Chapter Eighteen.James Wilton stood for a few moments staring searchingly at his son. Then, in a sudden access of anger, he rushed to the library door, flung it open, came back, caught the young man by the shoulders, and began to back him in.“Here, what are you doing, guv’nor? Leave off! Don’t do that. Here, why don’t you answer my question?”“Hold your tongue, idiot! Do you suppose I want all the servants to hear what is said? Go in there.”He gave him a final thrust, and then hurried out to hasten upstairs to where Mrs Wilton stood holding on by the heavy balustrade which crossed the hall like a gallery, and rocking herself to and fro.“Oh, James, I knew it—I knew it!” she sobbed out. “She’s dead—she’s dead!”“Hush! Hold your tongue!” cried her husband. “Do you want to alarm the house? You’ll have all the servants here directly. Come along.”He drew her arm roughly beneath his, and hurried her down the stairs into the library, thrust her into her son’s arms, and then hurried to the hall table for the candle, ending by shutting himself in with them.“Oh, Claud, Claud, my darling boy!” wailed Mrs Wilton.“If you don’t hold your tongue, Maria, you’ll put me in a rage,” growled Wilton, savagely. “Sit in that chair.”“Oh, James, James, you shouldn’t,” sobbed the poor woman, “you shouldn’t,” as she was plumped down heavily; but she spoke in a whisper.“Done?” asked Claud, mockingly. “Then, now p’raps you’ll answer my question. Has she bolted?”“Silence, idiot!” growled his father, so fiercely that the young man backed away from trim in alarm. “No, don’t keep silence, but speak. You contemptible young hound, do you think you can impose upon me by your question—by your pretended ignorance? Do you think you can impose upon me, I say? Do you think I cannot see through your plans?”“I say, mater, what’s the guv’nor talking about?” cried Claud.“She’s dead—she’s dead!”“Who’s dead? What’s dead?”“Answer me, sir,” continued Wilton, backing his son till he could get no farther for the big table. “Do you think you can impose upon me?”“Who wants to impose on you, guv’nor?”“You do, sir. But I see through your miserable plan, and I tell you this. You can’t get the money into your own hands to make ducks and drakes of, for I am executor and trustee and guardian, and if there’s any law in the land I’ll lock up every shilling so that you can’t touch it. If you had played honourably with me you would have had ample, and the estate would have come to you some day, cleared of incumbrances, if you had not killed yourself first.”“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” cried Claud, angrily. “Who’s imposing on you? Who’s playing dishonourably? You behaved like a brute to me, and I went off to get out of it all, only I didn’t want to be hard on ma, and so I came back.”“Oh, my darling boy! It was very, very good of you.”“Be quiet, Maria. Let the shallow-brained young idiot speak,” growled Wilton. “Now, sir, answer me—have you gone through some form of marriage?”“Who with?” said the young man, with a grin.“Answer my question, sir. Have you gone through some form of marriage?”“I? No. I’m free enough, guv’nor.”“You have not?” cried Wilton, aghast. “You mean to tell me that you have taken that poor girl away somewhere, and have not married her?”“No, I don’t mean to tell you anything of the sort. Here, mother, is the pater going mad?”“Silence, Maria; don’t answer him.”“Yes, do ma. What does it all mean? Has Kitty bolted?”“She’s drowned—she’s drowned, my boy.”“Nonsense, ma! You’re always thinking someone is drowned. Then she has bolted. Oh, I say!”“No, sir; she has not bolted, as you term it in your miserable horsey slang. You’ve taken her away—there; don’t deny it. You’ve got her somewhere, and you think you can set me at defiance.”“Do I, guv’nor?”“Yes, sir, you do. But I’ve warned you and shown you how you stand. Now, look here; your only chance is to give up and do exactly as I tell you.”“Oh, is it?” said the young man mockingly.“Yes, sir, it is. Now then, be frank and open with me at once, and I may be able to help you out of the miserable hole in which you have plunged us.”“Go ahead, then. Have it your own way, guv’nor.”“No time must be lost—that is, if you are not deceiving me and have already had the ceremony performed.”“I didn’t stand on ceremony,” said Claud, with a laughing sneer; “I gave her a few kisses, and a nice row was the result.”“Will you be serious, sir?”“Yes, I’m serious enough. Where has she gone?”“Where have you taken her?”“I haven’t taken her anywhere, guv’nor.”“Do you mean to tell me, sir, that you did not go up a ladder to her window?”“Hullo!”“Bring her down and take her right away?”“I say, guv’nor,” cried Claud, with such startling energy that his father’s last suspicion was swept away; “is it so bad as that?”“Then you didn’t take her off?”“Of course I didn’t. Take her off? What, after that scene? Likely. What nonsense, guv’nor! Do you think she’d have come?”“Claud, you amaze me, my boy,” cried Wilton, who looked staggered, but his incredulity got the better of him directly. “No; only by your effrontery,” he continued. “You are trifling with me; worse still, you are trifling with a large fortune. Come, it will pay you best to be frank. Where is she?”“At the bottom of the pike pond, for all I know—a termagant,” cried Claud; “I tell you I haven’t seen her since the row.”“Then she is drowned—she’s drowned.”“Be quiet, Maria!” roared Wilton. “Now, boy, tell me the truth for once in a way; did you elope with Kate?”“No, guv’nor, I did not,” cried the young man. “I never had the chance, or I’d have done it like a shot.”Wilton’s jaw dropped. He was quite convinced now, and he sank into a chair, staring at his son.“I—I thought you had made short work of it,” said Wilton, huskily.“Then she really has gone?” said Claud in a whisper.“Yes, yes, my dear,” burst out Mrs Wilton. “I knew it! I was right at first.”“Where has she gone, then, mother?”“Hold your tongue, woman!” cried Wilton, angrily. “You don’t know anything about it—how could she get a ladder there? Footsteps on the flower-bed, my boy. A man in it. I thought it was you.”“And all that money gone,” cried Claud.“No, not yet, my boy. There, I beg your pardon for suspecting you. It seemed so much like your work. But stop—you are cheating me; it was your doing.”“Have it your own way, then, guv’nor.”“You were seen with her last night.”“Eh? What time?” cried Claud.“I don’t know the time, sir, but a man saw you with her. Come, you see the risk you run of losing a fortune. Speak out.”Claud spoke in, but what he said was his own affair. Then, after a minute’s thought, he said; “I say, would it be old Garstang, guv’nor?”“No, sir, it would not be John Garstang,” cried Wilton, with his anger rising again.“No; I have it, guv’nor,” cried Claud, excitedly. “I went up, meaning to have a turn in town with Harry Dasent, but he was out. That’s it; he hasn’t a penny in the world, and he has been down here three times lately. I thought he’d got devilish fond of her all at once; and twice over he let out about Kitty being so good-looking. That’s it; he’s got her away.”“No, no, my dear; she wouldn’t have gone away with a man like that,” sobbed Mrs Wilton. “She didn’t like him.”“No; absurd,” cried Wilton.“But he’d have gone away with her, guv’nor.”“You were seen with her last night.”“Oh, was I? All right, then. If you say so I suppose I was, guv’nor, but I’m going back to London after ferreting out all I can. You’re on the wrong scent, dad,—him! I never thought of that.”“You’re wrong, Claud; you’re wrong.”“Yes, mother, deucedly wrong,” cried the young man fiercely. “Why didn’t I think of it? I might have done the same, and now it’s too late. Perhaps not. She’d hold out after he got her away, and we might get to her in time. No, I know Harry Dasent. It’s too late now.”“Look here, Claud, boy, I want to believe in you,” said Wilton, who was once more impressed by his son’s earnestness; “do you tell me you believe that Harry Dasent has taken her away by force?”“Force, or some trick. It was just the sort of time when she might listen to him. There; you may believe me, now.”“Then who was the lady you were seen with last night? Come, be honest. You were seen with someone. Who was it?”“Mustn’t kiss and tell, guv’nor,” said Claud, with a sickly grin.“Look here,” said Wilton huskily. “There are a hundred and fifty thousand pounds at stake, my boy. Was it Kate?”“No, father,” cried the young man earnestly; “it wasn’t, ’pon my soul.”“Am I to believe you?”“Look here, guv’nor, do you think I want to fool this money away? What good should I be doing by pretending I hadn’t carried her off? I told you I’d have done it like a shot if I had had the chance; and what’s more, you’d have liked it, so long as I had got her to say yes. I did not carry her off, once for all. It was Harry Dasent, and if he has choused me out of that bit of coin, curse him, if I hang for it, I’ll break his neck!”“Oh! Claud, Claud, my darling,” wailed Mrs Wilton, “to talk like that when your cousin’s lying cold and motionless at the bottom of that pond!”
James Wilton stood for a few moments staring searchingly at his son. Then, in a sudden access of anger, he rushed to the library door, flung it open, came back, caught the young man by the shoulders, and began to back him in.
“Here, what are you doing, guv’nor? Leave off! Don’t do that. Here, why don’t you answer my question?”
“Hold your tongue, idiot! Do you suppose I want all the servants to hear what is said? Go in there.”
He gave him a final thrust, and then hurried out to hasten upstairs to where Mrs Wilton stood holding on by the heavy balustrade which crossed the hall like a gallery, and rocking herself to and fro.
“Oh, James, I knew it—I knew it!” she sobbed out. “She’s dead—she’s dead!”
“Hush! Hold your tongue!” cried her husband. “Do you want to alarm the house? You’ll have all the servants here directly. Come along.”
He drew her arm roughly beneath his, and hurried her down the stairs into the library, thrust her into her son’s arms, and then hurried to the hall table for the candle, ending by shutting himself in with them.
“Oh, Claud, Claud, my darling boy!” wailed Mrs Wilton.
“If you don’t hold your tongue, Maria, you’ll put me in a rage,” growled Wilton, savagely. “Sit in that chair.”
“Oh, James, James, you shouldn’t,” sobbed the poor woman, “you shouldn’t,” as she was plumped down heavily; but she spoke in a whisper.
“Done?” asked Claud, mockingly. “Then, now p’raps you’ll answer my question. Has she bolted?”
“Silence, idiot!” growled his father, so fiercely that the young man backed away from trim in alarm. “No, don’t keep silence, but speak. You contemptible young hound, do you think you can impose upon me by your question—by your pretended ignorance? Do you think you can impose upon me, I say? Do you think I cannot see through your plans?”
“I say, mater, what’s the guv’nor talking about?” cried Claud.
“She’s dead—she’s dead!”
“Who’s dead? What’s dead?”
“Answer me, sir,” continued Wilton, backing his son till he could get no farther for the big table. “Do you think you can impose upon me?”
“Who wants to impose on you, guv’nor?”
“You do, sir. But I see through your miserable plan, and I tell you this. You can’t get the money into your own hands to make ducks and drakes of, for I am executor and trustee and guardian, and if there’s any law in the land I’ll lock up every shilling so that you can’t touch it. If you had played honourably with me you would have had ample, and the estate would have come to you some day, cleared of incumbrances, if you had not killed yourself first.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” cried Claud, angrily. “Who’s imposing on you? Who’s playing dishonourably? You behaved like a brute to me, and I went off to get out of it all, only I didn’t want to be hard on ma, and so I came back.”
“Oh, my darling boy! It was very, very good of you.”
“Be quiet, Maria. Let the shallow-brained young idiot speak,” growled Wilton. “Now, sir, answer me—have you gone through some form of marriage?”
“Who with?” said the young man, with a grin.
“Answer my question, sir. Have you gone through some form of marriage?”
“I? No. I’m free enough, guv’nor.”
“You have not?” cried Wilton, aghast. “You mean to tell me that you have taken that poor girl away somewhere, and have not married her?”
“No, I don’t mean to tell you anything of the sort. Here, mother, is the pater going mad?”
“Silence, Maria; don’t answer him.”
“Yes, do ma. What does it all mean? Has Kitty bolted?”
“She’s drowned—she’s drowned, my boy.”
“Nonsense, ma! You’re always thinking someone is drowned. Then she has bolted. Oh, I say!”
“No, sir; she has not bolted, as you term it in your miserable horsey slang. You’ve taken her away—there; don’t deny it. You’ve got her somewhere, and you think you can set me at defiance.”
“Do I, guv’nor?”
“Yes, sir, you do. But I’ve warned you and shown you how you stand. Now, look here; your only chance is to give up and do exactly as I tell you.”
“Oh, is it?” said the young man mockingly.
“Yes, sir, it is. Now then, be frank and open with me at once, and I may be able to help you out of the miserable hole in which you have plunged us.”
“Go ahead, then. Have it your own way, guv’nor.”
“No time must be lost—that is, if you are not deceiving me and have already had the ceremony performed.”
“I didn’t stand on ceremony,” said Claud, with a laughing sneer; “I gave her a few kisses, and a nice row was the result.”
“Will you be serious, sir?”
“Yes, I’m serious enough. Where has she gone?”
“Where have you taken her?”
“I haven’t taken her anywhere, guv’nor.”
“Do you mean to tell me, sir, that you did not go up a ladder to her window?”
“Hullo!”
“Bring her down and take her right away?”
“I say, guv’nor,” cried Claud, with such startling energy that his father’s last suspicion was swept away; “is it so bad as that?”
“Then you didn’t take her off?”
“Of course I didn’t. Take her off? What, after that scene? Likely. What nonsense, guv’nor! Do you think she’d have come?”
“Claud, you amaze me, my boy,” cried Wilton, who looked staggered, but his incredulity got the better of him directly. “No; only by your effrontery,” he continued. “You are trifling with me; worse still, you are trifling with a large fortune. Come, it will pay you best to be frank. Where is she?”
“At the bottom of the pike pond, for all I know—a termagant,” cried Claud; “I tell you I haven’t seen her since the row.”
“Then she is drowned—she’s drowned.”
“Be quiet, Maria!” roared Wilton. “Now, boy, tell me the truth for once in a way; did you elope with Kate?”
“No, guv’nor, I did not,” cried the young man. “I never had the chance, or I’d have done it like a shot.”
Wilton’s jaw dropped. He was quite convinced now, and he sank into a chair, staring at his son.
“I—I thought you had made short work of it,” said Wilton, huskily.
“Then she really has gone?” said Claud in a whisper.
“Yes, yes, my dear,” burst out Mrs Wilton. “I knew it! I was right at first.”
“Where has she gone, then, mother?”
“Hold your tongue, woman!” cried Wilton, angrily. “You don’t know anything about it—how could she get a ladder there? Footsteps on the flower-bed, my boy. A man in it. I thought it was you.”
“And all that money gone,” cried Claud.
“No, not yet, my boy. There, I beg your pardon for suspecting you. It seemed so much like your work. But stop—you are cheating me; it was your doing.”
“Have it your own way, then, guv’nor.”
“You were seen with her last night.”
“Eh? What time?” cried Claud.
“I don’t know the time, sir, but a man saw you with her. Come, you see the risk you run of losing a fortune. Speak out.”
Claud spoke in, but what he said was his own affair. Then, after a minute’s thought, he said; “I say, would it be old Garstang, guv’nor?”
“No, sir, it would not be John Garstang,” cried Wilton, with his anger rising again.
“No; I have it, guv’nor,” cried Claud, excitedly. “I went up, meaning to have a turn in town with Harry Dasent, but he was out. That’s it; he hasn’t a penny in the world, and he has been down here three times lately. I thought he’d got devilish fond of her all at once; and twice over he let out about Kitty being so good-looking. That’s it; he’s got her away.”
“No, no, my dear; she wouldn’t have gone away with a man like that,” sobbed Mrs Wilton. “She didn’t like him.”
“No; absurd,” cried Wilton.
“But he’d have gone away with her, guv’nor.”
“You were seen with her last night.”
“Oh, was I? All right, then. If you say so I suppose I was, guv’nor, but I’m going back to London after ferreting out all I can. You’re on the wrong scent, dad,—him! I never thought of that.”
“You’re wrong, Claud; you’re wrong.”
“Yes, mother, deucedly wrong,” cried the young man fiercely. “Why didn’t I think of it? I might have done the same, and now it’s too late. Perhaps not. She’d hold out after he got her away, and we might get to her in time. No, I know Harry Dasent. It’s too late now.”
“Look here, Claud, boy, I want to believe in you,” said Wilton, who was once more impressed by his son’s earnestness; “do you tell me you believe that Harry Dasent has taken her away by force?”
“Force, or some trick. It was just the sort of time when she might listen to him. There; you may believe me, now.”
“Then who was the lady you were seen with last night? Come, be honest. You were seen with someone. Who was it?”
“Mustn’t kiss and tell, guv’nor,” said Claud, with a sickly grin.
“Look here,” said Wilton huskily. “There are a hundred and fifty thousand pounds at stake, my boy. Was it Kate?”
“No, father,” cried the young man earnestly; “it wasn’t, ’pon my soul.”
“Am I to believe you?”
“Look here, guv’nor, do you think I want to fool this money away? What good should I be doing by pretending I hadn’t carried her off? I told you I’d have done it like a shot if I had had the chance; and what’s more, you’d have liked it, so long as I had got her to say yes. I did not carry her off, once for all. It was Harry Dasent, and if he has choused me out of that bit of coin, curse him, if I hang for it, I’ll break his neck!”
“Oh! Claud, Claud, my darling,” wailed Mrs Wilton, “to talk like that when your cousin’s lying cold and motionless at the bottom of that pond!”
Chapter Nineteen.For the better part of two days Pierce Leigh went about like one who had received some terrible mental shock; and Jenny’s pleasant little rounded cheeks told the tale of the anxiety from which she suffered, while her eyes followed him wistfully, and she seemed never weary of trying to perform little offices for him which would distract his attention from the thoughts which were sapping his vitality.The life at the quiet little cottage home was entirely changed, for brother and sister were playing parts for which they were quite unsuited in a melancholy farce of real life, wearing masks, and trying to hide their sufferings from each other, with a miserable want of success.And all the time Leigh was longing to open his heart to the loving, affectionate little thing who had been his companion from a child, his confidante over all his hopes, and counsellor in every movement or plan. She had read and studied with him, helped him to puzzle out abstruse questions, and for years they had gone on together leading a life full of happiness, and ready to laugh lightly over money troubles connected with the disappointment over the purchase of the Northwood practice through a swindling, or grossly ignorant, agent.“Don’t worry about it, Pierce dear,” Jenny had said, “it is only the loss of some money, and as it’s in the country we can live on less, and wear out our old clothes over again. I do wish I could cut up and turn your coats and trousers. You men laugh at us and our fashions, but we women can laugh at you and yours. Granted that our hats and dresses are flimsy, see how we can re-trim and unpick, and make them look new again, while your stupid things get worn and shiny, and then they’re good for nothing. They’re quite hopeless, for I daren’t try to make you a new coat out of two old ones.”There was many a merry laugh over such matters, Jenny’s spirits rising, as the country life brought back the bloom of health that had been failing in Westminster; and existence, in spite of the want of patients, was a very happy one, till the change came. This change to a certain extent resembled that in the yard of the amateur who was bitten by the fancy for keeping and showing those great lumbering fowls—the Brahmas, so popular years ago.He had a pen of half-a-dozen cockerels, the result of the hatching of a clutch of eggs laid by a feathered princess of the blood royal; and as he watched them through their infancy it was with high hopes of winning prizes—silver cups and vases, at all the crack poultry shows. And how he tended and pampered his pets, watching them through the various stages passed by this kind of fowl—one can hardly say feathered fowl in the earlier stages of their existence, for through their early boyhood, so to speak, they run about in a raw unclad condition that is pitiful to see, for they are almost “birds of a feather” in the Dundreary idea of the singularity of plumage; and it is not until they have arrived pretty well at full growth that they assume the heavy massive plumage that makes their skeleton lanky forms look so huge. These six young Brahmas masculine grew and throve in their pen, innocent, happy, and at peace, till one morning their owner gazed upon them in pride, for they were all that a Brahma fancier could wish to see—small of comb, heavy of hackle, tail slightly developed, broad in the beam, short-legged, and without a trace of vulture hock. “First prize for one of them,” said the owner, and after feeding them he went to town, and came back to find his hopes ruined, his cockerels six panting, ragged, bleeding wrecks, squatting about in the pen, half dead, too much exhausted to spur and peck again.For there had been battle royal in that pen, the young birds engaging in a furious melée. For what reason? Because, as good old Doctor Watts said, “It is their nature to.” They did not know it till that morning, but there was the great passion in each one’s breast, waiting to be evoked, and transform them from pacific pecking and scratching birds into perfect demons of discord.There was wire netting spread all over the top of their carefully sanded pen, and till then they had never seen others of their kind. It was their world, and as far as they knew there was neither fowl nor chicken save themselves. The memory of the mother beneath whose plumage they had nestled had passed away, for the gallinaceous brain cavity is small.That morning, a stray, pert-looking, elegantly spangled, golden Hambro’ pullet appeared upon the wall, looked down for a moment on the pen of full-grown, innocent young Brahmas, uttered the monosyllables “Took, took!” and flew away.For a brief space, the long necks of the cockerels were strained in the direction where that vision of loveliness had appeared for a brief instant; the fire of jealous love blazed out, and they turned and fought almost to the death. It would have been quite, had there been strength.The owner of these six cripples did not take a prize.So at Northwood, women, save as sister or friend, had been non-existent to Pierce Leigh. Now the desire to rend his human brother was upon him strong.Jenny knew it, and for more than one reason she trembled for the time that must come when Pierce should first meet Claud Wilton, for it had rapidly dawned upon her that the long-deferred grand passion of her brother was the stronger for its sudden growth.In her anxiety, she went out during those two days a great deal for the benefit of her health, but really on the qui vive for the news that she felt must soon come of Claud’s proceedings with his cousin; and twice over she had started the subject of their projected leaving, making Leigh raise his eyebrows slightly in wonder at the sudden change in his sister’s ideas. But it was not till nearly evening that, during her brother’s temporary absence, she heard the news for which she was waiting.One of Leigh’s poor patients called to see him—one of the class suffered by most young doctors, who go through life believing they are very ill, and that it is the duty of a medical man to pay extra attention to their ailments, and lavish upon them knowledge and medicine to the fullest extent, without a thought of payment entering their heads.Betsy Bray was the lady in question, and as was her custom, Jenny saw the woman, ready to hear her last grievance, and tell her brother when he returned.Betsy was fifty-five, and possessed of the strong constitution which bears a great deal of ease; but in her own estimation she was very bad. From frequenting surgeries, she had picked up a few medical terms, and larded her discourse with them and others of a religious tendency, her attendance at church dole-giving, and other charitable distributions being of the most regular description.“Doctor at home, miss?” she said, plaintively, as she slowly and plumply subsided upon the little couch in the surgery, the said piece of furniture groaning in all its springs, for Betsy possessed weight.“No, Mrs Bray. He has gone to call on the Dudges, at West Gale.”“Ah, he always is calling on somebody when I’ve managed to drag my weary bones all this way up from the village.”“I am very sorry. What is the matter now?” said Jenny, soothingly.“Matter, miss? What’s allus the matter with me? It’s my chronics. Not a wink of sleep have I had all the blessed night.”“Well, I must give you something.”“Nay, nay, my dear; you don’t understand my troubles. It’s the absorption is all wrong; and you’d be giving me something out of the wrong bottles. You just give me a taste of sperrits to give me strength to get home again, and beg and pray o’ the doctor to come on and see me as soon as he comes home, if you don’t want me to be laid out stark and cold afore another day’s done.”“But I have no spirits, Mrs Bray.”“Got none? Well, I dessay a glass o’ wine might do. Keep me alive p’raps till I’d crawled home to die.”“But we have no wine.”“Dear, dear, dear, think o’ that,” said the woman fretfully. “The old doctor always had some, and a drop o’ sperrits, too. Ah, it’s a hard thing to be old and poor and in bad health, carrying your grey hairs in sorrow to the grave; and all about you rich and well and happy, rolling in money, and marrying and giving in marriage and wearing their wedding garments, one and all. You’ve heard about the doings up at the Manor House?”“Yes, yes, something about them, Mrs Bray; but I’ll tell my brother, and he will, I know, come and see you.”“Yes, you tell him; not as I believe in him much, but poor people must take what they can get—He’s come back, you know?”“My brother? No; he would have come straight in here.”“Your brother? Tchah, no!” cried the woman, forgetting her “chronics” in the interest she felt in the fresh subject. “You’re always thinking about your brother, and if’s time you began to think of a husband. I meant him at the Manor—young Claud Wilton. He’s come back.”“Come back?” cried Jenny excitedly.“Yes; but I hear he arn’t brought his young missus with him. Nice goings on, running away, them two, to get married. But I arn’t surprised; he fell out with the parson long enough ago about Sally Deal, down the village, and parson give it him well for not marrying her. Wouldn’t be married here out o’ spite, I suppose. Well, I must go. You’re sure you haven’t got a drop o’ gin in the house?”“Quite sure,” said Jenny quickly; “and I’ll be sure and tell my brother to come.”“Ay, do; and tell him I say it’s a shame he lives so far out of the village. I feel sometimes that I shall die in one of the ditches before I get here, it’s so far. There, don’t hurry me so; I don’t want to be took ill here. I know, doctors aren’t above helping people out of the world when they get tired of them.”“Gone!” cried Jenny at last, with a sigh of relief; and then, with the tears rising to her eyes, “Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do? If they meet—if he ever gets to know!”She hurried upstairs, put on her hat and jacket, and came down looking pale and excited, but without any very definite plans. One idea was foremost in her mind; but as she reached the door she caught sight of her brother coming with rapid strides from the direction opposite to that taken by the old woman who had just gone.“Too late!” she said, with a piteous sigh; and she ran upstairs hurriedly, and threw off her things.She had hardly re-arranged her hair when she heard her brother’s voice calling her.“Yes, dear,” she said, and she ran down, to find him looking ghastly.“Who was that went away from here?” he said huskily.She told him, but not of her promise to send him over.“I’ll go to her at once,” he said.“No, no, Pierce, dear; she is not ill. Pray stay at home; there is really no need.”“Why should I stay at home?” he said, looking at her suspiciously.“I—I am not very well, dear. You have been so dull, it has upset me. I wish you would stay in with me this evening; I feel so nervous and lonely.”“Yes, I will,” he said; “but I must go there first.”“No, no, dear; don’t, please, don’t go,” she pleaded, as she caught his arm. “Please stay. She is not in the least ill, and I want you to stop. There, I’ll make some tea directly, and we’ll sit over it and have a long cosy chat, and it will do us both good, dear.”“Jenny,” he cried harshly, “you want to keep me at home.”“Yes, dear, I told you so; but don’t speak in that harsh way; you frighten me.”“I’m not blind,” he cried. “Don’t deny it. You’ve heard from that old woman what I have just found out. He has come back.”“Pierce!” she cried; and she shrank away from him, and covered her face with her hands.“Yes,” he said wildly, and there was a look in his ghastly face which she had never seen before. “I knew it; and you are afraid that I shall meet him and wring his miserable neck.”“Oh, Pierce, Pierce,” she cried piteously, as she threw herself at his feet; “don’t, don’t, pray don’t talk in this mad way.”“Why not?” he said, with a mocking laugh. “It is consistent. There, get up; don’t kneel there praying to a madman.”She sprang up quickly and seized him by the shoulder, and then threw herself across his knees and her arms about his neck.“It is not true,” she cried passionately. “You are not mad; you are only horribly angry, and I am frightened to death for fear that you should meet and be violent.”“Violent! I could kill him!” he muttered, with a hard look in his eyes. “Good God, what a profanation! He marry her! She must have been mad, or there has been some cruel act of violence. Jenny, girl, I will see him and take him by the throat and make him tell me all. I have fought against it. I have told myself that she is unworthy of a second thought, but my heart tells me that it is not so. There has been some horrible trick played upon her; she would not—as you have said—she could not have gone off of her own will with that miserable little hound.”“Yes, yes, that is what I think,” she said, hysterically. “So wait patiently, dear, and we shall know the truth some day.”“Wait!” he cried, with a mocking laugh. “Wait! With my brain feeling as if it were on fire. No, I have waited too long; I ought to have gone off after him at once, and learned the truth.”“No, no, dear; you two must not meet. Now then, listen to me.”“Some day, little bird,” he said, lifting her from his knee, as he rose; then kissing her tenderly he extricated himself from her clinging hands as gently as he could, and rushed out.“O, Pierce, Pierce!” she cried. “Stay, stay!”But the only answer to her call as she ran to the door was the heavy beat of his feet in the gloom of the misty evening.“And if they meet he’ll find out all,” she wailed piteously. She paused, waiting for a few moments, and then searched in her pocket and brought out a tiny silver whistle, which she placed in the bosom of her dress, after flinging the ribbon which was in its ring over her head.A minute later, with her cloak thrown on and hood drawn over her head, she had slipped out of the cottage, and was running down the by-lane in the direction of the Manor House.
For the better part of two days Pierce Leigh went about like one who had received some terrible mental shock; and Jenny’s pleasant little rounded cheeks told the tale of the anxiety from which she suffered, while her eyes followed him wistfully, and she seemed never weary of trying to perform little offices for him which would distract his attention from the thoughts which were sapping his vitality.
The life at the quiet little cottage home was entirely changed, for brother and sister were playing parts for which they were quite unsuited in a melancholy farce of real life, wearing masks, and trying to hide their sufferings from each other, with a miserable want of success.
And all the time Leigh was longing to open his heart to the loving, affectionate little thing who had been his companion from a child, his confidante over all his hopes, and counsellor in every movement or plan. She had read and studied with him, helped him to puzzle out abstruse questions, and for years they had gone on together leading a life full of happiness, and ready to laugh lightly over money troubles connected with the disappointment over the purchase of the Northwood practice through a swindling, or grossly ignorant, agent.
“Don’t worry about it, Pierce dear,” Jenny had said, “it is only the loss of some money, and as it’s in the country we can live on less, and wear out our old clothes over again. I do wish I could cut up and turn your coats and trousers. You men laugh at us and our fashions, but we women can laugh at you and yours. Granted that our hats and dresses are flimsy, see how we can re-trim and unpick, and make them look new again, while your stupid things get worn and shiny, and then they’re good for nothing. They’re quite hopeless, for I daren’t try to make you a new coat out of two old ones.”
There was many a merry laugh over such matters, Jenny’s spirits rising, as the country life brought back the bloom of health that had been failing in Westminster; and existence, in spite of the want of patients, was a very happy one, till the change came. This change to a certain extent resembled that in the yard of the amateur who was bitten by the fancy for keeping and showing those great lumbering fowls—the Brahmas, so popular years ago.
He had a pen of half-a-dozen cockerels, the result of the hatching of a clutch of eggs laid by a feathered princess of the blood royal; and as he watched them through their infancy it was with high hopes of winning prizes—silver cups and vases, at all the crack poultry shows. And how he tended and pampered his pets, watching them through the various stages passed by this kind of fowl—one can hardly say feathered fowl in the earlier stages of their existence, for through their early boyhood, so to speak, they run about in a raw unclad condition that is pitiful to see, for they are almost “birds of a feather” in the Dundreary idea of the singularity of plumage; and it is not until they have arrived pretty well at full growth that they assume the heavy massive plumage that makes their skeleton lanky forms look so huge. These six young Brahmas masculine grew and throve in their pen, innocent, happy, and at peace, till one morning their owner gazed upon them in pride, for they were all that a Brahma fancier could wish to see—small of comb, heavy of hackle, tail slightly developed, broad in the beam, short-legged, and without a trace of vulture hock. “First prize for one of them,” said the owner, and after feeding them he went to town, and came back to find his hopes ruined, his cockerels six panting, ragged, bleeding wrecks, squatting about in the pen, half dead, too much exhausted to spur and peck again.
For there had been battle royal in that pen, the young birds engaging in a furious melée. For what reason? Because, as good old Doctor Watts said, “It is their nature to.” They did not know it till that morning, but there was the great passion in each one’s breast, waiting to be evoked, and transform them from pacific pecking and scratching birds into perfect demons of discord.
There was wire netting spread all over the top of their carefully sanded pen, and till then they had never seen others of their kind. It was their world, and as far as they knew there was neither fowl nor chicken save themselves. The memory of the mother beneath whose plumage they had nestled had passed away, for the gallinaceous brain cavity is small.
That morning, a stray, pert-looking, elegantly spangled, golden Hambro’ pullet appeared upon the wall, looked down for a moment on the pen of full-grown, innocent young Brahmas, uttered the monosyllables “Took, took!” and flew away.
For a brief space, the long necks of the cockerels were strained in the direction where that vision of loveliness had appeared for a brief instant; the fire of jealous love blazed out, and they turned and fought almost to the death. It would have been quite, had there been strength.
The owner of these six cripples did not take a prize.
So at Northwood, women, save as sister or friend, had been non-existent to Pierce Leigh. Now the desire to rend his human brother was upon him strong.
Jenny knew it, and for more than one reason she trembled for the time that must come when Pierce should first meet Claud Wilton, for it had rapidly dawned upon her that the long-deferred grand passion of her brother was the stronger for its sudden growth.
In her anxiety, she went out during those two days a great deal for the benefit of her health, but really on the qui vive for the news that she felt must soon come of Claud’s proceedings with his cousin; and twice over she had started the subject of their projected leaving, making Leigh raise his eyebrows slightly in wonder at the sudden change in his sister’s ideas. But it was not till nearly evening that, during her brother’s temporary absence, she heard the news for which she was waiting.
One of Leigh’s poor patients called to see him—one of the class suffered by most young doctors, who go through life believing they are very ill, and that it is the duty of a medical man to pay extra attention to their ailments, and lavish upon them knowledge and medicine to the fullest extent, without a thought of payment entering their heads.
Betsy Bray was the lady in question, and as was her custom, Jenny saw the woman, ready to hear her last grievance, and tell her brother when he returned.
Betsy was fifty-five, and possessed of the strong constitution which bears a great deal of ease; but in her own estimation she was very bad. From frequenting surgeries, she had picked up a few medical terms, and larded her discourse with them and others of a religious tendency, her attendance at church dole-giving, and other charitable distributions being of the most regular description.
“Doctor at home, miss?” she said, plaintively, as she slowly and plumply subsided upon the little couch in the surgery, the said piece of furniture groaning in all its springs, for Betsy possessed weight.
“No, Mrs Bray. He has gone to call on the Dudges, at West Gale.”
“Ah, he always is calling on somebody when I’ve managed to drag my weary bones all this way up from the village.”
“I am very sorry. What is the matter now?” said Jenny, soothingly.
“Matter, miss? What’s allus the matter with me? It’s my chronics. Not a wink of sleep have I had all the blessed night.”
“Well, I must give you something.”
“Nay, nay, my dear; you don’t understand my troubles. It’s the absorption is all wrong; and you’d be giving me something out of the wrong bottles. You just give me a taste of sperrits to give me strength to get home again, and beg and pray o’ the doctor to come on and see me as soon as he comes home, if you don’t want me to be laid out stark and cold afore another day’s done.”
“But I have no spirits, Mrs Bray.”
“Got none? Well, I dessay a glass o’ wine might do. Keep me alive p’raps till I’d crawled home to die.”
“But we have no wine.”
“Dear, dear, dear, think o’ that,” said the woman fretfully. “The old doctor always had some, and a drop o’ sperrits, too. Ah, it’s a hard thing to be old and poor and in bad health, carrying your grey hairs in sorrow to the grave; and all about you rich and well and happy, rolling in money, and marrying and giving in marriage and wearing their wedding garments, one and all. You’ve heard about the doings up at the Manor House?”
“Yes, yes, something about them, Mrs Bray; but I’ll tell my brother, and he will, I know, come and see you.”
“Yes, you tell him; not as I believe in him much, but poor people must take what they can get—He’s come back, you know?”
“My brother? No; he would have come straight in here.”
“Your brother? Tchah, no!” cried the woman, forgetting her “chronics” in the interest she felt in the fresh subject. “You’re always thinking about your brother, and if’s time you began to think of a husband. I meant him at the Manor—young Claud Wilton. He’s come back.”
“Come back?” cried Jenny excitedly.
“Yes; but I hear he arn’t brought his young missus with him. Nice goings on, running away, them two, to get married. But I arn’t surprised; he fell out with the parson long enough ago about Sally Deal, down the village, and parson give it him well for not marrying her. Wouldn’t be married here out o’ spite, I suppose. Well, I must go. You’re sure you haven’t got a drop o’ gin in the house?”
“Quite sure,” said Jenny quickly; “and I’ll be sure and tell my brother to come.”
“Ay, do; and tell him I say it’s a shame he lives so far out of the village. I feel sometimes that I shall die in one of the ditches before I get here, it’s so far. There, don’t hurry me so; I don’t want to be took ill here. I know, doctors aren’t above helping people out of the world when they get tired of them.”
“Gone!” cried Jenny at last, with a sigh of relief; and then, with the tears rising to her eyes, “Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do? If they meet—if he ever gets to know!”
She hurried upstairs, put on her hat and jacket, and came down looking pale and excited, but without any very definite plans. One idea was foremost in her mind; but as she reached the door she caught sight of her brother coming with rapid strides from the direction opposite to that taken by the old woman who had just gone.
“Too late!” she said, with a piteous sigh; and she ran upstairs hurriedly, and threw off her things.
She had hardly re-arranged her hair when she heard her brother’s voice calling her.
“Yes, dear,” she said, and she ran down, to find him looking ghastly.
“Who was that went away from here?” he said huskily.
She told him, but not of her promise to send him over.
“I’ll go to her at once,” he said.
“No, no, Pierce, dear; she is not ill. Pray stay at home; there is really no need.”
“Why should I stay at home?” he said, looking at her suspiciously.
“I—I am not very well, dear. You have been so dull, it has upset me. I wish you would stay in with me this evening; I feel so nervous and lonely.”
“Yes, I will,” he said; “but I must go there first.”
“No, no, dear; don’t, please, don’t go,” she pleaded, as she caught his arm. “Please stay. She is not in the least ill, and I want you to stop. There, I’ll make some tea directly, and we’ll sit over it and have a long cosy chat, and it will do us both good, dear.”
“Jenny,” he cried harshly, “you want to keep me at home.”
“Yes, dear, I told you so; but don’t speak in that harsh way; you frighten me.”
“I’m not blind,” he cried. “Don’t deny it. You’ve heard from that old woman what I have just found out. He has come back.”
“Pierce!” she cried; and she shrank away from him, and covered her face with her hands.
“Yes,” he said wildly, and there was a look in his ghastly face which she had never seen before. “I knew it; and you are afraid that I shall meet him and wring his miserable neck.”
“Oh, Pierce, Pierce,” she cried piteously, as she threw herself at his feet; “don’t, don’t, pray don’t talk in this mad way.”
“Why not?” he said, with a mocking laugh. “It is consistent. There, get up; don’t kneel there praying to a madman.”
She sprang up quickly and seized him by the shoulder, and then threw herself across his knees and her arms about his neck.
“It is not true,” she cried passionately. “You are not mad; you are only horribly angry, and I am frightened to death for fear that you should meet and be violent.”
“Violent! I could kill him!” he muttered, with a hard look in his eyes. “Good God, what a profanation! He marry her! She must have been mad, or there has been some cruel act of violence. Jenny, girl, I will see him and take him by the throat and make him tell me all. I have fought against it. I have told myself that she is unworthy of a second thought, but my heart tells me that it is not so. There has been some horrible trick played upon her; she would not—as you have said—she could not have gone off of her own will with that miserable little hound.”
“Yes, yes, that is what I think,” she said, hysterically. “So wait patiently, dear, and we shall know the truth some day.”
“Wait!” he cried, with a mocking laugh. “Wait! With my brain feeling as if it were on fire. No, I have waited too long; I ought to have gone off after him at once, and learned the truth.”
“No, no, dear; you two must not meet. Now then, listen to me.”
“Some day, little bird,” he said, lifting her from his knee, as he rose; then kissing her tenderly he extricated himself from her clinging hands as gently as he could, and rushed out.
“O, Pierce, Pierce!” she cried. “Stay, stay!”
But the only answer to her call as she ran to the door was the heavy beat of his feet in the gloom of the misty evening.
“And if they meet he’ll find out all,” she wailed piteously. She paused, waiting for a few moments, and then searched in her pocket and brought out a tiny silver whistle, which she placed in the bosom of her dress, after flinging the ribbon which was in its ring over her head.
A minute later, with her cloak thrown on and hood drawn over her head, she had slipped out of the cottage, and was running down the by-lane in the direction of the Manor House.
Chapter Twenty.The soft light of the moon attracted Kate to her bedroom window, where she drew up the blind, and after standing gazing at the silvery orb for some minutes, she unfastened and threw open the casement, drew a chair forward, to sit there letting the soft air of the late autumn night give its coolness to her aching brow.For the silence and calm seemed to bring rest, and by degrees the dull throbbing of her head grew less painful, the strange feeling of confusion which had made thinking a terrible effort began to pass away, and with her eyes fixed upon the skies she began to go over the events of the day, and to try and map out for herself the most sensible course to pursue. Go from Northwood she felt that she must, and at once; though how to combat the will of her constituted guardian was not clear. Garstang, in his encounter with Wilton, had put the case only too plainly, and there was not the vestige of a doubt in her mind as to the truth of his words. It had all been arranged in the family, and whatever might have been her cousin’s inclinations at first, he showed only too plainly that he looked upon her as his future wife.She shuddered at the thought; but the weak girl passed away again, and her pale cheeks began to burn once more with indignant anger, and the throbbing of her brow returned, so that she was glad to rest her head upon her hand.By degrees the suffering grew less poignant, and as the pain and mental confusion once more died out she set herself to the task of coming to some decision as to what she should do next day, proposing to herself plan after plan, building up ideas which crumbled away before that one thought: her uncle was her guardian and trustee, and his power over her was complete.What to do?—what to do? The ever recurring question, till she felt giddy.It seemed, knowing what he did, the height of cruelty for Garstang to have gone and left her, but she was obliged to own that he could do nothing more than upbraid his relatives for their duplicity.But he had done much for her; he had thoroughly endorsed her own ideas as to her position and her uncle’s intentions; and at last, with the tears suffusing her eyes, as she gazed at the moon rising slowly above the trees, she sat motionless for a time, thinking of her happy life in the past; and owning to herself that the advice given to her was right, she softly closed the casement, drew down the blind, and determined to follow out the counsel.“Yes, I must sleep on it—if I can,” she said softly. “Poor Liza is right, and I am not quite alone—I am never alone, for in spirit those who loved me so well must be with me still.”There were two candles burning on the dressing-table, but their light troubled her aching eyes, and she slowly extinguished both, the soft light which flooded the window being ample for her purpose.Crossing the room to the side furthest from the door, she bent down and bathed her aching forehead for a few minutes before beginning to undress, and was then about to loosen her hair when she was startled by a faint tap outside the window which sounded as if something had struck the sill.She stopped, listening for a few minutes, but all was still, and coming to the conclusion that the sound had been caused by a rat leaping down somewhere behind the wainscot of the old room, she raised her hands to her head once more, but only for them to become fixed as she stood there paralysed by terror, for a shadow suddenly appeared at the bottom of the blind—a dark shadow cast by the moon; and as she gazed at it in speechless fear, it rose higher and higher, and looked monstrous in size.She made an effort to cast off the horrible nightmare-like sense of terror, but as she realised that to reach the door she must pass the window it grew stronger.The bell!That was by the bed’s head, and for the time being she felt helpless, so completely paralysed that she could not even cry for help.What could it mean? Someone had placed a ladder against the window sill and climbed up, and at the thought which now flashed through her brain the helpless feeling passed away, and the hot indignation made her strong, and gave her a courage which drove away her childish fear.How dare he! It was Claud, and she knew what he would say—that he had come there when all was still in the house and no one could know, to ask her forgiveness for the scene that day.Drawing herself up, she was walking swiftly towards the door, with the intention of going at once to Liza’s chamber, when there was a fresh movement of the shadow on the blind, and the dread returned, and her heart throbbed heavily.Claud was a short-haired, smooth-faced boy—the shadow cast on the blind was the silhouette of a broad-shouldered, bearded man.It was plain enough now—burglars must be trying to effect an entry, and in another moment she would have cried aloud for help, but just then there was a light tap on one of the panes, the shadow grew smaller and darker, as if the face had been pressed close to the window, and she heard her name softly uttered twice.“Kate! Kate!”She mastered her fear once more, telling herself it must be Claud; and she went slowly to the door; laid her hand upon the bolt to turn it, but paused again, for once more came the low distinct voice—“Kate! Kate!”She uttered a spasmodic cry, turned sharply round, and half ran to the window with every pulse throbbing with excitement, for she felt that the help she had prayed for last night had come.
The soft light of the moon attracted Kate to her bedroom window, where she drew up the blind, and after standing gazing at the silvery orb for some minutes, she unfastened and threw open the casement, drew a chair forward, to sit there letting the soft air of the late autumn night give its coolness to her aching brow.
For the silence and calm seemed to bring rest, and by degrees the dull throbbing of her head grew less painful, the strange feeling of confusion which had made thinking a terrible effort began to pass away, and with her eyes fixed upon the skies she began to go over the events of the day, and to try and map out for herself the most sensible course to pursue. Go from Northwood she felt that she must, and at once; though how to combat the will of her constituted guardian was not clear. Garstang, in his encounter with Wilton, had put the case only too plainly, and there was not the vestige of a doubt in her mind as to the truth of his words. It had all been arranged in the family, and whatever might have been her cousin’s inclinations at first, he showed only too plainly that he looked upon her as his future wife.
She shuddered at the thought; but the weak girl passed away again, and her pale cheeks began to burn once more with indignant anger, and the throbbing of her brow returned, so that she was glad to rest her head upon her hand.
By degrees the suffering grew less poignant, and as the pain and mental confusion once more died out she set herself to the task of coming to some decision as to what she should do next day, proposing to herself plan after plan, building up ideas which crumbled away before that one thought: her uncle was her guardian and trustee, and his power over her was complete.
What to do?—what to do? The ever recurring question, till she felt giddy.
It seemed, knowing what he did, the height of cruelty for Garstang to have gone and left her, but she was obliged to own that he could do nothing more than upbraid his relatives for their duplicity.
But he had done much for her; he had thoroughly endorsed her own ideas as to her position and her uncle’s intentions; and at last, with the tears suffusing her eyes, as she gazed at the moon rising slowly above the trees, she sat motionless for a time, thinking of her happy life in the past; and owning to herself that the advice given to her was right, she softly closed the casement, drew down the blind, and determined to follow out the counsel.
“Yes, I must sleep on it—if I can,” she said softly. “Poor Liza is right, and I am not quite alone—I am never alone, for in spirit those who loved me so well must be with me still.”
There were two candles burning on the dressing-table, but their light troubled her aching eyes, and she slowly extinguished both, the soft light which flooded the window being ample for her purpose.
Crossing the room to the side furthest from the door, she bent down and bathed her aching forehead for a few minutes before beginning to undress, and was then about to loosen her hair when she was startled by a faint tap outside the window which sounded as if something had struck the sill.
She stopped, listening for a few minutes, but all was still, and coming to the conclusion that the sound had been caused by a rat leaping down somewhere behind the wainscot of the old room, she raised her hands to her head once more, but only for them to become fixed as she stood there paralysed by terror, for a shadow suddenly appeared at the bottom of the blind—a dark shadow cast by the moon; and as she gazed at it in speechless fear, it rose higher and higher, and looked monstrous in size.
She made an effort to cast off the horrible nightmare-like sense of terror, but as she realised that to reach the door she must pass the window it grew stronger.
The bell!
That was by the bed’s head, and for the time being she felt helpless, so completely paralysed that she could not even cry for help.
What could it mean? Someone had placed a ladder against the window sill and climbed up, and at the thought which now flashed through her brain the helpless feeling passed away, and the hot indignation made her strong, and gave her a courage which drove away her childish fear.
How dare he! It was Claud, and she knew what he would say—that he had come there when all was still in the house and no one could know, to ask her forgiveness for the scene that day.
Drawing herself up, she was walking swiftly towards the door, with the intention of going at once to Liza’s chamber, when there was a fresh movement of the shadow on the blind, and the dread returned, and her heart throbbed heavily.
Claud was a short-haired, smooth-faced boy—the shadow cast on the blind was the silhouette of a broad-shouldered, bearded man.
It was plain enough now—burglars must be trying to effect an entry, and in another moment she would have cried aloud for help, but just then there was a light tap on one of the panes, the shadow grew smaller and darker, as if the face had been pressed close to the window, and she heard her name softly uttered twice.
“Kate! Kate!”
She mastered her fear once more, telling herself it must be Claud; and she went slowly to the door; laid her hand upon the bolt to turn it, but paused again, for once more came the low distinct voice—
“Kate! Kate!”
She uttered a spasmodic cry, turned sharply round, and half ran to the window with every pulse throbbing with excitement, for she felt that the help she had prayed for last night had come.
Chapter Twenty One.There was no hesitation on the part of Kate Wilton. The dread was gone, and she rapidly drew up the blind and opened the casement window.“You?” she said quickly, as she held out her hands, which were caught at once and held.“Yes; who should it be, my child? Were you afraid that insolent young scoundrel would dare to do such a thing?”“At first,” she faltered, and then quickly, “I hardly knew what to think; I was afraid someone was going to break in. Oh, Mr Garstang, why have you come?”He uttered a little laugh.“For the same reason, I suppose, that would make a father who knew his child was in peril act in the same way.”“It is very, very kind of you; but you will be heard, and it will only cause fresh trouble.”“It can cause no greater than has come to us, my child. I was half-way to London, but I could not go on; so I got out at a station ten miles away, walked into the village close by, and found a fly and a man to drive me over. I wanted to know how you were getting on. Have you seen them again?”“No. I came straight to my room, and have not left it since.”“Good girl! That was very brave of you. Then you took my advice.”“Of course.”“And Master Claud?”He felt her start and shudder.“Don’t talk about him, please. But there, I am very grateful to you for being so kind and thoughtful, and for your brave defence.”“Brave nonsense, my child!” he said bluntly. “I did as any man of right feeling would have done if he found a ruffian insulting a weak, helpless girl. Kate, my dear, my blood has been boiling ever since. I could not go back and leave you in this state; I was compelled to come and see you and have a little consultation about your future. I felt that I must do it before seeing James Wilton again. Not a very reputable way, this, of coming to a man’s house, even if he is a connection of mine; not respectful to you, either, my child, but I felt certain that if I came to the door and asked to see you I should have been refused entrance.”“Yes, yes,” said Kate, sadly. “I should not have been told of your coming, or I would have insisted upon seeing you.”“You would! Brave girl! I like to hear you speak out so firmly. Well, there was nothing for it but for me, middle-aged man as I am, to play the daring gallant at the lady’s window—lattice, I ought to say.”“Please don’t talk like this, Mr Garstang,” said Kate. “It does not sound like you to be playful in your manner.”“Thank you, my child, you are right; it does not I accept the reproof. Now, then, to be businesslike. You have been thinking deeply, of course, since you have been alone?”“Yes, very, very seriously about my position. Mr Garstang, it is impossible for me to stay here.”“Quite impossible. The conduct to you of your aunt and uncle makes them—no matter what promises they may give you—quite unworthy of your trust. Well?”“I have pretty well decided that I shall go away to-morrow with Eliza, our old nurse and maid.”“A most worthy woman, my dear. You could not do better; but—”“But what?” said Kate, nervously.“I do not wish to alarm you, but do you fully realise your position here?”“Yes, and that is why I have decided to go.”“Exactly; but you do not fully grasp my meaning. What about your uncle?”“You mean that he will object?”“Exactly.”“But if I am firm, and insist, he will not dare to detain me,” said the girl warmly.“You think so? Well, think again, my child. He is your guardian and trustee; he will absolutely refuse, and will take any steps which he considers right to prevent your leaving. I am afraid that by the power your poor father left in his hands he will consider himself justified in keeping you quite as a prisoner until you obey his wishes.”“Mr Garstang, surely he dare not proceed to such extremities!”“I am afraid that he has the power, and I grieve to say he is in such a position that he is likely to be reckless in his desire to gain his ends.”Kate drew a deep breath, and gazed appealingly in the speaker’s face.“As a solicitor and the husband of your aunt’s late sister, James Wilton naturally came to me for help in his money affairs, and I did the best I could for him. I found that he had been gambling foolishly on the Stock Exchange, instead of keeping to his farms, and was so involved that immediate payments had to be made to save him from absolute ruin.”“But my father surely did not know of this?”“Not a word. He kept his own counsel, and of course until the will was read I had no idea of what arrangements your father had made; in fact, I was somewhat taken aback, for I thought it possible that he would have made me one of your trustees. But that by the way. I helped your uncle all I could as a monetary agent, and found clients who were willing to advance him money on his estate, which is now deeply mortgaged. These moneys are now wanted, for the interest has not been fully paid for years. In short, James Wilton is in a desperate condition, and my visits here have been to try and extricate him from his monetary tangle in which he finds himself. Now do you begin to grasp what his designs are?”“Yes, I see,” said Kate, sadly; “it is to get some of the money which should be mine, to pay his debts.”“Exactly, and the simplest way to do so is to marry you to Claud.”“No: there is a simpler way, Mr Garstang. If my uncle had come to me and told me his position I should have felt that I could not have done a more kindly deed than to help my father’s brother by paying his debts.”“Very kind and generous of you, my child; but he would not believe it possible, and I must say to you that, after what has passed, you would not be doing your duty to the dead by helping your uncle to this extent. Kate, my dear, since I have been talking to you it has occurred to me that there is but one way out of your difficulty.”“Yes, what is it?” she cried eagerly.“Of course, you cannot marry your cousin?”“Mr Garstang!” she cried indignantly.“It is impossible, of course; and if you stay here you will have to submit to endless persecution and annoyance, such as a highly strung, sensitive girl like you are will be unable to combat.”“You do not know me yet, Mr Garstang.”“Indeed? I think I do, as I have known you from a child. You are mentally strong, but you have been, and under these circumstances will be, further sapped by sickness, and it would need superhuman power to win in so cruel a fight. You must not risk it, Kate, my child. You must go.”“Yes, I feel that I know I must go, but how can I? You, as a lawyer, should know.”“A long and costly litigation, or an appeal to the Court of Chancery might save you, and a judge make an order traversing your father’s will, but I should shrink from such a course; I know too well the uncertainties of the law.”“Then your idea for extricating me from my difficult position is of no value,” she said, despairingly.“You have not heard it yet,” he said, “because I almost shrink from proposing such a thing to your father’s child.”“Tell me what it is,” she said firmly.“You desire me to?”“Of course.”“It is this—a simple and effective way of checkmating one who has proved himself unworthy. My idea was that you should transfer the guardianship to me.”“Willingly, Mr Garstang; but can it be done?”“It must and shall be done if you are willing, my child,” he said firmly, “but it would necessitate a very unusual, a bold and immediate step oh your part.”“What is that, Mr Garstang?” she said quietly.“You would have to place yourself under my guardianship at once.”“At once?” she said, starting slightly.“Yes. Think for yourself. It could not be done slowly and legally, for at the first suspicion that I was acting against him, James Wilton would place you immediately completely out of my reach, and take ample care that I had no further communication with you.”“Yes,” she said quietly; “he would.”“Yes,” he said, repeating her words, and speaking in a slow, passionless, judicial way; “if the thing were deferred, or if he were besieged, he would redouble his pressure. Kate, my dear, that was my idea; but it must sound almost as mad to you as it does to me. Yes, it is impossible; I ought not to have proposed such a thing, and yet I can not find it in my heart to give up any chance of rescuing you from your terrible position.”He was silent, and she stood there gazing straight before her for a few moments before turning her eyes upon his.“Tell me plainly what you mean, Mr Garstang.”“Simply this: I did mean that you should take the opportunity of my being here and leave at once. I have the fly waiting, and I could take you to my town house and place you in the care of my housekeeper and her daughter. It would of course be checkmating your uncle, who could be brought to his knees; and then as the price of your pardon you could do something to help him out of his difficulties. Possibly a moderate payment to his creditors might free him on easy terms. But there, my child, the project is too wild and chimerical. It must almost sound to you like a romance.”She stood there gazing full in his eyes as he ceased speaking; and at the end of a minute he said gently, “There, I must not keep you talking here in the cold night air. Your chest is still delicate; but strange as the visit may seem, I am after all glad I have come, if only to give you a little comfort—to show you that you are not quite alone in the world. There, say good-night, and, of course, you will not mention my visit to anyone. I must go now and catch the night mail at the station. To-morrow I will see a very learned old barrister friend, and lay the matter before him so as to get his advice. He may show me some way out of the difficulty. Keep a good heart. I must show you that you have one who will act as an uncle should. But listen to me,” he said, as he took her cold hand in his, “you must brace yourself up for the encounters to come. Even if I find that I can assist you, the law moves slowly, and it may be months before you can come out of prison. So no flinching; let James Wilton and that scoundrel Claud know that they have a firm, mentally strong woman to deal with; and now God bless you, my child! Good-night!”He let her hand fall, and lowered himself a round of the ladder; but she stood as if carved in marble in the bright moonlight, without uttering a word.“Say good-night, my dear; and come, be firm.”She made no reply.“You are not hurt by my proposal?” he said quietly.“No,” she said at last, “I was trying to weigh it. I must have time.”“Yes, you must have time. Think it over, my child; it may strike you differently to-morrow, or you may see it in a more impossible light. So may I. You know my address: Bedford Row will find me. I am well known in London. Write to me if you require help, and at any cost I will come and see you, even if I bring police to force my way. Now, good-night, my dear. Heigho! Why did not I have a daughter such as you?”“Let me think,” said Kate gravely.“No; this is no time for thinking, my child. Once more, good-night.”“No,” said Kate firmly. “I will trust you, Mr Garstang. You must not leave me to be kept a prisoner here.”“Possibly they would not dare; and I must warn you that you are taking a very unusual step.”“Not in trusting you, sir,” she said firmly. “Treat me as you have treated the daughter who might have been born to you, and save me at once from the position I am in. Wait while I go and waken Eliza. She must be with us.”“Your maid?” he said.“Yes, I can not leave her here.”“They will not keep her a prisoner,” he said quietly, “and she can join us afterwards. No, my child, if you go with me now it must be alone and at once. I will not put any pressure on you. Come or stay. You still have me to work for you as far as in me lies. Which shall it be? Your hat and cloak, or good-night?”“Don’t leave me, Mr Garstang. I am weak and hysterical still. I feel now, after the chance of freedom you have shown me, that I dare not face to-morrow alone.”“Then you will come?” he said, in the same low passionless way.“I will.”Five minutes after, John Garstang was helping her carefully to descend the ladder, guarding her every footstep so that she could not fall; and as they reached the ground, he quietly offered her his arm.“What a beautifully calm and peaceful night!” he said gravely. “Do you feel the cold?”“No; my cheeks are burning,” she answered.“Ah! yes, a little excitement; but don’t be alarmed. The fly is waiting about half a mile away. A sharp walk will bring back the correct circulation. Almost a shame, though, my child, to take you from the clear pure air of the country to my gloomy house in Great Ormond Street. Not very far from your old home.”“Don’t talk to me, please, Mr Garstang,” she said painfully.“I most, my dear; and about everything that will take your attention from the step you are taking. Are your shoes pretty stout? I must not have you suffering from wet feet. By the way, my dear, you were nineteen on your last birthday. You look much older. I thought so yesterday. Dear, dear, ii my poor wife had lived, how she would have blessed me for bringing her a daughter to our quiet home! How you would have liked her, my dear! A sweet, good, clever woman—so different to Maria Wilton. Well, well, a good woman, too, in spite of her weakness for her boy.”He chatted on, with Kate walking by him in silence, till the fly was reached, with the horse munching the grass at the road side, and the driver asleep on the box, but ready to start into wakefulness at a word.An hour later, Kate sat back in the corner of a first-class carriage, when her strength gave way, and she burst into a hysterical fit of sobbing. But she heard Garstang’s words:“I am glad to see that, my child. Cry on; it will relieve your overburdened heart. You will be better then. You have done right; never fear. To-morrow you can rest in peace.”
There was no hesitation on the part of Kate Wilton. The dread was gone, and she rapidly drew up the blind and opened the casement window.
“You?” she said quickly, as she held out her hands, which were caught at once and held.
“Yes; who should it be, my child? Were you afraid that insolent young scoundrel would dare to do such a thing?”
“At first,” she faltered, and then quickly, “I hardly knew what to think; I was afraid someone was going to break in. Oh, Mr Garstang, why have you come?”
He uttered a little laugh.
“For the same reason, I suppose, that would make a father who knew his child was in peril act in the same way.”
“It is very, very kind of you; but you will be heard, and it will only cause fresh trouble.”
“It can cause no greater than has come to us, my child. I was half-way to London, but I could not go on; so I got out at a station ten miles away, walked into the village close by, and found a fly and a man to drive me over. I wanted to know how you were getting on. Have you seen them again?”
“No. I came straight to my room, and have not left it since.”
“Good girl! That was very brave of you. Then you took my advice.”
“Of course.”
“And Master Claud?”
He felt her start and shudder.
“Don’t talk about him, please. But there, I am very grateful to you for being so kind and thoughtful, and for your brave defence.”
“Brave nonsense, my child!” he said bluntly. “I did as any man of right feeling would have done if he found a ruffian insulting a weak, helpless girl. Kate, my dear, my blood has been boiling ever since. I could not go back and leave you in this state; I was compelled to come and see you and have a little consultation about your future. I felt that I must do it before seeing James Wilton again. Not a very reputable way, this, of coming to a man’s house, even if he is a connection of mine; not respectful to you, either, my child, but I felt certain that if I came to the door and asked to see you I should have been refused entrance.”
“Yes, yes,” said Kate, sadly. “I should not have been told of your coming, or I would have insisted upon seeing you.”
“You would! Brave girl! I like to hear you speak out so firmly. Well, there was nothing for it but for me, middle-aged man as I am, to play the daring gallant at the lady’s window—lattice, I ought to say.”
“Please don’t talk like this, Mr Garstang,” said Kate. “It does not sound like you to be playful in your manner.”
“Thank you, my child, you are right; it does not I accept the reproof. Now, then, to be businesslike. You have been thinking deeply, of course, since you have been alone?”
“Yes, very, very seriously about my position. Mr Garstang, it is impossible for me to stay here.”
“Quite impossible. The conduct to you of your aunt and uncle makes them—no matter what promises they may give you—quite unworthy of your trust. Well?”
“I have pretty well decided that I shall go away to-morrow with Eliza, our old nurse and maid.”
“A most worthy woman, my dear. You could not do better; but—”
“But what?” said Kate, nervously.
“I do not wish to alarm you, but do you fully realise your position here?”
“Yes, and that is why I have decided to go.”
“Exactly; but you do not fully grasp my meaning. What about your uncle?”
“You mean that he will object?”
“Exactly.”
“But if I am firm, and insist, he will not dare to detain me,” said the girl warmly.
“You think so? Well, think again, my child. He is your guardian and trustee; he will absolutely refuse, and will take any steps which he considers right to prevent your leaving. I am afraid that by the power your poor father left in his hands he will consider himself justified in keeping you quite as a prisoner until you obey his wishes.”
“Mr Garstang, surely he dare not proceed to such extremities!”
“I am afraid that he has the power, and I grieve to say he is in such a position that he is likely to be reckless in his desire to gain his ends.”
Kate drew a deep breath, and gazed appealingly in the speaker’s face.
“As a solicitor and the husband of your aunt’s late sister, James Wilton naturally came to me for help in his money affairs, and I did the best I could for him. I found that he had been gambling foolishly on the Stock Exchange, instead of keeping to his farms, and was so involved that immediate payments had to be made to save him from absolute ruin.”
“But my father surely did not know of this?”
“Not a word. He kept his own counsel, and of course until the will was read I had no idea of what arrangements your father had made; in fact, I was somewhat taken aback, for I thought it possible that he would have made me one of your trustees. But that by the way. I helped your uncle all I could as a monetary agent, and found clients who were willing to advance him money on his estate, which is now deeply mortgaged. These moneys are now wanted, for the interest has not been fully paid for years. In short, James Wilton is in a desperate condition, and my visits here have been to try and extricate him from his monetary tangle in which he finds himself. Now do you begin to grasp what his designs are?”
“Yes, I see,” said Kate, sadly; “it is to get some of the money which should be mine, to pay his debts.”
“Exactly, and the simplest way to do so is to marry you to Claud.”
“No: there is a simpler way, Mr Garstang. If my uncle had come to me and told me his position I should have felt that I could not have done a more kindly deed than to help my father’s brother by paying his debts.”
“Very kind and generous of you, my child; but he would not believe it possible, and I must say to you that, after what has passed, you would not be doing your duty to the dead by helping your uncle to this extent. Kate, my dear, since I have been talking to you it has occurred to me that there is but one way out of your difficulty.”
“Yes, what is it?” she cried eagerly.
“Of course, you cannot marry your cousin?”
“Mr Garstang!” she cried indignantly.
“It is impossible, of course; and if you stay here you will have to submit to endless persecution and annoyance, such as a highly strung, sensitive girl like you are will be unable to combat.”
“You do not know me yet, Mr Garstang.”
“Indeed? I think I do, as I have known you from a child. You are mentally strong, but you have been, and under these circumstances will be, further sapped by sickness, and it would need superhuman power to win in so cruel a fight. You must not risk it, Kate, my child. You must go.”
“Yes, I feel that I know I must go, but how can I? You, as a lawyer, should know.”
“A long and costly litigation, or an appeal to the Court of Chancery might save you, and a judge make an order traversing your father’s will, but I should shrink from such a course; I know too well the uncertainties of the law.”
“Then your idea for extricating me from my difficult position is of no value,” she said, despairingly.
“You have not heard it yet,” he said, “because I almost shrink from proposing such a thing to your father’s child.”
“Tell me what it is,” she said firmly.
“You desire me to?”
“Of course.”
“It is this—a simple and effective way of checkmating one who has proved himself unworthy. My idea was that you should transfer the guardianship to me.”
“Willingly, Mr Garstang; but can it be done?”
“It must and shall be done if you are willing, my child,” he said firmly, “but it would necessitate a very unusual, a bold and immediate step oh your part.”
“What is that, Mr Garstang?” she said quietly.
“You would have to place yourself under my guardianship at once.”
“At once?” she said, starting slightly.
“Yes. Think for yourself. It could not be done slowly and legally, for at the first suspicion that I was acting against him, James Wilton would place you immediately completely out of my reach, and take ample care that I had no further communication with you.”
“Yes,” she said quietly; “he would.”
“Yes,” he said, repeating her words, and speaking in a slow, passionless, judicial way; “if the thing were deferred, or if he were besieged, he would redouble his pressure. Kate, my dear, that was my idea; but it must sound almost as mad to you as it does to me. Yes, it is impossible; I ought not to have proposed such a thing, and yet I can not find it in my heart to give up any chance of rescuing you from your terrible position.”
He was silent, and she stood there gazing straight before her for a few moments before turning her eyes upon his.
“Tell me plainly what you mean, Mr Garstang.”
“Simply this: I did mean that you should take the opportunity of my being here and leave at once. I have the fly waiting, and I could take you to my town house and place you in the care of my housekeeper and her daughter. It would of course be checkmating your uncle, who could be brought to his knees; and then as the price of your pardon you could do something to help him out of his difficulties. Possibly a moderate payment to his creditors might free him on easy terms. But there, my child, the project is too wild and chimerical. It must almost sound to you like a romance.”
She stood there gazing full in his eyes as he ceased speaking; and at the end of a minute he said gently, “There, I must not keep you talking here in the cold night air. Your chest is still delicate; but strange as the visit may seem, I am after all glad I have come, if only to give you a little comfort—to show you that you are not quite alone in the world. There, say good-night, and, of course, you will not mention my visit to anyone. I must go now and catch the night mail at the station. To-morrow I will see a very learned old barrister friend, and lay the matter before him so as to get his advice. He may show me some way out of the difficulty. Keep a good heart. I must show you that you have one who will act as an uncle should. But listen to me,” he said, as he took her cold hand in his, “you must brace yourself up for the encounters to come. Even if I find that I can assist you, the law moves slowly, and it may be months before you can come out of prison. So no flinching; let James Wilton and that scoundrel Claud know that they have a firm, mentally strong woman to deal with; and now God bless you, my child! Good-night!”
He let her hand fall, and lowered himself a round of the ladder; but she stood as if carved in marble in the bright moonlight, without uttering a word.
“Say good-night, my dear; and come, be firm.”
She made no reply.
“You are not hurt by my proposal?” he said quietly.
“No,” she said at last, “I was trying to weigh it. I must have time.”
“Yes, you must have time. Think it over, my child; it may strike you differently to-morrow, or you may see it in a more impossible light. So may I. You know my address: Bedford Row will find me. I am well known in London. Write to me if you require help, and at any cost I will come and see you, even if I bring police to force my way. Now, good-night, my dear. Heigho! Why did not I have a daughter such as you?”
“Let me think,” said Kate gravely.
“No; this is no time for thinking, my child. Once more, good-night.”
“No,” said Kate firmly. “I will trust you, Mr Garstang. You must not leave me to be kept a prisoner here.”
“Possibly they would not dare; and I must warn you that you are taking a very unusual step.”
“Not in trusting you, sir,” she said firmly. “Treat me as you have treated the daughter who might have been born to you, and save me at once from the position I am in. Wait while I go and waken Eliza. She must be with us.”
“Your maid?” he said.
“Yes, I can not leave her here.”
“They will not keep her a prisoner,” he said quietly, “and she can join us afterwards. No, my child, if you go with me now it must be alone and at once. I will not put any pressure on you. Come or stay. You still have me to work for you as far as in me lies. Which shall it be? Your hat and cloak, or good-night?”
“Don’t leave me, Mr Garstang. I am weak and hysterical still. I feel now, after the chance of freedom you have shown me, that I dare not face to-morrow alone.”
“Then you will come?” he said, in the same low passionless way.
“I will.”
Five minutes after, John Garstang was helping her carefully to descend the ladder, guarding her every footstep so that she could not fall; and as they reached the ground, he quietly offered her his arm.
“What a beautifully calm and peaceful night!” he said gravely. “Do you feel the cold?”
“No; my cheeks are burning,” she answered.
“Ah! yes, a little excitement; but don’t be alarmed. The fly is waiting about half a mile away. A sharp walk will bring back the correct circulation. Almost a shame, though, my child, to take you from the clear pure air of the country to my gloomy house in Great Ormond Street. Not very far from your old home.”
“Don’t talk to me, please, Mr Garstang,” she said painfully.
“I most, my dear; and about everything that will take your attention from the step you are taking. Are your shoes pretty stout? I must not have you suffering from wet feet. By the way, my dear, you were nineteen on your last birthday. You look much older. I thought so yesterday. Dear, dear, ii my poor wife had lived, how she would have blessed me for bringing her a daughter to our quiet home! How you would have liked her, my dear! A sweet, good, clever woman—so different to Maria Wilton. Well, well, a good woman, too, in spite of her weakness for her boy.”
He chatted on, with Kate walking by him in silence, till the fly was reached, with the horse munching the grass at the road side, and the driver asleep on the box, but ready to start into wakefulness at a word.
An hour later, Kate sat back in the corner of a first-class carriage, when her strength gave way, and she burst into a hysterical fit of sobbing. But she heard Garstang’s words:
“I am glad to see that, my child. Cry on; it will relieve your overburdened heart. You will be better then. You have done right; never fear. To-morrow you can rest in peace.”
Chapter Twenty Two.Jenny was almost breathless when she reached the park palings of the Manor House, some little distance from the gate at the end of the avenue; and here she paused for a few moments beneath an oak which grew within the park, but which, like many others, spread out three or four huge horizontal boughs right across the boundary lane, and made the way gloomy even on sunny days.She looked sharply back in the direction by which she had come, but the evening was closing in more and more gloomy, and the mist exceedingly closely related to a rain, was gathering fast and forming drops on the edges of dead leaves and twigs, beside making the grass overhanging the footpath so wet that the girl’s feet and the lower parts of her skirts were drenched.No one was in sight or likely to be in that secluded spot, and having gained her breath, she started off once more, heedless of the sticky mud of the lane, and followed it on, round by the park palings, where the autumn leaves lay thick and rustled as her dress swept over them. In a few minutes she reached a stile in the fence, where a footpath—an old right of way much objected to by Squire Wilton, as the village people called him—led across the little park, passing the house close by the end of the shrubbery, and entering another lane, which curved round to join the main road right at the far end of the village, a good mile away from the Doctor’s cottage.There were lights in the drawing-room and dining-room, making a dull glow on the thickening mist, as Jenny halted at the end of the shrubbery, and all was still as death, till a dog barked suddenly, and was answered by half a dozen others, pointers and retrievers, in the kennel by the stables. This lasted in a dismal, irritating chorus, which made the girl utter little ejaculations suggestive of impatience, as she waited for the noise to end.She glanced round once more, but the evergreens grew thickly just over an iron hurdle fence, and she satisfied herself that as she could only indistinctly see the shrubs three or four yards away, it was impossible for her to be seen from the house.The barking went on in a full burst for a few minutes. Then dog after dog finished its part; the sextette became a quartette, a trio, a duet; and then a deep-voiced retriever performed a powerful solo, ending it with a prolonged bay, and Jenny raised her hand to her lips, when the hill chorus burst out again, and the girl angrily stamped her foot in the wet grass.“Oh, what a cold I shall catch,” she muttered. “Why will people keep these nasty dogs?”The barking went on for some minutes, just as before, breaking off by degrees into another solo; but at last all was still, the little sighs and ejaculations Jenny had kept on uttering ceased too. Then she raised her head quickly, and a shrill chirp sounded dead and dull in the misty air, followed at intervals by two more.It was not a regular whistle, but a repetition of such a call as a night bird might utter in its flight as it floated over the house.The mist seemed to stifle the call, and the girl was about to repeat it, but it was loud enough for the dogs to hear, and they set up a fierce baying, which lasted till there was a loud commotion of yelps and cries, mingled with the rattling of chains, the same deep-mouthed dog breaking out in a very different solo this time, one suggestive of suffering from the application of boot toes to its ribs.Then quiet, and Jenny with trembling hand once more raised the little silver whistle to her lips, and the shrill chirps rang out in their former smothered way.“Oh,” sighed Jenny. “It will be a sore throat—I’m sure it will. I must go back; I dare not stay any longer. Ugh! How I do hate the little wretch. I could kill him!”The girl’s pretty little white teeth grated together, and once more she stamped her foot, following up this display of irritation by stamping the other.“Cold as frogs,” she muttered, “and the water’s oozy in my boots. Wretch!”“Ullo!” came in a harsh whisper, followed by the cachination which often accompanies a grin. “You’ve come, then!”There was a rustle of the bushes before her, and the dimly seen figure of Claud climbed over the iron hurdle, made a snatch at the girl’s arm with his right and a trial to fling his left about her waist, but she eluded him.“Keep off,” she said sharply; “how dare you!”“Because I love you so, little dicky-bird,” he whispered.“I thought you didn’t mean to come.”“No, you didn’t, pet. I heard you first time, but I had to go out and kick the dogs. They heard it, too, and thought it was poachers. Only one, though—come after me!”“You!” she said, contemptuously. “You, sir! Who would come after you?”“Why, you would.”“Such vanity!”“Then what did you come for?”“To bring you back this rubbishing little whistle.”“Nonsense; you’d better keep that.”“I tell you I don’t want it. Take it, sir.”“No, I shan’t take it. Keep it.”“There it is, then,” she cried; and she threw it at him.“Gone in among the hollies,” he said. “Well, I’m not going to prick myself hunting for it in the dark. What a little spit-fire it is! What’s the matter with you to-night?”“Matter enough. I’ve come to tell you never to make signals for me to come out again.”“Why? I say, what a temper you are in to-night. Here, let me help you over, and we’ll go round to the arbor. You’ll get your feet wet standing there.”“They are wet, and I shall catch a cold and die, I hope.”“Oh, I say, Jenny!”“Silence, sir! How dare you speak to me like that!”“Come over, then, into the arbor.”“I have told you again and again that I never would!”“You are a little tartar,” he whispered. “You get prettier every day, and peck and say nastier things to me. But there, I don’t mind; it only makes me love you more and more.”“It isn’t true,” she cried furiously. “You’re a wicked story-teller, and you know it.”“Am I?”“Yes; that’s the same miserable sickly tale you have told to half-a-dozen of the silly girls in the village. I know you thoroughly now. How dare you follow me and speak to me? If I were to tell my brother he’d nearly kill you.”“Quite, p’raps, with a drop out of one of his bottles.”“I can never forgive myself for having listened to the silly, contemptible flattery of the cast-off lover of a labourer’s daughter.”“Oh, I like that, Jenny; what’s the good of bringing all that up? That’s been over ever so long. It was only sowing wild oats.”“The only sort that you are ever likely to have to sow. I know all now—everything; so go to her, and never dare to speak to me again.”“What? Go back to Sally? Well, you are a jealous little thing.”“I, jealous—of you?” she said, with contempt in her tone and manner.“Yes, that’s what’s the matter with you, little one. But go on; I like it. Shows me you love me.”“I? Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Jenny derisively. “Do you think I don’t know everything?”“I daresay you do. You’re such a clever little vixen.”“Do you suppose it has not reached my ears about your elopement with your cousin?”“I don’t care what you’ve heard; it ain’t true. But I say, don’t hold me off like this, Jenny; you know I love you like—like anything.”“Yes, anything,” she retorted angrily; “any thing—your dogs, your horses, your fishing-rods and gun.”“Oh, I say.”“You miserable, deceitful trickster, I ought not to have lowered myself to even speak to you, or to come out again to-night, but I wanted to tell you what I thought about you, and it’s of no use to treat such thick-skinned creatures as you with contempt.”“Well, you are wild to-night, little one. Don’t want me to show my teeth, too, and go, do you?”“Yes, and the sooner the better, sir; go back to your wife.”“Go back to my wife!” he cried, in tones which carried conviction to her ears. “Oh, I say; you’ve got hold of that cock-and-bull story, have you?”“Yes, sir, I have got hold of the miserable cock-and-bull story, as you so elegantly turn it.”“Oh, I don’t go in for elegance, Jenny; it ain’t my way; but as for that flam, it ain’t true.”“You dare to tell me that, when the whole place is ringing with it, sir!” she cried, angrily.“The whole place rings with the noise when that muddle-headed lot got pulling the bells in changes. But it’s only sound.”“Don’t, pray don’t try to be witty, Claud Wilton; you only fail.”“All right; go on.”“Do you dare to tell me that you did not elope with your cousin the other night?”“Say slope, little one; elope is so old-fashioned.”“And I suppose you’ve married her for the sake of her money.”“Do you?” he said, sulkily; “then you suppose jolly well wrong. It’s all a lie.”“Then you haven’t married her?”“No, I haven’t married her, and I didn’t slope with her; so now then.”“Do you dare to tell me that you did not go up to London?”“No, I don’t, because I did.”“With her, in a most disgraceful, clandestine manner?”“No; I went alone with a very jolly good-tempered chap, whom everybody bullies and calls a liar.”“A nice companion; and pray, who was that?”“This chap—your sweetheart; and I came back with him too.”“Then where is your cousin?”“How should I know?”“She did go away, then, the same night?”“Yes. Bolted after a row we had.”“Is this true?”“Every blessed word of it; and I haven’t seen her since. Now, tell me, you’re very sorry for all you’ve said.”“Tell me this; has she gone away with some one else?”“What do you want to know for?”“I want to find out that you are not such a wicked story-teller as I thought.”“Well, I have told you that.”“Who can believe you?”“You can. Come, I say; I thought you were going to be really a bit loving to me at last when I heard the whistle. It’s been like courting a female porcupine up to now.”“You know whom your cousin has gone with?”“Pretty sure,” he said, sulkily.“Who is it?”“Oh, well, if you must know, Harry Dasent.”“That cousin I saw here?”“Yes, bless him! Only wait till we meet.”“Oh!” ejaculated Jenny, and then she turned to go; but Claud caught her arm.“No, no; you might say something kind now you’ve found out you’re wrong.”“Very well then, I will, Claud Wilton. First of all, I never cared a bit for you, and—”“Don’t believe you. Go on,” he said, laughing.“Secondly, take my advice and go away at once, for if my brother should meet you there will be a terrible scene. He believes horrible things of you, and I know he’ll kill you.”“Phew!” whistled Claud. “Then he has found out?”“Take my advice and go. He is terrible when he is roused, and I don’t know what he’d do.”“I say, this ain’t gammon, is it?”“It is the solemn truth. Now loose my arm; you hurt me.”“Well, it’s all right, then, and perhaps it’s for the best I am going off to-night to hunt out Harry Dasent. I should have gone before, but I had to be about with the guv’nor, making inquiries.”“Then loose my arm at once, and go before it is too late.”“It is too late,” thundered a voice out of the gloom. “Jenny—sister—is this you?”
Jenny was almost breathless when she reached the park palings of the Manor House, some little distance from the gate at the end of the avenue; and here she paused for a few moments beneath an oak which grew within the park, but which, like many others, spread out three or four huge horizontal boughs right across the boundary lane, and made the way gloomy even on sunny days.
She looked sharply back in the direction by which she had come, but the evening was closing in more and more gloomy, and the mist exceedingly closely related to a rain, was gathering fast and forming drops on the edges of dead leaves and twigs, beside making the grass overhanging the footpath so wet that the girl’s feet and the lower parts of her skirts were drenched.
No one was in sight or likely to be in that secluded spot, and having gained her breath, she started off once more, heedless of the sticky mud of the lane, and followed it on, round by the park palings, where the autumn leaves lay thick and rustled as her dress swept over them. In a few minutes she reached a stile in the fence, where a footpath—an old right of way much objected to by Squire Wilton, as the village people called him—led across the little park, passing the house close by the end of the shrubbery, and entering another lane, which curved round to join the main road right at the far end of the village, a good mile away from the Doctor’s cottage.
There were lights in the drawing-room and dining-room, making a dull glow on the thickening mist, as Jenny halted at the end of the shrubbery, and all was still as death, till a dog barked suddenly, and was answered by half a dozen others, pointers and retrievers, in the kennel by the stables. This lasted in a dismal, irritating chorus, which made the girl utter little ejaculations suggestive of impatience, as she waited for the noise to end.
She glanced round once more, but the evergreens grew thickly just over an iron hurdle fence, and she satisfied herself that as she could only indistinctly see the shrubs three or four yards away, it was impossible for her to be seen from the house.
The barking went on in a full burst for a few minutes. Then dog after dog finished its part; the sextette became a quartette, a trio, a duet; and then a deep-voiced retriever performed a powerful solo, ending it with a prolonged bay, and Jenny raised her hand to her lips, when the hill chorus burst out again, and the girl angrily stamped her foot in the wet grass.
“Oh, what a cold I shall catch,” she muttered. “Why will people keep these nasty dogs?”
The barking went on for some minutes, just as before, breaking off by degrees into another solo; but at last all was still, the little sighs and ejaculations Jenny had kept on uttering ceased too. Then she raised her head quickly, and a shrill chirp sounded dead and dull in the misty air, followed at intervals by two more.
It was not a regular whistle, but a repetition of such a call as a night bird might utter in its flight as it floated over the house.
The mist seemed to stifle the call, and the girl was about to repeat it, but it was loud enough for the dogs to hear, and they set up a fierce baying, which lasted till there was a loud commotion of yelps and cries, mingled with the rattling of chains, the same deep-mouthed dog breaking out in a very different solo this time, one suggestive of suffering from the application of boot toes to its ribs.
Then quiet, and Jenny with trembling hand once more raised the little silver whistle to her lips, and the shrill chirps rang out in their former smothered way.
“Oh,” sighed Jenny. “It will be a sore throat—I’m sure it will. I must go back; I dare not stay any longer. Ugh! How I do hate the little wretch. I could kill him!”
The girl’s pretty little white teeth grated together, and once more she stamped her foot, following up this display of irritation by stamping the other.
“Cold as frogs,” she muttered, “and the water’s oozy in my boots. Wretch!”
“Ullo!” came in a harsh whisper, followed by the cachination which often accompanies a grin. “You’ve come, then!”
There was a rustle of the bushes before her, and the dimly seen figure of Claud climbed over the iron hurdle, made a snatch at the girl’s arm with his right and a trial to fling his left about her waist, but she eluded him.
“Keep off,” she said sharply; “how dare you!”
“Because I love you so, little dicky-bird,” he whispered.
“I thought you didn’t mean to come.”
“No, you didn’t, pet. I heard you first time, but I had to go out and kick the dogs. They heard it, too, and thought it was poachers. Only one, though—come after me!”
“You!” she said, contemptuously. “You, sir! Who would come after you?”
“Why, you would.”
“Such vanity!”
“Then what did you come for?”
“To bring you back this rubbishing little whistle.”
“Nonsense; you’d better keep that.”
“I tell you I don’t want it. Take it, sir.”
“No, I shan’t take it. Keep it.”
“There it is, then,” she cried; and she threw it at him.
“Gone in among the hollies,” he said. “Well, I’m not going to prick myself hunting for it in the dark. What a little spit-fire it is! What’s the matter with you to-night?”
“Matter enough. I’ve come to tell you never to make signals for me to come out again.”
“Why? I say, what a temper you are in to-night. Here, let me help you over, and we’ll go round to the arbor. You’ll get your feet wet standing there.”
“They are wet, and I shall catch a cold and die, I hope.”
“Oh, I say, Jenny!”
“Silence, sir! How dare you speak to me like that!”
“Come over, then, into the arbor.”
“I have told you again and again that I never would!”
“You are a little tartar,” he whispered. “You get prettier every day, and peck and say nastier things to me. But there, I don’t mind; it only makes me love you more and more.”
“It isn’t true,” she cried furiously. “You’re a wicked story-teller, and you know it.”
“Am I?”
“Yes; that’s the same miserable sickly tale you have told to half-a-dozen of the silly girls in the village. I know you thoroughly now. How dare you follow me and speak to me? If I were to tell my brother he’d nearly kill you.”
“Quite, p’raps, with a drop out of one of his bottles.”
“I can never forgive myself for having listened to the silly, contemptible flattery of the cast-off lover of a labourer’s daughter.”
“Oh, I like that, Jenny; what’s the good of bringing all that up? That’s been over ever so long. It was only sowing wild oats.”
“The only sort that you are ever likely to have to sow. I know all now—everything; so go to her, and never dare to speak to me again.”
“What? Go back to Sally? Well, you are a jealous little thing.”
“I, jealous—of you?” she said, with contempt in her tone and manner.
“Yes, that’s what’s the matter with you, little one. But go on; I like it. Shows me you love me.”
“I? Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Jenny derisively. “Do you think I don’t know everything?”
“I daresay you do. You’re such a clever little vixen.”
“Do you suppose it has not reached my ears about your elopement with your cousin?”
“I don’t care what you’ve heard; it ain’t true. But I say, don’t hold me off like this, Jenny; you know I love you like—like anything.”
“Yes, anything,” she retorted angrily; “any thing—your dogs, your horses, your fishing-rods and gun.”
“Oh, I say.”
“You miserable, deceitful trickster, I ought not to have lowered myself to even speak to you, or to come out again to-night, but I wanted to tell you what I thought about you, and it’s of no use to treat such thick-skinned creatures as you with contempt.”
“Well, you are wild to-night, little one. Don’t want me to show my teeth, too, and go, do you?”
“Yes, and the sooner the better, sir; go back to your wife.”
“Go back to my wife!” he cried, in tones which carried conviction to her ears. “Oh, I say; you’ve got hold of that cock-and-bull story, have you?”
“Yes, sir, I have got hold of the miserable cock-and-bull story, as you so elegantly turn it.”
“Oh, I don’t go in for elegance, Jenny; it ain’t my way; but as for that flam, it ain’t true.”
“You dare to tell me that, when the whole place is ringing with it, sir!” she cried, angrily.
“The whole place rings with the noise when that muddle-headed lot got pulling the bells in changes. But it’s only sound.”
“Don’t, pray don’t try to be witty, Claud Wilton; you only fail.”
“All right; go on.”
“Do you dare to tell me that you did not elope with your cousin the other night?”
“Say slope, little one; elope is so old-fashioned.”
“And I suppose you’ve married her for the sake of her money.”
“Do you?” he said, sulkily; “then you suppose jolly well wrong. It’s all a lie.”
“Then you haven’t married her?”
“No, I haven’t married her, and I didn’t slope with her; so now then.”
“Do you dare to tell me that you did not go up to London?”
“No, I don’t, because I did.”
“With her, in a most disgraceful, clandestine manner?”
“No; I went alone with a very jolly good-tempered chap, whom everybody bullies and calls a liar.”
“A nice companion; and pray, who was that?”
“This chap—your sweetheart; and I came back with him too.”
“Then where is your cousin?”
“How should I know?”
“She did go away, then, the same night?”
“Yes. Bolted after a row we had.”
“Is this true?”
“Every blessed word of it; and I haven’t seen her since. Now, tell me, you’re very sorry for all you’ve said.”
“Tell me this; has she gone away with some one else?”
“What do you want to know for?”
“I want to find out that you are not such a wicked story-teller as I thought.”
“Well, I have told you that.”
“Who can believe you?”
“You can. Come, I say; I thought you were going to be really a bit loving to me at last when I heard the whistle. It’s been like courting a female porcupine up to now.”
“You know whom your cousin has gone with?”
“Pretty sure,” he said, sulkily.
“Who is it?”
“Oh, well, if you must know, Harry Dasent.”
“That cousin I saw here?”
“Yes, bless him! Only wait till we meet.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Jenny, and then she turned to go; but Claud caught her arm.
“No, no; you might say something kind now you’ve found out you’re wrong.”
“Very well then, I will, Claud Wilton. First of all, I never cared a bit for you, and—”
“Don’t believe you. Go on,” he said, laughing.
“Secondly, take my advice and go away at once, for if my brother should meet you there will be a terrible scene. He believes horrible things of you, and I know he’ll kill you.”
“Phew!” whistled Claud. “Then he has found out?”
“Take my advice and go. He is terrible when he is roused, and I don’t know what he’d do.”
“I say, this ain’t gammon, is it?”
“It is the solemn truth. Now loose my arm; you hurt me.”
“Well, it’s all right, then, and perhaps it’s for the best I am going off to-night to hunt out Harry Dasent. I should have gone before, but I had to be about with the guv’nor, making inquiries.”
“Then loose my arm at once, and go before it is too late.”
“It is too late,” thundered a voice out of the gloom. “Jenny—sister—is this you?”