel had visited The Den. A wary general, Mr. Simnel; a man who, like the elephant, never put his foot forward without first carefully feeling the ground in front of him, and trying whether it would bear; a man who, above all, never was in a hurry. He had not gone through life cautiously and with his eyes wide open without remarking how frequently a little impulse, a little over excitement or yielding to headstrong urging, had led to direful results.
"No hurry" was one of his choicest maxims: to sleep upon an idea; to let information just received mellow in his mind until he saw the very best way to utilise it; to brood over the most promising projects, carefully sifting the chaff from the grain; to wait patiently until the two or three shadowy alternatives had, after due inspection, resolved themselves into one broad path, impossible to be shrunk from--that was Mr. Simnel's way of doing business. He never allowed the iron to be overheated. So soon as it was malleable, he struck--struck with irresistible force and sure aim; but he never dallied with the half-heated metal, or tried warpings with pincers, or blind struggles with solid resistance. If he had a fault in his worldly dealings, it was that he delighted in hiding the power which he was able to wield, even beyond the legitimate time for its manifestation. There are men, you will have observed, who, in playing whist and other games of chance and skill,--long-headed calculators, far-seers, sticklers for every point of Hoyle,--yet cannot resist the temptation of withholding their ace until the best time for its production is long past, solely for the sake of causing a sensation, for the sake of creating a feeling of astonishment among their fellow players that the great card has been all that time in hand. So it was, to a certain extent, with Robert Simnel.
He had known nothing of love, this man, during his youth. He had had no time for the cultivation of any tender passion. He had been brought up roughly, with his own way to make, with his own living to get. He was not pretty to look at, and no ladies felt an interest in smoothing his hair or patting his cheeks. The matron at the Combcardingham grammar-school,--a sour blighted old maid, a poor sad old creature, who yet retained some reminiscences of hope in her forlorn frame; in whom head-washing and looking after linen had not obliterated all traces of feminine weakness, and who remembered early days, when she dreamed that some day some one might make her some kind of a marriage offer, dreams which had never been fulfilled,--this weird sister had her favourites among the boys; but Simnel was not of them. They were mostly fat-headed, sleek-faced boys, apply, rubicund, red-lipped, and shiny; boys with reminiscences of home, who kissed Miss Wardroper as a kind of bad substitute for Ma, and who traded on their blowing beauty to be let off easily on tub-night, and to have advances of pocket money before the regular day. Robert Simnel had no share in these pettings; he was what Miss Wardroper considered an "uncomfortable lad;" he was "nothing to look at;" and preferred lying on his stomach under trees with a book between his elbows, on which his face was resting, or sitting bolt upright, trying to catch on his page the glimmer from the school-fire, to all the cossettings of the housekeeper's room. In immediate after-life his course of conduct was pretty much the same. Combcardingham was not a moral town. Many of the pretty girls who worked hard all day dressed in great finery in the evenings, and proceeded to the theatre, to the gardens, to theal-frescoentertainments with which the suburbs of the town were studded, attended by the youth of the place. The conveyancing-clerk of Messrs. Banner and Blair, the common-law ditto, and the Chancery manager, were accustomed to speak of Annie, and Emmy, and Fanny, as though the establishment of those eminent lawyers had been the Hotel-Dieu, and they the interlocutors had been Parisian students instead of provincial lawyers; the very copying-clerk, who served writs, and fetched beer for the gentlemen in the inner office, had been seen to wink his eye, and heard to mention some such article as "a bit of muslin." But Robert Simnel had remained adamant. They dared not chaff him; there was something in his manner which forbade any approach to familiarity. Some of the ribalds had once set some of their female friends to get a rise out of the quiet studious shame-faced young man; but the girls had been met with perfect politeness, mixed with such studied coldness, that the game was given up in despair. From that time until he came up to London, Simnel was left unworried.
His life in town was equally cold and celibate. He moved very little in the female society of his own class; not that he was unwelcome, but that he disliked it. It bored him; and that was the worst thing that could happen to him when once his foot was fairly set on the ladder. In the old days he had endured men, women, parties, society,--all utterly repugnant to his feelings and tastes; and he had vowed that, should he ever have the power, the severance of such obligatory ties would be the first luxury in which he would indulge; and he kept his word. "My lady," would chirp little Sir Hickory Maddox,--"my lady has bid me bring you this note of invitation to dine with us next Wednesday, Simnel. Formal, you perceive; for you are such a well-known stickler for formalities, that we fain must treat you à la Grandison;" and then Sir Hickory, who prided himself on the construction of his sentences, would double up his little head into his ample cravat, and bow in a mock heroic manner. But Mr. Simnel managed to find an excuse for not attending the solemn dinners of his chief; nor did he ever attend the pleasantréunionsof Mrs. Gillotson and Mrs. Franks, wives of the senior officers of his department, to which he was bidden. Of course, as a bachelor, it was not supposed that he should receive lady visitors; and though his rooms in Piccadilly had witnessed certain scenes which their proprietor described aspetits soupers, but which the mother-in-law of the serious saddler who held the shop below openly proclaimed as "orgies," at which certain distinguishedcoryphéesof Her Majesty's Theatre were present, and there was lots of fun and laughter and champagne, and an impromptu galop after supper,--no one could tax Simnel with any decided flirtation. He had been very polite to, more than that, very jolly with every body, thoroughly hospitable, genial, and kind; but when they broke up, and Punter Blair put Fanny Douglas into a cab, and Sis Considine walked away with Kate Trafford and her sister Nelly, and the whole party turned out laughing and singing into the street, Robert Simnel went round the rooms and put out the wax-lights, and picked up bits of lobster-shell and cracker-paper from the floor, and, yawned confoundedly, and was deuced glad it was over.
So he went on his way through life, with that way unillumined by one spark of love until he first saw Kate Mellon. How well he recollected every circumstance connected with the first glimpse of her! It was on a glorious spring afternoon at the beginning of the season; he was walking with Beresford (with whom he was just beginning to be intimate) through the Row, when he noticed the heads of the promenaders all turned one way; and following the direction, he saw a mounted female figure coming at a rapid pace down the ride. The horse she sat was a splendid black barb, an impetuous tearing fellow, who had not yet learned that he was not to have his own way in life, and who was making the most desperate struggle to recover such submission as he had been compelled to yield. In and out, in and out, from side to side, he bounded, obedient to the light hand, the scarcely tapping whip and the swerving body of his rider; but his foam-flecked chest and his sweat-rippled neck showed how unwillingly he accepted his lesson. At length, on catching sight of Beresford, who left Simnel's arm and walked to the rails, Kate drew rein, and, while she gave one hand to her acquaintance, she relaxed the other until the horse had full play for his stretching neck. Simnel stood amazed at her beauty and at the perfect outline of her supple figure. She was just exactly his style. Mr. Simnel had no admiration for Grecian features or classic mould. Ebon tresses and deep dreamy eyes were little regarded by him; his taste was of the earth, earthy; piquancy of expression, plumpness of form, was what he, to use his own expression, "went in for." He would not have bestowed a second glance upon Barbara Churchill; but Kate Mellon was exactly to his taste. He filled his eyes and his heart with her as she sat talking to Beresford that day; the sweeping lines of her habit, the dainty little handkerchief peeping out of the saddle-pocket, the dogskin gauntlets, the neat chimney-pot hat, the braided hair, the face flushed with exercise,--all these lived vividly in his remembrance, and came in between his eyes and letters for signature to irascible correspondents and long accounts of indebted tax-payers. He was not long in obtaining an introduction to his idol; and then he saw at once, with his innate sharpness, that he had but little chance of pressing his suit. Long before thatéclaircissementwhich Beresford had described to him, Simnel saw the state of affairs in that direction, and knew what Kate Mellon fondly hoped could never be realised. He did not think that the girl ever would have the chance of so plainly stating the position of affairs; but he knew Beresford well enough to be certain that moral cowardice would prevent his availing himself of the position offered to him. Nor did Simnel blame him in this; that far-seeing gentleman knew perfectly that for any man in society to ally himself in matrimony to a woman with a reputation which was equivocal simply from her profession, no matter how excellent the individual herself might be, was sheer madness. "It isn't," he argued to himself, "as though I were a landed proprietor or a titled swell, who could throw the aegis of my rank and position over her, and settle the question. Heaps of them have done that; dukes have married actresses of queer names and women of no name at all, and all the past life has been elegantly festooned over with strawberry-leaves. I'm a self-made man, and they hate me for that, though my status is now such that they can't deny it; but then they'd immediately begin to ask questions about my wife; and if there were a chance of flooring us there, we should be done entirely."
So when Mr. Beresford had told the story of his adventure with Kate Mellon, Mr. Simnel, who had very much slacked off the scent, purely from want of encouragement and a chance of seeing his way, returned to the charge with renewed vigour. Beresford had faithfully repeated to his Mentor every word of Kate's wild outburst; and in that sudden revelation Simnel, nothing amazed thereby, had found a strong incentive to farther exertion. Kate had hinted at relatives of whom her future husband need not be ashamed. Who were they? That was one of the first points to be found out, He wisely looked upon Charles Beresford as now cleared out of his way. It was not for nothing that Mr. Simnel had read at the Combcardingham grammar-school of thespretae injuria formae; and he knew that the Commissioner had probably committed himself for ever in the eyes of the lady of The Den. Nevertheless, to make assurance doubly sure, he at once used all his influence towards turning Beresford's views in another direction; thus farther irritating Kate's pride, and preventing any chance of a reconciliation; for this apparently phlegmatic man of business, this calm, calculating, long-headed dry chip of an official, loved the little woman with his whole heart and strength, and determined to miss no opportunity of so winning her regard by his devotion to her cause, and by the tangible results springing therefrom. That must tell in the end, he thought. She is now heart-sore about Beresford; she has discovered the foundation of sand on which her first little castle was built; and now she will not touch the ruins or lay another stone. There is but one way to arouse in her any new life,--the keynote to be touched is ambition. If there be any truth in her assertion that the is sprung from a race of which she can be proud, one may work it through that. So Mr. Simnel worked away. He speedily found that Kate's own knowledge of her origin was cloudy in the extreme; but he possessed, in a rare degree, the faculty of putting two and two together and making four of them very rapidly; and he had not been very long chewing the cud of poor Kitty's stories of the circus, and the uncle, and all the rest of it, before he saw a clue which sent him spinning far into Northumberland by express-train to a place where he saw the circus which Kate had named was advertised in those wonderful columnEraas then performing.
No one accompanied Mr. Simnel on that journey; no one knew what he did or what he heard; but as the chronicler of these mild adventures, I may state that though not in the least astonished at what was--after a free pecuniary disbursement--imparted to him, he came back to London radiant. The clerks in the Tin-Tax Office did not know what to make of him; some of the young ones thought he had got married; but at that suggestion the older men shook their heads. That was the last thing, they opined, to cause an access of animal spirits. He might have come in for a legacy, or taken the change out of some body whom he hated; that was all they could see to account for his cheerfulness. Two or three of the men, Mr. Pringle of course among the number, improved the occasion by asking for a day or two's leave of absence; a request at once granted by the smiling secretary, who, on the day after his return, announced his intention of making a half-holiday, and wound his way towards The Den. He rode through the lodge-gate, and exchanged salutations with the rosy porteress; but as he turned into the carriage-drive he perceived Freeman, the old stud-groom, standing at the entrance to the stables, alert and expectant. As soon as the old man recognised Simnel, he advanced towards him, and motioned him towards the farmyard. Simnel turned his horse's head in that direction, and when he arrived inside the gates and on the straw-ride, old Freeman held his bridle as he dismounted.
"A word wi' you, sir," said the old man, putting his finger on his lip and nodding mysteriously.
Mr. Simnel looked astonished, but said nothing, as the old groom called to a helper, to whose care he relinquished the horse; then taking Simnel into a little room and planting him in the midst of a grove of girths and stirrups, the saddles of which formed an alcove above him, the old man produced a short set of steps, and motioning to Simnel to seat himself on the top of them, took up his position immediately in front of him, and said, in a voice intended to be low, but in reality very hissingly sonorous,--
"Waät be matther?"
It was seldom that Mr. Simnel was nonplussed, but this was beyond him. He had only caught one word, and that he thought better to repeat. So he merely ejaculated "matter?"
"Ay, matther!" echoed the old man, this time in rather an angry tone. "Waät be matther down yon?" jerking his head towards the house. Mr. Simnel thought that the man was presuming on his position to take liberties, a very terrible crime in his eyes, so he simply elevated his thick eyebrows and echoed, "Down yon?"
"Thou knowst waät a mean, sir, weel enow. Waät be matther wi' my leddy? waät be matther wi' my bright lassie ai've tended this ever so long?" and the old man's face puckered up into wrinkles, and he produced from his hat a cotton handkerchief, with which he rubbed his eyes.
"What do you mean. Freeman? I didn't follow you until this instant. Is--is your mistress ill?" asked Simnel.
"No, not ill; that's to say waät folks call ill; always greetin', that waät she is,--thinkin' of something yon,--givin' no heed to waät goes on close to her face. Eyes lookin' far away out into the distance; no thowt of the stock such as she had; hasn't been into the farrier's shop these three weeks,--blister here, singe there, do as 't loikes; Miss never says nay now, and that's bad sign; for a more thrifty body never stepped."
"Ah, she doesn't take such interest, you mean, in what goes on here as she did."
"Int'rest! She cares nowt aboot it!" said the old man. "Ther' soommut oop, soommut wring! that's what thee is. Ther' can't have been no one a philanderin' wi' her, on and off like,--you understand?"
"I should think not," said Mr. Simnel, with a face as solid as a rock.
"If I'd thowt that," said old Freeman, "and I'd found 'em out, I'd beat 'ems brains out as if it were a stoat!" and as he spoke he struck the palm of his hand with the handle of his hunting-whip in an unmistakably vicious manner. "Dunno waät's coom to her to-day," he continued, after a pause; "haven't set eyes on her all the morning. Hasn't been in t'yard, hasn't been in t'staäbles, hasn't moved out of t'house."
This latter part of Freeman's speech seemed to arouse Mr. Simnel's fading attention; he looked up sharply, and said,
"Not been out of the house all the morning! what does that mean? Who was here yesterday?"
"Yesterday," said the old man slowly considering; "there were Sandcrack coom oop about Telegram's navicular,--no more navicular than I am; nowt but a sprain;--and Wallis from Wethers's wi' a pair o' job grays; and old Mr. Isaacson as tried some pheayton 'osses; and--"
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Simnel; "no young man; no one in the habit of coming here?"
"Not one," said Freeman.
"That's devilish odd," said Mr. Simnel, half to himself; "what the deuce has happened to upset her? I'll go in and see. Good-day, Freeman; I've brought some good news for your mistress, and I hope we shall soon see her herself again."
The old man touched his hat, as Simnel walked off to the house, where he found Kate's servant, and learnt from her that her mistress had kept her room all the morning, complaining of headache. From this domestic Mr. Simnel had a repetition of old Freeman's story. Not only had she seemingly lost all interest in her business, which formerly so thoroughly engrossed her attention, but for the last few months she had been in every respect a thoroughly changed woman.
"I've been with her four year," said the woman, holding her hands clasped in front of her, and beating time with them at the conclusion of each sentence; "four year I've been with her, and never see no megrims. A cheerfuller lighter-hearteder lady there were not, so long as you was quick. Every thing must be done directly minute, and all was right. But latterly there's been nothink but megrims and lowness of sperrits, and no caring for what we wears or what we eats, or whether we eats at all, indeed." This and much more to the same effect, only cut short by Simnel's requesting the woman to take his name to her mistress, and say he was anxious for a few words with her.
He sat down in the dining-room and took up aBell's Lifewhich lay on the table; but had hardly glanced at it when the door was hurriedly thrown open and Kate entered. She was perfectly colourless and trembled violently. As she gave her cold hand to Simnel, she asked at once,
"What's the matter, Simnel? what's brought you here? Something particular to say, they tell me. What is it?"
Though Mr. Simnel was in reality very much shocked at the change which had taken place in her personal appearance, he did not betray it by look or word. There was not a break in his voice as, retaining her hand between his, he said,
"Why, Kate, is this your hospitality? is this the way you receive visitors, demanding their business in this pistol-to-the-head fashion? Suppose I were to say that my pressing business was to look at and to talk to you..
"No, no, Simnel; no nonsense. At least not now, please; as much as you like when you've answered me. There hasn't been a--I mean he hasn't--you haven't--confound it, Simnel, why don't you help me?" and she stamped her foot upon the floor in rage.
"Kate, Kate," said he, still quietly, though this little evidence of her excited state touched him very deeply, "I can't tell what is the matter with you to-day. I've come to talk to you and to tell you a little news about yourself--that's all."
"About myself? not about--I mean about no one else? Nothing has happened? nothing--"
"Nothing that I know of. I only arrived in town late last night, and I have seen no one this morning. What on earth did you expect? Now you're flushing again! My dear Kate, you're not well, child; you must--"
"I'm all right now," said she, withdrawing her hand; "I'm all right again. It was only some stupid nonsense; I'm a bit nervous, I think.. I'll have some change of air, and see what that will do. I'm as nervous as a cat. Had a girl here for a lesson yesterday. Fine girl, sister of Dick Hamilton's--Dirty Dick's, you know; and she wanted to see me put her horse at the brook. The brute refused, and I couldn't put him at it the second time--lost my pluck--funked it myself--fancy that! First time such a thing ever happened to me!"
"You want change and rest, Kitty," said Simnel, kindly. "And you want rest of mind much more than mere respite from bodily fatigue. Your life lately has been past in a series of storms, in which you have been tossed about, and whirled here and there, in a manner which is now beginning to tell upon you. Now, all these starts and flushes and tremors to-day are the result of some fresh worry. What happened yesterday?"
"Happened yesterday?" echoed Kate, flushing deeply as she spoke; "nothing."
"Who was here?" asked Simnel, in a mild tone of voice, but fixing his eyes full on her.
"Here? who? How dare you question me in this way? Who are you to come worming and prying into my affairs? I never asked you to come, and I sha'n't be sorry how soon you go!"
He was not an atom moved at this outburst of rage, at these taunts; at least he did not appear so. He only shook his head, and said sorrowfully,
"Unfair, Kitty; horribly unfair. I've just come back from a journey of hundreds of miles, undertaken for the object of what you are pleased to term 'worming and prying into your affairs;' and this is all the thanks I get."
She seized his hand, and pressed it warmly. "There, there! forget it: it's all part and parcel of my nervousness, that I was telling you about. Now you shall know who was here yesterday. Beyond the usual business-people, only one man--Scadgers the money-lender!"
"Scadgers! The deuce he was! What brought him? Did he come to--no, that's impossible. What did bring him?"
"Now it's you that are muttering to yourself, Simnel," said Kate. "Make your mind easy; a letter from me brought him here. I wanted a little assistance."
"Stuff, Kitty! What on earth--oh, I see now. You little flat! you've been paying young Prescott's bills for him."
"Well, what if I have? You don't mind."
"Mind! not I. I love you better for it. Oh, I see you smile; but I've been making a few inquiries at the Office since I was here last, and I find that it is a case with your pupil and him. He's a fine young fellow, and will do well." It is astonishing how, when we are no longer jealous of a man, his good qualities crop out.
"He is a good fellow; a thoroughly good fellow; a gentleman in every thought," said Kate; "and it was only right to give him a clean start again. All young men--all who are worth any thing--kick up their heels at first; and then some fools pull them in tight, and they get sulky and vicious, and never run straight afterwards. But if they're held straight in hand, and have just enough rein given them, they right themselves very soon, and go as square as a die. You'll see now that James Prescott will marry, and settle down into a regular humdrum life, and be as happy as the day. That's the only existence, Simnel. Lord help us! They talk of the pleasures of excitement,--the miserable fools, if they only knew!" and Kate heaved a deep sigh, and buried her face in her hands.
"Come, come, Kitty," said Simnel, "this will never do. Nothing that you've said can reasonably be applied to your own case. You've had the enjoyment of one style of life, and now let us hope the joys of the other are rapidly coming upon you. You shake your head again. What on earth is the matter with you, child?"
"I can't tell, Simnel," said the girl, raising her tear-blurred face. "I can't tell. I've a horrible weight here," placing her hand upon her heart,--"a something hanging over me; a presentiment of something about to happen,--and I haven't the least notion what,--that never leaves me. I'm as flat as a bad bottle of champagne. By the way, I think I'll try whether a glass of that Madeira wouldn't--"
"No, no, Kitty; for heaven's sake keep off that! The lift given by that is only temporary, and you're twice as down as you were before, when it subsides. You've never asked me one word about my journey yet."
"Your journey! What journey? Oh, to be sure, you said you'd been away, and on my business. Where did you go to?"
"To Newcastle-on-Tyne. To Norton's Fields, just beyond the town; where--"
"Norton's Fields! Newcastle! Why that's where we used to make our pitch with old Fox's Circus, and--"
"And that's exactly the place where old Fox's Circus is pitched at this moment."
"Did you go to it?"
"Why, Kitty, can't you understand that, after what you told me the other day, to visit it, and glean information from its people, was the sole cause of my journey?"
"And did you see them all? Is old Fox still alive; and Madam, with her deep voice and big bony hands; and Lucette and Josephine--big girls now, and doing thehaute-écolebusiness, I suppose; and Brownini, the clown, is he with them yet? and Thompson the barebacked-rider--a conceited beast, he was!--and old Bellars the band-leader? Lord, Lord what happy times those were! happier than I shall ever see again, I know."
"Nonsense, Kate. Your life is just now at its turn. All those horrid days of grinding labour in the circus, all the hard work you've done here, shall be to you like a dream. You shall be a swell, and hold your own with the best of them. Ay, and not merely in money,--I offered you that long since,--but I wanted to prove a position for you, and Ihaveproved it, Kitty, my darling!" and Mr. Simnel's usually pale cheeks glowed, and his eyes glistened, and he squeezed Kate's hand in the excitement of his feelings.
"You've found out whose child lam, Simnel?" asked Kate.
"Every thing! I've only got to see your father, and wring from him the confession,--and I have the means of doing that, as safe as houses--and you shall be put in your proper position at once, Kitty, and a capital position it is, too. Your father is a man of great wealth, very highly thought of, moving in the best circles, and eminently respectable."
"And his name?"
"Ah, that I mustn't tell you till next time we meet. It's due to him to let him know how much we have learned, and to give him the option of behaving properly. If he refuse, I can put such a screw on him as will compel him at once to do as we wish. And then, Kitty," continued Simnel, dropping his voice, and looking at her fondly from under his bushy eyebrows "when all my work for you is satisfactorily finished, I shall come to you and ask for my reward."
"You shall have it, Robert," she said simply, placing her hand in his. It was the first time she had called him by his Christian name, and as he heard it a thrill of delight ran through him.