Are there any who do not quicken to the impulse of young life, lifted free of long repression and the dread of dull relapse? Can we find a man or woman (holding almost any age) able to come out and meet the challenge of the sun, conveyed in cartel of white clouds of May, and yet to stick to private sense of sulky wrongs and brooding hate?
If we could find such a man or woman (by great waste of labour, in a search ungracious), and if it should seem worth while to attempt to cure the case, scarcely anything could be thought of, leading more directly towards the end in view, than to fetch that person, and plant him or her, without a word of explanation, among the flower-beds on the little lawn of Beckley Barton.
The flowers themselves, and their open eyes, and the sparkling smile of the grass, and the untold commerce of the freighted bees, and rich voluntaries of thrush and blackbird (ruffled to the throat with song); and over the whole the soft flow of sunshine, like a vast pervasive river of gold, with silver wave of clouds—who could dwell on petty aches and pains among such grandeur?
The old Squire sat in his bower-chair with a warm cloak over his shoulders. His age was threescore and ten this day; and he looked back through the length of years, and marvelled at their fleeting. The stirring times of his youth, and the daily perils of his prime of life, the long hard battle, and the slow promotion—because he had given offence by some projection of honest opinion—the heavy disappointment, and the forced retirement from the army when the wars were over, with only the rank of Major, which he preferred to sink in Squire—because he ought to have been, according to his own view of the matter, a good Lieutenant-general—and then a very short golden age of five years and a quarter, from his wedding-day to the death of his wife, a single and sweet-hearted wife—and after that (as sorrow sank into the soothing breast of time) the soft, and gentle, and undreamed-of step of comfort, coming almost faster than was welcome, while his little daughter grew.
After that the old man tried to think no more, but be content. To let the little scenes of dancing, and of asking, and of listening, and of looking puzzled, and of waiting to know truly whether all was earnest—because already childhood had suspicion that there might be things intended to delude it—and of raising from the level of papa's well-buttoned pocket, clear bright eyes that did not know a guinea from a halfpenny; and then, with the very extraordinary spring from the elasticity of red calves (which happily departs right early), the jumping into opened arms, and the laying on of little lips, and the murmurs of delighted love—to let his recollections of all these die out, and to do without them, was this old man's business now.
For he had been convinced at last—strange as it may seem, until we call to mind how the strongest convictions are produced by the weakest logic—at last he could no longer hope to see his Grace again; because he had beheld her tombstone. Having made up his mind to go to church that very Sunday morning, in spite of all Widow Hookham could do to stop him, he had spied a new stone in the graveyard corner sacred to the family of Oglander. The old man went up to see what it was, and nobody liked to follow him. And nobody was surprised that he did not show his white head at the chancel-door; though the parson waited five minutes for him, being exceeding loth to waste ten lines, which he had interlarded into a sermon of thirty years back, for the present sad occasion.
For the old Squire sat on his grandfather's tombstone (a tabular piece of memorial, suited to an hospitable man; where all his descendants might sit around, and have their dinners served to them), and he leaned his shaven chin on the head of his stout oak staff, and he took off his hat, and let his white hair fall about. He fixed his still bright eyes on the tombstone of his daughter, and tried to fasten his mind there also, and to make out how old she was. He was angry with himself for not being able to tell to a day without thinking; but days, and years, and thoughts, and doings of quiet love quite slipping by, and spreading without ruffle, had left him little to lay hold of as a knotted record. Therefore he sat with his chin on his stick, and had no sense of church-time, until the choir (which comprised seven Crippses) bellowed out an anthem, which must have shaken their grandfathers in their graves; unless in their time they had done the same.
In this great uproar and applause, which always travelled for half a mile, the Squire had made his escape from the graveyard; and then he had gone home without a word and eaten his dinner, because he must when the due time came for it. And now, being filled with substantial faith that his household was nicely enjoying itself, he was come to his bower to think and wonder, and perhaps by-and-by to fall fast asleep, but never awake to bright hope again.
To this relief and mild incline of gentle age, his head was bowing and his white hair settling down, according as the sun, or wind, or clouds, or time of day desired, when some one darkened half his light, and there stood Mary Hookham.
Mary had the newest of all new spring fashions on her head, and breast, and waist, and everywhere. A truly spirited girl was she, as well as a very handy one; and she never thought twice of a sixpence or shilling, if a soiled paper-pattern could be had for it. And now she was busy with half a guinea, kindly beginning to form its impress on her moist hard-working palm.
"He have had a time of it!" she exclaimed, as her master began to gaze around. "Oh my, what a time of it he have had!"
"Mary, I suppose you are talking of me. Yes, I have had a bad time on the whole. But many people have had far worse."
"Yes, sir. And will you see one who hath? As fine a young gentleman as ever lived; so ready to speak up for everybody, and walking like a statute. It give me such a turn! I do believe you never would know him, sir; without his name come in with him. Squire Overshute, sir, if you please, requesteth the honour of seeing of you."
"Mary, I am hardly fit for it. I was doing my best to sit quite quiet, and to try to think of things. I am not as I was yesterday, or even as I was this morning. But if I ought to see him—why, I will. And perhaps I ought, no doubt, when I come to think of things. The poor young man has been very ill. To be sure, I remember all about it. Show him where I am at once. What a sad thing for his mother! His mother is a wonderful clever woman, of the soundest views in politics."
"His mother be dead, sir; I had better tell you for fear of begetting any trifles with him; although we was told to keep such things from you. Howsomever, I do think he be coming to himself, or he would not have fallen out of patience as a hath done; and now here he be, sir!"
Russel Overshute, narrowed and flattened into half of his proper size, and heightened thereby to unnatural stature—for stoop he would not, although so weak—here he was walking along the damp walk, when a bed, or a sofa, or a drawn-out chair at Shotover Grange, was his proper place. He walked with the help of a crutch-handled stick, and his deep mourning dress made him look almost ghastly. His eyes, however, were bright and steady, and he made an attempt at a cheerful smile, as he congratulated the Squire on the great improvement of his health.
"For that I have to thank you, my dear friend," answered Mr. Oglander; "for weeks I had been helpless, till I helped myself; I mean, of course, by the great blessing of the Lord. But of your sad troubles, whatever shall I say——"
"My dear sir, say nothing, if you please—I cannot bear as yet to speak of them. I ought to be thankful that life is spared to me—doubtless for some good purpose. And I think I know what that purpose is; though now I am confident of nothing."
"Neither am I, Russel, neither am I," said the old man, observing how low his voice was, and speaking in a low sad voice himself. "I used to have confidence in the good will and watchful care of the Almighty over all who trust in Him. But now there is something over there"—he pointed towards the churchyard—"which shows that we may carry such ideas to a foolish point. But I cannot speak of it; say no more."
"I will own," replied Overshute, studying the Squire's downcast face, to see how far he might venture, "at one time I thought that you yourself carried such notions to a foolish length. That was before my illness. Now, I most fully believe that you were quite right."
"Yes, I suppose that I was—so far as duty goes, and the parson's advice. But as for the result—where is it?"
"As yet we see none. But we very soon shall. Can you bear to hear something I want to say, and to listen to it attentively?"
"I believe that I can, Russel. There is nothing now that can disturb me very much."
"This will disturb you, my dear sir, but in a very pleasant way, I hope. As sure as I stand and look at you here, and as sure as the Almighty looks down at us both, that grave in Beckley churchyard holds a gipsy-woman, and no child of yours! Ah! I put it too abruptly, as I always do. But give me your arm, sir, and walk a few steps. I am not very strong, any more than you are. But, please God, we will both get stronger, as soon as our troubles begin to lift."
Each of them took the right course to get stronger, by putting forth his little strength, to help and guide the other's steps.
"Russel, what did you say just now?" Mr. Oglander asked, when the pair had managed to get as far as another little bower, Grace's own, and there sat down. "I must have taken your meaning wrong. I am not so clear as I was, and often there is a noise inside my head."
"I told you, sir, that I had proved for certain that your dear daughter has not been buried here—nor anywhere else, to my firm belief. Also I have found out and established (to my own most bitter cost) who it was that lies buried here, and of what terrible disease she died. As regards my own illness, I would go through it again—come what might come of it—for the sake of your darling Grace; but, alas! I have lost my own dear mother through this utterly fiendish plot—for such it is, I do believe! This poor girl buried here was the younger sister of Cinnaminta!"
"Cinnaminta!" said the Squire, trying to arouse old memory. "Surely I have heard that name. But tell me all, Russel; for God's sake, tell me all, and how you came to find it out, and what it has to do with my lost pet."
"My dear sir, if you tremble so I shall fear to tell you another word. Remember, it is all good, so far as it goes; instead of trembling you should smile and rejoice."
"So I will—so I will; or at least I will try. There, now, look—I have taken a pinch of snuff, you need have no fear for me after that."
"All I know beyond what I have told you is that your Gracie—and my Grace too—was driven off in a chaise and pair, through the narrow lanes towards Wheatley. I have not been able to follow the track in my present helpless condition; and, indeed, what I know I only learned this morning; and I thought it my duty to come and tell you at once. I had it from poor Cinnaminta's own lips, who for a week or more had been lurking near the house to see me. This morning I could not resist a little walk—lonely and miserable as it was—and the poor thing told me all she knew. She was in the deepest affliction herself at the loss of her only surviving child, and she fancied that I had saved his life before, and she had deep pangs of ingratitude, and of Nemesis, etc.; and hence she was driven to confess all her share; which was but a little one. She was tempted by the chance of getting money enough to place her child in the care of a first-rate doctor."
"But Grace—my poor Grace!—how was she tempted—or was she forced away from me?"
"That I cannot say as yet; Cinnaminta had no idea. She did not even see the carriage; for she herself was borne off by her tribe, who were quite in a panic at the fever. But she heard that no violence was used, and there was a lady in the chaise; and poor Grace went quite readily, though she certainly did seem to sob a little. It was no elopement, Mr. Oglander, nor anything at all of that kind. The poor girl believed that she was acting under your orders in all she did; just as she had believed that same when she left her aunt's house to meet you on the homeward road, through that forged letter, which, most unluckily, she put into her pocket. There, I believe I have told you all I can think of for the moment. Of course, you will keep the whole to yourself, for we have to deal with subtle brutes. Is there anything you would like to ask?"
"Russel Overshute," said the Squire, "I am not fit to go into things now; I mean all the little ins and outs. And you look so very ill, my dear fellow, I am quite ashamed of allowing you to talk. Come into the house and have some nourishment. If any man ever wanted it, you do now. How did you come over?"
"Well, I broke a very ancient vow. If there is anything I detest it is to see a young man sitting alone inside of a close carriage. But we never know what we may come to. I tried to get upon my horse, but could not. By the bye, do you know Hardenow?"
"Not much," said the Squire; "I have seen him once or twice, and I know that he is a great friend of yours. He is one of the new lights, is not he?"
"I am sure I don't know, or care. He is a wonderfully clever fellow, and as true as steel, and a gentleman. He has heard of course of your sad trouble, but only the popular account of it. He does not even know of my feelings—but I will not speak now of them——"
"You may, my dear fellow, with all my heart. You have behaved like a true son to me; and if ever a gracious Providence——"
Overshute took Mr. Oglander's hand, and held it in silence for a moment; he could not bear the idea of even the faintest appearance of a bargain now. The Squire understood, and liked him all the better, and waved his left hand towards the dining-room.
"One thing more, while we are alone," resumed the young man, much as he longed for, and absolutely needed, good warm victuals; "Hardenow is a tremendous walker; six miles an hour are nothing to him; the 'Flying Dutchman' he is called, although he hasn't got a bit of calf. Of course, I would not introduce him into this matter without your leave. But may I tell him all, and send him scouting, while you and I are so laid upon the shelf? He can go where you and I could not, and nobody will suspect him. And, of course, as regards intelligence alone, he is worth a dozen of that ass John Smith; at any rate, he would find no mare's nests. May I try it? If so, I will take on the carriage to Oxford, as soon as I have had a bit to eat."
"With all my heart," cried the Squire, whose eyes were full again of life and hope. "Hardenow owes a debt to Beckley. It was Cripps who got him his honours and fellowship—or at least the Carrier says so; and we all believe our Carrier. And after all, whatever there is to do, nobody does it like a gentleman, and especially a good scholar. I remember a striking passage in the syntax of the Eton Latin grammar. I make no pretension to learning when I quote it, for it hath been quoted in the House of Lords. Perhaps you remember it, my dear Russel."
"My Latin has turned quite rusty, Squire," answered Overshute, knowing, as well as Proteus, what was coming.
"The passage is this,"—Mr. Oglander always smote his frilled shirt, in this erudition, and delivered,ore rotundo—
"Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes,Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros."
"Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes,Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros."
"Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes,
Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros."
At about the same hour of that Sunday afternoon, Miss Patch sat alone in her little cottage, stubbornly reasoning with herself. She was growing rather weary of her task, which had been a long and heavy one; a great deal longer, and a great deal heavier, than she ever could have dreamed at the outset. It was for the sake of the kingdom of heaven that she had laid her hand to this plough; and now it seemed likely to be a "plough," in the sense in which that word is lightly used by undergraduates.
For public opinion Miss Patch cared nothing. Her view of the world was purely and precisely "Scriptural," according to her own interpretation. Any line of action was especially recommended to her by the certainty that "the world" would condemn it. She had led a life of misery with her father, the gambling captain, the man of fashion, who made slaves of his children; and being already of a narrow gauge of mind, she laid herself out for theology; not true religion, but enough to please her, and make her sure that she was always right.
Grace, being truly of a docile nature, and most unsuspicious (as her father was before her), had implicit faith in the truth and honour of her good Aunt Patch. She looked upon her as so devoutly pious and grandly upright, that any idea of fraud on her part seemed almost profanity. She believed the good lady to be acting wholly under the guidance of her own father, and as his representative; in which there seemed nothing either strained or strange, especially as the Squire had once placed his daughter in the charge of Miss Patch, for a course of Scriptural and historical reading. And the first misgiving in the poor girl's mind arose from what Christopher Sharp had told her. Of pining and lonely weariness, weeks and weeks she had endured, under the firm belief that her father was compelled to have it so, and in the hope of the glorious time when he should come to take her home. For all that she could see good reason—according to what she had been told—but she could see no reason whatever why Miss Patch should have told her falsehoods as to the place in which they lived. Having been challenged upon this subject by her indignant niece, the elderly lady now sat thinking. She was as firmly convinced as ever, that in all she had done, she had acted strictly and purely for the glory of the Lord. Grace, a great heiress, and a silly girl, was at the point of being snapped up by the papists, and made one of them; whereupon both an immortal soul and £150,000 would be devoted to perdition. Of this Miss Patch had been thoroughly assured before she would give her help at all. It was well known that Russel Overshute loved and would win Grace Oglander, and that Russel's dearest friend was Hardenow of Brasenose, and that Hardenow was the deepest Jesuit ever admitted to holy orders in the Church of England; therefore, at heart, Russel Overshute must be a papist of the deepest dye; and anybody with half an eye could see through that conspiracy. To defeat such a scheme, Miss Patch would have promised to spend six months in a hollow tree; but promise and performance are a "very different pair of shoes;" and the lady (though fed, like a woodpecker, on the choicest of all sylvan food) even now, in four months' time, was tiring of her martyrdom.
Her cottage in a wood had long been growing loathsome to her. The deeds of the Lord she admired greatly, when they were homicidal; but of His large and kindly works she had no congenial liking. The fluttering spread of leaves, that hang like tips of empty gloves one day, and after one kind night lift forth (like the hand of a baby with his mind made up), and the change of colour all under the trees, whether the ground be grassed or naked; also the delicate sliding of the light in and out the peeling wands of brush-wood, and flat upon the lichened stones, and even in the coarsest hour of the day—which generally is from 1 to 2 p.m., when all mankind are dining—the quiet spread and receptive width of growth that has to catch its light—for none of these pretty little scenes did Miss Patch care so much as half a patch. And she was sure that they gave her the rheumatism.
She was longing to be in London now, to sit beneath the noble eloquence of preachers and orators most divine, who spend the prime of the year in reviling their friends and extolling the negro. Whereas for weeks and weeks, in this ungodly forest, she had no chance of receiving any spiritual ministration; save once, when Tickuss, on a Sunday morning, had driven her in his pig-cart to a little Wesleyan chapel some three miles off at the end of a hamlet. Here people stared at her so, and asked such questions, that she durst not go again; and, indeed, the pleasure was not worth the risk, for the shoemaker who preached was a thoroughly quiet, ungifted man, without an evil word for anybody.
Not only these large regrets and yearnings were thronging upon this lady now, but also a small although feminine feeling of desire for support and guidance. Strong-minded as she was, and conscious of her lofty mission, from time to time she grew faint-hearted in that dreary solitude, without the encouragement of the cool male will. This for some days she had not received, and she knew not why it had failed her.
Though the afternoon was so bright with temptation, the wood so rich with wonders, Miss Patch preferred to nurse her knee by the little fire in her parlour. She had always hated to be out of doors, and to see too much of things which did not bear out her opinions, and to lose that clear knowledge of the will of the Lord which is lost by those who study Him. She loved to discern in everything that happened to her liking "the grand and infinite potentiality of an all-wise Providence;" and, if a little thing went amiss, she laid all the blame to the badly principled interference of the devil.
While she was deeply pondering thus, and warming her little teapot, in ran the beautiful and lively girl, who had long been growing too much for her. It was not only the brighter spring of young life in this Gracie, and her pretty ways, and nice surprises, and pleasure in pleasing others, and graceful turns of cookery, but also her pure fount of loving-kindness which (having no other way out) was obliged to steal around Miss Patch herself. Although she had been ill-content with the only explanation she could get about her dwelling-place—to wit, that in these roadless parts distance was very much a matter of conjecture—Grace had no suspicion yet of any plot or conspiracy. All things had been planned so deeply, and carried out so cleverly, that any such suspicion would have been contrary to her nature. She had lost, by some unaccountable carelessness, both the note from her father, which she had received at her Aunt Joan's, and also his more important letter delivered to her, when she met the chaise, by her kind and pious "Aunty Patch." In the first note (delivered by a little boy) she had simply been called forth to meet her father in the lane, and to walk home with him, as he wished to speak with her by herself. She was not to wait to pack any of her clothes, as they would be sent for afterwards; and he hoped her Aunt Joan would excuse his deferring their little dinner for the present.
But when, instead of meeting him, she found the chaise with Miss Patch inside it, and was invited to step in, a real letter was handed to her, the whole of which in the waning light—the day being very brown and gloomy—she could not easily make out. But she learned enough to see that she was to place herself under the care of Miss Patch, and not expect to see her dear father for at least some weeks to come. Her hair, for the reason therein given, was to be cut off at once, and not even kept in the carriage; and the poor girl submitted, with a few low sobs, to the loss of her beautiful bright tresses. But what were they? How small and selfish of her to think twice of them in the presence of the heavy trouble threatening her dear father, and the anguish of losing him for so long, without even so much as a kiss of farewell! For, after his first brief scrawl, he had found that, by starting at once, he could catch at Falmouth the packet for Demerara, and thus save a fortnight in getting to his estates, which were threatened with ruin. If these should be lost to him, Gracie knew (as he had no secrets from her) that half his income would go at one sweep—which, for his own sake, would matter little; but, for the sake of his darling, must, if possible, be prevented.
He had no time now for another word, except that he had left his house at Beckley, just as it stood, to be let by his agent, to cover the expenses of this long voyage, and to get him out of two difficulties. He could not have left his dear child there alone; and, if he could, he would not have done so, for a most virulent fever had long been hanging about, and had now broken out hard by; and Dr. Splinters had strictly ordered, the moment he heard of it, that the dear child's hair should be cropped to her head, and burned or cast away, for nothing harboured infection as hair did. With a few words of blessing, and comfort, and love, and a promise to write from Demerara, and a fatherly hope that for his sake she would submit to Miss Patch in all things, and make the most of this opportunity for completing her course of Scriptural and historical reading, the dear old father had signed himself her "loving papa, W. O."
Grace would have been a very different girl from her own frank self, if she had even dreamed of suspecting the genuineness of this letter. It was in her father's crabbed, and upright, and queerly-jointed hand, from the first line to the last. For a moment, indeed, she had been surprised that he called himself her "papa," because he did not like the word, and thought it a piece of the foreign stuff which had better continue to be foreign. But there stood the word; and in his hurry how could he stop to such trifles? This letter had been lost; poor Grace could not imagine how, because she had taken such great care of it, and had slept with it under her pillow always. Nevertheless, it had disappeared, leaving tears of self-reproach in her downcast eyes, as she searched the wood for it. And this made her careful tenfold of the two letters she had received from George-town.
But now, as she came with her Sunday hat on, and her pretty Woodstock gloves, and her neat brown skirt looped up (for challenge of briers, and furze, and dog-rose), and, best of all, with the bloom on her cheeks, and the sparkle in her clear soft eyes, and the May sun making glory in her rolling clouds of new-grown hair—and, better than best, that smile of the heart filling the whole young face with light—she really looked as if it would be impossible to say "no" to her.
"Aunty," she began, "it is quite an age since you have let me have a walk at all. One would think that I wanted to run away with that very smart young gentleman, who possesses and exhibits that extremely lustrous riding-whip. If he has only got a horse to match it—what is the name, dear Aunty, of that inestimable historical jewel that somebody stole out of somebody's eye?"
"Grace, will you never remember anything? It is now called the Orloff, or Schaffras gem, and is set in the Russian sceptre."
"Then that must be the name of this gentleman's horse, to enable it to go with such a whip. Dear Aunty now, even that whip will not tempt me or move me to run away from you. Only do please to allow me forth. This horrid little garden is so shaded and sour, that even a daisy cannot live. But in the wood I find all things lovely. May I have a run for only half an hour?"
"Upon one condition," replied Miss Patch; "that if you see any one, you shall come back at once, and let me know."
"What, even the fat man with the flapped hat and the smock on? I never go out without seeing him, though he never seems to see me at all. He must be very short-sighted."
"Oh no, my dear; never mind that poor man; he looks after the cattle or something. What I mean is, any young gentleman, who ought to be at home on the Sabbath day. And wrestle with your natural frivolity, my dear, that no worldly thoughts may assault and hurt the soul upon this holy day."
"I will do my best, Aunty. But how can I help thinking of the things I see?"
Miss Patch having less than any faith in unregenerate human nature, feared that she might have been wrong in allowing even this limited freedom to Grace. The truth of it was that, without fresh guidance from a mind far deeper than her own, she could not see the right thing to do in the new complication arising. The interviews between Kit Sharp and Grace were the very thing desired, and surely must have led to something good, which ought to be carefully followed up. And yet, if she met him again, she would be quite sure to go on with her questions; and Kit, being purely outside of the plot, would reply with the most inconvenient truth. Miss Patch had written, as promptly as could be, to ask what she ought to do in this crisis. But no answer had come through the trusty Tickuss, nor any well-provided visit. The Christian-minded lady could not tell at all what to make of it. Then, calling to mind the sacredness of the day, she dismissed the subject; and sternly rebuked deaf Margery Daw for not keeping the kettle boiling.
When things were in this very ticklish condition almost everywhere, and even Cripps himself could scarcely sleep because of rumours, and Dobbin in his own clean stable found the flies too many for him, an exceedingly active man set out to scour the whole of the neighbourhood. To the large and vigorous mind of the Rev. Thomas Hardenow, the worst of all sins (because the most tempting and universal) was indolence.
Hardenow never condemned a poor man for having his pint or his quart of ale (with his better half to help him), when he had earned it by a hard day's work, and had fed his children likewise. Hardenow thought it not easy to find any hypocrisy more bald or any morality more cheap than that or those which strut about, reviling the poor man for taking, in the cheaper liquid form, the nourishment which "his betters" can afford to have in the shape of meat; and then are not content with it, unless it is curdled with some duly sour vintage. And passing such crucial points of debate, Hardenow always could make allowance for any sins rather than those which spring from a treacherous, sneaking, and lying essence.
Now, a council was held at the Grange of Shotover on the Monday. A sad and melancholy house it was, with its fine old mistress lately buried, and its poor young master only half recovered. The young tutor had been especially invited, and having heard everything from the Squire (who was proud of having ridden so far, yet broke down ridiculously among his boasts), and from Russel Overshute (who had thrown himself back for at least three days by excitement and exertion yesterday), and also from Mrs. Fermitage (who had lately been feeling herself overlooked), Hardenow thought for some little time before he would give his opinion. Not that he was, by any manner of means, possessed with the greatness of his own ideas; but that Mrs. Fermitage, from a low velvet chair, looked up at him with such emphatic inquiry and implicit faith, that he was quite in a difficulty how to speak, or what to say.
And so he said a very few short words of sympathy and of kindness, and gladly offered to do his best, and obey the orders given him; so far, at least, as his duty to his college and pupils permitted. He confessed that he had thought of this matter many times before he was invited to do so, and without the knowledge which he now possessed, or the special interest in the subject which he now must feel for the sake of Russel. But Mrs. Fermitage, filled with respect for the wisdom of a fellow and tutor of a college, would not let Hardenow thus escape; and being compelled to give his opinion, he did so with his usual clearness.
"I am not at all a man of the world," he said; "and of the law I know nothing. My friend Russel is a man of the world, and knows a good deal of the law as well. A word from him is worth many of mine. But if Mrs. Fermitage insists upon having my crude ideas, they are these. First of the first, and by far the most important—I believe that Miss Oglander is alive, and that her father will receive her safe and sound, though not perhaps still Miss Oglander."
"God bless you, my dear sir!" the Squire broke in, getting up to lay hold of the young man's hand. "I don't care a straw what her name may be—Snooks, or Snobbs, or Higginbotham—if I only get sight of my darling child again!"
Russel Overshute looked rather queer at this, and so did Mrs. Fermitage; but the Squire continued in the same sort of way—"What odds about her name, if it only is my Grace?"
"Exactly so," replied Hardenow; "that natural feeling of yours perhaps has been foreseen and counted on; and that may be why such trouble was taken to terrify you with the idea of her death. Also, of course, that would paralyze your search, while the villains are at leisure to complete their work."
"I declare, I never thought of that," cried Russel. "How extremely thick-headed of me! That theory accounts for a number of things that cannot be otherwise explained. What a head you have got, my dear Tom, to be sure!"
"I wish I could believe it!" Mr. Oglander exclaimed, whilst his sister clasped her fair fat hands, and looked with amazement at every one. "But I see no motive, no motive whatever. My Grace was a dear good girl, as everybody knows, and a fortune in herself; but of worldly goods she had very little, any more than I have; and her prospects were naturally contingent—contingent upon many things, which may not come to pass, I hope, for many years—if they ever do." Here he looked at his sister, and she said, "I hope so." "Therefore," continued Mr. Oglander, "while there are so many fine girls in the county, very much better worth carrying off—so far as mere worthless pelf is concerned—why should anybody steal my Grace unless they stole her for her own sake?"
Here the Squire sat down, and took to drumming with his stick. His feelings were hurt at the idea—though it was so entirely of his own origination—that his daughter had been carried off for the sake of her money, not of her own dear self. Hardenow looked at him and made no answer. He felt that it did not behove a mere stranger to ask about the young lady's expectations; while Overshute was more imperatively silenced by his relations towards the family. But Mrs. Fermitage came to the rescue. Great was her faith in the value of money, and she liked to have it known that she had plenty.
"Tut, tut," she cried, shaking out her new brocaded silk—a mourning dress certainly, but softly trimmed with purple—"why should we make any mystery of things, when the truth is most important? And the truth is, Mr. Hardenow, that my dear niece had very good expectations. My deeply lamented husband, respected, and I may say reverenced, for upwards of half a century, in every college of Oxford, and even more so by the corporation, for the pure integrity of his character, the loftiness of his principles, and—and the substance of his—what they make the wine of—he was not the man, Mr. Hardenow, to leave a devoted wife behind him, who had stepped perhaps out of her rank a little, not being of commercial birth, you know, but never found cause to regret it, without some provision for the earthly time which she, being many years his junior——"
"Come, come, Joan, not so very many," exclaimed the truthful Squire; "about five, or say six, at the utmost. You were born on the 25th of June,A.D.——"
"Worth, I was not asking you for statistics. Mr. Hardenow, you will excuse my brother. He has always had a rude style of interruption; he learned it, I believe, in the army, and we always make allowance for it. But to go back to what I was saying—my good and ever to be lamented husband, being, let us say, ten years my senior—Worth, will that content you?—left every farthing of his property to me; and a good husband always does the same thing, I am told, and I believe they are ordered in the Bible; and, of course, I have no one to leave it to but Grace; and being so extraordinarily advanced in years, as my dear brother has impressed upon you, they could not have any very long time to wait; and my desire is to do my duty; and perhaps that lies at the bottom of it all."
After relieving her mind in this succinct yet copious manner, the good lady went into her chair again, carefully directing, in whatever state of mind, the gathering and the falling of her dress aright. And though it might be fancied that her colour had been high, anybody now could see that her dignity had conquered it.
"Now, the whole of this goes for next to nothing," said the Squire, while the young men looked at one another, and longed to be out of the way of it. "As we have got into the subject, let us go right down to the bottom of it. What are filthy pence and halfpence, or a cellar, like Balak's, of silver and gold, when compared with the life of one pure dear soul? I may not express myself theologically, but you can see what I mean exactly. I mean that I would kick old Port-wine's dross to the bottom of the Red Sea, where Pharaoh lies, if it turns out that that has killed my child, or made her this long time dead to me."
Having justified his feelings thus, the old man stood up, and went to the window, to look for his horse. The very last thing he desired always was to let out what he felt too much. But to hear that old thief of a "Port-wine Fermitage" praised, and his lucre put forward, quite as if it were an equivalent for Grace, and to think that he owed to that filthy cause the loss of the liveliest, loveliest darling, without whom he had neither life nor love—such things were enough to break the balance of his patience; and the rest might think them out amongst them.
Now, this might have made a very serious to-do between Mr. Oglander and his sister Joan, both of them being of the stiff-necked order, if he had been allowed to ride away like this. Mrs. Fermitage had her great carriage in the yard, and two black horses with wide valleys down their backs, rattling rings of the brightest brass, while they stood in the stable with a bail between them, and gently deigned to blow the chaff off from the oats of Shotover. This goodly pair made a great rush now into the mind of their mistress—the only sort of rush they ever made—and seeing her brother in that state of mind to get away from her, she became inspired with an equal desire to get away from him.
"Will you kindly ring the bell," she said, "and order my horses to be put to? I think I have quite said every word I had to say. And being the only lady present, of course I labour under some—well, some little disadvantages. Not, of course, that I mean for a moment——"
"To be sure not, Joan! You never do know what you mean. You would be a very nasty woman if you did. Now, do let us turn our minds the pleasant way to everything. If any word has come from me to lead to strong kind of argument, I beg pardon of everybody; and then there ought to be an end of it."
Mrs. Fermitage scarcely knew what to say, but in a relenting way looked round for some one to take it up for her. And she was not long without somebody.
"Mr. Oglander," said Russel Overshute, "you really ought to give us time to think. You are growing so hasty, sir, since you came back to your seat in the saddle, and your cross-country ways, that you want to ride over every one of us—ladies and gentlemen, all alike."
The old Squire laughed, he could not help it, at the thought of his own effrontery. He felt that there might be some truth about it, ever since it had come into his mind that he might not after all be childless. He would not have any one know, for a thousands pounds, why he was laughing; or that half another word might turn it into weeping. He had seen it proved in learned books that no man knew the way to weep at his time of life; and if his own case went against it, he had the manners to be ashamed of it. So he waited till he felt that his face was right, and then he went up to his sister Joan, who was growing uneasy about her own words; and he took her two plump hands in his, and gave a glance, for all there present to be welcome witnesses. And then, having knowledge for the last ten years how much too fat she was to lift, he managed to kiss her in the two right places, disarranging nothing.
His sister looked up at him, as soon as he had done it, with a sense of his propriety and study of her harmonies; and she whispered to him quietly, "I beg you pardon, brother." And he spoke up for all to hear him, "Joan, my dear, I beg your pardon."
"Now, the first thing to be done," said Hardenow, "is to find Cinnaminta and her husband Smith. But allow me to make one important request, that even your adviser, Mr. Luke Sharp, shall not be informed of what has passed to-day, or what Overshute found out yesterday."
With some little surprise they agreed to this.
There happened, however, to be some one else, whose opinion differed very widely from that of Mr. Hardenow, as to the necessity for any prompt appearance of either Mr. or Mrs. Joseph Smith.
The old red house in Cross Duck Lane was ready to jump out of its windows—if such a feat be possible—with eagerness and anxiety at the long absence of its master. Mr. Luke Sharp had not crossed his own threshold for ten whole days, including two Sundays, when even an attorney may give leg-bail to the Power under whose "Ca. ad sa." he lives. The business of the noble firm of Piper, Pepper, Sharp, & Co. was falling sadly into arrears, at the very busiest time of year; for Mr. Sharp had always kept his very best clerks in leading strings; and Kit thus far, with his mother's aid, had battled against all articles. Christopher Fermitage Sharp, Esq., was resolved to be a country gentleman and a sportsman, and no quill-driver; he felt that his arms, and legs as well, were a great deal too good for going on and under desk.
With fine resignation Kit accepted the absence of his father. With his father away, he was a very great man; with his father at home, he was quite a small boy. He liked to play master of a house, and frighten his mother and the maids; and vow to dine at the Mitre all the rest of the week—if that was their style of cookery!
But poor Mrs. Sharp could not treat the matter thus. Truly delighted as she was to see her dear boy take his father's place, and conduct himself with dignity as the head of the household, and find fault with things of which he knew nothing, and order this, that, and the other away—still she could not help remembering that all this was not as it ought to be. Christopher ought to have been in tortures of intense anxiety; and, so far as that went, so ought she; and she really tried very hard not to sleep, and to sit up listening for the night-bell. But a man who thinks everything of his own will, and nothing of any other person's wish, may be pretty sure that none will miss his presence so much as himself does.
In spite of all that, Mrs. Sharp was anxious, and so were the rest of the household—though rather perhaps with care than love—at the long, unaccountable absence of the head and the brain of everything. Even the boys in Cross Duck Lane, who had a strong idea that Lawyer Sharp would defend them against the magistrates, were beginning to feel that they must look out before throwing stones at any other boys.
"You are not at all the thing, my darling boy," said Mrs. Sharp to Christopher, on the evening of that same Monday on which the Council had been held at Shotover; "your want of appetite makes me wretched. Now, put on your cloak, my pet, and go as far as Carfax, or Magdalen Bridge. The two evening coaches will soon be in—the 'Defiance' and the 'Regulator.' I have a strong idea that your father will come by one or other of them."
"I may just as well go there as anywhere else," the young man answered gloomily. For some days now he had striven in vain for an interview with his charmer; and, most unkindest cut of all, he had spied her once, and she had run away. "It does not matter where I go."
"When you talk like that, dear child, you have no idea what you do. You simply break the heart of your poor mother—and much you care for that! Now, if you should see any very fresh calves' sweet-breads, or even a pig's fry, or anything you fancy, order it in, dear, at once; and be sure that you are at home by nine o'clock; and bring your dear papa with you, if you can."
Kit, with a sigh and a roll of his eyes, flung his cloak around him; and with long, slow, melancholy strides clomb the arduous steep of Carfax. Here at that time—if any faith there be to bruit of veterans—eighty well-equipped quadrigæ daily passed with prance of steeds and sound of classic trump, and often youthful charioteer, more apt to handle than win ribbons. Forty chariots came from smoke, and wealth, and din of blessed Rome; and other forty sped them back, with the glory and mud of the country divine.
The moody Kit ensconced himself, away from the tramp of the vulgar crowd, in the beetling doorway of a tailor who had put his shutters up; and thrice being challenged by proctors velvet-sleeved, and velvet-selvaged Pro—"Sir, are you a member of this university?"—thrice had the pleasure of answering "No!" Once and again he wiped his hectic cheek and fevered brow with a yellow bandana, from which the winner of last year's Derby was washing out; and he saw the "Defiance" and the "Regulator" pass, newly horsed from rival inns, exalting their horns against one another, with splinter-bars swinging behind cocked tails, all eager for their race upon the Cheltenham road. But he saw not the author of his existence; yet no tear bedewed his unfilial eye, though these were the likeliest coaches.
"All right," he said, putting his pipe in its case; "governor won't come home to-night. I'm in no hurry, if he isn't. I think I'll have sheep's trotters. It's a beastly time of the year for anything." Twitching his cloak, which had two long tassels, he strode, from his post of observation and morbid meditation, towards a tidy and clean little tripe-shop. He knew the old woman who kept it, in George Street; and she always put him into good condition by generous admiration.
Alas! he had stridden but a very few strides, when he met the up-coach from Woodstock, wearily with spent horses making rally for the Star. The driver (a man of fine family at Christchurch, now in his seventh term, and fighting off his "smalls"), with a turn of his strong arm, pulled the team together, while with the other hand he launched a scouring flourish of the shrill scourge over every blessed horse's ears.
"Well done, my lord!" said the gentleman on the box, as the four horses pulled up foot for foot, and stood with their ears and their noses one for one; "you have brought them up in noble style, my lord. I never saw it done more perfectly."
My lord touched his white hat, and said nothing. He had crowned his day, as he always loved to crown it; and now, if he could get into a back room of the Star, pull off his top-boots and cape, and don cap and gown, and fetch back to college clear of £5 fine—as happy as any lord would he be, till nature sent him forth to drive again tomorrow.
But Kit, having very keen ears, had recognised, even from the other side of the street, the sound of his dear father's voice. Mr. Luke Sharp never missed a chance of commending a nobleman's exploits; but he would not have spoken in so loud a tone, perhaps, if he had known that his son was near at hand. For he hated with a consistent hatred—whether he were doing well or ill—all observation of his movements by any member of his household. Christopher, being well aware of this, pursued his own course in the shadow, but resolved, with filial piety, to keep his good father in sight for fear of his falling into any mischief.
First of all, Mr. Sharp—as observed at a respectful distance by his son—went into the coach office, and there left his hand-bag and his travelling coat; then, carrying something rolled under his arm, he betook himself to a little quiet tap-room, and called for something that loomed and steamed afar, very much after the manner of hot brown grog.
"Ho, ho!" muttered Kit; "then he isn't going home. My duty to the household commands me to learn why."
With a smack of his lips, Mr. Sharp the elder came out into Corn-Market Street again, and turning his back on his home, set forth at a rapid pace for the broad desert of St. Giles. Here he passed into an unlit alley, in the lonely parts beyond St. John's; and Kit, full of wonder, was about to follow, but hung back as the receding figure suddenly stopped and began to shift about. In a nice dark place, the learned gentleman unrolled the travelling rug he had been carrying, undoubled it, after that, from some selvage—and, lo, there was a city watchman's large loose overall! Then he pressed down the crown of his black spring-hat, till it lay on his head like a pancake, pulled the pouch of his long cloak over that, and emerged from his alley with a vigilant slouch, whistling "Moll Maloney." Considerable surprise found its way into the candid mind of Christopher.
"Well now!" thought the ungrateful youth, as he shrank behind a tree to peep; "I always knew that the governor was a notch or two too deep for us; but what he is up to now surpasses all experience of him. What shall I do? It seems so nasty to go spying after him. And yet things are taking such a very strange turn, that, for the sake of my mother, who is worth a thousand of him, I do believe I am bound to see what this strange go may lead to."
Young curiosity sprang forth, and strongly backed up his sense of duty; insomuch that Kit, after hesitating and listening for any other step, stealthily followed the "author of his existence" across the dark and dusty road. "He is going to Squeaker Smith's," thought the lad; "he will get a horse, and ride away, no end; and of course I can never go after him. I am sure it has something to do with me. Such troubles are enough to drive one mad."
But Mr. Sharp did not turn in at the lamp-lit entrance to those mews. He shunned the beaming oil, which threw barred shadows upon sawdust of a fine device, and, keeping all his merits in the dark, strode on, like a watchman newly ordered to his post. Then suddenly he turned down a narrow unmade lane, hillocked with clay, and leading (as Christopher knew quite well) to the wildest part of "Jericho."
"I will follow him no further," said Kit Sharp, with a pang of astonishment and doubt; "he is my father; what right have I to pry into his secrets? How I wish that I had not followed him at all! It serves me right for meanness. I will go home now; what care I for anything—trotters, cow-heel, or sweet-bread?"
As he turned, to carry out this good resolve, with a heart that would have ailed him more for leaving fears unfinished, the sound of a clouting, loutish footstep came along the broken mud-banks of the narrow lane. The place was lonely, dark, and villainous: foot-pads still abounded. Kit knew that his father often carried large sums of money, and always the great gold watch; he might have been decoyed here for robbery and murder, upon pretence of secret business; clearly it was the young man's duty not to be too far away. Therefore he drew back, and stood in the jaws of the dark entrance.
But while he was ready to leap forth if wanted, the sound of quiet voices told him that there was no danger. Kit could not hear the first few words; but his father came back towards the mouth of the lane, as if he would much rather not go into the dark too deeply. Christopher therefore was obliged either to draw back into the hedge, and there lie hid without moving, or else to come forward and declare himself. He knew that the latter was his proper course, or he might have known it, if he had taken time to think; but the dread of his father and the hurry of the moment drove him, without thought, into the lurking-place. It was quite dark now, and there was not a lamp within a furlong of them.
"You quite understand me, then;" Mr. Sharp was speaking in a low clear voice; "you are not to say a word to Cripps about it. He is true enough to me, because he dare not be otherwise; but he is an arrant coward. I want a man who has the spirit to defy the law, when he knows that he is well backed up."
"Governor, I am your man for that. I have defied the law, since I were that high, with only my mother, in the wukuss, to back me."
"What I mean is, to defy the wrong fashions of the law; the petty rules that go against all common sense and equity."
"All the fashions of the law be wrong. I might a' got on in the world like a house afire, if it hadn't been for the devil's own law. To tell me a thing is agin the law is as good as an eyster to my teeth. Go on, governor, no fear of that, I say."
"And you know where to find, at any moment, a man as resolute as yourself—Joe Smith. Well, you know what you have to do, in case of any sudden stir arising. At present all goes well; but all, at any moment, may go wrong. Squire Overshute is about again at last——"
"Ah, if I could only come across of he of a dark night, such as this be——"
"And that fool Cinnaminta has told him all she knows—which, luckily, is not very much. I took good care to keep women out of it. And the Carrier too has been smelling about—but he hasn't the sense of his own horse. Night and day, George, night and day, keep a look-out, and have the horses ready. You know what I have done for you, my man."
"Governor, if it hadn't been for you, I might a' seed the clouds through a halter loop."
"You speak the truth, and express it well. And you may still enjoy that fair opportunity, unless you attend to every word I say."
"No fear, governor; I know you too well. A good friend and a bad enemy you be. Thick and thin, sir—thick and thin. Agin all the world, sir, I sticks by you."
"Enough for to-night, my man. Get ready and be off. I shall know where to find you, as before. I shall ride over to-morrow, if I find it needful."
With these words, Mr. Luke Sharp set off at a good round pace for Oxford, while the other man shambled and whistled his way homewards up the black-mouthed lane. Perceiving these things, Christopher Sharp, with young bones, leaped from his hiding-place. Astonishment might have been read upon his ingenuous and fat countenance, if the lighting committee of the corporation had carried out their duty. But (having no house of their own out here) they had, far back, put colophon upon the nascent gas-pipe. The ambition of the city, at that time, was to fill all the houses of the citizens, and extend in no direction. But though his countenance, for want of light, only wasted its amazement, Kit—like Hector with his windpipe damaged, but not by any means perforated—gave issue to his sentiments. Unlike Hector—so far as we know—Kit had been forming a habit of using language too strong for ladies.
"Blow me!" was his unheroic exclamation—"blow me, if ever yet I knew so queer a start as this! Sure as eggs is eggs, that is the very blackguard I drubbed for his insolence! His voice is enough, and his snuffle; and I believe he was rubbing his nose in the dark. I am sure he's the man; I could swear it's the man, though I could not see his filthy face at all. My father to be in a conspiracy with him! And poor Cinnaminta, and Mr. Overshute! What the dickens is the meaning of it all? The governor has a thousand times my brains, as everybody says, and I am the last to grudge it to him; and he thinks he can do what he likes with me. I am not quite sure of that, if he puts my pecker up too heavily."
To throw his favourite light on his own reflections, Kit Sharp lit his pipe, and followed slowly in his father's wake. Wiser, and wider, and brighter men might be found betwixt every two lamp-posts, but few more simple, soft, and gentle than this honest lawyer's son.
Perfectly free from all suspicions, and as happy as he deserved to be, Mr. Sharp leaned back in his easy chair, after making an excellent supper, and gazed with complacency at his good wife. He was really glad to be at home again, and to find his admiring household safe, and to rest for a while with a quiet brain, as the lord and master of everything. Christopher had been sent to bed, as if he were only ten years old; for instead of exhibiting the proper joy, he had behaved in a very strange and absent manner; and his father, who delighted much in snubbing him sometimes, had requested him to seek his pillow. Kit had accepted this proposal very gladly, longing as he did to think over by himself that strange adventure of the evening.
"Now, darling Luke," began Mrs. Sharp, as soon as she had made her husband quite snug, and provided him with a glass of negus, "you really must be amazed at my unparalleled patience and self-control. You ran away suddenly at the very crisis of a most interesting and momentous tale. And from that day to this I have not had one word; and how to behave to Kit has been a riddle beyond riddles. How I have seen to the dinner—I am sure—and of sleep I have scarcely had fifty winks, between my anxiety about you, and misery at not knowing how the story ended."
"Very well, Miranda, I will tell you all the rest; together with the postscript added since I went to London. Only you must stay up very late, I fear, to get to the proper end of it."
"I will stay till the cocks crow. At least, I mean, dear, if, after your long journey, you are really fit for it. If not, I will wait till to-morrow, dear."
Mr. Sharp was touched by his wife's consideration for him. He loved her more than he loved any one else in the world, except himself; and though (like many other clear-headed men) he had small faith in brains feminine, he was not quite certain that he might not get some useful idea out of them when the matter at issue was feminine.
"I am ready, if you are, my dear," he said, for he hated to beat about the bush. "Only I must know where I left off. With all I have done since, I quite forget."
"You left off just when you had discovered the real man who was called 'Jolly Fellows;' the man Cousin Fermitage left his will with."
"To be sure! Or at least, it was a codicil. Very well, I found him in the wine-vaults of the company, where they have been for generations. He was going round with some large and good customer, such as old Fermitage himself had been. Senhor Gelofilos had a link in one hand, and in the other a deep dock-glass, while a man in his shadow bore a flashing gimlet and a long-armed siphon-tap. From cell to cell, and pipe to pipe, they were going in regular order, showing brands,exthis, andexthat, and making little taps and trying them.
"I was admitted, without a word, as one of this solemn procession, being taken for a member of the sacred trade; and the number of sips of wine I got, and the importance attached to my opinion, would have made you laugh, Miranda. At length I got a chance of speaking alone to Senhor Gelofilos, a tall, dark, gentlemanly man, of grave and dignified manner. He at once remembered that he had received a paper from Mr. Fermitage; of its nature however he knew nothing, not being acquainted with our legal forms. He had kept it ever since in a box at his house, and if I could call upon him after office hours, he would show it to me with pleasure. Accordingly, I took a hackney-coach to his house near Hampstead in the evening, and found that old 'Port-wine' had not deceived me during our last interview.
"I held in my hand a most important codicil to the old man's will, duly executed and attested, so far at least as could be decided without inquiry. By this codicil he revoked his will thus far, that, instead of leaving the residue, after payment of legacies, to his widow absolutely, he left her a life-interest in that residue, after bequeathing the sum of £20,000, duty free, to his niece, Grace Oglander."
"Out of my money, Luke!" cried Mrs. Sharp indignantly. "Twenty thousand pounds out of my money! And what niece of his was she, I should like to know? Was there nothing whatever for his own flesh and blood?"
"Nothing whatever," answered Mr. Sharp calmly. "But wait a bit, Miranda, wait. Well, all the residue of his estate, after the decease of his said wife, Joan, was by this codicil absolutely given to his said niece Grace. He said that they both would know why he had made the change. And then the rest of his will was confirmed, as usual."
"I never heard such a thing! I never heard such robbery!" exclaimed Mrs. Sharp, with a panting breast. "I hope you will contest it all, my dear. If there is law in the land, you cannot fail to upset such a vile, vile will! You can show that the fungus got into his brain."
"My dear, it is my object to establish that will, or the codicil rather, which I thus discovered. I am obliged to proceed very carefully, of course; a rash step would ruin everything. Unluckily the executors remain as before, though he would not trust them with the codicil. Well, one of them, as you know, bought such a lot of port, half-price, at his testator's sale, that in three months he required an executor for himself. The other took warning by his fate, and is going in for claret and the sour Rhenish wines. This has made him as surly as a bear, and he is a most difficult man to manage. But if any one can handle him, I can; and he has a deadly quarrel with that haughty Joan. I had first ascertained, without any stir, that the attestation is quite correct—two stupid bottle-men, who gave no thought to what they were doing, but can swear to the signing; and the codicil itself, though 'Port-wine' drew it without any lawyer, is quite clear and good. At the proper moment I produce the codicil, account for my possession of it, go to Mr. Wigginton, and make him prove it; and then, I think, we turn the tables on the proud old widow."
"Oh, Luke, what a blessed day that would be for me! The things I have endured from that odious woman! Of course, it will mortify her not to have disposal, and to have to give up £20,000—the miser, the screw, the Expositor hypocrite! The filthy silk stockings I should be ashamed to own! But, darling Luke, I do not see how we ourselves are a bit the better off for it. Poor Grace being dead, of course her father takes the money."
"Suppose, for a moment that, instead of being dead, Grace Oglander is the wedded wife, by that time, of a certain Christopher Fermitage Sharp, and without any settlement!"
"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Sharp, jumping with astonishment. "Is it possible? Is it possible?"
"It is more than possible, it is probable; and without some very bad luck, it is certain!"
"Oh, you darling love!" she very nearly shouted, giving him a hug with her plump white arms. "Oh, Luke, Luke, it is the noblest thing I ever heard! And she is such a nice girl, too, so sweet, and clever, and superior! The very daughter I would have chosen out of fifty thousand! And with all that money at her back! Why, we can retire, and set up a green barouche! I shall have it lined with the new agate colour, trimmed with deep puce, like the Marchioness of Marston's—that is, if you approve, of course, my dear. And a pair of iron-greys always go the best with that. But, Luke, you will laugh at me for being in a hurry. There is plenty of time, dear, is there not?—though they do say that carriage-builders are so slow. But they think so much of their old family, my dear. I know how very wonderfully managing you are, and as clever as can be consistent with the highest principle. But do tell me, how you have contrived all this so well, and never even let me guess a single whisper of it."
"It has required some tact and skill," Mr. Sharp replied, with a twinkle in his eyes, and taking a good pull at his port-wine negus; "and even more than that, Miranda, without a bold stroke it could never have been done. I staked almost everything upon the die; not quite everything, for I made all arrangements if we should have to fly."
"Fly, my dear!" cried Mrs. Sharp, looking up with a very different face. "What do you mean, Luke? To have to run away!"
"Quite so. There is no great stroke without great miss. And if I had missed, we must all have bolted suddenly."
"The Lord forbid! Run away in disgrace from my father's own house, and the whole world that knows us! I never could have tried to go through such a trial."
"Yes, my dear Miranda, it might have come to that. And you would have gone through the whole of it, without a single murmur."
"Luke, I positively tremble at you!" the good woman answered, as her eyes fell under his. "How stern you can look when you want to scare me!"
"Miranda, I tell you the simple truth. We must all have been in France within twelve hours if, if—well, never mind. Nothing venture nothing win. But happily we have won, I believe; though we must not be too sure as yet. We have justice on our side; but justice does not always prevail against petty facts. And public opinion would set against us with great ferocity, if we failed. If we succeed, all men will praise us as soon as we begin to spend our money, and exert it near home at the outset. Everything depends upon success; of course, it always does in everything."
"My dear, it is not fair of you to talk like that," Mrs. Sharp answered, with tears in her eyes; for, in all her kind and ungirt nature, there was no entry for cynicism; "you must feel that I would hold by you always, whatever all the world might have the impudence to say, dear."
"Beyond a doubt you would. You could do no otherwise. But that might be of very little use. I mean, that it would be the very greatest prop, and comfort, and blessing, and support in every way, and would keep up one's faith, to some extent, in human nature, and divine assistance—but still, if we had to live on three pound ten a week! However, we will not anticipate the worst. You would like to know how the whole thing stands now?"
Mrs. Luke Sharp, although not very clever, and wholly incapable of any plot herself (beyond such little stratagems as ladies do concoct, for fetching down the price of rep, or getting gloves at a quarter of their cost), nevertheless had her share of common sense, and that which generally goes therewith—respect for the opinion of good people. She knew that her husband was a very bold man, as well as a very strong-willed one; he had often done things which she had thought too daring; and yet they had always turned out well. But what he had now in hand was, even according to his own account, the most risky and perilous venture yet; and though (like the partner of a gambler) she warmed up to back his hand, and cheer him, and let her heart go with him, in her wiser mind she had shivers, and shudders, and a chill shadow of the end of it.
Mr. Sharp saw that his wife was timid; which of all things would be fatal now; for her aid was indispensable. Otherwise, perhaps, he would not have been quite so ready to tell her everything. He had put things so that her dislikes and envies, as well as her likings, and loves, and ambitions would compel her to work with him. If she were lukewarm his whole scheme must fail. At the mere idea his temper stirred. "Will you hear the rest? Or is your mind upset?" he asked a little roughly. His wife looked up brightly from some little blink of thought. "Every word of it now, I must hear every word, if you will be so kind, my dear. I will go and see that all the doors are shut."