Volume Two—Chapter Six.

Volume Two—Chapter Six.Stormy! Glass Rising.Barometers are of such use to maritime and other folk, in indicating the changes of atmospherical phenomena, and the approach of disturbing elements, that it is a wonder in these go-a-head days, no instrument has been constructed by which we could ascertain the fluctuations of the human temperament. One might have a sort of graduated thermometer,par exemple, to indicate the rise and force of the passions, especially that of anger, and call it a “cholerometer.” The idea may be recommended to the attention of scientific philanthropists, as it would be of incalculable use in preventing unruly encounters, if one but just knew the exact choleric and argumentative calibre and equipoise of those with whom one has frequently to come in contact.If such an instrument did exist, the barometrical measurement applied to the old dowager, Mrs Hartshorne’s temper on the morning that Markworth came to have his interview, and state his case about Susan, would certainly have indicated some such stormy height, or fall, as 29 degrees 31, or thereabouts!Mr Trump had gone down expressly the previous day, as he said he would; and a nice storm he created. “Not a tempest in a teapot,” but a regular carousal of the elements—a rushing together of hot and cold streams, not of air, as is so eloquently described in the pages of Professor Maury, but of temper and passion.“Stuff and nonsense,” said the dowager, virulently, “I won’t believe it! Do you mean to say that that man, who was stopping here in the house with us as Thomas’ friend, and accepted our hospitality, took advantage of our kindness, and ran off with that idiot girl; why, it’s absurd! Stuff and nonsense, I tell you. I won’t believe it!”“But, my dear madam,” interposed Mr Trump, “I assure you it is a fact. We’ve got the proof, and I have just told you all the circumstances. It’s as clear as a counsellor’s wig, madam! He took the girl away from here, married her, and there she is; nothing could be plainer.”“Gammon!” said the dowager. “It is all rubbish!”“My dear madam,” said the lawyer, “just be sensible for a moment.”“I’ve got more sense in my little finger, sir, than you have in your whole body,” snapped out the old lady.“Granted, my dear madam; but, pardon me, if that is not exactly relevant to the case. The proof is clear enough that Markworth took her away; and I sent my clerk down to the church mentioned in the certificate, and there is no doubt that he married Susan there, and that she’s now at Havre. Besides, his motive is plain enough; he wanted to get her fortune.”“The artful, designing scoundrel!” broke out the dowager.“The question is, my dear madam, what is to be done now? That fellow said he was coming down here to-morrow morning. Would it be better to wait until you see him, and fathom his plans, or else send over to Havre at once, and take steps to recover the girl?”“The cunning, crawling villain!” ejaculated Mrs Hartshorne; “but I’ll be even with him yet, I’ll be even with him!”“I am quite at your disposal,” promptly replied the lawyer, who was eager to be bounding after Markworth; and just at this moment, before anything had been decided upon, Doctor Jolly was announced.He apologised for interrupting the conversation; but said, that as he had heard that Mr Trump had just come down, he thought there would be some tidings of Susan, which must be his excuse for walking in so unceremoniously.Whereupon, both the dowager and the lawyer together fired out upon him with the astonishing news. “Bless my soul!” exclaimed he, horrified at what he heard. “Who would have thought it? But I always said he was a bad fellow! I told you so Mrs Hartshorne, I told you so!”“And much good there was in your telling! If you hadn’t been always dangling here, taking that governess off from her duties, and had looked after Susan better yourself, this would never have happened.”“Bless my soul! madam,” exclaimed the doctor, staring helplessly at Mr Trump, aghast at the blame being thus thrown on him of all others; and dabbing his face in perplexity with his yellow bandana pocket handkerchief. “Bless my soul, madam! What haveIgot to do with it?”Tom at this moment came hobbling up the front steps, and the doctor, eagerly seizing the opportunity to escape from the dowager’s invective, went out of the room hastily to open the door for him, when he took the opportunity of telling Tom, as we have already heard, that there was “the devil to pay in there,” pointing with his thumb over his shoulder to the room he had just quitted, in the most significant manner.The tale had, of course, to be told over again to Tom, when he was admitted to the council, now of four; and an animated debate ensued on what was to be done. It was finally resolved that the lawyer should telegraph to London, and send over one of his clerks that night to Havre, to watch the house where Susan was, and see that she was not removed in the interim; that Mr Trump was to remain at The Poplars until after Markworth’s visit on the morrow; and, at his express wish, Tom was to go over as soon afterwards as possible, and fetch Susan back himself.After a good deal of fluctuation, from 29 degrees 31 down to so low a fall as 28 degrees 64, the barometrical pressure of the dowager’s temper had returned to its abnormal state, during the excited conversation that had gone on all the time; but the next morning, however, when Markworth made his appearance, the dowager’s barometer sank again to a very low depth indeed.Although he was opposed to three people at once—the old lady, Tom, and Mr Trump, the former of whom piled Pelion on Ossa in her wrath, Markworth kept his temper admirably. He seemed to pride himself on the successful issue of his scheme, and related each step he had taken with an air of ill-concealed triumph. The dowager was furious, but her hot-tempered words appeared to have little or no effect on the man who now proclaimed himself the husband of her daughter, a neglect of which daughter by herself and her cruelty, he stated, led to his success. Rages are all very well in their way, but the dowager’s anger was powerless here, so Markworth bore off the palm of victory against the triple odds against which he had contested it.The only time that he appeared to be affected by all that was said against him, was when Tom addressed him pointedly and coldly with the stern truth, which he could not dispute. He then turned pale.“You have done a dishonourable action, sir,” said Tom. “I treated you and trusted you as a gentleman and a friend, and you have abused that trust. I—I never thought you would have acted like it; and, apart from the injury you have done us, I am sorry for it, for you have hurt my faith in a man’s honour.”Tom really felt it thus.“I can’t excuse myself,” answered Markworth, “but I have done good to your sister instead of harm. I have brought her back to her reason, instead of letting her remain a hopeless idiot, as she would have done if I had not drawn her out; and I’ll say this, it was not all for the sake of her money I did it. I was really, so help me heaven I interested in her case, and trusted to cure her honestly.”“You need not swear any more false oaths to me,” answered Tom; “I don’t desire to speak to you again, or see you again as long as I live.”“Very well,” said Markworth, “so be it. But all I have to say is this, that if you wish to take back your sister you are free to do so; if she likes to go, I will not prevent her. As for you, madam,” he said, turning politely to Mrs Hartshorne, and bowing, “I have placed the matter in the hands of my solicitor, for I am determined to get the fortune to which my wife is entitled.”“You’ll not get a penny, rogue,” retorted the dowager (barometer 28 degrees 64!) “not if there’s any law in the land.”“We will see, madam.”“Hark you, sir,” said Mr Trump, having his say, of which he had been sadly deprived all the time the dowager was going on. “Hark you, sir, we can find the girl was of unsound mind, as I told you before, and have you indicted for a conspiracy.”“That we will!” echoed the dowager, “and have you on the treadmill, villain!”Mrs Hartshorne had somewhat vague notions of the power of that large word in capitals—Law, and seemed to think that its obvious bent in any case, especially one like the present, was the treadmill.“We will see,” answered Markworth, defiantly; “but you will have to prove your case, my dear sir. You see I did it all by myself, and the girl was a willing agent, and of age: she is of perfectly sound mind, as she can prove in the witness-box, and how you are to get over all that evidence remains to be proved.”“We’ll prove it,” answered Mr Trump; but although he was certainly cross, his countenance did not exhibit any strong hopes of success. “The cunning vagabond is too much for us,” he murmured,sotto voce.“Good morning,” said Markworth, blandly, to all, and he walked out triumphantly, the dowager screaming after him, “Not a penny will you get, scoundrel.”In Markworth’s confession he had very naturally, for his own sake, not brought up the governess’s name; consequently she was excluded from all share in the conspiracy. She knew of his being down, however, and had gone out apparently for a walk while the battle was being fought in the dining-room. She wished to meet Markworth alone, and he was equally desirous to see her; so it is not surprising that a few minutes after taking such a stagey farewell of the dowager, the two met beyond the precincts of The Poplars.“Just the person I wanted to see,” ejaculated Markworth, on coming up with her under the shadow of the wall, which encircled the Hartshorne mansion.“Indeed! I did not think you would be so glad to see me,” replied Miss Kingscott.“Indeed I am, Clara; I wished to settle up with you. I have married the girl, and the thing’s regularlyen trainnow. I have only got to get the money.”“That’s just what I wanted.”“Well, I’ve got it for you.”“Really?” exclaimed the governess, surprised; she had never thought that Markworth would have kept to his compact once he had got the girl off. But he was “careful about little things,” as he had told Tom when he first came down to The Poplars, and he was not going to incur Clara Kingscott’s hostility by breaking his agreement, even when there was nothing to force him to keep it.“Yes, really,” he answered; “here’s the other hundred I promised you, so you and I are quits, Clara.”“Thank you,” she said, turning over the notes in astonishment in her hand; “I never expected you to pay me.”“Did you not. I always keep my bargains.”“Do you,” she replied. “You have not always done so.”“Let bygones be bygones, Clara; I promised you the money, and I have paid you now, and you cannot complain.”“It is the first time you ever recollected what you owed me,” said the governess, bitterly.“Don’t say that, Clara; let us be good friends. Our compact is now finished, and we need not rake up the past. If there is anything more I can do for you, Clara, let me know; and if it’s in my power, I’ll do it,” said Markworth, magnanimously, for he thought the woman had still a lingering regard for him.“I don’t want anything from you, Allynne Markworth,” she said, angrily stamping her foot; “and I don’t wish to see you again. You’ve been the curse of my life! But all’s not over yet between us!” she muttered, significantly, as she turned on her heel and walked back towards the house.Markworth looked after her a moment, and then resumed his way down to the railway station,en routefor London. He had a good deal to do before starting for Havre, and wanted to get there before Tom or anyone else went over after Susan.“That’s the way with them all!” he said, to himself, as he walked away rapidly in quick strides. “They get all they can, and then wash their hands of you!”But he made a great mistake. Miss Kingscott had not by any means washed her hands of Markworth yet. She had gathered a good deal from the conversation between Mr Trump and the dowager on the previous day, to which she had listened attentively through the keyhole of the next room, and she knew that she could not only upset Markworth’s plans for obtaining Susan’s inheritance, but perhaps, also, get him imprisoned, if she exposed her share in the affair.This she intended to do, but not until the last moment, just when she should think fit; and at present she would remain at The Poplars, and go on as if she knew nothing of the great event. She might captivate Tom in the meantime, she thought; and, at all events, she as yet had the doctor to fall back upon. Aesculapius had been twice as devoted to her since she displayed so much energy in trying to get Susan back. He had muttered to himself, over and over again, as he rode up to The Poplars, in his daily visits to Tom, “She is a dooced fine girl; and a clever girl, too, by Gad!” and, no doubt, would have repeated that declaration of his which the campaigner’s call had nipped in the bud, if the opportunity had only favoured him. But it had not, for the dowager seemed adverse to letting the doctor remain a moment alone with the governess.When Markworth had gone away, the council between Mrs Hartshorne, and Tom, and the lawyer, was resumed; Tom said that he would go the next day if he was able and fetch back Susan. As for the money matters, the old lady declared she would spare no expense to “cheat that scoundrel” out of his plunder; and Mr Trump was authorised to go to every end to defeat the suit of MarkworthversusHartshorne, which the schemer had stated would be at once commenced, the old lady refusing to surrender her daughter’s fortune unless she were compelled to do so. And she “wouldn’t even do it then,” she declared.While they were debating over the matter, Miss Kingscott came in quietly and went up to her room—nobody knowing what a strong witness she would prove on the side of the defendants in the case, if she so willed it: she now revolved in her mind whether she would or would not act in the matter. It was as yet unsettled, although she had sworn to revenge herself on Markworth. His last words to her had somewhat disarmed her.Nemesis ornonNemesis: that was the question. The former triumphed. Mr Trump went back to London; and there he found that the case of MarkworthversusHartshorne, was already “brewing in the storm,” although it remained to be proved whether it was going to be “nipped in the bud,” as the American stump speaker told his audience after he had informed them that he “smelt a rat.” With which metaphor the chapter had better be concluded.Barometer “Fair” again!

Barometers are of such use to maritime and other folk, in indicating the changes of atmospherical phenomena, and the approach of disturbing elements, that it is a wonder in these go-a-head days, no instrument has been constructed by which we could ascertain the fluctuations of the human temperament. One might have a sort of graduated thermometer,par exemple, to indicate the rise and force of the passions, especially that of anger, and call it a “cholerometer.” The idea may be recommended to the attention of scientific philanthropists, as it would be of incalculable use in preventing unruly encounters, if one but just knew the exact choleric and argumentative calibre and equipoise of those with whom one has frequently to come in contact.

If such an instrument did exist, the barometrical measurement applied to the old dowager, Mrs Hartshorne’s temper on the morning that Markworth came to have his interview, and state his case about Susan, would certainly have indicated some such stormy height, or fall, as 29 degrees 31, or thereabouts!

Mr Trump had gone down expressly the previous day, as he said he would; and a nice storm he created. “Not a tempest in a teapot,” but a regular carousal of the elements—a rushing together of hot and cold streams, not of air, as is so eloquently described in the pages of Professor Maury, but of temper and passion.

“Stuff and nonsense,” said the dowager, virulently, “I won’t believe it! Do you mean to say that that man, who was stopping here in the house with us as Thomas’ friend, and accepted our hospitality, took advantage of our kindness, and ran off with that idiot girl; why, it’s absurd! Stuff and nonsense, I tell you. I won’t believe it!”

“But, my dear madam,” interposed Mr Trump, “I assure you it is a fact. We’ve got the proof, and I have just told you all the circumstances. It’s as clear as a counsellor’s wig, madam! He took the girl away from here, married her, and there she is; nothing could be plainer.”

“Gammon!” said the dowager. “It is all rubbish!”

“My dear madam,” said the lawyer, “just be sensible for a moment.”

“I’ve got more sense in my little finger, sir, than you have in your whole body,” snapped out the old lady.

“Granted, my dear madam; but, pardon me, if that is not exactly relevant to the case. The proof is clear enough that Markworth took her away; and I sent my clerk down to the church mentioned in the certificate, and there is no doubt that he married Susan there, and that she’s now at Havre. Besides, his motive is plain enough; he wanted to get her fortune.”

“The artful, designing scoundrel!” broke out the dowager.

“The question is, my dear madam, what is to be done now? That fellow said he was coming down here to-morrow morning. Would it be better to wait until you see him, and fathom his plans, or else send over to Havre at once, and take steps to recover the girl?”

“The cunning, crawling villain!” ejaculated Mrs Hartshorne; “but I’ll be even with him yet, I’ll be even with him!”

“I am quite at your disposal,” promptly replied the lawyer, who was eager to be bounding after Markworth; and just at this moment, before anything had been decided upon, Doctor Jolly was announced.

He apologised for interrupting the conversation; but said, that as he had heard that Mr Trump had just come down, he thought there would be some tidings of Susan, which must be his excuse for walking in so unceremoniously.

Whereupon, both the dowager and the lawyer together fired out upon him with the astonishing news. “Bless my soul!” exclaimed he, horrified at what he heard. “Who would have thought it? But I always said he was a bad fellow! I told you so Mrs Hartshorne, I told you so!”

“And much good there was in your telling! If you hadn’t been always dangling here, taking that governess off from her duties, and had looked after Susan better yourself, this would never have happened.”

“Bless my soul! madam,” exclaimed the doctor, staring helplessly at Mr Trump, aghast at the blame being thus thrown on him of all others; and dabbing his face in perplexity with his yellow bandana pocket handkerchief. “Bless my soul, madam! What haveIgot to do with it?”

Tom at this moment came hobbling up the front steps, and the doctor, eagerly seizing the opportunity to escape from the dowager’s invective, went out of the room hastily to open the door for him, when he took the opportunity of telling Tom, as we have already heard, that there was “the devil to pay in there,” pointing with his thumb over his shoulder to the room he had just quitted, in the most significant manner.

The tale had, of course, to be told over again to Tom, when he was admitted to the council, now of four; and an animated debate ensued on what was to be done. It was finally resolved that the lawyer should telegraph to London, and send over one of his clerks that night to Havre, to watch the house where Susan was, and see that she was not removed in the interim; that Mr Trump was to remain at The Poplars until after Markworth’s visit on the morrow; and, at his express wish, Tom was to go over as soon afterwards as possible, and fetch Susan back himself.

After a good deal of fluctuation, from 29 degrees 31 down to so low a fall as 28 degrees 64, the barometrical pressure of the dowager’s temper had returned to its abnormal state, during the excited conversation that had gone on all the time; but the next morning, however, when Markworth made his appearance, the dowager’s barometer sank again to a very low depth indeed.

Although he was opposed to three people at once—the old lady, Tom, and Mr Trump, the former of whom piled Pelion on Ossa in her wrath, Markworth kept his temper admirably. He seemed to pride himself on the successful issue of his scheme, and related each step he had taken with an air of ill-concealed triumph. The dowager was furious, but her hot-tempered words appeared to have little or no effect on the man who now proclaimed himself the husband of her daughter, a neglect of which daughter by herself and her cruelty, he stated, led to his success. Rages are all very well in their way, but the dowager’s anger was powerless here, so Markworth bore off the palm of victory against the triple odds against which he had contested it.

The only time that he appeared to be affected by all that was said against him, was when Tom addressed him pointedly and coldly with the stern truth, which he could not dispute. He then turned pale.

“You have done a dishonourable action, sir,” said Tom. “I treated you and trusted you as a gentleman and a friend, and you have abused that trust. I—I never thought you would have acted like it; and, apart from the injury you have done us, I am sorry for it, for you have hurt my faith in a man’s honour.”

Tom really felt it thus.

“I can’t excuse myself,” answered Markworth, “but I have done good to your sister instead of harm. I have brought her back to her reason, instead of letting her remain a hopeless idiot, as she would have done if I had not drawn her out; and I’ll say this, it was not all for the sake of her money I did it. I was really, so help me heaven I interested in her case, and trusted to cure her honestly.”

“You need not swear any more false oaths to me,” answered Tom; “I don’t desire to speak to you again, or see you again as long as I live.”

“Very well,” said Markworth, “so be it. But all I have to say is this, that if you wish to take back your sister you are free to do so; if she likes to go, I will not prevent her. As for you, madam,” he said, turning politely to Mrs Hartshorne, and bowing, “I have placed the matter in the hands of my solicitor, for I am determined to get the fortune to which my wife is entitled.”

“You’ll not get a penny, rogue,” retorted the dowager (barometer 28 degrees 64!) “not if there’s any law in the land.”

“We will see, madam.”

“Hark you, sir,” said Mr Trump, having his say, of which he had been sadly deprived all the time the dowager was going on. “Hark you, sir, we can find the girl was of unsound mind, as I told you before, and have you indicted for a conspiracy.”

“That we will!” echoed the dowager, “and have you on the treadmill, villain!”

Mrs Hartshorne had somewhat vague notions of the power of that large word in capitals—Law, and seemed to think that its obvious bent in any case, especially one like the present, was the treadmill.

“We will see,” answered Markworth, defiantly; “but you will have to prove your case, my dear sir. You see I did it all by myself, and the girl was a willing agent, and of age: she is of perfectly sound mind, as she can prove in the witness-box, and how you are to get over all that evidence remains to be proved.”

“We’ll prove it,” answered Mr Trump; but although he was certainly cross, his countenance did not exhibit any strong hopes of success. “The cunning vagabond is too much for us,” he murmured,sotto voce.

“Good morning,” said Markworth, blandly, to all, and he walked out triumphantly, the dowager screaming after him, “Not a penny will you get, scoundrel.”

In Markworth’s confession he had very naturally, for his own sake, not brought up the governess’s name; consequently she was excluded from all share in the conspiracy. She knew of his being down, however, and had gone out apparently for a walk while the battle was being fought in the dining-room. She wished to meet Markworth alone, and he was equally desirous to see her; so it is not surprising that a few minutes after taking such a stagey farewell of the dowager, the two met beyond the precincts of The Poplars.

“Just the person I wanted to see,” ejaculated Markworth, on coming up with her under the shadow of the wall, which encircled the Hartshorne mansion.

“Indeed! I did not think you would be so glad to see me,” replied Miss Kingscott.

“Indeed I am, Clara; I wished to settle up with you. I have married the girl, and the thing’s regularlyen trainnow. I have only got to get the money.”

“That’s just what I wanted.”

“Well, I’ve got it for you.”

“Really?” exclaimed the governess, surprised; she had never thought that Markworth would have kept to his compact once he had got the girl off. But he was “careful about little things,” as he had told Tom when he first came down to The Poplars, and he was not going to incur Clara Kingscott’s hostility by breaking his agreement, even when there was nothing to force him to keep it.

“Yes, really,” he answered; “here’s the other hundred I promised you, so you and I are quits, Clara.”

“Thank you,” she said, turning over the notes in astonishment in her hand; “I never expected you to pay me.”

“Did you not. I always keep my bargains.”

“Do you,” she replied. “You have not always done so.”

“Let bygones be bygones, Clara; I promised you the money, and I have paid you now, and you cannot complain.”

“It is the first time you ever recollected what you owed me,” said the governess, bitterly.

“Don’t say that, Clara; let us be good friends. Our compact is now finished, and we need not rake up the past. If there is anything more I can do for you, Clara, let me know; and if it’s in my power, I’ll do it,” said Markworth, magnanimously, for he thought the woman had still a lingering regard for him.

“I don’t want anything from you, Allynne Markworth,” she said, angrily stamping her foot; “and I don’t wish to see you again. You’ve been the curse of my life! But all’s not over yet between us!” she muttered, significantly, as she turned on her heel and walked back towards the house.

Markworth looked after her a moment, and then resumed his way down to the railway station,en routefor London. He had a good deal to do before starting for Havre, and wanted to get there before Tom or anyone else went over after Susan.

“That’s the way with them all!” he said, to himself, as he walked away rapidly in quick strides. “They get all they can, and then wash their hands of you!”

But he made a great mistake. Miss Kingscott had not by any means washed her hands of Markworth yet. She had gathered a good deal from the conversation between Mr Trump and the dowager on the previous day, to which she had listened attentively through the keyhole of the next room, and she knew that she could not only upset Markworth’s plans for obtaining Susan’s inheritance, but perhaps, also, get him imprisoned, if she exposed her share in the affair.

This she intended to do, but not until the last moment, just when she should think fit; and at present she would remain at The Poplars, and go on as if she knew nothing of the great event. She might captivate Tom in the meantime, she thought; and, at all events, she as yet had the doctor to fall back upon. Aesculapius had been twice as devoted to her since she displayed so much energy in trying to get Susan back. He had muttered to himself, over and over again, as he rode up to The Poplars, in his daily visits to Tom, “She is a dooced fine girl; and a clever girl, too, by Gad!” and, no doubt, would have repeated that declaration of his which the campaigner’s call had nipped in the bud, if the opportunity had only favoured him. But it had not, for the dowager seemed adverse to letting the doctor remain a moment alone with the governess.

When Markworth had gone away, the council between Mrs Hartshorne, and Tom, and the lawyer, was resumed; Tom said that he would go the next day if he was able and fetch back Susan. As for the money matters, the old lady declared she would spare no expense to “cheat that scoundrel” out of his plunder; and Mr Trump was authorised to go to every end to defeat the suit of MarkworthversusHartshorne, which the schemer had stated would be at once commenced, the old lady refusing to surrender her daughter’s fortune unless she were compelled to do so. And she “wouldn’t even do it then,” she declared.

While they were debating over the matter, Miss Kingscott came in quietly and went up to her room—nobody knowing what a strong witness she would prove on the side of the defendants in the case, if she so willed it: she now revolved in her mind whether she would or would not act in the matter. It was as yet unsettled, although she had sworn to revenge herself on Markworth. His last words to her had somewhat disarmed her.

Nemesis ornonNemesis: that was the question. The former triumphed. Mr Trump went back to London; and there he found that the case of MarkworthversusHartshorne, was already “brewing in the storm,” although it remained to be proved whether it was going to be “nipped in the bud,” as the American stump speaker told his audience after he had informed them that he “smelt a rat.” With which metaphor the chapter had better be concluded.

Barometer “Fair” again!

Volume Two—Chapter Seven.The Campaigner “Carries the Fortress.”Like a lamb to the slaughter, Herbert Pringle was led by the wily campaigner to his doom matrimonial.When the veteran perceived that all her operationsin reTom and the gushing Carry must for a time be postponed, on account of the prostration of the principal combatant, she determined to prosecute the other enterprise to the best of her ability, and declared a sort ofguerre à l’outranceagainst the young incumbent for the sake of her eldest daughter, the charming Laura.Of course, she was far too strategic a campaigner to neglect the other affair altogether. She had written Tom an elegant littlebillet-douxafter the sad contretemps of the pic-nic, telling how sorry she was for his accident, and how she had punished Mortimer, “that naughty, naughty boy,” and would remember the painful scene “to her grave:” she also caused Carry to scribble a postscript expressing her condolence, besides sending every day, like the Pringles, to enquire how he did. But she could do nothing further there at present, not at all events until Tom was able to come out again, when she had no doubt she would secure him, and oust that “odious little minx,” in spite of what she had seen at the pic-nic. She would, indeed, have said more about the matter, only that she would not for the world offend that “dear Mr Pringle,” who was “such a love of a preacher,” and “a perfect gentleman,” which she would persist in telling everyone, as if they disputed the point in the first place, and in the second, as if it was the most extraordinary thing in the world to meet with a member of the cloth who was a gentleman! The surprise on the campaigner’s part as to his being a good preacher was, however, perfectly natural: it is not every gentleman that wears a cassock who is either a fair orator, has a passable delivery, or preaches a good sermon.Men who go into the church appear sadly ignorant of the old Latin proverb,Poeta nascitur non fit! They ascribe unto themselves two gifts which they believe that they possess, the gift of literary composition, and the gift of oratory; neither of which one man in a hundred, perhaps, possesses separately, and not one in ten thousand, together! And yet the generality of clergymen seem to think that they can not only write a good sarmon, but preach it also; hence these dismal, dreary platitudes, and over-and-over-again schoolboy-themes or truisms which set most of us to sleep every Sunday in the family pew. The short homily of the early clericals was far better than the prosy sermon, of unconscionable length, delivered by the moderns; all of whom seem to think that they were born and brought up, and mercifully ordained to be popular preachers, and nothing else!The war waged by the campaigner against the young incumbent of Hartwood church was not one of guns of precision and bloodshed. It was a very rosy sort of campaign, all rose-coloured, fought with honied words and sugar plums, and meant to end in orange blossoms and marriage settlements; only a lawsuit in which the conflicting parties and ends were the languid Laura, and an establishment,versusthe celibacy of Herbert Pringle, B.A., Oxon.Everything favoured the campaigner’s manoeuvres. You see, she had the field clear to herself. The bait she offered was very tempting, and summer in the country is a most dangerous time for young, unmarried men. A week in rural retreats will sometimes do more in the Hymeneal line than weeks of London fashionable life: Coelebs who laughs the hook to scorn, however so delicately baited in town, may be hooked at once with a gaudy May-fly down in the country. Besides, the Reverend Herbert was by no means averse to be caught. He, with all his Oxford experiences, must have to some extent perceived the motives Lady Inskip had for so pressingly cultivating his society; but he did not seek cover as the poor, hunted fox so artfully does. He really found the languid Laura too bewitching to be resisted; so, with hardly a coy make-believe of alarm at what he was doing, he eagerly swallowed the bait, hook and all.Ever since the pic-nic, Herbert Pringle had become the devoted cavalier of Lady Inskip’s eldest daughter.Morning, noon, and night, the little dapple-grey animal which the young incumbent bestrode was to be seen tied up to the gateposts of Laburnum Cottage: substantial proof that Pringle was within. Of course this was during the intervals of parochial duties which were by no means heavy, as Hartwood, and Bigton too, for that matter, had no poor to speak of, the population being agricultural, living well on their weekly wage, and inhabiting comfortable looking stone houses with pleasant flower gardens in front, and vegetable compounds in the rear.Croquet—that pleasantly flirtative game, which demands so little skill or exertion, and affords such rare opportunities for effectiveposes, and desultory chit-chat—was all the rage on the little lawn in front of the Inskip’s cottage, during the warm September days: croquet settled the young incumbent’s business.Laura was afforded such nice little openings here for developing her conquest in an easy manner so suited to her nature, that she entered with some spirit in completing what the campaigner’s manoeuvres had begun. She had only to look graceful, and move about imperially, as tall women can well do, and show her exquisite profile—it looked better than her full face: by such means the mischief was done.Pringle, like most little men, had a fancy for graceful Junos, and here he had one ready-made to his hand. Out of the pulpit he was not much of an orator; but as the languid Laura hardly ever uttered anything but an occasional interjection, they suited each other admirably. Nothing was wanting but the final declaration, and that came quite as soon as the old campaigner had planned. Two or three weeks completed the conquest, thanks to country air and scene, statuesque charms and croquet, and the praiseworthy efforts of the skilful old veteran who had charge of the campaign.People speak a great deal, in the press and elsewhere, of the insufficiency of public rewards and honours for distinguished services with a good deal of truth; but in all these discussions a large and praiseworthy portion of the community is entirely neglected, and its claims to honour and reward absolutely ignored. I allude to the mothers of families; how do they get their services recognised? We bind the hero’s brows with laurels; we raise the brilliant party orator to the peerage; we give the eminent professor of the law a seat on the woolsack; the soldier a medal and a bit of ribbon for his wounds in the country’s service; and we dub the worshipful alderman a knight, should he happen to be at the royal kitchen steps when a prince is born, or have invited the Grand Elector of Sauer Kraut to partake of a ham sandwich on his landing at Doveren routeto visit the Palace; but the talented and skilful diplomatist—the mother of a family, who marries off her marriageable daughters all to the most eligible ofpartis, passes by unnoticed. She, who fights courageously a losing game, against fearful odds, who braves reproach, continually—nay, even disgrace, sometimes in furthering a praiseworthy object, and who deserves our esteem and recognition, gets no reward. Peerages in plenty for parliamentarians, titles for sycophants, knighthoods for toad eaters—but the campaigners go by without ne’er so much as a ribbon of decoration.This should not be. In the time honoured cause of woman’s rights, this neglect must be protested against. Let us reward our royal plate cleaners and caustic partisans as much as the nation pleases, but think also of the noble women of England, and their fortune and husband-hunting claims!Lady Inskip was one of the most skilled and to be honoured of her class. Not only did she lead Pringle up to the point—but, knowing his nervousness, she also saved him the trouble of coming to a declaration. She did it for him herself, and this is how it happened.She could be very confidential, you know, and was well fitted to assume the maternalrôle, and “talk as a mother myself,” whenever it was required of her. She had once before done so to Pringle on Lizzie’s account, as was mentioned in a former chapter; so nothing was more easy and graceful than to assume the samerôlenow in his own interests while talking to himself. She determined to make the proposal for him, as he was too shy to make it himself; although in so doing, she spoilt considerable hopes of fun at the “fast” Carry’s part, who had declared over and over again in the family circle that she “would give worlds to see the mild parson pop,” provoking a mild “how can you be so absurd, Carry!” from Laura, who yet could not prevent a feeble smile at the possibility of such atableau, and “you ought to be ashamed of yourself, miss!” from her mother; while the young imp, Sir Mortimer, gave vent to a triumphant war whoop, and declared that it would be “awful larks! to see Pringle on his knees!” The darling, naughty boy, to be sure! When the campaigner perceived from sundry unmistakable symptoms that things had been brought to a crisis, she prepared to act.One day, after Pringle had been more bashful and nervous than ever, although still very attentive to Laura, when there had been some weeks of intercourse between the pair since the first descent on Bigton, Lady Inskip “button-holed” him as he was on his way out, and instead of letting him mount his pony at the gate, entreated him to walk a bit down the road with her, as she had something important to say. Pringle, more bashfully still, assented, and passing the bridle of the dapple-grey through his arm, he and the campaigner sauntered off in close confab, watched from the windows of Laburnum Cottage by the young ladies and Mortimer, who seriously wondered what was “up”—one must use slang sometimes; it is so expressive in these very slangy days.“My dear Mr Pringle,” began the wily campaigner, “I take a great interest in you, in quite a motherly way, indeed; and you will excuse me speaking on a very delicate matter to you?”“Oh! certainly, Lady Inskip, certainly—anything you know,” he stammered, in reply, blushing a rosy red, even beneath his budding whiskers of auburn hue.“Well, then, my dear Mr Pringle, I have to speak to you about Laura. I am her mother, and it seems strange in me to speak to you; but I look upon you as a son, and I wish I could see things arranged between you. The darling girl is getting quite thin and pale, and this prolonged suspense is more than she can bear. And I must ask you in the most—that is—my dear Mr Pringle, I think your feelings are interested, and—”“Precisely so, Lady Inskip; just what I wanted to say, only I could not say it. Would Laura, eh?—your daughter, do you think, eh?” and he looked nervously into the campaigner’s face.“I think she will consent. I am so glad, my dear young friend; I will speak to her for you, and it will be all arranged, if you will come in again this evening. I have long wished to see my angel Laura married to a Christian gentleman, and since I have known you, you have fulfilled everything which I could have hoped for her to find in a husband”—that he had, with regard to position and competency, besides being easily managed—“and, my dear Mr Pringle, I will tell Laura at once; and this is the happiest moment in my life!”“Certainly, Lady Inskip, certainly!” stammered the young incumbent, as he shook hands joyfully with his future mother-in-law; and in the evening he came round again to Laburnum Cottage. Laura received him with a faint blush and a timid pressure of his hand, so it was an understood thing that they were regularly engaged.After it was all settled, Pringle lost a good deal of his prior bashfulness; and both Carry and young Sir Mortimer regarded him as a very jolly sort of brother-in-law to have. The wedding was fixed for an early date in the following year, after a probationary engagement of some three months.Eureka! The campaigner had carried the fortress after a series of admirable military tactics.

Like a lamb to the slaughter, Herbert Pringle was led by the wily campaigner to his doom matrimonial.

When the veteran perceived that all her operationsin reTom and the gushing Carry must for a time be postponed, on account of the prostration of the principal combatant, she determined to prosecute the other enterprise to the best of her ability, and declared a sort ofguerre à l’outranceagainst the young incumbent for the sake of her eldest daughter, the charming Laura.

Of course, she was far too strategic a campaigner to neglect the other affair altogether. She had written Tom an elegant littlebillet-douxafter the sad contretemps of the pic-nic, telling how sorry she was for his accident, and how she had punished Mortimer, “that naughty, naughty boy,” and would remember the painful scene “to her grave:” she also caused Carry to scribble a postscript expressing her condolence, besides sending every day, like the Pringles, to enquire how he did. But she could do nothing further there at present, not at all events until Tom was able to come out again, when she had no doubt she would secure him, and oust that “odious little minx,” in spite of what she had seen at the pic-nic. She would, indeed, have said more about the matter, only that she would not for the world offend that “dear Mr Pringle,” who was “such a love of a preacher,” and “a perfect gentleman,” which she would persist in telling everyone, as if they disputed the point in the first place, and in the second, as if it was the most extraordinary thing in the world to meet with a member of the cloth who was a gentleman! The surprise on the campaigner’s part as to his being a good preacher was, however, perfectly natural: it is not every gentleman that wears a cassock who is either a fair orator, has a passable delivery, or preaches a good sermon.

Men who go into the church appear sadly ignorant of the old Latin proverb,Poeta nascitur non fit! They ascribe unto themselves two gifts which they believe that they possess, the gift of literary composition, and the gift of oratory; neither of which one man in a hundred, perhaps, possesses separately, and not one in ten thousand, together! And yet the generality of clergymen seem to think that they can not only write a good sarmon, but preach it also; hence these dismal, dreary platitudes, and over-and-over-again schoolboy-themes or truisms which set most of us to sleep every Sunday in the family pew. The short homily of the early clericals was far better than the prosy sermon, of unconscionable length, delivered by the moderns; all of whom seem to think that they were born and brought up, and mercifully ordained to be popular preachers, and nothing else!

The war waged by the campaigner against the young incumbent of Hartwood church was not one of guns of precision and bloodshed. It was a very rosy sort of campaign, all rose-coloured, fought with honied words and sugar plums, and meant to end in orange blossoms and marriage settlements; only a lawsuit in which the conflicting parties and ends were the languid Laura, and an establishment,versusthe celibacy of Herbert Pringle, B.A., Oxon.

Everything favoured the campaigner’s manoeuvres. You see, she had the field clear to herself. The bait she offered was very tempting, and summer in the country is a most dangerous time for young, unmarried men. A week in rural retreats will sometimes do more in the Hymeneal line than weeks of London fashionable life: Coelebs who laughs the hook to scorn, however so delicately baited in town, may be hooked at once with a gaudy May-fly down in the country. Besides, the Reverend Herbert was by no means averse to be caught. He, with all his Oxford experiences, must have to some extent perceived the motives Lady Inskip had for so pressingly cultivating his society; but he did not seek cover as the poor, hunted fox so artfully does. He really found the languid Laura too bewitching to be resisted; so, with hardly a coy make-believe of alarm at what he was doing, he eagerly swallowed the bait, hook and all.

Ever since the pic-nic, Herbert Pringle had become the devoted cavalier of Lady Inskip’s eldest daughter.

Morning, noon, and night, the little dapple-grey animal which the young incumbent bestrode was to be seen tied up to the gateposts of Laburnum Cottage: substantial proof that Pringle was within. Of course this was during the intervals of parochial duties which were by no means heavy, as Hartwood, and Bigton too, for that matter, had no poor to speak of, the population being agricultural, living well on their weekly wage, and inhabiting comfortable looking stone houses with pleasant flower gardens in front, and vegetable compounds in the rear.

Croquet—that pleasantly flirtative game, which demands so little skill or exertion, and affords such rare opportunities for effectiveposes, and desultory chit-chat—was all the rage on the little lawn in front of the Inskip’s cottage, during the warm September days: croquet settled the young incumbent’s business.

Laura was afforded such nice little openings here for developing her conquest in an easy manner so suited to her nature, that she entered with some spirit in completing what the campaigner’s manoeuvres had begun. She had only to look graceful, and move about imperially, as tall women can well do, and show her exquisite profile—it looked better than her full face: by such means the mischief was done.

Pringle, like most little men, had a fancy for graceful Junos, and here he had one ready-made to his hand. Out of the pulpit he was not much of an orator; but as the languid Laura hardly ever uttered anything but an occasional interjection, they suited each other admirably. Nothing was wanting but the final declaration, and that came quite as soon as the old campaigner had planned. Two or three weeks completed the conquest, thanks to country air and scene, statuesque charms and croquet, and the praiseworthy efforts of the skilful old veteran who had charge of the campaign.

People speak a great deal, in the press and elsewhere, of the insufficiency of public rewards and honours for distinguished services with a good deal of truth; but in all these discussions a large and praiseworthy portion of the community is entirely neglected, and its claims to honour and reward absolutely ignored. I allude to the mothers of families; how do they get their services recognised? We bind the hero’s brows with laurels; we raise the brilliant party orator to the peerage; we give the eminent professor of the law a seat on the woolsack; the soldier a medal and a bit of ribbon for his wounds in the country’s service; and we dub the worshipful alderman a knight, should he happen to be at the royal kitchen steps when a prince is born, or have invited the Grand Elector of Sauer Kraut to partake of a ham sandwich on his landing at Doveren routeto visit the Palace; but the talented and skilful diplomatist—the mother of a family, who marries off her marriageable daughters all to the most eligible ofpartis, passes by unnoticed. She, who fights courageously a losing game, against fearful odds, who braves reproach, continually—nay, even disgrace, sometimes in furthering a praiseworthy object, and who deserves our esteem and recognition, gets no reward. Peerages in plenty for parliamentarians, titles for sycophants, knighthoods for toad eaters—but the campaigners go by without ne’er so much as a ribbon of decoration.

This should not be. In the time honoured cause of woman’s rights, this neglect must be protested against. Let us reward our royal plate cleaners and caustic partisans as much as the nation pleases, but think also of the noble women of England, and their fortune and husband-hunting claims!

Lady Inskip was one of the most skilled and to be honoured of her class. Not only did she lead Pringle up to the point—but, knowing his nervousness, she also saved him the trouble of coming to a declaration. She did it for him herself, and this is how it happened.

She could be very confidential, you know, and was well fitted to assume the maternalrôle, and “talk as a mother myself,” whenever it was required of her. She had once before done so to Pringle on Lizzie’s account, as was mentioned in a former chapter; so nothing was more easy and graceful than to assume the samerôlenow in his own interests while talking to himself. She determined to make the proposal for him, as he was too shy to make it himself; although in so doing, she spoilt considerable hopes of fun at the “fast” Carry’s part, who had declared over and over again in the family circle that she “would give worlds to see the mild parson pop,” provoking a mild “how can you be so absurd, Carry!” from Laura, who yet could not prevent a feeble smile at the possibility of such atableau, and “you ought to be ashamed of yourself, miss!” from her mother; while the young imp, Sir Mortimer, gave vent to a triumphant war whoop, and declared that it would be “awful larks! to see Pringle on his knees!” The darling, naughty boy, to be sure! When the campaigner perceived from sundry unmistakable symptoms that things had been brought to a crisis, she prepared to act.

One day, after Pringle had been more bashful and nervous than ever, although still very attentive to Laura, when there had been some weeks of intercourse between the pair since the first descent on Bigton, Lady Inskip “button-holed” him as he was on his way out, and instead of letting him mount his pony at the gate, entreated him to walk a bit down the road with her, as she had something important to say. Pringle, more bashfully still, assented, and passing the bridle of the dapple-grey through his arm, he and the campaigner sauntered off in close confab, watched from the windows of Laburnum Cottage by the young ladies and Mortimer, who seriously wondered what was “up”—one must use slang sometimes; it is so expressive in these very slangy days.

“My dear Mr Pringle,” began the wily campaigner, “I take a great interest in you, in quite a motherly way, indeed; and you will excuse me speaking on a very delicate matter to you?”

“Oh! certainly, Lady Inskip, certainly—anything you know,” he stammered, in reply, blushing a rosy red, even beneath his budding whiskers of auburn hue.

“Well, then, my dear Mr Pringle, I have to speak to you about Laura. I am her mother, and it seems strange in me to speak to you; but I look upon you as a son, and I wish I could see things arranged between you. The darling girl is getting quite thin and pale, and this prolonged suspense is more than she can bear. And I must ask you in the most—that is—my dear Mr Pringle, I think your feelings are interested, and—”

“Precisely so, Lady Inskip; just what I wanted to say, only I could not say it. Would Laura, eh?—your daughter, do you think, eh?” and he looked nervously into the campaigner’s face.

“I think she will consent. I am so glad, my dear young friend; I will speak to her for you, and it will be all arranged, if you will come in again this evening. I have long wished to see my angel Laura married to a Christian gentleman, and since I have known you, you have fulfilled everything which I could have hoped for her to find in a husband”—that he had, with regard to position and competency, besides being easily managed—“and, my dear Mr Pringle, I will tell Laura at once; and this is the happiest moment in my life!”

“Certainly, Lady Inskip, certainly!” stammered the young incumbent, as he shook hands joyfully with his future mother-in-law; and in the evening he came round again to Laburnum Cottage. Laura received him with a faint blush and a timid pressure of his hand, so it was an understood thing that they were regularly engaged.

After it was all settled, Pringle lost a good deal of his prior bashfulness; and both Carry and young Sir Mortimer regarded him as a very jolly sort of brother-in-law to have. The wedding was fixed for an early date in the following year, after a probationary engagement of some three months.

Eureka! The campaigner had carried the fortress after a series of admirable military tactics.

Volume Two—Chapter Eight.Susan.Change of scene is one of the most potent panaceas for mental ills; and change of scene had in a few week effected Susan’s complete recovery. She had been under Markworth’s care at The Poplars in those early days of August, an entirely reasoning being, but she had lacked animation and life; she had been like Gibson’s Venus, before the flesh tints were put on the statue; but she was now a bright, living, thinking girl, with hopes and pleasures and aspirations which she had hitherto undreamt of.In her cheerful little apartments in the Rue Montmartre she unfolded herself like a chrysalis from the grub, and bustled about and took an interest in everything around her which Doctor Jolly would have wondered at.While Markworth was away, the Mère Cliquelle used to look after her and keep her company, and go out with her, and the dignifiedbon hommeof that good lady would also frequently came up to see Madame and air his few English phrases. But Markworth used never to be long away. Havre was so very convenient that he could run over to Southampton and thence to London whenever he wished to see how matters were going on for the approaching law suit; so he seldom stopped away beyond a couple of days. When he was at Havre, however, he continued to devote himself to Susan with all his former care, and tried to gratify every wish she had; and she was as happy as a bird.One thing only was wanting to complete her happiness, and that was to see her brother Tom: that desire, however, was soon gratified. She had been disappointed sadly when Markworth returned the first time without him; but he said that Tom would soon come, and in a few more days he arrived at Havre. But, he was actuated with no desire to see Markworth: it was only his sister that brought him over, and he wished to persuade her to return home, which he thought she might do at once as he, with the others, had made certain of Markworth retaining her against her will. Indeed the lawyer Mr Trump, or Doctor Jolly would have gone over to Havre at once to fetch her back on learning where she was—for Markworth had freely said that they might come to fetch her if they pleased,—for it was only at Tom’s express wish that a few days were allowed to elapse to enable him to fetch her himself, for he was hardly able to move about as yet, notwithstanding that he had every desire to start off at once on first hearing the news. Miss Kingscott had offered to go, but the Dowager bluntly declined her services, saying that, as she had shown so little care in watching over her charge in the first instance, she certainly would not be now entrusted with the charge of bringing her back, and beyond that Mrs Hartshorne said she did not require her services any longer.So Miss Kingscott left The Poplars altogether, much against her inclinations at this juncture, although she would have more time at her disposal for watching Markworth, for it cut her off from all association with the doctor before matters were brought to a satisfactory point between them. Tom went over to Havre to fetch Susan home in a day or two afterwards, confident of bringing her back. We thus see several important alterations in thecarte du pays, of the several actors in our little drama.Markworth was out one day shortly after his own return to Havre when he had set his plans rolling on the other side, when Tom Hartshorne rang the bell at the houseNuméro sept, Rue Montmartre.The Mère Cliquelle answered the summons and on Tom (in extremely bad French) asking if Madame Markworth was in, the fat landlady herself ushered him up-stairs. She was very much taken with the appearance of Master Tom, who really, with his fine built frame, slightly emaciated with the confinement he had undergone from his illness, and his pale face, looked altogether rather a handsome, presentable fellow. The Mère Cliquelle gazed upon him with admiration: she had a Frenchwoman’s eye forun brave Monsieur, and she showed it.She tapped at the door of Susan’s littlesalle à manger. “Un Monsieur Anglais,” she said, with which explanatory information Tom was ushered in before Susan could exactly comprehend what the Mère Cliquelle meant.Susan gave one look up of surprise and joy as the door opened and she recognised the visitor: she had been working and had not expected Markworth in for some time. Rushing forwards she flung her arms round Tom’s neck.“Oh, Tom! Tom! You’ve come at last!” she said, and patted his cheek in delight, as if she were caressing a cat—a peculiarly sympathetic way the fair sex have of showing their affection.Tom himself was touched. He loved his sister greatly, the more too for her infirmity, and he though he comprehended it all at once in his reasoning mind. Poor Susan was no doubt kept here against her will: she was doubtless glad to see him for his own sake, but probably ten times more so, thinking he was about to take her back home again to England and her own people.He thought thus for a moment; but he was soon undeceived. After a moment or two he held his sister off from him, his two hands resting on her shoulders, and he looked in her face with surprise.“By Jove, Susan!” he exclaimed. “How altered you are; I should not have known you again!” He had not seen her for some weeks, and the gradual change which had been taking place in her came upon him all at once like a shock.“Would you not?” laughed Susan, “but I should have known you anywhere, although you look pale and thin. What has been the matter, Tom?”“Oh nothing!” he answered. “I have not been quite well. But you, Susan, by Jove! why you are all right again!” he was amazed at her having got rid of that melancholy reticence which had hung over her for so many years as he well knew. Instead of hanging back and not saying a word as she used to do, she now spoke to him freely, and looked just the same as any other girl. He could not believe it: it was wonderful!“Of course I am all right!” answered Susan, merrily, and then her voice changed to a tone of sadness and anxiety, “but you are not angry with me, Tom, are you?”“Certainly not! Why should I be angry?”“For going away and leaving you all like that, and—”She hesitated.“We don’t blame you, Susan, my dear,” said Tom, kindly. “We know that it was all that rascal Markworth’s doing.”Susan interrupted him at once, and spoke earnestly, with great emotion.“Do not say a word against him, Tom; he is my husband, and I won’t have a word said against him. If I am changed it is all his doing, and I love him. He has rescued me from ignorance and worse, and made me what I now am. Tom, Tom, you must not say a word against him. I won’t bear it even from you.”“There, there,” said Tom, soothingly, as if he were speaking to a child, “I did not mean it, and I won’t say another word. But are you happy?”“Happy!” echoed Susan—the answer to his question could be read in her face—“I never knew what happiness was before. I do not mean to blame you, Tom,” seeing the look of surprise in Tom’s face, “but I could never understand before. I have to thank him for reason and all. I can never repay all that he has done for me.”Tom saw that it was useless to say anything further, and he changed the tenor of the conversation.“And how did you get over here, Susan?” he said, cheerfully. “Tell me how you got away, and all about it.”“I never intended to go away until the last moment,” said Susan, “and I was so frightened of mother that if I had thought of her I should have turned back; but he was with me, and I felt courage, and the next morning we were married in London, I believe, and then we came over here; and, oh! Tom, I am so happy!”She proceeded to tell him all about her daily life, and her little joys and pleasures.Tom was greatly interested. He saw that Susan was immensely improved, and he could not but be glad at the change, however much he may have been angry at the way in which it was brought about. Besides, no blame could be attached to her. Tom himself was in love, you see, and he could make greater allowances now on that score than he might previously have done. He saw that Markworth must be kind to her, and at all events, he had certainly done more good to Susan in these few weeks than all the doctors had done. For his part, he would cheerfully have let Markworth now have the money that he had plotted for, and be done with him altogether, but it did not rest in his hands, so the least he could do would be to try and get Susan to go back with him.“And will you come home with me now, Susan?” he asked, after a pause. “We are all so anxious about you; and you will find things all right at home now, and mother will be very kind.”“And Allynne!—will he come too?”“No, Susan; I can’t ask him. You ought to know that.”“You want me to leave him? Tom, I will never leave him unless he sends me away himself.”Just at this moment the door opened, and Markworth walked in as coolly as possible. Susan darted past Tom and threw her arms round his neck.“Oh! Allynne, Allynne!” she cried—she had learnt to call him by his Christian name, which no one else had done before—“they want to take me from you. You won’t let me go, will you?”“Of course not, Susan. There, Mr Hartshorne,” he said, turning to Tom. “I told you that I did not detain the girl against her will, and you can hear her answer for yourself. I wish to act fairly in the matter, no matter how my motives are misunderstood. Susan,” he said, again addressing her, “what will you do—go with your brother or stay here with me?”The only answer she made was to cling closer round his neck.Markworth looked at Tom triumphantly, and the latter felt humbled.“I’m sure it is not my fault,” he said. “I daresay you mean very well, Markworth, but I don’t retract what I said to you the other day. It was dishonourable for you to take my sister away like that. As for the money, however, now that I see her well and happy, you might cheerfully have it for all I care.”“Thank you,” said Markworth, really touched, “you are a generous fellow, and I promise you to take care of your sister carefully for your sake as well as her own. She is well and happy now, and quite recovered, as you can see for yourself, but if she went back she might relapse again, although I won’t prevent her from going.”Tom saw there was no use in trying to urge Susan, for she would not come with him and leave Markworth. He therefore only stopped that day with her, and returned on the morrow to Southampton, to report his want of success. He gave a very truthful account of his mission, and told both his mother and the doctor that Susan was quite restored. The old dowager appeared not to care very much about the matter, and reiterated her intention of preventing Markworth from “getting a penny of her money.” The doctor was pleased to hear such good accounts of his former patient, but he was apprehensive as to the duration of Markworth’s kind treatment to Susan.“Bless my soul, sir!” said he to Tom, “it may be all very true now, but you can’t expect to make a nigger change his skin, or make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, as they say somewhere or other, in something I’ve read. That man’s bad at the bottom, Tom, as certain as God made little apples!”—the doctor, in his customary manner, mixing up a hypothesis with two biblical proverbs.Thus ended Tom’s mission after Susan. He shortly afterwards arranged another enterprise with a different object, and how he fared here will be detailed in the next chapter.

Change of scene is one of the most potent panaceas for mental ills; and change of scene had in a few week effected Susan’s complete recovery. She had been under Markworth’s care at The Poplars in those early days of August, an entirely reasoning being, but she had lacked animation and life; she had been like Gibson’s Venus, before the flesh tints were put on the statue; but she was now a bright, living, thinking girl, with hopes and pleasures and aspirations which she had hitherto undreamt of.

In her cheerful little apartments in the Rue Montmartre she unfolded herself like a chrysalis from the grub, and bustled about and took an interest in everything around her which Doctor Jolly would have wondered at.

While Markworth was away, the Mère Cliquelle used to look after her and keep her company, and go out with her, and the dignifiedbon hommeof that good lady would also frequently came up to see Madame and air his few English phrases. But Markworth used never to be long away. Havre was so very convenient that he could run over to Southampton and thence to London whenever he wished to see how matters were going on for the approaching law suit; so he seldom stopped away beyond a couple of days. When he was at Havre, however, he continued to devote himself to Susan with all his former care, and tried to gratify every wish she had; and she was as happy as a bird.

One thing only was wanting to complete her happiness, and that was to see her brother Tom: that desire, however, was soon gratified. She had been disappointed sadly when Markworth returned the first time without him; but he said that Tom would soon come, and in a few more days he arrived at Havre. But, he was actuated with no desire to see Markworth: it was only his sister that brought him over, and he wished to persuade her to return home, which he thought she might do at once as he, with the others, had made certain of Markworth retaining her against her will. Indeed the lawyer Mr Trump, or Doctor Jolly would have gone over to Havre at once to fetch her back on learning where she was—for Markworth had freely said that they might come to fetch her if they pleased,—for it was only at Tom’s express wish that a few days were allowed to elapse to enable him to fetch her himself, for he was hardly able to move about as yet, notwithstanding that he had every desire to start off at once on first hearing the news. Miss Kingscott had offered to go, but the Dowager bluntly declined her services, saying that, as she had shown so little care in watching over her charge in the first instance, she certainly would not be now entrusted with the charge of bringing her back, and beyond that Mrs Hartshorne said she did not require her services any longer.

So Miss Kingscott left The Poplars altogether, much against her inclinations at this juncture, although she would have more time at her disposal for watching Markworth, for it cut her off from all association with the doctor before matters were brought to a satisfactory point between them. Tom went over to Havre to fetch Susan home in a day or two afterwards, confident of bringing her back. We thus see several important alterations in thecarte du pays, of the several actors in our little drama.

Markworth was out one day shortly after his own return to Havre when he had set his plans rolling on the other side, when Tom Hartshorne rang the bell at the houseNuméro sept, Rue Montmartre.

The Mère Cliquelle answered the summons and on Tom (in extremely bad French) asking if Madame Markworth was in, the fat landlady herself ushered him up-stairs. She was very much taken with the appearance of Master Tom, who really, with his fine built frame, slightly emaciated with the confinement he had undergone from his illness, and his pale face, looked altogether rather a handsome, presentable fellow. The Mère Cliquelle gazed upon him with admiration: she had a Frenchwoman’s eye forun brave Monsieur, and she showed it.

She tapped at the door of Susan’s littlesalle à manger. “Un Monsieur Anglais,” she said, with which explanatory information Tom was ushered in before Susan could exactly comprehend what the Mère Cliquelle meant.

Susan gave one look up of surprise and joy as the door opened and she recognised the visitor: she had been working and had not expected Markworth in for some time. Rushing forwards she flung her arms round Tom’s neck.

“Oh, Tom! Tom! You’ve come at last!” she said, and patted his cheek in delight, as if she were caressing a cat—a peculiarly sympathetic way the fair sex have of showing their affection.

Tom himself was touched. He loved his sister greatly, the more too for her infirmity, and he though he comprehended it all at once in his reasoning mind. Poor Susan was no doubt kept here against her will: she was doubtless glad to see him for his own sake, but probably ten times more so, thinking he was about to take her back home again to England and her own people.

He thought thus for a moment; but he was soon undeceived. After a moment or two he held his sister off from him, his two hands resting on her shoulders, and he looked in her face with surprise.

“By Jove, Susan!” he exclaimed. “How altered you are; I should not have known you again!” He had not seen her for some weeks, and the gradual change which had been taking place in her came upon him all at once like a shock.

“Would you not?” laughed Susan, “but I should have known you anywhere, although you look pale and thin. What has been the matter, Tom?”

“Oh nothing!” he answered. “I have not been quite well. But you, Susan, by Jove! why you are all right again!” he was amazed at her having got rid of that melancholy reticence which had hung over her for so many years as he well knew. Instead of hanging back and not saying a word as she used to do, she now spoke to him freely, and looked just the same as any other girl. He could not believe it: it was wonderful!

“Of course I am all right!” answered Susan, merrily, and then her voice changed to a tone of sadness and anxiety, “but you are not angry with me, Tom, are you?”

“Certainly not! Why should I be angry?”

“For going away and leaving you all like that, and—”

She hesitated.

“We don’t blame you, Susan, my dear,” said Tom, kindly. “We know that it was all that rascal Markworth’s doing.”

Susan interrupted him at once, and spoke earnestly, with great emotion.

“Do not say a word against him, Tom; he is my husband, and I won’t have a word said against him. If I am changed it is all his doing, and I love him. He has rescued me from ignorance and worse, and made me what I now am. Tom, Tom, you must not say a word against him. I won’t bear it even from you.”

“There, there,” said Tom, soothingly, as if he were speaking to a child, “I did not mean it, and I won’t say another word. But are you happy?”

“Happy!” echoed Susan—the answer to his question could be read in her face—“I never knew what happiness was before. I do not mean to blame you, Tom,” seeing the look of surprise in Tom’s face, “but I could never understand before. I have to thank him for reason and all. I can never repay all that he has done for me.”

Tom saw that it was useless to say anything further, and he changed the tenor of the conversation.

“And how did you get over here, Susan?” he said, cheerfully. “Tell me how you got away, and all about it.”

“I never intended to go away until the last moment,” said Susan, “and I was so frightened of mother that if I had thought of her I should have turned back; but he was with me, and I felt courage, and the next morning we were married in London, I believe, and then we came over here; and, oh! Tom, I am so happy!”

She proceeded to tell him all about her daily life, and her little joys and pleasures.

Tom was greatly interested. He saw that Susan was immensely improved, and he could not but be glad at the change, however much he may have been angry at the way in which it was brought about. Besides, no blame could be attached to her. Tom himself was in love, you see, and he could make greater allowances now on that score than he might previously have done. He saw that Markworth must be kind to her, and at all events, he had certainly done more good to Susan in these few weeks than all the doctors had done. For his part, he would cheerfully have let Markworth now have the money that he had plotted for, and be done with him altogether, but it did not rest in his hands, so the least he could do would be to try and get Susan to go back with him.

“And will you come home with me now, Susan?” he asked, after a pause. “We are all so anxious about you; and you will find things all right at home now, and mother will be very kind.”

“And Allynne!—will he come too?”

“No, Susan; I can’t ask him. You ought to know that.”

“You want me to leave him? Tom, I will never leave him unless he sends me away himself.”

Just at this moment the door opened, and Markworth walked in as coolly as possible. Susan darted past Tom and threw her arms round his neck.

“Oh! Allynne, Allynne!” she cried—she had learnt to call him by his Christian name, which no one else had done before—“they want to take me from you. You won’t let me go, will you?”

“Of course not, Susan. There, Mr Hartshorne,” he said, turning to Tom. “I told you that I did not detain the girl against her will, and you can hear her answer for yourself. I wish to act fairly in the matter, no matter how my motives are misunderstood. Susan,” he said, again addressing her, “what will you do—go with your brother or stay here with me?”

The only answer she made was to cling closer round his neck.

Markworth looked at Tom triumphantly, and the latter felt humbled.

“I’m sure it is not my fault,” he said. “I daresay you mean very well, Markworth, but I don’t retract what I said to you the other day. It was dishonourable for you to take my sister away like that. As for the money, however, now that I see her well and happy, you might cheerfully have it for all I care.”

“Thank you,” said Markworth, really touched, “you are a generous fellow, and I promise you to take care of your sister carefully for your sake as well as her own. She is well and happy now, and quite recovered, as you can see for yourself, but if she went back she might relapse again, although I won’t prevent her from going.”

Tom saw there was no use in trying to urge Susan, for she would not come with him and leave Markworth. He therefore only stopped that day with her, and returned on the morrow to Southampton, to report his want of success. He gave a very truthful account of his mission, and told both his mother and the doctor that Susan was quite restored. The old dowager appeared not to care very much about the matter, and reiterated her intention of preventing Markworth from “getting a penny of her money.” The doctor was pleased to hear such good accounts of his former patient, but he was apprehensive as to the duration of Markworth’s kind treatment to Susan.

“Bless my soul, sir!” said he to Tom, “it may be all very true now, but you can’t expect to make a nigger change his skin, or make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, as they say somewhere or other, in something I’ve read. That man’s bad at the bottom, Tom, as certain as God made little apples!”—the doctor, in his customary manner, mixing up a hypothesis with two biblical proverbs.

Thus ended Tom’s mission after Susan. He shortly afterwards arranged another enterprise with a different object, and how he fared here will be detailed in the next chapter.

Volume Two—Chapter Nine.“Fiddle-De-Dee!”“Fiddle-de-dee! Thomas,” said the old dowager, with considerable asperity, “why you’ll be wanting a glass coach and four, and a cocked hat next. Stuff and nonsense, sir, it’s all fiddle-de-dee!”“But, mother—”“But me no buts sir! I tell you I won’t have it, and that’s enough.”“Really, mother.”“Really, indeed! I suppose you think I’m as great a fool as you are, Thomas.”“Pray don’t excite yourself, mother,” said Tom, trying to keep down the thermometer until he could obtain a fair hearing, but the old lady was not to be pacified, for his soothing words only added fuel to the fire.“Excite myself, indeed! I should think there was a little cause for excitement to hear a baby like you talking of getting married! And bearding me in my own house to be sure! I tell you, Thomas, I won’t have it!” And the dowager paced rapidly backwards and forwards on one side of the dining-room with short, jerky steps, swinging her hands, with the fingers clasping and unclasping in unison with her nervous walk.Tom walked up and down the room on the other side, the table being entrenched between them. He took long military strides, and twirled the end of his moustache impatiently every now and then, for his temper too was rising. He did not reply at once, so his mother went on with a recapitulated volley of wrath. She had only been winding up as it were, before, and now burst out in a flowing stream of words, like an alarm clock running down, as if she had never paused from her last utterance.“A boy like you—not of age yet, and whom I only carried in my arms the other day! You deserve to be whipped and sent to bed, sir! I never heard of such a thing in all my born days! And as for that little chit—she—she, I don’t know what oughtn’t to be done with her. Little minx! But it serves me right, putting that jackanapes of a brother of hers into that snug living down there.” And the dowager with a wave of her hand indicated Hartwood village. “There is he prancing about on that little beast of a pony of his every day after the heels of that fine my lady who wanted to poke her nose in here if I had only let her. I can see what’s going on, although I do mind my own business! And now that artful little jade is trying to catch you with her big staring eyes! I wonder what you can see in her I’m sure. I know what she’s after: they have heard that you are the heir, and they want to secure you for the family, but I’ll spoil their tricks. I’m not going to be turned out of my own house yet. I’ll pack that jackanapes of a brother off about his business, and as for the artful little minx—it’s positively indecent a girl running after a boy like that! I saw what they were fishing for, in sending up every day that Gezaba of a servant of theirs to enquire ‘how Mister Tom was.’ Mister Tom, indeed! It ought to be Master Tom, and he to be birched. The artful little minx! I’ll—I’ll—”“Stop, mother,” shouted Tom, seizing upon a favourable opportunity when the dowager paused a moment from loss of breath. “Stop, mother, I won’t have you say a word against that young lady. I don’t mind what you say of me, but I won’t stand by and hear you abuse an innocent girl like that. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, mother, to use such language. Against your own sex, too, and a lady whom I intend to make my wife.”“Your wife!” screamed the old lady with tenfold vehemence and passion. “Your wife! I’d sooner see you in your grave first!”“You forget yourself, mother,” said Tom, hotly. Like all easy-going men who have good tempers and are seldom roused up to anger, Tom took some time to lose his temper thoroughly, and when he did, he lost it completely. He was now in a regular passion, and his mother’s taunts sent him up to fever heat.“Forget myself, indeed!”—It was a case of flint and steel between the two.—“It is you that forget yourself, talking like a Bashaw of Nine Tails of marrying whom you please, as if you were a lord and master. Fine doings, indeed! why you’re as mad as your sister Susan.”“You need not bring poor Susan into the conversation, mother. I’m sure she’s very happy, and I believe she did for the best, if this be a sample of a mother’s affection, and what she would have met with at home”—Tom ejaculated bitterly.“Oh! she did for the best, did she? And a fine mess she made of it, running off with that swindling vagabond. I would like to see him on the treadmill! If that was the only way in which she could get back her senses, it would have been better for her to have been dead at once. But it is the way with all silly women; they never seem to have their senses until they have tied themselves to some scoundrel who has only married them for their money. You are more mad than she is, Thomas. Marry, indeed! A pretty pass things are coming to. You’re an idiot, and she’s a minx, there!”“I tell you, mother, I won’t have you say a word against that lady. If there be any fault attached to the business, which I can’t see myself, she’s not to blame at any rate.”“She’s a little minx, there,” repeated the dowager, with increased venom. She saw how well the shaft was aimed, and like a woman she pushed it in.“I won’t have it, mother.”“Minx! minx! minx! there!” uttered the old lady rapidly, giving her head a jerky nod after each repetition of the obnoxious epithet.“This is scandalous!” said Tom, literally boiling over with passion. The term “minx,” applied to Lizzie, having apparently the same effect on him as a red rag has on a bull, or a fat turkey gobler, to adapt a more ignoble simile. “I won’t have it, whether you’re my mother or not, and I’ll marry whom I please, without asking your leave or licence.”“You will, will you? I should like to know how you’re going to support a wife? I’m not going to do it for you.”“I don’t care whether you do or do not,” said Tom, savagely.The bull had been now tormented sufficiently, and the matador thought it time to give thecoup de grace.“Mark my words,” said the dowager, impressively, “if you marry that chit, Thomas, or have anything more to do with her, or any of that toadying crew, not a penny piece of my money do you get, Thomas.”“Hang the money! I don’t want it: I suppose I can get along somehow or other without it.”“Remember, you’re not of age yet, young sir, and when you are, you won’t be much better off, unless I please. You haven’t a penny of your own now, except what I give you, and if you don’t abandon the whole thing, not a penny more will you have.”The dowager was aware of the advantage in military tactics of cutting off the enemy’s supplies.“I’m sure I don’t want it,” said Tom; but he thought in a moment how ungracious this was to his mother, who had previously been so kind to him. “I mean, I don’t want you to help me any more, if it’s to be thrown in my teeth like this. I am very much obliged to you, mother, for what you have done for me already. That is past and gone, and I’m not going to sell myself now and break a trusting girl’s heart for the sake of my future chances. Hang the money! I hate the very sound of the word.”“But it is a very useful thing, Thomas—a very useful thing; and you don’t seem to have had any objection to it before. It’s very hard on me, Thomas, very hard.” The old lady was broken now a good deal, after all the trouble she had gone through, and was not able to prosecute the combat with her customary vigour. “After I’ve been slaving and saving for you all these years to meet with such a return. It’s a judgment on me; and if I had served my church better than I have served my son, it—it—” And the dowager fairly broke down for the first time in her life, after vainly attempting to paraphrase Cardinal Wolsey’s memorable monologue.Tom was fairly vanquished.“I beg your pardon, mother. I did not mean to say anything unkind or ungrateful, but really—”“After all I have done for you, too,” whimpered Mrs Hartshorne; “it’s a judgment on me for neglecting your sister and making so much of you.”“I’m very sorry, mother, but I’m a man now, and this is a matter I must decide for myself.”“You shan’t marry with my consent,” retorted the dowager; “and you can’t marry without that.”“You’re my mother,” said Tom, sadly emphasising that undeniable fact; “and you can ruin my hopes of happiness, if you please. But I shan’t stop here; I shall go abroad.”“You go where you please,” said the old lady, in her usual sharp way, “so long as you give up that chit.”“I’m not going to give up anybody,” said Tom, defiantly; “and I shall exchange into an Indian regiment to-morrow, and when I come of age I shall do as I please.”“Suit yourself,” said the dowager, curtly; “but mark my words, not a penny of my money do you get.”At this point the engagement terminated, each party withdrawing their forces without undergoing either a defeat or a victory. It was a decided case of what the dowager had termed in the first instance, “Fiddle-de-dee!”Tom, immediately after returning from his unsuccessful trip to Havre, had gone down one fine morning to the pretty little parsonage house at Hartwood.This was not like the first visit he had paid after his convalescence. Then he had been prevented from speaking all he had to say, for Pringle was there; and however much a man may be in love and dying to speak out to the object of his young affections, he cannot very well do it in the presence of her brother. Much, therefore, as Tom liked Pringle, he had hated him at the time of his prior visit for his persistent presence.“Why on earth could he not go away and set to work about his sermon or something else,” Tom thought savagely at the time, and I believe his wishes were shared in this respect, mingled with a little trembling and nervousness, by Miss Lizzie herself, for she doubtless guessed what Tom wished to say. There is something inherent in the divine sex which tells them at once when a male biped is going to make a fool of himself. But then Pringle had not gone away, and the tale, that billionth-told tale, had still to be told.Why is it that writers always allude to a love episode as that “old, old story?” It is never old, my dear sir, or madam, or mayhap, mademoiselle. It is always new. That wonderful little drama, oftentimes a tragedy, in which two actors only take the parts. It is like the fabled Phoenix which possesses the faculty of reproduction, for it is perennially fresh, and young, and new.Tom found Lizzie alone this time, and you may be certain he took advantage of the opportunity. You see the case had nearly been concluded before, and was well understood between the pair, so it did not require all that serious preparation, and Quintus Curtian resolve before dashing into the yawning gulf. Tom plunged into it at once. Lizzie’s fresh little face, with its melting violet eyes, and the pretty embarrassment which she displayed as she received him in her little conservatory, into which he walked at once to find her on hearing Pringle was out, made him fear nothing and all confident.The impudent dog darted forward on catching sight of her; and, would you believe it, he had Lizzie folded in his arms before she knew where she was, murmuring over her “My darling, my darling!” And Miss Lizzie—I suppose from discretion, knowing how powerless she was against his strong arms, did not appear to offer any protest. “Abandoned girl!” I hear the old campaigner exclaiming in her dulcet accents.Master Tom was not going to let the opportunity slip, you may be bound. He had been looking forwards to this, and thinking over the scene all the time he had been laid up, and he was quite prepared to act it.“Lizzie, my darling,” he whispered, after a pause, into her little pink ear, which was temptingly near him, “will you be my own darling little wife?”And Lizzie said nothing; she only looked up in his face. And their lips met in one long thrilling kiss.Of course it was the old or new story all over again. Rehearse it, Damon; fight the love-strife over again, Phyllis, and you have the scene complete.They were in the conservatory all the time; and it was curious how after Pringle came in what a tremendous lot of gardening Lizzie had to do, and how she could not move the pots about, or exercise her little trowel without Tom’s help. Shortly afterwards she darted off up-stairs somehow with a very flushed face. Stooping always does send the colour to one’s head, you know. And then Tom told Lizzie’s brother all about it.“I’m awfully glad, old fellow,” said Herbert Pringle, B.A.—“I am awfully glad, old fellow. Nothing could have pleased me better. I thought you were rather spoony on Lizzie, you know, all along, and I was expecting something like this.”And they shook hands together in mutual congratulation. Tom thought Lizzie’s brother a very fine, good-natured, clever fellow indeed!“By-the-way,” said Pringle, after a pause, “have you asked your mother about this?”Tom looked rather glum; he thought Lizzie’s brother a little like the stern parent now.“Not yet,” he answered. “I am going up to tell her now; but it’ll be all right, you know.”“I am very glad to hear it, for I would not let you and Lizzie enter into any engagement without her consent. It would not be right, as she’s placed me here in her parish, you know.”Herbert Pringle had very serious thoughts on the subject of etiquette, and rather doubted the dowager’s consent being obtained, from all he had heard of her from the campaigner, and knew of her himself.“Oh! that’ll be all right,” said Tom.And then Lizzie had come down again, looking bewitchingly beautiful, and Tom spent an hour of ecstasy, after which he took up his hat to go.Lizzie knew the errand he was now going on—to speak to the dowager—and she wished tearful success to him, and gave him a pretty adieu as he went off exultant: for he said his mother would never refuse her consent to an angel!How he fared in his enterprise has been already detailed, for as soon as he hinted at the thing his mother had broken out with her characteristic diatribe.And now the pleasant little drama was brought to an abrupt conclusion. It was all over! He could not marry Lizzie without his mother’s consent; the crimson sea of love was now covered with the heaving billows of adversity. He would go abroad somewhere, for he should go mad if he stopped here and could not see his darling, and Lizzie, of course, she would die of a broken heart: it was always the usual routine in tragedies like this.Tom was very miserable, for he had yet to see Lizzie and her brother—from whom he had gone off so exultant—and tell of his defeat.The world was a blank to him now!“Fiddle-de-dee!”

“Fiddle-de-dee! Thomas,” said the old dowager, with considerable asperity, “why you’ll be wanting a glass coach and four, and a cocked hat next. Stuff and nonsense, sir, it’s all fiddle-de-dee!”

“But, mother—”

“But me no buts sir! I tell you I won’t have it, and that’s enough.”

“Really, mother.”

“Really, indeed! I suppose you think I’m as great a fool as you are, Thomas.”

“Pray don’t excite yourself, mother,” said Tom, trying to keep down the thermometer until he could obtain a fair hearing, but the old lady was not to be pacified, for his soothing words only added fuel to the fire.

“Excite myself, indeed! I should think there was a little cause for excitement to hear a baby like you talking of getting married! And bearding me in my own house to be sure! I tell you, Thomas, I won’t have it!” And the dowager paced rapidly backwards and forwards on one side of the dining-room with short, jerky steps, swinging her hands, with the fingers clasping and unclasping in unison with her nervous walk.

Tom walked up and down the room on the other side, the table being entrenched between them. He took long military strides, and twirled the end of his moustache impatiently every now and then, for his temper too was rising. He did not reply at once, so his mother went on with a recapitulated volley of wrath. She had only been winding up as it were, before, and now burst out in a flowing stream of words, like an alarm clock running down, as if she had never paused from her last utterance.

“A boy like you—not of age yet, and whom I only carried in my arms the other day! You deserve to be whipped and sent to bed, sir! I never heard of such a thing in all my born days! And as for that little chit—she—she, I don’t know what oughtn’t to be done with her. Little minx! But it serves me right, putting that jackanapes of a brother of hers into that snug living down there.” And the dowager with a wave of her hand indicated Hartwood village. “There is he prancing about on that little beast of a pony of his every day after the heels of that fine my lady who wanted to poke her nose in here if I had only let her. I can see what’s going on, although I do mind my own business! And now that artful little jade is trying to catch you with her big staring eyes! I wonder what you can see in her I’m sure. I know what she’s after: they have heard that you are the heir, and they want to secure you for the family, but I’ll spoil their tricks. I’m not going to be turned out of my own house yet. I’ll pack that jackanapes of a brother off about his business, and as for the artful little minx—it’s positively indecent a girl running after a boy like that! I saw what they were fishing for, in sending up every day that Gezaba of a servant of theirs to enquire ‘how Mister Tom was.’ Mister Tom, indeed! It ought to be Master Tom, and he to be birched. The artful little minx! I’ll—I’ll—”

“Stop, mother,” shouted Tom, seizing upon a favourable opportunity when the dowager paused a moment from loss of breath. “Stop, mother, I won’t have you say a word against that young lady. I don’t mind what you say of me, but I won’t stand by and hear you abuse an innocent girl like that. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, mother, to use such language. Against your own sex, too, and a lady whom I intend to make my wife.”

“Your wife!” screamed the old lady with tenfold vehemence and passion. “Your wife! I’d sooner see you in your grave first!”

“You forget yourself, mother,” said Tom, hotly. Like all easy-going men who have good tempers and are seldom roused up to anger, Tom took some time to lose his temper thoroughly, and when he did, he lost it completely. He was now in a regular passion, and his mother’s taunts sent him up to fever heat.

“Forget myself, indeed!”—It was a case of flint and steel between the two.—“It is you that forget yourself, talking like a Bashaw of Nine Tails of marrying whom you please, as if you were a lord and master. Fine doings, indeed! why you’re as mad as your sister Susan.”

“You need not bring poor Susan into the conversation, mother. I’m sure she’s very happy, and I believe she did for the best, if this be a sample of a mother’s affection, and what she would have met with at home”—Tom ejaculated bitterly.

“Oh! she did for the best, did she? And a fine mess she made of it, running off with that swindling vagabond. I would like to see him on the treadmill! If that was the only way in which she could get back her senses, it would have been better for her to have been dead at once. But it is the way with all silly women; they never seem to have their senses until they have tied themselves to some scoundrel who has only married them for their money. You are more mad than she is, Thomas. Marry, indeed! A pretty pass things are coming to. You’re an idiot, and she’s a minx, there!”

“I tell you, mother, I won’t have you say a word against that lady. If there be any fault attached to the business, which I can’t see myself, she’s not to blame at any rate.”

“She’s a little minx, there,” repeated the dowager, with increased venom. She saw how well the shaft was aimed, and like a woman she pushed it in.

“I won’t have it, mother.”

“Minx! minx! minx! there!” uttered the old lady rapidly, giving her head a jerky nod after each repetition of the obnoxious epithet.

“This is scandalous!” said Tom, literally boiling over with passion. The term “minx,” applied to Lizzie, having apparently the same effect on him as a red rag has on a bull, or a fat turkey gobler, to adapt a more ignoble simile. “I won’t have it, whether you’re my mother or not, and I’ll marry whom I please, without asking your leave or licence.”

“You will, will you? I should like to know how you’re going to support a wife? I’m not going to do it for you.”

“I don’t care whether you do or do not,” said Tom, savagely.

The bull had been now tormented sufficiently, and the matador thought it time to give thecoup de grace.

“Mark my words,” said the dowager, impressively, “if you marry that chit, Thomas, or have anything more to do with her, or any of that toadying crew, not a penny piece of my money do you get, Thomas.”

“Hang the money! I don’t want it: I suppose I can get along somehow or other without it.”

“Remember, you’re not of age yet, young sir, and when you are, you won’t be much better off, unless I please. You haven’t a penny of your own now, except what I give you, and if you don’t abandon the whole thing, not a penny more will you have.”

The dowager was aware of the advantage in military tactics of cutting off the enemy’s supplies.

“I’m sure I don’t want it,” said Tom; but he thought in a moment how ungracious this was to his mother, who had previously been so kind to him. “I mean, I don’t want you to help me any more, if it’s to be thrown in my teeth like this. I am very much obliged to you, mother, for what you have done for me already. That is past and gone, and I’m not going to sell myself now and break a trusting girl’s heart for the sake of my future chances. Hang the money! I hate the very sound of the word.”

“But it is a very useful thing, Thomas—a very useful thing; and you don’t seem to have had any objection to it before. It’s very hard on me, Thomas, very hard.” The old lady was broken now a good deal, after all the trouble she had gone through, and was not able to prosecute the combat with her customary vigour. “After I’ve been slaving and saving for you all these years to meet with such a return. It’s a judgment on me; and if I had served my church better than I have served my son, it—it—” And the dowager fairly broke down for the first time in her life, after vainly attempting to paraphrase Cardinal Wolsey’s memorable monologue.

Tom was fairly vanquished.

“I beg your pardon, mother. I did not mean to say anything unkind or ungrateful, but really—”

“After all I have done for you, too,” whimpered Mrs Hartshorne; “it’s a judgment on me for neglecting your sister and making so much of you.”

“I’m very sorry, mother, but I’m a man now, and this is a matter I must decide for myself.”

“You shan’t marry with my consent,” retorted the dowager; “and you can’t marry without that.”

“You’re my mother,” said Tom, sadly emphasising that undeniable fact; “and you can ruin my hopes of happiness, if you please. But I shan’t stop here; I shall go abroad.”

“You go where you please,” said the old lady, in her usual sharp way, “so long as you give up that chit.”

“I’m not going to give up anybody,” said Tom, defiantly; “and I shall exchange into an Indian regiment to-morrow, and when I come of age I shall do as I please.”

“Suit yourself,” said the dowager, curtly; “but mark my words, not a penny of my money do you get.”

At this point the engagement terminated, each party withdrawing their forces without undergoing either a defeat or a victory. It was a decided case of what the dowager had termed in the first instance, “Fiddle-de-dee!”

Tom, immediately after returning from his unsuccessful trip to Havre, had gone down one fine morning to the pretty little parsonage house at Hartwood.

This was not like the first visit he had paid after his convalescence. Then he had been prevented from speaking all he had to say, for Pringle was there; and however much a man may be in love and dying to speak out to the object of his young affections, he cannot very well do it in the presence of her brother. Much, therefore, as Tom liked Pringle, he had hated him at the time of his prior visit for his persistent presence.

“Why on earth could he not go away and set to work about his sermon or something else,” Tom thought savagely at the time, and I believe his wishes were shared in this respect, mingled with a little trembling and nervousness, by Miss Lizzie herself, for she doubtless guessed what Tom wished to say. There is something inherent in the divine sex which tells them at once when a male biped is going to make a fool of himself. But then Pringle had not gone away, and the tale, that billionth-told tale, had still to be told.

Why is it that writers always allude to a love episode as that “old, old story?” It is never old, my dear sir, or madam, or mayhap, mademoiselle. It is always new. That wonderful little drama, oftentimes a tragedy, in which two actors only take the parts. It is like the fabled Phoenix which possesses the faculty of reproduction, for it is perennially fresh, and young, and new.

Tom found Lizzie alone this time, and you may be certain he took advantage of the opportunity. You see the case had nearly been concluded before, and was well understood between the pair, so it did not require all that serious preparation, and Quintus Curtian resolve before dashing into the yawning gulf. Tom plunged into it at once. Lizzie’s fresh little face, with its melting violet eyes, and the pretty embarrassment which she displayed as she received him in her little conservatory, into which he walked at once to find her on hearing Pringle was out, made him fear nothing and all confident.

The impudent dog darted forward on catching sight of her; and, would you believe it, he had Lizzie folded in his arms before she knew where she was, murmuring over her “My darling, my darling!” And Miss Lizzie—I suppose from discretion, knowing how powerless she was against his strong arms, did not appear to offer any protest. “Abandoned girl!” I hear the old campaigner exclaiming in her dulcet accents.

Master Tom was not going to let the opportunity slip, you may be bound. He had been looking forwards to this, and thinking over the scene all the time he had been laid up, and he was quite prepared to act it.

“Lizzie, my darling,” he whispered, after a pause, into her little pink ear, which was temptingly near him, “will you be my own darling little wife?”

And Lizzie said nothing; she only looked up in his face. And their lips met in one long thrilling kiss.

Of course it was the old or new story all over again. Rehearse it, Damon; fight the love-strife over again, Phyllis, and you have the scene complete.

They were in the conservatory all the time; and it was curious how after Pringle came in what a tremendous lot of gardening Lizzie had to do, and how she could not move the pots about, or exercise her little trowel without Tom’s help. Shortly afterwards she darted off up-stairs somehow with a very flushed face. Stooping always does send the colour to one’s head, you know. And then Tom told Lizzie’s brother all about it.

“I’m awfully glad, old fellow,” said Herbert Pringle, B.A.—“I am awfully glad, old fellow. Nothing could have pleased me better. I thought you were rather spoony on Lizzie, you know, all along, and I was expecting something like this.”

And they shook hands together in mutual congratulation. Tom thought Lizzie’s brother a very fine, good-natured, clever fellow indeed!

“By-the-way,” said Pringle, after a pause, “have you asked your mother about this?”

Tom looked rather glum; he thought Lizzie’s brother a little like the stern parent now.

“Not yet,” he answered. “I am going up to tell her now; but it’ll be all right, you know.”

“I am very glad to hear it, for I would not let you and Lizzie enter into any engagement without her consent. It would not be right, as she’s placed me here in her parish, you know.”

Herbert Pringle had very serious thoughts on the subject of etiquette, and rather doubted the dowager’s consent being obtained, from all he had heard of her from the campaigner, and knew of her himself.

“Oh! that’ll be all right,” said Tom.

And then Lizzie had come down again, looking bewitchingly beautiful, and Tom spent an hour of ecstasy, after which he took up his hat to go.

Lizzie knew the errand he was now going on—to speak to the dowager—and she wished tearful success to him, and gave him a pretty adieu as he went off exultant: for he said his mother would never refuse her consent to an angel!

How he fared in his enterprise has been already detailed, for as soon as he hinted at the thing his mother had broken out with her characteristic diatribe.

And now the pleasant little drama was brought to an abrupt conclusion. It was all over! He could not marry Lizzie without his mother’s consent; the crimson sea of love was now covered with the heaving billows of adversity. He would go abroad somewhere, for he should go mad if he stopped here and could not see his darling, and Lizzie, of course, she would die of a broken heart: it was always the usual routine in tragedies like this.

Tom was very miserable, for he had yet to see Lizzie and her brother—from whom he had gone off so exultant—and tell of his defeat.

The world was a blank to him now!

“Fiddle-de-dee!”

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