"A week," answered her visitor, who always stuck to facts. "You told me yourself one ought never to call again at the same house till after a decent interval. A week is decent surely! It seems a deuced long time, I know."
"You don't suppose I've missed you?" said she, pouring out the tea. "It's all for your own good I have you here. You'd get back to savage life again, if I neglected you for a fortnight; and itisprovoking to see all one's time and trouble thrown away! Now put your hat down, have some tea, make yourself agreeable, and you may stay here for exactly three-quarters of an hour!"
To "make himself agreeable" at short notice, and to order, is a difficult task for any man. For Bill it was simply impossible. He fidgeted, gulped hot tea, and began to feel shy. She had considerable tact, however, and no little experience in the ways of young men. Sheneither laughed at him nor took notice of the blush he tried to keep down, but bade him throw the window open, and while he obeyed, continued carelessly, though kindly—
"In the first place, tell me all about yourself. How's Catamount?"
She knew every one of his horses by name, and even some of the men in his troop, leading him to talk on such congenial topics with considerable ingenuity. It was this tact of hers that rendered Mrs. Lushington such a pleasant member of society, enabling her to keep her head above water deep enough to have drowned a lady with lesssavoir-faire, and consequently fewer friends.
His face brightened. "As fresh as paint!" he replied. "I beg your pardon; I mean as well as can be expected. I rode him two-and-twenty miles to-day in an hour and a half, and I give you my word, when I got off him he looked as if he'd never been out of the stable."
"I should pityyoumore than your horse," she replied, with a commendable air of interest; "only I know you are never so happy as when you are trying to break your neck. You've had the grace to dress since, I see, and not badly, for once, only that handkerchief is too light a shade of blue. Now, confess! Where does she live? and is she worth riding eleven miles, there and back, to see?"
"I never know whether you're chaffing or not!" responded Bill. "You cannot believe I would gallop Catamount twenty-two miles on a hard road for any lady in theworld. I didn't suppose he'd take me if I wanted to go.She, indeed! There's noshein the matter!"
"You might have madeoneexception in common politeness," said Mrs. Lushington, laughing. "But I'm not satisfied yet. You and Catamount are a very flighty pair. I still think there's a lady in the case."
"A lady in boots and spurs, then," he answered; "six foot high, with grey moustaches and a lame leg from a sabre-cut—a lady who has been thirty years soldiering, and never gave or questioned an unreasonable order. Do you knowmanyladies of that stamp, Mrs. Lushington? I only know one, and she has mademyregiment the smartest in the service."
"Idoknow your colonel a little," said she. "I met him once at Aldershot, and though he is anything but an old woman, I consider him an olddear! So I am not very far wrong, after all. Now what did he want you for? Sent for you, of course, to have—what do you call it?—awigging. I'm afraid, Master Bill, you're a sad bad boy, and always getting into scrapes."
"Wigging!" he repeated indignantly. "Not a bit of it; nothing could have been kinder than the Chief. He's the best old fellow in the world! I wasn't sent for. I didn't go on my own account; I went down about Daisy."
Then he stopped short, afraid of having committed himself, and conscious that at the present crisis of his brother-officer's affairs, the less said about them the better.
But who, since the days of Samson, was ever able tokeep a secret from a woman resolved to worm it out? As the strong man in Delilah's lap, so was Bill in the boudoir of Mrs. Lushington.
"Daisy," she repeated; "do you know anything of Daisy? Tell me all about him. We're so interested, you can't think, and so sorry for his difficulties. I wish I could help him. Is there nothing to be done?"
Touched by her concern for his friend's welfare, he trusted her at once.
"You won't mention it," said he; "Daisy was with me at Kensington to-day. He can't show yet, you know; but still we hope to make it all right in time. He's got a month's leave for the present; and I packed him off, to start by the Irish mail to-night, just before I came to see you. He'll keep quiet over there, and people won't know where he is; so they can't write, and then say he doesn't answer their letters. Anything to put off the smash as long as possible. One can never tell what may turn up."
"You're a kind friend," she replied approvingly, "and a good boy. There! that's a great deal for me to say. Now tell mewherethe poor fellow is gone."
"You won't breathe it to a soul," said honest Bill—"not even to Mr. Lushington?"
"Not even to Mr. Lushington!" she protested, greatly amused.
He gave her the address with profound gravity, and an implicit reliance on her secrecy.
"A hill-farmer in Roscommon!" she exclaimed. "Iknow the man. His name is Denis; I saw him at Punchestown."
"You know everything," he said, in a tone of admiration. "It must be very jolly to be clever, and that."
"It's much jollier to be 'rich and that,'" was her answer. "Money is what we all seem to want—especially poor Daisy. Now, how much do you suppose it would take to set him straight?"
He was not the man to trust any one by halves. "Three thousand," he declared, frankly: "and where he is to get it beats me altogether. Of course he can't hide for ever. After a time he must come back to do duty; then there'll be a show up, and he'll have to leave the regiment."
"And you will get your troop," said Mrs. Lushington. "You see I know all about that too."
His own promotion, however, as has been said, afforded this kind-hearted young gentleman no sort of consolation.
"I hope it won't come to that," was his comment on the military knowledge of his hostess. "I've great faith in luck. When things are at their worst they mend. Never say die till you're dead, Mrs. Lushington. Take your 'crowners' good-humouredly. Stick to your horse; and don't let go of the bridle!"
"You've been here more than your three-quarters of an hour," said Mrs. Lushington, "and you're beginning to talk slang, so you'd better depart. But you're improving, Ithink, and you may come again. Let me see, the day after to-morrow, if the Colonel don't object, and if youcan find another handkerchief with a deeper shade of blue."
So Bill took his leave, and proceeded to "The Rag," where he meant to dine in company with other choice spirits, wondering whether it would ever be his lot to marry a woman like Mrs. Lushington—younger, of course, and perhaps, though he hardly ventured to tell himself so, with a little less chaff—doubting the while if he could consent so entirely to change his condition and his daily, or perhaps rather hisnightly, habits of life. He need not give up the regiment, he reflected, and could keep Catamount, though the stud might have to be reduced. But what would become of Benjamin? Was it possible any lady would permit the badger to occupy a bottom drawer in her wardrobe? This seemed a difficult question. Pending its solution, perhaps he had better remain as he was!
CHAPTER XIX
"THE RIVER'S BRIM"
Daisy was sick of the Channel. He had crossed and recrossed it so often of late as to loathe its dancing waters, yawning in the face of Welsh and Wicklow mountains alike, wearied even of the lovely scenery that adorns the coast on either side.
He voted himself so tired in body and mind that he must stay a day or two in Dublin to refresh.
A man who balances on the verge of ruin always has plenty of money in his pocket for immediate necessities. The expiring flame leaps up with a flash; the end of the bottle bubbles out with a gush; and the ebbing tide of wealth leaves, here and there, a handful of loose cash on the deserted shore.
Daisy drove to the most expensive hotel in Dublin, where he ordered a capital breakfast and a comfortable room. The future seemed very uncertain. In obedience to an instinct of humanity that bids men pause and dallywith any crisis of their fate, he determined to enjoy to-day, and let to-morrow take care of itself.
Nobody could be more unlikely to analyse his own sensations. It was not the practice of the Regiment; but had Daisy been given to self-examination it would have puzzled him to explain why he felt in such good humour, and so well satisfied—buoyed up with hope, when he ought to have been sunk and overwhelmed in despair.
"Waiter," said the fugitive, while he finished his tea and ordered a glass of curaçao, "has Mr. Sullivan been here this morning?"
"Hedid, sur," answered the waiter, with a pleasant grin. "Sure he brought a harse for the master to see. Five years old, Captain. A clane-bred one, like what ye ride yerself. There's not the aqual of him, they do be braggin', for leppin', in Westmeath an' thim parts where he was trained."
Now Daisy wanted a horse no more than he wanted an alligator. He could neither afford to buy nor keep one, and had two or three of his own that it was indispensable to sell, yet his eye brightened, his spirits rose, with the bare possibility of a deal. He might see the animal, at any rate, he thought, perhaps ride it—there would be others probably to show; he could spend a few pleasant hours in examining their points, discussing their merits, and interchanging with Mr. Sullivan those brief and pithy remarks, intelligible only to the initiated, which he esteemed the essence of pleasant conversation. Like many otheryoung men, Daisy was bitten with hippomania. He thoroughly enjoyed the humours of a dealer's yard. The horses interested, the owners amused him. He liked the selection, the bargaining, the running up and down, the speculation, and the slang. To use his own words—"He never could resist therattle of a hat!"
It is no wonder then that "the Captain," as Mr. Sullivan called him, spent his whole afternoon at a snug little place within an easy drive of Dublin, where that worthy, though not by way of being in the profession, inhabited a clean whitewashed house, with a few acres of marvellously green paddock, and three or four loose boxes, containing horses of various qualities, good, bad, and indifferent. Here, after flying for an hour or two over the adjoining fields and fences, Daisy, with considerable difficulty, resisted the purchase (on credit) of a worn-out black, a roan with heavy shoulders, and a three-year-old engaged in the following autumn at the Curragh, but afforded their owner perfect satisfaction by the encomiums he passed on their merits, no less than by the masterly manner in which he handled them, at the formidable fences that bordered Mr. Sullivan's domain.
"An' ye'll take nothing away with ye but a fishing-rod," said the latter, pressing on his visitor the refreshment of whiskey, with or without water. "Ye're welcome to't, anny how—more by token that ye'll bring it back again when ye done with it, Captain, and proud I'll be to get another visit from ye, when ye're travelling the country, toor from Dublin, at anny time. May be in the back end of the year I'll have wan to show ye in thim boxes that ye niver seen the likes of him for lep-racin'. Whisper now. He's bet the Black Baron in a trial; and for Shaneen, him that wan the race offyourmare at Punchestown,—wait till I tell ye,—at even weights, he'd go andloselittle Shaneen in two miles!"
Promising to return at a future time for inspection of this paragon, and disposing the borrowed fishing-rod carefully on an outside car he had chartered for his expedition, Daisy returned to Dublin, ate a good dinner, drank a bottle of dry champagne, and went to sleep in the comfortable bedroom of his comfortable hotel, as if he had not a care nor a debt in the world.
Towards morning his lighter slumbers may have been visited by dreams, and if so it is probable that fancy clothed her visions in a similitude of Norah Macormac. Certainly his first thought on waking was for that young lady, as his opening eyes rested on the fishing-rod, which he had borrowed chiefly on her account.
In truth, Daisy felt inclined to put off as long as possible the exile—for he could think of it in no more favourable light—that he had brought on himself in the Roscommon mountains.
Mr. Sullivan, when the sport of fly-fishing came in his way, was no mean disciple of the gentle art. Observing a salmon-rod in that worthy's sitting-room, of which apartment, indeed, with two foxes' brushes and a barometer itconstituted the principal furniture, Daisy bethought him that on one of his visits to Cormac's-town its hospitable owner had given him leave and licence to fish the Dabble whenever he pleased, whether staying at the Castle or not. The skies were cloudy—as usual in Ireland, there was no lack of rain—surely this would be a proper occasion to take advantage of Macormac's kindness, protract his stay in Dublin, and run down daily by the train to fish, so long as favourable weather lasted and his own funds held out.
We are mostly self-deceivers though there exists somethingwithineach of us that is not to be hoodwinked nor imposed upon by the most specious of fallacies.
It is probable Daisy never confessed to himself how the fish hereallywanted to angle for was already more than half-hooked: how it was less the attraction of a salmon than a mermaid that drew him to the margin of the Dabble; and how he cared very little that the sun shone bright or the river waned so as he might but hear the light step of Norah Macormac on the shingle, look in the fair face that turned so pale and sad when he went away, that would smile and blush its welcome so kindly when he came again.
He must have loved her without knowing it; and perhaps such insensible attachments, waxing stronger day by day, strike the deepest root, and boast the longest existence: hardy plants that live and flourish through the frowns of many winters, contrasting nobly with morebrilliant and ephemeral posies, forced by circumstances to sudden maturity and rapid decay—
"As flowers that first in spring-time burst,The earliest wither too."
Nevertheless, for both sexes,
"'Tis all but a dream at the best:"
and Norah Macormac's vision, scarcely acknowledged while everything went smoothly, assumed very glowing colours when the impossibility of its realisation dawned on her; when Lady Mary pointed out the folly of an attachment to a penniless subaltern unsteady in habits, while addicted overmuch to sports of the field.
With average experience and plenty of common-sense, the mother had been sorely puzzled how to act. She was well aware, that advice in such cases, however judiciously administered, often irritates the wound it is intended to heal; that "warnings"—to use her own words—"only put things in people's heads;" and that a fancy, like a heresy, sometimes dies out unnoticed when it is not to be stifled by argument nor extirpated with the strong hand. Yet how might she suffer this pernicious superstition to grow, under her very eyes? Was she not a woman? and must she not speak her mind? Besides, she blamed her own blindness, that her daughter's intimacy with the scape-grace had been unchecked in its commencement, and, smarting with self-reproach, could not forbear crying aloud, when she had better have held her tongue!
So Miss Norah discovered she was in love, after all. Mamma said so! no doubt mamma was right. The young lady had herself suspected something of the kind long ago, but Lady Mary's authority and remonstrances placed the matter beyond question. She was very fond of her mother, and, to do her justice, tried hard to follow her ladyship's advice. So she thought the subject over, day by day, argued it on every side, in accordance with, in opposition to, and independent of, her own inclinations, to find as a result, that during waking and sleeping hours alike, the image of Daisy was never absent from her mind.
Then a new beauty seemed to dawn in the sweet young face. The very peasants about the place noticed a change; little Ella, playing at being grown-up, pretended she was "Sister Norah going to be married;" and papa, when she retired with her candle at night, turning fondly to his wife, would declare—
"She'll be the pick of the family now, mamma, when all's said and done! They're a fair-looking lot, even the boys. Divil thank them, then, on the mother's side! But it's Norah that's likest yourself, my dear, when we were young, only not quite so stout, maybe, and a thought less colour in her cheek."
Disturbed at the suggestion, while gratified by the compliment, Lady Mary, in a fuss of increased anxiety, felt fonder than ever of her child. In Norah's habits also there came an alteration, as in her countenance. She sat much in the library, with a book on her knee, of which sheseldom turned a page; played longsoloson the pianoforte, usually while the others were out; went to bed early, but lay awake for hours; rode very little, and walked a great deal, though the walks were often solitary, and almost invariably in the direction of a certain waterfall, to which she had formerly conducted Miss Douglas, while showing off to her new friend the romantic beauties of the Dabble.
The first day Mr. Walters put his borrowed rod together on the banks of this pretty stream, it rained persistently in a misty drizzle, borne on the soft south wind. He killed an eight pound fish, yet returned to Dublin in an unaccountable state of disappointment, not to say disgust. He got better after dinner, and, with another bottle of dry champagne, determined to try again.
The following morning rose in unclouded splendour—clear blue sky, blazing sun, and not a breath of wind. A more propitious day could scarcely be imagined for a cricket-match, an archery-meeting, or a picnic; but in such weather the crafty angler leaves rod and basket at home. Daisy felt a little ashamed of theseparaphernaliain the train, but proceeded to the waterside, nevertheless, and prepared deliberately for his task, looking up and down the stream meanwhile with considerable anxiety.
All at once he felt his heart beating fast, and began to flog the waters with ludicrous assiduity.
It is difficult to explain the gentleman's perturbation (for why was he there at all?), though the lady's astonishment can easily be accounted for, when Norah, thinking ofhim every moment, and visiting this particular spot only because it reminded her of his presence, found herself, at a turn in the river, not ten paces from the man whom, a moment before, she feared she was never to see again!
Yet did she remain outwardly the more composed of the two, and was first to speak.
"Daisy!" she exclaimed—"Captain Walters—I never thought you were still in Ireland. You'll be coming to the Castle to dinner, anyhow."
He blushed, he stammered, he looked like a fool (though Norah didn't think so), he got out with difficulty certain incoherent sentences about "fishing," and "flies," and "liberty from your father," and lastly, recovering a little, "the ten-pounderIrose andyoulanded, by the black stump there, under the willow."
As he regained his confidence, she lost hers—almost wishing she hadn't come, or had put her veil down, or, she didn't exactly know what. In a trembling voice, and twining her fingers nervously together, she propounded the pertinent question:—
"How—how did you find your brother-officers when you got back to the regiment?"
Its absurdity struck them both. Simultaneously, they burst out laughing: their reserve vanished from that moment. He took both her hands in his, and the rod lay neglected on the shingle, while he exclaimed—
"Iamso pleased to see you again! Miss Macormac—Norah! I fished here all yesterday, hoping you'd come.I'm glad though you didn't; you'd have got such a wetting."
"Did you, now?" was her answer, while the beautiful grey eyes deepened, and the blood mantled in her cheek. "Indeed, then, it's for little I'd have counted the wetting, if I'd only known. But howwasI to know, Captain Walters—well, Daisy, then—that you'd be shooting up the river, like a young salmon, only to seeme? And supposing Ihadknown it, or thought it, or wished it even, I'm afraid I ought never to have come."
"But now youarehere," argued Daisy, with some show of reason, "you'll speak to me, won't you? and help me to fish, and let me walk back with you part of the way home?"
It seemed an impotent conclusion, but she was in no mood to be censorious.
"I'm very pleased to see you, and that's the truth," she answered; "but as for fishing, I'll engage ye'll never rise a fish in the Dabble with a sky like that. I'll stay just five minutes, though, while ye wet your line, anyhow. Oh! Daisy, don't you remember what a trouble we had with the big fish down yonder, the time I ran to fetch the gaff?"
"Remember!" said Daisy, "I should think Ido! How quick you were about it. I didn't think any girl in the world could run so fast. I can remember everything you've said and done since I've known you. That's the worst of it, Norah. It's got to be different after to-day."
She had been laughing and blushing at his recollections of her activity; but she glanced quickly in his face now, while her own turned very grave and pale.
"Ye're coming to the Castle, of course," said she. "I'll run home this minute, and tell mamma to order a room, and we'll send the car round to the station for your things."
She spoke in hurried nervous accents, dreading to hear what was coming, yet conscious she had never felt so happy in her life.
Formerly she considered Daisy the lightest-hearted of men. Hitherto she scarcely remembered to have seen a cloud on his face. She liked it none the worse for its gravity now.
"I've been very unlucky, Norah," said he, holding her hand, and looking thoughtfully on the river as it flowed by. "Perhaps it's my own fault. I shall never visit at Cormacs'-town, nor go into any society where I've a chance of meetingyouagain. And yet I've done nothing wrong nor disgraceful as yet."
"I knew it!" she exclaimed; "I'd have sworn it on the Book! I told mamma so. He's agentleman, I said, and that's enough forme!"
"Thank you, dear," answered Daisy, in a failing voice. "I'm gladyoudidn't turn against me. It's bad enough without that."
"But whathashappened," she asked, drawing closer to his side. "Couldn't any of us help you? Couldn't papa advise you what to do?"
"Thishas happened, Norah," he answered gravely; "I am completely ruined. I have got nothing left in the world. Worse still, I am afraid I can scarce pay up all I've lost."
The spirit of her ancestors came into her eyes and bearing. Ruin to these, like personal danger, had never seemed a matter of great moment, so long as, at any sacrifice, honour might be preserved. She raised her head proudly, and looked straight in his face.
"The lastmustbe done," said she. "Mustbe done, I'm telling you, Daisy, andshallbe, if we sell the boots, you and me, off our very feet! How near can you get to what you owe for wages and things? Of course they'll have to be paid the first."
"Ifeverythinggoes, I don't see my way to pay up all," he answered. "However, theymustgive me a little time. Where I'm to go, though, or what to do, is more than I can tell. But Norah, dear Norah! what I mind most is, that I mustn't hope to seeyouagain!"
Her tears were falling fast. Her hands were busy with a locket she wore round her neck, the only article of value Norah possessed in the world. But the poor fingers trembled so they failed to undo the strip of velvet on which it hung. At last she got it loose, and pressed it into his hand. "Take it, Daisy," said she, smiling with her wet eyes; "I don't value it a morsel. It was old Aunt Macormac gave it me on my birth-day. There's diamonds in it—not Irish, dear—and it's worth something,anyway, though not much. Ah, Daisy! now, if ye won't take it, I'll think ye never cared for me one bit!"
But Daisy stoutly refused to despoil her of the keepsake, though he begged hard, of course, for the velvet ribbon to which it was attached; and those who have ever found themselves in a like situation will understand that he did not ask in vain.
So Miss Macormac returned to the Castle, and the maternal wing, too late for luncheon; but thus far engaged to her ruined admirer that, while he vowed to come back the very moment his prospects brightened, and the "something" turned up—which we all expect, but so few of us experience, she promised, on her part, "never to marry (how could you think it now, Daisy!) nor so much as look at anybody else till she saw him again, if it wasn't for a hundred years!"
I am concerned to add that Mr. Sullivan's rod remained forgotten on the shingle, where it was eventually picked up by one of Mr. Macormac's keepers, but handled by its rightful owner no more. There was nothing to keep Daisy in Dublin now, and his funds were getting low. In less than twenty-four hours from his parting with Norah Macormac he found himself crossing that wild district of Roscommon where he had bought the famous black mare that had so influenced his fortunes. Toiling on an outside car, up the long ascent that led to the farmer's house, he could scarcely believe so short a time had elapsed since he visited the same place in the flush of youth andhope. He felt quite old and broken by comparison. Years count for little compared to events; and age is more a question of experience than of time. He had one consolation, however, and it lay in the shape of a narrow velvet ribbon next his heart.
Ere he had clasped the farmer's hand, at his own gate, and heard his cheery hospitable greeting, he wondered how he could feel so happy.
"I'm proud to see ye, Captain!" said Denis, flourishing his hat round his head, as if it was a slip of blackthorn. "Proud am I an' pleased to see ye back again—an' that's the truth! Ye're welcome, I tell ye! Step in, now, an' take something at wanst. See, Captain, there's a two-year-old in that stable; the very moral of your black mare. Ye never seen her likes for leppin'! Ye'll try the baste this very afternoon, with the blessin'. I've had th' ould saddle mended, an' the stirrups altered to your length."
CHAPTER XX
TAKING THE COLLAR
The General thought he had never been so happy in his life. His voice, his bearing, his very dress seemed to partake of the delusion that gilded existence. Springing down the steps of his club, with more waist in his coat, more pretension in his hat, more agility in his gait, than was considered usual, or even decorous, amongst its frequenters, no wonder they passed their comments freely enough on their old comrade, ridiculing or deploring his fate, according to the various opinions and temper of the conclave.
"What's up with St. Josephs now?" asked a white-whiskered veteran of his neighbour, whose bluff, weather-beaten face proclaimed him an Admiral of the Red. "He's turned quite flighty and queer of late. Nothing wronghere, is there?" and the speaker pointed a shaking finger to the apex of his own bald head.
"Notthere, buthere," answered the sailor, laying his remaining arm across his breast. "Going to be spliced,they tell me. Sorry for it. He's not a bad sort; and a smartish officer, as I've heard, inyourservice."
"Pretty well—so, so. Nothing extraordinary forthat," answered the first speaker, commonly called by irreverent juniors "Old Straps." "He hadn't much to do in India, I fancy; but he's been lucky, sir, lucky, and luck's the thing! Luck against the world, Admiral, by sea or land!"
"Well, his luck's over now, it seems," grunted the Admiral, whose views on matrimony appeared to differ from those of his profession in general. "I'm told he's been fairly hooked by that Miss Douglas. Black-eyed girl, with black hair—black, and all black, d— me!—and rides a black mare in the park. Hey! Why she might be his daughter. How d'ye mean?"
"More fool he," replied Straps, with a leer and a grin that disclosed his yellow tusks. "A fellow like St. Josephs ought to know better."
"I'm not so sure of that," growled the Admiral. "Gad, sir, if I was idiot enough to do the same thing, d'ye think I'd take a d—d old catamaran, that knew every move in the game? No, no, sir; youth and innocence, hey? A clean bill of health, a fair wind, and a pleasant voyage, you know!"
"In my opinion, there's devilish little youth left, and no innocence," answered "Straps." "If that's the girl, she's been hawked about, to my certain knowledge, for the last three seasons; and I suppose our friend is the only chance left—what we used to call a 'forlorn hope' when I was an ensign. He's got a little money, and they might give hima command. You never know what this Government will do. It's my belief they'd give that crossing-sweeper a command if they were only sure he was quite unfit for it."
"Command be d—d!" swore the Admiral. "He'll have enough to do to command his young wife. What? She's a lively craft, I'll be bound, with her black eyes. Carries a weather-helm, and steers as wild as you please in a sea-way. I'll tell you what it is—Here, waiter! bring me theGlobe. Why the —- are the evening papers so late?"
In the rush for those welcome journals, so long expected, so eagerly seized, all other topics were instantaneously submerged. Long before he could reach the end of the street, General St. Josephs was utterly forgotten by his brother officers and friends.
Still hethoughthe had never been so happy in his life. The word is used advisedly, for surely experience teaches us that real happiness consists in tranquillity and repose, in the slumber rather than the dream, in the lassitude that soothes the patient, not the fever-fit of which it is the result. Can a man be considered happy who is not comfortable? and how is comfort compatible with anxiety, loss of appetite, nervous tremors, giddiness, involuntary blushing, and the many symptoms of disorder, who could be cured heretofore by advertisement, and which are the invariable accompaniments of an epidemic, invincible by pill or potion, and yielding only to the homœopathic treatment of marriage.
In this desperate remedy St. Josephs was anxious to experimentalise, and without delay. Yet his tact was supreme. Since the memorable walk in Kensington Gardens, when he laid her under such heavy obligations, his demeanour had been more that of a friend than a lover—more, perhaps, that of a loyal and devoted subject to his sovereign mistress, than either. She wondered why he never asked her, what she had done with all that money? Why, when she alluded to the subject, he winced and started, as from a touch on a raw wound. Once she very nearly told him all. They were in a box at the Opera, so far unobserved that the couple who had accompanied them seemed wholly engrossed with each other. Satanella longed to make her confession—ease her conscience of its burden, perhaps, though such a thought was cruel and unjust—shake the yoke from off his neck. She had even got as far as, "I've never half thanked you, General—" when there came a tap at the box-door. Enter an irreproachable dandy, then a confusion of tongues, a laugh, a solo, injunctions to silence, and the opportunity was gone. Could she ever find courage to seek for it again?
Nevertheless, day by day she dwelt more on her admirer's forbearance, his care, his tenderness, his chivalrous devotion. Though he never pressed the point, it seemed an understood thing that they were engaged. She had forbidden him to visit her before luncheon, but he spent his afternoons in her drawing-room; and, on rare occasions,was admitted in the evening, when an elderly lady, supposed to be Blanche's cousin, came to act chaperone. The walks in Kensington Gardens had been discontinued. Her heart could not but smite her sometimes, to think that she never gave him but one, when she wanted him to do her a favour.
Had he been more exacting, she would have felt less self-reproach, but his patience and good humour cut her to the quick.
"You brute!" she would say, pushing her hair back, and frowning at her own handsome face in the glass. "Youworsethan brute! Unfeeling, unfeminine, I wish you were dead!—I wish you were dead!"
She had lost her rich colour now, and the hollow eyes were beginning to look very large and sad, under their black arching brows.
Perhaps it was the General's greatest delight to hear her sing. This indulgence she accorded him only of an evening, when the cousin invariably went to sleep, and her admirer sat in an armchair with the daily paper before his face. She insisted on this screen, and this attitude, never permitting him to stand by the pianoforte, nor turn over the leaves, nor undergo any exertion of mind or body that should break the charm. Who knows what golden visions gladdened the war-worn soldier's heart while he leaned back and listened, spellbound by the tones he loved? Dreams of domestic happiness and peaceful joys, and a calm untroubled future, when doubts and fearsshould be over, and he could make this glorious creature wholly and exclusively his own.
general
"Perhaps it was the General's greatest delight to hear her sing."Satanella.Page 208
Did he ever wonder why in certain songs the dear voice thrilled with a sweetness almost akin to pain ere it was drowned in a loud and brilliant accompaniment, that foiled the possibility of remonstrance, while the ditty was thrown aside to be replaced by another, less fraught, perhaps, with painful memories and associations? If so, he hazarded no remark nor conjecture, satisfied, as it seemed, to wait her pleasure, and in all things bow his will to hers, sacrificing his desires, his pride, his very self-respect to the woman he adored.
For a time nothing occurred to disturb the General's enforced tranquillity, and he pursued the course he seemed to have marked out for himself with a calm perseverance that deserved success. In public, people glanced and whispered when they saw Miss Douglas on his arm; in private, he called daily at her house, talked much small-talk and drank a great deal of weak tea; while in solitude he asked himself how long this probation was to last, resolving nevertheless to curb his impatience, control his temper, and if the prize was only to be won by waiting, wait for it to the end!
Leaving his club, then, unconscious of the Admiral's pity and the sarcasms of "Old Straps," St. Josephs walked jauntily through Mayfair, till he came to the well-known street, which seemed to him now even as a glade in Paradise. The crossing-sweeper blessed him with considerable emphasis, brushing energetically in his path; for when going the General was invariably good for sixpence, and on propitious days would add thereto a shilling as he returned.
On the present occasion, though his hand was in his pocket, it remained there with the coin in its finger and thumb; for the wayfarer stopped petrified in the middle of the street; the sweeper held his tattered hat at arm's-length, motionless as a statue; and a bare-headed butcher's-boy, standing erect in a light cart, pulled his horse on its haunches, and called out—
"Now then, stoopid! D'ye want all the road to yerself?" grazing the old officer's coat-tails as he drove by with a brutal laugh.
But neither irreverence nor outrage served to divert the General's attention from the sight that so disturbed his equanimity.
"There's that d—d black mare again!" he muttered, while he clenched his teeth, and his cheek turned pale. "I'll put a stop to this one way or the other. Steady, steady! No; my game is to be won by pluck and patience. It's very near the end now. Shall I lose it by failing in both?"
The black mare, looking but little the worse for training, was indeed in the act of leaving Blanche's door. Miss Douglas had evidently ridden her that morning in the Park. She might have told the General, he thought. She might have asked him to accompany her as he used.She ought to have no secrets from him now; but was he in truth any nearer her inner life, any more familiar with her dearest thoughts and wishes than he had been months ago? Surely she was not treating him well! Surely he deserved more confidence than this. The General felt very sore and angry; but summoning all his self-command, walked upstairs,—and for this he deserves no little credit,—with an assured step, and a calm, unruffled brow.
"Miss Douglas was dressing," the servant said. "Miss Douglas had been out for a ride. Would the General take a seat, and look at to-day's paper? Miss Douglas had said 'partic'lar' she would be at home."
It was irritating to wait, but it was soothing to know she was at home "partic'lar" whenhecalled. The General sat down to peruse the advertisement sheet of the paper, reading absently a long and laudatory description of the trousseaux and other articles for family use supplied by a certain house in the city at less than cost price!
CHAPTER XXI
A SNAKE IN THE GRASS
His studies were soon interrupted by the rustle of a dress on the staircase. With difficulty he forbore rushing out to meet its wearer, but managed to preserve the composure of an ordinary morning visitor, when the door opened, and—enter Mrs. Lushington! She must have read his disappointment in his face; for she looked half-amused, half-provoked, and there was no less malice than mirth in her eyes while she observed—
"Blanche will be down directly, General, and don't be afraid I shall interrupt yourtête-à-tête, for I am going away as soon as I've written a note. You can rehearse all the charming things you have got to say in the meantime."
He had recovered hissavoir-faire.
"Rehearse them toyou?" he asked, laughing. "It would be pretty practice, no doubt. Shall I begin?"
"Not now," she answered, in the same tone. "There is hardly time; though Blanche wouldn't be very crossabout it, I dare say. She is liberal enough, and knows she can trustme."
"I am sure you are a true friend," he returned gravely. "Miss Douglas—Blanche—has not too many. I hope you will always remain one of her staunchest and best."
She smiled sadly.
"Do youreallymean it?" said she, taking his hand. "You can't imagine how happy it makes me to hear you say so. I thought you considered me a vain, ignorant, frivolous little woman, like the rest."
Perhaps he did, but this was not the moment to confess it.
"What a strange world it would be," he answered, "if we knew the real opinions of our friends. In this case, Mrs. Lushington, you see how wrong you were about mine."
"I believe you, General!" she exclaimed. "I feel that you are truth itself. I am sure you never deceived a woman in your life, and Icannotunderstand how any woman could find it in her heart to deceiveyou. One ought never to forgive such an offence, and I can believe thatyounever would."
He thought her earnestness unaccountable, and wholly uncalled for; but his senses were on the alert to catch the first symptoms of Blanche's approach, and he answered rather absently—
"Quite right! Of course not. Double-dealing isthething I hate. You may cheat me once; that isyourfault. It is my own if you ever take me in again."
"No wonder Blanche values your good opinion," said Mrs. Lushington meaningly. "She has not spent her life amongst people whose standard is so high. Hush! here she comes. Ah! General, you won't care about talking tomenow!"
She gave him one reproachful glance in which there was a little merriment, a little pique, and a great deal of tender interest, ere she departed to write her note in the back drawing-room.
It was impossible not to contrast her kind and deferential manner with the cold, collected bearing of Miss Douglas, who entered the room, like a queen about to hold her court, rather than a loving maiden, hurrying to meet her lord.
She had always been remarkable for quiet dignity in motion or repose.
It was one of the many charms on which the General lavished his admiration, but he could have dispensed with this royal composure now. It seemed a little out of place in their relative positions. Also he would have liked to see the colour deepen in her proud impassive face, though his honest heart ached while he reflected how the bright tints had faded of late, how the glory of her beauty had departed, leaving her always pale and saddened now.
He would have asked a leading question, hazarded a gentle reproach, or in some way made allusion to the arrival of hisbête noir, but her altered looks disarmed him; and itwas Satanella herself who broached the subject, by quietly informing her visitor she had just returned from riding the black mare in the Park. "Do youmind?" she added, rising in some confusion to pull a blind down, while she spoke.
Here would have been an opportunity for a confession of jealousy, an appeal to her feelings, pleadings, promises, protestations,—to use the General's own metaphor,—"an attack along the whole line;" but how was he thus to offer decisive battle, with his flank exposed and threatened, with Mrs. Lushington's ears wide open and attentive, while her pen went scribble, scribble, almost in the same room?
"Imindeverything you do," said he gallantly, "and object to nothing! If Ididwant to get up a grievance, I should quarrel with you for not ordering me to parade in attendance on you in the Park. My time, as you know, is always yours, and I am never so happy as with you. Blanche (dropping his voice), I am neverreallyhappy when you are out of my sight."
She glanced towards the writing-table, and though the folding-doors, half-shut, concealed that lady's person, seemed glad to observe, by the continual scratching of a pen, that Mrs. Lushington had not yet finished her note.
"You are always good and kind," said Blanche, forcing a smile. "Far more than I deserve. Will you ride another day, early? Thanks; I knew you would. I should have asked you this morning but I had a headache, and thought I should only be a bore. Besides, I expectedyou in the afternoon. Then Clara came to luncheon, and we went upstairs, and now the carriage will be round in five minutes. That is the way the day goes by; yet it seems very long too, only not so bad as the night."
Again his face fell. It was uphill work, he thought. Surely women were not usually so difficult to woo, or his own memory played him false, and his friends romanced unpardonably in their narratives. But, nevertheless, in all the prizes of life that which seemed fairest and best hung highest out of reach, and he would persevere to the end. Aye! even if he should fail at last!
Miss Douglas seemed to possess some intuitive knowledge of his intention; and conscious of his determination to overcome them, was perhaps the more disposed to throw difficulties in his path. He should have remembered that in love as in war, a rapid flank movement and complete change of tactics will often prevail, when vigilance, endurance, and honest courage have been tried in vain.
Satanella could not but appreciate a delicacy that forbade further inquiry about the black mare. No sooner had she given vent to her feelings, in the little explosion recorded above, than she bitterly regretted their expression, comparing her wayward petulant disposition with the temper and constancy displayed by her admirer. Sorrowful, softened, filled with self-reproach, she gave him one of her winning smiles, and bade him forgive her display of ill-humour, or bear with it, as one of many evil qualities, the result of her morbid temperament and isolated lot.
"Then I slept badly, and went out tired. The Ride was crowded, the sun broiling, the mare disagreeable. Altogether, I came back as cross as two sticks. General, areyounever out of humour? And how do you get rid of your ill-tempers? You certainly don't visit them onme!"
"HowcouldI?" he asked in return. "How can I ever be anything but your servant, your slave? Oh! Blanche, you must believe menow. How much longer is my probation to last? Is the time to be always put off from day to day, and must I——"
"Clara! Clara!" exclaimed Miss Douglas to her friend in the back drawing-room, "shall you never have done with those tiresome letters? Have you any idea what o'clock it is? And the carriage was ordered at five!"
The General smothered a curse. It was invariably so. No sooner did he think he had gained a secure footing, wrested a position of advantage, than she cut the ground from under him, pushed him down the hill, and his labour was lost, his task all to begin again! It seemed as if she could not bear to face her real position, glancing off at a tangent, without the slightest compunction, from the one important topic he was constantly watching an opportunity to broach.
"Just done! and a good day's work too!" replied Mrs. Lushington's silver tones from the writing-table, and it must have been a quicker ear than either Satanella's or the General's to detect in that playful sentence the spirit of mischievous triumph it conveyed.
Mrs. Lushington was delighted. She felt sure she had fathomed a secret, discovered the clue to an intrigue, and by such means as seemed perfectly fair and justifiable to her warped sense of right and wrong.
Finding herself a third person in a small party that should have been limited to two, she made urgent correspondence her excuse for withdrawing to such a distance as might admit of overhearing their conversation, while the lovers, if lovers indeed they were, should think themselves unobserved.
So she opened Satanella's blotting-book, and spread a sheet of note-paper on its folds.
Mrs. Lushington had a quick eye, no less than a ready wit. Blanche's blotting-paper was of the best quality, soft, thin, and absorbent. Where the writing-book opened, so shrewd an observer did not fail to detect the words "Roscommon, Ireland," traced clear and distinct as a lithograph, though reversed. Looking through the page, against the light, she read Daisy's address in his hiding-place with his humble friend Denis plainly enough, and the one word "Registered" underlined at the corner.
"Enfin je te pince!" she muttered below her breath. It was evident Satanella was in Daisy's confidence, that she knew his address,—which had been extorted indeed with infinite trouble from a lad whom he had sent to England in charge of the precious mare,—and had written to him within the last day or two. It was a great discovery! Her hand shook from sheer excitement,while she considered how best it could be turned to account, how it might serve to wean the General of his infatuation, to detach him from her friend, perhaps at last to secure him for herself. But she must proceed cautiously; make every step good, as she went on; prove each link of the chain, while she forged it; and when Blanche was fairly in the toils, show her the usual mercy extended by one woman to another.
Of course, she wrote her notes on a fresh page of the blotting-book. Of course, she rose from her employment frank, smiling, unsuspicious. Of course, she was more than usually affectionate to Blanche, and that young lady, well-skilled in the wiles of her own sex, wondering what had happened, watched her friend's conduct with some anxiety and yet more contempt.
"Good-bye, Blanche."
"Good-bye, Clara."
"Come again soon, dear!"
"You may depend upon me, love!"
And they kissed each other with a warmth of affection in no way damped or modified because Blanche suspected, and Clara resolved, henceforth it must be war to the knife!
In taking her leave of the General, however, Mrs. Lushington could not resist an allusion to their previous conversation, putting into her manner so much of tender regard and respectful interest as was pleasing enough to him and inexpressibly galling to her friend.
"Have you said your say?" she asked, looking very pretty and good-humoured as she gave him both hands. "I'm sure you had lots of time, and the best of opportunities. Don't you think I'm very considerate?"
"More—very generous!"
"Come and see me soon. Whenever you like. With or without dear Blanche. She won't mind; I'm always at home, to either of you—or both."
Then she made a funny little curtsey, gave him one more smile, one sidelong sorrowful glance, with her hand on the door, and was gone.
Blanche's spirit rose to arms; every instinct of her sex urged her to resist this unconscionable freebooter, this lawless professor of piracy and annexation. After all, whether she cared for him or not, the General was her own property. And what right had this woman to come between mistress and servant, with her becks and leers, her smiles and wiles, and meretricious ways? She had never valued her lover higher than at the moment Mrs. Lushington left the room; but he destroyed his advantage, kicked down all his good fortune, by looking in Miss Douglas's face with an expression of slavish devotion, while he exclaimed—
"How different that woman is from you, Blanche. Surely, my queen, there is nobody like you in the world!"
CHAPTER XXII
AN EXPERT
Returning from morning stables to his barrack-room, Soldier Bill found on his table a document that puzzled him exceedingly. He read it a dozen times, turned it up-side down, smoothed it out with his riding-whip, all in vain. He could make nothing of it; then he summoned Barney.
"When did this thing come, and who brought it?"
"Five minutes back," answered the batman. "Left by a young man on fatigue duty."
So Barney, with military exactitude, described a government official, in the costume of its telegraphic department.
"Did the man leave no message?" continued Bill.
"Said as there was nothing to pay," answered Barney, standing at "attention" and obviously considering this part of his communication satisfactory in the extreme.
"Said there was nothing to pay!" mused his master, "and I would have given him a guinea to explain any two words of it." Then he took his coat off, and sat doggedly down to read the mysterious sentences again and again.
The soldier, as he expressed it, was "up a tree!" Thatthe message must be of importance, he argued from its mode of transmission. The sender's name was legible enough, and his own address perfectly correct. He felt sure Daisy would not have telegraphed from the wilds of Roscommon but on a matter of urgency; and it did seem provoking that the only sense to be got out of the whole composition, was in the sentence with which it concluded—"Do not lose a moment." In his perplexity, he could think of no one so likely to help him as Mrs. Lushington.
"She has more 'nous' in that pretty little head of hers," thought Bill, as he plunged into a suit of plain clothes, "than the Horse Guards and the War Office put together.She'llknock the marrow out of this, if anybody can! I've heard her guess riddles right off, the first time she heard them; and there isn't her equal in London for acting charades and games of that kind, where you must be down to it, before they can say 'knife.' By Jove, I shouldn't wonder if this was a double acrostic after all? Only Daisy wouldn't be such a flat as to telegraph it all the way from Ireland tome. I hope she'll see me. It's awfully early. I wonder if she'll blow me up for coming so soon."
These reflections, and Catamount's thorough-bred canter, soon brought him to Mrs. Lushington's door. She was at home, and sufficiently well prepared for exercises of ingenuity, having been engaged, after breakfast,—though it is but fair to say, such skirmishes were of unusual occurrence,—in a passage-of-arms with Frank.
The latter was a good-naturedman, with a badtemper.His wife's temper was excellent; but her enemies, and indeed her friends, said she was ill-natured. Though scarcely to be called an attached couple, these two seldom found it worth while to quarrel, and so long as the selfishness of each did not clash with the other, they jogged on quietly enough. It was only when domestic affairs threw them together more than common, that the contact elicited certain sparks, such as crackled on occasion into what observers below-stairs called a "flare-up."
To-day they happened to breakfast together. After a few "backhanders," and some rapid exchanges, in which the husband came by the worst, their conversation turned on money-matters—always a sore subject, as each considered that the other spent more than a due share of their joint income. Complaints led to recriminations, until at length, goaded by the sharpness of his wife's tongue, Mr. Lushington exclaimed: "Narrow-minded, indeed! Paltry economy! I can tell you, if I didn't keep a precious tight hand, and deny myself—well—lots of things. I say if I didn't deny myselflotsof things, I should be in the Bench—that's all."
"Then you are a very bad financier," she retorted, "worse than the Chancellor of the Exchequer even. But I don't believe it. I believe you're saving money every day."
He rose from his chair in a transport of irritation, the skirts of his dressing-gown floating round him, like the rags of a whirling dervish.
"Saving money!" he repeated, in a sort of suppressed scream. "I can only tell you I had to borrow five hundred last week, and from little Sharon too. That doesn't mean getting it at three per cent.!"
"Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" said she. "No gentleman borrows money from Sharon."
"No gentleman!" he vociferated. "Upon my life, Mrs. Lushington, I wish you would try to be more temperate in your language. No Gentleman, indeed! I should like to know what you call General St. Josephs? I fancy he is rather a favourite of yours. All I can tell you is,heborrows money of Sharon. Lumps of money, at exorbitant interest."
"It's very easy tosaythese things," she replied. "But you can't prove them!"
"Can't I?" was his rejoinder. "Well, I suppose you won't doubt my word, when I give you my honour, that he consulted me himself about a loan from this very man. Three thousand pounds, Mrs. Lushington—three thousand pounds sterling, and at two days' notice. Didn't care what he paid for it, and wanted it; well,Ididn't ask him why he wanted it;Idon't pry into other people's money-matters.Idon't always think the worst of my neighbours. But you'll allow I'm right, I hope! You'll admit so much at any rate!"
"That has nothing to do with it," replied his wife; and in this highly satisfactory manner their matrimonial bicker terminated.
Mrs. Lushington, while remaining, in a modified sense, mistress of the position—for Frank retired to his own den, when the servants came to take away breakfast—found her curiosity keenly stimulated by the little piece of gossip thus let fall under the excitement of a conjugal wrangle. What on earth could St. Josephs want with three thousand pounds? She had never heard he was a gambler. On a race-course, she knew, from personal observation, that beyond a few half-crowns with the ladies, he would not venture a shilling. He had told her repeatedly how he abhorred foreign loans, joint-stock companies, lucrative investments of all sorts, and money speculations of any kind whatever; yet here, if she believed her husband, was this wise and cautious veteran plunging overhead in a transaction wholly out of keeping with his character and habits. "Theremustbe a woman at the bottom of it!" thought Mrs. Lushington, not unreasonably, resolving at the same time never to rest till she had sifted the whole mystery from beginning to end.
She felt so keen on her quest, that she could even have found it in her heart to seek Frank in his own snuggery, and, sinking her dignity, there endeavoured to worm out of him further particulars, when Catamount was pulled up with some difficulty at her door, and his master's card sent in, accompanied by a humble petition that the early visitor might be admitted. Having darkened her eyelashes just before breakfast, and being, moreover, dressed in an unusually becoming morning toilet, she returned a favourable answer, so that Soldier Bill, glowing from his ride, was ushered into her boudoir without delay.
Her womanly tact observed his fussed and anxious looks. She assumed, therefore, an air of interest and gravity in her own.
"There's some bother," said she kindly; "I see it in your face. How can I help you, and what can I do?"
"You're a conjuror, by Jove!" gasped Bill, in a paroxysm of admiration at her omniscience.
"You'renot, at any rate!" she replied, smiling. "But, come, tell me all about it. You're in a scrape? You've been a naughty boy. What have you been doing? Out with it!"
"It's nothing of my own; I give you my honour," replied Bill. "It's Daisy's turn now. Look here, Mrs. Lushington. I'm completely puzzled—regularly knocked out of time. Read that. I can't make head or tail of it."
He handed her the telegram, which she perused in silence, then burst out laughing, and read it again aloud for his edification:—
"Very strong Honey just arrived—bulls a-light on Bank of Ireland—Sent by an unknown Fiend—fail immediately—Sell Chief—consult a Gent, and strip Aaron at once—Do not lose a moment."
"Mr. Walters must be gone raving mad, or is this a practical joke, and why do you bring it here?"
"I don't think it's a joke," answered Bill ruefully. "I brought it because you know everything. Ifyoucan't help me, I'm done!"
"Quite right," said she. "Always consult a woman in a tangle. Now this thing is just like a skein of silk. If we can't unravel it at one end, we begin at the other. In the first place, who is Aaron? and how would you proceed to strip him?"
"Aaron," repeated Bill thoughtfully. "Aaron—I never heard of such a person. There's Sharon, you know; but strippinghimwould be out of the question. It's generally the other way!"
"Sharon's a money-lender, isn't he?" she asked. "What business haveyouto know anything about him, you wicked young man?"
"Never borrowed a sixpence in my life," protested Bill, which was perfectly true. "But I've been to him often enough lately about this business of Daisy's. We've arranged to get fifteen hundred fromhimalone. Perhaps that is what is meant by stripping him. But it was all to be in hard money; and though I know Sharon sometimes makes you take goods, I never heard of his sending a fellow bulls, or strong honey, or indeed, anything but dry sherry and cigars."
She knit her brows and read the message again. "I think I have it," said she. "'Strip Aaron.' That must mean 'Stop Sharon.' 'Sell the Chief',—that's 'Tell the Colonel.' Then 'fail immediately' signifies that thewriter means to cross by the first boat. Where does it come from—Dublin or Roscommon?"
"Roscommon," answered Bill. "They're not much in the habit of telegraphing up there."
"Depend upon it Daisy has dropped into a good thing. Somebody must have left, or lent, orgivenhim a lot of money. I have it! I have it! This is how you must read it," she exclaimed, and following the lines with her taper finger, she put them into sense with no little exultation, for the benefit of her admiring listener. "'Very strange! Money just arrived. Bill at sight, on Bank of Ireland. Sent by an unknown Friend. Sail immediately. Tell Chief. Consult Agent, and stop Sharon at once.Do not lose a moment.' There, sir, should I, or should I not, make a good expert at the Bank."
"You're a witch—simply a witch," returned the delighted Bill. "It's regular, downright magic. Of course, that's what he means. Of course, he's come into a fortune. Hurrah! hurrah! Mrs. Lushington, have you any objection? I should like to throw my hat in the street, please, and put my head out of window to shout!"
"I beg you'll put out nothing of the kind!" she answered, laughing. "If you must be a boy, at least be a good boy, and do what I tell you."
"I should think Iwouldjust!" he protested, still in his paroxysm of admiration. "You know more than the examiners at Sandhurst! You could givepoundsto the senior department! If you weren't so—I mean if youwere old and ugly—I should really believe what I said at first, that you're a witch!"
She smiled on him in a very bewitching manner; but her brains were hard at work the while recapitulating all she had learned in the last twenty-four hours, with a pleasant conviction that she had put her puzzle together at last. Yes, she saw it clearly now. The registered envelope of which she found the address, in reverse, on Blanche's blotting-paper, must have contained those very bills, mentioned in Daisy's telegram. It had struck her at the time that the handwriting was stiff and formal, as if disguised; but this served to account for the mysterious announcement of an "unknown fiend!" She was satisfied that Miss Douglas had sent anonymously the sum he wanted to the man she loved. And that sum Bill had already told her was three thousand pounds—exactly the amount, according to her husband's version, lately borrowed by the General from a notorious money-lender. Was it possible Satanella could thus have stripped one admirer to benefit another? It must be so. Such treachery deserved no mercy, and Mrs. Lushington determined to show none.
She considered how far her visitor might be trusted with this startling discovery. It was as well, she thought, that he should be at least partially enlightened, particularly as the transaction was but little to the credit of any one concerned, and could not, therefore, be made public too soon. So she laid her hand on Bill's coat-sleeve, and observed impressively—
"Never mind about my being old and ugly, but attend to what I say. Daisy, as you call him, has evidently found a good friend. Now I know who that friend is. Don't ask me how I found it out. I never speak without being sure. That money came from Miss Douglas."
Bill opened his eyes and mouth. "Miss Douglas!" he repeated. "Not the black girl with the black mare?"
"The black girl with the black mare, and no other," she answered. "Miss Douglas has paid his debts, and saved him from ruin. What return can a man make for such generosity as that?"
"She's a trump, and he ought to marry her!" exclaimed the young officer. "No great sacrifice either. Only," he added, on reflection, "she looks a bit of a Tartar—wants her head let quite alone at her fences, I should think. She'd be rather a handful; but Daisy wouldn't mind that. Yes; he's bound to marry her no doubt; and I'll see him through it."
"I quite agree with you," responded Mrs. Lushington, "but I won't have you talk about ladies as if they were hunters. It's bad style, young gentleman, so don't do it again. Now, attend to what I tell you. Jump on that poor horse of yours; it must be very tired of staring into my dining-room windows. Go to your agent, and sendhimto Sharon. Let your Colonel know at once. When Daisy arrives, impress on him all that he is bound in honour to do, and you may come and see me again, whenever you like, to report progress."
So Bill leapt into the saddle in exceedingly good spirits, while Mrs. Lushington sat down to her writing-table, with the self-satisfied sensations of one who has performed an action of provident kindness and good-will.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE DEBT OF HONOUR
Daisy's astonishment, on receiving by post those documents that restored him to the world from his vegetation in Roscommon, was no less unbounded than his joy. When he opened the registered letter, and bills for the whole amount of his liabilities fluttered out, he could scarcely believe his eyes. Then he puzzled himself to no purpose, in wild speculations as to the friend who had thus dropped from the skies at his utmost need. He had an uncle prosperous enough in worldly matters, but this uncle hated parting with his money, and was, moreover, abroad, whereas the welcome letter bore a London post-mark. He could think of no other relative nor friend rich enough, even if willing, to assist him in so serious a difficulty. The more he considered his good luck, the more inexplicable it appeared; nor, taking his host into consultation, did that worthy's suggestions tend to elucidate the mystery.