"Edward Hazeldine, Esq.,
"The Brewery,
"Beecham by Ashdown,
"Midlandshire."
He dropped the letter into the box.
"That settles everything," he muttered. "There can be no turning back now. Edward will get it by the first post to-morrow."
Why was Mr. Hazeldine posting a letter to his son, whom he would probably see in the course of the evening?
He turned back into the Strand, and entering a restaurant, called for a basin of soup. He ate about half of it, finished up with a glass of sherry, and then ordered a cab and was driven to the terminus.
Going into the cloak-room at the station, he there redeemed a black bag, precisely similar in size and appearance to the empty bag he had left in Mr. Barker's office. This bag, which apparently contained something heavy, he took with him into the carriage and placed it in the netting over his head.
There were other passengers in the compartment, but he spoke to no one. He pulled up the collar of his coat and shut his eyes, and, to all appearance, went fast asleep. The clocks were striking seven as he walked out of Ashdown station, carrying his bag in one hand and his umbrella in the other.
Mr. Hazeldine's house was not far from the station. He let himself in by means of his latchkey, and walked straight into the drawing-room, where he found his wife and daughter.
"You are late this evening, dear," said Mrs. Hazeldine, languidly, as if his being so were a matter of no moment.
"Yes, I had some special business to transact, and could not get done in time to catch the two o'clock train."
And yet he had spent nearly an hour mooning about the Strand!
He sat down in his easy-chair with an air of weariness.
"We did not wait dinner for you, not knowing how late you would be," resumed his wife. "Will you have a steak cooked, or what shall I order for you?"
"I had some dinner in town; all I want is a cup of tea."
His daughter rang the bell, and presently a tea equipage was brought in.
"You are not looking at all well, papa," said Fanny, as she handed him a cup. "I hope you are not going back to that horrid Bank to-night."
"I am quite well, my dear," he said. "A little tired with my journey; that's all. I must go to the Bank for a couple of hours." He drew her face down to his own and kissed it.
"There now, you have disarranged my collar, you dear old bear," she said, turning to survey herself in the glass over the chimney-piece.
"You scarcely ever spend an evening at home nowadays, James," said Mrs. Hazeldine, in the complaining tone to which her husband was well used. "You seem to care for nothing but the Bank. Instead of taking things easy as you get older, you seem to have to work harder every year that you live."
"I hope we shall see more of you at home when Mr. Avison gets back," remarked Fanny.
Mr. Hazeldine shivered, and then he sipped at his tea.
"Do you know what I am going to do?" he asked, presently. "I am going to take a long, long holiday."
"Oh, papa! when--when?" cried Fanny the excitable.
"Almost immediately."
"You darling old crocodile! I'm languishing to visit Switzerland again. But, of course, one can't go there at this time of year. The Riviera, and then on to Rome, would be delightful. I am dying to see Rome."
"Give me Paris, either in winter or summer," said Mrs. Hazeldine, with the air of a person who knows her own mind. "I care nothing for a parcel of mouldy ruins, but I do love nice shops; and there are no shops in the world equal to those of Paris."
Mrs. Hazeldine was a lady of fifty, who, in the small circles of Ashdown society, had at one time been accounted a beauty, and who sometimes found it difficult to forget that she was one no longer. On her delicate, clear-cut features there rested habitually a pinched and careworn expression. She was a woman who, never having known any real trouble, made her life a perpetual worry with those small, everyday grievances which we all have to contend against in a greater or lesser degree. To wail over the shortcomings of her servants, to moan over certain fancied ailments, to discuss the last morsel of local gossip with this friend or that, or to immerse herself for the time being with Fanny in preparations for the next ball, or garden party, or flower show, seemed to be the sole objects for which Mrs. Hazeldine existed. And yet there was one more object for which she lived, and that was to see her daughter married to some man of wealth and position--two qualifications which, she persuaded herself, were absolutely indispensable to marital felicity. As yet, she and Fanny were waiting for the coming Prince, who, so far, had not even put in an appearance. But Mrs. Westerton, of Owenscraig, was going to give a fancy-dress ball on the nineteenth, to which Mrs. Hazeldine and her daughter had been invited, and just now expectation ran high in the breasts of both.
Fanny Hazeldine was a pretty blonde who had seen her twenty-second birthday. Her mother, when young, had been noted for her slender and graceful figure, and one of Fanny's chief desires was that she should be noted in the same way. She had been troubled in her mind of late by a suspicion that she was imperceptibly, but surely, increasing in bulk. She laced so tightly that sometimes she felt as if she could scarcely breathe; but even that did not seem to have the desired effect. Unfortunately, Fanny was blessed with a fine, healthy appetite, and a great liking for the good things of the table. It was a pathetic sight at dinner to see the poor girl struggling between her natural inclination for some tempting dish, and the certainty which beset her that by partaking of it she would not be tending to promote the object on which her heart was so firmly fixed. She had been brought up by her mother's side, and had imbibed her mother's notions and prejudices; and, in such a case, unless there was some native strength of character, as the mother is, so to a great extent will the daughter prove to be. Fanny's pretty head was filled with thoughts of sweethearts and possible conquests, and whether this style of dress would suit her, or that mode of hat become her best--and with very little beside.
"Oh, papa," she cried, "Captain Lacie has lent me such a charming Book of Costumes. All the plates are colored. I do wish you would look through it and say which costume you would like me to appear in at Mrs. Westerton's fancy ball."
"Mrs. Westerton's fancy ball!" echoed Mr. Hazeldine, with a strangely dismal laugh. "What should I know about such frivolities? Besides, I'm too tired tonight. Then, again, something may happen to hinder you from going--one never can tell."
"It would have to be something very particular that would keep me away," said Fanny, with a pout. "I'm dying to go--only I can't make up my mind whether to go as a Breton fish-wife, as a Louis-Sèize marquise, or----"
At this moment the door opened, and in marched Edward Hazeldine. He had caught his sister's last sentence.
"If I were you, Fan, I should go as Ophelia, with straws in your hair," he said. "A touch of madness would become you admirably."
"Why don't you keep your rude speeches for your fine lady friends at Seaham Lodge?" asked Fanny, with her nose in the air and a heightened color. But next minute she poured out a cup of tea for her brother and took it to him.
Edward Hazeldine was a robust, strongly-built man of thirty, not unlike what his father had been at the same age. His face was instinct with energy and determination. He had his father's thin lips, and his father's cold, steel-grey eyes. He was brusque in manner and decided in all his movements. He was a man who had an excellent opinion of himself, and a dogged belief that whatever he might choose to say or do must be the right thing to say or do. He was not the sort of man you would ask a favor of without thinking twice before doing so. Children rarely made friends with him, and vagrants of every kind had a rooted aversion to him. His ambition--and it was an ambition which in most men of his position would have seemed of that vaulting kind which Shakespeare has told us about, but, somehow, it did not seem so in his case--was one day to win for himself a seat in Parliament; but it was a secret which he kept locked in his own breast.
"Have you been up to town to-day?" he asked, as he sat down near his father.
"Yes. I had a little business to transact which Brancker could not do for me, so I got the notes changed at the same time."
There was something in his father's tone that struck Edward. He bent his eyes on him more attentively than he had hitherto done, and then he saw how careworn and haggard he looked. He did not, however, make any remark about it, knowing how much his father disliked being noticed; besides which, his thoughts were just then running on a very unpleasant matter which more immediately concerned himself.
"I had a bit of bad news this afternoon," he presently remarked.
"Aye--what was that?" asked Mr. Hazeldine, lifting his eyes from the carpet to his son's face, but betraying no curiosity in the way he put the question.
"One of my customers at Monkshill has let me in for a debt of twenty pounds--the scoundrel."
"I would not call a man a scoundrel for the sake of a paltry twenty pounds," said Fanny, as she peeped into the teapot.
"Yes, you would, Miss, if you had to work for your living as I have," retorted her brother. "How long would it take you to earn a 'paltry twenty pounds,' as you call it, I wonder?"
"I could spend it much more quickly than I could earn it, I have no doubt," retorted Miss Fan, with a saucy smile. "Still, I am quite sure----"
"I am quite sure that you don't know what you are talking about," interrupted her brother, brusquely. "Leave business matters for men to deal with, and attend to your feathers and fal-lals. A paltry sum indeed!" He pushed back his chair in a huff and laid hold of his hat.
"Edward always was short-tempered, and I suppose he always will be," murmured Mrs. Hazeldine,sotto voce, with the air of a martyr.
"Going already?" asked Mr. Hazeldine.
"Yes; I've a couple more calls to make before going home. What a scamp that fellow must be!" Edward could not forget his twenty pounds. Money was very dear to his soul.
Mr. Hazeldine took one of his son's hands in both his. "Good-bye--good-bye, and God bless you!" he said, in a low voice. Edward looked surprised, but said nothing. "I would not let this loss worry you overmuch, if I were you. After all, the sum is not a large one, and there are worse things in life to endure than the loss of a few pounds."
Edward chafed a little. He had expected sympathy, instead of which he was being lectured. "I'll oppose his certificate, for all that," he muttered, viciously. He withdrew his hand abruptly from his father's grasp, and with an all-round "Good-night," not very graciously spoken, he marched out of the room, shaking an imaginary fist in "that scoundrel's" face as he went.
Mr. Hazeldine sank back into his chair without a word more. He had made no mention to his son of the letter which he had posted to his address that afternoon in London.
About five minutes later, there was a tremendous rat-a-tat at the front door.
"Whoever can that be?" cried Fanny, springing up and taking a hasty survey of herself in the glass.
The visitors proved to be Mrs. and Miss Maywood, two fashionable friends of Mrs. Hazeldine and Fanny. After the two young ladies had kissed each other, and the two elder ones had shaken hands, and made one or two mutual inquiries, Mrs. Maywood and her daughter condescended to extend the tips of their fingers to the master of the house. He was the money-making machine, and as such a necessary adjunct of existence; but beyond that point he was a nonentity.
As it turned out, Mrs. Maywood and her daughter were also going to Mrs. Westerton's fancy ball, and they had come to have a quiet gossip with their friends anent that all-important event. How fortunate that Captain Lacie'sBook of Costumeswas there! It opened up an inexhaustible mine of conversational topics. As they criticised one plate after another, it seemed to them as if they could have gone on talking for a week; and if occasionally they were all talking at once, it did not greatly matter.
Mr. Hazeldine began to feel himselfde trop.
Presently he looked at his watch, and then he got up and stood with his back to the fire. There was a grey, earthy look about his face, and a strange glassiness in his eyes. Fanny came up to him.
"Are you going now?" she asked.
"Yes; the sooner I go, the sooner I shall finish what I have to do."
"What a shame that you have to leave home again at this time of night!"
"Not a bit of it. Business is business, and must be attended to."
There was an assumption of gaiety in his tone which his looks belied. He was gazing down with wistful, yearning eyes into the fair young face before him. Suddenly he enfolded Fanny in his arms and pressed her to his heart; then he kissed her three or four times very tenderly on her lips, her forehead, and her hair. This was a proceeding so entirely novel in Fanny's experience of her father, that for a moment or two she was at a loss what to make of it. Then it struck her, in her little mercenary way, that it would be foolish on her part not to take advantage of such an unwonted burst of paternal affection. Surely, when he kissed her in that way, he could not have the heart to refuse her anything!
"Papa, dear," she whispered, "I saw such a lovely pair of earrings in Wilson's window the other day. Turquoises and diamonds. I'm dying to have them."
Mr. Hazeldine looked at her vaguely for a moment or two as though his mind were far away. Then he smiled faintly, and said: "Speak to me about them again to-morrow. Yes--to-morrow."
"You darling old kangaroo!" she exclaimed, and with that she squeezed his face between her hands and kissed him in her impulsive fashion.
"Has Clement been here this evening?" asked Mr. Hazeldine.
"No, papa. He does not call so often of an evening now as he used to do. He is nearly always at John Brancker's. Everybody knows why he goes there so often."
"I for one don't know, unless it be to play the fiddle."
"Oh, that's a mere blind. He goes to see that Hermia Rivers, of course. It's my opinion that he's in love with her."
"In love with Hermia Rivers? Well, he might do worse. I don't know a more charming girl than Miss Rivers."
"Charming, do you call her?" said Miss Fan, with a toss of her head. "Where are your eyes, papa? You really ought to interfere. There's no doubt she's trying to inveigle Clem into a promise of marriage."
"Clement's quite old enough to know his own mind and to judge for himself; and, as I said before, Miss Rivers is a charming girl."
He turned lingeringly away, and went up to his wife.
"Good-night, Maria," he said.
Mrs. Hazeldine was busy discussing some question ofchiffonswith Mrs. Maywood. She looked up when her husband spoke.
"Why do you say good-night?" she asked.
"Because I shall not be home till late. You had better not sit up for me."
"Very well, dear; you have your latch-key, I suppose. I will have a little gas left on in the hall."
She turned to Mrs. Maywood again, thinking her husband would go; but he suddenly bent down, and taking her face gently between his hands, he turned it up to his and kissed it twice.
"Good gracious, James! what are you about?--and before company, too!" cried Mrs. Hazeldine, quite in a fluster, as she readjusted her cap-strings. But her husband had gone, taking his black bag with him. Miss Maywood, from the opposite side of the table, had seen how white his face was, and how his lips twitched as he turned away; but such matters were no concern of hers.
On leaving the house Mr. Hazeldine did not take the turning which led the nearest way to the Bank, but one which led away from it. After walking for a few minutes he stopped opposite a small, semi-detached house. One window was lighted up, and in it was a wire blind, on which the word "Surgery" was painted. It was the house of Clement Hazeldine. Instead of going up to it, Mr. Hazeldine went across the road and sought the shelter of a dark entry. Here he waited patiently for a full quarter of an hour. At the end of that time the light in the surgery was extinguished, and presently Clement emerged from the house and strode away at a rapid pace, carrying his fiddle-case in one hand. Mr. Hazeldine quitted his hiding-place as his son turned up the street.
"Clement! Clement!" he called, and there was a ring of agony in his voice. But the young man heard him not, and went quickly on his way.
Mr. Hazeldine said no more, but waited till his son was out of sight, and then turned in the direction of the Bank. A few minutes' walking brought him to it. Sweet, the porter, who with his wife lived in the basement and was custodian of the premises, was lowering the gas in the lobby, as Mr. Hazeldine went in.
"There's a light in the general office. Who's at work there?" asked the latter.
"Mr. Brancker and Mr. Judd are there yet, sir," answered Sweet. "I left a little gas on in your office, thinking you might be back, sir."
"All right. Sweet. Mr. Brancker and Judd will be off before long, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir; they told me just now that they intended clearing out in a few minutes."
"Good-night, Sweet."
"Good-night, sir."
Mr. Hazeldine passed into his private office, shut the door, and turned up the gas.
Avison's Bank had been built about twenty years. It had been erected on the site of a much older building which dated from the period of William and Mary, and, after serving for several generations as the family mansion of the Colvilles, had been converted into a bank. The present structure was a plain but substantial building of red brick with freestone facings. It was entered from the street through large folding inner doors which swung easily to-and-fro on their well-oiled hinges. On the right a glazed swing-door led into the public office, where sundry clerks behind a long counter were prepared to honor your cheques, or to receive at your hands whatsoever sums you might be desirous of entrusting to the safe keeping of the Bank. This outer office was divided from an inner one by a half-glass partition. In the inner office John Brancker and Ephraim Judd were generally to be seen busily engaged on the Bank ledgers; John, as the senior official next to Mr. Hazeldine, being there to be referred to in case of any dispute or doubtful point cropping up in the outer office. This inner office had a second door which opened into the main corridor, and a third door into a fireproof room where books and securities could be safely lodged. On the left, as you entered from the street, were also two doors, both of which bore the word "Private." The first of them opened into Mr. Hazeldine's office, the second into that of Mr. Avison. In the former was the entrance to the strong room in which were the bullion safes, together with other things of scarcely less importance. In this room there was no window, and during business hours the gas was kept constantly alight in it, ventilation being supplied by means of a small grated opening in the outer wall. Finally, there was a door of communication between Mr. Hazeldine's office and that of Mr. Avison.
As Sweet, the night-watchman, had informed Mr. Hazeldine, John Brancker and Ephraim Judd were at work this evening in the inner office. It was no unusual thing for them to work overtime at certain periods of the month. John Brancker had been in the service of the Bank for between sixteen and seventeen years. He was a homely-featured, plainly-dressed man of five-and-forty, with no pretentions to style or fashion. It was this very unpretentiousness, in conjunction with a certain simplicity of character and a cheerfulness of disposition that never varied, which combined to make him such a universal favorite; everybody in the town knew John Brancker and everybody liked him.
Ephraim Judd was twenty years younger than his fellow-clerk. Mr. Avison the elder had brought him to the Bank when a boy, and there he had been ever since. He was lame, the result of an accident in childhood, and he made use of a stout stick when walking to and from business, although he never seemed to need it when passing from one part of the Bank to another, but got over the ground with a sort of hop and skip which had rather a comical effect in the eyes of strangers. He was a tall, narrow-chested young man, with long, straight, black hair, a sallow complexion, and thin, eager, hungry-looking features. His ears were abnormally large and stuck out prominently from his head, and it was a matter of common report among his fellow clerks that Ephraim could move them backward or forward, after the fashion of certain animals, at will. Like John Brancker, he dressed very plainly, almost shabbily, presenting thereby a marked contrast to some of the juniors, with their chains and rings and elaborate display of collar and cuffs. Mr. Judd's chest was delicate, and when the weather was at all bad he wore a respirator, and at other times he generally muffled himself up carefully about the throat in a long, worsted comforter of many colors. It might be for the same reason, perhaps, that he nearly always wore india rubber overshoes; but that could hardly be the reason why his stick should be shod with the same material. By means of his galoshes Ephraim was enabled to move noiselessly about from place to place, and he sometimes quite startled Sweet, who was pursy and scant of breath, by going up behind him and touching him suddenly on the shoulder when he had no idea that anyone was near him.
"Drat that Mr. Judd with his ingy-rubber shoes!" the night-watchman would say to his wife. "I wish he wouldn't shake one's narves so. He steals about the building like a ghost, or--or as if he was going to commit a burglary; and one never knows whether he's behind one, or in front of one, or where he is."
It was somewhat singular that Ephraim should be so little of a favorite among his fellow clerks--but so it was. He was a man not much given to talking; he kept his own counsel, making friends of nobody, giving offence to none, and seemingly trying to efface himself as much as possible; yet everybody seemed to have a vague distrust of him; everybody had the feeling that he was a man who hid more than he showed on the surface--everybody, that is, except simple-hearted John Brancker, who was proud of Ephraim's cleverness at figures, and proud of his handwriting, which was the best of anyone's in the Bank.
Sweet put his head into the office where the two men were at work. "Mr. Hazeldine has come, sir," he said, addressing himself to Mr. Brancker. "I thought you might perhaps have something you wanted to see him about."
"I don't think I shall trouble him to-night," answered John; "he will be tired, and what matters I have to see him about will keep till morning."
Sweet disappeared and shut the door.
"If I were in Mr. H.'s place, I'd take care not to work as hard as he does," remarked Ephraim.
"When a man's heart is in what he does, as Mr. Hazeldine's is, hard work becomes a pleasure."
"What a pretty girl his daughter is!" resumed Ephraim, after a few moments' silence. "Just the sort of young lady I should like to make up to, if I were in a position to do so."
John laughed.
"Yes, Miss Hazeldine is pretty--nobody can deny that; but whether she would make the sort of wife to suit a man like you may be open to doubt."
"Oh, you are a confirmed old bachelor, Mr. B., and are not supposed to know anything about the ladies."
A shadow flitted across John's face for a moment.
"May it not be because we old bachelors know so much about the ladies that we remain bachelors?" he asked, with a smile. "Have you any idea, Ephraim, of making up to Miss Hazeldine?"
"Now you are poking fun at me, Mr. B. As if she would condescend to look at a poor beggar like me!"
John shut up his inkstand and began to put away his books.
"Are you going to stay much longer?" he asked.
"I shall finish this ledger and then be off. I've had about enough of figures for one day."
John presently bade the other good-night, leaving him still perched on his high stool. A sharp walk of ten minutes carried him home. He lived in a pleasant little semi-detached cottage in the suburbs. There was a small garden in front of his house and a larger one behind, with wide-stretching meadows beyond, and a low range of hills crowning the horizon.
John halted for a moment with his hand on the garden gate. A sound of music reached him from the cottage. His niece--Hermia Rivers--and Clement Hazeldine were playing a duet on the piano and violin.
"What capital time they keep!" he said to himself. "They are playing something I've never heard before. I suppose Mr. Clement has been having some new music from London."
John's terrier heard its master's footsteps on the gravel, and began to bark a welcome; the duet ceased in the middle of a bar; Hermia ran to the door, greeted her uncle with a kiss, and relieved him of his hat and coat, the cat came and purred round his legs, its tail erect in the air; his sister met him with that cheery smile without which home would not have seemed like home; and Clement Hazeldine gave him a hearty grip of the hand.
"We were missing your flute sadly," said the latter. "I have brought two or three fresh pieces this evening, and we were trying one of them over."
"You are very late, dear; but I have kept the teapot in the cosy for you," said Miss Brancker.
"And there's a fire which plainly says, 'Why don't you let me toast you some muffins,'" added Hermia.
"Sweet brought me up some tea about six o'clock," said John; "but I daresay I can manage another cup."
"Of course you can, uncle," rejoined Hermia. "Why, I have known you drink four cups many a time, and then ask for more."
"That must have been when I was very thirsty indeed; but little girls should never tell tales out of school."
Presently Hermia was on her knees toasting a couple of muffins at the sitting-room fire, for at Nairn Cottage the kitchen fire was allowed to go out after the early two o'clock dinner, when the girl, who came to do the rough work in the morning, was dismissed for the day.
"I left your father at the office," remarked John to Clement. "He has been to London, and I fancy that he did not get back till the seven o'clock train."
"I wish he would not stay so late, night after night," answered Clement. "Have you not noticed how care-worn he has been looking of late?"
"I can't say that I have remarked much difference in him, but that may be because I see him every day."
Clement shook his head.
"He has certainly aged very much of late. I was quite pained the other day to see him so worn and anxious-looking. I wish he would take a couple of months' rest right away from business."
John smiled.
"I know him better than you do, Mr. Clement. He would be miserable away from the Bank. But when Mr. Avison returns there will be no necessity for him to work so hard; and you must talk to him seriously about his health."
When John had finished his modest cup of tea he took up the poker and gave four loud taps with it on the back of the grate. Presently there came four taps in response, and a few minutes later Mr. Kittaway, John's next door neighbor, came in, followed by a servant girl carrying his violoncello in its case.
Mr. Kittaway was a retired wine merchant. He was a little, high-dried, bald old gentleman, with gold-rimmed spectacles, and an enormously high and stiff white cravat, above which his puckered face peered out as though he were gazing at one over a wall.
"What can have become of Frank?" queried John, presently. "It must be more than a week since he was here last. He's not ill, or I should have missed him from the office."
No one save Clement noticed the vivid blush that dyed Hermia's cheek. Fortunately the question was addressed to Miss Brancker.
"When he was here last he was all agog to join the New Spanish class at the Institute," responded the latter. "He has a great idea about reading 'Don Quixote' in the original."
"Frank is always agog after something new," said John, with a laugh, "which more often than not comes to nothing in the end. He's as changeable as the moon, as I've told him many a time. Still, he might have given us a look-in before now."
"If you were to walk as far as the 'Crown and Cushion'--not that it would be worth anyone's while to do so," remarked Mr. Kittaway, in his dryest manner--"I have no doubt you would find Master Frank at the present moment practising the spot-stroke, with the stump of a cigar between his teeth, and his hat very much at the back of his head."
It was known to all those present that there was no love lost between the ex-wine merchant and Frank Derison.
"There are four of us--just a comfortable quartete," resumed the little man--"which, in my opinion, is much preferable to a quintete; more especially when one of the five happens to keep execrable time."
This was another hit at the absent Frank.
"Come, come, friend Nathan," said John, slapping him lightly on the knee. "Frank's not quite so bad as you try to make out. He may be fond of a game of billiards--nowadays most young men seem to be--but where's the harm? I've often wished I could handle a cue; but I don't think I could if I were to try for a hundred years. And as for the bad time Frank keeps when he plays, I put that down to pure carelessness."
"There ought to be no carelessness where music is in question," interrupted the little man, hotly. "Music calls forth, and will be content with nothing less than the highest faculties of a man's nature; and where those are not given ungrudgingly, the result is a farce, sir--a wretched farce." He emphasized his last words with a vicious twang of one of the strings of his 'cello.
John laughed, but said nothing. He was too accustomed to his friend's tirades to attempt any confutation of them.
And so the little concert began. Hermia sat down to the piano, John brought out his beloved flute, Clement screwed up the strings of his fiddle, while Mr. Kittaway settled his spectacles and gave a preliminary scrape or two on his 'cello. Miss Brancker fixed herself in a corner near the fire with her knitting and a kitten on her lap.
Charlotte Brancker was two years younger than John, and was a feminine copy of him. She had the same homely features, somewhat softened in their outlines, but charged with goodness in one case as in the other. There was the same pleasant smile, the same ever-cheerful manner, the same thoughtfulness for the comfort of others. Two more thoroughly unselfish people than John Brancker and his sister it would have been hard to find.
Hermia Rivers, their orphan niece, had lived with them since she was three years old. She was now turned twenty, and was a very lovely girl. Her hair was the color of ripe corn in sunlight; her eyes were of the hue of violets when they first open their dewy lids to the morn; her face was instinct with thought and refinement.
It is almost needless to say that Clement Hazeldine was very much in love with her, although he had grave reasons for fearing that her heart was already given to Frank Derison. That there was some secret understanding between the two, his eyes, rendered keen by love, had not failed to convince him; and a secret understanding between two young people can, as a rule, have but one termination. Greatly he feared the worst; but there was a stubbornness of disposition about him which would not allow him to give up while a grain of hope was left to sustain him.
Meanwhile, he found it impossible to keep away from Nairn Cottage. Two or three evenings a week found him there, and he was always made welcome. The ostensible object of his visits was to form one in the little musical gatherings which, every Monday and Thursday evenings, wooed "the heavenly maid" in Miss Brancker's sitting-room.
As Hermia sat playing this evening all the attention she was obliged to give to the music could not keep her uncle's words from ringing in her ears: "He is as changeable as the moon, as I have told him many a time." What if Frank had changed towards her, and were never to come and see her more!
She knew, or thought she knew, the reason why Frank Derison had kept away from Nairn Cottage for upwards of a week. On the occasion of his last visit, when she was at the piano, and he was turning over her music, there being no one but themselves in the room, he had suddenly stooped and imprinted a kiss on her cheek. She had started up in a flame of indignation, and the result had been a short but sharp passage of arms between the two. There was a sort of half-engagement between them (of which more hereafter), sufficiently binding, however, in Frank's opinion, to allow of his stealing a kiss "without a fellow being called over the coals for it as if he had committed some awful crime." But Hermia took a totally opposite view, and Frank was made to understand that, on no account, must he attempt to take such a liberty again. Thereupon, the young fellow had flung out of the cottage in a huff, and had not been near since; while Hermia, as a matter of course, had locked herself in her bedroom, and had a good cry all to herself.
The concert this evening went on for upwards of an hour. Then came an interruption. Dr. Hazeldine was wanted in haste by one of his patients.
"My father would fain have made a doctor of me," remarked Mr. Kittaway, parenthetically, "but I said, 'Give me a business that will leave me my own master at night, and that will ensure me from being called out of bed to go tramping through the rain or snow at all sorts of hours.'"
"It's nothing when you are used to it," said Clement, with a laugh.
"It seems to me very inconsiderate of people to be taken ill in the middle of the night," remarked the old gentleman, as he peered into his snuff-box; "matters ought to be arranged differently somehow." Mr. Kittaway stayed about half an hour after Clement's departure. After partaking of a small mug of warm elder wine and a soft biscuit, he, too, took his leave.
"I think I will walk as far as Strong's, and see whether he is likely to turn up on Sunday," said John, a few minutes later.
John was organist at the parish church, and Strong was the man who blew the bellows for him.
"It is rather late for you to go out," observed Miss Brancker.
"The night is fine, and the walk will do me good. Besides, if Strong is no better, I must look out for a substitute to-morrow."
Charlotte followed her brother to the garden gate.
"It seems to blow very like for rain," she said, as she held up her hand to ascertain the way of the wind. "Had you not better take your umbrella?"
But when the umbrella came to be looked for it could not be found.
"I must have left it at the Bank," said John, who was rather absent-minded in small matters; "but I don't think I shall need it to-night."
After a few more words he went his way, humming to himself one of the airs he had been playing. His sister watched him down the street till he was lost in the darkness; then she turned, and was on the point of going indoors, when Frank Derison came hurrying up from the opposite direction.
"Better late than never, Miss Brancker," he said, his thin, careless laugh. "I suppose I'm just about in time to bid you good night."
"Just about," answered the spinster, dryly. "We had some thought of sending the bellman round. We were anxious to know whether you were lost, stolen, or had strayed away of your own accord."
"I daresay you know. Miss Brancker, that I sometimes try to earn a little money by making up tradesmen's books of an evening. Well, I've had a special job of the kind to do during the last week, and that's why I've not been near the Cottage."
This was a little invention on Master Frank's part, made up on the spur of the moment, and he laughed to himself when he found how readily the simple-minded spinster took it in. In reality, his evenings had been spent in the billiard-room of the "Crown and Cushion." While he had offended Hermia at their last meeting, what she had said had been a source of offence to him, and he had stayed away purposely, if only to prove to her, as he said to himself, that he was not going to be tied to any girl's apron-string.
"Won't you come in for a little while?" said Aunt Charlotte; "John is out, and Hermy and I are all alone."
"Not to-night, I think, thanks all the same. My mother is not well, and I promised not to be late home this evening." This latter statement was also a little fiction on Frank's part.
"In that case, of course, I cannot press you to stay."
"Have you had any music to-night?" asked Frank abruptly.
"Yes, both Mr. Kittaway and Clement Hazeldine were here, but Clement was called away to a patient, and the party broke up early."
"Confound that fellow! he's always here!" muttered Frank, between his teeth. Then aloud: "I've brought a late rose for Hermia; perhaps you won't mind giving it her." And with that he proceeded to detach the flower from his button-hole.
"Why not give it her yourself? I'm sure that would be much nicer," said Miss Charlotte, archly. "I wonder she has not come to the gate before now; but perhaps she doesn't know who's here. I'll go and fetch her."
"She knows well enough who's here, the huzzy!" growled Frank under his breath. "It's merely a try-on--that's what it is. They all do it. What simpletons they must take us men for, to think we can't see through their little games. But I suppose there are some born fools who can't."
They had been standing at the wicket of the little garden which divided the house from the road, the front door being wide open all this time. Miss Brancker now hurried up the pathway into the Cottage. Hermia was in none of the lower rooms. She called her by name, and then the girl appeared at the head of the stairs, her hair unbound and flowing over her shoulders.
"Frank is at the gate. He has brought a rose which he wishes to give you. Won't you come down?"
"Not to-night, aunt, please. Really and truly I've a wretched headache. Besides, my hair is down, and----"
"Bother!" exclaimed Miss Charlotte. "It wouldn't take you a second to tie a bit of ribbon round it."
"You must really excuse me, aunt, and so must Frank. He can send me the rose through you, if he wishes me to have it."
"That won't be half so nice as giving you it himself."
But Hermia had disappeared.
Miss Charlotte went back, rubbing her nose.
"I suppose there's been a tiff between them," she said to herself. "Well, well! At lover's perjuries they say Jove laughs, and no doubt he does the same at their quarrels."
Frank, with his hands deep in his pockets, was whistling in a minor key when she reached the gate.
He laughed a laugh which was by no means as pleasant as usual, at Aunt Charlotte's lame excuse.
"Well, here is the rose, at any rate," he said. "Let us hope she won't disdain it as she has disdained the giver."
As he spoke he kissed the flower, and handed it to Miss Brancker.
"Pray, don't forget to tell her that my love goes with it," he added, with another laugh. "And now, goodnight; my mother will think I'm lost."
Then they shook hands and parted.
"I often wonder whether the young baggage is aware of the twelve hundred pounds standing to her credit in the books of the Dulminster Bank," he said to himself as he went along. "It would be strange if she isn't. And yet sometimes I'm inclined to think she knows nothing about it."
It was far from being his intention to go straight home. He turned into the "Crown and Cushion" as a matter of course. There was time for one last game of billiards before the house closed for the night.
Miss Brancker did not fail to give Hermia both the rose and the message. The girl smiled faintly at the latter. The flower she put in water, but neither then nor afterwards did she touch it with her lips, as Aunt Charlotte told her Frank had done before sending it.
Frank Derison's mother, who had been many years a widow, was half-cousin to Mr. Avison. At sixteen Frank had entered the Bank as junior clerk, and there he had since remained, being treated in no way differently from any other member of the staff, the relationship between himself and Mr. Avison being never recognized by the latter; a state of things which to Frank seemed exactly the reverse of that which ought to have subsisted between the two.
Nature, if she had any intentions at all in the framing of Frank Derison, certainly never intended him for a bank clerk. He hated his work: indeed it is doubtful whether he would not have hated work of any kind; but not being able to help himself, he contrived to get through it from day to day, although in a very half-hearted and perfunctory sort of way. John Brancker, however, had conceived a great liking for the handsome, careless, bright-eyed young fellow, who had always a merry laugh for everybody and everything; and he so managed to gloss over his faults and shortcomings--which, in truth, were not very glaring ones--as, with rare exceptions, to keep him from being found fault with either by Mr. Avison or Mr. Hazeldine.
From this it came to pass that by-and-bye Frank began to be a somewhat frequent visitor at Nairn Cottage, where he quite won the heart of Miss Brancker, as he did the hearts of most people with whom he was brought into contact. As time went on he and Hermia were naturally thrown much together, and each began to find in the other that sweet but dangerous quality of attraction which, as a rule, can conduce to but one result.
Meanwhile, simple-hearted John Brancker and his equally simple-hearted sister looked on complacently happy in the happiness of the young people, and leaving the future, if they ever took it into consideration at all, to solve its own problems.
One morning Frank awoke to the fact that he was of age; he also about the same time awoke to the knowledge of another pleasant fact, to wit, that he was in love with Hermia Rivers. He was quite persuaded that Hermy was necessary to his happiness. Still, he was in no hurry to declare his passion. There was a vein of cool calculation under his laughing, happy-go-lucky exterior, the existence of which few people except his mother were aware of, or even suspected.
He could afford to bide awhile, he told himself. Hermy was safe, there was no other Romeo in the field; he had but to speak the word in order at once, as with a harlequin's wand, to change her placid, bread-and-butter, sisterly liking into a feeling infinitely more passionate and delightful, of which he was to be the centre and focus, and which was to render his life beautiful with the incense it would never tire of showering round his path. What he was to give in return for all this he did not condescend to explain even to himself. The awkwardness of it was that his present salary at the Bank was only ninety pounds a year. From that sum it would rise by yearly increments of ten pounds till it reached a hundred and fifty pounds, at which point it would stop until the chance should offer itself of his stepping into some senior clerk's shoes; a chance, however, which might not come to him for an indefinite number of years.
After all, a hundred and fifty pounds a year was a beggarly amount on which to marry, and to secure even that limited happiness he would have six years still to wait. Of course, considering the relationship between them, Mr. Avison ought to do something more for him--ought to shove him on specially over the heads of some of the other fellows, or, in any case, give him a thumping advance in place of a paltry ten pounds. It was an awful shame that he, a blood relation, should be treated no differently from the veriest stranger, and that he should even have to knuckle under, as far as position in the office went, to that cad of an Ephraim Judd!
Among Frank's manifold acquaintances was a young man of the name of Winton, who had at one time been a clerk in Avison's Bank, but had since accepted a better-paid situation in Umpleby's Bank at Dulminster. Winton came over once or twice a month to Ashdown to see his relatives, on which occasions he and Derison generally contrived to have an hour or two together at their favorite billiards.
Said Winton on one occasion, nearly a year before the time of which we are now writing:
"I'm going to tell you a secret, old man, which you may or may not make use of to your own advantage. That will be for you to decide when you've heard it; only, you must first give me your sacred word of honor never to mention it to a soul."
Frank gave the required promise without difficulty.
"I know you often visit at John Brancker's," resumed the other, "and report has it that you're sweet on that pretty niece of his. Small blame to you, if you are, say I. However, if you're not, perhaps you'll think it advisable to be so when I whisper to you that in our books at Umpleby's the very nice little sum of twelve hundred pounds is at the present moment standing to the credit of Miss Hermia Rivers."
"Winton, you must be dreaming," was all Derison could say, so extreme was his astonishment.
"Not a bit of it, my boy. I've seen the account with my own eyes. Its been accumulating for years, at the rate of eighty pounds per annum. John comes over once a quarter, as regular as clockwork, bringing twenty pounds with him at each visit. The probability is that he banks with us in order that none of Avison's people may know anything of the affair."
"But are you quite sure that the account stands in the name of Miss Rivers, and of no one else?" asked Frank after a pause, during which he had been trying to digest his friend's startling information.
"Of course I'm sure. Hermia Rivers, and that alone, is the name in our ledger. I suppose honest John, having no children of his own, is investing his savings, or some portion of them, for the benefit of his niece. He'll be a lucky fellow that gets Miss Hermy for a wife. If I wasn't engaged already, hang me if I wouldn't have a cut-in on my own account."
It did not take Frank long to make up his mind what he ought to do; the duty he owed to himself lay clearly before him. He would propose to Hermy without a day's delay. He had loved her all along, but he felt that she was dearer, far dearer, to him now than ever she had been before.