THE instant Isabel was out of hearing, Old Sharon slapped Moody on the shoulder to rouse his attention. “I’ve got her out of the way,” he said, “now listen to me. My business with the young angel is done—I may go back to London.”
Moody looked at him with astonishment.
“Lord! how little you know of thieves!” exclaimed Old Sharon. “Why, man alive, I have tried her with two plain tests! If you wanted a proof of her innocence, there it was, as plain as the nose in your face. Did you hear me ask her how she came to seal the letter—just when her mind was running on something else?”
“I heard you,” said Moody.
“Did you see how she started and stared at me?”
“I did.”
“Well, I can tell you this—if shehadstolen the money she would neither have started nor stared. She would have had her answer ready beforehand in her own mind, in case of accidents. There’s only one thing in my experience that you can never do with a thief, when a thief happens to be a woman—you can never take her by surprise. Put that remark by in your mind; one day you may find a use for remembering it. Did you see her blush, and look quite hurt in her feelings, pretty dear, when I asked about her sweetheart? Do you think a thief, in her place, would have shown such a face as that? Not she! The thief would have been relieved. The thief would have said to herself, ‘All right! the more the old fool talks about sweethearts the further he is from tracing the robbery to Me!’ Yes! yes! the ground’s cleared now, Master Moody. I’ve reckoned up the servants; I’ve questioned Miss Isabel; I’ve made my inquiries in all the other quarters that may be useful to us—and what’s the result? The advice I gave, when you and the lawyer first came to me—I hate that fellow!—remains as sound and good advice as ever. I have got the thief in my mind,” said Old Sharon, closing his cunning eyes and then opening them again, “as plain as I’ve got you in my eye at this minute. No more of that now,” he went on, looking round sharply at the path that led to the farmhouse. “I’ve something particular to say to you—and there’s barely time to say it before that nice girl comes back. Look here! Do you happen to be acquainted with Mr.-Honorable-Hardyman’s valet?”
Moody’s eyes rested on Old Sharon with a searching and doubtful look.
“Mr. Hardyman’s valet?” he repeated. “I wasn’t prepared to hear Mr. Hardyman’s name.”
Old Sharon looked at Moody, in his turn, with a flash of sardonic triumph.
“Oho!” he said. “Has my good boy learned his lesson? Do you see the thief through my spectacles, already?”
“I began to see him,” Moody answered, “when you gave us the guinea opinion at your lodgings.”
“Will you whisper his name?” asked Old Sharon.
“Not yet. I distrust my own judgment. I wait till time proves that you are right.”
Old Sharon knitted his shaggy brows and shook his head. “If you had only a little more dash and go in you,” he said, “you would be a clever fellow. As it is—!” He finished the sentence by snapping his fingers with a grin of contempt. “Let’s get to business. Are you going back by the next train along with me? or are you going to stop with the young lady?”
“I will follow you by a later train,” Moody answered.
“Then I must give you my instructions at once,” Sharon continued. “You get better acquainted with Hardyman’s valet. Lend him money if he wants it—stick at nothing to make a bosom friend of him. I can’t do that part of it; my appearance would be against me.Youare the man—you are respectable from the top of your hat to the tips of your boots; nobody would suspect You. Don’t make objections! Can you fix the valet? Or can’t you?”
“I can try,” said Moody. “And what then?”
Old Sharon put his gross lips disagreeably close to Moody’s ear.
“Your friend the valet can tell you who his master’s bankers are,” he said; “and he can supply you with a specimen of his master’s handwriting.”
Moody drew back, as suddenly as if his vagabond companion had put a knife to his throat. “You old villain!” he said. “Are you tempting me to forgery?”
“You infernal fool!” retorted Old Sharon. “Willyou hold that long tongue of yours, and hear what I have to say. You go to Hardyman’s bankers, with a note in Hardyman’s handwriting (exactly imitated by me) to this effect:—‘Mr. H. presents his compliments to Messrs. So-and-So, and is not quite certain whether a payment of five hundred pounds has been made within the last week to his account. He will be much obliged if Messrs. So-and-So will inform him by a line in reply, whether there is such an entry to his credit in their books, and by whom the payment has been made.’ You wait for the bankers’ answer, and bring it to me. It’s just possible that the name you’re afraid to whisper may appear in the letter. If it does, we’ve caught our man. Isthatforgery, Mr. Muddlehead Moody? I’ll tell you what—if I had lived to be your age, and knew no more of the world than you do, I’d go and hang myself. Steady! here’s our charming friend with the milk. Remember your instructions, and don’t lose heart if my notion of the payment to the bankers comes to nothing. I know what to do next, in that case—and, what’s more, I’ll take all the risk and trouble on my own shoulders. Oh, Lord! I’m afraid I shall be obliged to drink the milk, now it’s come!”
With this apprehension in his mind, he advanced to relieve Isabel of the jug that she carried.
“Here’s a treat!” he burst out, with an affectation of joy, which was completely belied by the expression of his dirty face. “Here’s a kind and dear young lady, to help an old man to a drink with her own pretty hands.” He paused, and looked at the milk very much as he might have looked at a dose of physic. “Will anyone take a drink first?” he asked, offering the jug piteously to Isabel and Moody. “You see, I’m not wed to genuine milk; I’m used to chalk and water. I don’t know what effect the unadulterated cow might have on my poor old inside.” He tasted the milk with the greatest caution. “Upon my soul, this is too rich for me! The unadulterated cow is a deal too strong to be drunk alone. If you’ll allow me I’ll qualify it with a drop of gin. Here, Puggy, Puggy!” He set the milk down before the dog; and, taking a flask out of his pocket, emptied it at a draught. “That’s something like!” he said, smacking his lips with an air of infinite relief. “So sorry, Miss, to have given you all your trouble for nothing; it’s my ignorance that’s to blame, not me. I couldn’t know I was unworthy of genuine milk till I tried—could I? And do you know,” he proceeded, with his eyes directed slyly on the way back to the station, “I begin to think I’m not worthy of the fresh air, either. A kind of longing seems to come over me for the London stink. I’m home-sick already for the soot of my happy childhood and my own dear native mud. The air here is too thin for me, and the sky’s too clean; and—oh, Lord!—when you’re wed to the roar of the traffic—the ‘busses and the cabs and what not—the silence in these parts is downright awful. I’ll wish you good evening, miss; and get back to London.”
Isabel turned to Moody with disappointment plainly expressed in her face and manner.
“Is that all he has to say?” she asked. “You told me he could help us. You led me to suppose he could find the guilty person.”
Sharon heard her. “I could name the guilty person,” he answered, “as easily, miss, as I could name you.”
“Why don’t you do it then?” Isabel inquired, not very patiently
“Because the time’s not ripe for it yet, miss—that’s one reason. Because, if I mentioned the thief’s name, as things are now, you, Miss Isabel, would think me mad; and you would tell Mr. Moody I had cheated him out of his money—that’s another reason. The matter’s in train, if you will only wait a little longer.”
“So you say,” Isabel rejoined. “If you really could name the thief, I believe you would do it now.”
She turned away with a frown on her pretty face. Old Sharon followed her. Even his coarse sensibilities appeared to feel the irresistible ascendancy of beauty and youth.
“I say!” he began, “we must part friends, you know—or I shall break my heart over it. They have got milk at the farmhouse. Do you think they have got pen, ink, and paper too?”
Isabel answered, without turning to look at him, “Of course they have!”
“And a bit of sealing-wax?”
“I daresay!”
Old Sharon laid his dirty claws on her shoulder and forced her to face him as the best means of shaking them off.
“Come along!” he said. “I am going to pacify you with some information in writing.”
“Why should you write it?” Isabel asked suspiciously.
“Because I mean to make my own conditions, my dear, before I let you into the secret.”
In ten minutes more they were all three in the farmhouse parlor. Nobody but the farmer’s wife was at home. The good woman trembled from head to foot at the sight of Old Sharon. In all her harmless life she had never yet seen humanity under the aspect in which it was now presented to her. “Mercy preserve us, Miss!” she whispered to Isabel, “how come you to be in such company asthat?” Instructed by Isabel, she produced the necessary materials for writing and sealing—and, that done, she shrank away to the door. “Please to excuse me, miss,” she said with a last horrified look at her venerable visitor; “I really can’t stand the sight of such a blot of dirt as that in my nice clean parlor.” With those words she disappeared, and was seen no more.
Perfectly indifferent to his reception, Old Sharon wrote, inclosed what he had written in an envelope; and sealed it (in the absence of anything better fitted for his purpose) with the mouthpiece of his pipe.
“Now, miss,” he said, “you give me your word of honor,”—he stopped and looked round at Moody with a grin—“and you give me yours, that you won’t either of you break the seal on this envelope till the expiration of one week from the present day. There are the conditions, Miss Isabel, on which I’ll give you your information. If you stop to dispute with me, the candle’s alight, and I’ll burn it!”
It was useless to contend with him. Isabel and Moody gave him the promise that he required. He handed the sealed envelope to Isabel with a low bow. “When the week’s out,” he said, “you will own I’m a cleverer fellow than you think me now. Wish you good evening, Miss. Come along, Puggy! Farewell to the horrid clean country, and back again to the nice London stink!”
He nodded to Moody—he leered at Isabel—he chuckled to himself—he left the farmhouse.
ISABEL looked down at the letter in her hand—considered it in silence—and turned to Moody. “I feel tempted to open it already,” she said.
“After giving your promise?” Moody gently remonstrated.
Isabel met that objection with a woman’s logic.
“Does a promise matter?” she asked, “when one gives it to a dirty, disreputable, presuming old wretch like Mr. Sharon? It’s a wonder to me that you trust such a creature.Iwouldn’t!”
“I doubted him just as you do,” Moody answered, “when I first saw him in company with Mr. Troy. But there was something in the advice he gave us at that first consultation which altered my opinion of him for the better. I dislike his appearance and his manners as much as you do—I may even say I felt ashamed of bringing such a person to see you. And yet I can’t think that I have acted unwisely in employing Mr. Sharon.”
Isabel listened absently. She had something more to say, and she was considering how she should say it. “May I ask you a bold question?” she began.
“Any question you like.”
“Have you—” she hesitated and looked embarrassed. “Have you paid Mr. Sharon much money?” she resumed, suddenly rallying her courage. Instead of answering, Moody suggested that it was time to think of returning to Miss Pink’s villa. “Your aunt may be getting anxious about you.” he said.
Isabel led the way out of the farmhouse in silence. She reverted to Mr. Sharon and the money, however, as they returned by the path across the fields.
“I am sure you will not be offended with me,” she said gently, “if I own that I am uneasy about the expense. I am allowing you to use your purse as if it was mine—and I have hardly any savings of my own.”
Moody entreated her not to speak of it. “How can I put my money to a better use than in serving your interests?” he asked. “My one object in life is to relieve you of your present anxieties. I shall be the happiest man living if you only owe a moment’s happiness to my exertions!”
Isabel took his hand, and looked at him with grateful tears in her eyes.
“How good you are to me, Mr. Moody!” she said. “I wish I could tell you how deeply I feel your kindness.”
“You can do it easily,” he answered, with a smile. “Call me ‘Robert’—don’t call me ‘Mr. Moody.’”
She took his arm with a sudden familiarity that charmed him. “If you had been my brother I should have called you ‘Robert,’” she said; “and no brother could have been more devoted to me than you are.”
He looked eagerly at her bright face turned up to his. “May I never hope to be something nearer and dearer to you than a brother?” he asked timidly.
She hung her head and said nothing. Moody’s memory recalled Sharon’s coarse reference to her “sweetheart.” She had blushed when he put the question? What had she done when Moody puthisquestion? Her face answered for her—she had turned pale; she was looking more serious than usual. Ignorant as he was of the ways of women, his instinct told him that this was a bad sign. Surely her rising color would have confessed it, if time and gratitude together were teaching her to love him? He sighed as the inevitable conclusion forced itself on his mind.
“I hope I have not offended you?” he said sadly.
“Oh, no.”
“I wish I had not spoken. Pray don’t think that I am serving you with any selfish motive.”
“I don’t think that, Robert. I never could think it ofyou.”
He was not quite satisfied yet. “Even if you were to marry some other man,” he went on earnestly, “it would make no difference in what I am trying to do for you. No matter what I might suffer, I should still go on—for your sake.”
“Why do you talk so?” she burst out passionately. “No other man has such a claim as you to my gratitude and regard. How can you let such thoughts come to you? I have done nothing in secret. I have no friends who are not known to you. Be satisfied with that, Robert—and let us drop the subject.”
“Never to take it up again?” he asked, with the infatuated pertinacity of a man clinging to his last hope.
At other times and under other circumstances, Isabel might have answered him sharply. She spoke with perfect gentleness now.
“Not for the present,” she said. “I don’t know my own heart. Give me time.”
His gratitude caught at those words, as the drowning man is said to catch at the proverbial straw. He lifted her hand, and suddenly and fondly pressed his lips on it. She showed no confusion. Was she sorry for him, poor wretch!—and was that all?
They walked on, arm-in-arm, in silence.
Crossing the last field, they entered again on the high road leading to the row of villas in which Miss Pink lived. The minds of both were preoccupied. Neither of them noticed a gentleman approaching on horseback, followed by a mounted groom. He was advancing slowly, at the walking-pace of his horse, and he only observed the two foot-passengers when he was close to them.
“Miss Isabel!”
She started, looked up, and discovered—Alfred Hardyman.
He was dressed in a perfectly-made travelling suit of light brown, with a peaked felt hat of a darker shade of the same color, which, in a picturesque sense, greatly improved his personal appearance. His pleasure at discovering Isabel gave the animation to his features which they wanted on ordinary occasions. He sat his horse, a superb hunter, easily and gracefully. His light amber-colored gloves fitted him perfectly. His obedient servant, on another magnificent horse, waited behind him. He looked the impersonation of rank and breeding—of wealth and prosperity. What a contrast, in a woman’s eyes, to the shy, pale, melancholy man, in the ill-fitting black clothes, with the wandering, uneasy glances, who stood beneath him, and felt, and showed that he felt, his inferior position keenly! In spite of herself, the treacherous blush flew over Isabel’s face, in Moody’s presence, and with Moody’s eyes distrustfully watching her.
“This is a piece of good fortune that I hardly hoped for,” said Hardyman, his cool, quiet, dreary way of speaking quickened as usual, in Isabel’s presence. “I only got back from France this morning, and I called on Lady Lydiard in the hope of seeing you. She was not at home—and you were in the country—and the servants didn’t know the address. I could get nothing out of them, except that you were on a visit to a relation.” He looked at Moody while he was speaking. “Haven’t I seen you before?” he said, carelessly. “Yes; at Lady Lydiard’s. You’re her steward, are you not? How d’ye do?” Moody, with his eyes on the ground, answered silently by a bow. Hardyman, perfectly indifferent whether Lady Lydiard’s steward spoke or not, turned on his saddle and looked admiringly at Isabel. “I begin to think I am a lucky man at last,” he went on with a smile. “I was jogging along to my farm, and despairing of ever seeing Miss Isabel again—and Miss Isabel herself meets me at the roadside! I wonder whether you are as glad to see me as I am to see you? You won’t tell me—eh? May I ask you something else? Are you staying in our neighborhood?”
There was no alternative before Isabel but to answer this last question. Hardyman had met her out walking, and had no doubt drawn the inevitable inference—although he was too polite to say so in plain words.
“Yes, sir,” she answered, shyly, “I am staying in this neighborhood.”
“And who is your relation?” Hardyman proceeded, in his easy, matter-of-course way. “Lady Lydiard told me, when I had the pleasure of meeting you at her house, that you had an aunt living in the country. I have a good memory, Miss Isabel, for anything that I hear about You! It’s your aunt, isn’t it? Yes? I know everybody about hew. What is your aunt’s name?”
Isabel, still resting her hand on Robert’s arm, felt it tremble a little as Hardyman made this last inquiry. If she had been speaking to one of her equals she would have known how to dispose of the question without directly answering it. But what could she say to the magnificent gentleman on the stately horse? He had only to send his servant into the village to ask who the young lady from London was staying with, and the answer, in a dozen mouths at least, would direct him to her aunt. She cast one appealing look at Moody and pronounced the distinguished name of Miss Pink.
“Miss Pink?” Hardyman repeated. “Surely I know Miss Pink?” (He had not the faintest remembrances of her.) “Where did I meet her last?” (He ran over in his memory the different local festivals at which strangers had been introduced to him.) “Was it at the archery meeting? or at the grammar-school when the prizes were given? No? It must have been at the flower show, then, surely?”
Ithadbeen at the flower show. Isabel had heard it from Miss Pink fifty times at least, and was obliged to admit it now.
“I am quite ashamed of never having called,” Hardyman proceeded. “The fact is, I have so much to do. I am a bad one at paying visits. Are you on your way home? Let me follow you and make my apologies personally to Miss Pink.”
Moody looked at Isabel. It was only a momentary glance, but she perfectly understood it.
“I am afraid, sir, my aunt cannot have the honor of seeing you to-day,” she said.
Hardyman was all compliance. He smiled and patted his horse’s neck. “To-morrow, then,” he said. “My compliments, and I will call in the afternoon. Let me see: Miss Pink lives at—?” He waited, as if he expected Isabel to assist his treacherous memory once more. She hesitated again. Hardyman looked round at his groom. The groom could find out the address, even if he did not happen to know it already. Besides, there was the little row of houses visible at the further end of the road. Isabel pointed to the villas, as a necessary concession to good manners, before the groom could anticipate her. “My aunt lives there, sir; at the house called The Lawn.”
“Ah! to be sure!” said Hardyman. “I oughtn’t to have wanted reminding; but I have so many things to think of at the farm. And I am afraid I must be getting old—my memory isn’t as good as it was. I am so glad to have seen you, Miss Isabel. You and your aunt must come and look at my horses. Do you like horses? Are you fond of riding? I have a quiet roan mare that is used to carrying ladies; she would be just the thing for you. Did I beg you to give my best compliments to your aunt? Yes? How well you are looking! our air here agrees with you. I hope I haven’t kept you standing too long? I didn’t think of it in the pleasure of meeting you. Good-by, Miss Isabel; good-by, till to-morrow!”
He took off his hat to Isabel, nodded to Moody, and pursued his way to the farm.
Isabel looked at her companion. His eyes were still on the ground. Pale, silent, motionless, he waited by her like a dog, until she gave the signal of walking on again towards the house.
“You are not angry with me for speaking to Mr. Hardyman?” she asked, anxiously.
He lifted his head it the sound of her voice. “Angry with you, my dear! why should I be angry?”
“You seem so changed, Robert, since we met Mr. Hardyman. I couldn’t help speaking to him—could I?”
“Certainly not.”
They moved on towards the villa. Isabel was still uneasy. There was something in Moody’s silent submission to all that she said and all that she did which pained and humiliated her. “You’re not jealous?” she said, smiling timidly.
He tried to speak lightly on his side. “I have no time to be jealous while I have your affairs to look after,” he answered.
She pressed his arm tenderly. “Never fear, Robert, that new friends will make me forget the best and dearest friend who is now at my side.” She paused, and looked up at him with a compassionate fondness that was very pretty to see. “I can keep out of the way to-morrow, when Mr. Hardyman calls,” she said. “It is my aunt he is coming to see—not me.”
It was generously meant. But while her mind was only occupied with the present time, Moody’s mind was looking into the future. He was learning the hard lesson of self-sacrifice already. “Do what you think is right,” he said quietly; “don’t think of me.”
They reached the gate of the villa. He held out his hand to say good-by.
“Won’t you come in?” she asked. “Do come in!”
“Not now, my dear. I must get back to London as soon as I can. There is some more work to be done for you, and the sooner I do it the better.”
She heard his excuse without heeding it.
“You are not like yourself, Robert,” she said. “Why is it? What are you thinking of?”
He was thinking of the bright blush that overspread her face when Hardyman first spoke to her; he was thinking of the invitation to her to see the stud-farm, and to ride the roan mare; he was thinking of the utterly powerless position in which he stood towards Isabel and towards the highly-born gentleman who admired her. But he kept his doubts and fears to himself. “The train won’t wait for me,” he said, and held out his hand once more.
She was not only perplexed; she was really distressed. “Don’t take leave of me in that cold way!” she pleaded. Her eyes dropped before his, and her lips trembled a little. “Give me a kiss, Robert, at parting.” She said those bold words softly and sadly, out of the depth of her pity for him. He started; his face brightened suddenly; his sinking hope rose again. In another moment the change came; in another moment he understood her. As he touched her cheek with his lips, he turned pale again. “Don’t quite forget me,” he said, in low, faltering tones—and left her.
Miss Pink met Isabel in the hall. Refreshed by unbroken repose, the ex-schoolmistress was in the happiest frame of mind for the reception of her niece’s news.
Informed that Moody had travelled to South Morden to personally report the progress of the inquiries, Miss Pink highly approved of him as a substitute for Mr. Troy. “Mr. Moody, as a banker’s son, is a gentleman by birth,” she remarked; “he has condescended, in becoming Lady Lydiard’s steward. What I saw of him, when he came here with you, prepossessed me in his favor. He has my confidence, Isabel, as well as yours—he is in every respect a superior person to Mr. Troy. Did you meet any friends, my dear, when you were out walking?”
The answer to this question produced a species of transformation in Miss Pink. The rapturous rank-worship of her nation feasted, so to speak, on Hardyman’s message. She looked taller and younger than usual—she was all smiles and sweetness. “At last, Isabel, you have seen birth and breeding under their right aspect,” she said. “In the society of Lady Lydiard, you cannot possibly have formed correct ideas of the English aristocracy. Observe Mr. Hardyman when he does me the honor to call to-morrow—and you will see the difference.”
“Mr. Hardyman is your visitor, aunt—not mine. I was going to ask you to let me remain upstairs in my room.”
Miss Pink was unaffectedly shocked. “This is what you learn at Lady Lydiard’s!” she observed. “No, Isabel, your absence would be a breach of good manners—I cannot possibly permit it. You will be present to receive our distinguished friend with me. And mind this!” added Miss Pink, in her most impressive manner, “If Mr. Hardyman should by any chance ask why you have left Lady Lydiard, not one word about those disgraceful circumstances which connect you with the loss of the banknote! I should sink into the earth if the smallest hint of what has really happened should reach Mr. Hardyman’s ears. My child, I stand towards you in the place of your lamented mother; I have the right to command your silence on this horrible subject, and I do imperatively command it.”
In these words foolish Miss Pink sowed the seed for the harvest of trouble that was soon to come.
PAYING his court to the ex-schoolmistress on the next day, Hardyman made such excellent use of his opportunities that the visit to the stud-farm took place on the day after. His own carriage was placed at the disposal of Isabel and her aunt; and his own sister was present to confer special distinction on the reception of Miss Pink.
In a country like England, which annually suspends the sitting of its Legislature in honor of a horse-race, it is only natural and proper that the comfort of the horses should be the first object of consideration at a stud-farm. Nine-tenths of the land at Hardyman’s farm was devoted, in one way or another, to the noble quadruped with the low forehead and the long nose. Poor humanity was satisfied with second-rate and third-rate accommodation. The ornamental grounds, very poorly laid out, were also very limited in extent—and, as for the dwelling-house, it was literally a cottage. A parlor and a kitchen, a smoking-room, a bed-room, and a spare chamber for a friend, all scantily furnished, sufficed for the modest wants of the owner of the property. If you wished to feast your eyes on luxury you went to the stables.
The stud-farm being described, the introduction to Hardyman’s sister follows in due course.
The Honorable Lavinia Hardyman was, as all persons in society know, married rather late in life to General Drumblade. It is saying a great deal, but it is not saying too much, to describe Mrs. Drumblade as the most mischievous woman of her age in all England. Scandal was the breath of her life; to place people in false positions, to divulge secrets and destroy characters, to undermine friendships, and aggravate enmities—these were the sources of enjoyment from which this dangerous woman drew the inexhaustible fund of good spirits that made her a brilliant light in the social sphere. She was one of the privileged sinners of modern society. The worst mischief that she could work was ascribed to her “exuberant vitality.” She had that ready familiarity of manner which is (inherclass) so rarely discovered to be insolence in disguise. Her power of easy self-assertion found people ready to accept her on her own terms wherever she went. She was one of those big, overpowering women, with blunt manners, voluble tongues, and goggle eyes, who carry everything before them. The highest society modestly considered itself in danger of being dull in the absence of Mrs. Drumblade. Even Hardyman himself—who saw as little of her as possible, whose frankly straightforward nature recoiled by instinct from contact with his sister—could think of no fitter person to make Miss Pink’s reception agreeable to her, while he was devoting his own attentions to her niece. Mrs. Drumblade accepted the position thus offered with the most amiable readiness. In her own private mind she placed an interpretation on her brother’s motives which did him the grossest injustice. She believed that Hardyman’s designs on Isabel contemplated the most profligate result. To assist this purpose, while the girl’s nearest relative was supposed to be taking care of her, was Mrs. Drumblade’s idea of “fun.” Her worst enemies admitted that the honorable Lavinia had redeeming qualities, and owned that a keen sense of humor was one of her merits.
Was Miss Pink a likely person to resist the fascinations of Mrs. Drumblade? Alas, for the ex-schoolmistress! before she had been five minutes at the farm, Hardyman’s sister had fished for her, caught her, landed her. Poor Miss Pink!
Mrs. Drumblade could assume a grave dignity of manner when the occasion called for it. She was grave, she was dignified, when Hardyman performed the ceremonies of introduction. She would not say she was charmed to meet Miss Pink—the ordinary slang of society was not for Miss Pink’s ears—she would say she felt this introduction as a privilege. It was so seldom one met with persons of trained intellect in society. Mrs. Drumblade was already informed of Miss Pink’s earlier triumphs in the instruction of youth. Mrs. Drumblade had not been blessed with children herself; but she had nephews and nieces, and she was anxious about their education, especially the nieces. What a sweet, modest girl Miss Isabel was! The fondest wish she could form for her nieces would be that they should resemble Miss Isabel when they grew up. The question was, as to the best method of education. She would own that she had selfish motives in becoming acquainted with Miss Pink. They were at the farm, no doubt, to see Alfred’s horses. Mrs. Drumblade did not understand horses; her interest was in the question of education. She might even confess that she had accepted Alfred’s invitation in the hope of hearing Miss Pink’s views. There would be opportunities, she trusted, for a little instructive conversation on that subject. It was, perhaps, ridiculous to talk, at her age, of feeling as if she was Miss Pink’s pupil; and yet it exactly expressed the nature of the aspiration which was then in her mind.
In these terms, feeling her way with the utmost nicety, Mrs. Drumblade wound the net of flattery round and round Miss Pink until her hold on that innocent lady was, in every sense of the word, secure. Before half the horses had been passed under review, Hardyman and Isabel were out of sight, and Mrs. Drumblade and Miss Pink were lost in the intricacies of the stables. “Excessively stupid of me! We had better go back, and establish ourselves comfortably in the parlor. When my brother misses us, he and your charming niece will return to look for us in the cottage.” Under cover of this arrangement the separation became complete. Miss Pink held forth on education to Mrs. Drumblade in the parlor; while Hardyman and Isabel were on their way to a paddock at the farthest limits of the property.
“I am afraid you are getting a little tired,” said Hardyman. “Won’t you take my arm?”
Isabel was on her guard: she had not forgotten what Lady Lydiard had said to her. “No, thank you, Mr. Hardyman; I am a better walker than you think.”
Hardyman continued the conversation in his blunt, resolute way. “I wonder whether you will believe me,” he asked, “if I tell you that this is one of the happiest days of my life.”
“I should think you were always happy,” Isabel cautiously replied, “having such a pretty place to live in as this.”
Hardyman met that answer with one of his quietly-positive denials. “A man is never happy by himself,” he said. “He is happy with a companion. For instance, I am happy with you.”
Isabel stopped and looked back. Hardyman’s language was becoming a little too explicit. “Surely we have lost Mrs. Drumblade and my aunt,” she said. “I don’t see them anywhere.”
“You will see them directly; they are only a long way behind.” With this assurance, he returned, in his own obstinate way, to his one object in view. “Miss Isabel, I want to ask you a question. I’m not a ladies’ man. I speak my mind plainly to everybody—women included. Do you like being here to-day?”
Isabel’s gravity was not proof against this very downright question. “I should be hard to please,” she said laughing, “if I didn’t enjoy my visit to the farm.”
Hardyman pushed steadily forward through the obstacle of the farm to the question of the farm’s master. “You like being here,” he repeated. “Do you like Me?”
This was serious. Isabel drew back a little, and looked at him. He waited with the most impenetrable gravity for her reply.
“I think you can hardly expect me to answer that question,” she said
“Why not?”
“Our acquaintance has been a very short one, Mr. Hardyman. And, ifyouare so good as to forget the difference between us, I thinkIought to remember it.”
“What difference?”
“The difference in rank.”
Hardyman suddenly stood still, and emphasized his next words by digging his stick into the grass.
“If anything I have said has vexed you,” he began, “tell me so plainly, Miss Isabel, and I’ll ask your pardon. But don’t throw my rank in my face. I cut adrift from all that nonsense when I took this farm and got my living out of the horses. What has a man’s rank to do with a man’s feelings?” he went on, with another emphatic dig of his stick. “I am quite serious in asking if you like me—for this good reason, that I like you. Yes, I do. You remember that day when I bled the old lady’s dog—well, I have found out since then that there’s a sort of incompleteness in my life which I never suspected before. It’s you who have put that idea into my head. You didn’t mean it, I dare say, but you have done it all the same. I sat alone here yesterday evening smoking my pipe—and I didn’t enjoy it. I breakfasted alone this morning—and I didn’t enjoythat. I said to myself, She’s coming to lunch, that’s one comfort—I shall enjoy lunch. That’s what I feel, roughly described. I don’t suppose I’ve been five minutes together without thinking of you, now in one way and now in another, since the day when I first saw you. When a man comes to my time of life, and has had any experience, he knows what that means. It means, in plain English, that his heart is set on a woman. You’re the woman.”
Isabel had thus far made several attempts to interrupt him, without success. But, when Hardyman’s confession attained its culminating point, she insisted on being heard.
“If you will excuse me, sir,” she interposed gravely, “I think I had better go back to the cottage. My aunt is a stranger here, and she doesn’t know where to look for us.”
“We don’t want your aunt,” Hardyman remarked, in his most positive manner.
“We do want her,” Isabel rejoined. “I won’t venture to say it’s wrong in you, Mr. Hardyman, to talk to me as you have just done, but I am quite sure it’s very wrong of me to listen.”
He looked at her with such unaffected surprise and distress that she stopped, on the point of leaving him, and tried to make herself better understood.
“I had no intention of offending you, sir,” she said, a little confusedly. “I only wanted to remind you that there are some things which a gentleman in your position—” She stopped, tried to finish the sentence, failed, and began another. “If I had been a young lady in your own rank of life,” she went on, “I might have thanked you for paying me a compliment, and have given you a serious answer. As it is, I am afraid that I must say that you have surprised and disappointed me. I can claim very little for myself, I know. But I did imagine—so long as there was nothing unbecoming in my conduct—that I had some right to your respect.”
Listening more and more impatiently, Hardyman took her by the hand, and burst out with another of his abrupt questions.
“What can you possibly be thinking of?” he asked.
She gave him no answer; she only looked at him reproachfully, and tried to release herself.
Hardyman held her hand faster than ever.
“I believe you think me an infernal scoundrel!” he said. “I can stand a good deal, Miss Isabel, but I can’t standthat. How have I failed in respect toward you, if you please? I have told you you’re the woman my heart is set on. Well? Isn’t it plain what I want of you, when I say that? Isabel Miller, I want you to be my wife!”
Isabel’s only reply to this extraordinary proposal of marriage was a faint cry of astonishment, followed by a sudden trembling that shook her from head to foot.
Hardyman put his arm round her with a gentleness which his oldest friend would have been surprised to see in him.
“Take your time to think of it,” he said, dropping back again into his usual quiet tone. “If you had known me a little better you wouldn’t have mistaken me, and you wouldn’t be looking at me now as if you were afraid to believe your own ears. What is there so very wonderful in my wanting to marry you? I don’t set up for being a saint. When I was a younger man I was no better (and no worse) than other young men. I’m getting on now to middle life. I don’t want romances and adventures—I want an easy existence with a nice lovable woman who will make me a good wife. You’re the woman, I tell you again. I know it by what I’ve seen of you myself, and by what I have heard of you from Lady Lydiard. She said you were prudent, and sweet-tempered, and affectionate; to which I wish to add that you have just the face and figure that I like, and the modest manners and the blessed absence of all slang in your talk, which I don’t find in the young women I meet with in the present day. That’s my view of it: I think for myself. What does it matter to me whether you’re the daughter of a Duke or the daughter of a Dairyman? It isn’t your father I want to marry—it’s you. Listen to reason, there’s a dear! We have only one question to settle before we go back to your aunt. You wouldn’t answer me when I asked it a little while since. Will you answer now?Doyou like me?”
Isabel looked up at him timidly.
“In my position, sir,” she asked, “have I any right to like you? What would your relations and friends think, if I said Yes?”
Hardyman gave her waist a little admonitory squeeze with his arm
“What? You’re at it again? A nice way to answer a man, to call him ‘Sir,’ and to get behind his rank as if it was a place of refuge from him! I hate talking of myself, but you force me to it. Here is my position in the world—I have got an elder brother; he is married, and he has a son to succeed him, in the title and the property. You understand, so far? Very well! Years ago I shifted my share of the rank (whatever it may be) on to my brother’s shoulders. He is a thorough good fellow, and he has carried my dignity for me, without once dropping it, ever since. As for what people may say, they have said it already, from my father and mother downward, in the time when I took to the horses and the farm. If they’re the wise people I take them for, they won’t be at the trouble of saying it all over again. No, no. Twist it how you may, Miss Isabel, whether I’m single or whether I’m married, I’m plain Alfred Hardyman; and everybody who knows me knows that I go on my way, and please myself. If you don’t like me, it will be the bitterest disappointment I ever had in my life; but say so honestly, all the same.”
Where is the woman in Isabel’s place whose capacity for resistance would not have yielded a little to such an appeal as this?
“I should be an insensible wretch,” she replied warmly, “if I didn’t feel the honor you have done me, and feel it gratefully.”
“Does that mean you will have me for a husband?” asked downright Hardyman.
She was fairly driven into a corner; but (being a woman) she tried to slip through his fingers at the last moment.
“Will you forgive me,” she said, “if I ask you for a little more time? I am so bewildered, I hardly know what to say or do for the best. You see, Mr. Hardyman, it would be a dreadful thing for me to be the cause of giving offense to your family. I am obliged to think of that. It would be so distressing for you (I will say nothing of myself) if your friends closed their doors on me. They might say I was a designing girl, who had taken advantage of your good opinion to raise herself in the world. Lady Lydiard warned me long since not to be ambitious about myself and not to forget my station in life, because she treated me like her adopted daughter. Indeed—indeed, I can’t tell you how I feel your goodness, and the compliment—the very great compliment, you pay me! My heart is free, and if I followed my own inclinations—” She checked herself, conscious that she was on the brink of saying too much. “Will you give me a few days,” she pleaded, “to try if I can think composedly of all this? I am only a girl, and I feel quite dazzled by the prospect that you set before me.”
Hardyman seized on those words as offering all the encouragement that he desired to his suit.
“Have your own way in this thing and in everything!” he said, with an unaccustomed fervor of language and manner. “I am so glad to hear that your heart is open to me, and that all your inclinations take my part.”
Isabel instantly protested against this misrepresentation of what she had really said, “Oh, Mr. Hardyman, you quite mistake me!”
He answered her very much as he had answered Lady Lydiard, when she had tried to make him understand his proper relations towards Isabel.
“No, no; I don’t mistake you. I agree to every word you say. How can I expect you to marry me, as you very properly remark, unless I give you a day or two to make up your mind? It’s quite enough for me that you like the prospect. If Lady Lydiard treated you as her daughter, why shouldn’t you be my wife? It stands to reason that you’re quite right to marry a man who can raise you in the world. I like you to be ambitious—though Heaven knows it isn’t much I can do for you, except to love you with all my heart. Still, it’s a great encouragement to hear that her Ladyship’s views agree with mine—”
“They don’t agree, Mr. Hardyman!” protested poor Isabel. “You are entirely misrepresenting—”
Hardyman cordially concurred in this view of the matter. “Yes! yes! I can’t pretend to represent her Ladyship’s language, or yours either; I am obliged to take my words as they come to me. Don’t disturb yourself: it’s all right—I understand. You have made me the happiest man living. I shall ride over to-morrow to your aunt’s house, and hear what you have to say to me. Mind you’re at home! Not a day must pass now without my seeing you. I do love you, Isabel—I do, indeed!” He stooped, and kissed her heartily. “Only to reward me,” he explained, “for giving you time to think.”
She drew herself away from him—resolutely, not angrily. Before she could make a third attempt to place the subject in its right light before him, the luncheon bell rang at the cottage—and a servant appeared evidently sent to look for them.
“Don’t forget to-morrow,” Hardyman whispered confidentially. “I’ll call early—and then go to London, and get the ring.”