CHAPTER XI.FORGOTTEN.

CHAPTER XI.FORGOTTEN.

The “Protector” had been dead for two years. Its very name was a memory. Lawyers who had assisted in holding a legal inquest over its remains—directors who had been badgered to death concerning its failure—people who had lost money or made money by it, recollected that there had once been such a Company; but the grass was growing green above its grave—in law courts and the Stock Exchange. So many similar ventures had lived, and prospered, and died in the time, that its history had become an old, old tale, which was never now repeated save here and there by one who had lost money through it.

Summer was come once again, and in the close streets round about Bethnal Green and Spitalfieldsthe hot sultry air which met any adventurous explorer who bravely pursued his way into those almost unknown regions, seemed like the breath issuing from the mouth of some sulphurous pestilent volcano. The thousand and one smells of the East of London assailed his nostrils, the sights and sounds of that most wretched locality offended his eyes and ears.

Few people who were not called thither by business or necessity jostled the rightful inhabitants in the streets; but it is to the east of Bishopsgate Street. Without I must, nevertheless, with all due apology for even hinting at the existence of such a neighbourhood, conduct my reader to Silk Street, so named, no doubt, in olden times, on account of the number of silk-weavers who abode there.

It had once been a thoroughfare of no small importance; but its glory had faded, its trade fallen away, although the railway waggons thundered through it, and the noise of passing carts and cabs never stopped, never from morning till night. It was a mean, poor street, composed principally of dilapidated-looking three-storey houses, in the windows of which were exhibited here fruit and vegetables, theredrapery goods, and again furniture of the stalest, poorest, commonest description. Towards the end of the thoroughfare, however, there were erected some new warehouses and stores.

Contrasting gloomily with their bright red-brick fronts was the gateway which gave ingress to Mr. Lukin’s silk-weaving factory.

A gloomy, disreputable gateway, affording admittance up a narrow cart-road into a wider court-yard beyond, one side of which was occupied by a packing-shed and a carpenter’s shop; another by the weaving factory, and a third by the dwelling of the manager; the only picturesque things about the place being the windlass and buckets belonging to a disused well.

We must pass in, if you please, for Arthur Dudley is the manager, and this is his house.

There are high walls all round the court-yard; high walls blackened with smoke, unrelieved by tree, or ivy, or climbing Virginian creeper.

Heather is planning to cover them with greenery, but her attempts have hitherto proved abortive; the shrubs all die like the plants in her ghostly, little garden, where she can get nothing but double red daisies and stocks and pinks to grow.

A change this from Berrie Down, you say! Certainly; but life is full of changes, and Arthur Dudley has still much to learn.

The world’s educational establishments are not always pleasant places at which to reside; the playgrounds are oftentimes contracted, and the diet not suited to delicate palates; but the lessons taught in those seminaries of practical learning prove oftentimes much more useful than the pleasant tasks conned beside the singing river, under the rustling trees.

As for Heather, there is no life perfect; yet it may be doubted whether she was very unhappy in those days of pecuniary struggle, of pinching economy. The high walls which seemed to be closing her in were, perhaps, the most active trouble of her life. Sometimes she felt as if she were in a prison, as if she were a thousand miles from every one, as if she should die for want of air, as though, if a fire were to break out, she should never reach the gates alive.

At all of which fancies Arthur laughed, and then Heather laughed; and then the two, in the summer evenings, would water their tiny bit of garden-ground,and talk about the far-away country, which it almost seemed as though they were never to behold again.

Entirely owing to Arthur’s pride. Heather could not blind herself to this fact, although she sedulously refrained from touching upon it.

When Berrie Down was sold, the gentleman who bought it offered Arthur two hundred and fifty pounds a year and a free house, if he would take the management of the farm, but Arthur refused.

There was a situation open for him, he said, of five hundred a year in London, and he would never be servant where he had been master; so the proprietor took “no” for an answer, and passing on to Alick secured his services for one-half the sum and the use of Berrie Down House and farm produce, till such time as the proprietor should require the residence from him. Two of the girls resided with the young steward, but Agnes remained with Heather; Cuthbert had left the Messrs. Elser, and was now receiving a good salary from Mr. Raidsford. Altogether the family prospects were brighter than of old, excepting as regarded Arthur, who had steadily fallen from height to height, till at length he found himself cashier and bookkeeper, and yardkeeperand general manager to Mr. Lukin, who had great works in the North, and was reported to be enormously rich.

If he were so, Arthur did not derive much benefit from his wealth, for he had but two hundred a year; while Simons, the actual though sub-manager, thought himself fortunate to receive two pounds a week.

Certainly Arthur’s duties were light—to take money and pay it into the bank—to write a report of how business progressed to his employer—to keep the books, and see to things generally. There was no great hardship or difficulty involved in these and such like matters; and yet Arthur was now as of old at Berrie Down, a wretched man.

He had a trouble dogging his footsteps, and that trouble was debt. After paying off the most of his liabilities, and leaving himself without a sixpence in the world, he was still five hundred pounds deficient, and five hundred pounds to a man who is trying to live respectably on two hundred a year is, with a pressing creditor, almost equivalent to utter bankruptcy.

His friends would have helped him had theyknown of his grievous strait; but Arthur’s was not a temper to take help or pecuniary assistance from any one on earth. With all his heart, Mr. Raidsford desired to show his gratitude to the man who had saved him from ruin; but when he came to press offers of money, offers of situations, high salaries, and so forth, on Arthur’s acceptance, the poor gentleman drew himself up, and made the contractor feel he had made a mistake—that Arthur Dudley of Silk Street very much resembled Arthur Dudley of Berrie Down, only that he was a degree prouder than of old.

Mr. Croft, also, more earnestly desired to do something for his friend; but he was repelled haughtily by Arthur, and also, though more gently, by Heather.

As for Mr. Black, in answer to the solicitor who, on Arthur’s behalf, waited on him concerning those bills for which Squire Dudley was legally liable, he said plainly, he never would find sixpence towards helping Dudley out of the mess into which he had got himself.

“If he had stuck to me, I should have stuck to him,” the promoter answered; “but he would go fishing on his own hook, and if he have come to grief, he has nobody to blame but himself.”

Mrs. Ormson and the Marsdens, of course, ignored the very existence of such people as the Dudleys; and, when they were unhappily mentioned, laid the blame of all Arthur’s misfortunes at the door of the “woman he married.” As for Miss Hope, from foreign parts, she was sympathetic, but necessarily vague. She did not know in the least how low her nephew had fallen, but hoped, she said, on her return to England, to visit them in their little house, which, spite of all Heather told her concerning its limited accommodation, she had no doubt would be charming, “dear Heather having such a taste in arrangement.”

In brief, from all their old haunts, from all their old acquaintances, from all their pursuits, and thoughts, and ideas, the Dudleys had vanished away.

From the former life they had fallen. As a stone drops into the river’s depths, so they had sunk to that wretched east-end street, and in the circles in which they once mixed, they were forgotten as a dead man out of mind.

The old servants, too, were gone; they were unable to afford to keep any save Priscilla, and sheafter a long illness had come back almost from death to serve her former mistress—never to leave her, she declared to Bessie, who went to see her in the hospital—never to leave her more.

“I always said to Mrs. Piggott, Miss Bessie, I hoped I should die before crinoline went out of fashion, and when there was a talk of them going to be left off, I fell sick; but now I hear it was all nonsense, so I mean to get better, if it was only for the sake of Mrs. Dudley, who says she misses me, Miss Bessie—misses me!”

As for Bessie, she too, unable to remain away from her old friend, had returned from the country farmhouse, and taken up her abode in a street not very far away from that where Heather lived. She was a good and tasteful needlewoman, and earned a tolerable livelihood with her white, pretty fingers.

Many an hour she and Heather spent together while Arthur was busy; but Arthur was not taken into the secret. Even Heather doubted his discretion in the matter, and there were ample reasons why the girl’s whereabouts should be known to as few persons as possible.

Ned and Mrs. Piggott were married and settledin a public-house on the road to South Kemms, where, Alick informed Heather, they did a capital business, and kept a most regular and respectable tavern. “It is quite a little hotel, mother,” said the young man, adding, “When shall I be able to persuade you to come down to the Hollow and see how lovely the place looks?” but, in reply, Heather shook her head.

“Naturally, the very name of Berrie Down is painful to Arthur,” she answered. “I should like to please you, Alick, but I cannot bear to vex him. His life has been a very hard one, and I ought not to make it any harder.”

Then Alick had another project; he would take a house at the sea-side for a month, and Heather, and the girls, and Leonard should all go down and stay there, and he, and Arthur, and Cuthbert would spend their Sundays with them. “It will be like the old times, for us all to be together again,” finished the youth; “and, dear Heather, I do want to see you looking a little better;” whereupon she called him a foolish boy, and, drawing his face down to hers, kissed it, saying, “people could be well and happy anywhere, in London as in the country, ifthey would only try to be thankful and contented.”

But the “foolish boy” resolutely refusing to be either contented or thankful, unless she would agree to his plan, at length, when it was far on in the summer, “between the crops” as he put it, Alick persuaded Heather to make her preparations for leaving home, which she did all the more readily, perhaps, because Arthur agreed to come down on the Saturday nights, and remain with them until the Monday mornings.

“I think the change will do us all good,” he said; but there was a look in his face which Heather somehow mistrusted, and which caused her to wonder what could be the matter with Arthur; whether he had any fresh trouble he was keeping from her, or whether he felt ill and would not say so, for fear of spoiling her holiday.

Talking the matter over with Bessie, however, that young person combated her friend’s fears successfully. “If Arthur should be ill,” she said, “I shall certainly hear of it from Morrison” (Morrison was one of the workmen somewhat devoted to Priscilla, in whom both Heather and Bessie trusted, and itis only fair to add, he deserved such trust, for the notes they mutually exchanged were never chattered about; the name of the young lady, whom Mrs. Dudley went to see, was never mentioned to any one); “and if I do hear of there being anything the matter,” went on Bessie, “I shall certainly go round to nurse him, and telegraph for you; so make yourself happy concerning that dear husband, and pack up your clothes at once.”

Which advice Heather followed in a divided frame of mind; divided, because while she longed to see the country, she hated leaving Arthur, who, on the very Saturday of her departure, said he should not be able to accompany her out of town that week, because Mr. Lukin was coming to London, and might be expected in Silk Street at any moment.

“But you must go, dear,” he added, “and I will run down through the week, if I possibly can. Come now, get your bonnet on, or we shall be too late at Waterloo;” and thus he hurried her on till they were fairly in a cab,en routeto the South Western Railway Terminus.

There were Alick and Cuthbert, Lucy andLaura, all looking as bright and sunshiny as the weather.

“Not coming, Arthur!” exclaimed his brother; “what a shabby trick! I could not have believed you would have served a fellow so!”

“It is not my fault, Alick,” was the reply; “but Mr. Lukin is coming to town, and I must be on the spot to receive him; you will take care of Heather, Alick,” he added, in a lower and a different tone, drawing his brother aside; “you will promise me to take care of her?”

“Take care of Heather!” answered Alick, “I like that; as though I should not take care of her. Do you think I forget, Arthur—do you imagine I could possibly forget, the years during which she was our mother—the best mother ever any boys and girls found?”

“Thank you, I shall be easier now,” Arthur answered; and then he joined the others and kept near his wife till it was time for the little party to enter the compartment, which they quite filled. To the last, Squire Dudley never took his eyes off his wife’s face; and, when the moment of final parting came, he kissed her two or three times over, saying“God bless you, Heather! think of me sometimes.”

When the train moved off, he stood on the platform, looking after the carriage which contained his wife; and as the speed increased, Heather saw a look come over his countenance which filled her with so terrible an alarm, that she cried out in a moment, “Alick, I must go back to Arthur! there is something the matter! I ought never to have come!”

All in vain, they tried to combat her determination; at the first station where the express stopped, Heather alighted, resolved to return to town. She would not hear of Alick travelling with her. “No,” she said; “if he be in any trouble, I shall be better to remain alone with him; if not, I will go down to you by the first train on Monday morning. I promise, Alick, faithfully! Do not try to prevent my going home,” she pleaded; “remember, once before I wanted to turn back, and Arthur would not let me!”

Which last argument, proving unanswerable, with heavy hearts they allowed her to have her own way, and she went into the waiting-room, where shestopped for an hour, until the up express appeared in sight, when she took her seat, together with some other passengers, and was soon tearing back to London, under the glare of the afternoon sun. At the terminus she took a cab for Norton Folgate, from whence she walked on to Silk Street. She had no need to ring the bell, for one of the men coming out at the moment, afforded her entrance, without attracting, in any way, attention to her return.

“I fear I have done a very foolish thing,” she thought, as she stepped inside the gateway, and any one else might have thought the same, for Arthur had complained of neither ache nor pain; he had been in good spirits all the morning; he had faithfully promised to come down through the week; and, but for that expression of hopeless, helpless, blank despair in his face as the train swept out of the station, Heather would have gone away happy, and Arthur’s fate proved different.

As it was, he had traversed the road back from Waterloo a miserable and a wretched man.

He had brought much grief to Heather, he would bring no more. He had been tempted, and he had fallen; he had been pressed for money, and hehad “borrowed”—that was the way he put it to himself—a few hundreds from Mr. Lukin, and he had vainly striven to replace those hundreds, and now Mr. Lukin was coming to inspect the books, and a worse thing than poverty—disgrace! was without in the street, waiting to cross their threshold.

But Heather should never know this; no man, nor no woman, should ever say a Dudley of Berrie Down had committed a felony. There was one way of escape, and his feeble mind clutched hold of that poor straw eagerly: one way—he would take care of himself, and Alick would take care of Heather!

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