In the bed of a large and luxurious chamber, her delicate face pressing the pillow, her eyes closed to the shaded light, lay Lady Adela Grubb. The baby she so wished for had come at last. Not that it was the baby itself she wanted, but that she might be at liberty through renewed health to mingle with the great world again. To be deprived of its gaiety and obliged to keep herself very much at home had been to her a species of intolerable thraldom.
The baby was born on Friday night: a few hours subsequent to Robert Dalrymple's interview with Mr. Grubb and Mary Lynn. Mary, only in Grosvenor Square for the afternoon, returned to Blackheath unconscious of the close approach of the event. The illness had been a favourable one; and Adela, on this Sunday morning, was going on well towards recovery. She had taken her breakfast, and was ready to see her husband. The doctor had only now gone out.
A wee cry from the cradle caused her to open her eyes. An elderly woman, with soft step, bent over the cradle, and would have hushed the baby to sleep again.
"Put him here, nurse. I want to look at him."
The nurse took up the white bundle, and laid it in the great bed, beside Lady Adela. The little pale face was turned to her; for it was a pale face, not a red one; and she lay looking at it. The child opened its eyes: and, young though it was, one could see it had the beautiful grey-blue eyes of its father. Her own brilliant yet soft brown eyes grew fond as she gazed on the still face.
"Is he quite healthy, nurse?" she suddenly asked.
For the space of half a moment the nurse hesitated. "He was born quite healthy, my lady; but I think he might get on better if you nursed him. Some infants require their mother more than others do. I suspect this one does."
She made no reply; except by an all but imperceptible toss of the head: one can't toss effectively lying down. There had been some trouble with Lady Adela on the score of nursing the child. Nothing would induce her to do it. It would be well for her and well for the little one, Dr. Dove had said. Adela would not listen. Her mother, Lady Acorn, had treated her to a sharp scolding the day before, Saturday, and told her she was "unnatural." All the same: Adela indignantly demanded whether they thought she should give up the season for any infant in the world. She was also obstinate on another score—she would not allow, would not hear of, a nurse being sought to supply her place. And there she lay this morning: her own head on one pillow, the child's on another. One of the windows was open behind the drawn blind, admitting a breath of the warm June air. On a stand at Lady Adela's elbow lay a bouquet of sweet-scented, lovely hot-house flowers.
"Little wee thing!" she fondly cried, stretching out her fingers to stroke the baby's soft face, and its fragile hand that lay so still.
A tap at the door. The nurse answered it and admitted Mr. Grubb; she herself then retiring to the next room, which opened from this one. He came to the bed, bent over his wife and gently kissed her.
"Oh, don't!" she cried, turning her cheek ungraciously from him, just as she had for the most part done ever since their wedding-day. It had grown into a habit now.
"Adela," he whispered, biting his trembling lips to keep down the pain, "should not this little treasure, our child, teach you to be more of a loving wife to me?"
"I am very sorry it has come," she answered in fretful tones. "I'm sure I shall be if they are going to worry me over it. You should hear mamma go on:—and Grace, too!—with their old-fashioned notions."
"No one shall worry you," he fondly said. "Tell me, Adela, what you would like his name to be?"
"His name!" she repeated, looking up in quick surprise. "Time enough for that."
"Dr. Dove thinks it may be as well to have him baptized. He came into the library just now, as he went out; and, in talking of one thing and another, he chanced to mention this."Chancedto mention this! Mr. Grubb was cautious not to alarm his wife.
"The baby is not ill! Is it?"
"No, no, I trust not, Adela. It is a delicate little thing; all babies are, perhaps: and—and it is as well, you know, to be on the safe side."
"But I should like a christening. A grand, proper christening; to be held when I get well."
"Of course. His being baptized now will make no difference to that. I think it must be done, my dear."
"In this room, then; by my bedside. I should like to see it."
"You shall. And now, what name?"
Adela lay back on the pillow, her cheeks slightly flushed with their delicate pink, fresh and pure as the hue of a seashell, her eyes cast upwards in thought.
"I should like it to have papa's name—George."
"George Frederick?"
"Not Frederick: I don't care about the name. George—would you like also your own name—Francis?" she broke off to ask. "George Francis?"
"Would you care to have it Francis?" he returned, his tone one of emotion, bending over her until his face nearly touched hers.
She heard the tone, she saw the wet eyelashes shading the wonderful grey eyes, with their yearning, earnest expression. It flashed into her mind to remember how few men were his equals, in looks, in worth, in loving indulgence to a rebellious wife. Adela was not quite proof against her better nature. She was not always hard.
"Yes, I should; and he has your eyes," she whispered softly, in answer to the question, her own sweet eyes lifted to her husband's.
"Adela," he breathed, his voice low with its agitation, "you do love me a little! You surely do!"
"Just a very little—sometimes," she whispered in a half-saucy, half-loving tone. And, when he let his face fall on hers, she for once held it there, and welcomed the kisses from his lips.
It was all the work of the baby, his child and hers, thought he in his glad heart. But no. Now and again, at rare intervals, Adela did feel a spark of tenderness for him: though instead of letting it come to fruit, of allowing him to see it, she forced it back to the coldness she had taken up, and resolutely steeled her heart against him. Illness had just now somewhat softened her spirit.
He went round the bed to the side where the baby lay, and looked at it long and earnestly. The doctor had just told him that he did not feel altogether easy on the score of the child; could not be sure that it was likely to live.
"It is a pale little blossom, Adela. I thought babies were generally red."
"Frightfully red. I have seen them."
"Well, we will get it baptized; and then——"
"What?" she cried—for he had stopped.
"And then, I was going to say, whether it lives or dies, it will be safe in its Saviour's arms."
"But you do notthinkit will die?" she cried, taking up some alarm. "Oh, Francis, I should not like him to die, now he has come!"
He went round to soothe her, the word "Francis" causing his heart to leap. For in a general way she persistently called him "Mr. Grubb," and not graciously either.
"My darling, I assure you there is no cause for alarm. So far as I know, the child is not ill; it will, I hope, do well. Dr. Dove does not think him particularly strong—but what can be expected of a two-day-old baby?"
"True," answered Adela, feeling reassured again. "Francis, I do believe there's mamma coming up! Yes, it is her voice. Mind you don't tell her——"
Lady Acorn came swiftly in; and, what he was not to tell her, Mr. Grubb never knew. She had dressed early for church, and came round to see Adela on her way to it. Grace was with her. One of the daughters had married during the past year, but it was not Grace. It was Harriet; she had espoused a little Scotch laird, Sir Sandy MacIvor. Peppery and red, in came the countess, for she had just heard something that vexed her; Lady Grace, so calm and still, presented a contrast to her vivacious mother.
"Well, and now what's this I hear about things not going on well?" began Lady Acorn, subduing her voice with difficulty to the requisition of a sick-room.
"I am going on very well, mamma—how do you mean?" returned Adela, assuming the doubt must apply to herself. "I have made a famous breakfast. They let me have an egg and some buttered toast."
"You are all right, Dove says—we have just met him," returned Lady Acorn. "But he does not think the baby is. And you have yourself to thank for it, Adela."
The pink tinge on Lady Adela's cheeks increased to rose colour, as she armed herself to do battle with her mother.
"Dove says the baby wants its proper food; not that gruel stuff, or milk-and-water, or whatever rubbish it is, that it is being dosed with. And it is not too late for you to reform, Adela, and do what you ought."
"It is too late," retorted Adela, with flaming cheeks. "And if you begin about it again, mamma, you will make me ill. Francis"—stretching out her arm for her husband—"don't let me be worried. You promised me, you know."
With a loving word to his wife, a reassuring pressure of her hand, which he kept in his, he turned to Lady Acorn, and spoke to her in a low tone.
"Talk to her when she's better and more able to bear it!" repeated the countess, taking up his words aloud. "Why, my good man, it would be too late. And—you do not want to lose your child, I suppose!"
"Indeed, I do not. But, better lose my child than my wife."
"Sheis well enough, and safe enough," spoke the mother, secure in her superior knowledge. "Adela has been an indulged girl all her life, and you, her husband, continue the indulgence. It is not good for her; mark you that. With regard to this caprice of hers, the not undertaking the poor sickly baby, you ought to hold her to her duty, Mr. Grubb, and insist upon her fulfilling it."
He turned to his wife, his eyes unconsciously wearing a pleading look. "If you would only suffer yourself to be persuaded, Adela! For the child's sake."
Adela looked at them separately; at her husband, at her mother, at Grace, standing with a cold and impassive countenance that did not betoken approbation; and she took up an idea that they were in league with one another to "hold her to her duty," and enforce obedience. Had not the doctor talked to her that very morning: had not the nurse subsequently presumed to hint at an opinion? Yes, they were all in league together. Lady Adela turned rebellious, and flung her husband's hand away with passionate anger.
"Why do you come into my room at all?" she exclaimed to him. "You know I do not want you."
At that moment the nurse looked in from the adjoining apartment and made a sign to Mr. Grubb. He obeyed it at once, taking no notice of his wife or her cruel words.
"There! you have driven him away now!" cried Lady Acorn, on the eve of an explosion: for she had not seen the summons of the nurse. "You will never go to heaven, Adela, for your wickedness to your husband."
Adela did not make any answer: perhaps she was feeling a little sorry in her heart: and there ensued a silence. The sweet-toned bells, calling people to service, rang out on the air.
Mr. Grubb came in again. Feeling more alarmed in his heart at the doctor's words than he allowed to appear, and anxious for the child, he had written a note as the medical man left him, and sent it to a young assistant clergyman whose lodgings were close by. He had now called, on his way to church, ready to perform the ceremony at once if it were wished for, and a servant had come up to inform the nurse.
"Mr. Wilkinson has called, and is asking after you," began Mr. Grubb to his wife, voice and demeanour a model of quietness, not to say indifference. "It struck me, Adela, that he might as well baptize the child—as he is here. He has time to do it before service."
"What a hurry you are in!" she returned, ungraciously.
"As well take the opportunity of his being here, Adela. And then it will be over."
"Oh, well, yes—if it has to be done," conceded she. "I'm sure there's no necessity for it. Let Wilkinson come up."
Lady Acorn's sharp red nose turned purple. She had listened in surprise. Saying nothing to Adela, she trotted into the dressing-room, and shut the door.
"What's this, nurse—about the child being baptized?"
"I believe it is going to be done, my lady. Mr. Grubb has just said a word to me."
"Is it so ill as that?"
"Well, no, I did not think it was," acknowledged the woman. "Dr. Dove did not much like its look this morning; I saw that. I suppose he spoke to Mr. Grubb more fully than to me."
"Doyouthink it is in any danger?"
The nurse paused before replying. "One can never be quite sure of these very young infants. When it was born, I thought it a nice healthy little thing; yesterday it seemed quiet and peeky, and wailed a bit; this morning it seems anything but well, and does not take its food. Still, my lady, I can't say that it is in danger."
Lady Acorn nodded her head and her bonnet two or three times, as if not satisfied with affairs in general, and went back to her daughter's room.
The young clergyman came up; things were made ready; and they gathered round in a group at the bedside, kneeling down for the short preparatory prayers used in private baptism. When they arose, the clergyman took the child in his arms from Grace, who had held it.
"Name this child."
"George," promptly spoke the mother from the bed, her tone giving emphasis to the word. And Francis Grubb's face flushed as he heard it. Ah, what pain was often his!
The short service was soon over. Mr. Wilkinson departed for his church; Lady Acorn and Grace followed him. The nurse had gone back to the dressing-room. Mr. Grubb stood by the bed in which the quiet child had again been laid.
"I thought you were going to church?" said Lady Adela.
"Yes; directly." He wanted especially to go to church that day; to return thanks to God for the mercy vouchsafed him in the preservation of his wife. Though, indeed, he had not waited to be in church to do that.
"How quiet the baby was all through it!" cried Adela.
"Very quiet. Too quiet, your mother says."
"Mamma says all sorts of things when she is in a temper, as you have learnt by this time, and she is in one this morning," was Adela's light, and not over-dutiful remark. Not but that it was true.
Mr. Grubb had taken the child in his arms, and stood looking down upon it. Save that its eyes were open and that it breathed, it seemed still enough for death. He did not understand babies, but he did think this one was unnaturally quiet.
"Why are you looking at him so attentively?" asked Adela, by-and-by.
"I don't think he can be well."
"But—you don't think he is ill, do you?" returned she after a pause, and speaking quickly.
"Adela, I do not know. He seems to me to have changed a little in the last half-hour, since I first came in. Of course I may be mistaken."
"Suppose you send for Dr. Dove?"
"I can send if you like: he has only just gone, you know. The nurse does not seem to be"—alarmed, he was about to say, but changed the word—"anxious; so all may be well."
He put the baby in its place, and Lady Adela raised her head to look at it. "He gets paler, I think," she observed; "and, as you say, he is very, very quiet. Poor little thing! he has no strength yet."
"He cannot have much of that," remarked Mr. Grubb. "The nurse says she cannot get him to take his food. If he does not, he must sink, Adela."
Their eyes met. There was certainly no reproach in his, only a settled look of pain. Adela did not want her baby to die, and the fear of it was beginning to trouble her; she was aware that, looking at matters fromtheirpoint of view, her enemies', she might not be altogether unconscious of meriting some reproach. Back she lay on the pillow again, and burst into tears.
Mr. Grubb went round, bent down, and sheltered her head on his breast. "I don't want him to die," she sobbed.
"Won't you try to save him?" he whispered in his tenderly persuasive tones, as he held her face close to his own.
"But the trouble!—and the sacrifice. Oh, how cross and contrary the world sometimes is!"
"Your own child and mine, Adela! It would be only a little sacrifice, a little trouble. When he gets older, he will repay you love for love."
A pause. "I suppose you will be very cross with me if I don't, Francis."
"Am I ever cross with you! I should grieve for the child, if he died; I should grieve for your grief, for I know you would feel it. Oh, my darling, won't you try to save him? To do so must be right in God's sight."
She cried silently for a minute longer, her wet cheek lying contentedly against his. "Perhaps I will," she whispered in his ear. "Forhissake, you know."
"For all our sakes, Adela."
"Put him nearer to me, please. I will look at him again—whether he does seem ill. And how late you will be at church!"
"Not very: the bell is going yet," said Mr. Grubb. He placed the infant where she could look at it closely; gave her a farewell kiss, and departed. Adela rang for the nurse.
"You may throw away all the stupid gruel, nurse. I shall not let the baby have any more of it."
"Some one is waiting to see you, sir," said one of Mr. Grubb's servants to him, as he entered the house on his return from church.
"Who is it?"
"Mr. Dalrymple's man, sir. He has been waiting nearly an hour."
Reuben came forward from the back of the hall. The moment Mr. Grubb caught sight of his face, usually so full of healthy bloom, now pale and woe-begone, he was seized with a presentiment of evil.
"Come into the library, Reuben," he said. "Have you brought ill news of any kind?" he added, shutting the door. "What is it?"
And to make matters more intelligible to you, reader, we will go back to the past Friday night, when Robert Dalrymple left his lodgings in the company of Mr. Piggott, leaving poor Reuben in distress and despair.
Reuben sat up the livelong night. The light dawned after the brief interval of darkness, very brief in June, the sun came out, the cries and bustle in the streets gradually set in, and London had begun another day. At six o'clock Reuben lay down on his bed for an hour, and then got himself a bit of breakfast—which he could not eat. His master did not come.
Fearing he knew not what, and attaching more importance, in his vague uneasiness, to Robert's having stayed out than he might have done at another time, at nine o'clock Reuben betook himself to Mr. Piggott's. That gentleman did not live in very fashionable lodgings, and his address was usually given at his club, not there. Reuben, however, knew it. Some time before, Reuben had gone on a fishing tour, to catch what information he could as to the private concerns of Mr. Piggott and Colonel Haughton, and had found out where each lived.
The slipshod servant who came to the door could say nothing as to whether Mr. Dalrymple was staying the night there; all she knew was, that Mr. Piggott "warn't up yet." Reuben inquired as to the locality of Mr. Piggott's chamber, went up to it without opposition, and knocked at the door; a sharp, loud knock.
"Who's there?"
Another knock, sharper still.
"Come in."
Reuben walked in at once. "Sir," was his unceremonious address, "do you know anything of my master?"
"I!" cried Mr. Piggott, when he had recovered his surprise, and speaking from the midst of his bedclothes. "I do not. Why?"
"I thought you might know, sir, as you took him out last night. He said he was going to play with you and Colonel Haughton. He has not returned home, which I think very strange; and, as there is some important business waiting for him, I want to find him."
Reuben spoke out freely. But the "important business" was only an invention. He did not care to betray how uneasy he was, yet wanted an excuse for inquiring. Poor man! the fate of his early master lay ominously on his mind.
"He left us last night between twelve and one o'clock; to go home, as I suppose," said Mr. Piggott, somewhat taken aback.
"Between twelve and one, sir?"
"Close upon one it may have been; it had not struck. I know nothing more."
"Did he go home with Colonel Haughton?"
"That I am sure he did not. Colonel Haughton and I walked away together. I left the colonel at his own door."
"Away from Jermyn Street, I suppose you mean, sir!"
"You have no right to suppose anything of the kind," roared Mr. Piggott, aroused to anger. "What is it to you? Go out, and shut the door."
Reuben did as he was bid; there seemed to be no use in staying. He sought out Colonel Haughton, who (remembering past events) was civil, and who possibly felt some undefined uneasiness at the disappearance of Robert. His story was the same as Piggott's—that the young man had left them a little before one o'clock.
Trusting these gentlemen just as far as he could see them, and no farther, or their word either, Reuben went to the gambling-house in Jermyn Street. After some difficulty—for every impediment seemed put in the way of any inquiry; and, to judge by appearances, the place might have been the most innocent in the world—Reuben found a man attached to the house who knew Mr. Dalrymple. This man happened to be at the front-door when Mr. Dalrymple went out the previous night; it wanted about five or ten minutes to one. He watched him walk away.
"Which way did he go?" asked Reuben. "Towards home—South Audley Street?"
"No; the other way. He staggered a bit, as if not quite sober."
"Through the machinations of the wicked people that have been hunting him; he never drank but when incited to it by them," spoke Reuben, in his pain.
Back he went to South Audley Street, in the hope that his master might have now reached it. Not so. The day wore on, and he did not come. Reuben was half distracted. In the evening, he went to various police-stations, and told his tale—his master, Mr. Robert Dalrymple, had disappeared. It may, perhaps, seem to you, reader, that all this was premature; hardly called for; but the faithful old servant's state of mind must plead his excuse.
Another night passed. Sunday morning arose, and then tidings came of Robert and his probable fate. The police had been making inquiries, and one of them came to Reuben.
A hat had been found in the Thames, the previous day, floating away with the tide. Inside it was written "R. Dalrymple." The policeman had it in his hand; bringing it to Reuben to be owned or disowned. Reuben recognized it in a moment. It was the one his unfortunate master had worn on Friday night. How could it have got in the water?—and where, then, was Robert Dalrymple?
Little need to speculate. Some bargemen who were in their vessel, lying close to the side of Westminster Bridge, had disclosed to the police that about two o'clock on Saturday morning they had heard a weight drop into the water, seemingly from the bridge—"as if," said one of them, "a body had throwed hisself right on to the Thames o' purpose to make a hole in it."
It was this disastrous news that Reuben had now brought to Mr. Grubb. That gentleman sat aghast as he listened. The old man, seated opposite to him, broke down with a burst of anguish as he concluded, the salt tears raining on his cheeks.
"Can he have wilfully destroyed himself?" breathed Mr. Grubb.
"Only too sure, sir," wailed Reuben; "only too sure."
"And the motive? Embarrassment?"
"Not a doubt of it, sir: he was quite ruined."
"If he had only applied to me!—if he had only applied to me!" bewailed Mr. Grubb, rising from his chair to pace the room in excitement. "I would have saved and helped him."
"A dreadful set had got hold of him, poor young man," sobbed Reuben. "The same gamblers—one of them's the same, at any rate—that got hold of and ruined his uncle. Doubtless you know that story, sir. On this last Friday evening that ever was, I told it to Mr. Robert, hoping it would turn him back. But those wretched men had laid too fast a hold upon him. One was waiting for him outside in the street then. My belief is, sir, hecouldn'tbreak with them."
"Had the tale no effect upon him?"
"Some little it had; not enough. He must go forth to play that night, he said to me; he had given his word to Piggott to go, and, besides, he thought the luck would turn and favour him; but once the night was over, he would know that Haughton and the rest of the set no more. And I think he would have kept his word, sir."
"I suppose luck did not favour him? That shall, if possible, be ascertained."
Reuben shook his head. "No need to doubt, sir. The worst is—the worst is—I hardly like to say it."
"Can anything be worse, Reuben, than what you have told me?" was Mr. Grubb's sad rejoinder, as he took his seat again.
"Ay, but I meant as to his means, sir; his losses. He was quite cleared out; he told me that; everything, including Moat Grange, so far as his life interest in it went, was staked and gone. But that last night"—Reuben's voice dropped to a dread whisper—"he took out with him what was not his to stake. And, no doubt, lost it."
"What was it?" questioned Mr. Grubb, in the same hushed tone, feeling rather at sea, yet afraid of he knew not what.
"It was a cheque that had come up that morning from Netherleigh. Farmer Lee wanted some money invested in some particular security, and he got my master to undertake to do it for him, to save himself the journey up. Mr. Robert had told me all about it—he mostly did tell me things. Ah, sir, his disposition was open and generous as the day."
"And the money came?"
"The cheque came, sir. It was for five hundred pounds. Piggott called that Friday afternoon and scented the cheque; saw it, most likely. He took Mr. Robert out to dinner, and plied him with wine, and between ten and eleven he brought him back again, staying outside while my master came in—come in for the cheque. It was then I tried to pull him up by telling him about his uncle Claude—how the man Haughton had lured Mr. Claude to his destruction, just as he was now luring Mr. Robert. He said he would have no more to do with Haughton after that night; but he went out to Piggott with the cheque in his pocket, and they walked away together arm-in-arm."
Mr. Grubb took out his pocketbook, and made a note in pencil. He would get that cheque back from the gamblers, if possible. At any rate, he would have a good try for it.
Reuben had not much more to tell. Mr. Grubb put on his hat and went with him to see the police inspector who had the case in hand. It was a terrible blow: terrible in all ways: Francis Grubb was feeling it to be so—and what then would it be to his sister Mary?
The inspector pointed out to Mr. Grubb that, in spite of the finding of the hat in the Thames, which hat was, beyond all doubt, Mr. Dalrymple's, it did not follow that Mr. Dalrymple was himself in the Thames; and the splash heard by the men in the barge might have been made by any one else. There was no proof, he urged, that Mr. Dalrymple had been on Westminster Bridge, or near it. And all this seemed so reasonable that Mr. Grubb felt his heart's weight somewhat lightened.
But, ere the Sunday afternoon closed in, testimony on this point was forthcoming, and rather singularly. It chanced that a young man, named Horn, who was an assistant to Robert Dalrymple's tailor, and had often measured Robert for clothes, was spending the Friday with some friends at South Lambeth. Horn, a very respectable and steady man, had stayed late, for it was a wedding feast, beyond the time of omnibuses, and had to walk home to his lodgings near Leicester Square. In passing over Westminster Bridge, it was then close upon two o'clock, he saw some one mounted on the top, leaning right over the parapet, hanging over it, as if he had a mind to fling himself into the water. Horn, startled at the sight, ran up, and pulled the man back; and then, to his unbounded astonishment, he found it was Mr. Dalrymple.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said in apology. "I had no idea it was you."
"Good-night, Horn," replied Robert.
"Good-night, sir," returned Horn; and walked on.
But Horn felt uneasy; especially so at the remembrance of Mr. Dalrymple's face, for it looked full of trouble; and he turned back again. Robert was then standing with his arms folded, apparently looking down quietly on the water.
"Can I do anything for you, sir?" he asked. "Nothing has happened, I hope?"
"Oh, nothing at all," replied Robert. "I don't want anything done; thank you all the same, Horn. The night is warm, and I am enjoying the air: one gets it here, if anywhere. Good-night."
Joseph Horn wished him good-night again and walked finally away. On this day, Sunday, chancing to hear that Mr. Dalrymple was missing—for inquiries were now being made extensively—he came forward and related this.
It was just the one link that had been wanting. Poor Robert Dalrymple, utterly ruined, soon now to be pointed at as a felon, had found his trouble greater than he could bear, and had put an end to it. Of that there could exist no reasonable doubt. The melancholy tale speedily fled over London—how quickly such news does fly! Robert Dalrymple had drowned himself—another victim to Play.
"It runs in the family," quoth some careless people who remembered the former catastrophe. "Like uncle, like nephew! The name of Dalrymple must be a fated one."
"I would at least have used a pistol, and gone out of the world like a gentleman," was the bad remark of that bad man, Colonel Haughton, as he stood on the Sunday night—yes, the Sunday night—and listened to the news in that place with the hot name.
But the colonel changed his tone the following day, when Francis Grubb, the great East India merchant, whom all men, high and low, looked up to and respected, stood before him, and quietly informed him he must give up a certain cheque belonging to Mr. Lee of Netherleigh, or its value if it had been cashed; give it up, or submit to appear before a magistrate, and run the gauntlet of public exposure. After putting himself to a great deal of trouble, in the way of remonstrance, excuse, and grumbling, to which Mr. Grubb made no sort of reply, as he calmly waited the result, the colonel returned the cheque—which had not been cashed. Possibly the disappearance of Robert Dalrymple had put him and Mr. Piggott on their guard.
Meanwhile the Grange remained in ignorance of what was passing; but the terrible tidings would soon have to be carried thither.
When Mrs. Dalrymple returned home on Friday evening from dining at Court Netherleigh, she did not say much to Oscar about her son; but on the following morning, after breakfast, Oscar having slept at the Grange, she questioned him. Without making exactly the worst of it, Oscar disclosed the truth—that is, that Robert was undoubtedly falling into trouble through his gambling habits. He deemed it lay in his duty to tell this; and Mrs. Dalrymple, as the reader must remember, had been already warned by Reuben's letter. That letter had been a great shock to her; she knew how fatal the vice had already proved in the family.
It was a lovely midsummer morning, and she and Selina were sitting on the bench under the great elm-tree. The bees were humming, the butterflies sporting, the birds singing around them. The grass was green at foot; overhead, the blue sky could be seen through the branches of the flickering trees. Oscar leaned against the trunk of an opposite tree as he talked to them.
"What can be done?—what can be done?" exclaimed Mrs. Dalrymple, clasping her hands in distress. "Oscar, you ought to have brought him down with you."
"He positively refused to come. I might as well have tried to bring a mountain. Something ought to be done, and must be done," added Oscar; "you are quite right in saying that. The question is—what is it that can be?"
"The root of the evil lies in his having gone to London," said Mrs. Dalrymple. "He ought to have taken up his own proper station here, and ourselves have found a house elsewhere. But, in his chivalrous affection for me, Robert would listen to no remonstrance; some implied promise to his father, when he was on his death-bed, I believe, swayed him. Robert was always so good-hearted—and so impulsive. He—here is Alice," she broke off, in lowered tones.
Alice, with her sweet face, her slight figure, and her quite perceptible limp, came across the grass. "May I not be admitted to the conference?" she asked pleadingly. "I know you are talking of Robert."
"Oh, my dear, it is nothing that you need trouble yourself about," said her mother, soothingly. "Go back to your tatting."
"I have my tatting with me. Mamma—Oscar—do you not see that it will bewellfor me to hear what there is to hear. I know something is wrong about Robert; I could not sleep all last night, no, nor the night before, for dwelling on it. Whatever there is to hear, it cannot make me more anxious than I am—and it would end this suspense."
"Well, well, sit down," said Mrs. Dalrymple, giving way. "I hardly know myself how much or how little of evil there is to hear, Alice." And she went on to speak without reservation: "Robert had fallen into gambling habits; and there was no telling how deeply. All his own means were undoubtedly gone. Of course things must get worse night by night," she concluded. "Any night he may stake the Grange."
"Stake the Grange!" echoed Alice. "Mamma, what do you mean?"
"Stake it and lose it," confirmed Oscar. "When the mania for play sets in on a man, he is not content to confine his ventures to trifles."
"But I do not understand," returned Alice. "How could he stake the Grange? It is in the Dalrymple family, and cannot go out of it?"
"He might stake its value. Mortgage it, that is, for his own life."
"And could we not remain in it?" she quickly asked.
"Scarcely. It might take every shilling of its incomings to pay off the interest. You could not remain here upon nothing."
"Would it be sacrificed; useless to us for so long as Robert lived?" questioned Selina, not quite comprehending.
Oscar nodded. "I am only saying that he might do it: I do not say he will. He might so hamper himself, so involve the estate, that he could never derive further benefit from it. Or his family either, so long as he lived."
"Does it return to us at Robert's death? I wish to goodness he would be more careful of himself," added Selina, in her quick way. "Sitting up till daylight, night after night, cannot be good for him."
"It—would return into the family," spoke Oscar, hesitatingly.
Alice Dalrymple looked up from a reverie. A contingency had occurred to her which she had never thought of before: so entirely had the Grange been theirs in their father's recent lifetime, and in the certainty of its descending to Robert afterwards. "Suppose anything were to happen to Robert," she said, "whose would the Grange be? Mamma's?"
No one answered her.
"Oscar, I ask you, would it go to mamma?"
"No."
"To whom, then?"
"My dear," interposed Mrs. Dalrymple, "it would be Oscar's. It goes in the male line."
The answer took both the young ladies by surprise. They were really very ignorant of these matters. Each of them stole a glance at Oscar: a red, conscious light had flown into his usually pale cheek.
"I never knew it," breathed Selina.
"And it is of little import your knowing it now," gently spoke Oscar. "I am as likely to come into the Grange as I am of being made prime minister. Robert is a younger man than I am."
"Poor Robert!" lamented Alice. "He has been left to himself up in that great wicked town, he has had no one to turn to for advice or counsel, and I dare say he has only done what he has done from thoughtlessness. A word from mamma may set him right. Mamma, do you not think you ought to go to him?"
"Yes, Alice. It is what I have been resolving to do, now, as you were talking. And you must stay here over tomorrow, and go with me, Oscar. We will start by the nine-o'clock train on Monday morning."
"So be it," acquiesced Oscar. "It is the only thing. He may listen to you."
So Oscar Dalrymple stayed with them at the Grange until the Monday, revelling in the society of the one only being he loved on earth—Selina.
Mrs. Dalrymple had made ready for the journey—and how fervent, how imploringly earnest her prayers were that it might bear happy fruit, she and Heaven alone know. They all sat down to an early breakfast: even Alice, whose lameness was an apology for not rising betimes in general. In the midst of breakfast, James came in, and looked at Oscar Dalrymple.
"Will you please to step here, sir, for a minute?"
"What for?"
"Just for a minute, sir," repeated the man; and his eyes seemed to telegraph a momentary entreaty with the words.
Oscar went out hurriedly, for there was no time to spare, and the carriage to take them to the station had already come round. James shut the door.
"Here's Reuben come down, sir, by the early train," he whispered. "He told me to fetch you out to him, quietly, but not to say who it was."
Oscar walked quickly across the hall. Reuben awaited him in an empty room.
"What is it, Reuben? What has brought you from town?"
The old servant trembled with agitation, and grasped hold of the back of a chair. "Oh, Mr. Oscar, it is all over. My poor young master is gone."
Oscar sat down, seemingly unconscious what he did, and the red light came again into his cheeks.
"The very night after you left London, sir, those men drew him out again. Before he went, I spoke to him, trying to stop him, and he told me he was ruined and worse than ruined. He never came back. He has just followed in the steps of Mr. Claude Dalrymple, and has met with the same fate."
"Surely he has not destroyed himself?" breathed Oscar.
"He has; he has."
"But how? In what manner?"
"By drowning, sir. He jumped over Westminster Bridge right into the water during that same night. About two o'clock, they say. Oh, what distraction his poor mind must have been in, to urge him to such a death as that!"
Oscar rose and looked from the window. Cold as was his nature, the news could not fail to shock him—although he was the inheritor of the Grange.
"Has he been found?" he presently asked.
"No. Perhaps never will be. The officers say that not half the bodies that get into the Thames ever see the light again. But his fate is as sure and certain, sir, as though he had been found, and the drags are yet at work. Mr. Oscar, I'd rather it was my own death that had to be told of than his," added Reuben, breaking into sobs.
"It is sad indeed," cried Oscar, feeling, truth to say, terribly cut up. "I and Mrs. Dalrymple were on the point of starting for London. It is no use to go now. At least she must not."
"His hat was found in the Thames," said poor Reuben, regaining some composure; "and, curious to say, one Joseph Horn, a young man, who——"
"Oscar," called out the voice of Mrs. Dalrymple, "where are you? We have not any more time to spare."
"How shall I break it to them?" wailed Oscar to himself, knowing that it must be done, and without delay. "It is a terrible mission. Reuben, don't show yourself for a minute."
He walked across the hall, now his own, and re-entered the breakfast-room. He proceeded with his task as well as he could, and got through it, not telling them the worst, only that some accident had happened to Robert. By intuition however, they seemed to seize on the truth—that he was dead. Oscar felt almost thankful that Alice fainted and fell to the floor, because it caused some diversion to Mrs. Dalrymple's death-like shock.
And, ere the midday sun was at its height, the estate was ringing with the news that its generous young landlord had passed away, with his faults and follies, and that Oscar Dalrymple would reign at the Grange.