It was a few days later. Mrs. Oscar Dalrymple, who had been spending the afternoon with her mother and Mary Lynn, was preparing to return to the Grange. Alice had just come home again, a brilliant hectic on her cheeks, but weaker, as it seemed to them all. Alice was happier than she had been for years, in her sweet unselfishness. The trouble which had divided Colonel Hope and his nephew was at an end; Gerard had been reinstated in his uncle's favour, and was to marry Frances Chenevix. Lying on the sofa by the window, in the fading light, Alice had been giving them various particulars of this; and Selina, greatly interested, lingered longer than she had intended. But she had to go.
Rising hurriedly, she put on her bonnet and cloak. Mrs. Dalrymple rang the bell. It was to tell Reuben to be in readiness to attend her daughter.
"As if I wanted old Reuben with me, mamma!" exclaimed Selina. "Why, I shall run home in no time!"
"He had better be with you," sighed Mrs. Dalrymple: the sigh given to the disturbed state of things abroad. "The neighbourhood is not very quiet today, as you know, Selina, and it is growing dusk."
It was not quiet at all. The summary process, eviction, had been resorted to by Pinnett, as regarded the tenants of the Mill Cottages. He had forced them out with violence. One of them, named Thoms, had resisted to the last. Go out he would not, and the assailants could not get him out.
A meeting was to be held this same evening at Farmer Lee's. It could not be called a secret meeting; the farmer would have disdained the name; but those about to attend it waited until the dusk should shelter them, conscious that they were likely to speak treason against their landlord.
"Thoms is out," cried Farmer Bumford, as he entered Mr. Lee's house in excitement.
"How did they get him out?"
"Unroofed him, Lee. Pulled his place to pieces bit by bit, and so forced him out. He is now with the rest of the unfortunate lot."
"I thought such practices were confined to Ireland," said the honest farmer. "It's time something was done to protect us. Oscar Dalrymple will have his sins to answer for."
It was at this hour, when the autumn twilight was deepening, that Selina started for home. She chose the way by the common: a longer way, and in other respects not a desirable one tonight. Selina's spirit was fearless enough, and she wanted to see whether the rumour could be true—that the unhappy people, just ejected, had collected there, meaning to encamp on it. Reuben, with the licence of an old and faithful servant, remonstrated, begging her to go home by the turnpike road: but Selina chose to cross the common.
Surely enough, the unfortunate lot, as Mr. Bumford called them, had gathered on its outskirts, in view of their late homes, their poor goods and chattels, much damaged in the mêlée, piled in little heaps around them. Men, their hearts panting for revenge, sobbing women and shivering children, there they stood, sat, or lay about. The farmers, Lee and Bumford, would later on open their barns to them for the night; but at present they expected to encamp under the stars.
In the midst of the harsh converse that prevailed, the oaths, and the abuse lavished on Oscar Dalrymple—for these poor, ignorant labourers refused, like their betters, to believe that Pinnett could so act without the landlord's orders—they espied, hurrying past them at a swift pace, their landlord's wife. Selina walked with her head down; now that she saw the threatening aspect of affairs, she wished she had listened to Reuben, and taken the open road. One of them came running up; a resolute fellow, named Dyke.
"You'd hurry by, would you?" said he, in tones that spoke more of plaint than threat. "Won't you turn your eyes once to the ruin your husband has wrought? Look at the mud and mortar! If the walls weren't of new brick or costly stone, they was good enough for us. They were our homes. Look at the spot now."
Selina trembled visibly. She was aware of the awful feeling abroad against her husband, and a dread rushed into her heart that they might be going to visit it on her. Would they ill-use her?—beat her, or kill her?
Reuben spoke up: but he was powerless against so many, and he knew it; therefore his tone was more conciliating than it would otherwise have been.
"What do you mean by molesting this lady? Stand away, Dyke, and let her pass. You wouldn't hurt her; if she is Mr. Dalrymple's wife, she was the Squire's daughter, and he was always good to you."
"Stand away yourself, old man; who said we were going to hurt her?" roughly retorted Dyke. "'Taint likely; and you've said the reason why. Ma'am, do you see these ruins? Do they make you blush?"
"I am very sorry to see them, Dyke," answered Selina. "It is no fault of mine."
"Is it hard upon us, or not, that we should be turned out of the poor walls that sheltered us? We paid our bit of rent, all on us; not one was a defaulter. How would you like to be turned out of your home, and told the poorhouse was afore you and an order for it, if you liked to go there?"
"I can only say how very sorry I am," she returned, distressed as well as terrified. "I wish I could help you, and put you into better cottages tomorrow! But I am as powerless as you are."
"Will you tell the master to do it? We be coming up to ask him. Will you tell him to come out and face us, and look at the ruins he have made, and look at our wives and little ones a-shivering there in the cold?"
Selina seemed to be shivering as much as they were. "It is Pinnett who has done it," she said, "not Mr. Dalrymple. You should lay the blame on him."
"Pinnett!" roared Dyke, throwing his arm before the other men, now surrounding them, to silence their murmurings, for he thought his own eloquence the best. "Would Pinnett have dared to do this without the master's orders? Pinnett's a tool in his hands. Say to him, ma'am, please, that we're not going to stand Pinnett's doings and be quiet; we'll drownd him first, let us once catch hold on him; and we be coming up to the Grange ourselves to say so to the master."
Finding she was to be no further detained, Selina sped on to the Grange. Oscar was in the oak-parlour. She threw herself into a chair, and burst into tears.
"Oscar, I have been so terrified. As I came by the common with Reuben, the men were there, and——"
"What men?" interrupted Mr. Dalrymple.
"Those who have been ejected from the cottages. They stopped me, and began to speak about their wrongs."
"Their—wrongs—did they say?"
"Yes, and I must say it also," she firmly answered, induced by fright and excitement to remonstrate against the injustice she had hitherto not liked to interfere with. "Cruel wrongs. Oscar, if you go on like this, oppressing all on the estate, you will be murdered as sure as you are living. They are threatening to drown Pinnett, if they can get hold of him; and they do not lay the blame on Pinnett, except as your agent, but on you."
"Pinnett is not my agent. What Pinnett does, he does on his own score. As to these harsh measures—as they are called—my sanction was not asked for them."
"But the poor men cannot see it in that light, Oscar; cannot be brought to believe it," she returned, the tears running down her cheeks. "It does seem so impossible to believe that Pinnett can be allowed to——"
"There, that's enough," interrupted Oscar. "Let it end."
"Yes; but the trouble won't end, Oscar. And the men say they are coming up here. There's a meeting, too, at Lee's tonight."
"They can come if they please, and hold as many meetings as they please," equably observed Oscar. "Men who are living in a state of semi-rebellion must learn a wholesome lesson."
"They have been provoked to it. They were never rebellious in papa's time."
He made no reply. Selina, her feelings strongly excited, her sympathies bubbling up, continued.
"It will be cruel to the farmers if you turn them from their farms; it is doubly cruel to have forced these poor men from their cottages. They paid their rent. You should see the miserable wives and children huddled together on the common. I could not have acted so, Oscar, if I had not a shilling in the world."
Mr. Dalrymple wheeled round his chair to face his wife. "Whose cruel conduct has been the original cause of it?" he asked in his cold voice, that to her sounded worse than another man's anger. "Who got into secret debt, to the tune of some seven or eight thousand pounds—ay, nearer ten thousand, counting expenses—and let the bills come in to me?"
She dropped her eyes then, for his reproach was true.
"And forced me to retrench, almost to starvation, and to exact the last farthing that the estate will yield, to keep me from a prison? Was it you or I, Mrs. Dalrymple?"
"But things need not be made quite so bad," she took courage to say in a timid tone; "you need not proceed to these extremes."
"Your father's system was one of indulgence, mine is not; and the tenants, large and small, don't know what to make of it. As to Pinnett, he does not consider himself responsible to me for his actions; and I—I cannot interfere with them. So long as I am a poor man, struggling to pay your debts, Selina, so long must Pinnett take his own course."
Oscar turned back again, caught up the book he had laid down, and went on reading it. Selina took a seat on the other side of the table, and sat supporting her head with her hands. She wished things were not so wretchedly uncomfortable, or that some good fairy would endow her with a fortune. Suddenly a tramp of feet arose outside the house. Oscar heard it, unmoved; Selina, her ears covered, did not hear it, or she might have flown sooner to bar the doors. Before she could effect this, the malcontents of the common were in the hall, their numbers considerably augmented. It looked a formidable invasion. Was it murder they intended?—or arson?—what was it not? Selina, in her terror, flew to the top of the house, a servant-maid after her: they both, with one accord, seized upon a rope, and the great alarm-bell boomed out from the Grange.
Up came the people from far and near; up came the fire-engines, from the station close by, and felt exceedingly aggrieved at finding no fire: the farmers, disturbed in the midst of their pipes and ale, rushed up from Mr. Lee's. It was nothing but commotion. Old Mrs. Dalrymple, terrified at the alarm-bell, hastened to the scene, Mary Lynn with her, and Reuben coming up behind them.
Contention, prolonged and bitter, was going on in the hall. Oscar Dalrymple was at one end, listening, and not impatiently, to his undesirable visitors, who would insist upon being heard at length. He answered them calmly and civilly, not exasperating them in any way, but he gave no hope of a change in the existing policy.
After seeing his mistress seated in the hall, for she insisted on making one of the audience, poor Reuben, grieved to the heart at the aspect of affairs altogether, went outside the house, and paced about in the moonlight. It was a fine, light night. He had strolled near the stables, when he was accosted by some one who stood aloof, under the shade of the walls.
"What's the matter here, that people should be running, in this way, into the Grange?"
"I should call it something like a rise," answered Reuben, sorrowfully. "Are you a stranger, sir?"
"I am a stranger. Until this night I have not been in the neighbourhood for years. But I formerly was on intimate terms with the Dalrymple family, and have stayed here with them for weeks together."
"Have you, though!" cried Reuben. "In the Squire's time, sir?"
"In the Squire's time. I remember you, I think. Reuben."
"Ay, I am Reuben, sir. Sad changes have taken place since then. My old master's gone, and Mr. Robert is gone, and the Grange is now Oscar Dalrymple's."
"I knew of Mr. Dalrymple's death. What became of his son?"
"He soon followed his father. It will not do to talk of, sir."
"Do you mean that he died?" returned the stranger. But before Reuben could answer, Farmer Lee came up and commenced a warm comment on the night's work.
"I hope there'll be no bloodshed," said he; "we don't want that; but the men are growing more excited, and Mr. Dalrymple has sent off a private messenger to the police-station."
"This gentleman used to know the family," interposed Reuben; "he has come to the place tonight for the first time for years. This riot is a fine welcome for him."
"I was asking some particulars of what has transpired since my absence," explained the stranger. "I have been out of England, and now thought to renew my acquaintance with the family. What did Robert Dalrymple die of? I knew him well."
"He fell into trouble, sir," interposed Reuben. "A random, wicked London set got hold of him, fleeced and ruined him, and he could not bear up against it."
"Died of it?" questioned the stranger.
"He put an end to himself," said Mr. Lee, in a low tone. "Threw himself into the Thames from one of the London bridges, and was drowned."
"How deplorable! And so the Grange passed to Oscar Dalrymple."
"Yes," said the farmer. "He married the eldest of the young ladies, Selina, and something not pleasant arose with them. They went to London, and there she ran very deeply into debt. Her husband brought her back to the Grange; and since then he has been an awful landlord, grinding us all down to powder. Things have come to such a pass now that we expect a riot. The poor labourers who tenanted the Mill Cottages have been ejected today; they have come up to have it out with Oscar Dalrymple, leaving their families and chairs and tables on the common. One of them, Thoms, could not be forced out, so they just took his roof off and his doors out."
The stranger seemed painfully surprised. "I never thought to hear this of a Dalrymple!"
But here Reuben again interposed. Jealous for the name, even though borne by Oscar, he told of the leasing of the estate to Pinnett, and that it was he, not Oscar, who was proceeding to these cruel extremities.
"I should call that so much nonsense," said the stranger. "Lease the estate! that has a curious sound. Has he leased away all power over it? One cannot believe that."
"No; and we don't believe it," said the farmer, "not one of us; Mr. Dalrymple can't make us, though he tries hard to do so. He is playing Old Nick with us, sir, and nothing else. It was a fatal night for us that took Mr. Robert."
"You would have been better off under him, you think?"
"Think!" indignantly retorted the farmer. "You could not have known Robert Dalrymple to ask it."
"Robert Dalrymple died in debt, I take it. Did he owe much in this neighbourhood?"
"Nothing here."
"Did he owe you anything?"
"Me!" cried the farmer. "Not he. Why, only a day before his death I had sent five hundred pounds to him to invest for me. He had not time to do it himself, but a gentleman who took a great deal of interest in Mr. Robert, and saw to his affairs afterwards, did it."
"What gentleman was that?"
"It was Mr. Grubb: he is Sir Francis Netherleigh now, and has come into Court Netherleigh. His sister—who is at the Grange tonight with old Mrs. Dalrymple—and Mr. Robert were to have been married. She has stayed single for his sake."
"Robert Dalrymple may not be dead," spoke the stranger.
But this hypothesis was received with disfavour; not to say scorn. The stranger maintained his opinion, saying that it was his opinion.
"Then perhaps you'll enjoy your opinion in private," rebuked Mr. Lee. "To talk in that senseless manner only makes us feel the fact of his death more sharply."
"What if I tell you I met him abroad, only a year ago?" There was a dead pause. Reuben breathed heavily. "Oh, don't play with us!" he cried out; "if my dear young master's alive, let me know it. But he cannot be alive," he added mournfully: "he would have made it known to us before now."
The stranger unwound a large handkerchief, in which his face and chin had been muffled, raised his soft round hat from his brows, and advanced from the shade into the moonlight.
"Reuben! John Lee! do I look anything like him?"
Reuben sank on his knees, too faint to support himself in the overwhelming surprise and joy. For it was indeed his young master, Robert Dalrymple, raised, as it seemed, from a many years' grave. The old servant broke into sobs that would not be controlled.
"But it is nothing less than magic," cried the farmer, when he had wrung Robert's hand as if he would wring it off, and both he and Reuben had had time to take in the full truth of the revelation. "Dead—yet living!"
"I never was dead," said Robert. "The night that I found myself irretrievably ruined——"
But here Robert Dalrymple's explanation was interrupted by a noise. The malcontents, driven wild by Oscar's cold equanimity, which they took to be purely supercilious, were rushing out of the Grange by the front-entrance, fierce threats and oaths pouring from their lips. Oscar Dalrymple might go to perdition! They'd fire the place over his head, commencing with the barns and outhouses!
"Stay, stay, stay! let me have a few words with you before you begin," spoke one, meeting them with assured, but kind authority; and his calm voice acted like oil poured upon troubled waters.
It was Sir Francis Netherleigh. Hearing of the riot, he had hastened up. He reasoned with the men, promised to see what he could do to get their wrongs redressed, told them that certain barns and outhouses of his were being warmed and made comfortable for them for the night, and their wives and children were already on their way to take possession. Finally, he subdued them to peace and good temper.
But while this was taking place in front of the house, there had been another bit of by-play near the stables. Mary Lynn, terrified for the effect of the riotous threats on Mrs. Dalrymple in her precarious state of health, begged her to return home, and ran out to look for Reuben. Mr. Lee discerned her leaning over the gate of the kitchen-garden, gazing about on all sides in the moonlight. A bright idea struck him, quite a little bit of romance.
"I'll fetch her to you here, Mr. Robert," he said. "I'll break the glad news to her carefully. And—youwon't turn as out of our homes, will you, sir?" he lingered to say.
"That I certainly will not; and those who are already out shall go back again. But," added Robert, smiling, "I fear I shall be obliged to turn somebody out of the Grange."
"There's Pinnett, sir?" came the next doubting remark. "If Mr. Oscar Dalrymple has leased him the estate, who knows but the law may give him full power over us——"
"Leased him the estate!" interposed Robert. "Why, my good friend, it was not Oscar Dalrymple's to lease: it was mine. Be at rest."
Relieved at heart, the farmer marched up to Mary; managing, despite the most ingenious intentions, to startle and confuse her. He opened the conference by telling her, with an uncomfortably mysterious air, that a dead man had come to life again who was waiting to see her: and Mary's thoughts, greatly disturbed, flew to a poor labourer who had died, really died, that morning.
"What do you mean, Mr. Lee?" she interrupted, with some awe. "You can't know what you are saying. Colter come to life again!"
"There! I know how I always bungle over this sort o' thing," cried the abashed farmer. "You must just forgive me. And you can well afford to, Miss Mary, for it's not Colter come to life at all; it is young Mr. Robert Dalrymple. And here he is, walking towards you."
The farmer discreetly disappeared. Mary tottered into the shade, and stood for support against the trunk of the great elm-tree. Robert drew her from it to the shelter of his faithful heart.
"Yes; it is I, my darling; I, myself—do not tremble so," he whispered. "God has been very merciful to me, more merciful than I deserve, and has brought me back to you and to home again."
She lay there, on his breast, the strong arms around her that would henceforth be her shelter throughout life.
Sundry shouts startling the night-air, combined with the dashing up of horsemen, caused no little stir amidst the crowd. The booming of the alarm-bell somewhat earlier in the evening had been less ominous than this.
They were the police-officers from Netherleigh, sent for by Oscar Dalrymple, and they had come mounted, for the sake of speed. The moon had gone under a cloud, the old structure, Moat Grange, appeared shadowy and indistinct, and to the imagination of these poor excited labourers, assembled to discuss their position, the three officers—for there were but three—looked magnified into a formidable number. Sir Francis Netherleigh had appeased their anger, but he could not subdue the sense of wrong that burnt in the men's minds; and when he left them, they, instead of dispersing quietly in accordance with his recommendation, lingered where they were, and whispered together of Pinnett and of treason.
On the other side of the house was a group, more peaceful, but not a whit less excited. Of all the surprises met with by Francis Netherleigh in his own life, he had never had so complete a one as this, or one so satisfactory. Searching about after malcontents that might have scattered themselves, he came round by the outhouses and the kitchen-garden; and there he saw a stranger talking with his sister Mary, Farmer Lee and Reuben standing at a little distance. The moon was bright then; the stranger stood bareheaded, and there was that in his form and in the outlines of his face that thrilled chords in the memory of Sir Francis.
"Don't be frightened, sir," spoke Farmer Leo to him, in whispered tones, as befitted the wonderful subject; "it is himself, and not his ghost. It is, indeed."
"Butwhois it?" cried Sir Francis, his eyes strained earnestly on the stranger.
"Himself, I say, sir—Robert Dalrymple."
"Robert Dalrymple!"
"Ay. Come back from the dead, as one may say. He made himself known to me and Reuben; and then I went and broke the news to Miss Mary. And there they both are, talking together."
But Mary had discerned her brother, and they were coming forward. "Is it possible to believe it?" asked Sir Francis, as they met, his hand clasping Robert's with a warm grasp.
"I think you may; I think you cannot fail to recognize me, changed and aged though I know I am," answered Robert, with an emotion that bordered upon tears.
"You have been alive all this time—and not dead, as we have deplored you?"
"Yes, all this time; and I never knew until a little while ago that I was looked upon as dead."
"But what became of you, Robert? It was thought, that dreadful night, that you——"
"Threw myself into the Thames," put in Robert, in the slight pause made by Sir Francis. They were all standing together now, Mary a little apart, her hand upon the gate, and the moonlight flickered on them through the branches of the thinning autumn trees. "I was very near doing it," he continued; "nearer than any one, save God, can know. It was a dreadful night to me, one of shame and despair. Knowing myself to be irretrievably ruined, a rogue upon earth——"
"Hold there, sir," cried Reuben, "a rogue you never were."
"I was, Reuben. And you shall all hear how. Mary,"—turning to her—"youshall hear also. A beggar myself, I staked that night at the gaming-table the money I held of yours, Lee, the five hundred pounds you had entrusted to me, staked it, and lost it. I cannot understand how you—but I'll leave that just now. The money gone, I wandered about the streets, a desperate man, and found myself on Westminster Bridge. It was in my heart to leap into the river, to take the blind leap into futurity my uncle had taken before me. I was almost in the very act of doing it, when a passer-by, seeing my perilous position, pulled me back, and asked what I meant by hanging over there. It is to him I owe my life."
"Under God," breathed Mary, remembering her dream.
"Ay," assented Robert, "under God. It proved to be one Joseph Horn, a young man employed at my tailor's, and he recognized me. I made an excuse about the heat of the night, that I was leaning over for a breath of air from the water: and finally Horn left me. But the incident had served to arrest my purpose; to show me my folly and my sin. I am not ashamed to confess that I knelt down, there and then, to ask God to help me, and to save me from myself; and—He did it. I quitted the dangerous spot——"
"Your hat was found in the Thames, and brought back the next day, Mr. Robert," interrupted poor, bewildered, happy Reuben.
"It blew off, into the river; it was one of the windiest nights I was ever out in, except at sea," answered Robert. "I walked about the streets till morning, taking myself sharply to task, and considering how I could give myself a chance for a better life. I had still my watch and ring, both of value—they would have gone long before, just as everything else had gone, but that they had been my father's, and were given over by him to me on his death-bed. I parted with them now, disguised myself in rough clothes, went to Liverpool, and thence to America."
"But why did you not come to me instead?" asked Sir Francis.
"I was ashamed to do so. Look at the debts I owed; at what I had done with Lee's money! No, there was nothing for it but to hide my head from you all, and from the world. Had I made a fortune, I should have come back in triumph, but I never did make it. I found employment as a clerk at New Orleans, and kept myself; that was all."
"If you had only just let us know you were alive, Robert!" cried Mary.
He shook his head. "I did not suppose any one would care to know it. I expected that the extent of my villainy had come out, and that you would all be thankful if I disappeared for ever. So there I remained, in the Crescent City, passing as 'Mr. Charles,' my second name, and making the best of my blighted life. I"—his tone suddenly changed to laughter—"nearly married and settled there."
"Oh!"—Mary gave quite a start.
"I had an excellent offer; yes, I assure you I had. It was leap-year. A flourishing widow, some few years older than myself, took a fancy to me. She had a fine house and grounds on the banks of the Mississippi, and an income not to be despised; and she proposed that I should throw up my wearisome daily work and become the master of all this—and of her. I took it into consideration, I can tell you."
"And what prevented your accepting it?" laughed Sir Francis.
"Well, the one bare thought—it did not amount to hope—that a turn of good fortunemightsome time bring me back here, to find"—with a glance at Mary—"what I have found."
"And the good fortune came, sir—and has brought you back!" exclaimed the farmer.
"Yes; it came," replied Robert, "it came: a turn that was very like romance, and once more exemplified the saying that truth is stranger than fiction. You are aware, I think, that my father had a relative living in Liverpool, Benjamin Dalrymple?" added Robert, chiefly addressing Sir Francis—who nodded in reply.
"Benjamin Dalrymple never corresponded with us, would not notice us; a serious difference had arisen between him and my father in early days. But, a year after my father's death, when I chanced to be in Liverpool, I called upon him. He was cordial enough with me, seemed rather to take a fancy to me, and I stayed with him three weeks. He was a cotton-broker, and would take me down to his office in a morning, and show me his routine of business, verily hoping, I believe, that I should take to it and join him. When, later, I became hard up, and had not a shilling to turn to in the world, I wrote to Benjamin Dalrymple from London, asking him to help me. Not by the smallest fraction, he replied; a young man who could run into debt, with my patrimony, would run into debt to the end of the chapter, though his income might number tens of thousands. Well, all that passed away; and——"
Robert paused.
"The house I served in America exported cotton home in large quantities," he continued rapidly. "Benjamin Dalrymple was amongst their larger correspondents. Some few months ago, his confidential clerk, a taciturn gentleman named Patten, came over on business to New Orleans, to this very house I was in. He saw me and recognized me; we had dined together more than once at old Benjamin's table in Liverpool. Patten had believed me dead; drowned; and it no doubt gave him a turn when he saw me alive. I told him my history, asking him not to let it transpire in the old world or the new. But it seems he considered it his duty to repeat it to old Benjamin on his return home: and he did so. The result was, that Benjamin set up a correspondence with me, and finally commanded me to give up my place as clerk and go back to him. I did so; and I——"
Again Robert stopped; this time in evident emotion.
"Go on, Robert," said Sir Francis. "What is it?"
"My story has a sad ending," answered Robert, his tone depressed. "I landed at Liverpool to find Benjamin Dalrymple ill with a mortal illness. He had been ailing for some time, but the fatal truth had then declared itself. He was so changed, too!—I suppose people do change when they are about to die. From being a cold, hard man, he had become gentle and loving in manner. I must remain with him until the end, he said, and be to him as a son."
"Was he not married, sir?" asked Farmer Lee.
"He had never married. I did remain with him, doing what I could for him, and making no end of promises, which he exacted, with regard to my future life and conduct. In twenty-one days, exactly, from the day I landed, the end came."
"He died?"
"He died. I waited for his funeral. And," concluded Robert, modestly, "he has made me his heir."
"Thank Heaven for that!" murmured old Reuben.
"How much it is, I cannot tell you," said Robert, "but an enormous sum. Patten puts it down at half a million: and, that, after clerks and other dependents have been well provided for. So, every one who has ever suffered by me in the shape of debt will be recompensed; and Moat Grange will hold its own again."
But his return had to be made known to others who were interested in it: his mother, his sisters, Oscar Dalrymple. Of the latter Robert spoke some hard words.
"I had thought to give him a fair portion of this wealth in right of Selina," avowed he. "But I don't know now. A man who can so oppress an estate does not merit much favour."
"Oscar has been worse thought of than he deserves," explained Sir Francis Netherleigh. "Rely upon that, Robert. He has been sorely tried, sorely put to for money for some few years now, through no fault of his own——"
"No; through Selina's," interrupted Robert. "Old Benjamin knew all about it."
"He has been striving to make both ends meet, to pay his obligations justly and honourably, and he could only do it by dint of pinching and screwing," went on Sir Francis. "The great mistake of his later life was leasing the estate to Pinnett. It is thought that he could have arrested Pinnett's harsh acts; my opinion is that he could not."
"I am glad to hear you say so," cried Robert, cordially. "Oscar was always near, but he was just."
They were moving slowly through the garden to the house, when a disturbance struck upon their ears. It came from the front of the Grange; and all, except Mary, hastened round to the scene. It was, in fact, the moment of the arrival of the mounted police. The officers shouted, the crowd rebelled; and Oscar Dalrymple ran out. The police, hasty as usual, were for taking up the malcontents wholesale; the latter resisted, protesting they had done nothing to be taken up for. They had only come up to speak to Mr. Dalrymple, and "there was no law against that," said they.
"You break the law when you use threats to a man in his own house," cried Featherston, the chief constable.
"We haven't used no threats," retorted Dyke. "We want an answer from Mr. Dalrymple; whether he's going to force us to lodge under the wind and the rain, or whether he'll find us roofs in place of them he has destroyed. They've bid us go to the workhouse; but he knows that if we go there we lose all chance of getting our living, and shall never have a home for our families again."
"There's no longer room for you on the estate; no dwellings for you left upon it," spoke up a voice; and the men turned sharply, for they knew it was Pinnett's. Countenanced by the presence of the constables, the agent came out from some shelter or other, and showed himself openly.
"We won't say nothing about mercy," savagely cried Dyke; "but we'd like justice. Justice, sir!" turning to Oscar Dalrymple, as he stood by the side of Mr. Cleveland, who had just come up. "Hands off, Mr. Constable! I'm doing nothing yet, save asking a plain question. Is there any justice?"
"Yes, there is justice," interrupted another voice, which thrilled through the very marrow of Oscar Dalrymple, as Robert advanced and took his place near Mr. Cleveland, who started back in positive fright. "Oscar, you know me, I see; gentlemen, some of you know me: I am Robert Dalrymple, and I have returned to claim my own."
Was it a spectre? Many of them looked as if they feared so. Was it some deception of the moonlight? Featherston, brave policeman though he was, backed away in terror.
"I find you have all thought me dead," proceeded Robert; "but I am not dead, and never was dead; I have simply been abroad. I fell into debt and difficulty; but, now that the difficulties are over, I have come amongst you again."
"It's the Squire!" burst forth the men, as they gradually awoke to the truth; "we've never called the other one so. Our own young Squire's come home again, and our troubles are over. Good luck to the ship that brought him!"
Robert laughed. "Yes, your troubles shall be over. I hear that there has been dissatisfaction; and, perhaps, oppression. I can only say that I will set everything right. The tenants who have been served with a notice to quit"—glancing round at Lee and Bumford—"may burn it; and you, my poor fellows, who have been ejected from your cottages, shall be reinstalled in them."
"But, my dear young master," cried Dyke, despondingly, "some of the roofs be off, and the walls be pretty nigh levelled with the ground."
"I will build them up for you, Dyke, stronger than ever," said Robert, heartily. "Here's my hand upon it."
Not only Dyke, but many more pressed forward to clasp Robert's hands; and so hard and earnest were the pressures, that Robert was almost tempted to cry for quarter. In the midst of this, Pinnett thought it time to speak.
"You talk rather fast, sir: even if you are Mr. Robert Dalrymple. The estate is mine for some six years to come. It has been leased to me by its owner."
"That it certainly has not been," returned Robert, his tone one of conscious power. "I am its owner. The estate has been mine throughout; as I did not die, it could not have lapsed from me. My brother-in-law, acting under a mistake, entered into possession, but he has never been the legal owner. Consequently, whatever acts be may have ordered, performed, or sanctioned, are NULL and VOID. Constables, I think your services will not be required here."
Pinnett ground his teeth. "It's to know whether youareRobert Dalrymple—and not an impostor."
"I can certify that it is really Robert Dalrymple; I baptized him," laughed Mr. Cleveland. "There is no mistaking him and his handsome face."
"And I and Mr. Lee can swear to it, if you like," put in Reuben, looking at Pinnett. "So could the rest of us. I wish we were all as sure of heaven!"
Robert put his hand into Oscar's under cover of the darkness. "You know me, Oscar, well enough. Let us be friends. I have not come home to sow discord; rather peace and goodwill. The Grange must be mine again, you know; I can't help that; but, when you and Selina quit it for your own place, you shall not go out empty-handed.
"I don't understand you," returned Oscar.
"I have come back a rich man; and you shall share in the good. Next to endowing my mother, I shall take care of my sisters. Ah, Oscar, these past few years have been full of gloom and trouble for many of us. Now that the clouds have broken, let us hope that the future will bring with it a good deal of sunshine."
The assemblage began to disperse. Mr. Cleveland undertook to break the glad news to Mrs. Dalrymple and Selina.
Reuben crept up to his master with an anxious, troubled face. "Mr. Robert," he breathed, "have you quite left off the—the PLAY? You will not be tempted to take to it again?"
"Never, Reuben," was the grave, hushed answer. "That night, which you all thought fatal to me, and which was so near being so, as I stood on the bridge, looking into the dark water, I took a solemn oath that I would never again touch a card, or any other incentive to gambling. I never shall."
"Heaven be praised!" murmured Reuben. And the old man felt that he was ready to say with Simeon of old: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace."
Winter had come, and passed; and spring flowers and sunshine gladdened the land.
In my Lady Acorn's dressing-room at Chenevix House stood my lady herself, her head and hands betraying temper, her tart tongue in loud assertion. Opposite to her, the same blonde, suave dame she had ever been, waited Madame Damereau. Madame was not tart or rude; she could not be that; but nevertheless she maintained her own cause, and gave my lady answer for answer.
Every available place in the room was covered with a robe, bonnet, mantle, or other choice article essential to a lady's attire: on the sofa lay a costly bridal dress. You might have fancied it the show-room itself of Madame Damereau. Lady Frances Chenevix was to be married on the morrow to Gerard Hope. The colonel had been telling them both ever since Christmas that he thought they ought to fix the day if they meant to marry at all, and so arrangements were made, and they named one early in April.
The articles lying about formed part of the trousseau of Lady Frances; the grievance distracting Lady Acorn was connected with them; for she saw great many more spread out than she had ordered, and was giving way to wrath. Madame Damereau, condescending to appear at Chenevix House this afternoon, to superintend, herself, the trying-on of the bridal robe, had arrived just in time for the storm.
"Was anything so unreasonable, was anything so extravagant ever seen before in this world?" demanded Lady Acorn, spreading out her arms to right and left. "I tell you there are fifty things here that I never ordered; that I never should order, unless I lost my senses. Look at that costly silk costume—that shaded grey—why, you'd charge five-and-twenty guineas for that, if you charged a farthing. Don't tell me, madame."
"Plutôt thirty guineas, I believe," equably answered madame. "It is of the richest, that silk. Miladi Frances intends it for her robe de voyage tomorrow."
"She may intend to go voyaging about in gold, but be no nearer doing it," retorted the countess. "I never ordered that dress, and I won't take it."
"Is anything the matter?" interrupted a joyous voice at this juncture, and Frances ran into the room with her bonnet on. "I am sorry to have kept you waiting, madame, but I could not help it. Is my lady mother scolding at my extravagance?"
"Extravagance is not the name for it," retorted the countess. "How dare you do these wild things, Frances? Do you suppose I should accept all these things, or pay for them?"
"No, mamma, I knew you would not," laughed Frances, "I shall pay for them myself."
"Oh, indeed! Where will the money come from?"
"Colonel Hope gave it me," said the happy girl, executing a pirouette. "A few days ago he put three bank-notes of one hundred pounds each into my hands, saying he supposed I could spend it; and I went to madame's at once. What a love of a costume!" cried Frances, turning to the grey silk which had so excited her mother's ire. "I am going away in that."
But the great event of this afternoon, that of trying-on the bridal dress, must be proceeded with, for Madame Damereau's time was more precious than that of ordinary mortals. The bride-elect was arrayed in it, and was pacing about in her splendour, peeping into all the mirrors, when a message was brought to Lady Acorn that Mr. Cleveland was below. He had come up from Netherleigh to perform the marriage ceremony, and was to be the guest for a day or two of Lord and Lady Acorn.
She went down at once, leaving Frances and Madame Damereau. There were many odds and ends of Netherleigh gossip she wished to hear from the Rector. He was bending over the drawing-room fire.
"Are you cold?" inquired Lady Acorn.
"Rather. As we grow older, we feel the cold and fatigue of a journey more keenly," he added, smiling. "It is a regular April day: warm in the sun, very cold in the wind and shade."
"He is getting older," thought Lady Acorn, as she looked at his face, chilled and grey, and his whitening hair; though, for a wonder, she did not tell him so. They had not met for some months. He had paid no visit to London since the previous November, and then his errand had been the same as now—to celebrate a marriage.
And, of the events of the past autumn and winter months there is not much to relate. Oscar Dalrymple was in his own place now, Knutford, Selina with a handsome income settled on her; and Robert and his wife lived at Moat Grange. They had been married from Grosvenor Square in November, Mr. Cleveland, as again now, coming up for it. Lady Adela was still at Netherleigh Rectory. And, perhaps it was of her that the countess wanted chiefly to question the Rector. She did not, however, do that all at once.
"All quite well at home?" she asked.
"Tolerably so, thank you," he replied. "Mary, as you know, is ailing: and will be for some little time to come."
"Dear me, yes," came the quick, irritable assent. "This baby will make the third. I can't think what you want with so many."
The Rector laughed. "Mary sent her love to you; and especially to Frances: and I was to be sure to say to Frances how sorry she was not to be able to be at her wedding. Adela also sent her love."
"Ah! And how isshe?"
"She——" Mr. Cleveland hesitated. "She is much the same. Tolerably well in health, I think."
"I suppose Robert Dalrymple and his wife are coming up today?"
"They came with me. Francis Netherleigh's carriage was waiting for them at the terminus. It brought me on also."
"And that poor girl Alice, is she any stronger?"
"She will never be stronger in this world," said the Rector, shaking his head. "But she is pretty well—for her. I think her life may be prolonged some few years yet."
"She and Gerard Hope had a love affair once; I am pretty sure of it. He liked her better than he liked Frances."
"Well, she could never have married. One so sickly as Alice ought not to become a wife; and she had, I expect, the good sense to see that. I know she is pleased at his marriage with Frances. She is most unselfish; truly good; there are not many like Alice Dalrymple. Her mother is surprisingly well," he went on, after a pause; "seems to have gone from an old woman into a young one. Robert's coming back did that for her."
"And now—what about Adela's behaviour? how is she going on?" snapped Lady Acorn, as if the very subject soured her.
"I wanted to speak to you about Adela," said Mr. Cleveland. "In one sense of the word, she is not going on satisfactorily. Though her health is pretty good, I believe, her mind is anything but healthy. Mary and I often talk of it in private, and she said I had better speak to you."
"Why, it is just the case of the MacIvors over again!" interrupted Lady Acorn. "Harriet sent Sandy to talk to me about it, just in this way, last summer."
"Yes, there has not been much change since then, I fancy. I confess that I am very sorry for Adela."
"Is she still like a shadow?"
"Like little else. The fever of the mind is consuming the body. I look upon it as the most hopeless case I have ever known. Adela does the same, though from a different point of view. She is dying for her husband's forgiveness. She would like to live in his memory as one not abjectly despicable, and she knows she must and does so live in it. She pictures his contempt for her, his condemnation of the way she acted in the past; and her humiliation, coupled with remorse, has grown into a disease. Yes, it is a miserable case. They are as entirely and hopelessly separated as they could be by death."
"Ah, Cleveland! You are here, then?"
The interruption came from the earl. He stepped forward to shake hands, and drew a chair beside the Rector.
"We were talking of Adela," said the countess, when the few words of greeting were over. "She has not come to her senses yet."
"I was saying that her case is certainly one of the most hopeless ever known," observed Mr. Cleveland. "She is as utterly separated from her husband as she could be by death, whilst both are yet living, and have probably a long life before them."
Lord Acorn sighed. "One can't help being sorry for Adela, wrong and mistaken though she was."
Mr. Cleveland glanced at the earl. "I am glad you came in," he said. "I wanted to speak to you as well as to Lady Acorn. Adela talks of going into a Sisterhood."
"Into awhat?" cried her ladyship; her tone one of unbounded surprise.
"She has had the idea in her mind for some time, I fancy," continued the Rector. "I heard of it first last autumn, when she startled me one day by suddenly expressing a wish that she was a Roman Catholic. I found that the wish did not proceed from any desire to change her creed, but simply because the Roman Catholics possess places of refuge in the shape of convents, into which a poor creature, as Adela expressed it, tired of having no longer a place in the world, might enter, and find peace."
"She'd soon wish herself out again!" cried Lady Acorn: while the earl's generally impassive face wore a look of disturbance.
"I heard no more of this for some time," resumed Mr. Cleveland, "and dismissed it from my memory, believing it to have been only a hasty expression arising from some moment's vexation. But a week or two ago Mary discovered that Adela was really and truly thinking of retiring into some place of refuge or other."
"Into a convent?" cried Lady Acorn.
"No. And not into any institution of the Roman Catholics. It seems she has been corresponding lately with some of her former acquaintances, who might, as she thought, help her, and making inquiries of them. I noticed that letters came for her rather frequently, and I hoped she was beginning to take a little more interest in life. However, through some person or other, she has heard of an institution that she feels inclined to try. I think——"
"What is this institution?" imperatively demanded the countess. "If it's not a convent, what is it?"
"Well, it is not, as I gather, a religious institution at all, in the sense of setting itself up for religion especially, or professing any one particular creed over other creeds," replied Mr. Cleveland. "It is, in point of fact, a nursing institution. And Adela, if she enters it, will have to attend to the sick, night or day."
"Heaven help her for a simpleton!" ejaculated her ladyship. "Why, you might take every occupation known to this world, and not find one to which she is less suited. Adela could not nurse the sick, however good her will night be. She has no vocation for it."
"Just what my wife says. Some people are, so to say, born nurses, while others, and Adela is one of them, could never fit themselves for it. Mary told her so only yesterday. To this, and to other remonstrance, Adela has only one answer—that the probationary training she will have to undergo will remedy her defects and inexperience," replied the Rector.
"But the life of a sick-nurse is so exhausting, so wearying to the frame and spirit!" cried Lord Acorn, who had listened in dismay. "Where is this place?"
"It is in Yorkshire. Three or four ladies, sisters, middle-aged, educated women of fortune, set up the scheme. Wishing, it is said, to satisfy their consciences by doing some useful work in the world, they pitched upon nursing, and began by going out of their home, first one and then another, whenever any poor peasant turned sick. They were, no doubt, good Christian women, sacrificing their own ease, comfort, and income for the benefit of others. From that arose the Institution, as it is called now; other ladies joined it, and it is known far and wide. I have not one word to say against it: rather would I speak in its praise; but it will not do for Adela. Perhaps you can remonstrate with her. It is not settled, I believe," added Mr. Cleveland. "Adela has not finally made up her mind to go; though Mary fears she will do so at once."
"Let her," cried the countess, in her vexation. "Let my young lady give the place a trial! She will soon come out of it again."
In truth, poor Adela was at a loss what to do with her blighted life—how to get through the weary days that had no pleasure in them. Netherleigh Rectory had brought to her no more rest than Sir Sandy's Scottish stronghold had brought, or the bleak old château in Switzerland. She wanted peace, and she found it not.
Some excitement crept into the daily monotony of her life whenever Sir Francis was staying at Court Netherleigh. It was not often. She could not bear to see him, for it brought back to her all the cruel pain of having lost him; and yet, when she knew he was at Netherleigh, she was unable to rest indoors, but must go out in the hope that she should meet him at some safe distance; for she never ventured within view. It was as a fever. And perhaps this very fact—that she could not, when he was breathing the same atmosphere, rest without striving to see him, combined with the consciousness that she ought not to do so—rendered her more anxious to get away from Netherleigh and be employed, mentally and bodily, at some wholesome daily work. Anyway, what Mr. Cleveland stated was quite true: Lady Adela was corresponding with this nursing institution in Yorkshire, with the view of entering it.
One phase of torment, which has not been mentioned, was growing to lie so heavily upon her mind as to be almost insupportable. It was the thought of the income allowed her by her husband. That she, who had blighted his life, should be living upon his bounty, indebted to him for every luxury that remained to her, was in truth hard to bear. If she could only get a living for herself, though ever so poor a one, how thankful she should be, she often told herself. And, perhaps this trouble turned the scale, or speedily would turn it, in regard to embracing this life of usefulness: for there would no longer be any necessity for the allowance from Sir Francis.