“Thisisdelightful!” Sydney cried, as she sat down beside the bright fire in the pretty bedroom near Katharine’s, which had been allotted to her at the Deanery. “It is quite too lovely of you to ask me, and it is quite too lovely of them to let me come! I never thought I should be allowed to, and Lady Frederica said ‘No’ at first, and I mustn’t go visiting because of not being ‘out’; but St. Quentin stood by me, and said everyone had holidays at Christmas-time, and Ishouldgo if I wanted. You can guess how much I did want; even now it seems too good to be true!”
“Well, I am very pleased to have you, dear,” Katharine said, smiling across at the girl, “though I wish it were for longer than two days. There is so much I want to hear. I miss the calisthenic class now that there are Christmas holidays for everybody. How didyou spend Christmas, and how is your cousin?”
“I hoped he might be better because he didn’t seem getting worse,” Sydney said a little sadly; “but Dr. Lorry doesn’t seem to think so. He says St. Quentin must get weaker, and that it is only his splendid constitution makes him fight so long.”
There was silence for a few minutes in the pretty room.
“Well, you haven’t told me yet how you spent Christmas?” Katharine asked, rousing herself with an effort.
“Sir Algernon was with us——” began Sydney, but was interrupted.
“Whom did you say?”
“Sir Algernon Bridge; he is a friend, I think, of Cousin St. Quentin’s.”
“And he is at the Castle now? Sydney dear, promise me, don’t have more to do than you can help with that man!”
Sydney hardly knew the quiet girl; her eyes were flashing, and there was a bright colour in her face.
“I can’t bear him!” she said; “and I don’t see a great deal of him—at least, I did not, but since Christmas Day he has been more with Miss Osric and me.”
“Have as little to do with him as possible,” said Katharine earnestly. “Your cousin ought not to allow him to be with you. I will tell you something about him, Sydney, and then you will see what I mean.”
She played nervously for a minute with the fire-screen on her knee, then began, speaking low.
“It is a story about a girl, not very much older than you are, whose life was spoiled because she listened to him. This girl cared for a man very much indeed, and he cared for her; only she would not be engaged, because the man did not care enough to give up his faults and extravagances for her sake.
“But she did care, more than you can understand! Sir Algernon knew her, and one day he asked her to marry him. She said ‘No,’ of course, and he was angry, for he guessed about this other man.... Then—I don’t know how to tell you, Sydney dear—a very dreadful thing happened.... The man she cared for was suspected of doing an exceedingly dishonourable action. The girl was away from home when this—thing—happened, so she knew nothing till she came back. The first thing she did when she heard,was to snatch up pen and paper and write a letter to the man she loved, telling him that she did not believe a word against him, and only cared for him more if possible than she had done before....”
“That’s the kind of thing you would have done!” cried Sydney; “please go on. Wasn’t the man very, very pleased to get the letter?”
Katharine knelt down to stir the fire, although it did not stand in any need of stirring.
“She never sent the letter, Sydney dear.... She had just addressed it when Sir Algernon came in. He told her he had come to ask for her advice. He had had a letter, seeming to come from some poor woman in distress, he said, and asking for his help. Knowing the girl was interested in such cases, he asked her if she would read the letter, and tell him if she thought the case one suited for his help....
“Of course the girl said ‘Yes,’ and he gave her a dirty envelope, looking very carefully inside it first, she saw, though she hardly noticed at the time. He told her, as he gave it to her, that she would need to read it very carefully and slowly, as the woman was exceedingly illiterate.... It was written in a cramped, odd hand-writing, but it was quite correctly spelled. When the girl had read about half, she saw thatthe letter was from no poor woman ... but from the man she cared for, and oh, Sydney! it seemed to show beyond possibility of doubt that he was guilty of this dreadful meanness in which the girl had refused to believe.... Sir Algernon pretended to be dreadfully distressed when the girl gave him back the half-read letter, and said he must have put this by mistake into the wrong envelope, and he never should forgive himself, for he had promised to suppress the man’s letter, because they had been friends. And the girl thought he was very generous!
“When he had gone, she put that loving letter in the fire, and wrote another to the man she loved, not mentioning the letter she had seen, but merely saying that she never wished to see or hear of him again! I think, even then, she half hoped for some explanation from him, but none came. She was very miserable, Sydney.”
“I think she deserved to be!” Sydney cried. “Why, if she really cared for the man, how could she help believing in him?—all the more if things went against him. I don’t believe she loved him!”
She wondered as she spoke why her friend looked so white, even in the dancing fire-light.
“She did care, but not enough,” said Katharine Morrell, and there was a pause.
“Did she ever get to know?” asked Sydney, after waiting in vain for her to go on.
“Yes, by-and-by, when she had thought about it more, and grown older, and heard more about Sir Algernon. She felt sure then that the man she loved was innocent of that dishonourable action: that he could not have been guilty of it. And she guessed that Sir Algernon had given her the note to read on purpose that she might act as she did. He had set a trap for her, but she would not have fallen into it if she had only had more love and trust and patience.”
“When she knew, did she write to the man and tell him?” Sydney questioned earnestly.
“No, dear, she couldn’t. The man had given up caring, for one thing, you see. No, that is the end of the story! I am afraid there is no ‘lived happily ever after’ to finish this. I only tell you of it, because I want you to be warned against Sir Algernon.” There was a silence in the pretty room; then Katharine rose a little wearily. “Good-night, dear; don’t be worried by that girl’s story, which is all past and gone. Only be warned,as I wish she had been warned, against Sir Algernon.”
Sydney thought a good deal of Katharine’s words during the busy, happy day which followed, when she seemed plunged back for the time being into the merry Sydney of home. There was a Christmas-tree at the Hospital, and Sydney went with her friend and helped her take round the presents to the patients, and made the acquaintance of Miss Osric’s father, and enjoyed herself exceedingly.
And next day Miss Morrell entertained all the women of her working-party at the Deanery, and Sydney and the little cousin Sylvia helped to wait on them at tea and amuse them. Sydney quite made friends with a gentle-faced woman, whose smile made her think a little bit of mother’s, and sat beside her talking to her for a great part of the evening.
“Yes, this sewing-party it were Miss Morrell’s plan, miss,” said Mrs. Carter, “and many’s the times as we’ve blessed her for it. You see, miss, most of us here went out to service that early as we hadn’t time to learn more sewing than the roughest kind, and patterns and things of that kind don’t come much in the way of poor folk. Well, MissMorrell she knew that, so she went and learned herself how to make gowns and underwear and children’s clothes and such-like, and then she has a working-party once a week for to learn us. And we sits in her own morning-room, with all her pretty things about, for all the world as if we was ladies, and she has the rolls of stuff down cheaper from the big shops than we can buy it, and lets us pay as we can. And she cuts out the things for us, and learns us all about the making of ’em, talking or reading to us in between, very sweet. And by-and-by we has tea; all served very dainty, with Mr. Tomkins, the footman, handing round as polite as anything. I can tell you, miss, it makes a real rest for us to sit and work in that there pretty room, and it makes a sight of difference, too, to the way that we dress the children. Why, mine was turned out as neat and nice as anything, though I say it as shouldn’t, all through last winter, and at half the cost of dressing ’em in them shop-made things, as comes all to pieces before you know where to have ’em. Miss Morrell, she don’t hardly let nothing interfere with our sewing-party. She’s a real young lady, she is, bless her!”
“Katharine,” said Sydney that evening,when the guests had departed, “I wish I were half as good as you are. Don’t you sometimes find that work-party a great bother?”
“Oh, of course it is a little inconvenient sometimes,” she said; “but the women are so nice and so grateful, and one is so glad to have something one can do for them oneself. Papa is always very good in letting me relieve special cases of trouble, but it ishismoney, not mine, you see. The best kind of giving is what one gives oneself, don’t you think? And most of us can give our time and trouble, even if we can give nothing else.”
Sydney took these words home with her next day, when reluctantly she had bade good-bye to Katharine, and been put by the silver-haired Dean into the charge of Miss Osric, who had come to Donisbro’ to fetch her.
“Most of us can give our time and trouble, even if we can give nothing else.”
“Mrs. Sawyer says she will be proud and pleased to let us use her kitchen for nothing,” Sydney said, “but we must pay her for the fire. She doesn’t have one in the afternoons, as a rule. How much does a fire cost, Miss Osric?”
The girl was puckering her brows over a business-like account book open on the table before her. Miss Osric stood opposite, driving a great pair of squeaking scissors through a double fold of flannel.
“We should want it for about two hours, shouldn’t we?” she said, in answer to Sydney’s question. “It would probably cost about sevenpence a time, but that depends upon the sort of coal Mrs. Sawyer has, and how big a fire you mean to keep.”
“Fourteen pence—one and twopence a week,” Sydney said, noting the fact down in heraccount book. “And then there is the tea,” she went on. “I wonder how much that will cost? And I don’t suppose the people will be able to pay much at first towards the stuff they use. They are so poor, and one wants to help them.”
“Let them pay something towards it, Sydney,” said Miss Osric; “don’t make paupers of them—that is a mistake. Say they pay half expenses.”
“Well, perhaps,” the girl said. “How many petticoats will that roll of flannel make, do you think?”
“Not very many, and flannel is so dreadfully expensive; you will have to use flannelette, I think.”
“No, itmustbe flannel,” said Sydney. “I asked Dr. Lorry, and he said rheumatic people should wear flannel. And you know how dreadfully rheumatic they are here.”
There was another anxious calculation of accounts, which lasted until Sydney, pulling out the lovely little gold watch which had been her cousin’s present to her on her birthday, a day or two ago, found that it was time to dress for going out with Lady Frederica.
The girl had lost no time on her return from that Christmas visit at the Deanery instarting on her plans. Miss Osric proved a willing helper, and Lady Frederica, approached judiciously at a favourable moment on the subject, had raised no objection to the projected working-party. “Oh, yes, amuse yourself as you like, my dear,” she said, “as long as you don’t go about alone, or damage your complexion.”
And Sydney had joyfully availed herself of the permission to drive in to Dacreshaw and order such materials as Miss Osric thought would be most useful to the women of the village.
Sydney had no difficulty in persuading them to come, though at first they found it hard to believe that anybody from the Castle was really going to take an interest in their troubles. But Sydney’s bright face, as she brought soup or invalid fare of some kind, coaxed out of Mrs. Fewkes, the Castle cook, had grown familiar already in cottages where there was illness, and they were beginning slowly to realize that the future Lady St. Quentin held very different views from her cousin on the subject of the tenantry who would be hers some day.
“There’ll be a good time coming when that little lady’s mistress here,” they said to oneanother, and welcomed the idea of the working-parties with enthusiasm.
All was to be as far as possible on the lines of Miss Morrell’s, and Sydney set about buying just the same materials as those used by her friend. But flannel, long-cloth, wool, and serge cost money, and she found the small remains of her quarter’s allowance quite inadequate. Her extensive Christmas purchases had reduced the amount, which had seemed at first so inexhaustible, to a very small remnant by the time she set about the shopping for this new scheme. Hence the anxious discussion with Miss Osric over ways and means.
It never struck Sydney for one moment to apply for help to her cousin. He had said he could do nothing for the cottages; clearly what was done must be done by herself alone.
How did girls in story-books make money? She cast her mind over those that she had read. The heroines of fiction seemed to have a habit of painting the picture of the year, or writing a novel that took all London by storm. Sydney felt quite certain of her inability to follow either example.
Sometimes they were adopted by wealthy old gentlemen or ladies in search of deservingheirs, but Sydney thought she had had enough of changing her home! Sometimes they discovered treasure in places where even newspaper editors would never think of hiding it. “It would be a great deal easier if some of them did little things,” poor Sydney thought.
No solution of the problem had occurred to her by the date fixed for the first working-party; when a plain but plentiful tea was spread on Mrs. Sawyer’s dresser, and a somewhat meagre pile of unmade flannel petticoats adorned the table.
Sydney received her guests a little shyly, but with so much real pleasure in her face that they had no doubt of their welcome. She and Miss Osric helped them to take off their shawls and jackets, which Mrs. Sawyer, a sickly looking woman in a very clean apron, put away in the ill-drained and ill-ventilated cupboard which she called the back kitchen.
Then came the distribution of garments to be made for themselves or their children by the workers, and here poor Sydney found the demand for flannel petticoats far exceeding her supply.
The women were exceedingly polite about it, and assured her that it did not matter, butthe girl felt she would have given anything to have had enough for their wants.
Needlework, an accomplishment Lady Frederica had not asked for, was one that Sydney had learnt “at the doctor’s,” and Miss Osric had had plenty of experience in the cutting-out line in old days at her father’s Vicarage. So everything went smoothly: conversation was much easier than Sydney had expected it to be, and the women seemed to thoroughly enjoy their tea. All would have been quite delightful to the girl, even though the ill-ventilated kitchen was very close with so many people sitting in it, and the damp of the uneven stone floor made her feet, in their delicate Parisian boots, extremely cold, if it had not been for the haunting thought of how she should procure the money necessary for the carrying on of her scheme.
“Only the sixth of January,” she said dismally to Miss Osric, as the two hurried down the village to the second working-party. “Only the sixth of January to-day, and Quarter Day isn’t till the twenty-fifth of March. What shall I do?”
“I wish I could help you,” said Miss Osric, “but you know I must send all I can spare to them at home. It costs so much to send mybrother Jack to Oxford, and there are Dorothy and Hilda who ought to go to school as soon as we can manage it.”
“Oh, I know!” cried Sydney. “I wouldn’t have you help in the money way for anything; just think what an amount of the other kind of help you are giving!” And they went into Mrs. Sawyer’s cottage and discussed the money question no more.
An observation of Lady Frederica’s next day gave Sydney the idea for which she was longing. Sir Algernon, who had been in town since Sydney’s return from the Deanery, came back that morning, and announced at luncheon that the Castle clocks were all behind London time. Sydney, eager to establish the perfections of her new watch, pulled it out triumphantly to inform the company that in that case her treasure was correct, for St. Quentin had declared it only that morning to be rather fast.
Its beauty caught Lady Frederica’s eye. “Dear me, child!” she said, “is that the watch St. Quentin gave you on your birthday. What a little beauty! But how extravagant of him, when he was speaking to me quite seriously only a day or two ago about retrenching!”
“Poor old chap, is he feeling pinched?” Sir Algernon said lightly. “There are moments, Lady Frederica, when I bless the luck that gave me a title unencumbered by a property to keep going. May I see the watch, Miss Lisle?” He spoke with a new inflection in his voice which did not escape Lady Frederica. “Yes, itisa beauty and no mistake. I expect they rooked old Quin something heavy for that.”
“It wasverykind of St. Quentin,” Sydney said, and Sir Algernon murmured, “Lucky beggar!” in a tone the girl found hard to understand.
The conversation turned on other topics, but Sydney did not forget it, and, after much screwing up of her courage, went into the library a day or two later, having previously watched Sir Algernon off on a ride.
“St. Quentin,” she said, feeling very much astounded by her own daring, “I’ve come to ask a favour of you; and please—pleasebe very kind, and don’t ask any questions or be angry when you hear what I want. Do say you’ll be kind!”
“Well, that’s a nice modest request, anyhow,” her cousin said, smiling a little. “What awful things have you been doing? Oh, ofcourse, I’m not to ask. If you were a boy I should guess you to be in a scrape, but girls keep clear of those things, don’t they?”
“Don’t laugh,” said Sydney; “at least, I would rather you laughed than were angry. St. Quentin,pleasedon’t think me horribly ungrateful, but may—can I change the watch you gave me on my birthday?”
“What, don’t you like it?” said St. Quentin slowly.
“Oh, I do! I do!” she cried; “but, please, yousaidyou wouldn’t ask questions, and I want to change it!”
“Who will do the job for you?” her cousin said. “I ordered the watch from Oliver’s in Donisbro’, if you wish to know; but mind, I won’t have you poking about changing things yourself.”
“Miss Osric said she knew her father would change it for me, if you gave permission,” said Sydney. “St. Quentin, I can see you are vexed.”
“No, I’m not,” he said, a little bit impatiently, “but I should like to get at the bottom of this, Sydney. Can’t you tell me straight out what’s wrong?”
“No, I couldn’t,” she assured him, “andnothing is wrong really, on my honour! Miss Osric knows all about it, and she iseverso wise and experienced!”
“A Methuselah of twenty-three years, isn’t she?” St. Quentin said, smiling despite his vexation. “Well, Sydney, I suppose I must let you go your own way. Put the matter into the hands of your mentor’s father, and have nothing personally to do with it, that’s all.”
If it cost Sydney a pang to part with her treasured watch, and it did undoubtedly, she was more than repaid by the look upon the women’s faces as they saw the noble pile of flannel garments laid out for their benefit. Mr. Osric had done his part well, and obtained for Sydney very nearly the full value of the watch, after some argument with Mr. Oliver, who declared that he “never took back an article when sold.”
He was, however, speedily rewarded for yielding by a gentleman with light blue eyes and a monocle, who had been turning over scarf pins at the other end of the shop during Mr. Osric’s transaction.
This gentleman came closer to Oliver, when Mr. Osric had gone out, and requested to be allowed to examine the little watch the clergymanhad left behind him. After a brief but careful examination he asked the price, and bought it, leaving Mr. Oliver, who knew Sir Algernon Bridge well enough by sight, to shrewdly surmise that a “single gentleman who bought a lady’s watch must shortly be intending to be married.”
A sleety rain was falling, but, despite the cold, St. Quentin’s couch was drawn up close beneath the mullioned windows of the library, from which he could look out upon the green expanse of Park and the mighty trees, which had seen generations of his family reign their reign at the great old Castle, and die.
The present owner’s face was sad enough, as he gazed out on the splendid prospect, beautiful even in the bareness of winter and the dreariness of rain.
At his elbow lay an invalid writing-desk and a sheet of paper, on which the words were written: “Dear Fane—Cut the timber from....” He had gone no further, though he had started that letter to his agent when Sir Algernon had left him an hour ago.
A sentence kept rising up before him whenever he took up his pen to write, a sentencewhich, though spoken more than five years ago, was fresh as though he heard it yesterday.
“We’ve never let the timber go, my boy.”
Yes, he remembered that his father had paid his, St. Quentin’s, debts by care and economy, but without sacrificing any of the splendid trees, which were the pride of the county. “We’ve never let the timber go, my boy.” He turned his head with an impatient sigh and flung the paper down again, staring from the rain-washed window gloomily.
As he looked aimlessly enough, something crossed his line of vision that made him start into a sudden interest and life.
Two ladies, wrapped in waterproofs and wrestling with refractory umbrellas, passed beneath his window, carrying a large basket. In spite of sleet and rain they walked fast as though in a hurry, and quickly disappeared amid the trees, though not before Sydney’s cousin had recognised the scarlet tam-o’-shanter and long tail of refractory brown hair, blown every way.
“What on earth can the child be thinking of to go out on such an afternoon!” St. Quentin said to himself, and he rang sharply for Dickson.
“Where has Miss Lisle gone?”
“I will enquire, my lord.”
The servant vanished, but returned in a few minutes with the information—“Miss Lisle and Miss Osric have gone down to the village, my lord. Miss Lisle holds a sewing meeting for the village women on two afternoons a week, my lord.”
St. Quentin considered this information, then enquired, “Is Lady Frederica in?”
“I will enquire, my lord.”
“If she is disengaged, ask if she could spare me five minutes.”
Dickson withdrew, and shortly afterwards Lady Frederica tripped in, looking as though she considered somebody very much to blame for the dreariness of the afternoon.
“Aunt Rica,” said her nephew, “did you know of this preposterous idea of Sydney’s—teaching old women to sew or something, on a beastly afternoon like this?”
“Oh, yes, she asked my leave to do something of the kind,” Lady Frederica answered, with a yawn. “She said something, I remember, about the people being poor and miserable here, and wanting to help them, and you having told her you could do nothing. All she wanted was to do something or another for the women—I forget what—but I know it did notseem to me likely to damage her figure or complexion. Oh, I see, you don’t like it, but girlswillamuse themselves, St. Quentin, and slumming is quitethelast thing, you know!”
A remembrance of the girl’s earnest face as they talked on Christmas Day came over her cousin. How keen the child had been over the rebuilding of those cottages, which were a disgrace to him, he knew, and not the only blot by a long way on the great St. Quentin estates. So that was why she wished to change her watch. Why on earth couldn’t he have seen, and given her the money, instead of leaving her to sacrifice her own little treasures for the benefit of his tenants! Having failed to persuade him to do his duty by them, she was trying, with the little means she had, to do it for him. He crushed that unfinished letter to his agent impatiently between his fingers. The order he had been about to give him became if possible more distasteful than it had been before. Howcouldhe cut off all chance of doing something for his wretched tenants! And yet—and yet—what else was left for him to do but write?
“Well, St. Quentin, if you don’t want me any more I’ll go back to my novel,” Lady Frederica said with another yawn. “You’remost depressing company, my dear boy; almost as depressing as the weather!”
“Thanks awfully for coming,” he said absently. She turned to leave him; as she did so her eye fell upon the crumpled paper on the floor.
“St. Quentin,” she cried sharply, “you’renottelling Mr. Fane to cut down timber, are you? Gracious, what would your poor dear father have said!”
“What I feel,” he said bitterly, “that it’s a very good thing my reign is near its end.... Don’t stay if you’d rather not, Aunt Rica.”
She was by no means unwilling to leave him for the more cheerful company of a novel in her own private sitting-room, where the fire was bright and the chairs very comfortable. Left once more to himself, he snatched up a pen, took a fresh sheet of paper, and began again, “Dear Fane”; then paused.
Sydney’s words on Christmas Day kept rising up before him, instead of those which he meant to write.
“Can you do nothing for the cottages?”
“Nothing,” he said half aloud; “and yet—she thought me brave!”
His letter had progressed no further whenDickson came in an hour later, as the short winter’s afternoon drew towards its close. With an exclamation at the cold, the man wheeled his master’s couch to the fire, which he stirred noiselessly into a blaze, brought him some tea, and lit his reading-lamp.
“Miss Lisle in yet?” asked St. Quentin.
“I will enquire, my lord.” This was Dickson’s almost invariable answer.
“Miss Lisle has not yet returned, my lord,” he informed St. Quentin after a voyage in search of her.
“Ask her to come to me when she does.”
“Yes, my lord.” Dickson closed the door softly, and St. Quentin was left alone. He made no attempt to go on with his letter, but stared idly in the fire, listening intently. In about ten minutes the door opened and Sir Algernon strolled in.
“You!” said St. Quentin, in a tone which was not expressive of the keenest pleasure.
“Yes, I, old man. I want to talk to you. By the way, have you sent that note to Fane about the timber?”
“No.”
“You haven’t?”
“No; the truth is, Bridge, I’m getting rather sick of this blackmailing business.”
“You are?” Sir Algernon surveyed the weary, impatient face in silence for a minute. “I wonder if you’d like to try another tack,” he suggested softly. “I’ve had a good deal of cash out of you one way and another, and now you’re—er—er——”
“Dying,” his host supplied the word.
“Well, going to send in your checks some time pretty soon, I suppose?” Sir Algernon amended. “Look here, I know the estate’s heavily encumbered and all that, but I’m not a mercenary man, and the girl’s pretty——”
“Of whom are you speaking?”
“Why, Sydney.”
“Kindly leave her name alone: we’re not talking of her.”
“Aren’t we? You’re a bit out, old chap. What I have to saydoesconcern her, as it happens. What do you say to this, Quin? I’ll give my word not to squeeze you further, and, what’s more, I’ll burn a certain letter that we know of here—before your eyes—if you’ll swear to make a match between that little girl and me. You won’t have opposition to contend with, I imagine. She’s too much of a child to have any violent fancies elsewhere, especially since you and Lady Frederica between you choked off the chemist’sassistant. I’d have made running with a bit myself this last fortnight, only she’s always about in cottages and accompanied by the governess. The combination is a little too much for me to swallow, specially when the cottages areyours, my dear chap. So I’ll leave you to do the courting for me, since she evidently looks on youin loco parentis. Eh, if she knew a little more about you she wouldn’t be so keen to pin her faith upon you, would she?”
“Have you any more to say?” enquired St. Quentin.
“No—I think that’s about all. You won’t be altogether sorry to save your timber, eh, Quin?”
“Not on your terms, thank you, Bridge.”
“Eh, what? Oh! you don’t believe I have the letter; there it is.”
He pulled out two or three envelopes from a pocket-book. “That’s it,” he said, “inside that thumbed grey envelope; the other is the letter that you wrote me before settling to pay up—talking a lot of high faluting about expecting me to believe your innocence for the sake of auld lang syne, etc., as if I should be such a fool!”
“Destroy that letter, anyhow,” St. Quentinsaid, his thin hands clenching. “It’s a bit of a mockery to keep it now. I still believed in you more or less when I wrote it, you see.”
Sir Algernon laughed easily. “You were always a bit of a fool, Quin, from Eton days onwards. As you say, I may as well get rid of this precious production of yours. There’s not much sentiment left nowadays about our intercourse with one another, is there? and I’ve nearly muddled it with the jockey’s before now. Here goes!—Stop, let me just make sure I’ve got the right one; yes, that’s it, the cream-coloured envelope with ‘Re Quin’ on the back. Aren’t I a model man of business, eh? There goes your letter to me into the flames, old chap, and yours to Duncombe back into my pocket-book until you choose to have it follow suit!”
“I don’t choose.”
“What?”
“I reject most absolutely your proposal, thank you. I’ve been a fool and worse, but I’m not quite the cad that comes to. I’d sooner see her marry that young Chichester!”
Sir Algernon’s face wore no very amiable expression. “Is that your final answer?” he said.
“It is.”
“Youdon’tmean to help me marry Sydney?”
“No, and what’s more, I don’t intend to have you in the Castle any longer. You’re not fit to associate with a girl like that. The Chichesters have brought her up the right way, anyhow, and I don’t intend to have you with her any longer. You must go—and—how much do you ask for destroying Duncombe’s letter, for good and all? I won’t have the child blackmailed when I’m gone. You must destroy the letter in my sight this time. How much payment do you want to do what any decent chap would have done long ago?”
An ugly look was on the handsome face before him. “You’ll have to pay this time, my boy,” Sir Algernon said slowly; “well, rather heavily.”
“How much?”
Sir Algernon, without moving from his lounging posture in the arm-chair, named a sum which made St. Quentin start with indignation.
“You are well aware I can’t pay that, or half it!” he cried.
“Well, don’t, then! I daresay Miss Lisle will be a little less stingy, when she comes ofage, and I enquire if she would like the letter published.”
St. Quentin’s hands clenched over one another.
“Don’t be such a fool, old chap,” his companion said, rising and coming close to him. “I don’t really want to be hard upon you. Give me your word you’ll manage the match, and I’ll destroy the letter on the spot, and, what’s more, turn over a new leaf as well. You needn’t be afraid she won’t be happy—I’ll reform when I marry that little girl.”
“Have done with Sydney, please. I’d sooner see her dead than married to you!”
“Pay up, then,” sneered Sir Algernon.
“Can you do nothing for the cottages?”
“We’ve never let the timber go, my boy.”
“Can you do nothing for the cottages?”
Without answering Sir Algernon, St. Quentin seized pen and paper, and began again—
“Dear Fane—“Cut the timber from....”
“Dear Fane—
“Cut the timber from....”
The knock at the door was unheard by both, and neither noticed Sydney’s entrance.
She had changed her wet clothes, but her hair hung straight and damp about her face. The face itself was bright with exercise, andlooked a strange contrast to the faces of the two men in the lamp-lit library.
“You sent for me?” she said, going straight up to her cousin.
“Yes, dear, but it doesn’t matter now,” he said. “Go back to Miss Osric.”
She looked at him. “You are very tired, St. Quentin! Let me write that letter for you.”
She laid her hand upon the desk. “You ought not to be bothered with letters when you are so tired, and,” with a reproachful glance at Sir Algernon, “I amsurethat you ought not to talk business any longer.”
“It’s not the talking which has tired him, Miss Lisle,” said Sir Algernon; “it’s the thought of something rather disagreeable he must do, unless you care to save him from it!”
“Hold your tongue, Bridge!” said St. Quentin, but Sydney had already made a quick step towards Sir Algernon.
“Will you tell me, please, what I can do to save my cousin’s trouble?” she said simply. “I would do anything I could for him.”
“‘I do not believe one word you say against my cousin!’”(Page 195)
“‘I do not believe one word you say against my cousin!’”
(Page 195)
“Sydney!” cried St. Quentin hoarsely, but Sir Algernon had sprung forward and caughtthe girl’s hands in his. “Sydney! would you? Shall I tell you?”
Her cousin’s voice behind her made her start; it was so full of concentrated fury. “Let her go, you scoundrel! Sydney, leave the room, dear; that man isn’t fit to speak to you!”
She pulled her hands away, and stood between the two, trembling from head to foot. Sir Algernon lost in his anger the last vestige of his self-control.
“If I’m unfit to speak to her, what are you, St. Quentin?” he snarled. “A cheat—a liar—a trickster—a——”
“How dare you!” Sydney cried, flinging herself on her knees beside her cousin’s couch as though to protect him. “Leave the room, please!”
“You wouldn’t cling about him if you knew what I know. What everybody else shall shortly know!” Sir Algernon said between his teeth. “He is——”
Sydney had left childhood behind her as she faced him with clear, scornful eyes that met his fearlessly.
“You need not trouble to say any more,” she said, “for I do not believe one word that you say against my Cousin St. Quentin!”
In the stillness that followed a footman knocked and came in with a something on a salver. “A telegram for Sir Algernon, my lord,” he said.
Sir Algernon tore it open and read it, changing colour as he did so, then crumpled it and tossed it into the very heart of the blazing fire. “I have to write an answer for the post,” he said. “Au revoir, Quin; we’ll finish our talk when reluctantly deprived of Miss Lisle’s society. Miss Lisle, if you still doubt what I said about St. Quentin, askhimwhat I meant.Heknows.”
He went out hurriedly.
St. Quentin looked at Sydney’s earnest face in silence for a moment, then spoke abruptly:
“Sit down. I’ve a good mind to tell you a story which will make you understand—well, a good many things—among others what a contemptible cad I really am. It isn’t a particularly pretty story, but you may as well know all about it.”
“I don’t believeone wordSir Algernon said about you,” she answered, flushing. “Don’t tell me anything, St. Quentin. I don’t want to hear!”
“A part of what he said was true, none the less,” he answered steadily. “Listen. You know Bridge is five or six years my senior, and he patronised me when I was a little chap in turn-down collars at Eton. Of course he left years before I did; but when I went into the Guards he was a captain in my regiment,and the old intimacy grew up again. I was a young fool and flattered by the friendship, as I thought it, of a man who had seen the world. Well, luckily you’ve had no chance of knowing what fools youngsters in the Guardscanmake of themselves!
“My father paid my debts again and again, until he grew sick of it, and said I must resign my commission: he couldn’t stand any more.
“I was sobered by that, for my father and mother were awfully cut up about it, and I knew they had treated me far better than ever I deserved. Ididtry to pull up then, and pretty soon—no, don’t stir the fire, I like the dark—I got to know a girl ... it doesn’t matter who, except that she was a great deal too good for me.... She was interested in the cottages, like you are, Sydney. You remind me of her now and then, and she was just eighteen when first I knew her, nine years ago.
“Well, my extravagance had crippled my father, and he couldn’t do half he wanted for his cottages. She minded that a good deal, I remember. I felt quite certain that if she would only be engaged to me, I should find it impossible to be reckless or extravagantagain; but her father wouldn’t hear of an engagement then, and evenshesaid I must give proof of being trustworthy.
“It was at this time, when I was half maddened by the constant restrictions laid upon our intercourse, that I chanced on Bridge again. We had never quite dropped each other; and when he left the Guards and went into a regiment of Dragoons which was quartered at Donisbro’ he came and looked me up at St. Quentin. We saw a lot of each other, and I introduced him at the——to the girl’s father, and he went to the house a good deal. She never liked him much, though, I fancy.... I was sick to death of home and a quiet life and trying to take an interest in the estate and tenants, as my father wished, and was ready enough to join in the diversions of the officers. There wasn’t much harm in that—they were mostly a good set, but it was a rich regiment, and I found the money going faster than I liked.
“I had always been noted in the Guards for my horses—so was Bridge. I know we got talking horses one day, and bets passed about the respective mettle of my favourite, Bridge’s, and another chap’s—young Gibbs, who also fancied himself as a judge of horse-flesh.Somehow a race was arranged, and we got our jockeys and each put a horse in training.
“I was mad, I think, for I took enormous bets on my MacIvor beating the other two hollow. I somehow felt that Imustwin, and then you see I could have recouped myself for my losses at cards, and started fair again; at least I thought I could—that sort of fair start isn’t worth much, really. The only kind of fair start that is any good is to set your face against temptation: that’s the kindshewanted.
“My people were at Nice just then. My mother had been ill. If they had been at home I could hardly have gone so far. But I was pretty desperate, and everybody knew it. That made things look all the blacker for me later on.... Two days before the race I got thrown, and broke my right arm. I was cut about the head too, and Lorry kept me in bed, though I was wild to be up and doing. Then, as I couldn’t go to the race, I did the idiotic act which ruined me, though I didn’t really get much worse than I deserved. I wrote to my jockey Duncombe, urging him to win the race at all costs, and promising him a heavy sum extra to his pay if he did.
“I remember one of the expressions that Iused was ‘pull the show through somehow—anyhow!’
“It was a feverish, excited kind of scrawl, and, after I’d sent it, I got worse and didn’t know much about anything for the next week. Then Bridge came to see me, and what do you think he said?
“The bets had been far heaviest on us two, Gibbs wasn’t in it ... but it was he who pulled the race off, after all. Bridge’s horse had been hurt, and fell at the first fence; and then my jockey seemed to lose his head altogether, all the lookers-on said. Do you know why? No, you wouldn’t; but they did. Bridge was ready to kill his man, Grey, for not watching the horse carefully enough, and he split on my jockey Duncombe, whom he had seen lurking round the stable the night before the race. Duncombe, to save himself, told Bridge he had injured Bridge’s horse bymyorders, and showed up the letter I had written him, as proof. Everything was against me, from the expressions I had used in it to the fact that it was written in what looked like a disguised hand and was unsigned. (Lorry came as I was finishing it, and I knew he would stop my writing, and threw it into an envelope without waiting to put any more.)
“Bridge didn’t make the letter public. He just bought it off the jockey and came to me. He absolutely refused to believe what I told him of my innocence, but offered to suppress the letter if I would pay him an appalling sum in hush-money. I told him to go to Jericho at first, but when I got up again, I realised how fishy it all looked for me, and how, if that letter were published, it would be taken as absolute proof of my guilt. I felt—I told you that I was and am a coward—that it would break my father’s heart, and I couldn’t bear—her—to think that I had done the thing. I went to the Jews, raised the sum upon a post-obit, and paid Bridge his hush-money. He told his brother-officers he was satisfied I had no hand in the laming of the horse, but he didn’t destroy the letter. He has it now, and at intervals blackmails me with a threat of publication if I won’t pay him for his silence. I have done so hitherto.
“That’s about all, Sydney. You see now why Bridge is here, and why I can’t do my duty by my tenants. That motor-smash was about the best thing that could happen to me, I suppose, and if I weren’t so abominably strong, I should have left a better Lisle than I am in possession some time ago.... If itweren’t for the old name that has been handed down pretty clean from father to son all along the line, I’d have let Bridge publish the letter long ago,” he added bitterly. “Shewrote to me just after I had been fool enough to pay Bridge his hush-money. She must have heard the rumours against me and believed in them. She wrote, giving no reason, but saying all must be over between us. That was all—I think it was enough!”
A light dawned on Sydney, as she thought about another story she had heard not so very long ago. She knelt down beside him, and laid her hands on his.
“I know I’m not much good,” she said, “but, Cousin St. Quentin, Idocare for you, in spite of this.Whydidn’t you go and tell the girl all about it—just everything, as you have told me? Mother says if you love people really you must go on loving even if they do wrong, because the real love that is put into us is a bit of God. That girl would have gone on loving you—I know she would.”
“I wish to goodness I had let Bridge do his worst!” said St. Quentin. “I wish I’d had the pluck to do the right thing then, instead of wasting the money that was given me to use, not chuck away. Now you know whyI’m telling Fane to ruin the estate my ancestors took pride in by cutting down the timber at the bidding of that man! Because I was too great a coward to do the right thing first—when I could.”
Sydney looked her cousin in the face.
“Please forgive me if I am very impertinent, St. Quentin,” she said earnestly. “You say you wish that you had done the right thing then.” She hesitated for an instant, and then spoke the last words firmly: “You wish that you had done it then—why don’t you do it now?”
For a full minute there was silence in the big room. Then St. Quentin looked up.
“It’s rather late in the day,” he said, “but possibly better late than never. Sydney, will you write a letter for me?”
She thought of another letter she had written for him more than two months ago, but there was a considerable difference in the subject matter of that letter and to-day’s.
“Dear Fane,”—he dictated—“we must have five hundred pounds’ worth of timber down as soon as possible, as I want fresh cottages to replace those in Water Lane and Foxholes. Have workmen over immediately. This rebuilding is by the wish of my heir, Miss Lisle.”
“Now bring it me to sign,” her cousin said.
She brought it, and, as she gave him his pen, she did what she had never done before, she stooped and kissed his forehead.
“I didn’t like to tell you before,” she cried, “because you said you could do nothing for the cottages, but Mrs. Sawyer is ill, and when I went to see her this afternoon she said she never would be better while she lived in that cottage. Will she have one of the new ones, St. Quentin?”
“Yes, and I’ll mark hers for pulling down. We’ll do this business thoroughly while we’re about it, beginning with Lislehurst, but going on to the rest.”
He wrote his signature large and clearly. As he did so, Sir Algernon came back into the room. He glanced at the letter.
“So you’ve done it. I say, my dear fellow, philanthropy is all very well, but you can’t afford it at present.”
“Since when did I give you leave to read my private letters?” asked St. Quentin drily. As he spoke he placed the letter in an envelope, directed it, and put it into Sydney’s hand.
“One of the men is to take it over to Fane’s place at once,” he said.
Sir Algernon stood between the girl and the door. “You’re mad, Quin! You’ll have enough to do to raise my screw, without attempting any more.”
“Let Miss Lisle pass,” said St. Quentinquietly. “On the proverbial second thoughts, which we all know to be not only better, but best, I have changed my mind. Publish Duncombe’s letter if you choose! I’ll not pay a farthing more to stop you, nor will Miss Lisle when she comes of age. That’s all. Sydney,”—the girl was at the door—“tell somebody to let Bridge’s man know that he finds he has to catch the 8.15 to town to-night.”
The girl went out, the precious note in her hand and a tumult of joy in her heart.
That horrible Sir Algernon was leaving, and St. Quentin, of his own freewill, was going to rebuild his neglected cottages. She felt she could have danced, despite the dignity of her eighteen years.
In the entrance hall she met the old doctor, struggling out of his wet mackintosh and goloshes. “Whata night!” he exclaimed. “But this disgusting weather seems to suit you, my dear Miss Lisle. You are looking blooming, if you will allow an old man to say so. How is your cousin, eh? Moped a bit this dreary day, no doubt? Meant to look in upon him earlier to see if he fancied a chat, but I was kept in the village. And that reminds me, my dear young lady, I shouldn’tgo to Loam for a day or two, if I were you; they’ve got something about there that I don’t quite like the look of. I’ve been warning the Vicar; that boy of his follows him about like a dog to all the cottages. Not that this kind of low fever is infectious, but you may take my word for it that where there’s fever there’s a reason for it. So don’t you go to Loam till I give you leave. Not that I’m anxious, you know, not at all.”
Sydney thought the old doctor was rather more anxious than he cared to own. His face was considerably graver than usual as he walked across the hall to the door of the library.
As he reached it, Sydney, who had followed him, caught his hand with a cry of terror. “Oh, go in quickly!” she cried.
Sir Algernon had been almost stunned by astonishment for the first few minutes after Sydney had left the room with the letter which practically spelt defeat to him. There was a changed, drawn look about his face, when at length he recovered himself sufficiently to speak.
“You don’t mean what you said just now?” he demanded hoarsely.
“I do. Will you dine before you leave, Bridge?”
“Oh, confound you!”
“Don’t make a scene, it is quite unnecessary.”
Sir Algernon laughed rather wildly, and played his last card.
“You won’t be able to take that high line much longer, my good fellow!” he snarled, fumbling in his pocket-book. “I’ll just refresh your memory on the subject of the expressions used by you in that precious letter before it—goes to press!”
St. Quentin’s tone was calm enough. “Do.”
Sir Algernon drew out the dirty envelope on which “Re Duncombe” was scrawled in his own hand, and pulled from it a letter in the cramped left-hand writing.
“Here we are. Some of these expressions will look rather fine in print, I fancy; the Society papers will have a treat. Why——”
A violent exclamation burst from him, as he stared wildly, first at the letter in his hand, then at the envelope, and back at the letter again.
“What is it?” asked St. Quentin.
Sir Algernon came quickly towards him. “You made me do it!” he hissed. “You made me burn your note to Duncombe. Your letter to me and to Duncombe were in eachother’s envelopes, and you made me burn the wrong one!” His voice, loud, harsh, and grating in his fury, rang out into the hall, despite the heavy curtain over the door of the library. “You made me do it, and I’ll——”
“Don’t touch me,” said St. Quentin, vaguely aware as he spoke that all might well be over before Dickson had the time to answer his ring. “It wouldn’t take a great deal to finish me, you see, and Lorry would require an explanation.”
“He does!” the old doctor cried, hurrying into the room with Sydney at his heels. “May I ask what you’re doing, Sir Algernon? Get a little farther off from my patient, if you please.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” said St. Quentin, “Bridge and I were only discussing my new scheme for rebuilding the cottages. But, interesting as I find his views, I am afraid we shall have to close the discussion, as he has a train to catch. Good-bye, Bridge.”
Sir Algernon turned fiercely upon him.
“You think you’ve won the game and can keep your secret in your hands. You can’t! Miss Morrell read the letter. I showed it to her, and she read it and asked what it meant.I told her and she believed in me—not you! not you!”
“She didnot!” said Sydney, “for she told me all about it. She believed in it just at first, because she did not know how wicked you could be, Sir Algernon. But by-and-by, when she grew older, she knew that St. Quentin could not possibly have done what you accused him of. She didn’t understand about the letter to the jockey; but she just knew that St. Quentin could not possibly be mean or dishonourable. And she knows you are both!”
“Hear, hear!” said Dr. Lorry, in a very audible aside, and Sir Algernon, muttering some indistinguishable remark about his train, went out.
“Lord St. Quentin, your heir is a trump!” the old doctor said enthusiastically, and St. Quentin, as he bade good-night to Sydney, agreed.
A small army of workmen had appeared at Lislehurst, and the village folk were beginning to realise the incredible fact that their marquess did at length intend to do his duty by them, when Pauly’s fifth birthday came round.
“May I have him to tea with me?” Sydney asked, and on receiving permission began to make extensive preparations in the way of good cheer.
Mrs. Fewkes was easily induced to devote her energies to the making of a truly stupendous cake, conical in shape and covered with white sugar, adorned with amazing flowers and fruits of all colours. And there were birds, butterflies, and beetles made of chocolate upon it, and five pink candles fixed around its topmost peak, to signify the five years which the small birthday king would have reached.
Not content with this marvel of confectionery, Mrs. Fewkes further added dishes of cream, buns, and other delicacies for which she was deservedly famous, so altogether Pauly’s birthday tea bid fair to be a very great success.
It was spread in the school-room, and on his plate was seated a large furry toy dog, with red tongue hanging out in adégagémanner, and a spring which, when pressed, caused him to jump uncertainly about, and also bark in a thin and spasmodic way. This was Sydney’s present to the hero of the day. Miss Osric had contributed a box of bricks, which stood upon his chair.
All was in readiness at four o’clock, when Pauly arrived in charge of his nurse, looking rather extra fat and red about the cheeks, Sydney thought.
He was immensely excited over something and would not wait, as she suggested, to take off his little overcoat upstairs, but insisted on removing it the very moment he had set two rather muddy little feet inside the hall.
The reason of his eagerness was soon apparent. The blouse and bunchy petticoats were raiment of the past; Pauly was attired in all the glories of his first sailor suit!
Sydney knelt down beside the small sturdyfigure and kissed the round important little face. “Why, Pauly, youaresplendid! and what a great big boy you look to-day!”
“As big as Daddy?” he enquired.
“Ever so much bigger than you looked when first I saw you,” Sydney answered, evading the question with dexterity. “Isn’t he a man to-day, Miss Osric?”
Miss Osric admired duly, and then suggested an adjournment to the school-room. But Pauly stood like a rock, his legs planted wide apart and his hands in his pockets.
“Want to show my twousers to Mrs. Fewkes,” he said.
“Oh, but you can’t, little man,” said Miss Osric.
“Come, Pauly!” Sydney cried.
He did not budge.
“Want to show my twousers to Mr. Gweaves.”
Sydney and Miss Osric exchanged puzzled glances. What was to be done? Of course he was naughty, but neither liked to scold him on a birthday.
Sydney had recourse to coaxing.
“There is such a lovely cake upstairs,” she said, “a cake as high as that.” She held her hand some distance from the floor. “It hassugar all over it and such lovely fruits and sweets, white and pink, and all kinds of nice things upon it. Don’t you want to see it, Pauly?”
He scorned bribery. “Want to show my twousers to the ill one!”
“What, dear?”
“To the ill one. Want to show my twousers to the ill one!”
“Lord St. Quentin, I suppose he means,” Miss Osric said aside to Sydney. “But I don’t think he would like to see the child, do you?”
Sydney was rather doubtful. “There is something so wonderful upstairs in your plate, Pauly,” she assured him insidiously; “something that has such a nice funny voice, and jumps about too, doesn’t it, Miss Osric?”
Pauly put one irresolute foot forward in the direction of the bear-guarded staircase, and then drew it back again.
“Want to show my twousers to the ill one,” he said, in the same loud sing-song voice as he had used before.
It is sad to relate that two grown-up girls were worsted by this scrap of manhood wearing to-day manly garb for the first time. Sydney rose from her knees and went toward the library. “I will ask St. Quentin,” she said, feeling rather small.
Her cousin seemed rather tickled by the story of the fight.
“Oh, bring him to me, by all means!” he said. “Upon my word! that boy ought to make a Prime Minister. He has enough force of character for anything. Tell him the ‘ill one’ will becharmedto see the trousers!”
Sydney led the boy in, whispering to him not to make a noise, for Lord St. Quentin was very tired.
“Nevermake a noise,” he assured her, without much regard for truth.
St. Quentin surveyed his small visitor with fixed and flattering attention. “Hullo!” he said, “what’s this huge chap coming in? The Vicar himself, I suppose? Oh, his son, is it, Sydney? Well, how are you, eh, Paul? Is that your name? Going to shake hands with me—that’s right. I suppose you’re seven at least, aren’t you?”
“I am five,” Pauly said, with modest elation.
“Dear me! and I’m thirty-five and not half so proud of it. And these are the new trousers. Upon my word! they’re remarkably fine specimens, aren’t they, Sydney? You want a pinch for your new clothes, don’t you,youngster? or would you rather have a sixpence to put into each of those trouser pockets? What, you would rather have the sixpences? That’s odd, isn’t it? There, put them in your pockets, and now you may run away; only don’t eatquiteall the cake Miss Lisle has provided for you, or you won’t be able to walk home! He looks as if he eats too much already,” he concluded aside to Sydney. “What a colour the child has!”
“He is a good deal redder than usual, and fatter-looking too,” Sydney said. “I have never seen him look quite like this before.”
“Well, don’t stuff him too much,” said her cousin, and the two went out.
St. Quentin’s caution was not needed. For once Pauly did not seem hungry, even for cake. He was delighted with his dog and kept it on his knee all through tea-time, but though he set up a little shout of joy at the sight of the splendid cake, he only played with the noble slice that Sydney cut for him, and couldn’t be persuaded to be hungry even when “Carlo” was made to bark for crumbs!
“I don’t think the child is well,” said Miss Osric.
They gave up coaxing him to eat after that, and all three sat upon the hearth-rug, building, with Miss Osric’s bricks, a most wonderful kennel for Carlo.
For a little while Pauly seemed happy, and laughed merrily enough, then suddenly, without apparent reason, he began to cry.
Sydney, who had never seen the manly little fellow shed tears yet for any reason whatsoever, was alarmed.
She gathered him into her arms and tried to find out what was wrong. “What is it, Pauly, darling? Aren’t you well?”
“Want Daddy?” Pauly sobbed, nor could they comfort him.
Sydney had risen to ring and order the pony-carriage, thinking that she and Miss Osric had better take their little visitor back at once to the daddy he was crying for, when one of the footmen came up to the school-room to announce “Mr. Seaton is come for Master Paul.”
Sydney ran downstairs to ask if Mr. Seaton were walking, and to offer the pony-carriage. The Vicar was looking very tired and grave, and seemed in a hurry to be off. He said he had been visiting in the village all the afternoon: there was a great deal of illness about. “I think you must discontinue your working-partyfor a week or two, Miss Lisle,” he said. “Dr. Lorry thinks Mrs. Sawyer is suffering from some kind of low fever; the same thing which seems prevalent in Loam. Don’t go into her cottage for a day or two, at all events, till we see how things are. I am keeping Pauly from the village now.”
Declining the offer of the pony-carriage, he took his small son, quiet now that he had got his daddy, and still clasping Carlo, in his arms, and the two went out together.