Volume One—Chapter Eight.Uncle Luke Speaks his Mind.“Hallo, Scotchman!”“Hallo, Eng—I mean French—What am I to call you, Mr Luke Vine?”“Englishman, of course.”Uncle Luke was seated, in a very shabby-looking grey tweed Norfolk jacket made long, a garment which suited his tastes, from its being an easy comfortable article of attire. He had on an old Panama hat, a good deal stained, and had a thick stick armed with a strong iron point useful for walking among the rocks, and upon this staff he rested as he sat outside his cottage door watching the sea and pondering as to the probability of a shoal of fish being off the point.His home with its tiny scrap of rough walled-in garden, which grew nothing but sea holly and tamarisk, was desolate-looking in the extreme, but the view therefrom of the half natural pier sheltering the vessels in the harbour of the twin town was glorious.He had had his breakfast and taken his seat out in the sunshine, when he became aware of the fact that Duncan Leslie was coming down from the mine buildings above, and he hailed him with a snarl and the above words.“Glorious morning.”“Humph! Yes, but what’s that got to do with you?”“Everything. Do you suppose I don’t like fine weather?”“I thought you didn’t care for anything but money-grubbing.”“Then you were mistaken, because I do.”“Nonsense! You think of nothing but copper, spoiling the face of nature with the broken rubbish your men dig out of the bowels of the earth, poisoning the air with the fumes of those abominable furnaces. Look at that!”The old man raised his stick and made a vicious dig with it in the direction of the mine.“Look at what?”“That shaft. Looks like some huge worm that your men disturbed down below, and sent it crawling along the hill slope till it could rear its abominable head in the air and look which way to go to be at rest.”“It was there when I took the mine, and it answers its purpose.”“Bah! What purpose? To make money?”“Yes; to make money. Very useful thing, Mr Luke.”“Rubbish! You’re as bad as Van Heldre with his ships and his smelting works. Money! Money! Money! Always money, morning, noon, and night. One constant hunt for the accursed stuff. Look at me!”“I was looking at you, old fellow; and studying you.”“Humph! Waste of time, unless you follow my example.”“Then it will be waste of time, sir, for I certainly shall not follow your example.”“Why not, boy? Look at me. I have no troubles. I pay no rent. My wants are few. I am nearly independent of tradespeople and tax men. I’ve no slatternly wife to worry me, no young children to be always tumbling down the rocks or catching the measles. I’m free of all these troubles, and I’m a happy man.”“Well, then, your appearance belies you, sir, for you do not look it,” said Leslie laughing.“Never you mind my appearance,” said Uncle Luke sharply. “I am happy; at least, I should be, if you’d do away with that great smoky chimney and stop those rattling stamps.”“Then I’m afraid that I cannot oblige you, neighbour.”“Humph! Neighbour!”“I fancy that an unbiassed person would blame you and not me.”“Of course he would.”“He’d say if a man chooses to turn himself into a sort of modern Diogenes—”“Diogenes be hanged, sir! All a myth. I don’t believe there ever was such a body. And look here, Leslie, I imitate no man—no myth. I prefer to live this way for my own satisfaction, and I shall.”“And welcome for me, old fellow; only don’t scold me for living my way.”“Not going to. Here, stop! I want to talk to you. How’s copper?”“Up a good deal, but you don’t want to know.”“Of course I don’t. But look here. What do you think of my nephew?”“Tall, good-looking young fellow.”“Humph! What’s the good of that? You know all about him, of course?”“I should prefer not to sit in judgment on the gentleman in question.”“So I suppose. Nice boy, though, isn’t he?”Leslie was silent.“I say he’s a nice boy, isn’t he?” cried the old man, raising his voice.“I heard what you said. He is your nephew.”“Worse luck! How is he getting on at Van Heldre’s?”“I have not the least idea, sir.”“More have I. They won’t tell me. How about that friend of his? What do you think of him?”“Really, Mr Vine,” said Leslie, laughing, “I do not set up as a judge of young men’s character. It is nothing to me.”“Yes, it is. Do you suppose I’m blind? Do you suppose I can’t tell which way the wind blows? If I were young, do you know what I should do?”“Do away with the chimney-shaft and the stamps,” said Leslie, laughing.“No; I should just get hold of that fellow some night, and walk him to where the coach starts.”Leslie’s face looked warm.“And then I should say, ‘Jump up, and when you get to the station, book for London; and if ever you show your face in Hakemouth again I’ll break your neck.’”“You must excuse me, Mr Luke; I’m busy this morning,” said Leslie, and he began to descend the steep path.“Touched him on the tender place,” said Uncle Luke, with a chuckle. “Humph! wonder whether Louie will come and see me to-day.”Duncan Leslie went on down the zigzag cliff-path leading from the Wheal Germains copper-mine to the town. It was a picturesque way, with a fresh view at every turn west and east; and an advanced member of the town board had proposed and carried the suggestion of placing rough granite seats here and there in the best parts for resting those who climbed, and for giving others attractive places for sunning themselves and looking out to sea.About half-way down Leslie passed an invalid, who had taken possession of a seat, and was gazing right away south, and dreaming of lands where the sun always shone—wondering whether the bright maiden Health could be found there.Lower still Leslie was going on thoughtfully, pondering on Uncle Luke’s hints, when the blood suddenly flushed into his cheeks, his heart began to beat rapidly, and he increased his pace. For there unmistakably were two ladies going down the zigzag, and there were no two others in Hakemouth could be mistaken for them.He hurried on to overtake them. Then he checked himself.“Where had they been?”His sinking heart suggested that they had been on their way to visit Uncle Luke, but that they had caught sight of him, and in consequence returned.His brow grew gloomy, and he walked slowly on, when the blood flushed to his cheeks again, as if he had been surprised in some guilty act, for a sharp voice said—“No, Mr Leslie; you would not be able to overtake them now.”He stopped short, and turned to the warm sheltered nook among the rocks where Aunt Margaret was seated; her grey lavender dress was carefully spread about her, her white hair turned back beneath a black velvet satin-lined hood, and a lace fichu pinned across her breast.“You here, Miss Vine?”“Yes; and I thought I would save you a thankless effort. You could not overtake the girls unless you ran.”“I was not going to try and overtake them, Miss Vine,” said Leslie coldly.“Indeed! I beg your pardon; I thought you were. But would you mind, Mr Leslie—it is a very trifling request, but I set store by these little relics of our early history—MissMargueriteVine, if you would be so kind?”Leslie bowed. “Certainly, Miss Marguerite,” he said quietly.“Thank you,” she said, detaining him. “It is very good of you. Of course you are surprised to see me up here?”“Oh no,” said Leslie quietly. “It is a delightful place to sit and rest and read.”“Ye-es; but I cannot say that I care much for the rough walking of this part of the world, and my brother seems somehow to have taken quite a dislike to the idea of having a carriage?”“Yes?”“So I am obliged to walk when I do come out. There are certain duties one is forced to attend to. For instance, there is my poor brother up yonder. I feel bound to see him from time to time. You see him frequently, of course?”“Every day, necessarily. We are so near.”“Poor fellow! yes. Very eccentric and peculiar; but you need be under no apprehension, Mr Leslie. He is quite harmless, I am sure.”“Oh, quite harmless, Miss Marguerite. Merely original.”“It is very good of you to call it originality; but as friends, Mr Leslie, there is no harm in our alluding to his poor brain. Softening, a medical man told me.”“Hardening, I should say,” thought Leslie.“Very peculiar! very peculiar! Father and uncle both so different from my dear nephew. He is in very bad spirits. Ah! Mr Leslie, I shall be very glad to see him once more as a Des Vignes should be. With him placed in the position that should be his, and that engagement carried out regarding my darling Louise’s future, I could leave this world of sorrow without a sigh.”Leslie winced, but it was not perceptible to Aunt Marguerite, who, feeling dissatisfied with the result of her shot, fired again.“Of course it would involve losing my darling; but at my time of life, Mr Leslie, one has learned that it is one’s duty always to study self-sacrifice. The Des Vignes were always a self-sacrificing family. When it was not for some one or other of their kindred it was for their king, and then for their faith. You know our old French motto, Mr Leslie?”“I? No. I beg pardon.”“Really? I should have thought that you could not fail to see that. It is almost the only trace of our former greatness that my misguided brother—”“Were you alluding to Mr Luke Vine?”“No, no, no, no! To my brother, George des Vignes. Surely, Mr Leslie, you must have noted our arms upon the dining-room windows.”“Oh, yes, of course, of course; and the motto,Roy et Foy.”“Exactly,” said Aunt Marguerite, smiling. “I thought it must have caught your eye.” Something else was catching Duncan Leslie’s eye just then—the last flutter of the scarf Louise wore before it disappeared round the foot of the cliff.“I shall bear it, I dare say, and with fortitude, Mr Leslie, for it will be a grand position that she will take. The De Lignys are a family almost as old as our own; and fate might arrange for me to visit them and make a long stay. She’s a sweet girl, is she not, Mr Leslie?”“Miss Vine? Yes; you must be very proud of her,” said the young man, without moving a muscle.“We are; we are indeed, Mr Leslie; but I am afraid I am detaining you.”“It is curious,” said Leslie, as he walked slowly down the cliff-path. “De Ligny, De Ligny? Who is De Ligny? Well,” he added with a sigh, “I ought to thank Heaven that the name is not Pradelle.”
“Hallo, Scotchman!”
“Hallo, Eng—I mean French—What am I to call you, Mr Luke Vine?”
“Englishman, of course.”
Uncle Luke was seated, in a very shabby-looking grey tweed Norfolk jacket made long, a garment which suited his tastes, from its being an easy comfortable article of attire. He had on an old Panama hat, a good deal stained, and had a thick stick armed with a strong iron point useful for walking among the rocks, and upon this staff he rested as he sat outside his cottage door watching the sea and pondering as to the probability of a shoal of fish being off the point.
His home with its tiny scrap of rough walled-in garden, which grew nothing but sea holly and tamarisk, was desolate-looking in the extreme, but the view therefrom of the half natural pier sheltering the vessels in the harbour of the twin town was glorious.
He had had his breakfast and taken his seat out in the sunshine, when he became aware of the fact that Duncan Leslie was coming down from the mine buildings above, and he hailed him with a snarl and the above words.
“Glorious morning.”
“Humph! Yes, but what’s that got to do with you?”
“Everything. Do you suppose I don’t like fine weather?”
“I thought you didn’t care for anything but money-grubbing.”
“Then you were mistaken, because I do.”
“Nonsense! You think of nothing but copper, spoiling the face of nature with the broken rubbish your men dig out of the bowels of the earth, poisoning the air with the fumes of those abominable furnaces. Look at that!”
The old man raised his stick and made a vicious dig with it in the direction of the mine.
“Look at what?”
“That shaft. Looks like some huge worm that your men disturbed down below, and sent it crawling along the hill slope till it could rear its abominable head in the air and look which way to go to be at rest.”
“It was there when I took the mine, and it answers its purpose.”
“Bah! What purpose? To make money?”
“Yes; to make money. Very useful thing, Mr Luke.”
“Rubbish! You’re as bad as Van Heldre with his ships and his smelting works. Money! Money! Money! Always money, morning, noon, and night. One constant hunt for the accursed stuff. Look at me!”
“I was looking at you, old fellow; and studying you.”
“Humph! Waste of time, unless you follow my example.”
“Then it will be waste of time, sir, for I certainly shall not follow your example.”
“Why not, boy? Look at me. I have no troubles. I pay no rent. My wants are few. I am nearly independent of tradespeople and tax men. I’ve no slatternly wife to worry me, no young children to be always tumbling down the rocks or catching the measles. I’m free of all these troubles, and I’m a happy man.”
“Well, then, your appearance belies you, sir, for you do not look it,” said Leslie laughing.
“Never you mind my appearance,” said Uncle Luke sharply. “I am happy; at least, I should be, if you’d do away with that great smoky chimney and stop those rattling stamps.”
“Then I’m afraid that I cannot oblige you, neighbour.”
“Humph! Neighbour!”
“I fancy that an unbiassed person would blame you and not me.”
“Of course he would.”
“He’d say if a man chooses to turn himself into a sort of modern Diogenes—”
“Diogenes be hanged, sir! All a myth. I don’t believe there ever was such a body. And look here, Leslie, I imitate no man—no myth. I prefer to live this way for my own satisfaction, and I shall.”
“And welcome for me, old fellow; only don’t scold me for living my way.”
“Not going to. Here, stop! I want to talk to you. How’s copper?”
“Up a good deal, but you don’t want to know.”
“Of course I don’t. But look here. What do you think of my nephew?”
“Tall, good-looking young fellow.”
“Humph! What’s the good of that? You know all about him, of course?”
“I should prefer not to sit in judgment on the gentleman in question.”
“So I suppose. Nice boy, though, isn’t he?”
Leslie was silent.
“I say he’s a nice boy, isn’t he?” cried the old man, raising his voice.
“I heard what you said. He is your nephew.”
“Worse luck! How is he getting on at Van Heldre’s?”
“I have not the least idea, sir.”
“More have I. They won’t tell me. How about that friend of his? What do you think of him?”
“Really, Mr Vine,” said Leslie, laughing, “I do not set up as a judge of young men’s character. It is nothing to me.”
“Yes, it is. Do you suppose I’m blind? Do you suppose I can’t tell which way the wind blows? If I were young, do you know what I should do?”
“Do away with the chimney-shaft and the stamps,” said Leslie, laughing.
“No; I should just get hold of that fellow some night, and walk him to where the coach starts.”
Leslie’s face looked warm.
“And then I should say, ‘Jump up, and when you get to the station, book for London; and if ever you show your face in Hakemouth again I’ll break your neck.’”
“You must excuse me, Mr Luke; I’m busy this morning,” said Leslie, and he began to descend the steep path.
“Touched him on the tender place,” said Uncle Luke, with a chuckle. “Humph! wonder whether Louie will come and see me to-day.”
Duncan Leslie went on down the zigzag cliff-path leading from the Wheal Germains copper-mine to the town. It was a picturesque way, with a fresh view at every turn west and east; and an advanced member of the town board had proposed and carried the suggestion of placing rough granite seats here and there in the best parts for resting those who climbed, and for giving others attractive places for sunning themselves and looking out to sea.
About half-way down Leslie passed an invalid, who had taken possession of a seat, and was gazing right away south, and dreaming of lands where the sun always shone—wondering whether the bright maiden Health could be found there.
Lower still Leslie was going on thoughtfully, pondering on Uncle Luke’s hints, when the blood suddenly flushed into his cheeks, his heart began to beat rapidly, and he increased his pace. For there unmistakably were two ladies going down the zigzag, and there were no two others in Hakemouth could be mistaken for them.
He hurried on to overtake them. Then he checked himself.
“Where had they been?”
His sinking heart suggested that they had been on their way to visit Uncle Luke, but that they had caught sight of him, and in consequence returned.
His brow grew gloomy, and he walked slowly on, when the blood flushed to his cheeks again, as if he had been surprised in some guilty act, for a sharp voice said—
“No, Mr Leslie; you would not be able to overtake them now.”
He stopped short, and turned to the warm sheltered nook among the rocks where Aunt Margaret was seated; her grey lavender dress was carefully spread about her, her white hair turned back beneath a black velvet satin-lined hood, and a lace fichu pinned across her breast.
“You here, Miss Vine?”
“Yes; and I thought I would save you a thankless effort. You could not overtake the girls unless you ran.”
“I was not going to try and overtake them, Miss Vine,” said Leslie coldly.
“Indeed! I beg your pardon; I thought you were. But would you mind, Mr Leslie—it is a very trifling request, but I set store by these little relics of our early history—MissMargueriteVine, if you would be so kind?”
Leslie bowed. “Certainly, Miss Marguerite,” he said quietly.
“Thank you,” she said, detaining him. “It is very good of you. Of course you are surprised to see me up here?”
“Oh no,” said Leslie quietly. “It is a delightful place to sit and rest and read.”
“Ye-es; but I cannot say that I care much for the rough walking of this part of the world, and my brother seems somehow to have taken quite a dislike to the idea of having a carriage?”
“Yes?”
“So I am obliged to walk when I do come out. There are certain duties one is forced to attend to. For instance, there is my poor brother up yonder. I feel bound to see him from time to time. You see him frequently, of course?”
“Every day, necessarily. We are so near.”
“Poor fellow! yes. Very eccentric and peculiar; but you need be under no apprehension, Mr Leslie. He is quite harmless, I am sure.”
“Oh, quite harmless, Miss Marguerite. Merely original.”
“It is very good of you to call it originality; but as friends, Mr Leslie, there is no harm in our alluding to his poor brain. Softening, a medical man told me.”
“Hardening, I should say,” thought Leslie.
“Very peculiar! very peculiar! Father and uncle both so different from my dear nephew. He is in very bad spirits. Ah! Mr Leslie, I shall be very glad to see him once more as a Des Vignes should be. With him placed in the position that should be his, and that engagement carried out regarding my darling Louise’s future, I could leave this world of sorrow without a sigh.”
Leslie winced, but it was not perceptible to Aunt Marguerite, who, feeling dissatisfied with the result of her shot, fired again.
“Of course it would involve losing my darling; but at my time of life, Mr Leslie, one has learned that it is one’s duty always to study self-sacrifice. The Des Vignes were always a self-sacrificing family. When it was not for some one or other of their kindred it was for their king, and then for their faith. You know our old French motto, Mr Leslie?”
“I? No. I beg pardon.”
“Really? I should have thought that you could not fail to see that. It is almost the only trace of our former greatness that my misguided brother—”
“Were you alluding to Mr Luke Vine?”
“No, no, no, no! To my brother, George des Vignes. Surely, Mr Leslie, you must have noted our arms upon the dining-room windows.”
“Oh, yes, of course, of course; and the motto,Roy et Foy.”
“Exactly,” said Aunt Marguerite, smiling. “I thought it must have caught your eye.” Something else was catching Duncan Leslie’s eye just then—the last flutter of the scarf Louise wore before it disappeared round the foot of the cliff.
“I shall bear it, I dare say, and with fortitude, Mr Leslie, for it will be a grand position that she will take. The De Lignys are a family almost as old as our own; and fate might arrange for me to visit them and make a long stay. She’s a sweet girl, is she not, Mr Leslie?”
“Miss Vine? Yes; you must be very proud of her,” said the young man, without moving a muscle.
“We are; we are indeed, Mr Leslie; but I am afraid I am detaining you.”
“It is curious,” said Leslie, as he walked slowly down the cliff-path. “De Ligny, De Ligny? Who is De Ligny? Well,” he added with a sigh, “I ought to thank Heaven that the name is not Pradelle.”
Volume One—Chapter Nine.In Office Hours.“Now, my dear Mr Crampton, believe me, I am only actuated by a desire to do good.”“That’s exactly what actuates me, sir, when I make bold, after forty years’ service with you and your father, to tell you that you have made a great mistake.”“All men make mistakes, Crampton,” said Van Heldre to his plump, grey, stern-looking head clerk.“Yes, sir, but if they are then worth their salt they see where they have made a mistake, and try and correct it. We did not want him.”“As far as actual work to be done, no; but I will tell you plainly why I took on the young man. I wish to help my old friend in a peculiarly troubled period of his life.”“That’s you all over, Mr Van Heldre,” said the old clerk, pinching his very red nose, and then arranging his thin hair with a pen-holder, “but I can’t feel that it’s right. You see, the young man don’t take to his work. He comes and goes in a supercilious manner, and treats me as if I were his servant.”“Oh, that will soon pass off, Crampton.”“I hope so, Mr Van Heldre, sir, but his writing’s as bad as a schoolboy’s.”“That will improve.”“He’s always late of a morning.”“I’ll ask him to correct that.”“And he’s always doing what I hate in a young man, seeing how short is life, sir, and how soon we’re gone—he’s always looking at the clock and yawning.”“Never mind, Crampton, he’ll soon give up all that sort of thing. The young man is like an ill-trained tree. He has grown rather wild, but now he has been transplanted to an orderly office, to be under your constant supervision, he will gradually imbibe your habits and precision. It will be his making.”“Now, now, now,” said the old clerk, shaking his head, “that’s flattering, sir. My habits and precision. No, no, sir; I’m a very bad clerk, and I’m growing old as fast as I can.”“You are the best clerk in the west of England, Crampton, and you are only growing old at the customary rate. And now to oblige me look over these little blemishes in the young man’s character. There is a good deal of the spoiled boy in him, but I believe his heart’s right; and for more reasons than one I want him to develop into a good man of business—such a one as we can make of him if we try.”“Don’t say another word, Mr Van Heldre. You know me, and if I say as long as the young man is honest and straightforward I’ll do my best for him, I suppose that’s sufficient.”“More than sufficient, Crampton.”“But you know, sir, he ought to have made some little advance in a month.”“No, no, Crampton,” said Van Heldre, smiling, “he has not grown used to the new suit yet; have patience, and he’ll come right.”“That’s enough, sir,” said Crampton, climbing on to a high stool in front of a well-polished desk; “now for business. TheSt. Aubynhas taken in all her cargo, and will sail to-morrow. We ought soon to have news of theMadelaine. By the way, I hope Miss Madelaine’s quite well, sir. Haven’t seen her for a day and a half.”“Quite well, Crampton.”“That’s right, sir,” said the old man, smiling, and rubbing his hands. “Bless her! I’ve only one thing against her. Why wasn’t she a boy?”Van Heldre smiled at his old confidential man, who still rubbed his hands softly, and gazed over his silver-rimmed spectacles at a file of bills of lading hanging from the wall.“What a boy she would have made, and what a man I could have made of him! Van Heldre and Son once more, as it ought to be. I’d have made just such a man of business of him as I made of you. Going, sir?”“Yes, I’m going up to Tolzarn. By the way, send Mr Henry Vine up to me about twelve.”“Yes, sir,” said Crampton, beginning to write away very busily. “I suppose he’ll come?”“Of course, of course,” said Van Heldre, hastily, and leaving the office he went into the morning-room, where Madelaine was busy with her needle.She looked at him in an inquiring way, to which he had become accustomed during the past month, and in accordance with an unwritten contract.“No, my dear, not come yet.”Madelaine’s countenance changed as she saw her father glance at his watch, and she involuntarily darted a quick look at the clock on the chimney-piece.“I’m going up to the works,” continued Van Heldre. “Back before one. Morning.”Madelaine resumed her work for a few minutes, and then rose to stand where, unseen, she could watch the road. She saw her father go by up the valley, but her attention was turned toward the sea, from which direction Harry Vine would have to come.She stood watching for nearly a quarter of an hour before she heard a familiar step, and then the young man passed smoking the end of a cigar, which he threw away before turning in at the way which led to Van Heldre’s offices.Directly after, as Madelaine sat looking very thoughtful over her work, there was the quick patter of Mrs Van Heldre’s feet.“Madelaine, my dear,” she said as she entered, “I thought you said that Mr Pradelle had gone away a fortnight ago.”“I did, mamma.”“Well, then, he has come back again.”“Back again?”“Yes, I was at the up-stairs window just now and I saw him pass as I was looking out for Harry Vine. He’s very late this morning, and it does make papa so vexed.”It was late, for instead of being nine o’clock, the clock in the office was on the stroke of ten as Harry Vine hurriedly entered, and glanced at the yellowy-white faced dial.“Morning, Mr Crampton. I say, that clock’s fast, isn’t it?”“Eh? fast?” said the old man grimly. “No, Mr Harry Vine; that’s a steady old time-keeper, not a modern young man.”“Disagreeable old hunks,” said Harry to himself, as he hung up his hat. “Bad headache this morning, Mr Crampton, thought I shouldn’t be able to come.”“Seidlitz powder,” said the old man, scratching away with his pen. “Eh?”“Dissolve the blue in a tumbler of warm water.”“Bother!” muttered Harry, frowning.“The white in a wineglassful of cold. Pour one into the other—and—drink—while effervescing.”The intervals between some of the words were filled up by scratches of the pen.“Headache, eh? Bad things, sir, bad things.”He removed himself from his stool and went to the safe in the inner office, where Van Heldre generally sat, and Harry raised his head from his desk and listened, as he heard the rattling of keys and the clang of a small iron door.“Yes, bad things headaches, Mr Harry,” said the old man returning. “Try early hours for ’em; and look here, Mr Van Heldre says—”“Has he been in the office this morning?”“Yes, sir, he came in as soon as I’d come, nine to the minute, and he wants you to join him at the tin works about twelve.”“Wigging!” said guilty conscience.“Do your head good, sir.”Old Crampton resumed his seat, and for an hour and three-quarters, during which period Harry had several times looked at the clock and yawned, there was a constant scratching of pens.Then Harry Vine descended from his stool.“I’d better go now?”“Yes, sir, you’d better go now. And might have gone before for all the good you’ve done,” grumbled the old man, as Harry passed the window.The old man had hardly spent another half-hour over his work when there was a sharp tapping at the door, such as might be given by the knob on a stick.“Come in.”The door was opened, and Pradelle entered and gave a sharp look round.“Morning,” he said in a cavalier way. “Tell Mr Vine I want to speak to him for a moment.”Old Crampton looked up from his writing, and fixed his eyes on the visitor’s hat.“Not at home,” he said shortly.“How long will he be?”“Don’t know.”“Where has he gone?”“Tin works.”“Confounded old bear!” muttered Pradelle as he went out, after frowning severely at the old clerk, who did not see it.“Idle young puppy!” grumbled Crampton, dotting aniso fiercely that he drove his pen through the paper. “I’d have knocked his hat off if I had had my ruler handy.”Van Heldre was busy at work with a shovel when Harry Vine reached the tin-smelting works, which the merchant had added to his other ventures. He was beside a heap of what rather resembled wet coarsely ground coffee.“Ah, Harry,” he said, “you may as well learn all these things. Be useful some day. Take hold of that shovel and turn that over.”A strong mind generally acts upon one that is weak, and it was so here.Harry felt disposed, as he looked at his white hands, the shovel, and the heap, to thrust the said white hands into his pockets and walk away.But he took the shovel and plunged it in the heap, lifted it full, and then with a look of disgust said—“What am I to do with it?”“Shovel it away and get more out of the centre.”Harry obeyed, and looked up.“Now take a couple of handfuls and examine them. Don’t be afraid, man, it’s honest dirt.”Van Heldre set the example, took a handful, and poured it from left to right and back.“Now,” he said, “take notice: that’s badly washed.”“Not soap enough,” said Harry, hiding his annoyance with an attempt at being facetious.“Not exactly,” said Van Heldre dryly; “bad work. Now when that tin is passed through the furnace there’ll be twice as much slag and refuse as there ought to be. That will do. Leave the shovel, I want you to take account of those slabs of tin. Mark them, number them, and enter them in this book. It will take you an hour. Then bring the account down to me at the office.”“I can have a man to move the slabs?”“No: they are all busy. If I were doing it, I should work without a man.”“Hang it all! I’m about sick of this,” said Harry. “How mad Aunt Marguerite would be if she could see me now!”He looked round at the low dirty sheds on one side, at the row of furnaces on the other, two of which emitted a steady roar as the tin within gradually turned from a brown granulated powder to a golden fluid, whose stony scum was floating on the top.“It’s enough to make any man kick against his fate. Nice occupation for a gentleman, ’pon my word!”A low whistle made him look up. “Why, Vic,” he cried; “I thought you were in town.”“How are you, my Trojan?” cried the visitor boisterously. “I was in town, but I’ve come back. I say, cheerful work this for Monsieur le Comte Henri des Vignes!”“Don’t chaff a fellow,” said Harry angrily. “What brought you down?”“Two things.”“Now, look here, Vic. Don’t say any more about that. Perhaps after a time I may get her to think differently, but now—”“I was not going to say anything about your sister, my dear boy. I can wait and bear anything. But I suppose I may say something about you.”“About me?”“Yes. I’ve got a splendid thing on. Safe to make money—heaps of it.”“Yes; but your schemes always want money first.”“Well, hang it all, lad! you can’t expect a crop of potatoes without planting a few bits first. It wouldn’t want much. Only about fifty pounds. A hundred would be better, but we could make fifty do.”Harry shook his head.“Come, come; you haven’t heard half yet. I’ve the genuine information. It would be worth a pile of money. It’s our chance now—such a chance as may never occur again.”“No, no; don’t tempt me, Vic,” said Harry, after a long whispered conversation.“Tempt? I feel disposed to force you, lad. It makes me half wild to see you degraded to such work as this. Why, if we do as I propose, you will be in a position to follow out your aunt’s instructions, engage lawyers to push on your case, and while you obtain your rights, I shall be in a position to ask your sister’s hand without the chance of a refusal. I tell you the thing’s safe.”“No, no,” said Harry, shaking his head; “it’s too risky. We should lose and be worse off than ever.”“With a horse like that, and me with safe private information about him!”“No,” said Harry, “I won’t. I’m going to keep steadily on here, and, as the governor calls it, plod.”“That you’re not, if I know it,” cried Pradelle, indignantly. “I won’t stand it. It’s disgraceful. You shan’t throw yourself away.”“But I’ve got no money, old fellow.”“Nonsense! Get some of the old man.”“No; I’ve done it too often. He won’t stand it now.”“Well, of your aunt.”“She hasn’t a penny but what my father lets her have.”“Your sister. Come, she would let you have some.”Harry shook his head.“No, I’m not going to ask her. It’s no good, Vic; I won’t.”“Well,” said Pradelle, apostrophising an ingot of tin as it lay at his feet glistening with iridescent hues, “if any one had told me, I wouldn’t have believed it. Why, Harry, lad, you’ve only been a month at this mill-horse life, and you’re quite changed. What have they been doing to you, man?”“Breaking my spirit, I suppose they’d call it,” said the young man bitterly.Harry shook his head.“Get out! I won’t have it. You want waking up,” said Pradelle, in a low, earnest voice. “Think, lad, a few pounds placed as I could place ’em, and there’s fortune for us both, without reckoning on what you could do in France. As your aunt says, there’s money and a title waiting for you, if you’ll only stretch out your hand to take ’em. Come, rouse yourself. Harry Vine isn’t the lad to settle down to this drudgery. Why, I thought it was one of the workmen when I came up.”“It’s of no use,” said Harry gloomily, as he seated himself on the ingots of tin. “A man must submit to his fate.”“Bah! a man’s fate is what he makes it. Look here; fifty or a hundred borrowed for a few days, and then repaid.”“But suppose—”“Suppose!” cried Pradelle mockingly; “a business man has no time to suppose. He strikes while the iron’s hot. You’re going to strike iron, not tin.”“How? Where’s the money?”“Where’s the money?” said Pradelle mockingly. “You want fifty or a hundred for a few days, when you could return it fifty times over; and you say, where’s the money?”“Don’t I tell you I have no one I could borrow from?” said Harry angrily.“Yes, you have,” said Pradelle, sinking his voice. “It’s easy as easy. Only for a few days. A temporary loan. Look here.”He bent down, and whispered a few words in the young man’s ear, words which turned him crimson, and then deadly pale.“Pradelle!” he cried, in a hoarse whisper; “are you mad?”“No. I was thinking of coming over to Auvergne to spend a month with my friend, the Count. By and by, dear lad—by and by.”“No, no; it is impossible,” said Harry, hoarsely, and he gave a hasty glance round. “I couldn’t do that.”“You could,” said Pradelle, and then to himself; “and, if I know you, Harry Vine, you shall.”
“Now, my dear Mr Crampton, believe me, I am only actuated by a desire to do good.”
“That’s exactly what actuates me, sir, when I make bold, after forty years’ service with you and your father, to tell you that you have made a great mistake.”
“All men make mistakes, Crampton,” said Van Heldre to his plump, grey, stern-looking head clerk.
“Yes, sir, but if they are then worth their salt they see where they have made a mistake, and try and correct it. We did not want him.”
“As far as actual work to be done, no; but I will tell you plainly why I took on the young man. I wish to help my old friend in a peculiarly troubled period of his life.”
“That’s you all over, Mr Van Heldre,” said the old clerk, pinching his very red nose, and then arranging his thin hair with a pen-holder, “but I can’t feel that it’s right. You see, the young man don’t take to his work. He comes and goes in a supercilious manner, and treats me as if I were his servant.”
“Oh, that will soon pass off, Crampton.”
“I hope so, Mr Van Heldre, sir, but his writing’s as bad as a schoolboy’s.”
“That will improve.”
“He’s always late of a morning.”
“I’ll ask him to correct that.”
“And he’s always doing what I hate in a young man, seeing how short is life, sir, and how soon we’re gone—he’s always looking at the clock and yawning.”
“Never mind, Crampton, he’ll soon give up all that sort of thing. The young man is like an ill-trained tree. He has grown rather wild, but now he has been transplanted to an orderly office, to be under your constant supervision, he will gradually imbibe your habits and precision. It will be his making.”
“Now, now, now,” said the old clerk, shaking his head, “that’s flattering, sir. My habits and precision. No, no, sir; I’m a very bad clerk, and I’m growing old as fast as I can.”
“You are the best clerk in the west of England, Crampton, and you are only growing old at the customary rate. And now to oblige me look over these little blemishes in the young man’s character. There is a good deal of the spoiled boy in him, but I believe his heart’s right; and for more reasons than one I want him to develop into a good man of business—such a one as we can make of him if we try.”
“Don’t say another word, Mr Van Heldre. You know me, and if I say as long as the young man is honest and straightforward I’ll do my best for him, I suppose that’s sufficient.”
“More than sufficient, Crampton.”
“But you know, sir, he ought to have made some little advance in a month.”
“No, no, Crampton,” said Van Heldre, smiling, “he has not grown used to the new suit yet; have patience, and he’ll come right.”
“That’s enough, sir,” said Crampton, climbing on to a high stool in front of a well-polished desk; “now for business. TheSt. Aubynhas taken in all her cargo, and will sail to-morrow. We ought soon to have news of theMadelaine. By the way, I hope Miss Madelaine’s quite well, sir. Haven’t seen her for a day and a half.”
“Quite well, Crampton.”
“That’s right, sir,” said the old man, smiling, and rubbing his hands. “Bless her! I’ve only one thing against her. Why wasn’t she a boy?”
Van Heldre smiled at his old confidential man, who still rubbed his hands softly, and gazed over his silver-rimmed spectacles at a file of bills of lading hanging from the wall.
“What a boy she would have made, and what a man I could have made of him! Van Heldre and Son once more, as it ought to be. I’d have made just such a man of business of him as I made of you. Going, sir?”
“Yes, I’m going up to Tolzarn. By the way, send Mr Henry Vine up to me about twelve.”
“Yes, sir,” said Crampton, beginning to write away very busily. “I suppose he’ll come?”
“Of course, of course,” said Van Heldre, hastily, and leaving the office he went into the morning-room, where Madelaine was busy with her needle.
She looked at him in an inquiring way, to which he had become accustomed during the past month, and in accordance with an unwritten contract.
“No, my dear, not come yet.”
Madelaine’s countenance changed as she saw her father glance at his watch, and she involuntarily darted a quick look at the clock on the chimney-piece.
“I’m going up to the works,” continued Van Heldre. “Back before one. Morning.”
Madelaine resumed her work for a few minutes, and then rose to stand where, unseen, she could watch the road. She saw her father go by up the valley, but her attention was turned toward the sea, from which direction Harry Vine would have to come.
She stood watching for nearly a quarter of an hour before she heard a familiar step, and then the young man passed smoking the end of a cigar, which he threw away before turning in at the way which led to Van Heldre’s offices.
Directly after, as Madelaine sat looking very thoughtful over her work, there was the quick patter of Mrs Van Heldre’s feet.
“Madelaine, my dear,” she said as she entered, “I thought you said that Mr Pradelle had gone away a fortnight ago.”
“I did, mamma.”
“Well, then, he has come back again.”
“Back again?”
“Yes, I was at the up-stairs window just now and I saw him pass as I was looking out for Harry Vine. He’s very late this morning, and it does make papa so vexed.”
It was late, for instead of being nine o’clock, the clock in the office was on the stroke of ten as Harry Vine hurriedly entered, and glanced at the yellowy-white faced dial.
“Morning, Mr Crampton. I say, that clock’s fast, isn’t it?”
“Eh? fast?” said the old man grimly. “No, Mr Harry Vine; that’s a steady old time-keeper, not a modern young man.”
“Disagreeable old hunks,” said Harry to himself, as he hung up his hat. “Bad headache this morning, Mr Crampton, thought I shouldn’t be able to come.”
“Seidlitz powder,” said the old man, scratching away with his pen. “Eh?”
“Dissolve the blue in a tumbler of warm water.”
“Bother!” muttered Harry, frowning.
“The white in a wineglassful of cold. Pour one into the other—and—drink—while effervescing.”
The intervals between some of the words were filled up by scratches of the pen.
“Headache, eh? Bad things, sir, bad things.”
He removed himself from his stool and went to the safe in the inner office, where Van Heldre generally sat, and Harry raised his head from his desk and listened, as he heard the rattling of keys and the clang of a small iron door.
“Yes, bad things headaches, Mr Harry,” said the old man returning. “Try early hours for ’em; and look here, Mr Van Heldre says—”
“Has he been in the office this morning?”
“Yes, sir, he came in as soon as I’d come, nine to the minute, and he wants you to join him at the tin works about twelve.”
“Wigging!” said guilty conscience.
“Do your head good, sir.”
Old Crampton resumed his seat, and for an hour and three-quarters, during which period Harry had several times looked at the clock and yawned, there was a constant scratching of pens.
Then Harry Vine descended from his stool.
“I’d better go now?”
“Yes, sir, you’d better go now. And might have gone before for all the good you’ve done,” grumbled the old man, as Harry passed the window.
The old man had hardly spent another half-hour over his work when there was a sharp tapping at the door, such as might be given by the knob on a stick.
“Come in.”
The door was opened, and Pradelle entered and gave a sharp look round.
“Morning,” he said in a cavalier way. “Tell Mr Vine I want to speak to him for a moment.”
Old Crampton looked up from his writing, and fixed his eyes on the visitor’s hat.
“Not at home,” he said shortly.
“How long will he be?”
“Don’t know.”
“Where has he gone?”
“Tin works.”
“Confounded old bear!” muttered Pradelle as he went out, after frowning severely at the old clerk, who did not see it.
“Idle young puppy!” grumbled Crampton, dotting aniso fiercely that he drove his pen through the paper. “I’d have knocked his hat off if I had had my ruler handy.”
Van Heldre was busy at work with a shovel when Harry Vine reached the tin-smelting works, which the merchant had added to his other ventures. He was beside a heap of what rather resembled wet coarsely ground coffee.
“Ah, Harry,” he said, “you may as well learn all these things. Be useful some day. Take hold of that shovel and turn that over.”
A strong mind generally acts upon one that is weak, and it was so here.
Harry felt disposed, as he looked at his white hands, the shovel, and the heap, to thrust the said white hands into his pockets and walk away.
But he took the shovel and plunged it in the heap, lifted it full, and then with a look of disgust said—
“What am I to do with it?”
“Shovel it away and get more out of the centre.”
Harry obeyed, and looked up.
“Now take a couple of handfuls and examine them. Don’t be afraid, man, it’s honest dirt.”
Van Heldre set the example, took a handful, and poured it from left to right and back.
“Now,” he said, “take notice: that’s badly washed.”
“Not soap enough,” said Harry, hiding his annoyance with an attempt at being facetious.
“Not exactly,” said Van Heldre dryly; “bad work. Now when that tin is passed through the furnace there’ll be twice as much slag and refuse as there ought to be. That will do. Leave the shovel, I want you to take account of those slabs of tin. Mark them, number them, and enter them in this book. It will take you an hour. Then bring the account down to me at the office.”
“I can have a man to move the slabs?”
“No: they are all busy. If I were doing it, I should work without a man.”
“Hang it all! I’m about sick of this,” said Harry. “How mad Aunt Marguerite would be if she could see me now!”
He looked round at the low dirty sheds on one side, at the row of furnaces on the other, two of which emitted a steady roar as the tin within gradually turned from a brown granulated powder to a golden fluid, whose stony scum was floating on the top.
“It’s enough to make any man kick against his fate. Nice occupation for a gentleman, ’pon my word!”
A low whistle made him look up. “Why, Vic,” he cried; “I thought you were in town.”
“How are you, my Trojan?” cried the visitor boisterously. “I was in town, but I’ve come back. I say, cheerful work this for Monsieur le Comte Henri des Vignes!”
“Don’t chaff a fellow,” said Harry angrily. “What brought you down?”
“Two things.”
“Now, look here, Vic. Don’t say any more about that. Perhaps after a time I may get her to think differently, but now—”
“I was not going to say anything about your sister, my dear boy. I can wait and bear anything. But I suppose I may say something about you.”
“About me?”
“Yes. I’ve got a splendid thing on. Safe to make money—heaps of it.”
“Yes; but your schemes always want money first.”
“Well, hang it all, lad! you can’t expect a crop of potatoes without planting a few bits first. It wouldn’t want much. Only about fifty pounds. A hundred would be better, but we could make fifty do.”
Harry shook his head.
“Come, come; you haven’t heard half yet. I’ve the genuine information. It would be worth a pile of money. It’s our chance now—such a chance as may never occur again.”
“No, no; don’t tempt me, Vic,” said Harry, after a long whispered conversation.
“Tempt? I feel disposed to force you, lad. It makes me half wild to see you degraded to such work as this. Why, if we do as I propose, you will be in a position to follow out your aunt’s instructions, engage lawyers to push on your case, and while you obtain your rights, I shall be in a position to ask your sister’s hand without the chance of a refusal. I tell you the thing’s safe.”
“No, no,” said Harry, shaking his head; “it’s too risky. We should lose and be worse off than ever.”
“With a horse like that, and me with safe private information about him!”
“No,” said Harry, “I won’t. I’m going to keep steadily on here, and, as the governor calls it, plod.”
“That you’re not, if I know it,” cried Pradelle, indignantly. “I won’t stand it. It’s disgraceful. You shan’t throw yourself away.”
“But I’ve got no money, old fellow.”
“Nonsense! Get some of the old man.”
“No; I’ve done it too often. He won’t stand it now.”
“Well, of your aunt.”
“She hasn’t a penny but what my father lets her have.”
“Your sister. Come, she would let you have some.”
Harry shook his head.
“No, I’m not going to ask her. It’s no good, Vic; I won’t.”
“Well,” said Pradelle, apostrophising an ingot of tin as it lay at his feet glistening with iridescent hues, “if any one had told me, I wouldn’t have believed it. Why, Harry, lad, you’ve only been a month at this mill-horse life, and you’re quite changed. What have they been doing to you, man?”
“Breaking my spirit, I suppose they’d call it,” said the young man bitterly.
Harry shook his head.
“Get out! I won’t have it. You want waking up,” said Pradelle, in a low, earnest voice. “Think, lad, a few pounds placed as I could place ’em, and there’s fortune for us both, without reckoning on what you could do in France. As your aunt says, there’s money and a title waiting for you, if you’ll only stretch out your hand to take ’em. Come, rouse yourself. Harry Vine isn’t the lad to settle down to this drudgery. Why, I thought it was one of the workmen when I came up.”
“It’s of no use,” said Harry gloomily, as he seated himself on the ingots of tin. “A man must submit to his fate.”
“Bah! a man’s fate is what he makes it. Look here; fifty or a hundred borrowed for a few days, and then repaid.”
“But suppose—”
“Suppose!” cried Pradelle mockingly; “a business man has no time to suppose. He strikes while the iron’s hot. You’re going to strike iron, not tin.”
“How? Where’s the money?”
“Where’s the money?” said Pradelle mockingly. “You want fifty or a hundred for a few days, when you could return it fifty times over; and you say, where’s the money?”
“Don’t I tell you I have no one I could borrow from?” said Harry angrily.
“Yes, you have,” said Pradelle, sinking his voice. “It’s easy as easy. Only for a few days. A temporary loan. Look here.”
He bent down, and whispered a few words in the young man’s ear, words which turned him crimson, and then deadly pale.
“Pradelle!” he cried, in a hoarse whisper; “are you mad?”
“No. I was thinking of coming over to Auvergne to spend a month with my friend, the Count. By and by, dear lad—by and by.”
“No, no; it is impossible,” said Harry, hoarsely, and he gave a hasty glance round. “I couldn’t do that.”
“You could,” said Pradelle, and then to himself; “and, if I know you, Harry Vine, you shall.”
Volume One—Chapter Ten.Harry Vine has a Want.Breakfast-time, with George Vine quietly partaking of his toast and giving furtive glances at aBeloein a small squat bottle. He was feeding his mind at the same time that he supplied the wants of his body. Now it was a bite of toast, leaving in the embrowned bread such a mark as was seen by the dervish when the man asked after the lost camel; for the student of molluscous sea-life had lost a front tooth. Now it was a glance at the little gooseberry-shaped creature, clear as crystal, glistening in the clear water with iridescent hues, and trailing behind it a couple of filaments of an extreme delicacy and beauty that warranted the student’s admiration.Louise was seated opposite, performing matutinal experiments, so it seemed, with pots, cups, an urn, and various infusions and crystals.Pradelle was reading the paper, and Harry was dividing his time between eating some fried ham and glancing at the clock, which was pointing in the direction of the hour when he should be at Van Heldre’s.“More tea, Louie; too sweet,” said the head of the house, passing his cup,viaPradelle.The cup was filled up and passed back, Louise failing to notice that Pradelle manoeuvred to touch her hand as he played his part in the transfer. Then the door opened, and Liza, the brown-faced, black-haired Cornish maid, entered, bearing a tray with an untouched cup of tea, a brown piece of ham on its plate, and a little covered dish of hot toast.“Please, ’m, Miss Vine says she don’t want no breakfast this morning.”TheBeloebottle dropped back into George Vine’s pocket.“Eh! My sister ill?” he said anxiously.“No, sir; she seems quite well, but she was gashly cross with me, and said why didn’t Miss Louie bring it up.”“Liza, I forbad you to use that foolish word, ‘gashly,’” said Louise, pouring out a fresh cup of tea, and changing it for the one cooling on the tray.“Why don’t you take up auntie’s breakfast as you always do! You know she doesn’t like it sent up.”Louise made no reply to her brother, but turned to Pradelle.“You will excuse me for a few minutes, Mr Pradelle,” she said, as she rose.“Excuse—you?” he replied, with a peculiar smile; and, rising in turn, he managed so badly as he hurried to the door to open it for Louise’s passage with the tray, that he and Liza, bent on the same errand, came into collision.“Thank you, Mr Pradelle,” said Louise, quietly, as she passed out with the tray, and Liza gave him an indignant glance as she closed the door.“Ha, ha! What a bungle!” cried Harry mockingly, as he helped himself to more ham.George Vine was absorbed once more in the study of theBeloe.“Never you mind, my lord the count,” said Pradelle in an undertone; “I don’t see that you get on so very well.”Harry winced.“What are you going to do this morning?”“Fish.”“Humph! well to be you,” said Harry, with a vicious bite at his bread, while his father was too much absorbed in his study even to hear. “You’re going loafing about, and I’ve got to go and turn that grindstone.”“Which you can leave whenever you like,” said Pradelle meaningly.“Hold your tongue!” cried Harry roughly, as the door re-opened, and Louise, looking slightly flushed, again took her place at the table.“Aunt poorly?” said Vine.“Oh, no, papa; she is having her breakfast now.”“If you’re too idle to take up auntie’s breakfast, I’ll take it,” said Harry severely. “Don’t send it up by that girl again.”“I shall always take it myself, Harry,” said Louise quietly.The breakfast was ended; George Vine went to his study to feed his sea-anemones on chopped whelk; Pradelle made an excuse about fishing lines, after reading plainly enough that his presence was unwelcome; and Harry stood with his hands in his pockets, looking on as his sister put away the tea-caddy.“Will you not be late, Harry?”“Perhaps,” he said, ill-humouredly. “I shall be there as soon as old bottle-nose I dare say.”“How long is Mr Pradelle going to stay?”“Long as I like.”There was a pause. Then Harry continued. “He’s a friend of mine, a gentleman, and Aunt Marguerite likes him to stay.”“Yes,” said Louise gravely. “Aunt Marguerite seems to like him.”“And so do you, only you’re such a precious coquette.”Louise raised her eyebrows. This was news to her, but she said nothing.“The more any one sees of Pradelle the more one likes him. Deal nicer fellow than that Scotch prig Leslie.”There was a slight flush on Louise Vine’s face, but she did not speak, merely glanced at the clock.“All right: I’m not going yet.”Then, changing his manner—“Oh, Lou, you can’t think what a life it is,” he cried impetuously.“Why, Harry, it ought to be a very pleasant one.”“What, with your nose over an account book, and every time you happen to look up, old Crampton staring at you as much as to say, ‘Why don’t you go on?’”“Never mind, dear. Try and think that it is for your good.”“For my good!” he said with a mocking laugh.“Yes, and to please father. Why, Harry dear, is it not something to have a chance to redeem your character?”“Redeem my grandmother! I’ve never lost it. Why, Lou, it’s too bad. Here’s father rich as a Jew, and Uncle Luke with no end of money.”“Has he, Harry?” said Louise thoughtfully. “Really I don’t know.”“I’m sure he has—lots. A jolly old miser, and no one to leave it to; and I don’t see then why I should be ground down to work like an errand-boy.”“Don’t make a sentimental grievance of it, dear, but go and do your duty like a man.”“If I do my duty like a man I shall go and try to recover the French estates which my father neglects.”“No, don’t do that, dear; go and get my old school spelling-book and read the fable of the dog and the shadow.”“There you go, sneering again. You women can’t understand a fellow. Here am I worried to death for money, and have to drudge as old Van Heldre’s clerk.”“Worried for money, Harry? What nonsense!”“I am. You don’t know. I say, Lou dear.”“Now, Harry! you will be so late.”“I won’t go at all if you don’t listen to me. Look here; I want fifty pounds.”“What for?”“Never mind. Will you lend it to me?”“But what can you want with fifty pounds, Harry? You’re not in debt?”“You’ve got some saved up. Now, lend it to me, there’s a good girl; I’ll pay you again, honour bright.”“Harry, I’ve lent you money till I’m tired of lending, and you never do pay me back.”“But I will this time.”Louise shook her head.“What, you don’t believe me?”“I believe you would pay me again if you had the money; but if I lent it you would spend it, and be as poor as ever in a month.”“Not this time, Lou. Lend it to me.”She shook her head.“Then hang me if I don’t go and ask Duncan Leslie.”“Harry! No; you would not degrade yourself to that.”“Will you lend it?”“No.”“Then I will ask him. The poor fool will think it will please you, and lend it directly. I’ll make it a hundred whilst I’m about it.”“Harry!”“Too late now,” he cried, and he hurried away.“Oh!” ejaculated Louise, as she stood gazing after him with her cheeks burning.“No,” she said, after a pause; “it was only a threat; he would not dare.”“Harry gone to his office?” said Vine, entering the room. “Yes, dear.”“Mr Pradelle gone too?”“Yes, dear; fishing, I think.”“Hum. Makes this house quite his home.”“Yes, papa; and do you think we are doing right?”“Eh?” said Vine sharply, as he dragged his mind back from where it had gone under a tide-covered rock. “Oh, I see, about having that young man here. Well, Louie, it’s like this: I don’t want to draw the rein too tightly. Harry is at work now, and keeping to it. Van Heldre says his conduct is very fair. Harry likes Mr Pradelle, and they are old companions, so I feel disposed to wink at the intimacy, so long as our boy keeps to his business.”“Perhaps you are right, dear,” said Louise.“You don’t like Mr Pradelle, my dear?”“No, I do not.”“No fear of his robbing me of you, eh?”“Oh, father!”“That’s right; that’s right; and look here, as we’re talking about that little thing which makes the world go round, please understand this, and help me, my dear. There’s to be no nonsense between Harry and Madelaine.”“Then you don’t like Madelaine?”“Eh? What? Not like her? Bless her! You’ve almost cause to be jealous, only you need not be, for I’ve room in my heart for both of you. I love her too well to let her be made uncomfortable by our family scapegrace. Dear me! I’m sure that it has.”“Have you lost anything, dear?”“Yes, a glass stopper. Perhaps I left it in my room. Mustn’t lose it; stoppers cost money.”“And here’s some money of yours, father.”“Eh? Oh, that change.”“Twenty-five shillings.”“Put it on the chimney-piece, my clear; I’ll take it presently. We will not be hard on Harry. Let him have his companion. We shall get him round by degrees. Ah, here comes some one to tempt you away.”In effect Madelaine was passing the window on her way to the front entrance; but Vine forgot all about his glass stopper for the moment, and threw open the glass door.“Come in here, my clear,” he said. “We were just talking about you.”“About me, Mr Vine? Whatever were you saying?”“Slander of course, of course.”“My father desired to be kindly remembered, and I was to say, ‘Very satisfactory so far?’”“Very satisfactory so far?” said Vine dreamily.“He said you would know what it meant.”“To be sure—to be sure. Louie, my dear, I’m afraid your aunt is right. My brain is getting to be like that of a jelly-fish.”He nodded laughingly and left the room.“Did you meet Harry as you came?” said Louise, as soon as they were alone.“Yes; but he kept on one side of the street, and I was on the other.”“Didn’t he cross over to speak?”“No; he couldn’t see the Dutch fraulein—the Dutch doll.”“Oh, that’s cruel, Maddy. I did not think my aunt’s words could sting you.”“Well, sometimes I don’t think they do, but at others they seem to rankle. But look, isn’t that Mr Pradelle coming?”For answer Louise caught her friend’s hand to hurry her out of the room before Pradelle entered.
Breakfast-time, with George Vine quietly partaking of his toast and giving furtive glances at aBeloein a small squat bottle. He was feeding his mind at the same time that he supplied the wants of his body. Now it was a bite of toast, leaving in the embrowned bread such a mark as was seen by the dervish when the man asked after the lost camel; for the student of molluscous sea-life had lost a front tooth. Now it was a glance at the little gooseberry-shaped creature, clear as crystal, glistening in the clear water with iridescent hues, and trailing behind it a couple of filaments of an extreme delicacy and beauty that warranted the student’s admiration.
Louise was seated opposite, performing matutinal experiments, so it seemed, with pots, cups, an urn, and various infusions and crystals.
Pradelle was reading the paper, and Harry was dividing his time between eating some fried ham and glancing at the clock, which was pointing in the direction of the hour when he should be at Van Heldre’s.
“More tea, Louie; too sweet,” said the head of the house, passing his cup,viaPradelle.
The cup was filled up and passed back, Louise failing to notice that Pradelle manoeuvred to touch her hand as he played his part in the transfer. Then the door opened, and Liza, the brown-faced, black-haired Cornish maid, entered, bearing a tray with an untouched cup of tea, a brown piece of ham on its plate, and a little covered dish of hot toast.
“Please, ’m, Miss Vine says she don’t want no breakfast this morning.”
TheBeloebottle dropped back into George Vine’s pocket.
“Eh! My sister ill?” he said anxiously.
“No, sir; she seems quite well, but she was gashly cross with me, and said why didn’t Miss Louie bring it up.”
“Liza, I forbad you to use that foolish word, ‘gashly,’” said Louise, pouring out a fresh cup of tea, and changing it for the one cooling on the tray.
“Why don’t you take up auntie’s breakfast as you always do! You know she doesn’t like it sent up.”
Louise made no reply to her brother, but turned to Pradelle.
“You will excuse me for a few minutes, Mr Pradelle,” she said, as she rose.
“Excuse—you?” he replied, with a peculiar smile; and, rising in turn, he managed so badly as he hurried to the door to open it for Louise’s passage with the tray, that he and Liza, bent on the same errand, came into collision.
“Thank you, Mr Pradelle,” said Louise, quietly, as she passed out with the tray, and Liza gave him an indignant glance as she closed the door.
“Ha, ha! What a bungle!” cried Harry mockingly, as he helped himself to more ham.
George Vine was absorbed once more in the study of theBeloe.
“Never you mind, my lord the count,” said Pradelle in an undertone; “I don’t see that you get on so very well.”
Harry winced.
“What are you going to do this morning?”
“Fish.”
“Humph! well to be you,” said Harry, with a vicious bite at his bread, while his father was too much absorbed in his study even to hear. “You’re going loafing about, and I’ve got to go and turn that grindstone.”
“Which you can leave whenever you like,” said Pradelle meaningly.
“Hold your tongue!” cried Harry roughly, as the door re-opened, and Louise, looking slightly flushed, again took her place at the table.
“Aunt poorly?” said Vine.
“Oh, no, papa; she is having her breakfast now.”
“If you’re too idle to take up auntie’s breakfast, I’ll take it,” said Harry severely. “Don’t send it up by that girl again.”
“I shall always take it myself, Harry,” said Louise quietly.
The breakfast was ended; George Vine went to his study to feed his sea-anemones on chopped whelk; Pradelle made an excuse about fishing lines, after reading plainly enough that his presence was unwelcome; and Harry stood with his hands in his pockets, looking on as his sister put away the tea-caddy.
“Will you not be late, Harry?”
“Perhaps,” he said, ill-humouredly. “I shall be there as soon as old bottle-nose I dare say.”
“How long is Mr Pradelle going to stay?”
“Long as I like.”
There was a pause. Then Harry continued. “He’s a friend of mine, a gentleman, and Aunt Marguerite likes him to stay.”
“Yes,” said Louise gravely. “Aunt Marguerite seems to like him.”
“And so do you, only you’re such a precious coquette.”
Louise raised her eyebrows. This was news to her, but she said nothing.
“The more any one sees of Pradelle the more one likes him. Deal nicer fellow than that Scotch prig Leslie.”
There was a slight flush on Louise Vine’s face, but she did not speak, merely glanced at the clock.
“All right: I’m not going yet.”
Then, changing his manner—
“Oh, Lou, you can’t think what a life it is,” he cried impetuously.
“Why, Harry, it ought to be a very pleasant one.”
“What, with your nose over an account book, and every time you happen to look up, old Crampton staring at you as much as to say, ‘Why don’t you go on?’”
“Never mind, dear. Try and think that it is for your good.”
“For my good!” he said with a mocking laugh.
“Yes, and to please father. Why, Harry dear, is it not something to have a chance to redeem your character?”
“Redeem my grandmother! I’ve never lost it. Why, Lou, it’s too bad. Here’s father rich as a Jew, and Uncle Luke with no end of money.”
“Has he, Harry?” said Louise thoughtfully. “Really I don’t know.”
“I’m sure he has—lots. A jolly old miser, and no one to leave it to; and I don’t see then why I should be ground down to work like an errand-boy.”
“Don’t make a sentimental grievance of it, dear, but go and do your duty like a man.”
“If I do my duty like a man I shall go and try to recover the French estates which my father neglects.”
“No, don’t do that, dear; go and get my old school spelling-book and read the fable of the dog and the shadow.”
“There you go, sneering again. You women can’t understand a fellow. Here am I worried to death for money, and have to drudge as old Van Heldre’s clerk.”
“Worried for money, Harry? What nonsense!”
“I am. You don’t know. I say, Lou dear.”
“Now, Harry! you will be so late.”
“I won’t go at all if you don’t listen to me. Look here; I want fifty pounds.”
“What for?”
“Never mind. Will you lend it to me?”
“But what can you want with fifty pounds, Harry? You’re not in debt?”
“You’ve got some saved up. Now, lend it to me, there’s a good girl; I’ll pay you again, honour bright.”
“Harry, I’ve lent you money till I’m tired of lending, and you never do pay me back.”
“But I will this time.”
Louise shook her head.
“What, you don’t believe me?”
“I believe you would pay me again if you had the money; but if I lent it you would spend it, and be as poor as ever in a month.”
“Not this time, Lou. Lend it to me.”
She shook her head.
“Then hang me if I don’t go and ask Duncan Leslie.”
“Harry! No; you would not degrade yourself to that.”
“Will you lend it?”
“No.”
“Then I will ask him. The poor fool will think it will please you, and lend it directly. I’ll make it a hundred whilst I’m about it.”
“Harry!”
“Too late now,” he cried, and he hurried away.
“Oh!” ejaculated Louise, as she stood gazing after him with her cheeks burning.
“No,” she said, after a pause; “it was only a threat; he would not dare.”
“Harry gone to his office?” said Vine, entering the room. “Yes, dear.”
“Mr Pradelle gone too?”
“Yes, dear; fishing, I think.”
“Hum. Makes this house quite his home.”
“Yes, papa; and do you think we are doing right?”
“Eh?” said Vine sharply, as he dragged his mind back from where it had gone under a tide-covered rock. “Oh, I see, about having that young man here. Well, Louie, it’s like this: I don’t want to draw the rein too tightly. Harry is at work now, and keeping to it. Van Heldre says his conduct is very fair. Harry likes Mr Pradelle, and they are old companions, so I feel disposed to wink at the intimacy, so long as our boy keeps to his business.”
“Perhaps you are right, dear,” said Louise.
“You don’t like Mr Pradelle, my dear?”
“No, I do not.”
“No fear of his robbing me of you, eh?”
“Oh, father!”
“That’s right; that’s right; and look here, as we’re talking about that little thing which makes the world go round, please understand this, and help me, my dear. There’s to be no nonsense between Harry and Madelaine.”
“Then you don’t like Madelaine?”
“Eh? What? Not like her? Bless her! You’ve almost cause to be jealous, only you need not be, for I’ve room in my heart for both of you. I love her too well to let her be made uncomfortable by our family scapegrace. Dear me! I’m sure that it has.”
“Have you lost anything, dear?”
“Yes, a glass stopper. Perhaps I left it in my room. Mustn’t lose it; stoppers cost money.”
“And here’s some money of yours, father.”
“Eh? Oh, that change.”
“Twenty-five shillings.”
“Put it on the chimney-piece, my clear; I’ll take it presently. We will not be hard on Harry. Let him have his companion. We shall get him round by degrees. Ah, here comes some one to tempt you away.”
In effect Madelaine was passing the window on her way to the front entrance; but Vine forgot all about his glass stopper for the moment, and threw open the glass door.
“Come in here, my clear,” he said. “We were just talking about you.”
“About me, Mr Vine? Whatever were you saying?”
“Slander of course, of course.”
“My father desired to be kindly remembered, and I was to say, ‘Very satisfactory so far?’”
“Very satisfactory so far?” said Vine dreamily.
“He said you would know what it meant.”
“To be sure—to be sure. Louie, my dear, I’m afraid your aunt is right. My brain is getting to be like that of a jelly-fish.”
He nodded laughingly and left the room.
“Did you meet Harry as you came?” said Louise, as soon as they were alone.
“Yes; but he kept on one side of the street, and I was on the other.”
“Didn’t he cross over to speak?”
“No; he couldn’t see the Dutch fraulein—the Dutch doll.”
“Oh, that’s cruel, Maddy. I did not think my aunt’s words could sting you.”
“Well, sometimes I don’t think they do, but at others they seem to rankle. But look, isn’t that Mr Pradelle coming?”
For answer Louise caught her friend’s hand to hurry her out of the room before Pradelle entered.
Volume One—Chapter Eleven.Aunt Marguerite Studies a Comedy.That morning after breakfast Aunt Marguerite sat by her open window in her old-fashioned Frenchpeignoir.She saw Pradelle go out, and she smiled and beamed as he turned to look up at her window, and raised his hat before proceeding down into the back lanes of the port to inveigle an urchin into the task of obtaining for him a pot of ragworms for bait.Soon after she saw her nephew go out, but he did not raise his head. On the contrary, he bent it down, and heaved up his shoulders like a wet sailor, as he went on to his office.“Mon pauvre enfant!” she murmured, as she half closed her eyes, and kissed the tips of her fingers. “But wait a while, Henri,mon enfant, and all shall be well.”There was a lapse of time devoted to thought, and then Aunt Marguerite’s eyes glistened with malice, as she saw Madelaine approach.“Pah!” she ejaculated softly. “This might be Amsterdam or the Boompjes. Wretched Dutch wench! How can George tolerate her presence here!”Then Pradelle came back, but he did not look up this time, merely went to the door and entered, his eyes looking searchingly about as if in search of Louise.Lastly, a couple of particularly unseamanlike men, dressed in shiny tarpaulin hats and pea-jackets, with earrings and very smooth pomatumy hair, came into sight. Each man carried a pack and a big stick, and as they drew near their eyes wandered over window and door in a particularly searching way.They did not come to the front, but in a slouching, furtive way went past the front of the house and round to the back, where the next minute there was a low tapping made by the knob of a stick on a door, and soon after a buzzing murmur of voices arose.Aunt Marguerite had nothing whatever to do, and the murmur interested her to the extent of making her rise, go across her room, and through a door at the back into her bed-chamber, where an open lattice window had a chair beneath, and the said window being just over the back entrance from whence the murmur came, Aunt Marguerite had nothing to do but go and sit down there unseen, and hear every word that was said.“Yes,” said the familiar voice of brown-faced, black-haired Liza; “they’re beautiful, but I haven’t got the money.”“That there red ribbon ’d just soot you, my lass,” said a deep voice, so fuzzy that it must have come from under a woollen jacket.“Just look at that there hankychy, too,” said another deep voice. “Did you ever see a better match?”“Never,” said the other deep voice emphatically.“Yes, they’re very lovely, but I ain’t got the money. I let mother have all I had this week.”“Never mind the gashly money, my lass,” said the first deep-voiced man huskily, “ain’tcher got nothing you can sell?”Then arose a good deal of murmuring whisper, and Aunt Marguerite’s lips became like a pale pink line drawn across the lower part of her face, and both her eyes were closely shut.“Well, you wait,” was the concluding sentence of the whispered trio, and then the door was heard to shut.The click of a latch rose to where Aunt Marguerite sat, and then there was a trio once again—a whispered trio—ending with a little rustling, and the sound of heavy steps.Then the door closed, and Liza, daughter of Poll Perrow, the fish-woman, who carried a heavy maund by the help of a strap across her forehead, hurried up to her bedroom, and threw herself upon her knees as she spread two or three yards of brilliant red ribbon on the bed, and tastefully placed beside the ribbon an orange silk kerchief, whose united colours made her dark eyes sparkle with delight.The quick ringing of a bell put an end to the colour-worship, and Liza, with a hasty ejaculation, opened her box, thrust in her new treasures, dropped the lid, and locked it again before hurrying down to the dining-room, where she found her young mistress, her master, and Madelaine Van Heldre.“There was some change on the chimney-piece, Liza,” said Louise. “Did you see it?”“No, miss.”“It is very strange. You are quite sure you did not take it, papa?”“Quite, my clear.”“That will do, Liza.”The girl went out, looking scared.“It is very strange,” said Vine.“Yes, clear; and it is a great trouble to me. This is the third time money has been missing lately. I don’t like to suspect people, but one seems to be forced.”“But surely, Louie, dear, that poor girl would not take it.”“I have always tried to hope not, Maddy,” said Louise sadly.“You had better make a change.”“Send her away, father? How can I do that? How can I recommend her for another situation?”“Ah! it’s a puzzle—it’s a puzzle,” said Vine irritably. “One of the great difficulties of domestic service. I shall soon begin to think that your Uncle Luke is right after all. He has no troubles, eh, Louise?”She looked up in his face with a peculiar smile, but made no reply. Her father, however, seemed to read her look, and continued,“Ah, well, I dare say you are right, my dear; we can’t get away from trouble; and if we don’t have one kind we have another. Get more than our share, though, in this house.”Louise smiled in his face, and the comical aspect of chagrin displayed resulted in a general laugh.“Is one of the sea-anemones dead?”“Yes, confound it! and it has poisoned the water, so that I am afraid the rest will go.”“I think we can get over that trouble,” said Louise, laughing. “It will be an excuse for a pleasant ramble with you.”“Yes,” said Vine dryly, “but we shall not get over the trouble of the thief quite so well. I’m afraid these Perrows are a dishonest family. I’ll speak to the girl.”“No, father, leave it to me.”“Very well, my child; but I think you ought to speak.”The old man left the room, the bell was rung, and Liza summoned, when a scene of tears and protestations arose, resulting in a passionate declaration that Liza would tell her mother, that she would not stop in a house where she was going to be suspected, and that she had never taken anybody’s money but her own.“This is the third time that I have missed money, Liza, or I would not have spoken. If you took it, confess like a good girl, and we’ll forgive you if you promise never to take anything of the kind again.”“I can’t confess, miss, and won’t confess,” sobbed the girl. “Mother shall come and speak to you. I wouldn’t do such a thing.”“Where did you get the money with which you bought the red ribbon and orange kerchief this morning, Liza?” said a voice at the door.All started to see that Aunt Marguerite was there looking on, and apparently the recipient of all that had been said.Liza stood with eyes dilated, and jaw dropped.“Then you’ve been at my box,” she suddenly exclaimed. “All, what a shame!”“At your box, you wretched creature!” said Aunt Marguerite contemptuously. “Do you suppose I should go into your room?”“You’ve been opening my box,” said the girl again, more angrily; “and it’s a shame.”“I saw her take them up to her room, Louise. My dear, she was buying them under my window, of some pedlar. You had better send her away.”Liza did not wait to be sent away from the room, but ran out sobbing, to hurry up-stairs to her bed-chamber, open her box, and see if the brilliant specimens of silken fabric were safe, and then cry over them till they were blotched with her tears.“A bad family,” said Aunt Marguerite. “I’m quite sure that girl stole my piece of muslin lace, and gave it to that wretched woman your Uncle Luke encourages.”“No, no, aunt, you lost that piece of lace one day when you were out.”“Nonsense, child! your memory is not good. Who is that with you? Oh, I see; Miss Van Heldre.”Aunt Marguerite, after suddenly becoming aware of the presence of Madelaine, made a most ceremonious curtsy, and then sailed out of the room.“Louise must be forced to give up the companionship of that wretched Dutch girl,” she said as she reached her own door, at which she paused to listen to Liza sobbing.“I wonder what Miss Vine would have been like,” thought Madelaine, “if she had married some good sensible man, and had a large family to well employ her mind?” Then she asked herself what kind of man she would have selected as possessing the necessary qualifications, and concluded that he should have been such a man as Duncan Leslie, and wondered whether he would marry her friend.“Why, Madelaine,” said Louise, breaking her chain of thought, “what are you thinking about?”“Thinking about?” said the girl, starting, and colouring slightly. “Oh, I was thinking about Mr Leslie just then.”
That morning after breakfast Aunt Marguerite sat by her open window in her old-fashioned Frenchpeignoir.
She saw Pradelle go out, and she smiled and beamed as he turned to look up at her window, and raised his hat before proceeding down into the back lanes of the port to inveigle an urchin into the task of obtaining for him a pot of ragworms for bait.
Soon after she saw her nephew go out, but he did not raise his head. On the contrary, he bent it down, and heaved up his shoulders like a wet sailor, as he went on to his office.
“Mon pauvre enfant!” she murmured, as she half closed her eyes, and kissed the tips of her fingers. “But wait a while, Henri,mon enfant, and all shall be well.”
There was a lapse of time devoted to thought, and then Aunt Marguerite’s eyes glistened with malice, as she saw Madelaine approach.
“Pah!” she ejaculated softly. “This might be Amsterdam or the Boompjes. Wretched Dutch wench! How can George tolerate her presence here!”
Then Pradelle came back, but he did not look up this time, merely went to the door and entered, his eyes looking searchingly about as if in search of Louise.
Lastly, a couple of particularly unseamanlike men, dressed in shiny tarpaulin hats and pea-jackets, with earrings and very smooth pomatumy hair, came into sight. Each man carried a pack and a big stick, and as they drew near their eyes wandered over window and door in a particularly searching way.
They did not come to the front, but in a slouching, furtive way went past the front of the house and round to the back, where the next minute there was a low tapping made by the knob of a stick on a door, and soon after a buzzing murmur of voices arose.
Aunt Marguerite had nothing whatever to do, and the murmur interested her to the extent of making her rise, go across her room, and through a door at the back into her bed-chamber, where an open lattice window had a chair beneath, and the said window being just over the back entrance from whence the murmur came, Aunt Marguerite had nothing to do but go and sit down there unseen, and hear every word that was said.
“Yes,” said the familiar voice of brown-faced, black-haired Liza; “they’re beautiful, but I haven’t got the money.”
“That there red ribbon ’d just soot you, my lass,” said a deep voice, so fuzzy that it must have come from under a woollen jacket.
“Just look at that there hankychy, too,” said another deep voice. “Did you ever see a better match?”
“Never,” said the other deep voice emphatically.
“Yes, they’re very lovely, but I ain’t got the money. I let mother have all I had this week.”
“Never mind the gashly money, my lass,” said the first deep-voiced man huskily, “ain’tcher got nothing you can sell?”
Then arose a good deal of murmuring whisper, and Aunt Marguerite’s lips became like a pale pink line drawn across the lower part of her face, and both her eyes were closely shut.
“Well, you wait,” was the concluding sentence of the whispered trio, and then the door was heard to shut.
The click of a latch rose to where Aunt Marguerite sat, and then there was a trio once again—a whispered trio—ending with a little rustling, and the sound of heavy steps.
Then the door closed, and Liza, daughter of Poll Perrow, the fish-woman, who carried a heavy maund by the help of a strap across her forehead, hurried up to her bedroom, and threw herself upon her knees as she spread two or three yards of brilliant red ribbon on the bed, and tastefully placed beside the ribbon an orange silk kerchief, whose united colours made her dark eyes sparkle with delight.
The quick ringing of a bell put an end to the colour-worship, and Liza, with a hasty ejaculation, opened her box, thrust in her new treasures, dropped the lid, and locked it again before hurrying down to the dining-room, where she found her young mistress, her master, and Madelaine Van Heldre.
“There was some change on the chimney-piece, Liza,” said Louise. “Did you see it?”
“No, miss.”
“It is very strange. You are quite sure you did not take it, papa?”
“Quite, my clear.”
“That will do, Liza.”
The girl went out, looking scared.
“It is very strange,” said Vine.
“Yes, clear; and it is a great trouble to me. This is the third time money has been missing lately. I don’t like to suspect people, but one seems to be forced.”
“But surely, Louie, dear, that poor girl would not take it.”
“I have always tried to hope not, Maddy,” said Louise sadly.
“You had better make a change.”
“Send her away, father? How can I do that? How can I recommend her for another situation?”
“Ah! it’s a puzzle—it’s a puzzle,” said Vine irritably. “One of the great difficulties of domestic service. I shall soon begin to think that your Uncle Luke is right after all. He has no troubles, eh, Louise?”
She looked up in his face with a peculiar smile, but made no reply. Her father, however, seemed to read her look, and continued,
“Ah, well, I dare say you are right, my dear; we can’t get away from trouble; and if we don’t have one kind we have another. Get more than our share, though, in this house.”
Louise smiled in his face, and the comical aspect of chagrin displayed resulted in a general laugh.
“Is one of the sea-anemones dead?”
“Yes, confound it! and it has poisoned the water, so that I am afraid the rest will go.”
“I think we can get over that trouble,” said Louise, laughing. “It will be an excuse for a pleasant ramble with you.”
“Yes,” said Vine dryly, “but we shall not get over the trouble of the thief quite so well. I’m afraid these Perrows are a dishonest family. I’ll speak to the girl.”
“No, father, leave it to me.”
“Very well, my child; but I think you ought to speak.”
The old man left the room, the bell was rung, and Liza summoned, when a scene of tears and protestations arose, resulting in a passionate declaration that Liza would tell her mother, that she would not stop in a house where she was going to be suspected, and that she had never taken anybody’s money but her own.
“This is the third time that I have missed money, Liza, or I would not have spoken. If you took it, confess like a good girl, and we’ll forgive you if you promise never to take anything of the kind again.”
“I can’t confess, miss, and won’t confess,” sobbed the girl. “Mother shall come and speak to you. I wouldn’t do such a thing.”
“Where did you get the money with which you bought the red ribbon and orange kerchief this morning, Liza?” said a voice at the door.
All started to see that Aunt Marguerite was there looking on, and apparently the recipient of all that had been said.
Liza stood with eyes dilated, and jaw dropped.
“Then you’ve been at my box,” she suddenly exclaimed. “All, what a shame!”
“At your box, you wretched creature!” said Aunt Marguerite contemptuously. “Do you suppose I should go into your room?”
“You’ve been opening my box,” said the girl again, more angrily; “and it’s a shame.”
“I saw her take them up to her room, Louise. My dear, she was buying them under my window, of some pedlar. You had better send her away.”
Liza did not wait to be sent away from the room, but ran out sobbing, to hurry up-stairs to her bed-chamber, open her box, and see if the brilliant specimens of silken fabric were safe, and then cry over them till they were blotched with her tears.
“A bad family,” said Aunt Marguerite. “I’m quite sure that girl stole my piece of muslin lace, and gave it to that wretched woman your Uncle Luke encourages.”
“No, no, aunt, you lost that piece of lace one day when you were out.”
“Nonsense, child! your memory is not good. Who is that with you? Oh, I see; Miss Van Heldre.”
Aunt Marguerite, after suddenly becoming aware of the presence of Madelaine, made a most ceremonious curtsy, and then sailed out of the room.
“Louise must be forced to give up the companionship of that wretched Dutch girl,” she said as she reached her own door, at which she paused to listen to Liza sobbing.
“I wonder what Miss Vine would have been like,” thought Madelaine, “if she had married some good sensible man, and had a large family to well employ her mind?” Then she asked herself what kind of man she would have selected as possessing the necessary qualifications, and concluded that he should have been such a man as Duncan Leslie, and wondered whether he would marry her friend.
“Why, Madelaine,” said Louise, breaking her chain of thought, “what are you thinking about?”
“Thinking about?” said the girl, starting, and colouring slightly. “Oh, I was thinking about Mr Leslie just then.”
Volume One—Chapter Twelve.Uncle Luke’s Spare Cash.“Late again,” said old Crampton, as Harry Vine entered the office.“How I do hate the sight of that man’s nose!” said the young man; and he stared hard, as if forced by some attraction.The old clerk frowned, and felt annoyed. “I beg pardon,” he said.“Granted,” said Harry, coolly.“I said I beg pardon, Mr Harry Vine.”“I heard you.”“But I thought you spoke.”“No,” grumbled Harry; “I didn’t speak.”“Then I will,” said old Crampton merrily. “Good morning, Mr Harry Vine,” and he rattled the big ruler by his desk.“Eh? oh, yes, I see. Didn’t say it as I came in. Good morning, Mr Crampton.”“Lesson for the proud young upstart in good behaviour,” grumbled old Crampton.“Bother him!” muttered Harry, as he took his place at his desk, opened a big account book Crampton placed before him, with some amounts to transfer from one that was smaller, and began writing.But as he wrote, the figures seemed to join hands and dance before him; then his pen ceased to form others, and an imaginary picture painted itself on the delicately tinted blue paper with its red lines—a pleasant landscape in fair France with sunny hill-sides on which ranged in rows were carefully cultured vines. To the north and east were softened bosky woods, and dominating all, one of those antique castellated chateaus, with pepper-box towers and gilded vanes, such as he had seen in pictures or read of in some books.“If I only had the money,” thought Harry, as he entered a sum similar to that which Pradelle had named. “He knows all these things. He has good advice from friends, and if we won—Hah!”The chateau rose before his eyes again, bathed in sunshine. Then he pictured the terrace overlooking the vineyards—a grey old stone terrace, with many seats and sheltering trees, and along that terrace walked just such a maiden as Aunt Marguerite had described.Scratch! scratch! scratch! scratch! His pen and Crampton’s pen; and he had no money, and Pradelle’s project to borrow as he had suggested was absurd.Ah, if he only had eighty-one pounds ten shillings and sixpence! the sum he now placed in neat figures in their appropriate columns.Old Crampton tilted back his tall stool, swung himself round, and lowered himself to the ground. Then crossing the office, he went into Van Heldre’s private room, and there was the rattle of a key, a creaking hinge, as an iron door was swung open; and directly after the old man returned.Harry Vine could not see his hands, and he did not raise his eyes to watch the old clerk, but in the imagination which so readily pictured the chateau that was not in Spain, he seemed to see as he heard every movement of the fat, white fingers, when a canvas bag was clumped down on the mahogany desk, the string untied, and a little heap of coins were poured out. Then followed the scratching of those coins upon the mahogany, as they were counted, ranged in little piles, and finally, after an entry had been checked, they were replaced in the bag, which the old man bore back into the safe in the private room.“Fifty or a hundred pounds,” said Harry to himself, as a curious sensation of heat came into his cheeks, to balance which there seemed to be a peculiarly cold thrill running up his spine, to the nape of his neck. “Anybody at home?”“Yes, sir; here we are, hard at work.” Harry had looked up sharply to see Uncle Luke standing in the opening, a grim-looking grey figure in his old Norfolk jacket and straw hat, one hand resting on his heavy stick, the other carrying a battered fish-basket. The old man’s face was in shadow, for the sunshine streamed in behind him, but there was plenty of light to display his grim, sardonic features, as, after a short nod to Crampton, he gazed from under his shaggy brows piercingly at his nephew.“Well, quill-driver,” he said, sneeringly; “doing something useful at last?”“Morning, uncle,” said Harry shortly; and he muttered to himself, “I should like to throw the ledger at him.”“Hope he’s a good boy, hey?”“Oh, he’s getting on, Mr Luke Vine—slowly,” said Crampton unwillingly. “He’ll do better by and by.”A sharp remark was on Harry’s lips, but he checked it for a particular reason. Uncle Luke might have the money he wanted.“Time he did,” said the old man. “Look here, boy,” he continued, with galling, sneering tone in his voice. “Go and tell your master I want to see him.”Harry drew a long breath, and his teeth gritted together.“I caught a splendid conger this morning,” continued Uncle Luke, giving his basket a swing, “and I’ve brought your master half.”“My master!” muttered Harry. “Like conger-pie, boy?”“No,” said Harry, shortly. “More nice than wise,” said Uncle Luke. “Always were. There, be quick. I want to see your master.”“To see my master,” thought Harry, with a strange feeling of exasperation in his breast as he looked up at Crampton.Crampton was looking up at him with eyes which said very clearly, “Well, why don’t you go?”“They’ll make me an errand-boy next,” said the young man to himself, as, after twisting his locket round and round like a firework, he swung himself down, “and want me to clean the knives and boots and shoes.”“Tell him I’m in a hurry,” said Uncle Luke, as Harry reached the door which led into the private house along a passage built and covered with glass, by one side of what was originally a garden.“Ah,” said Uncle Luke, going closer to old Crampton’s desk, and taking down from where it rested on two brass hooks, the heavy ebony ruler. “Nice bit o’ wood that.”“Yes, sir,” said the old clerk, in the fidgety way of a workman who objects to have his tools touched.“Pretty weighty,” continued Uncle Luke, balancing it in his hand. “Give a man a pretty good topper that, eh?”“Yes, Mr Luke Vine.—I should like to give him one with it,” thought Crampton.“Do for a constable’s staff, or to kill burglars, eh?”“Capitally, sir.”“Hah! You don’t get burglars here, though, do you?”“No, sir; never had any yet.”“Good job too,” said Uncle Luke, putting the ruler back in its place, greatly to Crampton’s relief. “Rather an awkward cub to lick into shape, my nephew, eh?”“Rather, sir.”“Well, you must lick away, Crampton—not with that ruler though,” he chuckled. “Time something was made of him—not a bad sort of boy; but spoiled.”“I shall do my best, Mr Luke Vine,” said Crampton dryly; “but I must tell you candidly, sir, he’s too much of the gentleman for us, and he feels it.”“Bah!”“Not at all the sort of young man I should have selected for a clerk.”“Never mind; make the best of him.”“Mr Van Heldre is coming, sir,” said Harry coldly, as he re-entered the office.“Bah! I didn’t tell you to bring him here. I want to go in there.”As Luke Vine spoke, he rose and moved to the door.“Be a good boy,” he said, turning with a peculiar smile at his nephew. “I dare say you’ll get on.”“Oh!” muttered Harry, as he retook his place at his desk, “how I should like to tell you, Uncle Luke, just what I think.”The door closed behind the old man, who had nearly reached the end of the long passage, when he met Van Heldre.“Ah, Luke Vine, I was just coming.”“Go back,” said the visitor, making a stab at the merchant with his stick. “Brought you something. Where’s Mrs Van Heldre?”“In the breakfast-room. Come along.”Van Heldre clapped the old man on the shoulder, and led him into the room where Mrs Van Heldre was seated at work.“Ah, Mr Luke Vine,” she cried, “who’d have thought of seeing you?”“Not you. How are you? Where’s the girl?”“Gone up to your brother’s.”“Humph! to gad about and idle with Louie, I suppose. Here, I’ve brought you some fish. Caught it at daylight this morning. Ring for a dish.”“It’s very kind and thoughtful of you, Luke Vine,” said Mrs Van Heldre, with her pink face dimpling as she rang the bell, and then trotted to the door, which she opened, and cried, “Bring in a large dish, Esther! I always like to save the servants’ legs if I can,” she continued as she returned to her seat, while Van Heldre stood with his hands in his pockets, waiting. He knew his visitor.Just then a neat-looking maid-servant entered with a large blue dish, and stood holding it by the door, gazing at the quaint-looking old man, sitting with the basket between his legs, and his heavy stick resting across his knees.“Put it down and go.”The girl placed the dish on the table hurriedly, and left the room.“See if she has gone.”“No fear,” said Van Heldre, obeying, to humour his visitor. “I don’t think my servants listen at doors.”“Don’t trust ’em, or anybody else,” said Uncle Luke with a grim look, as he opened his basket wide. “Going to trust her?”“Well, I’m sure, Mr Luke Vine!” cried Mrs Van Heldre, “I believe you learn up rude things to say.”“He can’t help it,” said Van Heldre, laughing. “Yes,” he continued, with a droll look at his wife, which took her frown away, “I think we’ll trust her, Luke, my lad—as far as the fish is concerned.”“Eh! What?” said Uncle Luke, snatching his hands from his basket. “What do you mean?”“That the dish is waiting for the bit of conger.”“Let it wait,” said the old man snappishly. “You’re too clever, Van—too clever. Look here; how are you getting on with that boy?”“Oh, slowly. Rome was not built in a day.”“No,” chuckled the old man, “no. Work away, and make him a useful member of society—like his aunt, eh, Mrs Van.”“Useful!” cried Mrs Van. “Ah.”Then old Luke chuckled, and drew the fish from the basket.“Fine one, ain’t it?” he said.“A beauty,” cried Mrs Van Heldre ecstatically.“Pshah!” ejaculated Uncle Luke. “Ma’am, you don’t care for it a bit; but there’s more than I want, and it will help keep your servants.”“It would, Luke,” said Van Heldre, laughing, as the fish was laid in the dish, “but they will not touch it. Well?”“Eh? What do you mean by well?” snorted the old man with a suspicious look.“Out with it.”“Out with what?”“What you have brought.”The two men gazed in each other’s faces, the merchant looking half amused, the visitor annoyed; but his dry countenance softened into a smile, and he turned to Mrs Van Heldre. “Artful!” he said dryly. “Don’t you find him too cunning to get on with?”“I should think not indeed,” said Mrs Van Heldre indignantly.“Might have known you’d say that,” sneered Uncle Luke. “What a weak, foolish woman you are!”“Yes, I am, thank goodness! I wish you’d have a little more of my foolishness in you, Mr Luke Vine. There, I beg your pardon. What have you got there, shrimps?”“Yes,” said Uncle Luke grimly, as he brought a brown paper parcel from the bottom of his basket, where it had lain under the wet piece of conger, whose stain was on the cover, “some nice crisp fresh shrimps. Here, Van—catch.”He threw the packet to his brother’s old friend and comrade, by whom it was deftly caught, while Mrs Van Heldre looked on in a puzzled way.“Put ’em in your safe till I find another investment for ’em. Came down by post this morning, and I don’t like having ’em at home. Out fishing so much.”“How much is there?” said Van Heldre, opening the fishy brown paper, and taking therefrom sundry crisp new Bank of England notes.“Five hundred and fifty,” said Uncle Luke. “Count ’em over.”This was already being done, Van Heldre having moistened a finger and begun handling the notes in regular bank-clerk style.“All right; five fifty,” he said.“And he said they were shrimps,” said Mrs Van Heldre.“Eh? I did?” said Uncle Luke with a grim look and a twinkle of the eye. “Nonsense, it must have been you.”“Look here, Luke Vine,” said Van Heldre; “is it any use to try and teach you at your time of life?”“Not a bit: so don’t try.”“But why expose yourself to all this trouble and risk? Why didn’t your broker send you a cheque?”“Because I wouldn’t let him.”“Why not have a banking account, and do all your money transactions in an ordinary way?”“Because I like to do things in my own way. I don’t trust bankers, nor anybody else.”“Except my husband,” said Mrs Van Heldre, beaming.“Nonsense, ma’am, I don’t trust him a bit. You do as I tell you, Van. Put those notes in your safe till I ask you for them. I had that bit of money in a company I doubted, so I sold out. I shall put it in something else soon.”“You’re a queer fellow, Luke.”“Eh? I’m not the only one of my family, am I? What’s to become of brother George when that young scapegrace has ruined him? What’s to become of Louie, when we’re all dead and buried, and out of all this worry and care? What’s to become of my mad sister, who squandered her money on a French scamp, and made what she calls her heart bankrupt?”“Nearly done questioning?” said Van Heldre, doubling the notes longwise.“No, I haven’t, and don’t play with that money as if it was your wife’s curl-papers.”Van Heldre shrugged his shoulders, and placed the notes in his pocket.“And as I was saying when your husband interrupted me so rudely, Mrs Van Heldre, what’s to become of that boy by and by? Money’s useful sometimes, though I don’t want it myself.”“All! you needn’t look at me, Mr Luke Vine. It’s of no use for you to pretend to be a cynic with me.”“Never pretend anything, ma’am,” said Uncle Luke, rising; “and don’t be rude. I did mean to come in and have some conger-pie to-night; now I won’t.”“No, you didn’t mean to do anything of the sort, Luke Vine,” said Mrs Van Heldre tartly; “I know you better than that. If I’ve asked you to come and have a bit of dinner with us like a Christian once I’ve asked you five hundred times, and one might just as well ask the hard rock.”“Just as well, ma’am; just as well. There, I’m going. Take care of that money, Van. I shall think out a decent investment one of these days.”“When you want it there it is,” said Van Heldre quietly.“Hope it will be. And now look here: I want to know a little more about the Count.”“The Count?” said Mrs Van Heldre.“My nephew, ma’am. And I hope you feel highly honoured at having so distinguished a personage in your husband’s service.”“What does he mean, dear?”“Mean, ma’am? Why, you know how his aunt has stuffed his head full of nonsense about French estates.”“Oh! that, and the old title,” cried Mrs Van Heldre. “There, don’t say any more about it, for if there is anything that worries me, it’s all that talk about French descents.”“Why, hang it, ma’am, you don’t think your husband is a Frenchman, and that my sister, who has made it all the study of her life, is wrong?”“I don’t know and I don’t care whether my husband’s a Dutchman or a double Dutchman by birth; all I know is he’s a very good husband to me and a good father to his child; and I thank God, Mr Luke Vine, every night that things are just as they are; so that’s all I’ve got to say.”“Tut—tut! tut—tut! This is all very dreadful, Van,” said Uncle Luke, fastening his basket, and examining his old straw hat to see which was the best side to wear in front; “I can’t stand any more of this. Here, do you want a bit of advice?”“Yes, if it’s good.”“Ah! I was forgetting: about the Count. Keep the curb tight and keep him in use.”“I shall do both, Luke, for George’s sake,” said Van Heldre warmly.“Good, lad!—I mean, more fool you!” said Uncle Luke, stumping out after ignoring extended hands and giving each a nod. “That’s all.”He left the room, closing the door after him as loudly as he could without the shock being considered a bang; and directly after the front door was served in the same way, and they saw him pass the window.“Odd fish, Luke,” said Van Heldre.“Odd! I sometimes think he’s half mad.”“Nonsense, my dear; no more mad than Hamlet. Here he is again.”For the old man had come back, and was tapping the window-frame with his stick.“What’s the matter?” said Van Heldre, throwing open the window, when Uncle Luke thrust in the basket he carried and his stick, resting his arms on the window-sill.“Don’t keep that piece of conger in this hot room all the morning,” he said, pointing with his stick.“Why, goodness me, Luke Vine, how can you talk like that?” cried Mrs Van Heldre indignantly.“Easy enough, ma’am. Forgot my bit of advice,” said Uncle Luke, speaking to his old friend, but talking at Mrs Van Heldre.“What is it?”“Send that girl of yours to a boarding-school.”“Bless my heart, Luke Vine, what for?” cried the lady of the house. “Why, she finished two years ago.”“To keep her out of the way of George Vine’s stupid boy, and because her mother’s spoiling her. Morning.”
“Late again,” said old Crampton, as Harry Vine entered the office.
“How I do hate the sight of that man’s nose!” said the young man; and he stared hard, as if forced by some attraction.
The old clerk frowned, and felt annoyed. “I beg pardon,” he said.
“Granted,” said Harry, coolly.
“I said I beg pardon, Mr Harry Vine.”
“I heard you.”
“But I thought you spoke.”
“No,” grumbled Harry; “I didn’t speak.”
“Then I will,” said old Crampton merrily. “Good morning, Mr Harry Vine,” and he rattled the big ruler by his desk.
“Eh? oh, yes, I see. Didn’t say it as I came in. Good morning, Mr Crampton.”
“Lesson for the proud young upstart in good behaviour,” grumbled old Crampton.
“Bother him!” muttered Harry, as he took his place at his desk, opened a big account book Crampton placed before him, with some amounts to transfer from one that was smaller, and began writing.
But as he wrote, the figures seemed to join hands and dance before him; then his pen ceased to form others, and an imaginary picture painted itself on the delicately tinted blue paper with its red lines—a pleasant landscape in fair France with sunny hill-sides on which ranged in rows were carefully cultured vines. To the north and east were softened bosky woods, and dominating all, one of those antique castellated chateaus, with pepper-box towers and gilded vanes, such as he had seen in pictures or read of in some books.
“If I only had the money,” thought Harry, as he entered a sum similar to that which Pradelle had named. “He knows all these things. He has good advice from friends, and if we won—Hah!”
The chateau rose before his eyes again, bathed in sunshine. Then he pictured the terrace overlooking the vineyards—a grey old stone terrace, with many seats and sheltering trees, and along that terrace walked just such a maiden as Aunt Marguerite had described.
Scratch! scratch! scratch! scratch! His pen and Crampton’s pen; and he had no money, and Pradelle’s project to borrow as he had suggested was absurd.
Ah, if he only had eighty-one pounds ten shillings and sixpence! the sum he now placed in neat figures in their appropriate columns.
Old Crampton tilted back his tall stool, swung himself round, and lowered himself to the ground. Then crossing the office, he went into Van Heldre’s private room, and there was the rattle of a key, a creaking hinge, as an iron door was swung open; and directly after the old man returned.
Harry Vine could not see his hands, and he did not raise his eyes to watch the old clerk, but in the imagination which so readily pictured the chateau that was not in Spain, he seemed to see as he heard every movement of the fat, white fingers, when a canvas bag was clumped down on the mahogany desk, the string untied, and a little heap of coins were poured out. Then followed the scratching of those coins upon the mahogany, as they were counted, ranged in little piles, and finally, after an entry had been checked, they were replaced in the bag, which the old man bore back into the safe in the private room.
“Fifty or a hundred pounds,” said Harry to himself, as a curious sensation of heat came into his cheeks, to balance which there seemed to be a peculiarly cold thrill running up his spine, to the nape of his neck. “Anybody at home?”
“Yes, sir; here we are, hard at work.” Harry had looked up sharply to see Uncle Luke standing in the opening, a grim-looking grey figure in his old Norfolk jacket and straw hat, one hand resting on his heavy stick, the other carrying a battered fish-basket. The old man’s face was in shadow, for the sunshine streamed in behind him, but there was plenty of light to display his grim, sardonic features, as, after a short nod to Crampton, he gazed from under his shaggy brows piercingly at his nephew.
“Well, quill-driver,” he said, sneeringly; “doing something useful at last?”
“Morning, uncle,” said Harry shortly; and he muttered to himself, “I should like to throw the ledger at him.”
“Hope he’s a good boy, hey?”
“Oh, he’s getting on, Mr Luke Vine—slowly,” said Crampton unwillingly. “He’ll do better by and by.”
A sharp remark was on Harry’s lips, but he checked it for a particular reason. Uncle Luke might have the money he wanted.
“Time he did,” said the old man. “Look here, boy,” he continued, with galling, sneering tone in his voice. “Go and tell your master I want to see him.”
Harry drew a long breath, and his teeth gritted together.
“I caught a splendid conger this morning,” continued Uncle Luke, giving his basket a swing, “and I’ve brought your master half.”
“My master!” muttered Harry. “Like conger-pie, boy?”
“No,” said Harry, shortly. “More nice than wise,” said Uncle Luke. “Always were. There, be quick. I want to see your master.”
“To see my master,” thought Harry, with a strange feeling of exasperation in his breast as he looked up at Crampton.
Crampton was looking up at him with eyes which said very clearly, “Well, why don’t you go?”
“They’ll make me an errand-boy next,” said the young man to himself, as, after twisting his locket round and round like a firework, he swung himself down, “and want me to clean the knives and boots and shoes.”
“Tell him I’m in a hurry,” said Uncle Luke, as Harry reached the door which led into the private house along a passage built and covered with glass, by one side of what was originally a garden.
“Ah,” said Uncle Luke, going closer to old Crampton’s desk, and taking down from where it rested on two brass hooks, the heavy ebony ruler. “Nice bit o’ wood that.”
“Yes, sir,” said the old clerk, in the fidgety way of a workman who objects to have his tools touched.
“Pretty weighty,” continued Uncle Luke, balancing it in his hand. “Give a man a pretty good topper that, eh?”
“Yes, Mr Luke Vine.—I should like to give him one with it,” thought Crampton.
“Do for a constable’s staff, or to kill burglars, eh?”
“Capitally, sir.”
“Hah! You don’t get burglars here, though, do you?”
“No, sir; never had any yet.”
“Good job too,” said Uncle Luke, putting the ruler back in its place, greatly to Crampton’s relief. “Rather an awkward cub to lick into shape, my nephew, eh?”
“Rather, sir.”
“Well, you must lick away, Crampton—not with that ruler though,” he chuckled. “Time something was made of him—not a bad sort of boy; but spoiled.”
“I shall do my best, Mr Luke Vine,” said Crampton dryly; “but I must tell you candidly, sir, he’s too much of the gentleman for us, and he feels it.”
“Bah!”
“Not at all the sort of young man I should have selected for a clerk.”
“Never mind; make the best of him.”
“Mr Van Heldre is coming, sir,” said Harry coldly, as he re-entered the office.
“Bah! I didn’t tell you to bring him here. I want to go in there.”
As Luke Vine spoke, he rose and moved to the door.
“Be a good boy,” he said, turning with a peculiar smile at his nephew. “I dare say you’ll get on.”
“Oh!” muttered Harry, as he retook his place at his desk, “how I should like to tell you, Uncle Luke, just what I think.”
The door closed behind the old man, who had nearly reached the end of the long passage, when he met Van Heldre.
“Ah, Luke Vine, I was just coming.”
“Go back,” said the visitor, making a stab at the merchant with his stick. “Brought you something. Where’s Mrs Van Heldre?”
“In the breakfast-room. Come along.”
Van Heldre clapped the old man on the shoulder, and led him into the room where Mrs Van Heldre was seated at work.
“Ah, Mr Luke Vine,” she cried, “who’d have thought of seeing you?”
“Not you. How are you? Where’s the girl?”
“Gone up to your brother’s.”
“Humph! to gad about and idle with Louie, I suppose. Here, I’ve brought you some fish. Caught it at daylight this morning. Ring for a dish.”
“It’s very kind and thoughtful of you, Luke Vine,” said Mrs Van Heldre, with her pink face dimpling as she rang the bell, and then trotted to the door, which she opened, and cried, “Bring in a large dish, Esther! I always like to save the servants’ legs if I can,” she continued as she returned to her seat, while Van Heldre stood with his hands in his pockets, waiting. He knew his visitor.
Just then a neat-looking maid-servant entered with a large blue dish, and stood holding it by the door, gazing at the quaint-looking old man, sitting with the basket between his legs, and his heavy stick resting across his knees.
“Put it down and go.”
The girl placed the dish on the table hurriedly, and left the room.
“See if she has gone.”
“No fear,” said Van Heldre, obeying, to humour his visitor. “I don’t think my servants listen at doors.”
“Don’t trust ’em, or anybody else,” said Uncle Luke with a grim look, as he opened his basket wide. “Going to trust her?”
“Well, I’m sure, Mr Luke Vine!” cried Mrs Van Heldre, “I believe you learn up rude things to say.”
“He can’t help it,” said Van Heldre, laughing. “Yes,” he continued, with a droll look at his wife, which took her frown away, “I think we’ll trust her, Luke, my lad—as far as the fish is concerned.”
“Eh! What?” said Uncle Luke, snatching his hands from his basket. “What do you mean?”
“That the dish is waiting for the bit of conger.”
“Let it wait,” said the old man snappishly. “You’re too clever, Van—too clever. Look here; how are you getting on with that boy?”
“Oh, slowly. Rome was not built in a day.”
“No,” chuckled the old man, “no. Work away, and make him a useful member of society—like his aunt, eh, Mrs Van.”
“Useful!” cried Mrs Van. “Ah.”
Then old Luke chuckled, and drew the fish from the basket.
“Fine one, ain’t it?” he said.
“A beauty,” cried Mrs Van Heldre ecstatically.
“Pshah!” ejaculated Uncle Luke. “Ma’am, you don’t care for it a bit; but there’s more than I want, and it will help keep your servants.”
“It would, Luke,” said Van Heldre, laughing, as the fish was laid in the dish, “but they will not touch it. Well?”
“Eh? What do you mean by well?” snorted the old man with a suspicious look.
“Out with it.”
“Out with what?”
“What you have brought.”
The two men gazed in each other’s faces, the merchant looking half amused, the visitor annoyed; but his dry countenance softened into a smile, and he turned to Mrs Van Heldre. “Artful!” he said dryly. “Don’t you find him too cunning to get on with?”
“I should think not indeed,” said Mrs Van Heldre indignantly.
“Might have known you’d say that,” sneered Uncle Luke. “What a weak, foolish woman you are!”
“Yes, I am, thank goodness! I wish you’d have a little more of my foolishness in you, Mr Luke Vine. There, I beg your pardon. What have you got there, shrimps?”
“Yes,” said Uncle Luke grimly, as he brought a brown paper parcel from the bottom of his basket, where it had lain under the wet piece of conger, whose stain was on the cover, “some nice crisp fresh shrimps. Here, Van—catch.”
He threw the packet to his brother’s old friend and comrade, by whom it was deftly caught, while Mrs Van Heldre looked on in a puzzled way.
“Put ’em in your safe till I find another investment for ’em. Came down by post this morning, and I don’t like having ’em at home. Out fishing so much.”
“How much is there?” said Van Heldre, opening the fishy brown paper, and taking therefrom sundry crisp new Bank of England notes.
“Five hundred and fifty,” said Uncle Luke. “Count ’em over.”
This was already being done, Van Heldre having moistened a finger and begun handling the notes in regular bank-clerk style.
“All right; five fifty,” he said.
“And he said they were shrimps,” said Mrs Van Heldre.
“Eh? I did?” said Uncle Luke with a grim look and a twinkle of the eye. “Nonsense, it must have been you.”
“Look here, Luke Vine,” said Van Heldre; “is it any use to try and teach you at your time of life?”
“Not a bit: so don’t try.”
“But why expose yourself to all this trouble and risk? Why didn’t your broker send you a cheque?”
“Because I wouldn’t let him.”
“Why not have a banking account, and do all your money transactions in an ordinary way?”
“Because I like to do things in my own way. I don’t trust bankers, nor anybody else.”
“Except my husband,” said Mrs Van Heldre, beaming.
“Nonsense, ma’am, I don’t trust him a bit. You do as I tell you, Van. Put those notes in your safe till I ask you for them. I had that bit of money in a company I doubted, so I sold out. I shall put it in something else soon.”
“You’re a queer fellow, Luke.”
“Eh? I’m not the only one of my family, am I? What’s to become of brother George when that young scapegrace has ruined him? What’s to become of Louie, when we’re all dead and buried, and out of all this worry and care? What’s to become of my mad sister, who squandered her money on a French scamp, and made what she calls her heart bankrupt?”
“Nearly done questioning?” said Van Heldre, doubling the notes longwise.
“No, I haven’t, and don’t play with that money as if it was your wife’s curl-papers.”
Van Heldre shrugged his shoulders, and placed the notes in his pocket.
“And as I was saying when your husband interrupted me so rudely, Mrs Van Heldre, what’s to become of that boy by and by? Money’s useful sometimes, though I don’t want it myself.”
“All! you needn’t look at me, Mr Luke Vine. It’s of no use for you to pretend to be a cynic with me.”
“Never pretend anything, ma’am,” said Uncle Luke, rising; “and don’t be rude. I did mean to come in and have some conger-pie to-night; now I won’t.”
“No, you didn’t mean to do anything of the sort, Luke Vine,” said Mrs Van Heldre tartly; “I know you better than that. If I’ve asked you to come and have a bit of dinner with us like a Christian once I’ve asked you five hundred times, and one might just as well ask the hard rock.”
“Just as well, ma’am; just as well. There, I’m going. Take care of that money, Van. I shall think out a decent investment one of these days.”
“When you want it there it is,” said Van Heldre quietly.
“Hope it will be. And now look here: I want to know a little more about the Count.”
“The Count?” said Mrs Van Heldre.
“My nephew, ma’am. And I hope you feel highly honoured at having so distinguished a personage in your husband’s service.”
“What does he mean, dear?”
“Mean, ma’am? Why, you know how his aunt has stuffed his head full of nonsense about French estates.”
“Oh! that, and the old title,” cried Mrs Van Heldre. “There, don’t say any more about it, for if there is anything that worries me, it’s all that talk about French descents.”
“Why, hang it, ma’am, you don’t think your husband is a Frenchman, and that my sister, who has made it all the study of her life, is wrong?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care whether my husband’s a Dutchman or a double Dutchman by birth; all I know is he’s a very good husband to me and a good father to his child; and I thank God, Mr Luke Vine, every night that things are just as they are; so that’s all I’ve got to say.”
“Tut—tut! tut—tut! This is all very dreadful, Van,” said Uncle Luke, fastening his basket, and examining his old straw hat to see which was the best side to wear in front; “I can’t stand any more of this. Here, do you want a bit of advice?”
“Yes, if it’s good.”
“Ah! I was forgetting: about the Count. Keep the curb tight and keep him in use.”
“I shall do both, Luke, for George’s sake,” said Van Heldre warmly.
“Good, lad!—I mean, more fool you!” said Uncle Luke, stumping out after ignoring extended hands and giving each a nod. “That’s all.”
He left the room, closing the door after him as loudly as he could without the shock being considered a bang; and directly after the front door was served in the same way, and they saw him pass the window.
“Odd fish, Luke,” said Van Heldre.
“Odd! I sometimes think he’s half mad.”
“Nonsense, my dear; no more mad than Hamlet. Here he is again.”
For the old man had come back, and was tapping the window-frame with his stick.
“What’s the matter?” said Van Heldre, throwing open the window, when Uncle Luke thrust in the basket he carried and his stick, resting his arms on the window-sill.
“Don’t keep that piece of conger in this hot room all the morning,” he said, pointing with his stick.
“Why, goodness me, Luke Vine, how can you talk like that?” cried Mrs Van Heldre indignantly.
“Easy enough, ma’am. Forgot my bit of advice,” said Uncle Luke, speaking to his old friend, but talking at Mrs Van Heldre.
“What is it?”
“Send that girl of yours to a boarding-school.”
“Bless my heart, Luke Vine, what for?” cried the lady of the house. “Why, she finished two years ago.”
“To keep her out of the way of George Vine’s stupid boy, and because her mother’s spoiling her. Morning.”