luaiuumuuiiuii iiSM The Clock burton. Vicomte Dumas, Clarissa, b Pamela, b; Sir Chas.G Lewis Aru Frank Fail By Lord Pelham. Paul Cliffr Eugene At Last Days Rienzi. Leila, and the Rhir Last of the Ernest Ma Alice; or, t N ght and Godolphin Disowned. Devereux. The Caxtons. My Novel, 2 vols. Lucretia. Harold. Zanoni. What will He Do with It? 2 vols. A Strange Story. The Coming Race. Kenelm Chillingly. The Parisians, 2 vols. Falkland and Zicci. Pausanias. By JAMESGRANT. Romance of War. The Aide-de-Camp. Scottish Cavalier. Bothwell. Jane Seton. Philip Rollo. Legends of the Black Watch. Mary of Lorraine. Oliver El •is. Lucy Arden. Tl B R A R_ Y OF THE U N I VERS 1TY Of ILLINOIS 623 Y£7w 1879 ed'ley. Smedley. >y Dumas. , by ditto, prs, and iy Dumas. Dumas, tnti mental -enstem. her. L hms. its Con- :ton. undy. The Girl He Married. Lady Wedderburn’s Wish. Jack Manly. Only an Ensign. Adventures of Rob Roy Under the Red Dragon The Queen’s Cadet. Shall I Win Her ? Fairer than a Fairy. The Secret Dispatch. One of the Six Hun- dred. Morley Ashton. Did She Love Him ? The Ross-shire Buffs. By G. P. R. JAMES. The Brigand. Morley Ernstein. Darn ley. Riche’ieu. The Gipsy. Arabella Stuart. The Woodman. Agincourt. bsand. The Smuggler. • Heidelberg. The Forgery. Gentleman of the Old School. Philip Augustus. The Black Eagle. Beauchamp. Arrah Neii. Sir W. SCOTT. Waverley. Guy Mannering. Old Mortality. Heart of Midlothian. Rob Roy. Ivanhoe. The Antiquary. Bride of Lammermoor. Black Dwarf and Legend of Montrose . The Monastery. The Abbot. Kenilworth. The Pirate. Fortunes of Nigel. Peveril of the Peak, Published by George Routledge and Sons. I TWO SHILLING BOOKS, continued . •' Quentin Durward. St Ronan’s Well. Red Gauntlet. Betrothed and High- land Widow. The Talisman and Two Drovers. Woodstock. Fair Maid of Perth. Anne of Geierstein. Count Robert of Paris. Surgeon’s Daughter. By Mrs. GORE. The Money Lender. Pin Money. The Dowager. Mothers & Daughters. Cecil. The Debutante. W. H. MAXWELL. Stories of Waterloo. Brian O’ Lynn. Captain Blake. The Bivouac. Hector O Halloran. Captain O’Sullivan. Stories of the Penin- sular War. Flood and Field. Sports and Adventures in the Highlands. Wild Sports in the West. THEODORE HOOK Peregrine Bunce. Cousin Geoffry. Gilbert Gurney. Parson’s Daughter. All in the Wrong. Widow and Marquess. Gurney Married. Jack Brag. Maxwell. Man of Many Friends. Passion and Principle. Merton. Gervase Skinner. Cousin William. Fathers and Sons. Author of “ Guy Livingstone.” Guy Livingstone. Barren Honour. Maurice Dering. Brakespeare. Anteros. Breaking a Butterfly. Sans Merci. Sword and Gown. EDMUND YATES. Running the Gauntlet. Kissing the Rod. The Rock Ahead. Black Sheep. A Righted Wrong. The Yellow Flag. Impending Sword. A Waiting Race. Broken to Harness. Two by Tricks. A Silent Witness. H. KINGSLEY. Stretton. Old Margaret. The Harveys. Hornby Mills. Capt. ARMSTRONG The Two Midshipmen. The Medora The War Hawk. Young Commander. By Capt. CHAMIER. Life of a Sailor. Ben Brace. Tom Bowling. Jack Adams. HENRY COCKTON. Valentine Vox. Stanley Thorn. By G. R. GLEIG. The Light Dragoon. Chelsea Veterans. The Hussar. By Mrs. CROWE. Night Side of Nature. Susan Hopley. Linny Lockwood. ALEX. DUMAS. The Half Brothers. Marguerite de Valois. The Mohicans of Paris. A. B. EDWARDS. The Ladder of Life. My Brother’s Wife. Half a Million of Money. By Miss FERRIER. Marriage. The Inheritance. Destiny. By FIELDING, Tom Jones. Joseph Andrews. Amelia. By GERSTAEKER. A Wife to Order. The Two Convicts. Feathered Arrow. Each for Himself. By LANG. Will He Marry Her? The Ex-Wife. CHAS. LEVER. Arthur O’Leary. Con Cregan. By S. LOVER. Rory O’ More. Handy Andy. By MAYNE REID. The Quadroon. The War Trail. By Captain NEALE. The Lost Ship. The Captain’s Wife. Pride of the Mess. Will Watch. Cavendish. The Flying Dutchman. Gentleman Jack. The Port Admiral. The Naval Surgeon. ALBERT SMITH. Marchioness of Brin- villiers. Adventures of Mr. Ledbury. Scattergood Family. Christopher Tadpole. The Pottleton Legacy. By SMOLLETT. Roderick Random. Humphrey Clinker. Peregrine Pickle. Mrs. TROLLOPE. Petticoat Government. One Fault. Widow Barnaby. Widow Married. Barnabys in America. The Ward. Love and Jealousy. Published by George Routledge and Sons. 2 NOVELS The Clockmaker, by Judge Hali- burton. Vicomte de Bragelonne, by Dumas, 2 vols. Clarissa, by Richardson. Pamela, by Richardson. Sir Chas.Grandison,by Richardson Lewis Arundel, by Smedley. Frank Fairlegh, by Smedley. AT 2s. 6d. Harry Coverdale, by Smedley. The Colville Family, by Smedley. Monte Cristo, complete, by Dumas. Memoirs of a Physiciau, by ditto. The Three Musketeers, and Twenty Years After, by Dumas. Taking of the Bastile, by Dumas. Tristram Shandy, and Sentimental Journey, by Sterne. By Lord Pelham. Paul Clifford. Eugene Aram. Last Days of Pompeii . Rienzi. Leila, and Pilgrims of the Rhine. Last of the Barons. Ernest Maltravers. Alice; or, the Mysteries N ght and Morning. Godolphin. Disowned. Devereux. The Caxtons. My Novel, 2 vols. Lucretia. Harold. Zanoni. What will He Do with It? 2 vols. A Strange Story. The Coming Race. Kenelm Chillingly. The Parisians, 2 vols. Falkland and Zicci. Pausanias. By JAMESGRANT. Romance of War. The Aide-de-Camp. Scottish Cavalier. Bothwell. Jane Seton. Philip Rollo. Legends of the Black Watch. Mary of Lorraine. Oliver El*is. Lucy Arden, Frank Hilton. The Yellow Frigate. Harry Ogilvie. Arthur Blane. Laura Everingham. Captain of the Guard. Letty Hyde’s Lovers. Cavaliers of Fortune. Second to None. Constable of France. Phantom Regiment. King’s Own Borderers. The White Cockade. Dick Rodney. First Love & Last Love The Girl He Married. Lady Wedderburn’s Wish. Jack Manly. Only an Ensign. Adventures of Rob Roy Under the Red Dragon The Queen’s Cadet. Shall I Win Her ? Fairer than a Fairy. The Secret Dispatch. One of the Six Hun- dred. Morley Ashton. Did She Love Him ? The Ross-shire Buffs. By G, P. R. JAMES. The Brigand. Morley Ernstein, * Darn ley. RicheUeu. The Gipsy. Arabella Stuart. The Woodman. Agincourt. Russell. Castle of Ehrenstein. The Stepmother. Forest Days. The Huguenot. The Man at Arms. A Whim and its Con- sequences. Henry Masterton. The Convict. Mary of Burgundy. Gowrie. Delaware. The Robber. One in a Thousand. The Smuggler. • Heidelberg. The Forgery. Gentleman of the Old School. Philip Augustus. The Black Eagle. Beauchamp. Arrah Neil. Sir W. SCOTT. Waverley. Guy Mannering. Old Mortality. Heart of Midlothian. Rob Roy. Ivanhoe. The Antiquary. Bride of Lammermoor. Black Dwarf and Legend of Montrose . The Monastery. The Abbot. Kenilworth. Tne Pirate. Fortunes of Nigel. Peveril of the Peak. NOVELS AT TWO SHILLINGS. LYTTON. Published by George Routledge and Sons. 1 TWO SHILLING BOOKS, continued. Maurice Dering. Brakespeare. Anteros. Breaking a Butterfly. Sans Merci. Sword and Gown. EDMUND YATES. Running the Gauntlet. Kissing the Rod. The Rock Ahead. Black Sheep. A Righted Wrong. The Yellow Flag, impending Sword. A Waiting Race. Broken to Harness. Two by Tricks. A Silent Witness. ’Quentin Durward. St Ronan’s Well. Red Gauntlet. Betrothed and High- land Widow. The Talisman and Two Drovers. Woodstock. Fair Maid of Perth. Anne of Geierstein. Count Robert of Paris. Surgeon's Daughter. By Mrs. GORE. The Money Lender. Pin Money. The Dowager. Mothers & Daughters. Cecil. The Debutante. W. H. MAXWELL. Stories of Waterloo. Brian O’ Lynn. Captain Blake. The Bivouac. Hector O Halloran. Captain O’Sullivan. Stories of the Penin- sular War. Flood and Field. Sports and Adventures in the Highlands. Wild Sports in the West. THEODORE HOOK Peregrine Bunce. Cousin Geoffry. Gilbert Gurney. Parson's Daughter. All in the Wrong. Widow and Marquess. Gurney Married. Jack Brag. Maxwell. Man of Many Friends. Passion and Principle. Merton. Gervase Skinner. Cousin William. Fathers and Sons. Author of “ Guy Livingstone.” Guy Livingstone. Barren Honour. H. KINGSLEY. Stretton. Old Margaret. The Harveys. Hornby Mills. Capt. ARMSTRONG The Two Midshipmen. The Medora The War Hawk. Young Commander. By Capt. CHAMIER. Life of a Sailor. Ben Brace. Tom Bowling. Jack Adams. HENRY COCKTON. Valentine Vox. Stanley Thorn. By G. R. GLEIG. The Light Dragoon. Chelsea Veterans. The Hussar. By Mrs. CROWE. Night Side of Nature. Susan Hopley. Linny Lockwood. ALEX. DUMAS. The Half Brothers. Marguerite de Valois. The Mohicans of Paris. A. B. EDWARDS. The Ladder of Life. My Brother’s Wife. Half a Million of Money. By Miss FERRIER. Marriage. The Inheritance. Destiny. By FIELDING. Tom Jones. Joseph Andrews. Amelia. By GERSTAEKER. A Wife to Order. The Two Convicts. Feathered Arrow. Each for Himself. By LANG. Will He Marry Her? The Ex-Wife. CHAS. LEVER. Arthur O’Leary. Con Cregan. By S. LOVER. Rory O’ More. Handy Andy. By MAYNE REID. The Quadroon. The War Trail. By Captain NEALE. The Lost Ship. The Captain s Wife. Pride of the Mess. Will Watch. Cavendish. The Flying Dutchman. Gentleman Jack. The Port Admiral. The Naval Surgeon. ALBERT SMITH. Marchioness of Brin- villiers. Adventures of Mr. Ledbury. Scattergood Family. Christopher Tadpole. The Pottleton Legacy. By SMOLLETT. Roderick Random. Humphrey Clinker. Peregrine Pickle. Mrs. TROLLOPE. Petticoat Government. One Fault. Widow Barnaby. Widow Married. Barnabys in America. The Ward. Love and Jealousy. Published by George Routledge and Sons. 2 TWO SHILLING MissWETHERELL The Old Helmet. Ellen Montgomery’s Bookshelf. Melbourne House. The Two School Girls. By BOOKS, continued . Wide, Wide World. Queechy. By the Author of “ Whitefriars.” Whitefriars. Whitehall. Caesar Borgia. i VARIOUS Caleb Williams, by Godwin. Scottish Chiefs. Torlogh O’Brien. [Martineau. The Hour and the Man, by Miss The Prairie Bird. The Rifleman, by Captain Rafter. Salathiel, by Dr. Croly. Francesca Carrara, by L. E. L. The Bashful Irishman. Deeds, not Words. Secret of a Life. [Long. Sir Roland Ashton, by Lady C. The Greatest Plague of Life, with Cruikshank’s plates. The Attach^, by Sam Slick. The Green Hand. Hajji Baba of Ispahan. Whom to Marry, with Cruik- shank’s plates. Letter Bag of the Great Western. Black and Gold. Vidocq, the French Police Spy. Gilderoy. Singleton Fontenoy. The Lamplighter. Gideon Giles, the Roper. Clives of Burcot. The Wandering Jew. The Mysteries of Paris. Land and Sea Tales. False Colours, by Annie Thomas. Nick of the Woods. Mabel Vaughan. Banim’s Peep o’ Day. Banim’s Smuggler. [Norton. Stuart of Dunleath, by Hon. Mrs. Adventures of a Strolling Player. Solitary Hunter. Kaloolah, by Mayo. Won in a Canter, by Old Calabar. Mornings at Bow Street, with plates by George Cruikshank. Boscobel, by W. H. Ainsworth. Blount Tempest, by J. C. Bellew. Tom Bulkeley of Lissington. Arctic Regions. P. L. Simmonds. Owen Tudor. Maid of Orleans. Westminster Abbey. Madeleine Graham. Gold Worshippers. Armourer’s Daughter. AUTHORS. Dower House, by Annie Thomas. Miss Forrester, by the Author of “ Archie Lovell.” The Pretty Widow, by Chas. Ross. Recommended to Mercy. Adventures of Dr. Brady, by Dr. W. H. Russell. [Places. Love Stories of English Watering A Perfect Treasure, by Author of “ Lost Sir Massingberd.” Saved by a Woman, by the Author of “ No Appeal.” At His Gates, by Mrs. Oliphant. Golden Lion of Granpere, by An- thony Trollope. Murphy’s Master, by the Author of “ Lost Sir Massingberd.” Manchester Rebels, by Ainsworth. Helen, by Miss Edgeworth. First Lieutenant’s Story, by Lady Long. [Charles Dickens. Grimaldi, the Clown, Edited by Rodenhurst ; or, The Millionaire and the Hunchback. Clement Lonmer, by A. B. Reach. Tom Cringle’s Log, by M. Scott. Private Life of an Eastern King. Adventures of Captain Hatteras, by Verne. Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, by Verne. Five Weeks in a Balloon, and a Journey to Centre of the Earth. Preston Fight, by Ainsworth. My Love she's but a Lassie yet. Cross of Honour, Annie Thomas. The Girl he left Behind him, by J. M. Jephson. [Colomb. Hearths and Watchfires, by Col. City of the Sultan, by Miss Pardoe Jennie of the “ Prince’s.” Through the Mist, Jeanie Hering. Tales of the Coastguard. Leonard Lindsay. Angus B. Reach. Carleton’s Traits, ist series. 2nd series. Published by George Routledge and Sons. 3 WRECKED IN PORT. EDMUND YATES’S NOVELS. In boards , 2s. each ; in cloth , 2s. Gd. each . RUNNING THE GAUNTLET. KISSING THE ROD. ROCK AHEAD. BLACK SHEEP. RIGHTED WRONG. YELLOW FLAG. IMPENDING SWORD. A WAITING RACE. BROKEN TO HARNESS. TWO BY TRICKS. A SILENT WITNESS. DR. WAIN WRIGHT’S PATIENTS. NOBODY’S FORTUNE. WRECKED IN PORT. THE BUSINESS OF PLEASURE. WRECKED IN PORT a f#wt, BY EDMUND YATES, AUTHOR OF “THE ROCK AHEAD,” “BLACK SHEEP,” “LAND AT LAST," ETC, “ All things that are Are more with spirit chased than enjoyed.” j Shakespeare. LONDON : GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL. NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET. 1879. . Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https ://arc h i ve . o rg/d etai I s/wrec ked i n po rt n ovOOyate to FRANK IVES SCUDAMORE toft 13 VERY CORDIALLY INSCRIBED. i I 50455 CONTENTS. I. II. Moribund . Retrospective .... III. Marian ..... IY. Marian’s Choice .... Y. WOOLGREAVES .... , YI. Bread-seeking .... VII. A New Friend .... VIII. Flitting . . . . IX. The Tenth Earl X. An Interior ..... XI. The Lout ..... XII. A Removal ..... XIII. Life at Westhope XIY. Lady Caroline .... XY. “ News from the Humming City ” . . XYI. u He loves 3i e ; iie loves me not ” XVII. Becoming Indispensable XVIII. The Rubicon ..... XIX. XX. Marian’s Reply . During the Interval XXI. XXII. Success achieved . . . . The Girls they left behind them PACK 1 9 18 25 38 51 64 73 83 95 105 118 132 147 154 164 176 186 200 212 226 240 viii CHAPTER XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX. XXX. XXXI. XXXII. XXXIII. XXXIV. XXXV. XXXVI. XXXVII. XXXVIII. CONTENTS. Wednesday’s Post ..... Poor Papa’s Successor .... Clouding oyer ..... In Harness ..... Biding at Anchor ..... The Opportunity .... Canvassing Baffled ...... An Incomplete Victory .... The Shattering of the Idol Too Late ...... For once Gertrude takes the Lead Lady Caroline advises on a Delicate Subject Night and Morning .... Marian’s Besolve ..... The Besult .... PAGE 252 267 280 291 803 814 323 837 348 362 373 386 398 410 422 433 WRECKED IN PORT CHAPTER I. MORIBUND. “ I say ! Old Ashurst’s going to die.” “ No ! How do you know ? Who told you ? ” “ I heard Dr. Osborne say so to Miss Winter.” “ Ah ! so likely Dr. Osborne would tell that old beast ! Why, doctors are the silentest fellows in the world. My uncle Robert is a doctor, and I know all about it.” “ Well, I’ll take my dick I heard old Osborne say so! I say, Hawkes, if Ashurst does die, we shall break up at once, sha’n’t we ? ” “ I should think so ! Stunning ! ” “And we sha’n’t come back till there’s a new head master ? ” “ Of course not, you young ass ! That don’t matter much to me ; I’m going to leave this term.” ~~ “ Don’t I wish I was, that’s all ! I say, Hawkes, do vou think the governors will give old Ashurst’s place to Joyce?” “ Joyce? — that snob ! Not they, indeed ! They’11 get a swell from Oxford, or somewhere, to be head master ; and I should think he’ll give Master Joyce the sack. Baker, lend me twopence ! ” “ No — I say, Hawkes, you owe me ” “ I know all about that, you young beggar — pay you on Saturday. Hand out now, or I’ll fetch you a lick on the head.” B 2 WRECKED IN PORTo Under the pressure of this awful threat, little Sam Baker produced the required sum from his trousers- pocket, and gave the coins to big Alfred Hawkes, who threw them into the air, caught them over-handed, and walked off, whistling. Little Sam Baker, left to himself, turned out the pocket of his trousers, which he had not yet explored, found a half-melted acidulated drop sticking in one corner, removed it, placed it in his mouth, and enjoyed it with great relish. This refection finished, he leaned his little arms over the park-paling of the cricket- field, where the above-described colloquy had taken place, and surveyed the landscape. Immediately beneath him was a large meadow, from which the hay had been just removed, and which, looking brown and bare and closely shorn as the chin of some retired Indian civilian, re- mained yet fragrant from its recent treasure. The meadow sloped down to a broad sluggishly-flowing stream, unnavigated and unnavigable, where the tall green flags, standing breast-high, bent and nodded gracefully, under the influence of the gentle summer breeze, to the broad- leaved water-lilies couchant below them. A notion of scuttling across the meadow and having “ a bathe ” in a sequestered part of the stream which he well knew, faded out of little Sam Baker’s mind before it was half formed. Though a determined larker and leader in mischief among his coevals, he was too chivalrous to take advantage of the opportunity which their chiefs illness gave him over his natural enemies, the masters. Their chief’s illness ! And little Sam Baker’s eyes were lifted from the river and fixed themselves on a house about a quarter of a mile further on — a low-roofed, one-storeyed, red-brick house, with a thatched roof and little mullioned windows, from one of which a white blind was fluttering in the evening breeze. “ That’s his room,” said little Sam Baker to himself. “Poor old Ashurst! He wasn’t half a bad old chap; he often let me off a hundred lines he — poor old Ashurst ! ” And two large tears burst from the small boy’s eyes and rolled down his cheeks. MORIBUND. 3 The boy was right. Where the white blind fluttered was the dominie's bedroom, and there the dominie lay dying. A gaunt, square, ugly room with panelled walls, on which the paint had cracked and rubbed and blistered, with such furniture as it possessed old-fashioned, lumber- ing, and mean, with evidence of poverty everywhere— evidence of poverty which a woman's hand had evidently tried to screen and soften without much effect. The bed, its well-worn red-moreen curtains, with a dirty yellow border, having been tightly bound round each sculptured post for the admittance of air, stood near the window, on which its occupant frequently turned his glazed and sunken eyes. The sun had gone to rest, the invalid had marked its sinking, and so had those who watched him, and the same thought had occurred to all, but not a word had been spoken ; but the roseate flush which it leaves behind still lingered in the heavens, and, as if in mockery, lent momentarily to the dying man’s cheek a bright healthy hue such as it was not destined to wear in life again. The flush grew fainter, and faded away, and then a glance at the face, robbed of its artificial glory, must have been conclusive as to the inevitable result. For the cheeks were hollow and sunken, yellowish- white in colour, and cold and clammy to the touch ; the eyes, with scarcely any fire left in them, seemed set in large bistre rings ; the nose was thin and pinched, and the bloodless lips were tightly compressed with an expression of acute pain. The Eev. James Ashurst was dying. Every one in Helmingham knew that, and nearly every one had a word of kindness and commiseration for the stricken man, and for his wife and daughter. Dr. Osborne had carried the news up to the Park several days previously, and Sir Thomas had hemmed and coughed, and said, “ Dear me I " and Lady Churchill had shaken her head piteously on hearing it. “ And nothing much to leave in the way of — eh, my dear doctor?" It was the doctor’s turn to shake his head then, and he solaced himself with a large pinch of snuff, taken in a flourishing and sonorous manner. 4 WRECKED IN PORT. before ho replied that he believed matters in that way were much worse than people thought ; that he did not believe there was a single penny — not a single penny: indeed, it was a thing not to be generally talked of, but he might mention it in the strictest confidence to Sir Thomas and my lady, who had always proved themselves such good friends to the Ashursts — that was, he had mentioned to Mrs. Ashurst that there was one faint hope of saving her husband’s life, if he would submit to a certain operation which only one man in England, Godby of St. Vitus’s Hospital in London, could perform. But when he had mentioned Godby’s probable fee — and you could not expect these eminent men to leave their regular work, and come down such a long distance under a large sum — he saw at once how the land lay, and that it was impossible for them to raise the money. Miss Ashurst — curious girl that, so determined and all that kind of thing — had indeed pressed him so hard that he had sent his man over to the telegraph-office at Brocksopp with a message inquiring what would be Godby’s exact charge for running down — it was a mere question of distance with these men, so much a mile, and so much for the operation — but he knew the sum he had named was not far out. From the Park, Dr. Osborne had driven his very decorous little four-wheeler to Woolgreaves, the residence of the Creswells, his other great patients, and there he had given a modified version of his story, with a very much modified result. For old Mr. Creswell was away in France, and neither of the two young ladies was of an age to feel much sympathy, unless with their intimate relations, and they had been educated abroad, and seen but little of the Helmingham folk; and as for Tom Cres- well, he was the imp of the school, having all Sam Baker’s love of mischief without any of his good heart, and would not have cared who was ill or who died, provided illness or death afforded occasion for slacking work and making holiday. Every one else in the parish was grieved at the MORIBUND. 5 news. The rector-bland, polished, and well endowed with worldly goods — had been most actively compassionate towards his less fortunate brother ; the farmers, who looked upon “ Master Ashnrst ” as a marvel of book-learning, the labourers, who had consented to the removal of the village sports, held from time immemorial on the village green, to a remote meadow, whence the noise could not penetrate to the sick man’s room, and who had considerately lowered the matter as well as the manner of their singing as they passed the school-house at night in jovial chorus — all these people pitied the old man dying, and the old wife whom he would leave behind. They did not say much about the daughter; when they referred to her it was generally to the effect that she would manage tolerably well for herself, for “ she were a right plucked un, Miss Marian were.” They were right. It needed little skill in physiog- nomy to trace, even under the influence of the special circumstances surrounding her, the pluck and spirit and determination in every feature of Marian Ashurst’s face. They were patent to the most ordinary beholder ; patent in the brown eye, round rather than elongated, small yet bright as a beryl ; in the short sharply curved nose, in the delicately rounded chin, which relieved the jaw of a certain fulness, sufficiently characteristic, but scarcely pretty. Variety of expression was Marian’s great charm ; her mobile features acting under every impulse of her mind, and giving expression to her every thought. Those who had seen her seldom, or only in one mood, would scarcely have recognised her in another. To the old mau, lying stretched on his death-bed, she had been a fairy to be worshipped, a plaything to be for ever prized. In his presence the brown eyes were always bright, the small, sharp, white teeth gleamed between the ripe red lips, and one could scarcely have traced the jaw, that occasionally rose rigid and hard as iron, in the soft expanse of the downy cheek. Had he been able to raise his eyes, he would have seen a very different look in her face as, after 6 WRECKED IN PORT. bending over the bed and ascertaining that her father slept, she turned to the other occupant of the room, and said, more in the tone of one pondering over and repeating something previously heard than of a direct question — “ A hundred and thirty guineas, mother ! ” For a minute Mrs. Ashurst made her no reply. Her thoughts were far away. She could scarcely realise the .scene passing round her, though she had pictured it to herself a hundred times in a hundred different phases. Years ago — how many years ago it seemed ! — she was delicate and fragile, and thought she should die before her husband, and she would lie awake for hours in the night, rehearsing her own death-bed, and thinking how she should tell James not to grieve after her, but to marry again, anybody except that Eleanor Shaw, the organist’s daughter, and she should be sorry to think of that flighty minx going through the linen and china after she was gone. And now the time had really come, and he was going to be taken from her ; he, her James, with his big brown eyes and long silky hair, and strong lithe figure, as she first remembered him — going to be taken from her now, and leave ; her an old woman, poor and lone and forlorn — and Mrs. Ashurst tried to stop the tears which rolled down her face, and to reply to her daughter’s strange remark. “ A hundred and thirty guineas ! yes, my dear, you’re thinking of Mr.- I forget his name — the surgeon. That was the sum he named.” “You’re sure of it, mother?” “ Certain sure, my dear ! Mr. Casserly, Dr. Osborne’s assistant, a very pleasant-spoken young man, showed me the telegraph message, and I read it for myself. It gave me such a turn that I thought I should have dropped, and Mr. Casserly offered me some sal volatile or peppermint — I mean of his own accord, and never intended to charge for it, I am sure.” “ A hundred and thirty guineas ! and the one chance of saving his life is to be lost because we cannot command MORIBUND. 7 that sum ! Good God ! to think of our losing him for want of Is there no one, mother, from whom we could get it ? Think, think ! It’s of no use sitting crying there ! Think, is there no one who could help us in this strait ? ” The feeling of dignity which Mrs. Ashurst knew she ought to have assumed was scared by her daughter’s earnestness, so the old lady merely fell to smoothing her dress, and, after a minute’s pause, said in a tremulous voice — “ I fear there is no one, my dear ! The rector, I dare say, would do something, but I’m afraid your father has already borrowed money of him, and I know he has of Mr. King, the chairman of the governors of the school. I don’t know whether Mr. Casserly— — ” “ Mr. Casserly, mother, a parish doctor’s drudge ! Is it likely that he would be able to assist us ? ” “Well, I don’t know, my dear, about being able, I’m sure he would be willing ! He was so kind about that sal volatile that I am sure he would do what Lord ! we never thought of Mr. Creswell ! ” Set and hard as Marian’s face had been throughout Hie dialogue, it grew even more rigid as she heard these words. Her lips tightened, and her brow clouded as she said, “ Do you think that I should have overlooked that chance, mother? Do you not know that Mr. Creswell is away in France ? He is the very first person to whom I should have thought of applying.” Under any other circumstances, Mrs. Ashurst would have been excessively delighted at this announcement. As it was, she merely said, “The young ladies are at Woolgreaves, I think.” “ The young ladies ! ” repeated Marian, bitterly — “ the young ladies ! The young dolls — dolts — dummies to try dresses on ! What are Maude and Gertrude Creswell to us, mother? What kindness, courtesy even, have they ever shown us ? To get at their uncle’s purse is what we most need ” 8 WRECKED IN PORT. “ Oh, Marian, Marian ! ” interrupted Mrs. Ashurst, “ what are yon saying ? ” “Saying?” replied Marian calmly — “Saying? The truth ! What should I say when I know that if we had the command of Mr. Creswell’s purse, father’s life might — from what I gather from Dr. Osborne, most probably would — be saved ! Are these circumstances under which one should be meek and mild and thankful for one’s lot in life ! Is this a time to talk of gratitude and He’s moving ! Yes, darling father, Marian is here ! ” Two hours afterwards, Marian and Dr. Osborne stood in the porch. There were tears in the eyes of the garrulous but kindly old man ; but the girl’s eyes were dry, and her face was set harder and more rigid than ever. The doctor was the first to speak. “ Good night, my dear child,” said he ; “ and may God comfort you in your affliction. I have given your poor mother a composing draught, and trust to find her better in the morning. Fortunately, you require nothing of that kind. God bless you, dear ! It will be a consolation to you, as it is to me, to know that your father, my dear old friend, went off perfectly placid and peacefully.” “It is a consolation, doctor — more especially as I believe such an ending is rare with people suffering under his disease.” “ His disease, child ? Why, what do you think your father died of ? ” “ Think, doctor ? I know ! Of the want of a hundred and thirty guineas ! ” ( 9 ) CHAPTER II. RETROSPECTIVE. The Reverend James Ashurst had been head master of the Helmingham Grammar School for nearly a quarter of a century. Many old people in the village had a vivid recollection of him as a young man, with bis bright brown hair curling over his coat-collar, his frank fearless glances, his rapid jerky walk. They recollected how he was by no means particularly well received by the powers that then were, how he was spoken of as “ one of the new school ” — a term in itself supposed to convey the highest degree of opprobrium — and how the elders had shaken their heads and prophesied that no good would come of the change, and that it would have been better to have held on to old Dr. Munch, after all. Old Dr. Munch, who had been Mr. Ashurst’s immediate predecessor, was as bad a specimen of the old-fashioned, nothing-doing, sinecure-seeking peda- gogue as could well be imagined ; a rotund, red-faced, gouty-footed divine, with a thick layer of limp white cravat loosely tied round his short neck, and his suit of clerical sables splashed with a culinary spray; a man whose originally small stock of classical learning had gradually faded away, and whose originally large stock of idleness and self-gratification had simultaneously increased. Forty male children, born in lawful wedlock in the parish of Helmingham, and properly presented on the foundation, might have enjoyed the advantages of a free classical and mathematical education at the Grammar School under the will of old Sir Ranulph Clinton, the founder; but, under the lax rule of Dr. Munch, the forty gradually dwindled to twenty, and of these twenty but few attended school in the afternoon, knowing perfectly that for the first few minutes after coming in from dinner the doctor paid but little attention as to which members of the class might be 10 WRECKED IN PORT. present, and that in a very few minutes lie fell into a state of pleasant and unbroken slumber. This state of affairs was terrible, and, worst of all, it was getting buzzed abroad. The two or three conscien- tious boys who really wanted to learn shook their heads in despair, and appealed to their parents to “let them leave ; ” the score of lads who enjoyed the existing state of affairs were, lad-like, unable to keep it to themselves, and went about calling on their neighbours to rejoice with them ; so, speedily, every one knew the state of affairs in Helmingham Grammar School. The trustees of the charity, or “ governors,” as they were called, had not the least notion how to proceed. They were, for the most part, respectable tradesmen of the place, who had vague ideas about “ college ” as of a sequestered spot where young men walked * about in stuff gowns and trencher caps, and were, by some unexplained circumstance, rendered fit and ready for the bishop to convert into clergymen. There must, they thought, probably be in this “ college ” some one fit to take the place of old Dr. Munch, who must be got rid of, come what may. At first, the resident “ governors ” — the tradesmen of Helmingham — thought it best to write to two of their colleagues, who were non-resident, and not by any manner of means tradesmen, being, in fact, two dis- tinguished peers of the realm, who, holding property in the neighbourhood, had, for political reasons, thought fit to cause themselves to be elected governors of old Sir Ranulph Clinton’s foundation. The letters explaining the state of affairs and asking for advice were duly written ; but matters political were at a standstill just then ; there was not the remotest chance of an election for years ; and so the two private secretaries of the two noble lords pitched their respective letters into their respective waste- baskets, with mutual grins of pity and contempt for the writers. Thrown back on their own resources, the resi- dent governors determined on applying to the rector; acting under the feeling that he, as a clergyman, must have been to this “ college,” and would doubtless be able RETROSPECTIVE. 11 to put them in the way of securing such a man as they required. And they were right. The then rector, though an old man, still kept up occasional epistolary intercourse with such of his coevals as remained at the university in the enjoyment of dignities of fellowships ; and, being him- self both literate and conscientious, was by no means sorry to lend a hand towards the removal of Dr. Munch, whom he looked upon as a scandal to the cloth. A correspondence entered into between the rector of Helmingham and the Principal of St. Beowulph’s College, Oxford, resulted in the enforced resignation of Dr. Munch as the head master of Helmingham Grammar School, and the appointment of the Reverend James Ashurst as his successor. The old doctor took his fate very calmly ; he knew that for a long time he had been doing nothing, and had been sufficiently well paid for it. He settled down in a pleasant village in Kent, where an old crony of his held the position of warden to a City Company’s charity, and this history knows him no more. When James Ashurst received his appointment he was about eight-and-twenty, had taken a double second class, had been scholar and tutor of his college, and stood well for a fellowship. By nature silent and reserved, and having found it necessary for the achievement of his position to renounce nearly all society — for he was by no means a brilliant man, and his successes had been gained by plodding industry, and constant application rather than by the exercise of any natural talent — James Ashurst had but few acquaintances, and to them he never talked of bis private affairs. They wondered when they heard that he had renounced certain prospects, notably those of a fellow- ship, for so poor a preferment as two hundred pounds a year and a free house : for they did not know that the odd, shy, silent man had found time in the intervals of his reading to win the heart of a pretty trusting girl, and that the great hope of his life, that of being able to marry her and take her to a decent home of which she would be mistress, was about to be accomplished. 12 WRECKED IN PORT. On a dreary, dull day, in the beginning of a bitter January, Mr. Ashnrst arrived at Helmingham. He found the schoolhouse dirty, dingy, and uncomfortable, bearing traces everywhere of the negligence and squalor of its previous occupant; but the chairman of the governors, who met him on his arrival, told him that it should be thoroughly cleaned and renovated during the Easter holidays, and the mention of those holidays caused James Ashurst’s heart to leap and throb with an intensity with which house-painting could not possibly have anything to do. In the Easter holidays he was to make Mary Bridger his wife, and that thought sustained him splendidly during the three dreary intervening months, and helped him to make head against a sea of troubles raging round him. For the task on which he had entered was no easy one. Such boys as had remained in the school under the easy rule of Dr. Munch were of a class much lower than that for which the benefits of the foundation had been contem- plated by the benevolent old knight, and having been unaccustomed to any discipline, had arrived at a pitch of lawlessness which required all the new master’s energy to combat. This necessary strictness made him unpopular with the boys, and at first with their parents, who made loud complaints of their children being “ put upon,” and in some cases where bodily punishment had been inflicted had threatened retribution. Then the chief tradespeople and the farmers, among whom Dr. Munch had been a daily and nightly guest, drinking his mug of ale or his tumbler of brandy-and- water, smoking his long clay pipe, taking his hand at whist, and listening, if not with pleasure, at any rate without remonstrance, to language and stories more than sufficiently broad and indecorous^ found that Mr. Ashurst civilly, but persistently, refused their proffered hospitality, and in consequence pronounced him “ stuck-up.” No man was more free from class prejudices, but he had been bred in old Somerset country society, where the squirearchy maintained an almost feudal dignity, and his career in college had not taught him the RETROSPECTIVE. 13 policy of being on terms of familiarity with those whom Fortune had made his inferiors. So James Ashnrst struggled on during the first three months of his novitiate at Helmingham, earnestly and energetically striving to do his duty, with, it must be confessed, but poor result. The governors of the school had been so impressed by the rector’s recommendation, and by the testimonials which the new master had sub- mitted to them, that they expected to find the regenera- tion of the establishment would commence immediately upon James Ashurst’s appearance upon the scene, and were rather disappointed when they found that, while the number of scholars remained much the same as at the time of Dr. Munch’s retirement, the general dissatisfaction in the village was much greater than it had ever been during the reign of that summarily-treated pedagogue. The rector, to be sure, remained true to the choice he had recommended, and maintained everywhere that Mr. Ashurst had done very well in the face of the greatest difficulties, and would yet bring Helmingham into notice. But, notwithstanding constant ocular proof to the con- trary, the farmers held that in the clerical profession, as in freemasonry, there was a certain occult something beyond the ordinary ken, which bound members of “ the cloth ” together, and induced them to support each other to the utmost stretch of their consciences — a proceeding which, in the opinion of freethinking Helmingham, allowed for a considerable amount of elasticity. At length the long-looked-for Easter tide arrived, and James Ashurst hurried away from the dull gray old mid- land country village to the bright little Thames-bordered town where lived his love. A wedding with the church approach one brilliant pathway of spring flowers, a honeymoon of such happiness as one knows but once in a lifetime, passed in the lovely Lake country, and then Helmingham again. But with a different aspect. The old schoolhouse itself brave in fresh paint and new plaster, its renovated diamond windows, its cleaned slab so classi- 14 WRECKED IN PORT, cally eloquent on the merits fundatoris nostri let in over the porch, its newly stuccoed fives’ wall and fresh-gra- velled playground ; all this was strange hut intelligible. But James Ashurst could not understand yet the change that had come over his inner life. To return after a hard day’s grinding in a mill of boys to his own rooms was, during the first three months of his career at Helming- ham, merely to exchange active purpose for passive exist- ence. Now, his life did but begin when the labours of the day were over, and he and his wife passed the even- ings together, in planning to combat with the present, in delightful anticipations of the future. Mr. Ashurst un- wittingly, and without the least intending it, had made a very lucky hit in his selection of a wife, so far as the Helmingham people were concerned. He was “ that bumptious ” as they expressed it, or as we will more charitably say, he was sufficiently independent, not to care one rap what the Helmingham people thought of anything he did, provided he had, as indeed at that time he always had — for he was conscientious in the highest degree — the knowledge that he was acting rightly according to his light. In a very few weeks the actual sweetness, the quiet frankness, the most enthusiastic charm of Mrs. Ashurst’s demeanour had neutralised all the ill-effects of her hus- band’s three months’ previous career. She was a small- boned, small-featured, delicate-looking little woman, and as such excited a certain amount of compassion and kind- ness amid the midland-county ladies, who, as their husbands said of them, “ran big.” It was a positive relief to one to hear her soft little treble voice after the booming diapason of the Helmingham ladies, or to see her pretty little fat dimpled hands flashing here and there in some coquetry of needlework after being accustomed to looking on at the steady play of particularly bony and knuckly members in the unremitting torture of eminently utilitarian employment. High and low, gentle and simple, rich and poor, still felt equally kindly disposed towards Mrs. Ashurst. Mrs. Peacock, wife of Squire Peacock, a tre- RETROSPECTIVE. 15 mendous magnate and squire of the neighbouring parish, fell so much in love with her that she made her husband send their only son, a magnificent youth destined eventually for Eton, Oxford, Parliament, and a partnership in a brewery, to be introduced to the Muses as a parlour- boarder in Mr. Ashurst’s house ; and Hiram Brooks, the blacksmith and minister of the Independent Chapel, who was at never-ending war with all the members of the Establishment, made a special exception in Mrs. Ashurst’s favour, and doffed his greasy leathern cap to her as she passed the forge. And his pretty little wife brought him good fortune, as well as domestic happiness? James Ashurst delighted to think so. His popularity in the village, and in the surrounding country, was on the increase ; the number of scholars on the foundership had reached its authorised limit (a source of great gratification, though of no pecuniary profit to the head master) ; and Master Peacock had now two or three fellow-boarders, each of whom paid a fine annual sum. The governors thought better of their head master now, and the old rector had lived long enough to see his recommendation thoroughly accepted, and his prophecy, as regards the improved status of the school, duly fulfilled. Popular, successful in his little way, and happy in his domestic relations, James Ashurst had but one want. His wife was childless, and this was to him a source of discomfort, always felt and occasionally ex- pressed. He was just the man who would have doated on a child, would have suffered himself to have been pleasantly befooled by its gambols, and have worshipped it in every phase of its tyranny. But it was not to be, he supposed ; that was to be the one black drop in his draught of happi- ness : and then, after he had been married for five or six years, Mrs. Ashurst brought him a little daughter. His hopes were accomplished, but he nearly lost his wife in their accomplishment ; while he dandled the newly born treasure in his arms, Mrs. Ashurst’s life was despaired of ; and when the chubby baby had grown up into a strong 16 WRECKED IN PORT. child, and from that sphere of life had softened down into a peaceful girl, her mother, always slight and delicate, had become a constant invalid, whose ill-health caused her husband the greatest anxiety, and almost did away with the delight he had in anticipating every wish of his darling little Marian. James Ashurst had longed for a child, and he loved his little daughter dearly when she came ; but even then his wife held the deepest and most sacred place in his heart, and as he marked her faded cheek and lustreless eye, he felt a pang of remorse, and accused himself of having set himself up against the just judgment of Providence, and having now received the due reward of his repining. For one who thought his darling must be restored to health, no sacrifice could be too great to accomplish that result ; and the Helmingham people, who loved Mrs. Ashurst dearly, but who in their direst straits were never accustomed to look for any other advice than that which could be afforded them by Dr. Osborne, or his village opponent, Mr. Sharood, were struck with admiration when Dr. Langton, the great county physician, the oracle of Brocksopp, was called into consultation. Dr. Langton was a very little man, noted almost as much for his reticence as his skill. He never wasted a word. After a careful examination of Mrs. Ashurst he pronounced it to be a tiresome case, and pre- scribed a four months’ residence at the baths of Ems as the likely treatment to effect a mitigation, if not a cure. Dr. Osborne, after the great man’s departure, laughed aloud in his bluff way at the idea of a country schoolmaster sending his wife to Ems. “ Langton is so much in the habit of going about among the country families, and these novi homines of manufacturers who stink of brass, as they say in these parts, that he forgets there is such a thing as having to look carefully at ways and means, my dear Ashurst, and make both dovetail. Baths of Ems, indeed! I’m afraid you’ve thrown away your ten guineas, my good friend, if that’s all you’ve got out of Langton ! ” RETROSPECTIVE. i? But Dr. Osborne’s smile was suddenly checked when Mr. Ashurst said very quietly that as his wife’s health was dearer to him than anything on earth, and that there was no sacrifice which he would not make to accomplish its restoration, he should find means of sending her to Germany, and keeping her there until it was seen what effect the change had on her. And he did it! For two successive summers Mrs. Ashurst went to Ems with the old nurse who had brought her up, and accompanied her from her pretty river-side home to Helmingham ; and at the end of the second season she returned comparatively well and strong. But she needed all her strength and health when she looked at her husband, who came to meet her in London, and found him thin, changed, round-shouldered, and hollow-eyed, the very shadow of his former self. James Ashurst had carried through his plans as regarded his wife at enormous sacrifice. He had no ready money to meet the sudden call upon his purse which such an expedition rendered neces- sary, and he had recourse to money-lenders to raise the first loans required, then to friends to pay the interest on and obtain renewals of these loans, then to other money- lenders to replace the original sums, and to other friends to repay a portion of the first friendly loans, until by the time his wife returned from the second visit to the Conti- nent he found himself so inextricably involved that he dare not face his position, dare not think of it himself, much less have taken her into his confidence, and so went blindly on, paying interest on interest, and hoping ever with a vague hope for some relief from his troubles. That relief never came to James Ashurst in his life- time. He struggled on in the same hopeless, helpless* hand-to-mouth fashion for about eight years more, always impecunious in the highest degree, always intending to retrieve his fallen fortune, always slowly but surely break- ing and becoming less and less of a man under the harass of pecuniary troubles, when the illness which for some time had threatened him set in, and, as we have seen, ho died. c 18 WRECKED IN PORT. CHAPTER III. MARIAN. The little child who was so long prayed for, and who came at last in answer to James Ashurst’s fervent prayers, had nothing during her childhood to distinguish her from ordinary children. It is scarcely worthy of record that her mother had a hundred anecdotes illustrative of her precocity, of her difference from other infants, of certain peculiarities never before noticed in a child of tender years. All mothers say these things whether they believe them or not, and Mrs. Ashurst, stretched on her sick-couch, did believe them, and found in watching what she believed to be the abnormal gambols of her child, a certain relief from the constant, dreary, wearing pain which sapped her strength, and rendered her life void and colourless and unsatisfactory. James Ashurst believed them fervently; even if they had required a greater amount of credulity than that which he was blessed with, he, knowing it gave the greatest pleasure to his wife, would have stuck to the text that Marian was a wonderful, “ really, he might say, a very wonderful child.” But he had never seen anything of childhood since his own, which he had forgotten, and the awakening of the commonest faculties in his daughter came upon him as extraordinary revelations of subtle character, which, when their possessor had arrived at years of maturity, would astonish the world. The Hel- mingham people did not subscribe to these opinions. Most of them had children of their own, who, they considered, were quite as eccentric, and odd, and peculiar as Marian Ashurst. “Not that Pm for Towin that to be pert and sassy one minute, and sittin’ mumchance wi’out sa much as a word to throw at a dog the next, is quite manners,” they would say among themselves; “but what’s ye to expect? Poor Mrs. Ashurst layin’ on the broue of her MARIAN. 19 "back, and little enough of that, poor thing, and that poor feckless creature, the schoolmaster, buzzed i’ his ’ed wi’ book lamin’ and that! A pretty pair to bring up such a tyke as Miss Madge ! ” That was in the very early days of her life. As the “ tyke ” grew up she dropped all outward signs of tykish- ness, and seemed to be endeavouring to prove that eccen- tricity was the very last thing to be ascribed to her. The Misses Lewin, whose finishing-school was renowned throughout the county, declared they had never had so quick or so hardworking a pupil as Miss Ashurst, or one who had done them so much credit in so short a time. The new rector of Helmingham declared that he should not have known how to get through his class and parish work had it not been for the assistance which he had received from Miss Ashurst at times when — when really — well, other young ladies would, without the slightest harm to themselves, be it said, have been enjoying them- selves in the croquet-ground. When the wardrobe woman retired from the school to enter into the bonds of wedlock with the drill-sergeant (whose expansive chest and manly figure, when going through the “ exercise without clubs,” might have softened Medusa herself), Marian Ashurst at once took upon herself the vacant situation, and resolutely refused to allow any one else to fill it. These may have been put down as eccentricities ; they were evidences of odd character certainly not usually found in girls of Marian’s age, but they were proofs of a spirit far above tykishness. All her best friends, except, of course, the members of her family whose views regarding her were naturally extremely circumscribed, noticed in the girl an exceedingly great desire for the acquisition of knowledge, a power of industry and application quite unusual, ail extraordinary devotion to anything she undertook, which suffered itself to be turned away by no temptation, to be wearied by no fatigue. Always eager to help in any scheme, always bright-eyed and clear-headed and keen- witted, never unduly asserting herself, but always having 20 WRECKED IN PORT. her own way while persuading her interlocutors that she was following their dictates, the odd shy child grew up into a girl less shy, indeed, hut scarcely less odd. And certainly not lovable : those who fought her battles most strongly — and even in that secluded village there were social and domestic battles, strong internecine warfare, carried on with as much rancour as in the great city itself — were compelled to admit there was “ a something ” in her which they disliked, and which occasionally was eminently repulsive. This something had developed itself strongly in the character of the child, before she emerged into girlhood ; and though it remained vague as to definition, while distinct as to impression in the minds of others, Marian herself understood it perfectly, and could have told any one, had she chosen, what it was that made her unlike the other children, apart from her being brighter and smarter than they, a difference which she also perfectly understood. She would have said, “ I am very fond of money, and the others are not ; they are content to have food and clothes, but I like to see the money that is paid for them, and to have some of it, all for myself, and to heap it up and look at it, and I am not satisfied as they are, when they have what they want — I want better things, nicer food, and smarter clothes, and more than them, the money. I don’t say so, because I know papa hasn’t got it, and so he cannot give it to me ; but I wish he could. There is no use talking and grumbling about things we cannot have; people laugh at you, and are glad you are so foolish when you do that, so I say nothing about it, but I wish I was rich.” Marian w T ould have made some such answer to any one who should have endeavoured to get at her mind to find out what that was lurking there, never clearly seen, but always plainly felt, which made her “old fashioned,” in other than the pathetic and interesting sense in which that expression has come to be used with reference to children, before she had entered upon her teens. MARIAN. 21 A clever mother would have found out this grave and ominous component of the child’s character — would have interpreted the absence of the thoughtless extravagance, so charming, if sometimes so trying, of childhood— would have been quick to have noticed that Marian asked, “ What will it cost ? ” and gravely entered into mental calculation on occasions when other children would have demanded the purchase of a coveted article clamorously, and shrieked if it were refused. But Mrs. Ashurst was not a clever mother — she was only a loving, indulgent, rather helpless one ; and the little Marian’s careful ways were such a prac- tical comfort to her, while the child was young, that it never occurred to her to investigate their origin, to ask whether such a very desirable and fortunate effect could by possibility have a reprehensible, dangerous, insidious cause. Marian never wasted her pennies, Marian never spoiled her frocks, Marian never lost or broke anything ; all these exceptional virtues Mrs. Ashurst carefully noted and treasured in the storehouse of her memory. What she did not notice was, that Marian never gave anything away, never voluntarily shared any of her little possessions with her playfellows, and, when directed to do so, complied with a reluctance which all her pride, all her brave dread of the appearance of being coerced, hardly enabled her to subdue, and suffered afterwards in an unchildlike way. What she did not observe was, that Marian was not to be taken in by glitter and show ; that she preferred, from the early days in which her power of exhibiting her preference was limited by the extent of the choice which the toy-merchant — who combined hardbake and hair- dressing with ministering to the pleasures of infancy — afforded within the sum of sixpence. If Marian took any one into her confidence, or asked advice on such solemn occasions — generally ensuing on a protracted hoarding of the coin in question — it would not be by the questions, “ Is it the prettiest ? ” Is it the nicest ? ” but, “ Do you think it is worth sixpence ? ” and the child would look from tho toy to the money, held closely in the shut palm of her chubby 22 WRECKED IN PORT. hand, with a perturbed countenance, in which the pleasure of the acquisition was almost neutralised by the pain of the payment — a countenance in which the spirit of barter was to be discerned by knowing eyes. But none such took note of Marian’s childhood. The illumination of love is rather dazzling than searching in the case of mothers of Mrs. Ashurst’s class, and she was dazzled. Marian was perfection in her eyes, and at an age at which the inversion of the relations between mother and daughter, common enough in later life, would have appeared to others unreasonable, preposterous, Mrs. Ashurst surrendered herself wholly, happily, to the guidance and the care of her daughter. The inevitable self-assertion of the stronger mind took place, the inevitable submission of the weaker. In this instance, a gentle, persuasive, unconscious self- assertion, a joyful yielding, without one traversing thought of humiliation or deposition. Her daughter was so clever, so helpful, so grave, so good; her economy and management- — surely they were wonderful in so young a girl, and must have come to her by instinct? — rendered life such a different, so much easier a thing, delicate as she was, and requiring so disproportionate a share of their small means to be ex- pended on her, that it was not surprising Mrs. Ashurst should see no possibility of evil in the origin of such qualities. As for Marian’s father, he was about as likely to discover a comet or a continent as to discern a flaw in his daughter’s moral nature. The child, so longed for, so fervently implored, remained always, in' her father’s sight, Heaven’s best gift to him ; and he rejoiced exceedingly, and wondered not a little, as she developed into the girl whom we have seen beside his death-bed. He rejoiced because she was so clever, so quick, so ready, had such a masterly mind and happy faculty of acquiring knowledge ; knowledge of the kind he prized and reverenced ; of the kind which he felt would remain to her, an inheritance for her life. He wondered why she was so strong, for he MARIAN. 23 knew she did not take the peculiar kind of strength of character from him or from her mother. It was not to be wondered at that these peculiarities of Marian Ashurst were noticed by the inhabitants of the village where she was born, and where her childish days had been passed ; but it was remarkable that they were regarded with anything but admiration. For a keen appreciation of money, and an unfailing determination to obtain their money's worth, had long been held to be eminently characteristic of the denizens of Helmingham. The cheesefactor used to declare that the hardest .bargains throughout his county connection were those which Mrs. Croke, and Mrs. Whicher, and, worst of all, old Mrs. M‘Shaw (who, though Helmingham born and bred, had married Sandy M‘Shaw, a Scotch gardener, imported by old Squire Creswell) drove with him. Not the very best ale to be found in the cellars of the Lion at Brocksopp (and they could give you a good glass of ale, bright, beaming, and mellow, at the Lion, when they choose), not the strongest mahogany-coloured brandy-and- water, mixed in the bar by the fair hands of Miss Parkhurst herself, not even the celebrated rum-punch, the recipe of which, like the songs of the Scandinavian scalds, had never been written out, but had descended orally to old Tilley, the short, stout, rubicund landlord — had ever softened the heart of a Helmingham farmer in the matter of business, or induced him to take a shilling less on a quarter of wheat, or a truss of straw, than he had originally made up his mind to sell it at. “ Canny Helmingham ” was its name throughout the county, and its people were proud of it. Mr. Cliambre, an earnest clergyman who had succeeded the old rector, had been forewarned of the popular prejudice, and on the second Sunday of his ministry addressed his parishioners in a very powerful and eloquent discourse upon the wickedness of avarice and the folly of heaping up worldly riches ; after which, seeing that the only effect his sermon had was to lay him open to palpable rudeness, he wisely concentrated his 24 WRECKED IN PORT. energies on his translation of Horace’s Odes (which has since gained him such great renown, and of which at least forty copies have been sold), and left his parishioners’ souls to take care of themselves. But however canny and saving they might be, and however, sharply they might battle with the cheesefactor and look after the dairymaid, as behoved farmers’ wives in these awful days of free trade (they had a firm belief in Helmingham that “ Cobden,” under which generic name they understood it, was a kind of pest, as is the smut in wheat, or the tick in sheep), all the principal dames in the village were greatly shocked at the unnatural love of money which it was impossible to help noticing in Marian Ashurst. “ There was time enow to think o’ they things, money and such-like fash, when pipple was settled down,” as Mrs. Croke said ; “ but to see children hardenin’ their hearts and scrooin’ their pocket-money is unnatural, to say the least of it ! ” It was unnatural and unpopular in Helmingham. Mrs. Croke put such a screw on the cheesefactor, that in the evening after his dealings with her, that worthy filled the commercial room at the Lion with strange oaths and modern instances of sharp dealing in which Mrs. Croke bore away the palm ; but she was highly indignant when Lotty Croke’s godmother bought her a savings-bank, a gray edifice, with what theatrical people call a practicable chimney, down which the intended savings should be deposited. Mrs. Whicher’s dairymaid, who, being from Ireland, and a Koman Catholic in faith, was looked upon with suspicion, not to say fear, in the village, and who was regarded by the farmers as in constant though secret communication with the Pope of Kome and the Jesuit College generally, declared that her mistress “ canthered the life out of her ” in the matter of small wages and much work; but Mrs. Whicher’s daughter, Emily, had more crimson gowns, and more elegant bonnets, with regular fields of poppies, and perfect harvests of ears of corn grow- ing out of them, than any of her compeers, for which choice articles the heavy bill of Madame Morgan — formerly of Marian’s choice. 25 Paris, now of Brocksopp— was paid without a murmur. “ It’s unnat’ral in a gell like Marian Ashurst to think so much o’ money and what it brings,” would be a frequent remark at one of those private Helmingham institutions known as “ thick teas.” And then Mrs. Croke would say, “And what like will a gell o’ that sort look to marry? Why, a man maun have poun’s and poun’s before she’d say ‘ yea ’ and buckle to ! ” But that was a matter which Marian had already decided upon. CHAPTER IV. marian’s choice. At a time when it seemed as though the unchildlike qualities which had distinguished the child from her play- mates and coevals were intensifying and maturing in the girl growing up, then, to all appearance, hard, calculating, and mercenary, Marian Ashurst fell in love, and thence- forward the whole current of her being was diverted into healthier and more natural channels. Fell in love is the right and the only description of the process so far as Marian was concerned. Of course she had frequently dis- cussed the great question which racks the hearts of board- ing-school misses, and helps to fill up the spare- time of middle-aged women, with her young companions, had listened with outward calmness and propriety, but with an enormous amount of unshown cynicism, to their simple gushings, and had said sufficient to lead them to believe that she joined in their fervent admiration of and aspiration for young men with black eyes and white hands, straight noses and curly hair. But all the time Marian was build- ing for herself a castle in the air, the proprietor of which, whose wife she intended to be, was a very different person 26 WRECKED IN PORT. from the hairdressers’ dummies whose regularity of feature caused the hearts of her companions to palpitate. The personal appearance of her future husband had never given her an instant’s care ; she had no preference in the colour of his eyes or hair, in his height, style, or even of his age, except she thought she would rather he were old. Being old, he was more likely to be generous, less likely to be selfish, more likely to have amassed riches and to be wealthy. His fortune would be made, not to be made ; there would be no struggling, no self-denial, no hope required. Marian’s domestic experiences caused her to hate anything in which hope was required ; she had been dosed with hope without the smallest improvement, and had lost faith in the treat- ment. Marriage was the one chance possible for her to carry out the dearest, most deeply implanted, longest- cherished aspiration of her heart— the acquisition of money and power. She knew that the possession of the one led to the other ; from the time when she had saved her school- girl pennies and had noticed the court paid to her by her little friends, to the then moment when the mere fact of her having a small stock of ready money, even more than her sense and shrewdness, gave her position in that im- pecunious household, she had recognised the impossibility of achieving even a semblance of happiness in poverty. When she married, it should be for money, and for money alone. In the hard school of life in which she had been trained she had learned that the prize she was aiming at was a great one, and one difficult to be obtained ; but that knowledge only made her the more determined in its pur- suit. The difficulties around her were immense ; in the narrow circle in which she lived she had not any present chances of meeting with any person likely to be able to give her the position which she sought, far less of rendering him subservient to her wishes. But she waited and hoped ; she was waiting and hoping, calmly and quietly fulfilling the ordinary duties of her very ordinary life, but never losing sight of her fixed intent. Then across the path of her life there came a man who seemed to give promise of Marian's choice. 27 eventually fulfilling the requirements she had planned out for herself. It was but a promise ; there was nothing tangible ; but the promise was so good, and the girl’s heart yearned for an occupant, for, with all its hard teaching and its worldly aspirations, it was but human after all. So her human heart and her worldly wisdom come to a com- promise in the matter of her acceptance of a lover, and the result of that compromise was her engagement to Walter Joyce. When the Helmingham Grammar School was under the misrule of old Dr. Munch, then at its lowest ebb, and nominations to the foundation were to be had for the asking, and, indeed, in many cases sent a-begging, it occurred to the old head master to offer one of the vacancies to Mr. Joyce, the principal grocer and maltster of the village, whose son was then just of an age to render him accessible to the benefits of the education which Sir Ranulph Clinton had devised to the youth of Helmingham, and which was being so imperfectly supplied to them under the auspices of Dr. Munch. You must not for an instant imagine that the offer was made by the old doctor out of pure lovingkindness and magnanimity ; he looked at it, as he did at most things, from a purely practical point of view : he owed J oyce the grocer so much money, and if Joyce the grocer would write him a receipt in full for all his indebtedness in return for a nomination for Joyce junior, at least he, the doctor, would not have done a bad stroke of business. He would have wiped out an existing score, the value of which proceeding meant, in Dr. Munch’s eyes, that he would be enabled at once to commence a fresh one, while the acquisition of young Joyce as a scholar would not cause one atom of difference in the manner in which the school was conducted, or rather, left to conduct itself. The offer was worth making, for the debt was heavy, though the doctor was by no means sure of its being accepted. Andrew Joyce was not Helmingh am-born ; he had come from Spindleton, one of the large inland capitals, and had purchased the business which he owned. Ho was not 28 WRECKED IN PORT. popular among the Helmingham folk, who were all strict church-people so far as morning-service attending, tithe- paying, and parson-respecting were concerned, from the fact that his religious tendencies were suspected to be what the villagers termed “ Methodee.” He had his seat in the village church, it is true, and put in an appearance there on the Sunday morning ; but instead of spending the Sabbath evening in the orthodox way — which at Helmingham consisted in sitting in the best parlour with a very dim light, and enjoying the blessings of sound sleep while Nelson’s Fasts and Festivals , or some equally proper work, rested on the sleeper’s knee, until it fell off with a crash, and was only recovered to be held upside down until the grateful announcement of the arrival of supper — Mr. Joyce was in the habit of dropping into Salem Chapel, where Mr. Stoker, a shining light from the pottery district, dealt forth the most uncomfortable doctrine in the most forcible manner. The Helmingham people declared, too, that Andrew Joyce was “uncanny” in other ways; he was close-fisted and niggardly, his name was to be found on no subscription-list ; he was litigious ; he declared that Mr. Prickett, the old-fashioned solicitor of the village, was too slow for him, and he put his law-matters into the hands of Messrs. Sheen and Nasmyth, attorneys at Brocksopp, who levied a distress before other people had served a writ, and who were considered the sharpest practitioners in the county. Old Dr. Munch had heard of the process of Messrs. Sheen and Nasmyth, and the dread of any of it being exercised on him originally prompted his offer to Andrew Joyce. He knew that he might count on an ally in Andrew Joyce’s wife, a superior woman, in very delicate health, who had great influence with her husband, and who was devoted to her only son. Mrs. Joyce, when Hester Baines, had been a Bible-class teacher in Spindleton, and had had herself a fair amount of education — would have had more, for she was a very earnest woman in her vocation, ever striving to gain more knowledge herself for the mere purpose of imparting it to others, but from her early youth Marian’s choice. 29 she had been fighting with a spinal disease, to which she was gradually succumbing ; so that although sour granite- faced Andrew Joyce was not the exact helpmate that the girl so full of love and trust could have chosen for herself, when he offered her his hand and his home, she was glad to avail herself of the protection thus afforded, and of the temporary peace which she could thus enjoy until called, as she thought she should be, very speedily to her eternal rest. That call did not come nearly as soon as Hester Baines had anticipated, not, indeed, until nearly a score of years after she gave up Bible-teaching, and became Andrew Joyce’s wife. In the second year of her marriage a son was born to her, and thenceforward she lived for him, and for him alone. He was a small, delicate, sallow-faced boy, with enormous liquid eyes, and rich red lips, and a long throat, and thin limbs, and long skinny hands. A shy retiring lad, with an invincible dislike to society of any kind, even that of other boys; with a hatred of games and fun, and an irrepressible tendency to hide away somewhere, anywhere, in an old lumber-room amid the disused trunks, and broken clothes-horses, and general lumber, or under the wide-spreading branches of a tree, and then, extended, prone on his stomach, to lie with his head resting on his hands, and a book , flat between his face- supporting arms. He got licked before he had been a week at the school, because he openly stated he did not like half-holidays, a doctrine which when first whispered among his schoolfellows was looked upon as incredible, but which, on proof of its promulgation, brought down upon its holder severe punishment. Despite of all Dr. Munch’s somnolency and neglect, despite of all his class fellows’ idleness, ridicule, or con- tumely, young Joyce would learn, would make progress, would acquire accurate information in a very extraordinary way. When Mr. Ashurst assumed the reins of govern- ment at Helmingham Grammar School, the proficiency, promise, and industry of Walter Joyce were the only 30 WRECKED IN PORT. tilings that gave the new dominie the smallest gleam of interest in his fresh avocation. With the advent of the new head master Walter Joyce entered upon another career ; for the first time in his life he found some one to appreciate him, some one who could understand his work, praise what he had done, and encourage him to greater efforts. This had hitherto been wanting in the young man’s life. His father liked to know that the boy “ stuck to his book ; ” but was at last incapable of understanding what that sticking to the book produced ; and his mother, though conscious that her son possessed talent such as she had always coveted for him, had no idea of the real extent of his learning. James Ashurst was the only one in Helmingham who could rate his scholar’s gifts at their proper value, and the dominie’s kind heart yearned with delight at the prospect of raising such a creditable flower of learning in such unpromising soil. He busied himself, not merely with the young man’s present but with his future. It was his greatest hope that one of the scholar- ships at his old college should be gained by a pupil from Helmingham, and that that pupil should be Walter Joyce. Mr. Ashurst had been in communication with the college authorities on the subject; he had obtained a very un- willing assent — an assent that would have been a refusal had it not been for Mrs. Joyce’s influence — from Walter’s father that he would give his son an adequate sum for his maintenance at the University, and he was looking for- ward to a quick-coming time when a scholarship should be vacant, for which he was certain Walter had a most excellent chance, when Mrs. Joyce had a fit and died. From that time forth Andrew Joyce was a changed man. He had loved his wife in his grim, sour, puritanical way, loved her sufficiently to strive against this grimness and puritanism to the extent of his consenting to live for the most part from the ordinary fashion of the world. But when that gentle influence was once removed, when the hard-headed, narrow-minded man had no longer the soft answer to turn away his wrath, the soft face to look marian’s choice, 31 appealingly up against his harsh judgment, the quick intellect to combat his one-sided dogmatisms, he fell away at once, and blossomed out as the bitter bigot into which he had gradually but surely been growing. No college education for his son then ; no assistance from him for a bloated hierarchy, as he remarked at a public meeting, glancing at Mr. Sifton, the curate, who had eighty pounds a year and four children ; no money of his to be spent by his son in a dissolute and debauched career at the Uni- versity. Mr. Stoker had not been at any university — as, indeed, he had not, having picked up most of his limited education from a travelling tinker, who combined pot- mending and knife-grinding with Bible and tract selling; — and where would you meet with a better preacher of the Gawspel, a more shining light, or a cornel ier vessel ? Mr. Stoker was all in all to Andrew Joyce then, and when Andrew Joyce died, six months afterwards, it was found that, with the exception of the legacy of a couple of hundred pounds to his son, he had left all his money to Mr. Stoker, and to the chapel and charities represented by that erudite divine. It was a sad blow to' Walter Joyce, and almost as sharp a one to James Ashurst. The two men — Walter was a man now — grieved together over the overturned hopes and the extinguished ambition. It was impossible for Walter to attempt to go to college just then. There was no scholarship vacant, and if there had been, the amount to be won might probably have been insufficient even for this modest youth. There was no help for it ; he must give up the idea. What, then, was he to do? Mr. Ashurst answered that in his usual impulsive way. Walter should become under master in the school. The number of boys had increased immensely. There was more work than he and Dr. Breitmann could manage ; oh yes, he was sure of it — he had thought so a long time ; and Walter should become third classical master, with a salary of sixty pounds a year, and board and lodging in Mr. Ashurst’s house. It was a rash and wild suggestion, just 32 WRECKED IN PORT. likely to emanate from sueli a man as James Ashurst. The number of boys had increased, and Mr. Ashurst’s energy had decreased; but there was Dr. Breitmann, a kindly, well-read, well-educated doctor of philosophy, from Leipzig ; a fine classical scholar, though he pro- nounced “ amo ” as “ ahmo,” and “ Dido ” as “ Taito,” a gentleman, though his clothes were threadbare, and he only ate meat once a week, and sometimes not then unless he were asked out, and a disciplinarian, though he smoked like a limekiln ; a habit which in the Helmingham schoolboys’ eyes proclaimed the confirmed debauchee of the Giovanni or man-about-town type. Walter Joyce had been a favourite pupil of the doctor’s, and was welcomed as a colleague by his old tutor with the utmost warmth. It was understood that his engagement was only tem- porary; he would soon have enough money to enable him, with a scholarship, to astonish the University, and then Meanwhile Mr. Ashurst and all around repeated that his talents were marvellous, and his future success indisputable. That was the reason why Marian Ashurst fell in love with him. As has before been said, she thought nothing of outward appearance, although Walter Joyce had grown into a sufficiently comely man, small indeed, but with fine eyes and an eloquent mouth, and a neatly turned figure ; nor, though a refined and educated girl, did she estimate his talents save for what they would bring. He was to make a success in his future life ; that was what she thought of — her father said so, and so far, in matters of cleverness and book-learning, and so on, her father’s opinion was worth something. Walter Joyce was to make money and position, the two things of which she thought, and dreamed, and hoped for night and day. There was no one else among her acquaintance with his power. No farmer within the memory of living gene- rations had done more to keep up the homestead be- queathed to him whilst attempting to increase the number or the value of his fields, and even the gratification of her Marian’s choice. 33 love of money would have been but a poor compensation to a girl of Marian’s innate good breeding and refinement for being compelled to pass her life in the society of a boor or a churl. No! Walter Joyce combined the ad- vantage of education and good looks with the prospect of attaining wealth and distinction : he was her father’s favourite, and was well thought of by everybody, and — and she loved him very much, and was delighted to com- fort herself with the thought that in doing so she had not sacrificed any of what she was pleased to consider the guiding principles of her life. And he, Walter Joyce, did he reciprocate — was he in love with Marian ? Has it ever been your lot to see an ugly or, better still, what is called an ordinary man — for ugliness has become fashionable both in fiction and in society — to see an ordinary-looking man, hitherto politely ignored, if not snubbed, suddenly taken special notice of by a handsome woman, a recognised leader of the set, who, for some special purpose of her own, suddenly discovering that he has brains, or conversational power, or some peculiar fascination, singles him out from the surrounding ruck, steeps him in the sunlight of her eyes, and intoxicates him with the subtle wiles of her address ? It does one good, it acts as a moral shower-bath, to see such a man under such circumstances. Your fine fellow simpers and purrs for a moment, and takes it all as real legitimate homage to his beauty ; but the ordinary man cannot, so soon as he has got over his surprise at the sensation, cannot be too grateful, cannot find ways and means — cumbrous frequently and ungraceful, but eminently sincere — of showing his appreciation of his patroness. Thus it was with Walter Joyce. The knowledge that he was a grocer’s son had added immensely to the original shyness and sensitiveness of his disposition, and the free manner in which his small and delicate personal appearance had been made the butt of outspoken “chaff” of the schoolboys had made him singularly misogynistic. Since the early days of his youth, when he had been compelled to 34 WRECKED IN PORT. give a very unwilling attendance twice a week at the dancing academy of Mr. Hardy, where the boys of the Hel- mingham Grammar School had their manners softened, nor were suffered to become brutal, by the study of the Terp- sichorean art, in the company of the young ladies from the Misses Le wins’ establishment, Walter Joyce had resolutely eschewed any and every charge of mixing in female society. He knew nothing of it, and pretended to despise it. It is needless to say, therefore, that so soon as he was brought into daily communication with a girl like Marian Ashurst, possessed both of beauty and refinement, he fell hopelessly in love with her, and gave up every thought, idea, and hope, save that in which she bore a part. She was his goddess, and he would worship her humbly and at a distance. It would be sufficient for him to touch the hem of her robe, to hear the sound of her voice, to gaze at her with big dilated eyes, which — not that he knew it — were eloquent with love, and tenderness, and worship. Their love was known to each other, and to but very few else. Mr. Ashurst, looking up from his newspaper in the blessed interval between the departure of the boys to bed and the modest little supper, the only meal which the family — in which Joyce was included — had in private, may have noticed the figures of his daughter and his usher, not his favourite pupil, lingering in the deepening twilight round the lawn, or seen “ their plighted shadows blended into one ” in the soft rays of the moonlight. But if he thought anything about it, he never made any remark. Life was very hard and very earnest with James Ashurst, and he may have found something softening and pleasing in this little bit of romance, something which he may have wished to leave undisturbed by worldly sugges- tions or practical hints. Or, he may have had his idea of what was actually going on. A man with an incipient disease beginning to tell upon him, with a sickly wife, and a perpetual striving not merely to make both ends meet, but to prevent them bursting so wide asunder as to leave a gap through which he must inevitably fall into MARIAN'S CHOICE. 35 ruin between them, has but little time, or opportunity, or inclination, for observing narrowly the conduct even of those near and dear to him. Mrs. Ashurst, in her invalid state, was only too glad to think that the few hours which Marian took in respite for attendance on her mother were pleasantly employed, to inquire where or in whose society they were passed — neither Marian’s family nor J oyce kept any company by whom their absence would be missed ; and as for the villagers, they had fully made up their minds on the one side that Marian was determined to make a splendid match ; on the other, that the mere fact of Walter Joyce’s scholarship was so great as to incapacitate him from the pursuit of ordinary human frailties : so that not the ghost of a speculation as to the relative position of the couple had arisen amongst them. And the two young people loved, and hoped, and erected their little castles in the air, which were palatial indeed as hope-depicted by Marian, though less ambitious as limned by Walter Joyce, when Mr. Ashurst’s death came upon them like a thunder- bolt, and blew their unsubstantial edifices into the air. See them here on this calm summer evening, pacing round and round the lawn, as they used to do, in the old days already ages ago as it seems, when James Ashurst, newspaper in hand, would throw occasional glances at them from the study window. Marian, instead of letting her fingers lightly touch her companion’s wrist, as is her wont, has passed her arms through his, and her fingers are clasped together round it, and she looks up in his face, as they come to a standstill beneath the big outspread branches of the old oak, with an earnest tearful gaze such as she has seldom, if ever, worn before. There must be matter of moment between these two just now, for Joyce’s face looks wan and worn ; there are deep hollows beneath his large eyes, and he strives ineffectually to conceal, with an occasional movement of his hand, the rapid anxious play of the muscles round his mouth. Marian is the first to speak. 36 WRECKED IN PORT. “ And so you take Mr. Benthall’s decision as final, Walter, and are determined to go to London? ” “ Darling, what else can I do ? Here is Mr. Benthall’s letter, in which he tells me that, without the least wish to disturb me — a mere polite phrase that — he shall bring his own assistant master to Helmingham. He writes and means kindly, I’ve no doubt — but here’s the fact ! ” “ Oh yes, I’m sure he’s a gentleman, Walter ; his letter to mamma proves that, offering to defer his arrival at the school-house until our own time. Of course that is impossible, and we go into Mrs. Swainson’s lodgings at once.” “ My dearest Marian, my own pet, I hate to think of you in lodgings ; I cannot bear to picture you so ! ” “ You must make haste to get your position, and take me to share it, then, Walter ! ” said the girl, with a half- melancholy smile ; “ you must do great things, Walter. Dear papa always said you would, and you must prove how right he was.” “ Dearest, your poor father calculated on my success at college for the furtherance of my fortune, and now all that chance is over ! Whatever I do now must be ” “ By the aid of your own talent and industry, exactly the same appliances which you had to rely on if you had gone to the University, Walter. You don’t fear the result? You’re not alarmed and desponding at the turn which affairs have taken ? It’s impossible you can fail to attain distinction, and — and money and — and position, - Walter — you must, — don’t you feel it ?— you must ! ” “ Yes, dear, I feel it ; I hope — I think ; perhaps not so strongly, so enthusiastically as you do. You see, — don’t be downcast, Marian, but it’s best to look these things in the face, darling ! — all I can try to get is a tutor’s, or an usher’s, or a secretary’s place, and in any of these the want of the University stamp is heavily against me. There’s no disguising that, Marian ! ” “ Oh, indeed ; is that so ? ” MARIAN S CHOICE. 37 “ Yes, child, undoubtedly. The University degree is like the Hall-mark in silver, and I’m afraid I shall find very few persons willing to accept me as the genuine article without it.” “ And all this risk might have been avoided if your father had only ” “Well, yes; but then, Marian darling, if my father had left me money to go to college immediately on his death I should never have known you — known you, I mean, as you are, the dearest and sweetest of women.” He drew her to him as he spoke, and pressed his lips on her forehead. She received the kiss without any undue emotion, and said — “ Perhaps that had been for the best, Walter.” “ Marian, that’s rank blasphemy. Fancy my hearing that, especially, too, on the night of my parting with you ! No, my darling, all I want you to have is hope, hope and courage, and not too much ambition, dearest. Mine has been comparatively but a lotus-eating existence hitherto; to-morrow I begin the battle of life.” “ But slightly armed for the conflict, my poor Walter.” “ I don’t allow that, Marian. Youth, health, and energy are not bad weapons to have on one’s side, and with your love in the background ” “ And the chance of achieving fame and fortune for yourself — keep that in the foreground ! ” “ That is to me, in every way, less than the other ; but it is, of course, an additional spur. And now ? ” And then ? When two lovers are on the eve of parting, their conversation is scarcely very interesting to any one else. Marian and Walter talked the usual pleasant non- sense, and vowed the usual constancy, took four separate farewells of each other, and parted with broken accents and lingering hand-clasps, and streaming eyes. But when Marian Ashurst sat before her toilet-glass that night in the room which had so long been her own, and which she was so soon to vacate, she thought of what Walter Joyce had said as to his future, and wondered whether, after all, she 38 WRECKED IN PORT. had not miscalculated the strength, not the courage, of the knight whom she had selected to wear her colours in his helm in the great contest. CHAPTER Y. WOOLGREAYES. “ You will be better when you have made the effort, mother,” said Marian Ashurst to the widow, one day, when the beauty of the summer was at its height, and death and grief seemed very hard to bear, in the face of the unsym- pathising sunshine. “ Don’t think I underrate the effort, for indeed I don’t, but you will be better when you have made it.” “ Perhaps so, my dear,” said Mrs. Ashurst, with re- luctant submissiveness. “ You are right ; I am sure you always are right ; but it is so little use to go to any place where one can’t enjoy one’s self, and where everybody must see that it is impossible ; and you have — you know ” Her lips trembled, her voice broke. Her little hands, still soft and pretty, twined themselves together, with an ex- pression of pain. Then she said no more. Marian had been standing by the open window, look- ing out, the side of her head turned to her mother, who was glancing at her timidly. Now she crossed the room, with a quick steady step, and knelt down by Mrs. Ashurst’s chair, clasping her hands upon the arm. “ Listen to me, dear,” she said, with her clear eyes fixed on her mother’s face, and her voice, though softened to a tone of the utmost tenderness, firm and decided. “You must never forget that I know exactly what and how much you feel, and that I share it all ” (there was a forlornness in the girl’s face which bore ample testimony to the truth of what she said) “ when I tell you, in my practical way, what we must do. You remember, once, WOOLGREAVES. 39 then, you spoke to me about the Creswells, and I made light of them and their importance and influence. I would not admit it ; I did not understand it. I had not fully thought about it then ; but I admit it now. I understand it now, and it is my turn to tell you, my dearest mother, that we must be civil to them ; we must take, or seem to take, their offers of kindness, of protection, of intimacy, as they are made. We cannot afford to do otherwise, and they are just the sort of people to be offended with us irreparably, if we did not allow them to extend their hospitality to us. It is rather officious, rather ostentatious; it has all the bitterness of making us re- member more keenly what they might have done for us, but it is hospitality, and we need it ; it is the promise of further services which we shall require urgently. You must rouse yourself, mother ; this must be your share of helpfulness to me in the burden of our life. And, after all, what does it matter? What real difference does it make ? My father is as much present to you and to me in one place as in another. Nothing can alter, or modify, or soften ; nothing can deepen or embitter that truth. Come with me — the effort will repay itself.” Mrs. Ashurst had begun to look more resolved, before her daughter, who had spoken with more than her usual earnestness and decision, had come to an end of her argument. She put her arm round the girl’s neck, and gave her a timid squeeze, and then half rose, as though she were ready to go with her, anywhere she chose, that very minute. Then Marian, without asking another word on the subject, busied herself about her mother’s dress, arranging the widow’s heavy sombre drapery with a deft hand, and talking about the weather, the pleasantness of their projected walk, and the daily dole of Helmingham gossip. Marian cared little for gossip of any kind herself, but it was a godsend to her sometimes, when she had particular reasons for not talking to her mother of the things that were in her mind, and did not find it easy to invent other things to talk to her about. 40 WRECKED IN PORT. The object which Marian had in view just now, and which she had had some difficulty in attaining, was the inducing of her mother, who had passed the time since her bereavement in utter seclusion, to accept the invitation of Mr. Creswell, the owner of Woolgreaves, the local grandee par excellence , the person whose absence Marian had so lamented on the occasion of her father’s illness, to pass “ a long day ” with him and his nieces. It was not the first time such an invitation had reached Mrs. Ashnrst. Their rich neighbour, the dead schoolmaster’s friend, had not been neglectful of the widow and her daughter, but it was the first time Marian had made up her mind that this advance on his part must be met and welcomed. She had as much reluctance to break through the seclusion of their life as her mother, though of a somewhat different stamp; but she had been pondering and calculating, while her mother had been only thinking and suffering, and she had decided that it must be done. She did not doubt that she should suffer more in the acting upon this decision than her mother ; but it was made, and must be acted upon. So Marian took her mother to Woolgreaves. Mr. Creswell had offered to send a carriage (he rather liked the use of the indefinite article, which implied the extent of his establishment) to fetch the ladies, but Marian had declined this. The walk would do her mother good, and brace her nerves ; she meant to talk to her easily, with seeming carelessness, of the possibilities of the future, on the way. At length Mrs. Ashurst was ready, and her daughter .and she set forth, in the direction of the distressingly modern, but really imposing, mansion, which, for the first time, they approached, unsupported by him, in whose presence it had never occurred to them to suffer from any feeling of inferiority of position or means, or to believe that any one could regard them in a slighting manner. Mr. Creswell, of Woolgreaves, had entertained a sincere regard, built on profound respect, for Mr. Ashurst. He knew the inferiority of his own mind, and his own educa- tion, to those of the man who had contentedly and WOOLGREAVES. 41 laboriously filled so humble a position — one so unworthy of his talents, as well as he knew the superiority of his own business abilities, the difference which had made him a rich man, and which would, under any circumstances, have kept Mr. Ashurst poor. He was a man possessed of much candour of mind and sound judgment ; and though he pre- ferred, quite sincerely, the practical ability which had made him what he was, and heartily enjoyed all the material advantages and pleasures of his life, he was capable of profound admiration for such unattainable things as taste, learning, and the indefinable moral and personal elements which combine to form a scholar and a gentleman. He was a commonplace man in every other respect than this, that he m,ost sincerely despised and detested flattery, and was incapable of being deceived by it. He had not failed to understand that it would have been as impossible to James Ashurst to flatter as to rob him ; and for this reason, as well as for the superiority he had so fully recognised, he had felt warm and abiding friendship for him, and lamented his death, as he had not mourned any accident of mortality since the day which had seen his prelty young wife laid in her early grave. Mr. Creswell, a poor man in those days, struggling man- fully very far down on the ladder, which he had since climbed with the ease which not unfrequently attends effort, when something has happened to decrease the value of success, had loved his pretty, uneducated, merry little wife very much, and had felt for a while after she died, that he was not sure whether anything was worth working or striving for. But his constitutional activity of mind and body had got the better of that sort of feeling, and he had worked and striven to remarkably good purpose ; but he had never asked another woman to share his fortunes. This was not altogether occasioned by lingering regret for his pretty Jenny. He was not of a sentimental turn of mind, and he might even have been brought to acknow- ledge, reluctantly, that his wife would probably have been much out of place in the fine house, and at the head of the 42 WRECKED IN PORT. luxurious establishment which his wealth had formed. She was humbly born, like himself, had not been ambitious, except of love and happiness, and had had no better educa- tion than enabled her to read and write, not so perfectly as to foster in her a taste for either occupation. If Mr. Creswell had a sorrowful remembrance of her sometimes, it died away with the reflection that she had been happy while she lived, and would not have been so happy now. His continued bachelor estate was occasioned rather by his close and engrossing attention to the interests of his busi- ness, and, perhaps, also to the narrow social circle in which he lived. Pretty, uneducated, simple young country women will retain their power of pleasing men who have acquired education, and made mone} 7 , and so elevated themselves far above their original station; but the in- fluence of education and wealth upon the tastes of men of this sort is inimical to the chances of the young women of the classes in society among which they habitually find their associates. The women of the 44 well-to-do ” world are unattractive to those men, who have not been born in it. Such men either retain the predilections of their youth for women like those whose girlhood they remember, or cherish ambitious aspirations towards the inimitable, not to be borrowed or imported, refinement of the women of social spheres far above them. The former was Mr. CreswelPs case, in as far as any- thing except business can be said to have been active in his affairs. The 44 ladies’’ in the Helmingham district were utterly uninteresting to him, and he had made that fact so evident long ago that they had accepted it; of course regarding him as an 44 oddity,” and much to be pitied ; and since his nieces had taken up their abode, on the death of their father, Mr. Creswell’s only brother, at Woolgreaves, a matrimonial development in Mr. Creswell’s career had been regarded as an impossibility. The owner of Woolgreaves was voted by general feminine consent 44 a dear old thing,” and a very good neighbour, and the ladies only hoped he might not have trouble before him with WOOLGREAVES. 43 “ that pickle, young Tom,” and were glad to think no poor woman had been induced to put herself in for such a life as that of Tom’s step-mother would have been. Mr. Creswell’s only brother had belonged, not to the “ well-to-do ” community, but, on the contrary, to that of the “ ne’er-do-weels,” and he had died without a shilling, heavily in debt, and leaving two helpless girls — sufficiently delicately nurtured to feel their destitution with keenness amounting to despair, and sufficiently “ fashionably,” i.e . ill, educated to be wholly incapable of helping themselves — to the mercy of the world. The contemplation of this contingency, for which he had plenty of leisure, for he died of a lingering illness, did not appear to have dis- tressed Tom Creswell. lie had believed in “ luck ” all his life, with the touching devotion of a selfish man who defines “ luck ” as the making of things comfortable for himself, and is not troubled with visions of, after him, the modern version of the deluge, which takes the squalid form of the pawnbroker’s and the poor-house ; and “ luck ” had lasted his time. It had even survived him, so far as his children were concerned, for his brother, who had quar- relled with him, more from policy and of deliberate interest, regarding him as a hopeless spendthrift, the helping of whom was a useless extravagance, than from anger or disgust, came to the aid of the widow anc). her children, when he found that things were very much worse than he had supposed they would prove to be. Mrs. Tom Creswell afforded a living example of her husband’s “ luck.” She was a mild, gentle, very silly, very self-denying, estimable woman, who loved the “ ne’er-do- weel” so literally with all her heart that when he died she had not enough of that organ left to go on living with. She did not see why she should try, and she did not try, but quietly died in a few months, to the astonishment of rational people, who declared that Tom Creswell was a “ good loss,” and had never been of the least use either to himself or any other human being. What on earth was the woman about? Was she such an idiot as not to see his 44 WRECKED IN PORT. faults ? Did she not know’ what a selfish, idle, extrava- gant, worthless fellow he was, and that he had left her to either pauperism or dependence on any one who would support her, quite complacently ? If such a husband as he was — what she had seen in him beyond his handsome face and his pleasant manner, they could not tell — was to be honoured in this way, gone quite daft about, in fact, they really could not perceive the advantage to men in being active, industrious, saving, prudent, and domestic. Nothing could be more true, more reasonable, more unanswerable, or more ineffectual. Mrs. Tom Ores well did not dispute it ; she patiently endured much bullying by strong-minded, tract-dropping females of the spinster persuasion ; she was quite satisfied to be told she had proved herself unworthy of a better husband. She did not murmur as it was proved to her, in the fiercest forms of accurate arithmetic, that her Tom had squandered sums which might have pro- vided for her and her children decently, and had not even practised the poor self-denial of paying for an insurance on his life. She contradicted no one, she rebuked no one, she asked forbearance and pity from no one; she merely wept and said she was sure her brother-in-law would be kind to the girls, and that she would not like to be a trouble to Mr. Creswell herself, and was sure her Tom would not have liked her to be a trouble to Mr. Creswell. On this point the brother of the “ departed saint,” as the widow called the amiable idler of whose presence she considered the world unworthy, by no means agreed with her. Mr. Creswell was of opinion that so long as trouble kept clear of Tom, Tom would have been perfectly in- different as to where it lighted. But he did not say so. He had not much respect for his sister-in-law’s intellect, but he pitied her, and he was not only generous to her distress, but also merciful to her weakness. He offered her a home at Woolgreaves, and it was arranged that she should “ try ” to go there, after a while. But she never tried, and she never went ; she “ did not see the good of ” anything ; and in six months after Tom Creswell’s death WOOLGREAVES. 45 his daughters were settled at Woolgreaves, and it is doubtful whether the state of orphanhood was ever in any case a more tempered, modified misfortune than in theirs. Thus the family party at the handsome house, which Mrs. Ashurst and her daughter were about to visit, was composed of Mr. Creswell, his son Tom, a specimen of the schoolboy class, of whom this history has already afforded a glimpse, and the Misses Creswell, the Maude and Gertrude of whom Marian had, in her grief, spoken in terms of sharp and contemptuous disparagement which, though not entirely censurable, judged from her point of view, were certainly not altogether deserved. Mr. Creswell earnestly desired to befriend the visitor and her daughter. Gertrude Creswell thought it would be very “ nice ” to be “ great friends ” with that clever Miss Ashurst, and had, with all the impulsiveness of generous girlhood, exulted in the idea of being, in her turn, able to extend kindness to people in need of it, even as she and her sister had been. But Maude, who, though her actual experience of life had been identical with her sister’s, had more natural intuition and caution, checked the enthusiasm with which Gertrude drew this picture. “ We must be very careful, Gerty dear,” she said ; “ I fancy this clever Miss Ashurst is very proud. People say you never find out the nature of any one until trouble brings it to the light. It would never do to let her think one had-any notion of doing her services, you know. She might not like it from us ; uncle’s kindness to them is a different thing ; but we must remember that we are, in reality, no better off than she is.” Gertrude reddened. She had not spoken with the remotest idea of patronage of Miss Ashurst in her mind, and her sister’s warning pained her. Gertrude had a dash of her father’s insouciance in her, though in him it had been selfish joviality, and in her it was only happy thoughtless- ness. It had occurred to Gertrude, more than once before to-day, to think she should like to be married to some one 46 WRECKED IN PORT. whom she could love very much indeed, and away from this fine place, which did not belong to them, though her uncle was very kind, in a home of her own. Maude had a habit of saying and looking things which made Gertrude entertain such notions ; and now she had, with the best intentions, injured her pleasure in the anticipation of the visit of Mrs. Ashurst and Marian. It was probably this little incident which lent the slight touch of coldness and restraint to the manner of Gertrude Creswell which Marian instantly felt, and which she erroneously interpreted. When they had met for- merly, there had been none of this hesitating formality. “ These girls don’t want us here,” said Marian to herself ; “ they grudge us their uncle’s friendship, lest it should take a form which would deprive them of any of his money.” Perhaps Marian w r as not aware of the resolve lurking in her heart even then, that such was precisely the form which that friendship should be made to take. The evil warp in her otherwise frank and noble mind told in this. Gertrude Creswell, to whom in particular she imputed mercenary feeling, and the forethought of a calculating jealousy, was entirely incapable of anything of the kind, and was actuated wholly by her dread that Marian should misinterpret any premature advance towards intimacy on her part as an impertinence. Thus the foundation of a misunderstanding between the two was laid. Marian’s thoughts had been busy with the history of the sisters, as she and her mother approached Woolgreaves. She had heard her father describe Tom Creswell and his wife, and dwell upon the fortunate destiny wdiich had transferred Maude and Gertrude to their uncle’s care. She thought of all that now with bitterness. The contrast between her father’s character, life, and fate, and the character, life, and fate of Tom Creswell, w r as a problem difficult to solve, hard to endure. Why had the measure been so differently — she w^ould, she must say so unjustly — meted to these two men ? Her fancy dwelt on every point WOOLGREAVES. 47 in that terrible difference, lingered around the two death- beds, pictured the happy, sheltered, luxurious, unearned security of those whom the spendthrift had left uncared for, and the harsh, gloomy future before her mother and herself, in which only two things, hard work and scanty means, were certain, which had been the vision her father must have seen of the fate of those he loved, when he, so fitted to adorn an honoured and conspicuous position, had died, worn out in the long vain strife with poverty. Here were the children of the man who had lived utterly for self, and the widow and child of the “ righteous/’ who had done his duty manfully from first to last. Hard and bitter were Marian’s reflections on this contrast, and earnestly did she wish that some speedy means of ac- celerating by efforts of her own the fulfilment of those promises of Providence, in which she felt sometimes tempted to put little faith, might arise. “ I suppose he was not exactly ‘ forsaken/ ” said the girl in her mind as she approached the grand gates of Woolgreaves, whose ironmongery displayed itself in the utmost profusion, allied with artistic designs more sump- tuous than elegant, “ and that no one will see us 4 begging our bread ; ’ but there is only meagre consolation to me in this, since he had not what might — or all their service is a pretence, all their ‘ opinions ’ are lies — have saved him, and I see little to rejoice in in being just above the begging of bread.” “ They have done a great deal to the place since we were here, Marian,” said Mrs. Ashurst, looking round admiringly upon the skilful gardening and rich display of shrubs and flowers and outdoor decorations of all kinds. “ It must take a great many hands to keep this in order Not so much as a leaf or a pebble out of its place.” “ They say there are four gardeners always employed,” said Marian. “I wish we had the money it costs; we needn’t wish Midsummer-day further off then. But here is Mr. Creswell, coming to meet us.” Marian Ashurst was much more attractive in ber early 48 WRECKED IN PORT. womanhood than she had promised to be as a very young girl, and the style of her face and figure was of the kind which is assisted in its effect by a somewhat severe order of costume. She was not beautiful, not even positively handsome, and it is possible she might have looked commonplace in the ordinary dress of young women of limited means, where cheap material and coarse colouring must necessarily be used. In her plain attire of deep mourning, with no ornament save one or two trinkets of jet which had been her mother’s, Marian Ashurst looked far from commonplace, and remarkably ladylike. The strongly defined character in her face, the composure of her manner, the quietness of her movements, were not the charms which are usually associated with youth, but they were charms, and her host was a person to whom they were calculated to prove especially charming. Except in his generally benevolent way of entertaining a kindly regard for his friend’s daughter, Mr. Creswell had never noted nor taken any particular notice of Marian Ashurst ; but she had not been an hour in his house before she impressed herself upon him as being very different from all the other girls of his acquaintance, and much more inter- esting than his nieces. Mr. Creswell felt rather annoyed with his nieces. They were civil, certainly ; but they did not seem to understand the art of making the young lady who was visiting them happy and “ at home.” There was none of the freemasonry of “ the young person ” about them. After a while, Mr. Creswell found that the order of things he had been prepared for — what he certainly would have taken to be the natural order of things — was altered, set aside, he did not know how, and that he was walking along the trim garden-paths, after luncheon, with Miss Ashurst, while Maude and Gertrude took charge of the visitor to whom he had meant to devote himself, and were making themselves as amiable and pleasant to her as they had failed to make themselves to Marian. Perhaps the fault or the reason was as much on Miss Ashurst’s side WOOLGREAVES. 49 as on theirs. Before he had conducted his visitor over all the “show” portions of the grounds and gardens, Mr. Creswell had arrived at the conclusion that Marian was a remarkable young woman, with strong powers of ob- servation, and a decided aptitude for solid and sensible conversation, which probably explained the coldness to- wards her of Maude and Gertrude, who were not remark- able, except for fine complexions, and hair to correspond, and whose talk was of the most vapid description, so far as he had had the opportunity of observing. There was not much of importance in appearance to relate about the occurrences of a day which was destined to be remembered as very important by all who passed its hours at Wool greaves. It had the usual features of a “ long day,” spasmodic attacks of animation and lapses of weariness, a great deal of good eating and drinking, much looking at pictures and parade-books, some real gratification, and not a little imperfectly disguised fatigue. It differed in one respect, however, from the usual history of a “ long day.” There was one person who was not glad when it came to an end. That person was Mr. Creswell. Poor Mrs. Ashurst had found her visit to Woolgreaves much more endurable than she expected. She had indeed found it almost pleasurable. She had been amused — the time had passed, the young ladies had been kind to her. She praised them to Marian. “ They are nice creatures,” she said ; “ really tender- hearted and sincere. Of course, they are not clever like you, my dear ; but then all girls cannot be expected to be that .” “ They are very fortunate,” said Marian, moodily. “ Just think of the safe and happy life they lead. Living like that is living; we only exist. They have no want for the present ; no anxiety for the future. Everything they see and touch, all the food they eat, everything they wear means money.’ “ Yes,” said Mrs. Ashurst ; “ and after all, money is a great thing. Not, indeed,” she added, with tears in her E 50 WRECKED IN PORT. eyes, 4 4 that I could care much for it now, for it could not, if we had it, restore what we have lost.” 44 No,” said Marian, frowning, 44 but it could have saved us from losing it ; it could have preserved love and care, home, position, and happiness to us. True, mother, money is a great thing.” But Marian’s mother was not listening to her. Her mind had returned to its familiar train of thought again. Something had been said that day about Mrs. Ashurst’s paying Woolgreaves a longer visit, going for a week or two, of course accompanied by Marian. Mrs. Ashurst had not decidedly accepted or negatived the proposition. She felt rather nervous about it herself, and uncertain as to Marian’s sentiments, and her daughter had not aided her by word or look. Nor did Marian recur to the subject when she found themselves at home again in the evening. But she remembered it, and discussed it with herself in the night. Would it be well that her mother should be habi- tuated to the comforts, the luxuries of such a house, so un- attainable to her at home, so desirable in her state of broken health and spirits? This was the great difficulty which beset Marian, and she felt she could not decide it then. Her long waking reverie of that night did not concern itself with the people she had been with. It was fully occupied with the place. Her mind mounted from floor to floor of the handsome house, which represented so much money, reviewing and appraising the furniture, specu- lating on the separate and collective value of the plate, the mirrors, the hangings, the decorations. Thousands and thousands of pounds, she thought, hundreds and hundreds of times more money than she had ever seen, and nothing to do for it all. Those girls who lived among it, what had they done that they should have all of it? Why had she, whose mother needed it so much, who could so well appreciate it, none of it? Marian’s last thought before she fell asleep that night was, not only that money was a great thing, but that almost anything would be worth doing to get money. ( « ) CHAPTER VI. BREAD-SEEKING. There are few streets in London better known to that large army of martyrs, the genteelly poor, than those which run northward from the Strand, and are lost in the two vast tracts of brick known under the name of Covent Garden and Drury Lane. Lodging-house keepers do not affect these streets, preferring the narrow no-thorOugh- fares on the other side of the Strand, abutting on the river, streets eternally ringing with the hoarse voice of the costermonger, who descends on one side and ascends on the other, eternally echoing to the grinding of the organ-man, who gets through his entire repertoire twice over during his progress to the railing overlooking the Embankment, and his return to the pickle-shop at the top, eternally haunted by the beer-boy and the newspaper-boy, by postmen infuriated with wrongly addressed letters, and by luggage-laden cabs. In the streets bearing north- ward no costermonger screams and no organ is found ; the denizens are business-people, and would very soon put a stop to any such attempt. Business, and nothing but business, in that drab- coloured house with the high wire-blinds in the window, over which you can just catch a glimpse of the top of a hanging white robe. Cope and Son are the owners of the drab-coloured house, and Cope and Son are the largest retailers of clerical millinery in London. All day long members of “the cloth,” sleek, pale, emaciated, high- church curates, stout, fresh-coloured, huge-whiskered, broad-church rectors, fat, pasty-faced, straight-haired evangelical ministers, are pouring into Cope and Son’s for clothes, for hoods, for surplices, for stoles, for every variety of ecclesiastical garment. Cope and Son supply all, in every variety, for every sect; the M,B. waistcoat 52 WRECKED IN FORT. and stiff-collared coat reaching to his heels in which the Honourable and Reverend Cyril Genuflex looks so im- posing, as he, before the assembled vestry, defies the scrutiny of his evangelical churchwarden ; the pepper- and-salt cutaway in which the Reverend Pytchley Quorn follows the hounds; the black-stuff gown in which the Reverend Locock Congreve perspires and groans as he deals out denunciations of those sitting under him; and the purple bedgown, turned up with yellow satin, and worked all over with crosses and vagaries, in which poor Tom Phoole, such a kind-hearted and such a soft-headed vessel, goes through his ritualistic tricks, — all these come from the establishment of Cope and Son’s, in Rutland Street, Strand. The next house on the right is handy for the high- church clergymen, though the evangelicals shut their eyes and turn away their heads as they pass by it. Here Herr Tubelkahn, from Elberfeld, the cunning worker in metals, the artificer of brass and steel and iron, and sometimes of gold and silver, the great ecclesiastical upholsterer, has set up his Lares and Penates, and here he deals in the loveliest of medievalisms and the choicest of renaissance wares. The sleek long-coated gentry who come to make purchases can scarcely thread their way through the heterogeneous contents of Herr Tubelkahn’s shop. All massed together without order ; black oaken chairs, bought up by Tubelkahn’s agents from occupants of tumbledown old cottages in midland districts, crosiers and crucifixes, ornate and plain, from Elberfeld, sceptres and wands from Solingen, lecterns in the shape of enormous brazen eagles with outstretched wings from Birmingham, enormous candelabra and gaseliers of Gothic pattern from Liege, and sculptured pulpits and carved altar-rails from the Curtain Road, Shoreditch. Altar- cloths hang from the tables, and altar-carpets, none of your common loom-woven stuff, but hand-worked and — as Herr Tubelkahn gives you to understand — by the fairest fingers, are spread about to show their patterns to the BREAD-SEEKING. 53 best advantage, while there is so much stained glass about ready for immediate transfer to the oriel windows of country churches, that when the sun shines, Herr Tubel- kahn’s customers seem to be suddenly invested with Joseph’s garment of many colours, and the whole shop lights up like a kaleidoscope. Many of the customers, both of Messrs. Cope and Tubelkahn, were customers, or, more euphuistically, clients, of Messrs. Camoxon, who kept the celebrated Clerical and Educational Registry higher up the street ; but these customers and clients invariably crossed and recrossed the road, in proceeding from the one to the other of these establishments, in order to avoid a certain door which lay midway between them. A shabby swing-door, sun-blistered, and with its bottom panel scored with heel and toe kicks from impatient entrance-seeking feet ; a door flanked by two flaming bills, and surrounded by a host of close-shaven, sallow-faced men, in shabby clothes and shiny hats, and red noses and swinging canes, noble Romans, roistering cavaliers, clamorous citizens, fashion- able guests, virtuous peasants — all at a shilling a night ; for the door was, in fact, the stage-door of the Cracksideum Theatre. The shabby men in threadbare jauntiness smiled furtively, and grinned at each other as they saw the sleek gentlemen in shining broad-cloth step out of their path ; but the said gentlemen felt the proximity of the Thespian temple very acutely, and did not scruple to say so to Messrs. Camoxon, who, as in duty bound, shrugged their shoulders deprecatingly, and — changed the conversation. They were very sorry, but — and they shrugged their shoulders. When men shrug their shoulders to their customers it is time that they should retire from business. It was time that the Messrs. Camoxon so retired, for the old gentleman now seldom appeared in Rutland Street, but remained at home at Wimbledon, enacting his favourite character of the British squire, and actually dressing the part in a blue coat and gilt buttons, gray knee-breeches, and Hessian boots ; while young George 54 WRECKED IN PORT. Camoxon limited with the Queen’s hounds, had dined twice at the Life Guards’ mess at Windsor, and had serious thoughts of standing for the county. But the business was far too good to give up ; every one who had a presentation or an advowson to sell took it to Camoxons’ ; the head dlerk could tell you off-hand the net value of every valuable living in England, the age of the incumbent, and the state of his health. Every rector who wanted assistance, every curate who wanted a change, in servants’ phrase, “ to better himself,” every layman who wanted a title for orders, every vicar who, oddly enough, wanted to change a dull, bleak living in the north for a pleasant social sphere of duty in a cheerful neigh- bourhood in the south of England ; parents on the look- out for tutors, tutors in search of pupils — all inscribed their names on Camoxon’s books, and looked to him for assistance in their extremity. There was a substantial, respectable, orthodox appearance about Camoxons’, in the ground-glass windows, with the device of the Bible and Sceptre duly inscribed thereon ; in the chaste internal fittings of polished mahogany and plain horsehair stools, with the Churchman’s Almanack on the wall in mediaeval type, very illegible, and in a highly mediaeval frame, all bosses and clamps ; in the big ledgers and address-books, and in the Post-office Directory, which here shed its truculent red cover, and was scarcely recognisable in a meek sad-coloured calf binding ; and, above all, in the grave, solemn, sable-clad clerks, who moved noiselessly about, and who looked like clergymen playing at busi- ness. Up and down Butland Street had Walter Joyce paced full a thousand times since his arrival in London. The name of the street and of its principal inhabitants was familiar to him through the advertisements in the clerical newspaper which used to be sent to Mr. Ashurst at Helmingham ; and no sooner was he settled down in his little lodging in Winchester Street than he crossed the mighty artery of the Strand, and sought out the street BREAD-SEEKING. 55 and the shops of which he had alread} r heard so much. He saw them, peered in at Copes’, and at Tubelkahn’s, and looked earnestly at Camoxons’ ground-glass window, and half thought of going in to see whether they had anything which might suit him on their hooks. But he refrained until he had received the answers to a certain advertisement which he had inserted in the newspaper, setting forth that a young man with excellent testimonials — he knew he could get them from the rector of Helming- ham — was desirous of giving instruction in the classics and mathematics. Advertising, he thought, was a better and more gentlemanly medium than causing a detailed list of his accomplishments to be inscribed in the books of the Ecclesiastical Registry, as a horse’s pedigree and performances are entered in the horsedealer’s list ; but when, after hunting for half an hour through the columns of the newspaper’s supplement, he found his advertisement amongst a score of others, all of them from men with college honours, or promising greater advantages than he could hold forth, he began to doubt the wisdom of his proceeding. However, he would wait and see the result. He did so wait for three days, but not a single line addressed, as requested, to W. J. found its way to Win- chester Street. Then he sent for the newspaper again, and began to reply to the advertisements which he thought might suit him. He had no high thoughts or hopes, no notions of regenerating the living generation, or of placing tuition on a new footing, or rendering it easy by some hitherto unexplained process. He had been an usher in a school ; for the place of an usher in a school he had advertised ; and if he could have obtained that position he would have been contented. But when the few answers to his advertisement arrived, he saw that it was impossible to accept any of the offers they contained. One man wanted him to teach Erench with a guaranteed Parisian accent, to devote his whole time out of school- hours to the boys, to supervise them in the Indian-sceptre athletic exercises, and to rule over a dormitory of thirteen, 56 WRECKED IN PORT. “ where, in consequence of the lax supervision of the last didaskolos, severe measures would he required / 5 for twenty pounds a year. Another gentleman, whose note- paper was ornamented with a highly florid Maltese cross, and who dated his letter “ Eve of S. Boanerges , 55 wished to know his opinion of the impostor-firebrand M. Luther, and whether he (the advertiser) had any connections in the florist or decorative line, with whom an arrangement in the mutual-accommodation way could be entered into ; while a third, evidently a grave sententious man, with a keen ej T e to business, expressed, on old-fashioned Bath- post, gilt-edged letter-paper, his desire to know “ what sum W. J. would be willing to contribute for the permis- sion to state, after a year’s residence, that he had been one of Dr. Sumph’s most trusted helpmates and assistants . 55 No good to be got that way, then, and a visit to Camoxons 5 imminent, for the money was running very, very short, and the conventional upturning of stones, by no means leaving one in its normal position, must be proceeded with. Visit to Camoxon’s paid, after much staring through the ground-glass window (opaque gene- rally, but transparent in the Bible and Sceptre artistic bits), much ascent and descent of two steps cogitatively, final rush up top step wildly, and hurried, not to say pantomimic, entrance through the ground-glass door, to be confronted by the oldest and most composed of the sable-clad clerks. Bows exchanged ; name and address required; name and address given in a low and serious whisper, and repeated aloud in a clear high treble, each word as it was uttered being transcribed in a hand which was the very essence of copperplate into an enormous book. Position required ? Second or third mastership in a classi- cal school, private tutorship, as secretary or librarian to a nobleman or gentleman. So glibly ran the old gentle- man’s steel pen over these items that Walter Joyce began to fancy that applicants for one post were generally ready and willing to take all or any, as indeed they were. “ Which University, what college ? 55 The old gentleman BREAD-SEEKING. 57 scratched his head with the end of his steel penholder, and looked across at Walter, with a benevolent expression which seemed to convey that he would rather the young man would say Christchurch than St. Mary’s, and Trinity in preference to Clare Hall. Walter Joyce grew hot to his ear-tips, and his tongue felt too large for his mouth, as he stammered out, “ I have not been to either University — I ” but the remainder of the sentence was lost in the loud bang with which the old gentleman clapped-to the heavy sides of the big book, clasped it with its brazen clasp, and hoisted it on to a shelf behind him with the dexterity of a juggler. “ My good young friend,” said the old clerk blandl} r , “ you might have saved yourself a vast amount of vexation, and me a certain amount of trouble, if you had made that announcement earlier ! Good morning ! ” “ But do you mean to say ” “I mean to say that in that book at the present moment are the names of sixty gentlemen seeking just the employment which you have named, all of whom are not merely members of colleges, but members who have taken rank — prizemen, first-class men, wranglers, senior optimes ; they are on our books, and they may remain there for months before we get them off. You may judge, then, what chance you would have. At most agencies they would have taken your money and given you hope. But we don’t do that here — it isn’t our way. Good morning ! ” “ Then you think I have no chance ” “ I’m sure of it — through us, at least. Good morning ! ” Joyce would have made another effort, but the old gentleman had already turned on his heel, and feigned to be busy with some letters on a desk before him, so Walter turned round too, and silently left the registry-office. Silently, and with an aching heart. The old clerk had said but little, but Walter felt that his dictum was correct, and that all hopes of getting a situation as a tutor were at an end. Oh, if his father had only left him money enough 58 WRECKED IN PORT. to go to college, lie would have had a future before him which But then, Marian ? He would never have known that pure, faithful, earnest love, failing which, life in its brightest and best form would have been dull and dis- tasteful to him. He had that love still, thank Heaven, and in that thought there were the elements of hope, and the promptings to bestir himself yet once more in his hard, self-appointed task of bread- winning. Money running very short, and time running rapidly on. Not the shortest step in advance since he had first set foot in London, and the bottom of his purse growing pain- fully visible. He had taken to frequenting a small coffee- house in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, where, as he munched the roll and drank the tea which now too often served him as a dinner, he could read the news- papers, and scan the advertisements to see if there were anything likely to suit him among the myriad columns. It was a quiet and secluded little place, where but few strangers entered ; he saw the same faces night after night, as he noticed — and where he could have his letters ad- dressed to him under his initials, which was a great comfort, as he had noticed lately that his landlady in his riverside lodging-house had demurred to the receipt of so much initialed correspondence, ascribing it, as Walter afterwards learned from the “slavey,” or maid- of-all- work, either to “ castin’ ’orry scopes, tellin’ charickters by ’and- writin’, or rejen’rative bolsum for the ’air ! ” — things utterly at variance with the respectability of her establish- ment. A quiet, secluded little place, sand-floored and spittoon- decorated, with a cosy clock, and a cosy red-faced fire, singing with steaming kettles, and cooking chops, and frizzling r w bacon, with a sleepy cat, a pet of the customers, dozing before the hearth, and taking occasional quarter-of- an-hour turns round the room, to be back-rubbed and whisker-scratched, and tit-bit fed, with tea and coffee and cocoa, in thick blue china half-pint mugs, and with bacon in which the edge was by no means to be cut off and thrown BKEAD-SEEKING. 59 away, but was thick, and crisp, and delicious as the rest of it, on willow-pattern plates, with little yellow pats of country butter, looking as if the cow whose impressed form they bore had only fed upon buttercups, as different from the ordinary petrified cold cream which in London passes current for butter as chalk from cheese. “Bliff- kins’s” — the house was supposed to have been leased to Bliffkins as the Elephant, and appeared under that title in the Directories; but no one knew it but as Bliffkins’s — was a Somersetshire house, and kept a neat placard framed and glazed in its front window to the effect that the Somerset County Gazette was taken in. So that among the thin, pale London folk who “used” the house you occa- sionally came upon stalwart giants, big-chested, horny- handed, deep-voiced, with z’s sticking out all over their pronunciation, jolly Zummerzetshire men, who brought Bliffkins the latest gossip from his old native place of Bruton and its neighbourhood, and who, during their stay — and notably at cattle-show period — were kings of the house. At ordinary times, however, the frequenters of the house never varied — indeed, it was understood that Bliffkins’s was a “connection,” and did not in the least depend upon chance custom. Certain people sat in certain places, ordered certain refreshment, and went away at certain hours, never varying in the slightest particular. Mr. Byrne, a wizened old man, who invariably bore on his coat and on his hair traces of fur and fluff and wool, who was known to be a bird-stuffer by trade, and an extreme Badical in politics, and who was reputed to be the writer of some of those spirit-stirring letters in the weekly press signed “Lucius Junius Brutus” and “ Scru- tator,” sat in the right-hand corner box nearest the door, where he was out of the draught, and had the readiest chance of pouncing upon the boy who brought in the evening papers, and securing them before his rival, Mr. Wickwar, could effect a seizure. Mr. Wickwar, who was a retired tailor, and had plenty of means, the sole bane of his life being the danger to the Constitution from the fiO WRECKED IN PORT. recklessly advanced feeling of the times, sat at the other end of the room, being gouty and immobile, contented himself with glaring at his democratic enemy, and occa- sionally withering him with choice extracts from the Magna Charta weekly journal. The box between them was usually devoted of an evening to Messrs. O’Shane and Begson, gentlemen attached to the press, capital company, full of anecdote and repartee, though liable to be suddenly called away in the exigence of their literary pursuits. The top of the policeman’s helmet or the flat cap of the fireman on duty just protruded through the swing-door in this direction acted as tocsins to these indefatigable public servants, cut them off in the midst of a story, and sent them flying on the back of an engine, or at the tail of a crowd, to witness scenes which, portrayed by their graphic pencils, afforded an additional relish to the morning muffin at thousands of respectable breakfast-tables. Between these gentlemen and a Mr. Shimmer, a youngish man, with bright eyes, hectic colour, and a general sense of nervous irritation, there was a certain spirit of camaraderie which the other frequenters of Bliffkins’s could not understand. Mr. Shimmer invariably sat alone, and during his meal habitually buried himself in one of the choice volumes of Bliffkins’s library, consisting of old volumes of Blackwo'od’s, Bentley’s, and Tait’s magazines, from which he would occa- sionally make extracts in a very small hand in a very small note-book. It was probably from the fact of a printer’s boy having called at Bliffkins’s with what was understood to be a “ proof,” that a rumour arose and was received through- out the Bliffkins’s connection that Mr. Shimmer edited the Times newspaper. Be that as it might, there was no doubt, both from external circumstances and from the undefined deference paid to him by the other gentlemen of the press, that Mr. Shimmer was a literary man of position, and that Bliffkins held him in respect, and, what was more practical for him, gave him credit on that account. An ex-parish clerk, who took snuff and sleep in alternate pinches; a potato salesmen in Covent Garden, who drank coffee to BREAD-SEEKING. 61 keep himself awake, and who went briskly off to business when the other customers dropped off wearily to bed; a “ professional ” at an adjoining bowling-alley, who would have been a pleasant fellow had it not been for his biceps, which got into his head and into his mouth, and pervaded his conversation ; and a seedsman, a terrific republican, who named his innocent bulbs and hyacinths after the most sanguinary heroes of the French revolution, — filled up the list of Bliff kins’s “ regulars.” Among these quiet people Walter Joyce took up his place night after night, until he began to be looked upon as of and belonging to them. They were intolerant of strangers at Bliff kins’s, of strangers, that is to say, who, tempted by the comforts of the place, renewed their visits, and threatened to make them habitual. These were for tbe most part received at about their third appearance, when they came in with a pleasant smile and thought they had made an impression, with a strong stare and a dead silence, under the influences of which they ordered refreshment which they did not want, had to pay for, and went away without eating, amid the contemptuous grins of the regulars. But Walter Joyce was so quiet and un- obtrusive, so evidently a gentleman desirous of peace and shelter and refuge at a cheap rate, that the great heart of Bliff kins’s softened to him at once ; they themselves had known the feelings under which he sought the asylum of that Long- Acre Patmos, and they respected him. No one spoke to him, there was no acknowledgment of his presence among them; they knew well enough that any such manifestation would have been out of place; but when, after finishing his very simple evening meal, he would take a few sheets of paper from his pocket, draw to him the Times supplement, and, constantly referring to it, com- mence writing a series of letters, they knew what all that portended, and all of them, including old Wickwar, the ex-tailor and great Conservative, silently wished him Godspeed. Ab, those letters, dated from Bliff kins’s coffee-house, and 62 WRECKED IN PORT. written in Walter Joyce’s roundest hand, in reply to the hundred of chances which each day’s newspaper-sheet offered to every enterprising bread-seeker, chances so promising at the first glance, so barren and so full of rottenness when they came to be tested ! Clerkships ? clerkships in galore! legal, mercantile, general clerks were wanted everywhere, only apply to A. B. or Y. Z., and take them ! But when A. B. or Y. Z. replied, Walter Joyce found that the legal clerks must write the regular engrossing hand, must sweep out the office ready for the other clerks by nine a.m., and must remain there occa- sionally till nine p.m., with a little outdoor work in the service of writs and notices of ejectment. The duties required of the mercantile clerk were but little better, and those of the general clerks were worst of all, while through- out a net income of eighteen shillings a week appeared to be the average remuneration. “A secretary wanted?” certainly, four secretaries wanted nearly every day, to public companies which were about to bring forth an article in universal demand, but of which the supply had hitherto been limited, and which could not fail to meet with an enormous success and return a large dividend. In all cases the secretary must be a man of education and of gentlemanly manners, so said the advertisements ; -but the reply to Walter Joyce’s application said in addition that he must be able to advance the sum of three hundred pounds, to be invested in the shares of the company, which would bear interest at the rate of twenty-five per cent, per annum. The Press ? through the medium of their London fraternity the provincial press was clamorous for educated men who could write leading articles, general articles, and reviews ; but on inquiry the press required the same edu- cated men to be able to combine shorthand reporting with editorial writing, and in many cases suggested the advisa- bility of the editorial writer being able to set up his own leaders in type at case. The literary institutions through- out the country were languishing for lecturers ; but when Walter Joyce wrote to them, offering them a choice of BREAD-SEEKING. 63 certain subjects which he had studied, and on which he thought himself competent of conveying real information, he received answers from the secretaries, that only men of name were paid by the institutions, but that the committee would be happy to set apart a night for him if he chose to lecture gratis, or that if he felt inclined to address the in- habitants of Knuckleborough on his own account, the charge for the great hall was three pounds, for the smaller hall thirty shillings a night, in both cases exclusive of gas, while the secretary, who kept the principal stationer’s shop and library in the town, would be happy to become his agent, and sell his tickets at the usual charge of ten per cent. Four pounds a week, guaranteed ! Not a bad income for a penniless man ! to be earned, too, in the dis- charge of a light and gentlemanly occupation, to be acquired by the outlay of three shillings’ worth of postage stamps. Walter Joyce sent the postage stamps, and received in return a lithographic circular, very dirty about the folded edges, instructing him in the easiest method of modelling wax flowers ! That was the final straw. On the receipt of that letter, or rather on the reading of it — he had taken it from the stately old looking-glass over the fireplace to the box where of late he usually sat — Walter Joyce gave a deep groan, and buried his face in his hands. A minute after he felt his hair slightly touched, and looking up, saw old Jack Byrne bending over him. “ What ails ye, lad ? ” asked the old man tenderly. “ Misery — despair — starvation ! ” “ I thought so ! ” said the old man calmly. Then taking a small battered flask from his breast and emptying its contents into a clean cup before him — “ Here, drink this, and come outside. We can’t talk here ! ” Walter swallowed the contents of the cup mechanically, and followed his new friend into the street. 64 WRECKED IN PORT. CHAPTEK VII. A NEW FRIEND. When they stood in the street, with the fresh night -wind blowing upon them, the old man stopped, and, peering anxiously into his companion’s face, said abruptly— “ Better ? ” “ Much better, thank you ; quite well, in fact. There’s no occasion for me to trouble you any more ; I ” “What? All gaff, eh? Old Jack Byrne sold, eh? Swallowed his brandy, and want to cut — is that the caper ? ” “ I beg your pardon, I don’t quite clearly understand you, I’m sorry to say ” — for Walter knew by the tone of his voice that the old man was annoyed — “ I’m very weak and rather stupid — I mean to say, in — in the ways and the talk of London — and I don’t clearly follow what you said to me just now ; only you were so kind to me at first, that ” “ Provinces ! ” muttered the old man to himself. “ Just like me ; treating him to my pavement patter, and thinking he understood it! All right, I think, as far as one can judge, though God know’s that’s often wrong enough ! ” Then, aloud, “ Kind ! nonsense ! I’m an odd old skittle, and talk an odd language ; but I’ve seen the ups and downs of life, my lad, and can give you good advice if I can’t give any- thing else. Have you anything to do to-night ? Nothing ? Sure I’m not keeping you from the Opera, or any swell party in Park Lane ? No ! Then come home with me and have a bit o’ pickled salmon and a glass of cold gin- and-water, and let’s talk matters out.” Before he had concluded his sentence, the old man had slipped Joyce’s arm through his own, and was making off at a great rate, and also with an extraordinary shamble, in which his shoulder appeared to act as a kind of cutwater, A NEW FRIEND. 65 while his legs followed considerably in the rear. Walter held on to him as best he could, and in this fashion they made their way through the back streets, across St. Martin’s Lane, and so into Leicester Square. Then, as they arrived in front of a brilliantly lighted establishment, at the door of which cabs laden with fashionably dressed men and gaudily dressed women were continually disgorging their loads, while a never-ceasing stream of pedestrians poured in from the street, Jack Byrne came to a sudden halt, and said to his companion — “ Now I’m going to enjoy myself ! ” Walter Joyce had noticed the style of people pouring in through the turnstiles and paying their admission money at the brilliantly lit boxes ; and as he heard these words he unconsciously drew back. You see, he was but a country-bred young man, and had not yet been initiated into the classical enjoyments of London life. Jack Byrne felt the tug at his arm, and looked at him curiously. “ What is it ?” said he. “ You thought I was going in there? I? Oh, my dear young friend, you’ll have to learn a great deal yet ; but you’re on the suspicious lay, and that’s a chalk to you ! You thought I’d hocussed the brandy I gave you at Bliffkins’s ; you thought I was going to take you into this devil’s crib, did you? Not I, my dear boy; I’d as soon take you in as myself, and that’s saying a good deal. No ; I told you I was going to enjoy myself — so I am. My enjoyment is in watching that door, and marking those who go through it, not in speculating on what’s going on inside, but in waiting for the end, my young friend — in waiting for the end ! Oh yes, jump out of your brougham, my Lord Tomnoddy ; but don’t split your lavender gloves in attempting to close the door behind you — the cad will do that, of course ! Beautiful linen, white as snow, and hair all stuck close to his head, look. But mark his forehead — what’s your name — Joyce ? Mark his forehead, Joyce ; see how it slopes straight away back. Look at that noble space between his nose and his F 66 WRECKED IN PORT. upper lip — the ape type,* my friend — the ape type! That’s one of your hereditary rulers, J oyce, my boy ! That fellow sits and votes for you and me, bless him ! He’s gone in now to improve his mind with the literature of comic songs, and the legs of the ballet, and the fascinations of painted Jezebels, and to clear his brain with drinks of turpentine and logwood shavings ! And that’s one of our hereditary legislators ! Oh, Lord, how much longer — how much longer ! ” The policeman on duty at the door, whose mission it was to keep the pathway clear, now sallied forth from the portico and promenaded in the little crowd, gently pushing his way amongst them with a monotonous cry of “Move on, there, please — move on ! ” Joyce noticed that his companion regarded this policeman with a half-defiant, half-pitying air, and the old man said to him, as they resumed their walk — “ That’s another of the effects of our blessed civiliza- tion ! That gawk in blucher boots and a felt helmet — that machine in a shoddy great-coat, who can scarcely tell B from a bull’s foot, and yet has the power to tell you and me and other men, who pay for the paving-rate — ay, and for the support of such scum as he is, for the matter of that — to move on ! Suppose you think I’m a rum un, eh ? ” said Mr. Byrne, suddenly changing his voice of disgust into a bantering tone. “Not seen many like me before ; don’t want to see any more, perhaps ? ” “ I don’t say that,” said Joyce, with a half smile “but I confess the sentiments are new to me, and ” “ Brought up in the country ; my lord or the squire,, eh? So pleased to receive notice coming out of church, ‘ plucks the slavish hat from the villager’s head,’ and all that ! Sorry I’ve not a manorial hall to ask you into, but such as it is you’re welcome. Hold hard, here.” The old man stopped before a private door in a small street of very small shops running between Leicester Square and the Haymarket, took out a key, and stood back for his companion to pass before him into a dark and A NEW FRIEND. 67 narrow passage. When the door was closed behind him, Mr. Byrne struck a light, and commenced making his way up the narrow staircase. Joyce followed him flight after flight, and past landing after landing, until at length the top story was reached. Then Mr. Byrne took out another key, and, unlocking the door immediately in front of him, entered the room and bade his companion follow him. Walter Joyce found himself in a long low room, with a truckle bed in one corner, bookshelves ranged round three sides, and in the middle, over which the curtains were now drawn, a large square table, with an array of knives and scissors upon it, a heap of wool in one corner, and an open case of needles of various kinds, polished bright and shining. On one end of the mantelpiece stood a glass case containing a short-horned white owl, stuffed, and looking wonderfully sagacious ; on the other a cock, with full crop and beady eye, and open bill, with one leg advanced, full of self-sufficiency and conceit. Over the mantlepiece, in a long low case, was an admirably carried out bit of Byrne’s art, representing the death-struggles of a heron struck by a hawk. Both birds were stuffed, of course, but the characteristics of each had been excellently preserved ; the delicate heron lay completely at the mercy of his active little antagonist, whose “pounce” had evidently just been made, and who with beak and talons was settling his prey. While Joyce was looking round at these things, the old man had lit a lamp suspended from the ceiling, and another standing on the square work-table ; had opened a cupboard, and from it had produced a black bottle, two tumblers, and a decanter of water ; had filled and lit a mighty pipe, and had motioned his companion to make free with the liquor and with the contents of an ancient- looking tobacco-jar, which he pushed towards him. “ Smoke, man ! ” said he, puffing out a thin line of vapour through his almost closed lips, and fanning it away lazily with his hand — “smoke! — that’s one thing they can’t keep from us, though they’d like. My lord should puff 68 WRECKED IN PORT. at his havannah while the commonalty, the plebs, the profanum vulgus , who are hated and driven away, should “ exhale mundungus, ill-perfuming weed ! ” Thank God we’ve altered all that since poor John Philips’s day ; he’d get better change for his Splendid Shilling now than ever he did in his time, eh? Talking Greek to you, am I? or worse than Greek, for that you’d understand, I dare say, and you’ll never understand my old mutterings and quotations. You can read Greek ? ” “ Yes,” Joyce said ; “ I am reckoned a tolerable Grecian.” “Indeed!” said the old man, with a grin; “ah! no doubt you were an honour to your college.” “Unfortunately,” said Walter, “I have never been to college.” “ Then your state is the more gracious ! By George ! I thought I’d picked up with a sucking don, all trencher- cap, and second aorist, and Conservative principles, Church and State, a big Bible with a sceptre stretched across it, and a fear of the 4 swart mechanics’ bloody thumbs ’ printed off on my lord’s furniture, as provided by Messrs. Jackson and Graham ! You don’t follow me, young fellow ? Like enough, like enough. I think myself I’m a little enigmatical when I get on my hobby, and it requires a good steady stare of honest wonderment, such as I see on your face now, to bring me up short. I’m brought up short now, and can attend to more sublunary matters, such as yours. Tell me about yourself.” “What shall I tell you?” asked Joyce. “I can tell nothing beyond what you already know, or can guess. I’m without friends, without work ; I’ve lost hope ” “ No, no, my boy ! not lost, only mislaid it. We never lose hope so long as we’re good for anything ! Sometimes, when I’ve been most depressed and down, about the only thing in life that has any interest for me now — and you’ve no idea what that is, have you, J oyce, eh ? ” “ No, indeed ; unless, perhaps, youV children ! ” “ Children ! Thank God, I never had a wife or a A NEW FRIEND. 69 child to give me a care. No ; the People’s cause, my boy, the People’s cause ! That’s what I live for, and sometimes, as I’ve been saying, I’ve been downhearted about that. I’ve seen the blood beating ns down on the one side, and the money beating ns down on the other, and I’ve thought that it was nseless kicking against the pricks, and that we had better cave in and give np ! ” “ But yon say yon never lost hope ? ” “ Never, entirely. When I’ve been at my lowest ebb, when I’ve come home here with the blood in my veins tingling from aristocratic insult, and with worse than that, contempt for my own fellow working-men surging np in my heart, I’ve looked np at that case there over the mantelshelf, and my pluck’s revived. That’s a fine bit of work, that is, done by an old pupil of mine, who worked his soul out in the People’s cause in ’48, and died in a deep decline soon after. But what a fancy the lad had ! Look at that heron ! Is not it for all the world like one of your long, limp, yaw-yaw, nothing-knowing, nothing-doing young swells ? Don’t you read ‘ used-up ’ in his delicate plumage, drooping wings, lack-lustre eye? And remark how the jolly little hawk has got him ! No breed about him ; keen of sight, swift of wing, active With beak and talon — that’s all he can boast of ; but he’s got the swell in his grip, mind you ! And he’s only a prototype of what’s to come ! ” The old man rose as he spoke, and taking the lamp from the table, raised it towards the glass case. As he set it down again he looked earnestly at Joyce, and said — “You think I’m off my head, perhaps — and I’m not sure that I’m not when I get upon this topic — and you’re thinking that at the first convenient opportunity you’ll slip away, with a ‘ Thank ye ! ’ and leave the old lunatic to his democratic ravings ? But, like many other lunatics, I’m only mad on one subject, and when that isn’t men- tioned I can converse tolerably rationally, can perhaps even be of some use in advising one friendless and destitute. And you, you say, are both.” 70 WRECKED IN PORT. “ I am, indeed ; but I scarcely think you can help me, Mr. Byrne, though I don’t for an instant doubt your friendship or your wish to be of service. But it happens that the only people from whom I can hope to get any- thing in the way of employment, employment that brings money, belong to that class against which you have such violent antipathies, the — the ‘ swells,’ as you call them.” “ My dear young fellow, you mistake me. If you do as I should like you, as an honest Englishman with a freeman’s birthright, to do ; if you do as I myself — old Jack Byrne, one of the prisoners of ’48 ; ‘ Bitter Byrne,’ as they call me at the club — if you do as I do, you’ll hate the swells with all your heart, but you’ll use ’em. When I was a young man, young and foolish, blind and head- strong, as all young men are, I wouldn’t take off my cap to a swell, wouldn’t take a swell’s orders, wouldn’t touch a swell’s money! Lord bless you, I saw the folly of that years ago ! I should have been starved long since if I hadn’t. My business is bird-stuffing, as you may have heard or guessed ; and where should I have been if I’d had to live upon all the orders for bird-stuffing I got from the labouring classes ? They can’t stuff themselves enough, let alone their birds ! The swells want owls, and hawks, and pheasants, and what not, stuffed with out- spread wings for firescreens, but the poor people want the fire itself, and want it so badly that they never holloa for screens, and wouldn’t use ’em if they had ’em. No, no ; hate the swells, my boy, but use ’em. What have you been ? ” “ An usher in a school.” “ Of course ! I guessed it would be some of those delightful occupations for which the supply is unlimited and the demand nothing, but I scarcely thought it could be so bad as that ! Usher in a school ! hewer in a coal-pit, stone-breaker on a country road, horse in a mill, anything better than that ! ” “ What could I do ? ” “ What could you do ? Sell your books, pawn your A NEW FRIEND. 71 'watch, take a steerage passage and go out to Australia. Black boots, tend sheep, be cad to an omnibus, or shop- walker to a store out there ; every one of ’em better than dragging on in the conventional torture of this played-out staggering old country ! That’s gassy a little, you’ll think, and so it is ; but I mean better than that. I’ve long- standing and intimate connections with the Zoological Acclimatisation Society in Melbourne, and if you can pay your passage out, I’ll guarantee that, in the introductions I give you, they’ll find you something to do. If you can’t find the money for your passage out, perhaps it can be found for you ! ” Not since James Ashurst’s death, not for some weeks before that event, indeed, when the stricken man had taken leave of his old pupil and friend, had Walter Joyce heard the words of friendship and kindness from any man. Perhaps, a little unmanned by the disappointment and humiliation he had undergone since his arrival in London, he was a little unmanned at this speech from his newly found friend ; at all events, the tears stood in his eyes, and his voice was husky as he replied — “ I ought to be very much obliged to you, and indeed, indeed I am ; but I fear you’ll think me an ungrateful cub when I tell you that I can’t possibly go away from England. Possibly is a strong word, but I mean, that I can’t think of it until I’ve exhausted every means, every chance of obtaining the barest livelihood here ! ” The old man eyed him from under his bent brows earnestly for a moment, and then said abruptly, “ Ties, eh ? father ? ” “ No ! ” said Joyce, with a half blush — very young, you see, and country bred — “ as both my mother and father are dead, but — but there is ” “ Oh, Lord ! ” grunted Mr. Byrne, “ of course there is ; there always is in such cases ! Blind old bat I was not to see it at first ! Ah, she was left lamenting, and all the rest of it ; quite knocks the Australian idea on the head ? Now let me think what can be done for you here ! There’s 72 WRECKED IN PORT. Buncombe and Co., the publishers, want a smart young man, smart and cheap they said in their letter, to contribute to their new Encyclopaedia, the Naturalist. That’ll be one job for you, though it won’t be much.” “ But, Mr. Byrne,” said Joyce, “ I have no knowledge, or very little, of natural history. Certainly not enough to ” “ Not too much to prevent your being too proud to take a hint or two from Goldsmith’s Animated Nature , my boy, as he took several from those who preceded him. That, and a German book or two you’ll find on the shelves — you understand German? that’s right — will help you to all the knowledge Buncombe will require of you, or all they ought to expect, for the matter of that, at ten-and-six the column. You can come here of a morning — you won’t interfere with me — and grind away until dark, when we’ll have a walk and a talk ; you shall tell me all about yourself, and we’ll see what more can be done, and then we’ll have some food at Bliffkins’s and learn all that’s going on ! ” “ I don’t know how to thank you,” commenced Joyce. “ Then don’t attempt to learn ! ” said the old man. “ Does it suit you, as a beginning only, mind ! do you agree to try it — we shall do better things yet, I hope • but will you try it ? ” “ I will indeed ! If you only knew — — 99 “ I do : good night ! I got up at daybreak, and ought to have been in bed long since. Good night ! ” Not since he had been in London, had Walter Joyce been so light of heart as when he closed Mr. Byrne’s door behind him. Something to do at last ! He felt inclined to cry out for joy ; he longed for some one to whom he could impart his good fortune. His good fortune ! As he sat upon his wretched bed in his tiny lodging, luxurious words rang in his ears. “ And the chance of achieving fame and fortune, keep that in the foreground ! ” Fame and fortune ! And he had been overjoyed because he had obtained a chance of earning a few shillings as a bookseller’s hack, a chance for which he FLITTING. 73 was indebted to a handicraftsman. But a poor first step towards fame and fortune, Marian would think ! He understood how utter had been her inexperience and his own; he had learned the wide distance between the fulfilment of such hopes as theirs, and the best of the bare possibilities which the future held for them, and the pain which this knowledge brought him, more for the sake of his own share in it, was doubly keen for hers. It was very hard for Walter Joyce to have to suffer the terrible disappointment and disenchantment of experience ; but it was far harder for him to have to cause her to share them. Marian would indeed think it a “poor first step.” He little knew how much more decisive a one she wa& about to take herself. CHAPTER VIII. FLITTING. Marian Ashurst dearly loved her home. To her con- centrative and self-contained nature local associations were peculiarly precious ; the place in which she had lived the life so essentially her own was very dear. The shabby old house, though she perfectly understood its shabbiness, and would have prized the power of renovating and adorn- ing it as thoroughly as any petite maitresse would have prized the power of adorning her bijou residence with all the prettiness of modern upholstery, was a shrine in her eyes. Base and unbeautiful, but sacred, the place in which her father had dutifully and patiently passed his laborious life — had it not been wasted ? the proud discon- tented spirit asked itself many a time, but found no voice to answer “ no.” She had often pictured to her fancy what the house might have been made, if there had but been money to make it anything with, money to do anything with; if 74 WRECKED IN PORT. only they had not always been so helpless, so burdened with the especially painful load of genteel poverty. She had exercised her womanly ingenuity, put forth her womanly tastes, so far as she could, and the house w r as better than might have been expected under ail the circumstances; but ingenuity and taste, which double the effect of money when united to that useful agency, are not of much avail without it, and will not supply curtains and carpet, paint, varnishing, and general upholstery. There was not a superfluous ornament, and there were many in the drawing- rooms at Woolgreaves very offensive to her instinctively correc-t taste, — whose price would not have materially altered the aspect of Marian Ashurst’s home, as she had recognised with much secret bitterness of spirit, on her first visit to the Cres wells. She would have made the old house pretty and pleasant, if she could, especially while he lived, to whom its prettiness and pleasantness might have brought refreshment of spirit, and a little cheerfulness in the surroundings of his toilsome life; but she loved it, notwithstanding its dulness and its frigid shabbiness, and the prospect of being obliged to leave it gave her exquisite pain. Marian was surprised when she discovered that her feelings on this point were keener than those of her mother. She had anticipated, with shrinking and re- luctance of whose intensity she felt ashamed, the difficulty she should experience when that last worst necessity must arise, when her mother must leave the home of so many years, and the scene of her tranquil happiness. Mrs. Ashurst had been a very happy woman, notwithstanding her delicate health, and the difficulties it had brought upon the little household. In the first place, she was naturally of a placid temperament. In the second, her husband told her as little as possible of the constantly pressing, hope- lessly inextricable trouble of his life. And lastly, Mrs. Ashurst’s inexperience prevented her realising danger in the future from any source except that one whence it had actually come, fallen in its fullest, fatalmost might — the sickness and death of her husband. FLITTING. 75 When that tremendous blow fell upon her, it stunned the widow. She could not grieve, she could not care about anything else. She was not a woman of an imaginative turn of mind ; feeling had always been powerful and deep in her ; but fancy had ever been active, so that when the one awful and overwhelming fact existed, it was quite enough for her, it swamped everything else, it needed not to bring up any reinforcements to her discomfiture. She was ready to go anywhere with Marian, to do anything which Marian advised or directed. The old house was to be left, a new home was to be sought for. A stranger was coming to be the master where her husband’s firm but gentle rule had made itself loved, respected, and obeyed for so long ; a stranger was to sit in her husband’s seat, and move about the house where his step and his voice were heard no more, listened for no longer, not even now, in the first confused moments of waking after the blessed oblivion of sleep. And in that awful fact all was included. Poor Mrs. Ashurst cared little for the linen and the china now. Whether they should be packed up and removed to the humble lodgings which were to be the next home of herself and her daughter, or whether Mr. Ashurst’s successor should be asked to take them at a valuation, were points which she left to Marian’s decision. She had not any interest in anything of the kind now. It w r as time that Marian’s mind should be made up on these and other matters ; and the girl, notwithstanding her premature gravity and her habit of decision, found her task difficult in fact and sentiment. Her mother was painfully quiescent, hopelessly resigned. In every word and look she ex- pressed plainly that life had come to a standstill for her, that she could no longer feel any interest or take any active part in its conduct ; and thus she depressed Marian very much, who had her own sense of impending disap- pointment and imperative effort, in addition to their common sorrow, to struggle against. Mrs. Ashurst and her daughter had seen a good deal of 76 WRECKED IN PORT. tlie family at Woolgreaves since tlie day on which Marian’s cherished belief in the value and delight of wealth had been strengthened by that visit to the splendid dwelling of her father’s old friend. The young ladies had quite “ taken to ” Mrs. Ashurst, and Mrs. Ashurst had almost “taken to” them. They came into Helmingham fre- quently, and never without bringing welcome contributions from the large and lavishly kept gardens at Woolgreaves. They tried, in many girlish and unskilful ways, to be intimate with Marian ; but they felt they did not succeed, and only their perception of their uncle’s wishes prevented their giving up the effort. Marian was very civil, very much obliged for their kindness and attention; but un- cordial, “ un-getatable,” Maude Creswell aptly described it. The condition of Mr. Ashurst’s affairs had not proved to be quite so deplorable as had been supposed. There was a small insurance on his life ; there were a few trifling sums due to him, which the debtors made haste to pay, owing, indeed, to the immediate application made to them by Mr. Creswell, who interfered as actively as unostenta- tiously on behalf of the bereaved woman ; altogether a little sum remained, which would keep them above want, or the almost equally painful effort of immediate exertion to earn their own living, with management. Yes, that was the qualification which Marian understood thoroughly, understood to mean daily and hourly self-denial, watchful- ness, and calculation, and more and worse than that — the termination on her part of the hope of preventing her mother’s missing the material comforts which had been procured and preserved for her by a struggle whose weariness she had never been permitted to comprehend. The old house had been shabby and poor, but it had been comfortable. It had given them space and cleanli- ness, and there was no vulgarity in its meagreness. But the only order of lodgings to which her mother and she could venture to aspire was that which invariably com- bines the absence of space and of cleanliness with the presence of tawdriness and discomfort. And this must FLITTING. 77 last until Walter should be able to rescue them from it. She could not suffice to that rescue herself, but he would. He must succeed ! Had he not every quality, every facility, and the strongest of motives? She felt this — that, in her case, the strongest motive would have been the desire for success, per se ; but in his the strongest was his love of her. She recognised this, she knew this, she admired it in an odd abstract kind of way ; when her heart was sufficiently disengaged from pressing care to find a moment for any kind of joy, she rejoiced in it ; but she knew she could not imitate it — that was not in her. She had not much experience of herself yet, and the process of self-analysis was not habitual to her ; but she felt instinctively that the more selfish instincts of love were hers, its noble influences, its profounder motives her lover’s. It was, then, to him she had to look, in him she had to trust, for the rescue that was to come in time. In how much time ? in how little ? Ah, there was the ever- present, ever-pressing question, and Marian brought to its perpetual repetition all the importance, all the unreason- able measurement of time, all the ignorance of its ex- ceeding brevity and insignificance inseparable from her youth. She had nearly completed the preparations for de- parture from the old home ; the few possessions left her and her mother were ready for removal ; a lodging in the village had been engaged, and the last few days were drag- ging themselves heavily over the heads of Mrs. Ashurst and Marian, when Mr. Creswell, having returned to Woolgreaves after a short absence, came to see them. Mrs. Ashurst was walking in the neglected garden, and had reached the far end of the little extent when Mr. Creswell arrived at the open door of the house. A woman-servant, stolid and sturdy, was passing through the red-tiled square hall. “ Is Mrs. Ashurst in ? ” asked the visitor. “ Mrs. Ashurst is in the garden, I see — don’t disturb her.” 78 WRECKED IN PORT. Marian, who had heard the voice, answered Mr. Ores- well’s question by appearing on the threshold of the room which had been her father’s study, and which, since his death, her mother and she had made their sitting-room. She looked weary ; the too bright colour which fatigue brings to some faces was on hers, and her eyelids were red and heavy ; her black dress, which had the limp, un- graceful, lustreless look of mourning attire too long unre- newed, hung on her fine upright figure after a fashion which told how little the girl cared how she looked ; and the hand she first held out to Mr. Creswell, and then drew back with a faint smile, was covered with dust. “I can’t shake hands,” she said ; “I have been tying up the last bundles of books and papers, and my hands are disgraceful. Come in here, Mr. Creswell ; I believe there is one unoccupied chair.” He followed her into the study, and took the seat she pointed out, while she placed herself on a pile of folios which lay on the floor in front of the low wide window., Marian laid her arm upon the window-sill, and leaned her head back against one of the scanty frayed curtains. Her eyes closed for a moment, and a slight shudder passed over her. “You are very tired, Miss Ashurst, quite worn-out,” said Mr. Creswell; “you have been doing too much — packing all those books, I suppose.” “ Yes,” said Marian, “ I looked to that myself, and, indeed, there was nobody else to do it. But it is tiring work, and dirty,” — she struck her hands together, and shook her dress, so that a shower of dust fell from it — “and sad work besides. You know, Mr. Creswell ” — here her face softened suddenly, and her voice fell — “ how much my father loved his books. It is not easy to say good-bye to them ; it is like a faint echo, strong enough to pain one, though, of the good-bye to himself.” “ But why are you obliged to say good-bye to them ? ” asked Mr. Creswell, with genuine anxiety and compassion. “ What could we do with them ? ” said Marian ; FLITTING. 79 “there’s no place to keep them. We must have taken another room specially for them if we took them to our lodgings, and there is no one to buy them here, so we are going to send them to London to be sold. I suppose they will bring a very small sum indeed — nothing, perhaps, ■when the expenses are paid. But it is our only means of disposing of them; so I have been dusting and sorting and arranging them all day, and I am tired and dusty and sick — sick at heart.” Marian leaned her head on the arm which lay on the window-sill, and looked very forlorn. She also looked very pretty, and Mr. Creswell thought so. This softened mood, so unusual to her, became her, and the little touch of con- fidence in her manner, equally unusual, flattered him. He felt an odd sort of difficulty in speaking to her — to this young girl, his old friend’s orphan child, one to whom he intended so kindly, towards whom his position was so en- tirely one of patronage, not in any offensive sense, of course, but still of patronage. “I — I never thought of this,” he said hesitatingly; “ I ought to have remembered it, of course ; no doubt the books must be a difficulty to you — a difficulty to keep and a harder one to part with. But bless me, my dear Miss Ashurst, you say there is no one here to buy them — you did not remember me ? Why did you not remember me ? Of course I will buy them. I shall be only too delighted to buy them, to have the books my good friend loved so much — of course I shall.” “I had seen your library at Woolgreaves,” said Marian, replying to Mr. Creswell’s first impetuous question, “ and I could not suppose you wanted more books, or such shabby ones as these.” “ You judge of books like a lady, then, though you were your father’s companion as well as his pet,” said Mr. Creswell, smiling. “ Those shabby books are, many of them, much more valuable than my well-dressed shelf- fillers. And even if they were not, I should prize them for the same reason that you do, and almost as much — yes, 80 WRECKED IN PORT. Miss Ashurst, almost as much. Men are awkward about saying such things, but I may tell his daughter that but for James Ashurst I never should have known the value of books — in other than a commercial sense, I mean.” “ I don’t know what they are worth,” said Marian, “ but if you will find out, and buy them, my mother and I will be very thankful. I know it will be a great relief to her to think of them at Woolgreaves, and all together. She has fretted more about my father’s books being dispersed, and going into the hands of strangers, than about any other secondary cause of sorrow. The other things she takes quietly enough.” The widow could be seen from the window by them both as she pursued her monotonous walk in the garden, with her head bowed down and her figure so expressive of feebleness. “Does she?” said Mr. Creswell. “I am very glad to hear that. Then” — and here Mr. Creswell gave a little sigh of relief — “ we will look upon the matter of the books as arranged, and to-morrow I will send for them. Give yourself no further trouble about them. Fletcher shall settle it all.” “You will have them valued?” Marian asked with business-like seriousness. “ Certainly,” returned Mr. Creswell. “ And now tell me what your plans are, and where these lodgings are to which you alluded just now. Maude and Gertrude have not seen you, they tell me, since you took them ? ” “No,” said Marian, without the least tone of regret in her voice ; “ we have not met since your visit to ' Manchester. Miss Creswell’s cold has kept her at home, and I have been much too busy to get so far as Wool- greaves.” “ Your mother has seen my nieces ? ” “Yes; Miss Gertrude Creswell called, and took her for a drive, and she remained to lunch at Woolgreaves. But that was one day when I was lodging-hunting — nothing had then been settled.” FLITTING. 81 “ The girls are very fond of Mrs. Ashurst.” “ They are very kind,” said Marian absently. The Misses Creswell were absolutely uninteresting to her, and as yet Marian Ashurst had never pretended to entertain a feeling she did not experience. The threshold of that particular school of life in which the art of feigning is learned lay very near her feet now, but they had not yet crossed it. Marian and Mr. Creswell remained a long time together before Mrs. Ashurst came in. The girl spoke to the old gentleman with more freedom and with more feeling than on any previous occasion of iheir meeting; and Mr. Creswell began to think how interesting she was, in comparison with Maude and Gertrude, for instance; how much sense she had, how little frivolity. How very good-looking she was also ; he had no idea she ever would have been so handsome — yes, positively handsome — he used the word in his thoughts — she certainly had not possessed anything like it when he had seen her formerly — a dark, prim, old-fashioned kind of girl, going about her father’s study with an air of quiet appreciative sharpness and shrewdness which he did not altogether like. But she really had become quite handsome then, in her poor dress, with her grieved, tired 1 face, her hair carelessly pushed off it any way, and her hands rough and soiled; she had made him recognise and feel that she had the gift of beauty also. Mr. Creswell thought about this when he had taken leave of Mrs. Ashurst and Marian, having secured their promise to come to Woolgreaves on the day but one after* when he hoped Marian would assist him in assigning places to the books, which she felt almost reconciled to part with under these new conditions. He thought about them a good deal, and tried to make out, among the dregs of his memory, who it was who had said within his hearing, when Marian was a child, “Yes, she’s a smart little girl, sure enough, and a dead hand at a bargain.” Marian Ashurst thought about Mr. Creswell after he a 82 WRECKED IN PORT. left lier and her mother. Mrs. Ashurst was very much relieved and gratified by his kindness about the books, as was Marian also. But the mother and daughter regarded the incident from different points of view. Mrs. Ashurst dwelt on the kindness of heart which dictated the purchase of the dead friend’s books as at once a tribute to the old friendship and a true and delicate kindness to the survivors. Marian saw all that, but she dwelt rather on the felicitous condition which rendered it easy to indulge such impulses. Here was another instance, and in her favour, of the value of money. “It has made more than one difference to me,” she thought that night, when she was alone, and looked round the dismantled study; “it has made me like old Mr. Creswell, and hitherto I have only envied him.” “Do be persuaded, dear Mrs. Ashurst,” said Maude Creswell, in a tone of sincere and earnest entreaty. She had made her appearance at the widow’s house early on the day which succeeded her uncle’s visit, and had pre- sented, in her own and in her sister’s name, as well as in that of Mr. Creswell, a petition, which she was now backing up with much energy. “ Do come and stay with us. We are not going to have any company; there shall be nothing that you can possibly dislike. And Gerty and I wall not tease you or Miss Ashurst ; and you shall not be worried by Tom or anything. Do come, dear, dear Mrs. Ashurst ; never mind the nasty lodgings ; they can go on getting properly aired, and cleaned, and so on, until you are tired of Woolgreaves, and then you can go to them at any time. But not from your own house, where you have been so long, into that little place, in a street, too. Say you will come, now do.” Mrs. Ashurst was surprised and pleased. She recog- nised the girl’s frank affection for her; she knew the generous kindness of heart which made her so eager to do her uncle’s bidding, and secure to those desolate women a long visit to the splendid home he had given his nieces. THE TENTH EARL. 83 Nothing but a base mean order of pride could have revolted against the offer so made and so pressed. Mrs. Ashurst yielded, and Maude Creswell returned to her uncle in high delight to announce that she had been successful in the object of her embassy. “ How delightful it will be to have the dear old lady here, Gerty ! ” said Maude to her sister. “ The more I see of her the better X like her ; and I mean to be so kind and attentive to her. I think Miss Ashurst is too grave, and she always seems so busy and preoccupied : I don’t think she can rouse her mother’s spirits much.” “No, I think not,” said Gertrude. “X like the old lady very much too ; but I don’t quite know about Miss Ashurst; I think the more I see of her, the less I seem to know her. You must not leave her altogether to me, Maude. I wonder why one feels so strange with her? Heigh-ho!” said the girl, with a comical look, and a shake of her pretty head, “I suppose it’s because she’s so superior.” On the following day, Mrs. Ashurst and Marian took leave of their old home, and were conveyed in one of Mr. Creswell’s carriages to Woolgreaves. CHAPTEE IX. THE TENTH EARL. Hetherington House stands in Beaufort Square, forming one side of that confessedly aristocratic quarter. The house stands back in melancholy “ grounds ” of dirty gravel, brown turf, and smutted trees, while the dwarf wall which forms the side of the square, and is indeed a sufficiently huge brick screen, fences off the commonalty, and prevents them from ever catching so much as a glimpse of the paradise within, save when the great 84 WRECKED IN PORT. gates are flung open for the entrance or exit of vehicles, or when the porter, so gorgeous and yet so simple, is sunning himself in the calm evening air at the small postern-door. The Countess of Hetherington likes this brick screen, and looks npon it as a necessary appanage of her rank. When visitors, having exhausted every topic of conversation possible to their great minds — a feat which is easily performed in the space of five minutes — and, be- ginning to fear the immediate advent of brain-softening if not of idiotcy, suddenly become possessed with a fresh idea after a lengthened contemplation of the wall in front of them, and with an air of desperation ask whether it does not make the house dull, Lady Hetherington says that, on the contrary, it is the only thing that renders the house habitable. She confesses that, during the time she is compelled to be in London, the sight of hack cabs, and policemen on their beat, and those kind of things, are not absolutely necessary to her existence, and as Sir Charles Dumfunk insists on her rooms facing the west, she is glad that the wall is there to act as a screen. Oh yes, she is perfectly aware that Lord Letterkenney had the screen of Purcell House pulled down and an open Italian fagade erected in its place, the picture of which was in the illus- trated papers ; but as Lady Letterkenney until her marriage had lived in Ireland, and had probably never seen any- thing human except priests and pigs, the sight of civilised beings was doubtless an agreeable novelty to her. The same circumstances did not exist in her, Lady Hethering- ton’s, case, and she decidedly liked the screen. The Earl likes the screen also, but he never says any- thing about it, chiefly because no one ever asks his opinion on any subject. He likes it because it is his, the Earl of Hetherington’s, and he likes looking at it as he likes looking at the coronet on his plate, on his carriage-panels, and his horses’ harness, at his family history as set forth by Burke and Debrett, and at the marginal illustrations of his coat-of-arms as given in those charming volumes, at his genealogical tree — a mysterious work of art which hangs in THE TENTH EARL. 85 the library, looking something like an enlarged “ sampler ” worked by a school-girl, and from the contemplation of which he derives intense delight. It does not take a great deal to fill Lord Hetherington’s soul with rapture. Down in Norfolk villages, in the neighbourhood of his ancestral home, and far away in scattered cottages on the side of green Welsh mountains, where the cross-tree rears its inopportune head in the midst of the lovely landscape, and where smoke and coal-dust permeate the soft delicious air, his lordship, as landlord and mine-holder, is spoken of with bated breath by tenants and workmen, and regarded as one of the hardest-headed, tightest-fisted men of business by stewards and agents. They do not see much, scarcely anything, of him, they say, and they don’t need to, if he’s to be judged by the letters he writes and the orders he sends. To screw up the rents and to lengthen the hours of labour was the purport of these letters, while their style was modelled on that used by the Saxon Franklin to his hog-hind, curt, overbearing, and offensive. Agents and stewards, recipients of these missives, say bitter words about Lord Hetherington in private, and tenants and workmen curse him secretly as they bow to his decree. To them he is a haughty, selfish, grinding aristocrat, with- out a thought for any one but himselfs ; whereas in reality he is a chuckle-headed nobleman, with an inordinate idea of his position certainly, but kindly hearted, a slave to his wife, and with one great desire in life, a desire to distinguish himself somehow, no matter how. He had tried politics. When a young man he had sat as Lord West for his county, and the first Conservative ministry which came into office after he had succeeded to his title, remembering the service which Lord West had done them in roaring, hooting, and yar-yaring in the House of Commons, repaid the obligation by appointing the newly fledged Earl of Hetherington to be the head of one of the inferior departments. Immensely delighted was his lordship at first ; went down to the office daily, to the intense astonishment of the departmental private 86 WRECKED IN PORT. secretary, whose official labours bad hitherto been confined to writing about four letters a day, took upon himself to question some of the suggestions which were made for his approval, carped at the handwriting of the clerks, and for at least a week thought he had at length found his proper place in the world, and had made an impression. But it did not last. The permanent heads of the department soon found him out, scratched through the external cuticle of pride and pomposity, and discovered the true obstinate dullard underneath. And then they humoured him, and led him by the nose as they had led many a better man before him, and he subsided into a nonentity, and then his party went out of office, and when they came in again they declined to reappoint Lord Hetherington, though he clamoured ever so loudly. Social science was the field in which his lordship next disported himself, and prolix, pragmatical, and eccentric as are its professors generally, he managed to excel them all. Lord Hetherington had his theories on the utilisation of sewage and the treatment of criminals, on strikes and trades unions — the first of w T hich he thought should be suppressed by the military, the second put down by Act of Parlia- ment — and on the proper position of women; on which subject he certainly spoke with more than his usual spirit and fluency. But he was a bore upon all ; and at length the social-science audiences, so tolerant of boredom, felt that they could stand him no longer, and coughed him down gently but firmly when he attempted to address them. Lord Hetherington then gave up social science in disgust, and let his noble mind lie fallow for a few months, during which time he employed himself in cutting his noble fingers with a turning-lathe which he caused to be erected in his mansion, and which amused him very much : until it suddenly occurred to him that the art of book- binding was one in which his taste and talent might find a vent. So the room in which the now deserted turning- lathe stood was soon littered with scraps of leather and floating fragments of gilt-leaf; and there his lordship THE TENTH EARL. 87 spent hours every day looking on at two men very hard at work in their shirt-sleeves, and occasionally handing them the tools they asked for : and thus he practised the art of hook-binding. Every one said it was an odd thing for a man to take to, but every one knew that Lord Hethering- ton was an odd man ; consequently no one was astonished, after the bound volumes had been duly exhibited to dining or calling friends, and had elicted the various outbursts of “ Jove ! ” “ Ah ! ” “ Charming ! ” “ Quite too nice ! ” and “ Can’t think how he does it, eh ? 55 which politeness de- manded — no one was astonished to hear that his lordship, panting for something fresh in which to distinguish him- self, had found it in taxidermy, which was now absorbing all the energies of his noble mind. The receipt of a packet of humming-birds, presented by a poor relation in the navy, first turned Lord Hetherington’s thoughts to this new pursuit ; and he acted with such promptitude, that before the end of a week Mr. Byrne — small, shrunken, and high-shouldered — had taken the place at the bench erst occupied by the stalwart men in shirt-sleeves ; but the smell of paste and gum had been supplanted by that of pungent chemicals, the floor was strewn with feathers and wool instead of leather and gilt-leaf, and his lordship, still looking on and handing tools to his companion, was stuffing birds very much in the same way as he had bound books. It was a fine sight to see old Jack Byrne, “Bitter Byrne,’ 5 the ultra-radical, the sourest-tongued orator of the Spartan Club, the ex-Chartist prisoner, waited on by gorgeous footmen in plush and silk stockings, fed on French dishes and dry sherry, and accepting it all as if he had been born to the situation. “ Why should I quarrel with my bread and butter, or what’s a devilish deal better than bread and butter,” he asked in the course of a long evening’s ramble with Walter Joyce, “ because it comes from a representative of the class I hate ? I earn it, I work honestly and hard for my wage, and suppose I am to act up to the sham self-denial preached 88 WRECKED IN PORT. in some of the prints which batten on the great cause without understanding or caring for it — suppose I were to refuse the meal which my lord’s politeness sends me, as some of your self-styled Gracchi or Patriots would wish, how much further should we have developed the plans, or by what the more should we have dealt a blow at the in- stitution we are labouring to destroy ? Not one jot ! My maxim, as I have told you before, is, use these people ! Hate them if you will, despise them as you must, but use them ! ” The old man’s vehemence had a certain weight with Joyce, who, nevertheless, was not wholly convinced as to the propriety of his friend’s position, and said, “You justify your conduct by Lord Hetherington’s, then ? You use each other ? ” “ Exactly ! My Lord Hetherington in Parliament says, or would say if he were allowed the chance, but they know him too well for that, so he can only show by his votes and his proxies — proxies, by the Lord ! isn’t that a happy state of things when a minister can swamp any measure that he chooses by pulling from his pocket a few papers sent to him by a few brother peers, who care so little about the question in hand that they won’t even leave their dinner- tables to come down and hear it discussed ? — says that he loathes what he is pleased to call the lower classes, and considers them unworthy of being represented in the legislature. But then he wants to stuff birds, or rather to be known as a bird-stuffer of taste, and none of the House of Peers can help him there. So he makes inquiries, and is referred to me, and engages me, and we work together — neither abrogating our own sentiments. He uses my skill, I take his money, each has his quid j pro quo ; and if the time were ever to come, — as it may come, Walter, mark my words — as it must come, for everything is tending towards it, — when the battle of the poor against the rich, the bees against the drones, is fought in this country, fought out, I mean, practically and not theoretically, we shall each of us, my Lord Hetherington and I, be found on our re- THE TENTH EARL. 89 spective sides, without the slightest obligation from one to the other ! ” Joyce had come to look forward to those evening walks with the old man as the pleasantest portion of the day. From nine till six he laboured conscientiously at the natural-history work which Mr. Byrne had procured for him, dull uninteresting work enough, but sufficiently fairly rewarded. Then he met his old friend at Bliffkins’s, and after their frugal meal they set out for a long ramble through the streets. Byrne was full of information, which, in his worldly wise fashion, he imparted, tinged with social philosophy or dashed with an undercurrent of his own peculiar views. Of which an example. Walter Joyce had been standing for five minutes, silent, rapt in delight at his first view of the Parliament Houses as seen from Westminster Bridge. A bright moonlight night, soft, dreamy, even here, with a big yellow harvest moon coming up from the back, throwing the delicate tracery into splendid relief, and sending out the shadows thick and black ; the old man looking on calmly, quietly chuckling at the irrepressible enthusiasm mantling over his young friend’s cheeks and gleaming in his eyes. “ A fine place, lad ? ” “ Fine ! splendid, superb ! ” “ Well, not to put too fine a point upon it, we’ll say fine. Ah, they may blackguard Barry as much as they like — and when it comes to calling names and flinging mud in print, mind you, I don’t know anybody to beat your architect or your architect’s friend — but there’s not another man among ’em could have done anything like that ! That’s a proper dignified house for the Parliament of the People to sit in — when it comes ! ” “ But it does sit there, doesn’t it ! ” “It? What? The Parliament of the People? No, sir ; that sits, if you would believe certain organs of the press, up a court in Fleet Street, where it discusses the affairs of the nation over screws of shag tobacco and pots of fuurpenny ale. What sits there before us is the Croesus 90 WRECKED IN PORT. Club, a select assemblage of between six and seven hundred members, who drop down here to levy taxes and job generally in the interval between dinner and bed.” 44 Are they — are they there now ? ” asked Joyce eagerly, peering with outstretched neck at the building before him. “Now? No, of course not, man! They’re away at their own devices, nine-tenths of them breaking the laws which they helped to make, and all enjoying themselves, and wondering what the devil people find to grumble at ! ” “ One of the governors of the old school, down, down at Helmingham ” — a large knot swelled in Joyce’s throat as he said the word, and nearly choked him ; never before had he felt the place so far away or the days spent there so long removed from his then life— 44 was a member of Parliament, I think. Lord Beachcroft. Did you ever hear of him ? ” The old man smiled sardonically. 44 Hear of him, man ? There’s not one of them that has made his mark, or that is likely to make his mark in any way, that I don’t know by sight, or that I haven’t heard speak. I know Lord Beachcroft well enough; he’s a philanthropist, wants camphorated chalk tooth-powder for the paupers, and horse-exercise for the convicts. Registered among the noodles, ranks A 1, weakly built, leaden-he'aded r and wants an experienced keeper ! ” 44 That doctrine would have been taken as heresy at Plelmingham ! I know he came there once on our speech- day to deliver the prizes, and the boys all cheered him to the echo ! ” 44 The boys ! of course they did ! The child is father to the man! I forgot, people don’t read Wordsworth nowadays, but that’s what he says, and he and Tennyson are the only poet-philosophers that have risen amongst us for many years ; and boys shout, as men would, at the mere sight, at the mere taste of a lord ! How they like to roll 4 your lordship ’ round their mouths, and fear lest they should lose the slightest atom of its flavour ! Not that the boys did wrong in cheering Lord Beachcroft ! He’s harm- THE TENTH EARL. 91 less enough, and well-meaning, I’m sure, and stands well up among the noodles. And it’s better to stand anywhere amongst them than to be affiliated to the other party ! ” “ The other party ? Who are they, Mr. Byrne ? ” “ The rogues, lad, the rogues ! Bogues and noodles make up the blessed lot of senators sitting in your gim- crack palace, who vote away your birthright and mine, tax the sweat of millions, bow to Gold Stick and kiss Black Rod’s coat-tails, send our fleets to defend Yon Sourkraut’s honour, or our soldiers to sicken of jungle fever in pursuit of the rebel Lollum Dha’s adversaries ! Parliament ? Representatives of the people? Very much ! My gallant friend, all pipeclay and padded breast, who won’t hear of the army estimates being reduced ; my learned friend, who brings all his forensic skill and all his power of tongue- fence, first learned in three-guinea briefs at the Old Bailey, and now educated up into such silvery eloquence, into play for the chance of a judgeship and a knighthood ; the volatile Irish member, who subsides finally into the consulate of Zanzibar ; the honourable member, who, having in his early youth swept out a shop at Loughboro’, and arrived in London with eightpence, has accumulated millions, and is, of course, a strong Tory, with but two desires in life — to keep down ‘ the people,’ and to obtain a card for his wife for the Premier’s Saturday evenings — these are the representatives of the people for you ! Bogues and noodles, noodles and rogues. Don’t you like the picture ? ” “ I should hate it, if I believed in it, Mr. Byrne ! ” said Joyce, moving away, “ but I don’t ! You won’t think me rude or unkind, but — but I’ve been brought up in so widely different a faith. I’ve been taught to hold in such reverence all that I hear you deny, that ” “ Stick to it, lad ! hold to it while you can ! ” said the old man kindly, laying his hand on his companion’s arm. “ My doctrines are strong meat for babes — too strong, I dare say — and you’re but a toothless infant yet in these things, anyhow ! So much the better for you. I recollect -.92 WRECKED IN PORT. a story of some man who said he was never happy or well after he was told he had a liver ! Go on as long as you can in pleasant ignorance of the fact that you have a political liver. Some day it will become torpid and sluggish, and then — then come and talk to old Dr. Byrne. Till then, he won’t attempt to alarm you, depend upon it ! ” Not very long to be deferred was the day in which the political patient was to come to the political physician for advice and for treatment. Beaufort Square looked hideously dull as Lord Hether- ington drove through it on his way to his home from the railway station a few days after the conversation above recorded, and the clanging of his own great gates as they shut behind him echoed and re-echoed through the vast deserted space. The gorgeous porter and all the regiment of domestics were down at Westhope, the family place in Norfolk, so the carriage-gates were opened by a middle- aged female with her head tied up for toothache, and Mrs. Mason, the housekeeper, with a female retinue, was waiting to receive his lordship on the steps. Always affable to old servants of the family, whose age, long service, and com- fortable comely appearance do him credit, as he thinks, Lord Hetherington exchanges a few gracious words with Mrs. Mason, desires that Mr. Byrne shall be shown in to him so soon as he arrives, and makes his way across the great hall to the library. The shutters of his room have ? been opened, but there has been no time given for further preparations, and the big writing-table, the globes, and the bookcases are all swathed in ghostly holland drapery. The bust of the ninth earl, Lord Hetherington’s father, has slipped its head out of its covering, and looks astonished and as if it had been suddenly called up in its night- clothes. My lord looks dismayed, as well he may, at the dreary room, but finds no more cheerful outlook from the window into the little square garden, where a few melan- choly leaves are rotting in the dirty corners into which they have drifted, and where Mrs. Mason’s grandson, unconscious THE TENTH EARL. 93 of observation, is throwing stones at a cat. My ford rattles the loose silver in his trousers-pockets, and walks np to the fireplace and inspects his tongue in the looking-glass, whistles thoughtfully, sighs heavily, and is beginning to think he shall go mad, when Mrs. Mason opens the door and announces 4 4 Mr. Byrne.” “How do, Byrne?” says his lordship, much relieved. “ Glad to see you — come up on purpose — want your help! ” Mr. Byrne returns his lordship’s salutations, and quietly asks in what way he can be of use. His lordship is rather taken aback at being so suddenly brought to book, but says with some hesitation — “ Well, not exactly in your own way, Byrne; I don’t think I shall do any more what-d’ye-call-ums, birds, any more — for the present, I mean, for the present. Her lady- ship thought those last screens so good that it would be useless to try to improve on them, and so she’s given me — I mean I’ve got — another idea.” Mr. Byrne, with the faintest dawn of a cynical grin on his face, bows and waits. “Fact is,” pursues his lordship, “my place down at Westhope, full of most monstrously interesting records of our family from the time of — oh, the Crusaders and Guy Fawkes and the Pretender, and all that kind of thing; records, don’t you know; old papers, and what they call documents, you know, and those kind of things. Well, I want to take all these things and make ’em into a sort of history of the family, you know, to write it and have it published, don’t they call it? You know what I mean.” Mr. Byrne intimates that they do call it published, and that he apprehends his lordship’s meaning completely. “Well, then, Byrne,” his lordship continues, “what I sent for you for is this. ’Tisn’t in your line, I know, but I’ve found you clever, and all that kind of thing, and above your station. Oh, I mean it, I do indeed, and I want you to find me some person, respectable and educated and all that, who will just go through these papers, you know, *94 WRECKED IN PORT. and select the right bits, you know, and write them down, you know, and, in point of fact, just do — you know what I mean.” Mr. Byrne, with a radiant look which his face but seldom wore, averred that he not merely understood what was meant, but that he could recommend the very man whom his lordship required : a young man of excellent address, good education, and great industry. “ And hell understand ?” asked Lord Hethering- ton hesitatingly, and with a curious look at Mr. Byrne. “ Everything,” replied the old man. “ Your lordship’s book will be the most successful thing you’ve done.” “ Then bring him to the Clarendon at twelve the day after to-morrow. As he’s to live in the house, and that kind of thing, her ladyship must see him before he’s -engaged.” “ I suppose I may congratulate you, my boy,” said Byrne to Joyce a day or two afterwards, as they walked away from the Clarendon Hotel after their interview, 6C though you don’t look much pleased about it.” “I am an ungrateful brute,” said Walter; “I ought to have thanked you the instant the door closed ; for it is entirely owing to you and your kindness that I liave obtained this splendid chance. But ” “ But what?” said the old man kindly. “ Did you notice that woman’s reception of me, and the way she spoke?” “ That woman ? Oh, my Lady ! H’m — she’s not too polite to those she considers her inferiors.” “ Polite ? To me it was imperious, insolent, degrading ! But I can put up with it!” And he added softly to himself, “For Marian’s sake!” ( 95 ) CHAPTER X. AN INTERIOR. Marian Ashurst had begun, soon after their parting, to feel that she had been somewhat too sanguine in her anticipations of the immediate success of Walter Joyce. Each little difficulty she had had to encounter in her own life until the old home was left behind had aided to depress her, to force her to understand that the battle of life was harder to fight than she had fancied it, and had brought to her mind a shapeless fear that she had mistaken, over- valued, the strength and efficacy of the weapons with which she must fight that battle. Walter’s letters had not tended to lift her heart up from its depression. His nature was essentially candid; he had neither the skill nor the inclination to feign, and he had kept her exactly informed. On his return home after his interview with Lord and Lady Hetherington, Joyce found a letter await- ing him. It was from Marian, written to her lover from Mr. Creswell’s house, and ran as follows : “ Woolgreaves, Wednesday. “ My dearest Walter, “ The project I told you of, in my last letter, has been carried out; mamma and I are settled for the present at Woolgreaves. How strange it seems ! Every- thing has been done so suddenly when it came to the point, and Mr. Creswell and his nieces turned out so dif- ferently from what I expected. I did not look for their taking any notice of us, except in the commonplace way of people in their position to people in ours. I always had a notion that ‘womankind’ have but a small share in men’s friendships. However, these people seem deter- mined to make me out in the wrong, and though I do not give the young ladies credit for more than intelligent 96 WRECKED IN PORT. docility, making them understand that their best policy is to carry out their uncle’s kind intentions — that they have more to gain by obedience in this respect than to lose by anything likely to be alienated from them in our direction — I must acknowledge that their docility is intelligent. They made the invitation most graciously, urged it most heartily, and are carrying out all it implied fully. You will have been surprised at mamma’s finding the idea of being in any one’s house endurable, under the circumstances, but she really likes it. Maude and Ger- trude Creswell, who are the very opposites of me in every- thing, belong to the 4 sweet-girl ’ species, and mamma has found out that she likes sweet girls. Poor mamma, she never had the chance of making the discovery before ! I do believe it never occurred to her that her own daughter was not a 4 sweet girl,’ until she made the conquest of the hearts of these specimens. The truth is, also, that mamma feels, she must feel, every one must feel the material comfort of living as we are living here, in comparison with the makeshift wretchedness of the lodging into which we shall have to go, when our visit here comes to a conclusion, and still more, as a thoroughly known and felt standard of comparison, with the intense and oppres- sive sadness, and the perpetual necessity for watchfulness in the least expense, which have characterised our dear old house since our sad loss. She is not herself aware of the good which it has done her to come here, she does not perceive the change it has wrought in her, and it is well she should not, for I really think the simple, devoted, grieving soul would be hurt and angry with herself at the idea that anything should make any difference to her, that she should be 4 roused.’ How truly my dear father under- stood, how highly he prized her exquisite sensitiveness of feeling ; he was just the man to hold it infinitely above all the strong-mindedness in the world ! I am stronger minded, happily — I wonder if you like to know that I am, or whether you, too, prefer the weaker, the more womanly type, as people say, forgetting that most of the endurance, AN INTERIOR. 97 and a good deal of the work, in this world, is our ‘womanly’ inheritance, and that some of us, at least, do it with dis- credit. You don’t want moralising, or philosophising, from me, though, dearest Walter, do you? You complain of my matter-of-fact letters as it is. I must not yield to my had habit of talking to myself, rather than to you on paper. “ Well, then, we came to Woolgreaves, and found the heartiest of welcomes, and everything prepared for our comfort. As I don’t think you know anything more of the place than could be learned from our summer-evening strolls about the grounds, when we always took such good care to keep well out of sight of the windows, I shall describe the house. You will like to know where and how I live, and to see in your fancy my surroundings. How glad I shall be when you, too, can send me a sketch of anything you can call 4 home ! ’ Of course, I don’t mean that to apply to myself here ; I never let any feeling of enjoyment really take possession of me because of its transitoriness ; you know exactly in what sense I mean it, a certain feeling of comfort and quiet, of having to-morrow what you have had to-day, of seeing the same people and the same things around, which makes up the idea of home, though it must all vanish soon. I wonder if men get used to alterations in their modes of life so soon as women do ? I fancy not. I know there is mamma, and I am sure a more easily pleased, less consciously selfish human being never existed (if her share in the comforts of home was disproportionate, it was my dear father’s doing, not of her claiming), and yet she has been a week here, and all the luxury she lives in seems as natural to her, as indispensable as the easy- chair, the especially good tea, the daily glass of wine, the daintiest food which were allotted to her at home. I saw the girls exchange a look this morning when she said, 4 1 hope it won’t rain, I shall miss my afternoon drive so much ! ’ I wonder what the look meant ? Perhaps it meant, 4 Listen to that upstart ! She never had a carriage of her own in her life, and because she has the use of ours 98 WRECKED IN PORT. for a few days, she talks as if it were a necessary of life.’ Perhaps — and I think they may he sufficiently genuinely sweet girls to make it possible — the look may have meant that they were glad to think they had it in their power to give her anything she enjoyed so much. I like it very much, too ; there is more pleasure in driving about leisurely in a carriage which you have not to pay for than I imagined ; but I should be sorry the girls knew I cared very much about it. I have not very much respect for their intellects, and silly heads are apt to take airs at the mere idea of being in a position to patronise. Decidedly the best room in the house is mamma’s, and she likes it so much. I often see the thought in her face, ‘ If we could have given him all these comforts, we might have had him with us now.’ And so we might, Walter, so we might. Just think of the great age some of the very rich and grand folks live to ; I am sure I have seen it in the papers hundreds of times, seventy, eighty, ninety sometimes, just because they are rich ; rank has nothing to do with it be- yond implying wealth, and if my father had been even a moderately rich man, if he had been anything but a poor man, he would have been alive to-day. We must try to be rich, my dearest Walter, and if that is impossible (and I fear it, I fear it much since I have been here, and Mr. Creswell has told me a good deal about how he made his money, and from all he says it seems indispensable to have some to begin with, there is truth in the saying that money maizes money ') — if that is impossible, at least we must not think of marrying while we are poor. I don’t think any- thing can compensate to one’s self for being poor, and I am quite sure nothing can compensate for seeing any one whom one loves exposed to the privations and the humiliations of poverty. I have thought so much of this, dearest Walter, I have been so doubtful whether you think of it seriously enough. It seems absurd for a woman to say to a man that she ponders the exigencies of life more wisely, and sees its truths more fully than he does ; but I some- times think women do so, and in our case I think I AN INTERIOR. 99 estimate the trial and the struggle there is before ns more according to their real weight and severity than you do, Walter, for you think of me only, whereas I think of you more than of myself, and as one with myself. I have learned, since I came here, that to understand what poverty really means one must see the details of wealth. We have only a general idea of a fine house and grounds, a luxurious table and a lot of servants. The general idea seems very grand and attractive, but when one sees it all in working order, when one can find out the cost of each department, the price of every article, the scale on which it is all kept up, not for show, but for every-day use , then the real meaning of wealth, the awful difficulty of attaining it, realise themselves to one’s mind. The Cres- well girls know nothing about the mechanism of their splendid home, not much about even their personal ex- penses. ‘ Uncle gives us a hundred and fifty pounds a year, and tells us we may send him in any reasonable number of bills besides,’ Maude told me. And it is quite true. They keep no accounts. I checked her maid’s book for Gertrude, warning her not to let her servant see her ignorance, and she says she does not think she ever had some of the things put down. Just think of , that ! No dye- ing old dresses black for mourning for them, and turning rnsty crape! Not that that sort of thing signifies — the cal- culation is on too large a scale for such small items — they only illustrate the whole story of poverty. The house- keeper and I are quite friendly. She has a notion that ladies ought to understand economy, and she is very civil. She has explained everything to me, and I find the sums which pass through her hands alone would be a fortune to us. There are twenty servants in the house and stables, and their ‘ hall ’ is a sight ! When I think of the shabby dining-room in which my dear father used to receive his friends — great people, too, sometimes, but not latterly — I do feel that human life is a very unfair thing. “ The great wide hall, floored with marble, and orna- mented with pictures, and lamps on pedestals, and stags’- 100 WRECKED IN PORT. heads, and all the things one sees in pictures of halls, is in the centre of the house, and has a dark carved-oak gallery all round it, on which numerous rooms open ; hut on the ground-floor there is a grand dining-room, and a smaller room where we breakfast, a billiard-room, a splendid library (all my father’s books are in it now, and look nothing in the crowd), an ante-room where people wait who come on business to Mr. Creswell (all his business seems to consist in disposing surplus money to advantage), and at the back of all, opening on the most beautiful flower-garden you can conceive, an immense conservatory. This is a great pleasure to mamma ; there are no painful associations with such flowers for her ; my father never gave her such bouquets as Gertrude brings to the break- fast-table every morning and presents to her with a kiss, which her uncle seems to think particularly gracious and kind, for he always smiles at her. “ Indeed, he smiles a good deal at every one, for he is a very good-natured, amiable, and kindly man, and seems to think little of his wealth. I am sure he is dreadfully imposed upon — indeed, I have found out many instances of it. How happy he could make us if he would ! I dare say he would not miss the money which would make us comfortable. But I must not think of such a thing. 'No one could afford to give so much as it would be wise to marry on, and we never should be happy if we were not wise. I don’t think Mr. Creswell has a trouble in the world, except his son Tom, and I am not sure that he is a trouble to him — for he doesn’t talk much about himself — but I am quite sure he ought to be. The boy is as graceless, selfish, heartless a cub, I think, as ever lived. I remember your thinking him very troublesome and dis- obedient in school, and he certainly is not better at home, where he has many opportunities of gratifying his evil propensities not afforded him by school. He is very much afraid of me, short a time as I have been here, that is quite evident ; and I am inclined to think one reason why Mr. Creswell likes my being here so much is the influence AN INTERIOR. 101 I exercise over Tom. Very likely he does not acknow- ledge that to himself as a reason, perhaps he does not even know it ; hut I can discern it, and also that it is a great relief to the girls. They are very kind to Tom, who worries their lives out, I am sure, when they are alone ; hut 4 schoolmaster’s daughter’ was always an awful per- sonage in the old days, and makes herself felt now very satisfactorily, though silently. I fancy Tom will turn out to he the crook in his father’s lot when he grows up. He is an unmannerly, common creature, not to he civilised hy all the comfort and luxury of home, or softened hy all the gentleness and indulgence of his father. He is doing nothing just now ; he did not choose to remain with papa’s successor, and is running wild until he can he placed with a private tutor — some clergyman who takes only two or three pupils. Meantime, the coachman and the groom are his favourite associates, and the stable his resort of predilection. “ Do you remember the beech-copse just beyond Hill- side Eoad? The windows of my room look out in that direction, far away, beyond the Woolgreaves grounds ; I can see the tops of the trees, and the winding road beyond them. I go up to my room every evening, to see the sun set behind the hill there, and to think of the many times we walked there and talked of what was to be. Will it ever be, W alter? Were we not foolish boy and girl — foolish paupers ? Ay, the word, hard, ugly, but true . When I look round this room I feel it, oh, so true ! Mamma and I have a pretty sitting-room, and a bedroom each on opposite sides of it. Such rooms ! the very simplicity and exquisite freshness of their furniture and appoint- ments are more significant of wealth, of the ease of house- hold arrangement, and the perfection of household service, than any amount of rich upholstery. And then the drawing-rooms, and the girls’ rooms, and the music-room, and the endless spare rooms — which, by-the-by, are rarely occupied ; for so rich a man, and one with such a house, Mr. Creswell seems to me to have singularly little society. 102 WRECKED IN PORT. No one but the clergyman and his wife has been since we came. I thought it might be out of delicate consideration for us that Mr. Creswell might have signified a wish for especial privacy, but I find that is not the case. He said to me to-day that he feared we found Wool greaves dull. I do not. I have too much to think of to be affected by anything of that kind ; and as my thoughts are rarely of a cheerful order, I should not ingratiate myself by social agreeability. Our life is quietly luxurious. I adhere to my old habits of early rising ; but I am the only person in the house who enjoys the beauty of the gardens and grounds in the sweet morning. We breakfast at ten, and mamma and the girls go out into the lawn or into the garden, and they chat to her and amuse her until luncheon. I usually pass the morning in the library, reading and writing, or talking with Mr. Creswell. It is very amusing and interesting to me to hear all about his career, how he made so much money, and how he administers it. I begin to understand it very well now. I don’t think I should make a bad woman of business by any means, and I am sure everything of the kind would have a great interest for me, even apart from my desire lor money, and my conviction that neither happiness nor repose is to be had in this world without it. The old gentleman seems surprised to find me interested and intelligent about what he calls such dry detail ; but, just as books and pictures are interesting, though one may never hope to possess them, so money, though it does not belong to myself, and never can, interests me. Oh, my dearest Walter, if we had but a little, just a few hundreds of pounds, and Mr. Creswell could teach you how to employ it with advantage in some commercial undertaking ! He began with little more than one thousand pounds, and now ! But I might as well wish you had been born an archbishop. In the afternoon, there is our drive. What handsome houses wo see, what fine places we pass by ! How often I occupy myself with thinking what I should do if I only had them, and the money they represent ! And how hard the AN INTERIOR. 103 sight of them makes the past appear ! How little, falling to our share, would make the future smiling and happy ! “ The girls are not interesting companions to Mr. Creswell. He is fond of them, and very kind to them — in fact, lavishly generous — they never have an un gratified wish ; hut how can a man, whose whole life has been devoted to business, feel much companionship with young girls like them, who do not know what it means ? Of course, they think and talk about their dead parents — at least, I suppose so — and their past lives, and neither subject has any charms for their uncle. They read — especially Maude — and, strange to say, they read solid books as well as novels ; they excel in fancy-work, which I detest, probably because I can’t do it, and could not afford to buy the materials if I understood the art ; and they both play and sing. I have heard very little good music, and I am not a judge, except of what is pleasing to myself ; but I think I am correct in rating Maude’s musical abilities very highly. Her voice thrills me almost to pain, and to see my mother’s quiet tears when Maude plays to her in the dim evening is to feel that the power of producing such salutary healing emotion is priceless indeed. What a pity it is I am not a good musician ! Loving music as you love it, dearest Walter, it will be a privation to you — if ever that time we talked of comes, when we should have a decent home to share — that I shall not be able to make sweet music for you. They are not fond of me, but I did not think they would be, and I am not disappointed. I like them, but they are too young, too happy, and too rich for me not to envy them a little, and though love and jealousy may coexist, love and envy cannot. “ In all this long letter, my own Walter, I have said nothing of you . You understand why. I dare not. I dare not give utterance to the discouragement which your last vague letter caused me, lest such discouragement should infect you, and by lowering your spirits weaken your efforts. Under these circumstances, and until I hear 104 WRECKED IN PORT. from yon more decisively, I will say nothing, hut strive and hope ! On my side, there is little striving possible, and I dare not tel! you how little hope. “ Your own “ Marian.” To the strong, loving, and loyal heart of Walter, a letter from Marian was a sacred treasure, a full, intense, solemn delight. She had thought the thoughts, written the words, touched the paper. When disappointment, distress, depression, and uncertainty accumulated upon him most ruthlessly, and bore him most heavily to the ground, he shook them from him at the bidding of a letter from her, and rose more than ever determined not to be beaten in the struggle which was to bring him such a reward. The calmness, the seeming coldness even of her letters did not annoy or disappoint him ; theirs was the perfect love that did not need protestation- — that was as well and as ill, as fully and as imperfectly, expressed by the simplest affirmation as by a score of endearing phrases. No letter of Marian’s had ever failed to delight, to strengthen, to encourage Walter Joyce, until this one reached him. He opened the envelope with an eager touch, his dark cheek flushed, and a tender smile shone in his eyes ; he murmured a word of love as the closely written sheets met his impatient gaze. “ A long letter to-day, Marian, my darling. Did you guess how sadly I wanted it ? ” But as Walter read the letter his countenance changed. He turned back, and read some portions twice over, then went on, and when he concluded it began again. But not with the iteration of a lover refreshing his first feeling of delight, seeking pet passages to dwell on afresh. There was no such pleasurable impulse in the moody re-reading of his letter. Walter frowned more than once while he read it, and struck the hand in which he held it mono- tonously against his knee -when he had acquired the full unmistakable meaning of it. THE LOUT. 105 His face had been sad and anxious when the letter reached him — he had reason for sadness and anxiety — but when he had read it for the last time, and thrust it into his breast-pocket, his face was more than sad and anxious — it was haggard, gloomy, and angry. CHAPTER XI. THE LOUT. Mr. Creswell’s only son, who was named after Mr. Cres- well’s only brother, by no means resembled his prototype either in appearance, manners, or disposition. For where- as Tom Creswell the elder had been a long, lean, washed- out-looking person, with long, wiry black hair, sallow complexion, hollow cheeks, and a faint dawn of a mous- tache (in his youth he had turned down his collars and modelled himself generally on Lord Byron, and through- out his life he was declared by his wife to be most aristo- cratic and romantic-looking), Tom Creswell the younger had a small, round, bullet head, with closely cropped sandy hair, eyes deeply sunken and but little visible, snub nose, wide mouth, and dimpled chin. Tom Creswell the elder rose at noon, and lay upon the sofa all day, com- posing verses, reading novels, or playing the flute. Tom Creswell the younger was up at five every morning, round through the stables, saw the horses properly fed, peered into every corn-bin (“Darng, now whey do thot? Darnged if un doesn’t count carn-grains, I think,” was the groom’s muttered exclamation on this proceeding), ran his hand over the animals, and declared that they “ didn’t carry as much flesh as they might,” with a look at the helpers which obviously meant that they starved the cattle and sold the oats. Then Tom the younger would go to the garden, where his greatest delight lay in counting the 106 WRECKED IN PORT. peaches and nectarines, and plums and apricots, nestling coyly against the old red south wall, in taking stock of the cucumbers and melons under their frames, and in ticking off the number of the bunches of grapes slowly ripening in the sickly heat of the vinery, while the Scotch head-gar- dener, a man whose natural hot-headedness was barely kept within bounds by the strictness of his religious opinions, would stand by looking on, outwardly placid, but inwardly burning to deliver himself of his sentiments in the Gaelic language. Tom Cresw r ell the elder was always languid and ailing ; as a boy he had worn a comforter, and a hare- skin on his chest, had taken cough-lozenges and jujubes, had been laughed at and called “ Molly” and “Miss” by his schoolfellows, and had sighed and simpered away his existence. Tom Ores well the younger was strong as a Shetland pony, and hard as a tennis-ball, full of exuberant vitality which, not finding sufficient vent in ordinary schoolboy fun, in cricket, or hockey, or football, let itself off in cruelty, in teasing and stoning animals, in bullying smaller boys. Tom Creswell the elder was weak, selfish, idle, and conceited, but — you could not help allowing it — he was a gentleman. Tom Creswell the younger — you could not possibly deny it — was a blatant cad. Not the least doubt of it. Everybody knew' if, and most people owned it. Down in the village it was common talk. Mr. Creswell was wonderfully respected in Hel- mingham town, though the old people minded the day when he was thought little of. Helmingham is strictly Conservative, and when Mr. Creswell first settled himself at Woolgreaves, and commenced his restoration of the house, and was known to be spending large sums on the estate, and was seen to have horses and equipages very far outshining those of Sir Thomas Churchill of the Park, • who was lord of the manor, and a county magnate of the very first order, the village folk could not understand a man of no particular birth or breeding, and whose money, it was well known, had been made in trade — which, to the Helmingham limited comprehension, meant across a counter THE LOUT. 107 in a shop, “just like Tom Boucher, the draper” — attaining such a position. They did not like the idea of being patronised by one whom they considered to be of their own order ; and the foolish face which had been trans- mitted through ten generations, and the stupid head which had never had a wise idea or a kindly thought in it, received the homage which was denied to the clever man who had been the founder of his own fortune, and who was the best landlord and the kindest neighbour in the country round. But this prejudice soon wore away. The practical good sense which had gained for Mr. Creswell his position soon made itself felt among the Helmingham folk, and the “ canny ” ones soon grew as loud in his praise as they had been in his disparagement. Even Jack Forman, the ne’er- do-weel of the village, who was always sunning his fat form at alehouse-doors, and who had but few good words for any one, save for the most recent “ stander ” of beer, had been heard to declare outside that Mr. Creswell was the “ raight soort,” a phrase which, in Jack’s limited vocabulary, stood for something highly complimentary. The young ladies, too, were exceedingly popular. They were pretty, of a downright English prettiness, expressed in hair and eyes and complexion, a prettiness commending itself at once to the uneducated English rustid taste, which is apt to find classical features “peaky,” and romantic expression “ fal-lal.” They were girls about whom there was “ no nonsense ” — cheerful, bright, and homely. The feelings which congealed into cold politeness under the influence of Marian Ashurst’s supposed “superiority 5 ’ overflowed with womanly tenderness when their possessor was watching Widow Hal ton through the fever, or tending little Madge Mason’s crippled limb. The bright faces of “the young ladies” were known for miles through the country round, and whenever sickness or distress crossed the threshold they were speedily followed by these minis- tering angels. If human prayers for others’ welfare avail on high, Mr. Creswell and his nieces had them in scores. But the Helmingham folk did not pray much for 108 WRECKED IN PORT. young Tom ; on the contrary, their aspirations towards him were, it is to be feared, of a malignant kind. The warfare which alwaj^s existed between the village folk and the Grammar-School boys was carried on without rancour. The farmers whose orchards were robbed, whose growing wheat was trampled down, whose ducks were dog-hunted, contented themselves with putting in an occasional appearance with a cart-whip, fully knowing, at the same time, the impossibility of catching their young and active tormentors, and with “ darn ging ” the rising generation in general, and the youth then profiting by Sir Ranulph Clinton’s generosity in particular. The village tradesmen whose windows were broken, when they dis- covered who were the offenders, laid on an additional item to their parents’ account ; when they could not bring the crime home to any boy in particular, laid on an additional item to Mr. Ashurst’s account, and thus consoled themselves. Moreover, there was a general feeling that somehow, in a way that the}^ could not and never attempted to explain, the school, since Mr. Ashurst had had it in hand, had been a credit to the place, and the canny folk, in their canniness, liked something which brought them credit and cost them nothing, and had friendly feelings to the masters and the boys. But not to young Tom Creswell. They hated him, and they said so roundly. What was youthful merriment and mischief in other boys was, they averred, “bedevil- ment ” in young Tom. Standing at their doors on fine summer evenings, the village folk would pause in their gossip to look after him as he cantered by on his chestnut pony — an animal which Banks, the farrier, declared to be as vicious and as cross-grained as its master. Eyes were averted as he passed, and no hat was raised in salutation ; but that mattered little to the rider. He noticed it, of course, as he noticed everything in his hang-dog manner, with furtive glances under his eyebrows ; and he thought that when he came into his kingdom — he often speculated upon that time — he would make these dogs pay for their THE LOUT. 109 insolence. Jack Forman was never drunk; no given amount of beer — and it was always given in Jack’s case, as he never paid for it — could make him wholly intoxi- cated ; but when he was in that state which he explained himself as having “an extry pint in him,” Jack would stand up, holding on by the horse-trough in front of the Seven Stars, and shake his disengaged fist at young Tom riding past, and express his wish to wring young Tom’s neck. Mr. Benthall, who had succeeded Mr. Ashurst as head-master of the school, was soon on excellent terms with Mr. Creswell, and thus had an opportunity of getting an insight into young Tom’s character — an opportunity which rendered him profoundly thankful that that interest- ing youth was no longer numbered among his scholars, and caused him much wonderment as to how Trollope, who was the curate of a neighbouring parish, who had been chosen for young Tom’s private tutor, could possibly get on with his pupil. Mr. Trollope, a mild, gentlemanly, retiring young man, with a bashful manner and a weak voice, found himself utterly unable to cope with the lout, who mocked at him before his face and mimicked him behind his back, and refused to be taught or guided by him in any way. So Mr. Trollope, after speaking to the lout’s father, and finding but little good resulting there- from, contented himself with setting exercises which wero never done, and marking out lessons which were never learned, and bearing a vast amount of contumely and un- pleasantness for the sake of a salary which was very regu- larly paid. It must not be supposed that his son’s strongly marked characteristics passed unobserved by Mr. Creswell, or that they failed to cause him an immensity of pain. The man’s life had been so hard and earnest, so engrossing and so laborious, that he had only allowed himself two subjects for distraction, occasionally indulged in ; one, regret for his wife ; the other, hope in his son. As time passed away and he grew older, the first lessened and the other grew. His Jenny had been an angel on earth, he thought, and 110 WRECKED IN PORT. was now an angel in heaven, and the period was nearing, rapidly nearing, when, as he himself humbly hoped, he might be permitted to join her. Then his son would take his place, with no ladder to climb, no weary heart-burning and hard slaving to go through, but with the position achieved, the ball at his foot. In Mr. Creswell’s own experience he had seen a score of men, whose fathers had been inferior to him in natural talent and business capacity, and in luck, which was not the least part of the affair, holding their own with the landed gentry whose ancestry had been “ county people ” for ages past, and playing at squires with as much grace and tact as if cotton- twist and coal-dust were things of which they might have heard, indeed, but with which they had never been brought into contact. It had been the dream of the old man’s life that his son should be one of these. The first idea of the purchase of Woolgreaves, the lavish splendour with which the place had been rehabilitated and with which it was kept up, the still persistent holding on to business and superintending, though with but rare intervals, his own affairs, all sprang from this hope. The old gentleman’s tastes were simple in the extreme. He hated grandeur, disliked society, had had far more than enough of business worries. There was plenty, more than plenty, for him and his nieces to live on in affluence, but it had been the dearest wish of his heart to leave his son a man of mark, and do it he would. Did he really think so? Not in his inmost heart. The keen eyes which had been accustomed for so long to read human nature like a book refused to be hoodwinked; the keen sense used to sift and balance human motives refused to be paltered with ; the logical powers which deduced effect from cause refused to be stifled or led astray. To no human being were Tom Creswell’s moral deficiencies and shortcomings more patent than to his father ; it is needless to say that to none were they the subject of such bitter anguish. Mr. Ores well knew that his son was a failure, and worse than a failure. If he had been merely THE LOUT. Ill stupid there would have been not much to grieve over. The lad would have been a disappointment — as how many lads are disappointments to fond parents ! — and that was all. Hundreds, thousands of stupid young men filled their position in society with average success. Their money supported them, and they pulled through. He had hoped for something better than this for his son, but in the bitterness of his grief he allowed to himself that he would have been contented even with so much. But Mr. Creswell knew that his son was worse than stupid ; that he was bad, low in his tastes and associations, sordid and servile in his heart, cunning, mean, and despicable. All the qualities which should have distinguished him — gentle- manly bearing, refined manners, cultivated tastes, generous impulses — all these he lacked: with a desire for sharp practice, hard-heartedness, rudeness towards those beneath him in the social scale, boorishness towards his equals, he was overflowing. Lout that he was, he had not even reverence for his father, had not even the decency to attempt to hide his badness, but paraded it in the open day before the eyes of all, with a kind of sullen pride. And that was to be the end of all Mr. Creswell’s plotting and planning, all his hard work and high hopes? For this he had toiled, and slaved, and speculated ? Many and many a bitter hour did the old man pass shut away in the seclusion of his library, thinking over the bright hopes which he had indulged in as regarded his son’s career, and the way in which they had been slighted, the bright what might have been, the dim what was. Yainly the father would endeavour to argue with himself, that the boy was as yet but a boy ; that when he became a man he would put away the things which were not childish indeed, for then would there have been more hope, but bad, and in the fulness of time develop into what had been expected of him. Mr. Creswell knew to the contrary. He had watched his son for years with too deep an interest not to have perceived that, as the years passed away, the light lines in the boy’s character grew dim and faint, and the dark lines deepened in intensity. 112 WRECKED IN PORT. Year by year the boy became harder, coarser, more cal- culating, and more avaricious. As a child he had lent his pocket money out on usury to his schoolfellows, and now he talked to his father about investments and interest in a manner which would have pleased some parents and amused others, but which brought anything but pleasure to Mr. Creswell as he marked the keen hungry look in the boy’s sunken eyes, and listened to his half-framed and abortive but always sordid plans. Between father and son there was not the smallest bond of sympathy; that, Mr. Creswell had brought himself to confess. How many score times had he looked into the boy’s face, hoping to see there some gleam of filial love, and had turned away bitterly disappointed ! How often had he tried to engage the lad in topics of conversation which he imagined would have been congenial to him, and on which he might have suffered himself to be drawn out, but without the slightest success ! The jovial miller who lived upon the Dee was not one whit less careless than Tom Creswell about the opinion which other folks entertained of him, so long as you did not interfere with any of his plans. Even the intended visit of Mrs. Ashurst and Marian to Wool- greaves elicited very little remark from him, although the girls imagined it might not be quite acceptable to him, and consulted together as to how the news should be broken to the domestic bashaw. After a great deal of cogitation and suggestion, it was decided that the best plan would be to take the tyrant at a favourable opportunity — at meal-time, for instance — and to approach the subject in a light and airy manner, as though it were of no great consequence, and was only mentioned for the sake of something to say. The plot thus conceived was duly carried out two days afterwards, on an occasion when, from the promptitude and agility with which he wielded his knife and fork, and the stertorous grunts and lip-smackings which accompanied his performance, it was rightly judged that Master Tom was enjoying his dinner with an extra relish. Mr. Creswell was absent — he seldom attended at the luncheon-table— THE LOUT. 113 and the girls interchanged a nod of intelligence, and pre- pared to commence the play. They had had but little occasion or opportunity for acting, and were consequently nervous to a degree. “ Did you see much of Mrs. Ashnrst in — in poor Mr. Ashurst’s time, at the school, Tom?” commenced Ger- trude, with a good deal of hesitation and a profound study of her plate. “ No, no, not much-— quite enough ! ” returned Tom, without raising his head. “ Why quite enough, Tom ? ” came in Maude to the rescue. “ She is a most delightful woman, I’m sure.” “ Most charming,” threw in Gertrude, a little un- decidedly, but still in support. “ Ah, very likely,” said Tom. “ We didn’t see much of her — the day-boys, I mean ; but Peacock and the other fellows who boarded at Mr. Ashurst’s declared she used to water the beer, and never sent back half the fellows’ towels and sheets when they left.” “ How disgraceful ! how disgusting ! ” burst out Maude. “ Mrs. Aslrurst is a perfect lady, and — oh, what wretches boys are ! ” “ Screech away ! I don’t mind,” said the philosophic Tom. “ Only what’s up about this ? What’s the matter with old Mother Ashurst ? ” “Nothing is the matter with Mrs. Ashurst, your father’s friend, Tom,” said Gertrude, trying a bit of dignity, and failing miserably therein, for Gertrude was a lovable, kissable, Dresden-china style of beauty, without a particle of dignity in her whole composition. “ Mrs. Ashurst is your father’s friend, sir, at least the widow of his old friend, and your father has asked her to come and stay here on a visit, and — and we all hope you’ll be polite to her.” It was seldom that Gertrude achieved such a long sentence, or delivered one with so much force. It was quite plain that Mrs. Ashurst was a favourite of hers. I ii4 WRECKED IN PORT. “ Oh,” said Tom, “ all right ! Old Mother Ashurst’s coming here on a visit, is she ? All right ! ” “ And Miss Ashnrst comes with her,” said Maude. “ Oh, Lord ! ” cried Tom Creswell. “Miss Prim coming too ! That’ll be a clear saving of the governor’s vinegar and olives all the time she’s here. She’s a nice creature, she is ! ” And he screwed up his mouth with an air of excessive distaste. “ Well, at all events, she’s going to be your father’s guest, and we must all do our best to make the visit pleasant to them,” said Gertrude, who, like most people who are most proud of what they do least well, thought she was playing dignity admirably. “ Oh, I don’t care ! ” said Tom. “ If the governor likes to have them here, and you two girls are so sweet upon them all of a sudden, I say, all right. Only look here — no interference with me in any way. The sight of me mustn’t make the old lady break down and burst out blubbering, or anything of that sort, and no asking me how I’m getting on with my lessons, and that kind of thing. Stow that, mind ! ” “ You needn’t trouble yourself, I think,” said Maude ; “it is scarcely likely that either Mrs. or Miss Ashurst will feel very keen interest in you or your pursuits.” And out of Maude’s flashing eyes, and through Maude’s tightly compressed lips, the sarcasm came cutting like a knife. But when their visitors had been but a very short time established at Woolgreaves, it became evident not merely to Mr. Creswell, but to all in the house, that Master Tom had at last met with some one who could exercise in- fluence over him, and that some one was Marian Ashurst. It was the treatment that did it. Tom had been alter- nately petted and punished, scolded and spoiled, but he had never been turned into ridicule before, and when Marian tried that treatment on him he succumbed at once. He confessed he had always thought that “ he could not THE LOUT. 115 stand chaff,” and now he knew it. Marian’s "badinage was, as might be supposed, of a somewhat grave and serious order. Tom’s bluntness, uncouthness, avarice, and self- love were constantly betraying themselves in his conver- sation and conduct, and each of them offered an admirable target at which Marian fired telling shots. The girls were at first astonished and then delighted, as was Mr. Creswell, w ? ho had a faint hope that under the correction thus lightly administered his son might be brought to see how objectionable were certain of his views and proceedings. The lout himself did not like it at all. His impossibility of standing “chaff,” or of answering it, rendered him for the first time a nonenity in the family circle ; his voice, usually loud and strident, was hushed whenever Marian came into the room. The domestic atmosphere at Wool- greaves was far more pleasant than it had been for some time, and Mr. Creswell thought that the “ sweet little girl ” was not merely a “ dead hand at a bargain,” but that she possessed the brute-taming power in a manner hitherto undreamed of. Decidedly she was a very exceptional per- son, and more highly gifted than any one would suppose. Tom hated her heartily, and chafed inwardly because he did not see his way to revenging himself on her. He had not the wit to reply when Marian turned him into ridicule, and he dared not answer her with mere rudeness ; so he remained silent and sulky, brooding over his rage, and racking his brains to try and find a crack in his enemy’s armour — a vulnerable place. He found it at last, but, characteristically, took no notice at the time, waiting for his opportunity. That came. One day, after luncheon, when her mother had gone up for a quiet nap, and the girls were practising duets in the music-room, Marian set out for a long walk across the hard, dry, frost-covered fields to the village ; the air was brisk and bracing, and the girl was in better spirits than usual. She thoroughly appreciated the refined comforts and the luxurious living of Woolgreaves, and the conduct of the host and his nieces towards her had been so perfectly charming, that she had 116 WRECKED IN PORT. almost forgotten that her enjoyment of those luxuries was but temporary, and that very shortly she would have to face the world in a worse position than she had as yet occupied, and to fight the great battle of life, too, for her mother and herself. Often in the evening, as she sat in the drawing-room buried in the soft cushions of the sofa, dreamily listening to the music which the girls were play- ing, lazily watching her mother cosily seated in the chimney-corner, and old Mr. Creswell by her, quietly beating time to the tune, the firelight flickering over the furniture and appointments bespeaking wealth and com- fort, she would fall into a kind of half-trance, in which she would believe that the great desire of her life had been accomplished, and that she was rich — placed far above the necessity of toil or the torture of penury. Nor was the dream ever entirely dispelled. The comfort and luxury were there, and as to the term of her enjoyment, how could that be prolonged ? Her busy brain was filled with that idea this afternoon, and so deeply was she in thought, that she scarcely started at a loud crashing of branches close beside her, and only had time to draw back as Tom Creswell’s chestnut mare, with Tom Creswell on her back, landed into the field beside her. “ Good heavens, Tom, how you startled me ! ” cried Marian; “and what’s the matter with Kitty? She’s covered with foam, and trembling all over ! ” “ I’ve been taking it out of the blunder-headed brute, that’s all, Miss Ashurst,” said the lout, with a vicious dig of his spurs into the mare’s sides, which caused her to snort loudly and to rear on end. — “ Ah, would you, you brute? — She’s got it in her head that she won’t jump to-day, and I’m showing her she will, and she must, if I choose. — Stand still, now, and get your wind, d’ye hear?” And he threw the reins on the mare’s neck, and turned round in his saddle, facing Marian. “ I’m glad I’ve met you, Miss Ashurst,” he continued, with a very evil light in his sullen face, “ for I’ve got something to say to you, and I’m just in the mood to say it now.” THE LOUT. 117 He looked so thoroughly vicious and despicable, that Marian’s first feeling of alarm changed into disgust as she looked at him and said — “ What is it, Tom ? — say on ! ” “ Oh, I intend to,” said the lout, with a baleful grin. “ I intend to say on, whether you like it or not. I’ve waited a precious long time, and I intend to speak now. Look here. You’ve had a fine turn at me, you have ! Chaffin’ me, and pokin’ your fun at me, and shuttin’ me up whenever I spoke. You’re doosid clever, you are, and so sharp, and all that ; and I’m such a fool, I am, but I’ve found out your game for all that ! ” “ My game, Tom ! Do you know what you’re talking about, and to whom you are talking ? ” “ Oh, don’t I ! That’s just it. I’m talking to Miss Marian Ashurst, and Miss Marian Ashurst’s game is money- making ! Lord bless you, they know all about it down in the village — the Crokes, and the Whichers, and them, they’re full of stories of you when you was a little girl, and they all know you’re not changed now. But look here, keep it to yourself, or take it away from our place. Don’t try it on here. It’s quite enough to have those two girls saddled on the family, but they are relations, and that’s some excuse. We don’t want any more, mark that. My father’s getting old now, and he’s weak, and don’t see things so clearly as he did, but I do. I see why your mother’s got hold of those girls, and how you’re trying to make yourself useful to the governor. I heard you offering to go through the Home-Farm accounts the other day.” “ I offered because your — because Oh, Tom, how dare you I You wicked, wicked boy ! ” “ Oh yes, I know, very likely ; but I won’t let any one interfere with me. You thought you were going to settle yourself on us. I don’t intend it. I’m a boy — all right ; but I know how to get my own way, and I means to have it. This hot-tempered brute” (pointing to the pony) “ has found that out, and you’ll find it out, too, before I have done with you. That’s ail. — Get on, now ! ” 118 WRECKED IN PORT. The pony sprang into the air as he gave her a savage cnt with his whip, and he rode off, leaving Marian in an agony of shame and rage. CHAPTER XII. A REMOVAL. Some few minutes passed before Marian felt sufficiently recovered to move. The attack had been so unexpected and so brutal that she would have been perfectly paralysed by it even if the words which the boy had used had been the outpourings of mere random savagery, instead of, as they evidently were, the result of premeditated and planned insult — insult grounded on hate, and hate springing from fear. Marian’s quick intelligence made that plain to her in a moment. The boy feared her, feared that she might obtain an ascendancy over his father, and get the old gentleman to advance money to Mrs. Ashurst — money that ought not to go out of the family, and should be his at his father’s death — or perhaps fancied she was scheming to quarter herself at Woolgreaves, and Good heavens, could he have thought that ! Why, the idea had never crossed her mind. She dismissed it at once, not without a half smile at the notion of the retribution she could inflict, at the thought that the boy had suggested to her what might be such a punishment for himself as she had never dreamed of. She walked on quickly, communing with herself. So they had found her out, had they ? Tom’s blurted warning was the first intimation she had had that what she knew to be the guiding purpose of her life, the worship of, love for, intended acquisition of money, was suspected by any, known to any one else. No syllable on the subject, either jestingly or reproachfully, had ever been breathed to her A REMOVAL, 119 before. It was not likely that she would have heard of it. Her father had considered her to be perfect ; her mother had set down all her small economies, scrapings, and hoardings which were practised in the household to Marian’s “ wonderful management ; ” and however the feminine portion of the Whicher and Croke families might talk among themselves, their respect for the schoolmaster and their dread of Marian’s powers of retort always effect- ually prevented them from dropping any hints at the schoolhouse. So Marian heard it now for the first time. Yet there was nothing in it to be ashamed of, she thought; if her poor father had been guided by this sentiment his life might have been perhaps preserved, and certainly an immense amount of misery would have been spared to them all. Love of money, a desire to acquire wealth, — who should reproach her for that ? Not Mr. Creswell, of whose good opinion she seemed to think first, for had not his whole life been passed in the practice, and was not his present position the result, the example to which she could point in defence of her creed? Not Maude or Gertrude Creswell, who if they had possessed the smallest spark of independence would have been earning their bread as companions or governesses. Not the people of the village, who Yes, by Tom’s account they did talk of her; but what then ? What the people in the village thought or said about her had never been of the smallest interest to Marian Ashurst when she lived among them, and was brought into daily communion with them ; it was there- fore not likely that she would take much heed of it now, as she had made up her mind that she and her mother must go and live in another place, far away from all old scenes and associations, when they left Woolgreaves. When they left Woolgreaves ! Hitherto she had not bestowed much thought upon that necessarily closely ap- proaching event, but now she turned her attention to it. Under ordinary circumstances, even if things had gone on pleasantly as heretofore, if their stay had been made as comfortable to them, the attention of Mr. Creswell and his 120 WRECKED IN PORT. nieces had been as great, and the general desire for them to remain as obvious, they would have had in common decency to propose some date for the expiration of their visit. And now that Tom, who had hitherto been only a negative nuisance, developed into a positive enemy, it was doubly necessary that they should take precaution not to outstay their welcome. Yes, they must go ! Give up all the comforts and luxury, the fine airy rooms, the bedroom fires, the carriage drives, the good living, the wine, and attention, all of which combined had done Mrs. Ashurst so much good, and rendered her stronger and sounder than she had been for years — all these must be given up, and they must go away to poky, stivy lodgings, with dirt and discomfort of every kind ; with wretched cooking which would turn her mother sick, and the attendance of a miserable maid- of-all- work, who would not understand any of their ways, and the perpetual presence of penury and want making itself felt every hour of their lives. The picture was so horrible, so repugnant to Marian, that she determined not to let it engross her thoughts in anticipa- tion; it would be quite sufficient to cope with when it came, and she should require all her energies fresh and untaxed for the encounter. So she walked briskly on, and as she had now reached the village her attention was soon quickly absorbed by the greetings which she received, and the talk in which she had to take part. The first greetings were from Mr. Benthall. Marian had determined that she would not go down Southwood Lane, which led to the schoolhouse, as she had no desire of encountering either master or boys in her then mood. She had not been near the school since she and her mother left the house, and she had arranged in her mind a little farewell on her part to both when she left the village. And now here was Mr. Benthall advancing straight towards her, and there was no possibility of escape, as she remembered that it was the Saturday half-holiday, and that she should probably have to run the gauntlet of a score of friends. Mr. Benthall was a brisk, lively, agreeable man, with A REMOVAL. 121 cheerfulness and pleasant manners, and plenty of small talk. He was, moreover, a gentleman and a man of the world, and he knew exactly how to pitch the key of his conversation to a young lady, the daughter of his prede- cessor, who might or might not — Mr. Benthall’s experience of human nature told him might, and probably would — feel somewhat antipathetic towards him. So Mr. Benthall talked of Mrs. Ashurst, and of Mr. Creswell, and of the young ladies, and of Tom. “ My friend Trollope’s young charge,” as Mr. Benthall spoke of him, with a somewhat malicious sparkle in his eye. And the weather was quite cold, was it not ? and the frost had set in quite early, had it not ? And Miss Ashurst was looking so blooming that Mr. Benthall had no need to ask her how she was, which was, indeed, the reason why he had not done so long since, but must beg her to take charge of his kindest compliments for her mother and the young ladies and Mr. Creswell. And Mr. Benthall had taken off his well-brushed hat, and had skipped across the road in his well-brushed, shapely boots, and Marian was contrasting him with that figure which was ever present to her memory — her father, bowed, and shrunken, and slatternly, and ill-dressed — when she heard her Christian name called aloud, and Dr. Osborne, in his little four-wheeled pony-carriage, drew up by her side. “Well, Princess!” said the cheery old medico; “for since I have made you hear I may as well address you by your title — well, Princess, how goes it ? ” “It goes very well indeed, dear Dr. Osborne,” said Marian, returning his hand-pressure. “But why Prin- cess ? ” “Why Princess! What lower rank could a girl be who lives in a palace, over there, I mean, with ‘ vassals and slaves by her side,’ as I’ve heard my girl sing years ago, and all that kind of thing ? ” “ But surely only a princess of the Cinderella style, my dear doctor; only enjoying the vassals and the slaves, and what you call ‘ that kind of thing/ for a very limited time. 122 WRECKED IN PORT. Twelve o’clock must strike very soon, dear old friend, in our case, and then this princess will go back to the pots and kettles, and cinder-sifting, and a state of life worse than ever she has known before.” “ God forbid, my dear ! 55 said the doctor seriously. “Which way are you going — back again to Woolgreaves? All right. I’m driving that road, and I’ll set you down at the gates. Jump in, child. I wanted a few minutes’ talk with you, and this has just happened luckily ; we can have it without any interruption.” He stretched out his hand and helped Marian into the seat by his side ; then gave the brisk little pony his head, and they rattled cheerily along. “ Let me see, my dear, what was I saying ? ” said the doctor, after the silence of a few minutes. “ By the way, I think I ought to have called in the village to see little Pickering, who’s in for measles, I suspect. I must start a memorandum-book, my memory is beginning to fail me. What was I saying, my dear ? ” “You were saying that you wanted to talk to me— about Woolgreaves, I think it must have been.” “ About Woolgreaves — the palace, as I called it — oh yes, that was it. See here, child ; I’m the oldest friend 'you have in the world, and I hope one of the truest ; and I want you to answer my questions frankly, and without reserve, just as if I were your father, you know.” “ I will do so,” said Marian, after a faint flutter at her heart, caused by the notion of the little doctor, good little soul as he was, comparing himself with her dead father. “ That’s right,” said Dr. Osborne. “I knew you almost before you came into the world, and that gives me some right to your confidence. Now, then, are you happy at Woolgreaves ? ” Marian hesitated a moment before she replied : “Happier than I thought I could have been — yet.” “Ah, that’s right and straightforward. Mind, in all these questions I’m alluding to you, not to your mother. A REMOVAL. 123 I know her — charming lady, affectionate, and all that, but clinging and unreasoning, likes to lie where she falls, and so on ; whereas you’ve got a head on your shoulders, finely developed and — so on. Now, are they all kind to you at Woolgr eaves ? Old gentleman kind ? ” “ Most kind ! ” “ Of course he is. Never was a man so full of heart as he is. If he had only been at home when your poor father —ah, well, that’s no matter now.” “What’s that you said, Dr. Osborne — that about my father ? ” “ Stupid old fool to go blundering into such a subject ! Why couldn’t I have let it alone ? ‘ Let the dead past bury its dead. 5 What’s that I’ve heard my girl sing ? ” the old gentleman muttered to himself. Then aloud, “ Nothing, my dear. I was only thinking that if Mr. Creswell had been] at home just at the time I dare say we might have made some arrangement, and had Godby down from St. Vitus, and then ” “ And then my father need not have died for the want of a hundred and thirty guineas ! Oh, don’t think I forget.” And there came into the girl’s face the hard, stony, rigid look which Dr. Osborne remembered there: so well on the night of her father’s death, six months before. “ Well,” said the little doctor, laying the whip across his knee and blowing his nose so loudly that the pony shied at the noise — “ well, well, dear, Mr. Creswell’s absence at that particular time was, to say the least of it, unfortunate ; we may say that. Now, what about the girls ; are they kind?” “ Very, in their way.” “ Good ! ” said the little doctor, bringing his hand down with a ringing slap on the chaise-apron, “ I like that ! Dry— deuced dry. Like your poor father, that. ‘ In their way.’ Ha, ha ! I understand. Their way is not much yours ? ” “ They are very good-tempered and polite, and press one to eat and drink a great deal, and hand chairs and 124 WRECKED IN PORT. footstools, and always sing when they are asked. And,” added Marian, after a moment’s pause, and under a fear that she had been unduly cynical, “ and they are most attentive and affectionate to mamma.” “ I am delighted to hear that, for that’s just as it should be, just as one would have wished it to turn out. Oh yes, quite ladies, with all the feelings and perceptions of ladies, and talking to your mother nicely, and so on. Not too bright — not to be compared with you or my girl. Ah, there would have been a companion for you, my dear ; all soul, and such an arm for the harp, but married to the coastguard in Dorsetshire ! — but still nice girls. Well, I’m glad you give me this account, my dear, for it suits exactly the suggestion I was about to make. But before I made it I wanted to be quite sure of your position at Woolgreaves, and to know for certain that you were liked by all the family.” “You are not certain of that yet, doctor. There is one of the family about whom you have made no inquiry.” “One of the family — at Woolgreaves? Oh, by Jove, Tom— Master Torn! I recollect now — a most important personage in his own esteem, and really some one to. be thought of in such a matter as this. And how does Master Tom behave to you ? ” “ Like a — like a scoundrel ! ” cried Marian, her eyes flashing, and all the colour ablaze in her cheeks. “ He has been, ever since we have been there, either rude and rough, or sulky and unpleasant ; but to-day, just before I saw you, not an hour ago, he met me in the fields, and insulted me in the grossest manner ; talked about our poverty, and hinted that — hinted ” and the remainder of the sentence was lost in a burst of tears. “ Happy hit of mine, that,” muttered the doctor to him- self. “ I seem to be distinguishing myself to-day. Young ruffian, that Tom. He shall have a pretty dose next time I’m sent for to him, I’ll take care. — Come, my dear, then, you must not mind ; he’s only a boy — a rude beastly boy, with no manners, and no heart either, and not much chest A REMOVAL. 125 or stomach, for the matter of that. You must not mind him. It’s a pity he’s not nice to you, because he has a certain power in that house ; and if he were to pronounce himself as decidedly in opposition to the little scheme I had in my mind, and about which I was going to talk to you, it is very probable it might fall to the ground. But there are various ways of getting over objectionable boys. Lord bless me ! in my time I’ve taken boys into the surgery, and brought them round by a handful of acidulated drops, and have tamed the most refractory by a Tolu lozenge.” “ I scarcely think that Tom Creswell is to be bought over on such easy terms,” said Marian, with a faint and weary smile. “ But, doctor, what was the suggestion you were about to make ? ” “ Simply this, my dear : That instead of your removing into Mrs. Swainson’s lodgings, which are by no means suited for you, and where I should be very sorry to see you, or into any lodging at all, you should — when I say you, I mean, of course, you and Mrs. Ashurst — should remain at Woolgreaves.” “ Remain at Woolgreaves ? For how long? ” “ Well, as romantic or thoughtless people say, ‘ for ever ; ’ at all events, until the condition of each of you is changed — by different means, let us hope.” “ And under what conditions is this scheme to be realised ? I suppose Mr. Creswell would scarcely take us in as boarders at Woolgreaves, doctor?” “ No, my dear child, no. You are pleased to be satirical, but I am in earnest. That the labourer is worthy of his hire is a principle that has been recognised for centuries ; and you shall labour, and for hire. See here, this is how the thought first came into my head. Mrs. Caddy, the housekeeper at Woolgreaves, a very worthy woman, has been ailing of late, and came to consult me last week. Our climate don’t do for her. She’s a little touched in the chest, and must get away further south for the winter. I told her so plainly, and she didn’t seem at all uncomfortable about it. Her friends live in Devonshire, and she’s saved 126 WRECKED IN PORT. a good bit of money, I should think, since she’s been in Mr. Creswell’s service. All that seemed to worry her was what they would do at Woolgreaves without her. She harped upon this several times, and at last a ray of light seemed to break upon her as she asked why her place should not be taken by ‘ t’ young girl, schoolmaster’s daughter ? ’ ” “ Dear me ! Mrs. Caddy’s place taken by me ? ” “ By you. It was an irreverent way to speak of you, Marian my dear, I’ll admit, but there was no irreverence intended. Mrs. Caddy, once set going, launched out into an interminable list of your special virtues. There never was a girl who 4 cottoned ’ so completely to her style of pickling and preserving; there never was a girl who so intuitively grasped the great secret of making cherry- brandy, or who so quickly perceived the shortcomings of the still-room maid in the matter. And this talk of the worthy woman’s gave me an idea.” “ The same idea as Mrs. Caddy’s?” “ The same, with a difference. Mrs. Caddy’s was preposterous, mine is possible. And mine is this : When Mi s. Caddy goes, let it be understood that Mrs. Ashurst has consented to superintend the Woolgreaves household. There would be nothing derogatory in the position; all with whom she would be brought in contact would take care of that ; and though she would not have the least qualification for the post, poor woman — no affront to you, my dear, but she wouldn’t — you would be able to keep all smooth, and take care that everything went straight.” “ But even such an establishment as Woolgreaves would not require two housekeepers, doctor ? ” “ Of course it would not,” said the old gentleman, pleased to see by Marian’s brightening face that the proposition was not so disagreeable to her. “ Of course it would not. Mrs. Ashurst would be the responsible house- keeper, while your position as companion to the young ladies could be very easily defined, and would be very readily understood. Do you like the plan ? ” All the details of the proposition rushed through her A REMOVAL. 127 mind before she spoke. Home-comforts, luxury, good living, warmth, care, attention, money, or at least the command if not the possession of money, that is what it meant, instead of a wretched lodging, a starveling income, penury, and perhaps, so far as certain necessaries for her mother were concerned, want. What would they sacrifice ? Not freedom — they had never had it ; and if their lives were still to be passed in drudgery, it would, at all events, be better to be the drudge of a kind old man and two insignificant girls, than of a set of rackety schoolboys, as they had hitherto been. Position? No sacrifice there; the respect always paid to them was paid to them as James Ashurst’s wife and daughter, and that respect they would still continue to receive. AIL in the village knew them, the state of their finances, the necessity of their availing themselves of any opportunity for bettering their condition which might present itself ; and out of the village they had but few acquaintances, and none for whose opinion they had the least care. So Marian, with beaming eyes and heightened colour, said— “ Yes, dear old friend, frankly, I do like the plan. If it were carried out an immense load of anxiety would be removed from my mind respecting mamma’s immediate future, you know, and it would suit our circumstances in various ways. Is it possible? How can it be brought about ? ” “ You are as prompt as ever, Marian,” said the doctor, smiling. “I never saw a girl retain so many of her childish characteristics.” Marion winced a little as he said this, remembering Tom’s remarks that afternoon on her childish character as depicted by Mesdames Whicker and Croke. “ Yes, I think it is perfectly feasible, and it can be brought about by me. Mr. Creswell, having known me for many years, and believing that I never advise him but for his good, is always ready to listen to any advice I give him, and if I judge rightly, will be already pre- disposed to agree with this proposition, and to take it as though you and your mamma were conferring a favour on 128 ’WRECKED IN PORT. him rather than Dear me, look at this foolish fellow coming towards us at full gallop ! The man must he drunk. — Hallo, sir ; hi, hallo ! — Why, it’s one of the Woolgreaves grooms, isn’t it? I think I know the man’s appearance. — Hallo, sir, hi ! what is it ? ” and the little doctor pulled the chaise close into the left hank, and stood up, waving his whip, and shouting lustily. The horseman, who was urging his horse to yet faster speed, paid no attention to the shouts, and contented himself hy rising in his stirrups and waving his hand as though bespeaking a clear way, until he came close upon the chaise, when he apparently recognised its occupants, and strove to pull up his horse. With some difficulty, and not until he had shot past them, he succeeded ; then turning hack, he cried out — . ^ “ Dr. Osborne, I was going for you, sir. For God’s sake, drive up to the house at once — you’re wanted awful had ! ” “What is it?” asked the doctor.— “ Quiet, my child, don’t he alarmed; don’t shake so. — There is nothing happened to your master ? ” “ No, sir ; Master Tom.” “ What of him — taken ill ? ” “ No, sir — chucked off the chestnut mare, and took up for dead in the Five Acres. Ben Pennington was bird- scarin’ close hy, and he see the accident and hollered out, and gave the alarm. And some of the farm-men came and got a hurdle, and put Master Tom on it, and carried him up to the house. Master see ’em coming, and ran out, and would have fell down when he see who it was, hut they caught hold of him ; and they say he’s like a madman now, and Miss Maude, she told me to come after you. Make haste, sir, please. Hadn’t you better jump on this mare, sir ? she’ll carry you quicker nor that cob of yourn, and I’ll drive Miss Ashurst home.” “ Not for any money,” said the doctor ; “ get on that horse, indeed ! There’d he another accident, and no one to he of any assistance. I shall he up at the house in a very A REMOVAL. 129 few minutes; ride on and say I’m coming. — Lord, my dear, fancy such, an interruption to our conversation — such a bombshell bursting over the castle we were building in the air ! ” “ The doctor wishes to speak to you, miss, outside master’s door,” said Mrs. Caddy, in that hissing whisper which servants always assume in a house of sickness. “ He didn’t say anything about Master Tom, but his face is as white as white, and ” “ Thanks, Mrs. Caddy ; I’d better go at once ; ” and Marian left the dining-room, where she had been doing her best to calm her mother’s agitation, which expressed itself in sparse tears, and head-shakings, and deep-drawn sighs, and flutterings of her feeble hands, and ascended the stairs. As she gained the landing, the little doctor, who had evidently been on the watch, came out of a bed- room, shutting the door cautiously behind him, and hastening to her, took her hand and led her into the recess of a bay-window, round which was a luxurious ottoman. When they had seated themselves, Marian broke silence. “You have examined him, doctor? You know the worst ? ” “ I say nothing about the worst, my dear, as I just told our old friend ; that is not for us to say. Poor boy ! he is in a very bad way, there’s no disguising that. It’s a case of fracture of the skull, with compression of the brain — a very bad case indeed ! ” “ Does he know what has happened ? Has he given any explanation of the accident ? ” “ None. Pie is insensible, and likely to remain so for some time. Now, my dear, you’re the handiest person in the house, and the one with your wits most about you. This poor lad will have to be trepanned — ah ! you don’t understand what that is ; how should you? — I mean, will have to be operated upon before he gets any relief. Under the circumstances, I don’t choose to take the re- K 130 WRECKED IN PORT. sponsibility of that operation on myself, and, with Mr. Creswell’s consent, I’ve telegraphed to London for one of onr first surgeons to come down and operate. He will bring a professional nurse with him, but they cannot arrive until the mail at two in the morning, and as I must go down to the surgery for two or three little matters, and see some of my patients tucked up for the night, I intend leaving you in charge of that room. You have nothing to do but to keep everybody else — except, of course, Mr. Creswell — out of the room. You must not be frightened at Tom’s heavy breathing, or any little restlessness he may show. That’s all part of the case. Now, my child, be brave, and so good night for the present.” “ Good night, doctor. Oh, one minute. You said you had telegraphed for a London surgeon. What is his name ? ” “ What on earth makes you ask that, you inquisitive puss ? ” said the old gentleman, with a smile. “ Have you any choice among London surgeons? His name is Godby — Godby of St. Vitus ! ” Godby of St. Vitus ! That was the name. She re- membered it at once. The man for whom Dr. Osborne had telegraphed to come and see her father, or rather would have sent for, but for the amount of his fee. Good God, what a contrast between that sick room and this ! The boy had been carried into his father’s bedroom, as nearer and larger than his own; and as Marian looked around. on every side, her glance fell on signs of comfort and luxury. The room was very large, lit by a broad bay window, with a splendid view of the surrounding country ; the walls were hung with exquisite proof-prints in oaken frames, a table in the centre was covered with books and periodicals, while on a smaller table close by the bed was a plate piled with splendid grapes. The bed itself, with fresh bright chintz curtains hanging over it, and a rich eider-down quilt thrown on it, stood in a recess, and on it lay the suffering lad, giving no sign of life save A REMOVAL. 131 his deep, heavy, stertorous breathing, and occasional rest- less motion of the limbs. How vividly the other room rose to her memory ! She saw the ugly panelled walls, with the cracking, blistering paint, and knew the very spots from which it had been worn off. She saw the old-fashioned, lumbering bedstead, and the moreen curtains tied round each sculptured post. She remembered the roseate flush which the sunlight shed over the face of her dying father, the hopeless expression which remained there when the light had faded away. It was money, only money, that made the very wide difference between the two cases, and money could do anything. Money was fetching this clever surgeon from London, who would probably save the life of this wretched boy. What was the value of a life like this as compared to her father’s? But, for the want of money, that sacred life had been suffered to pass away. Thoughts like these crowded on her brain, and worked her up to a pitch of feverish excite- ment during the early part of the night. She had plenty of time for reflection, for she had become accustomed to the regular heavy breathing of the patient, and no one entered the room save Mr. Creswell, who would sit for an hour together by his boy’s bedside, and then, watch in hand, get up and murmur piteously : “ Will the night never go ! Will the man never come ! ” “ The man,” Mr. Godby, principal surgical lecturer and demonstrator at St. Vitus’s Hospital, was coming as fast as the mail-train could bring him. Unlike most of his brethren, he was essentially a man of the world, fond of studying all sorts and conditions of men, and with all his enormous practice finding time for society, theatres, music, and literature of all kinds. He was engaged out to dinner that day — to a very pleasant little dinner, where he was to have met the private secretary of a Cabinet minis- ter, a newspaper editor, a portrait-painter, a duke, and a clerk in an insurance office, who gave wonderful imitations. The hostess was a French actress, and the cooking would have been perfect. So Mr. Godby shook his head very 132 WRECKED IN FORT. mournfully over tlie Helmingham telegram, and had he not held his old friend Osborne in great respect, and wished to do him a service, he would have refused to obey its mandate. As it was, he resigned himself to his fate, and arrived, chilled to the bone, but bright-eyed and ready-witted, at Woolgreaves at two in the morning. He shook his head when he saw the patient, and expressed to Hr. Osborne his doubt of the efficacy of trepanning, but he proposed to operate at once. “ It’s all over, mother,” said Marian to Mrs. Ashurst, the next morning. “ Mr. Godby was right ; poor Tom never rallied, and sank at seven this morning.” “ God help his poor father ! ” said the old lady, through her tears ; “ he has nothing left him now.” “ Nothing ! ” said Marian ; then added, half uncon- sciously — “ except his money ! except his money !” CHAPTER XIII. LIFE AT WESTH0PE. “ Tea, my lady ! ” “ Very well. Tell Lady Caroline Oh, here you are ! I was just sending to tell you that tea was ready. I saw you come in from your ride before the curtains were drawn.” “Did you? Then you must have seen a pretty draggletailed spectacle. I’ve caked my habit with mud and torn it into shreds, and generally distinguished my- self.” “ Did Mr. Biscoe blush ? ” “ Not a bit of it. Mr. Biscoe’s a good specimen of a hard-riding parson, and seemed to like me the better the muddier and more tom I became. By the way, his LIFE AT WESTHOPE. 133 wife is coming to dinner, isn’t slie ? so I must drop my flirtation with the rector, and he on my best be- haviour.” “ Caroline, you are too absurd ; the idea of flirting with a man like that ! ” “ Well, then, why don’t you provide some one better for me? I declare, Margaret, you are ignorant of the simplest duties of hospitality! I can’t flirt with West, because he’s my brother, for one reason, and because you mightn’t like it, perhaps, and because I mightn’t care about it myself much. And there’s no one else in the house who Oh, by the way, I’ll speak about that just now — who else is coming to dinner?” “ Some people from the barracks — Colonel Tapp, and Mr. Frampton, the man who hunted through all those papers the other day to find the paragraph you asked him about, don’t you know ; a Mr. Boyd, a good-looking fair haired boy, with an eyeglass, one of the Boss- shire Boyds, who is reading somewhere in the neighbourhood with a tutor ; the Biscoes, the Porters — people who live at those iron gates with the griffins which I showed you; and — I don’t know — two or three others.” “ Oh, heavens, what a cheerful prospect ! I hate the army, and I detest good-looking boys with eyeglasses; and I’ve been all day with Mr. Biscoe, and I don’t know the griffin people, nor the two or three others. Look here, Margaret, why don’t you ask Mr. J oyce to dinner ? ” “Mr. Joyce? I don’t know Good heavens, Caro- line, you don’t mean Lord Hetherington’s secretary ? ” “I do indeed, Margaret — why shouldn’t I? He is quite nice and gentlemanly, and has charming eyes.” “ Caroline, I wonder at your talking such nonsense. You ought to know me sufficiently ” “ And you ought to know me sufficiently to under- stand there’s nothing on earth I detest like being bored. I shall be bored out of my life by any of the people you have mentioned, while I’m sure I should find some amusement in Mr. Joyce.” 134 WRECKED DT PORT. “You might probably find a great deal of amusement in Norton, the steward, or in William, my footman; but you would scarcely wish me to ask them to dinner ? ” “ I think not — not in William, at all events. There is a dull decorum about Mr. Norton which one might find some fun in bearing ” “ Caroline, be quiet ; you are unpayable . Are you really serious in what you say about Mr. Joyce ? ” “Perfectly — why not? I had some talk with him in the library the other day, and found him most agreeable.” “ Well, then, I will send and say we expect him ; will that satisfy you ? “ No, certainly not ! Seriously, Margaret, for one minute. You know that I was only in fun, and that it cannot matter one atom to me whether this young man is asked to join your party or not. Only, if you do ask him, don’t send. You know the sort of message which the footman would deliver, no matter what formula had been intrusted to him ; and I should be very sorry to think that Mr. Joyce, or any other gentleman, should be caused a mortification through any folly of mine.” “ Perhaps you think I ought to go to him and offer him a verbal invitation ? ” “ Certainly, if you want him at all — I mean, if you intend asking him to dinner. You’ll be sure to find him in the library. Now, Pm dying to get rid of this soaked habit and this clinging skirt ! So I’m off to dress.” And Lady Caroline [Mansergh gave her sister-in-law a short nod, and left the room. Left alone, Lady Hetherington took a few minutes to recover herself. Her sister-in-law Caroline had always been a spoiled child, and accustomed to have her own way in the old home, in her own house when she married Mr. Mansergli — the richest, idlest, kindest old gentleman that ever slept in St. Stephen’s first and in Glasnevin Cemetery scarcely more soundly afterwards — and generally everywhere since she had lost him. But she had been always remarkable for particularly sound LIFE AT WESTHOPE. 135 sense, and had a manner of treating objectionably push- ing people which succeeded in keeping them at a dis- tance better even than the frigid hauteur which Lady Hetherington indulged in. The countess knew this, and, acknowledging it in her inmost heart, felt that she could make no great mistake in acceding to her sister-in-law’s wishes. Moreover, she reflected, after all it was a mere small country-house dinner that day ; there was no one expected about whose opinion she particularly cared ; and as the man was domiciled in the house, was useful to Lord Hetherington, and was presentable, it was only right to show him some civility. So, after leaving the drawing-room on her way to dress for dinner, Lady Hetherington crossed the hall to the library, and at the far end of the room saw Mr. Joyce at work, under a shaded lamp. She went straight up to him, and was somewhat amused at finding that he, either not hearing her entrance, or imagining that it was merely some servant with a message, never raised his head, but continued grinding away at his manuscript. “ Mr. Joyce ! ” said her ladyship, slightly bending for- ward. “ Hey ? ” replied the scribe, in whose ear the tones, always haughty and imperious, however she might try to soften them, rang like a trumpet-call. “I beg your pardon, Lady Pletherington,” he added, rising from his seat ; “ I had no idea you were in the room.” “Don’t disturb yourself, Mr. Joyce; I only looked in to say that we have a few friends coming to dinner to- night, and it will afford Lord Hetherington and myself much pleasure if you will join us.” “ I shall be most happy,” said Mr. Joyce. And then Lady Hetherington returned his bow, and he preceded her down the room, and opened the door to let her pass. “As if he’d been a squire of dames from his cradle,” said her ladyship to herself. “ The man has good hands, I noticed, and there was no awkwardness about him.” 136 WRECKED IN PORT. “ What does this mean? ” said Walter Joyce, when he reached his own room and was dressing for dinner. “ These people have been more civil than I could have expected them to be to a man in my position, and Lord Hetherington especially has been kindness itself; but they have always treated me as what I am- — ‘his lordship’s secretary.’ Whence this new recognition ? One comfort is that, thanks to old Jack Byrne’s generosity, I can make a decent appearance at their table. I laughed when he insisted on providing me with dress-clothes, but he knew better. ‘ They can’t do you any harm, my boy,” I recol- lect his saying, ‘ and they may do you some good ; ’ and now I see how right he was. Fancy my going into society, and beginning at this phase of it ! I wonder whether Marian would be pleased ? I wonder ” And he sat down on the edge of his bed and fell into a dreamy abstracted state ; the ^effect caused by Marian’s last long letter was upon him yet. He had answered it strongly — far more strongly than he had ever written to her before — pointing out that, at the outset, they had never imagined that life’s path was to be made smooth and easy to them; they had always known that they would have to struggle ; and that it was specially unlike her to fold her hands and beg for the unattainable, simply because she saw it in the possession of other people. “ She dared not tell him how little hope for the future she had.’’ That was a bad sign indeed. In their last parting walk round the garden of the old schoolhouse at Helmingham she had hinted something of this, and he thought he had silenced her on the point ; but her want of hope, her abnegation of interest, was now much more pronounced ; and against such a feeling he inveighed with all the strength and power of his honest soul. If she gave in, what was to become of him, whose present discomforts were only made bearable by anticipation of the time when he w^ould have her to share his lot? “And after all, Marian,” he had said in conclusion, “ what does it all mean ? This money for which you wish LIFE AT WESTIIOPE. 137 so much — I find the word studding every few lines of your letter — this splendour, luxury, comfort — call it by what name you will — what does it all mean ? — who benefits by it? Not the old gentleman who has passed his life in slaving for the acquisition of wealth ! As I understand from you, his wife is dead, and his son almost estranged from him. Is this the end of it ? If you could see his inmost heart, is he not pining for the woman who stood by his side during the conflict, and does he not feel the triumph empty and hollow without her to share it with him? Would he not sooner have his son’s love and trust and confidence than the conservatory and the carriages and the splendour on which you dwell so rapturously ? If you could know all, you would learn that the happiest time of his life was when he was striving in company with her he loved, and that the end now attained, however grand it may be, however above his original anticipations, is but poor and vain now she is not there to share it with him. Oh, Marian, my heart’s darling, think of this, and be assured of its truth ! So long as we love each other, so long as the sincerity of that love gives us confidence in each other, all will be well, and it will be impossible to shut out hope. It is only when a shadow crosses that love — a catastrophe which seems impossible, but which we should pray God to avert — that hope can in the smallest degree diminish. Marian, my love, my life, think of this as I place it before you ! We are both young, both gifted with health and strength and powers of endurance. If we fight the battle side by side, if we are not led away by envy and induced to fix the standard of our desires too high, we shall, we must succeed in attaining what we have so often hopefully discussed — the happiness of being all in all to each other, and leading our lives together, ‘ for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.’ I confess I can imagine no greater bliss — can you ? ” He had had no answer to this letter, but that had not troubled him much. He knew that Marian was not fond 138 WRECKED IN PORT. of correspondence, that in her last letter she had given a full account of her new life, and that she could have but little to say ; and he was further aware that a certain feeling of pride would prevent her from too readily in- dorsing his comments on her views. That she agreed with those comments, or that they would commend themselves to her natural sound sense on reflection, he had no doubt ; and he was content to await calmly the issue of events. The party assembled were waiting the announcement of dinner in the library, and when Joyce entered the room Lord Hetherington left the rug where he had been standing with two other gentlemen, and, advancing towards his secretary, took his hand and said — “I am glad her ladyship has persuaded you to come out of seclusion, Mr. Joyce. Too much — what is it? — books, and work, and that kind of thing, is — is — the deuce, in point of fact ! ” And then his lordship went back to the rug, and Joyce having received a sufficiently distant bow from Lady Hetherington, retreated into a darkish corner of the room, into which the flickering fire- light did not penetrate, and glanced around him. Lady Hetherington looked splendidly handsome, he thought. She was dressed in maroon-coloured velvet, the hues of which lit up wonderfully in the firelight, and showed her classically shaped head and head-dress of velvet and black lace. Joyce had read much of Juno- looking women, but he had never realised the idea until he gazed upon that calm, majestic, imperious face, so clearly cold in outline, those large, solemnly radiant eyes, that splendidly moulded figure. The man who was bending over her chair as he addressed her — not deferen- tially, as Joyce felt that (not from her rank, but rather her splendid beauty) she should be addressed ; on the contrary, rather flippantly — had a palpable curly wig, shaved cheeks, waxed moustache, and small white hands, which he rubbed gently together in front of him. He was Colonel Tapp, a Crimean hero, a very Paladin in war, but who had been worn by time, not into slovenry, but into LIFE AT WESTHOPE. 139 coxcombry. Mr. Biscoe, the rector of the parish — a big, broad-shouldered, bull-headed man, with clean-cut features, wholesome complexion, and breezy whiskers : excellent parson as well as good cross-country man, and as kind of heart as keen at sport — stood by her ladyship’s side, and threw an occasional remark into the conversation. Joyce could not see Lady Caroline Mansergh, but he heard her voice coming from a recess in the far side of the fireplace, and mingled with its bright, ringing Irish accent came the deep growling bass of Captain Frampton, adjutant of the depot battalion, and a noted amateur singer. The two gentlemen chatting with Lord Iletherington on the rug were magnates of the neighbourhood, representatives of county families centuries old. Mr. Boyd, a very good- looking young gentleman, with crisp wavy hair and pink- and-white complexion, was staring hard at nothing through his eyeglass, and wondering whether he could fasten one of his studs, which had come undone, without any one noticing him ; and Mr. Biscoe was in conversation with a foxy-looking gentleman with sunken eyes, sharp nose, and keen, gleaming teeth, in whom Joyce recognised Mr. Gould, Lord Hetherington’s London agent, who was in the habit of frequently running down on business matters, and whose room was always kept ready for him. Dinner announced and general movement of the company. At the table Joyce found himself seated by Lady Caroline Mansergh, her neighbour on the other side being Captain Frampton. After bowing and smiling at Mr. Joyce, Lady Caroline said — “ Now, Captain Frampton, continue, if you please ! ” “ Let me see ! ” said the captain, a good soldier and a good singer, but not burdened with more brains than are necessary for these professions — “let me see! Gad — ’shamed to say, Lady Car’line, forgot what we were talk- in’ of ! ” “ Mr. Chennery — you remember now ? ” “ Yas, yas, course, thousand pardons ! Well, several people who heard him at Carabas House think him wonderful.” 140 WRECKED IN PORT. “ A tenor, you say ? ” “Pure tenor, one of the richest, purest tenor voices ever heard ! Man’s fortune’s made — if he only behaves himself ! ” “ How do you mean, e behaves himself,’ Captain Frampton ? ” asked Lady Caroline, raising her eyebrows. “ Well, I mean sassiety, and all that kind of thing, Lady Caroline ! Man not accustomed to sassiety might, as they say, put his foot in it ! ” “ I see,” said Lady Caroline, with an assumption of gravity. “ Exactly ! and that would indeed be dreadful. But is this gentleman not accustomed to society ? ” “ Not in the least ; and in point of fact not a gentle- man, so far as I’m led to understand. Father’s a shepherd ; outdoor labouring something down at Lord Westonhanger’s place in Wiltshire ; boy was apprenticed to a stonemason, but people staying at the house heard of his singing, sent for him, and Lord Westonhanger was so charmed with his voice, had him sent to Italy and taught. That’s the story ! ” “ Surely one that reflects great credit on all concerned,” said Lady Caroline. “ But I yet fail to see why Mr. Chennery should not behave himself ! ” “ Well, you see, Lady Caroline, Carabas House, and that sort of thing — people he’ll meet there, you know, different from anything he’s ever seen before.” “ But he can but be a gentleman, Captain Frampton. If he were a prince, he could be no more ! ” “ No, exactly, course not ; but pardon me, that’s just it, don’t you see, the difficulty is for the man to be a gentle- man.” “Not at all ; not the slightest difficulty ! ” And here Lady Caroline almost imperceptibly turned a little towards Joyce. “ If Mr. Chennery is thrown into different society from that to which he has been hitherto accustomed, and is •at all nervous about his reception or his conduct in it, he has merely to be natural and just as he always has been, to avoid any affectation, and he cannot fail to please. The LIFE AT WEST HOPE. 141 ’ art which he possesses, and the education he has received, are humanising influences, and he certainly contributes more than the average quota towards the enjoyment of what people call society Whether Captain Frampton was unconvinced by the argument, whether he found a difficulty in pursuing it, or whether he had by this time realised the fact that the soup was of superior quality, and worth paying attention to, are moot points ; at all events, the one thing certain was, that he bowed and slightly shrugged his shoulders, and relapsed into silence, while Lady Caroline, with a half smile of victory, which somehow seemed to include Walter Joyce in its expanding ripple, replied across the table to a polite query of Mr. Biscoe’s in reference to their recent ride. She certainly was very beautiful ! Joyce had thought so before, as he had caught transient glimpses of her flitting about the house ; but now that he had, unnoticed and unseen, the opportunity of quietly studying her, he was astonished at her beauty. Her face was very pale, with an impertinent little nose, and deep-violet eyes, and a small rosebud of a mouth ; but perhaps her greatest charm lay in her hair, which lay in heavy thick chestnut clumps over her white forehead. Across it she wore the daintiest bit of precious lace, white lace, the merest apology for a cap, two long lappels pinned together by a diamond brooch, while the huge full clump at the back, unmis- takably real, was studded with small diamond stars. She was dressed in a blue-satin gown, set off with a profusion of white lace, and on her arm she wore a large heavy gold bracelet. Walter Joyce found himself gazing at her in an odd indescribable way. He had never seen anything like her, never realised such a combination of beauty, set off by the advantages of dress and surroundings. Her voice too, so bright and clear and ringing, and her manner to him — to him? Was it not to him that she had really addressed these words of advice, although they were surely said in apparent reply to Captain Frampton’s comments ? If that 142 WRECKED IN PORT. were so, it was indeed kind of Lady Caroline, true noble- hearted kindness : lie must write and tell Marian of it. He was thinking of this, and had in his mind a picture, confused indeed, but full of small details which had a strange interest for him, and a vivid sadness too, of the contrast between the scene of which he formed at this moment a part, and those familiar to himself and to Marian. He was thinking of the homely simple life of the village, of the dear dead friend, so much a better man, so much a truer gentleman than any of these people, who were of so much importance in a world where he had been of so little ; of the old house, the familiar routine of life, not wearisome with all its sameness, the sweetness of his first love. He was thinking of the splendour, the ener- vating bewildering luxury of his present surroundings, among which he sat so strange, so solitary, save for the subtle reassuring influence, the strange, unaccountable support and something like companionship in the tones of that fair and gracious lady’s voice, in the light of her swift flitting smile, in which he thought he read an admission that the company was little more to her taste than to his, had as little in common with her intellectual calibre as with his. He could not have told how she conveyed this impression to him, if he had tried to explain his feelings to any third person ; he could not explain it to himself, when he thought over the events of the evening, alone in his room, which was a dingy apartment when compared with the rest of the house, but far better than any which had ever called him master ; but there it was, strong and strangely attrac- tive, mingling with the sights and sounds around him, and with the dull dead pain at his heart which had been caused by Marian’s letter, and which he had never quite suc- ceeded in conquering. There were unshed but not unseen tears in his eyes, and a slight tremulous motion in his lips, which one pair of eyes at the table, quick with all their languor, keen with all their disdainful slowness, did not fail to see. The owner of those beautiful eyes did not quite understand, could not “ fathom ” the meaning of LIFE AT WESTHOPE. 143 the sudden glitter in his — “ idle tears,” indeed, on such an occasion, and in such company! — hut, with the fine unfailing instinct of a coquette, she discerned, more clearly than Walter Joyce himself had felt it, that she counted for something in the origin and meaning of those unshed tears and of that nervous twitching. Lady Caroline had just removed her eyes with well- feigned carelessness from Walter’s face, after a covert glance, apparently casual, hut in reality searching, in order to effect which she had leaned forward and plucked some geranium-leaves from a bouquet near her on the table ; and Walter was removing himself still farther from the scene around, into the land of reverie, when a name spoken by Mr. Gould, and making an odd accidental harmony with his thoughts, fixed his wandering atten- tion. “ What sort of weather had you in Hampshire?” asked Lord Hetherington, in one of those irksome pauses usually selected by some individual who is at once commonplace and good-natured enough to distinguish himself by uttering an inane sentiment, or asking an awkward ques- tion. “ Awful, I should fancjq” said Lady Hetherington, in the most languid of her languid tones. “ Awful, if it has been like the weather here. Were you really obliged to travel, Mr. Gould ? I can’t fancy any one going anywhere in such weather.” “As it happened,” said Mr. Gould, with a rather impatient glance towards her ladyship — for he could not always smile complacently when she manifested her normal unconsciousness that anybody could have anything to do not entirely dependent on his or her own pleasure and convenience — “ as it happened, I had not to go. A few days after I told his lordship the particulars of the sale of land, I had a letter informing me that the matter was all off for the present.” “ Indeed ! ” said Lord Hetherington ; “ a doosed bore for Langley, isn’t it? He has been wanting to pick up 144 WRECKED IN TORT. something in that neighbourhood for a long time. But the sale will ultimately come off, I suppose, unless some one buys the land over Langley’s head by private con- tract.” “ There’s no fear of that, I think,” said Mr. Gould ; “ but I took precautions. I should not like Sir John to lose the slice off Wool greaves he wants. The place is in a famous hunting country, and the plans are settled upon — like Sir John, isn’t it ? — for his hunting-box.” “ I don’t know that part of Hampshire at all,” said Lord Hetherington, delighted at finding a subject on which he could induce one of his guests to talk without his being particularly bound to listen. “ Very rich and rural, isn’t it ? Why didn’t the — ah, the person sell the land Langley wanted there ? ” “For rather a melancholy reason,” replied Mr. Gould, while Lady Hetherington and the others looked bored by anticipation. Bather inconsiderate and bad taste of Mr. Gould to talk about “ melancholy reasons ” in a society which only his presence and that of the secretary rendered at all “ mixed.” But Mr. Gould, who was rather full of the subject, and who had the characteristic — so excellent in a man of business in business hours, but a little tiresome in social moments — of believing that nothing could equal in interest his clients’ affairs, or in importance his clients themselves, went on, quite regardless of the strong apathy in the face of the countess. “ The letter which prevented my going down to Wool greaves on the appointed day was written by a lady residing in the house, to inform me that the owner of the property, a Mr. Creswell, very well known in those parts, had lost his only son, and was totally unfit to attend to any business. The boy was killed, I understand, by a fall from his pony.” “ Tom Creswell killed ! ” exclaimed Walter Joyce, in a tone which directed the attention of every one at the table to the “ secretary.” “ I beg your pardon,” Joyce went on, “ but will you kindly tell me all you know of this matter ? I know Mr. LIFE AT WESTHOPE. 145 Creswell, and I knew this boy well. Are you sure of the fact of his death ? ” The paleness of Walter’s face, the intensity of his tone, held Lady Caroline’s attention fixed upon him. How handsome he was ! and the man could evidently feel too ! How nice it would be to make him feel, to see the face pale, and to hear the voice deepen, like that, for her ! It would be quite new . She had any amount of flirtation always at hand, whenever she chose to summon its aid in passing the time ; but feeling did not come at call, and she had never had much of that given her. These were the thoughts of only a moment, flashing through her mind before Mr. Gould had time to answer Joyce’s appeal. “ I am sorry I mentioned the fact at so inappropriate a time,” said Mr. Gould, “ but still more sorry that there is no doubt whatever of its truth. Indeed, I think I can show you the letter.” Mr. Gould wore a dress-coat, of course, but he could not have dined comfortably if he had not transferred a mass of papers from his morning- coat to its pockets. This mass he extricated with some difficulty, and selecting one, methodically indorsed with the date of its receipt, from the number, he handed it to Walter. ’^.Lady Hetherington was naturally shocked at the infringement of the hien-seances caused by this unfortunate incident, and was glancing from Mr. Gould to Mr. Joyoe — from one element of the “ mixture ” in the assembled society to the other, with no pleasant expression of counte- nance — when Lady Caroline came to the rescue, with gracefulness, deftness, lightness all her own, and by start- ing an easy unembarrassed conversation with the gentle- man opposite to her, in which she skilfully included her immediate neighbours, she dissipated all the restraints which had temporarily fallen upon the party. Something interesting to the elevated minds of the party, something- different from the unpleasantness of a boy being killed whom nobody knew anything about, at a place which did not belong to anybody, — and the character of the L 146 WRECKED IN PORT. dinner-party, momentarily threatened, was triumphantly retrieved. Walter saw that the letter which Mr. Gould handed him was in Marian’s writing. It contained an announce- ment of the calamity which had occurred, and an intima- tion that Mr. Creswell could not attend to any matters of business at present. That was all. Walter read the brief letter with sincere concern, commiseration for the childless rich man, and also with the thrill, half of curiosity, half of painless jealousy, with which one regards the familiar and beloved handwriting, when addressed, however formally, to another. He returned the letter to Mr. Gould, with a simple expression of thanks, and sat silent. No one noticed him. Every one had forgotten the dismal occurrence about somebody whom nobody knew, down in some place that did not belong to anybody. He had time to think unquestioned. “ I wonder she has not written to me. The accident occurred four days ago,” he thought. “ I suppose she has too much to do for them all. God bless her, she will be their best comfort.” Though unversed in the minor arts and smaller tactics of society, Walter was not so dull or awkward as to be ignorant of the skill and kindness with which Lady Caroline had acted on his behalf. When the ladies were to leave the room, as she passed him, their eyes met, and each looked at the other steadily. In her glance there was undisguised interest, in his — gratitude. ( 1^7 ) CHAPTER XIY. LADY CAROLINE. The Lady Caroline liked late Lours. She was of a restless temperament, and hated solitude, though she was also intolerant of anything like dulness in her associates, and had sufficient taste for the accomplishments which she pos- sessed to render her independent of society. Nevertheless she underwent an immense deal of boredom rather than be alone, and whenever she found herself in a country house, she set to work to form a coterie of late sitters, in order to avoid the early hours which were her abhorrence. She was not an empty-headed woman — far from it. She had a good deal more knowledge than most women of her class, and a great deal of appreciation, some native humour, and much of the kind of tact and knowledge of society which require the possession and the exercise of brains. Nobody would have pronounced her stupid, but every one agreed that she was supercilious and superficial. The truth was that she was empty-hearted, and where that void exists, no qualities of head will fill it ; and even those who do not know what it is they miss in the individual are impressed by the effect of the deficiency. The Lady Caroline loved no one in the world except herself, and sometimes she took that solitary object of affection in disgust, which, if transient, was deep. She had arrived at Westhope in one of those passing fits of enntii, mingled with impatience and disgust of herself and irritation with everybody around her. She never at any time liked Westhope particularly, and her brother and his wife had no more interest for her, no more share in her affections, than any other dull lord and lady among the number of dull lords and ladies with whom she was acquainted. Her brother loved her rather more than other people loved her, and Lady Hetherington and she, though they u got on ” charmingly, knew perfectly 148 WRECKED IN PORT. well that the very tepid regard which they entertained for each other had nothing in it resembling sympathy or companionship. When the Lady Caroline retired to her own rooms after the dinner-party at which Walter Joyce had learned the news from Woolgreaves, she was no more inclined than usual to try the efficacy of a “ beauty ” sleep ; but she was much less inclined to grumble at the dulness of Westhope, to wish the countess could contrive to have another woman or two whom she might talk to of an evening, and who would not want such a lot of sleep to be resorted to so absurdly early, and to scold her maid, than usual. The maid perceived the felicitous alteration in her ladyship’s mood immediately. It made an important difference to her. Lady Caroline allowed her to remove all her ornaments and to brush her hair without finding fault with her, and surprised the patient Abigail, who must have had it “ made very well worth her while ” to endure the fatigues of her office, by telling her she should not require her any longer, and that she was sure she must be tired. Left to herself, the Lady Caroline did not feel so impatient of her solitude as usual, but fell into a reverie which occupied her mind completely. We have seen this nobly born, and in some respects (chiefly external) highly gifted, woman as she appeared among her brother’s guests. While she sat by the fire in her dressing-room — with which she never dispensed, at any season, in “ the odious English climate,” as she was wont to call it — let us look into her life and see her as she really was. Lady Caroline Mansergh had married, or rather, her mother had married her to, a gentleman of considerable importance, wealth, and more than mature years, when she was just seventeen. Very fair and very sweet seven- teen, whom it had been somewhat difficult to convince of the delights and advantages of being “ an old man’s darling.” But Lady Hetherington had not accustomed her children to gentle or affectionate treatment, or to having their inclinations consulted in any way. She no LADY CAROLINE. 149 more recognised Lady Caroline’s right to choose her own husband than she would have consulted her taste in her babyhood about her own sashes ; and the girl’s feeble attempt at remonstrance in opposition to the solid advan- tages of the proposals made by Mr. Mansergh did not pro- duce the least effect at the time. Her ladyship carried her point triumphantly, and the girl found her fate more endurable, on the whole, than she had expected. But she never forgave her mother, and that was rather odd, though not, when looked into, very unreasonable ; Mr. Mansergh never forgave her either. The countess had accomplished his wishes for him, the countess had bestowed upon him the wife he coveted, but she had deceived him, and when he won his wife’s confidence he found her mother out. He had not fyeen so foolish as to think the girl loved him, but he had believed she was willing to become his wife — he had never had a suspicion of the domestic scenes which had preceded that pretty tableau vivant at St. George’s, Hanover Square, in which every emotion proper to the occasion had been represented to perfection. Fortunately for Lady Caroline, her elderly husband was a perfect gentleman, and treated her with indulgence, considera- tion, and respect, which appealed successfully to her feel- ings, and were rewarded by a degree of confidence on her part, which insured her safety and his peace in the hazardous experiment of their unequal marriage. She told him frankly all about herself, her tastes, her feelings — the estrangement, almost amounting to dislike, which existed between herself and her mother — the attempt she had made to avoid her marriage ; in short, the whole story of her brief life, in which there had been much to deplore. Mr. Mansergh possessed much firmness of cha- racter and good sense, which, though it had not preserved him from the folly of marrying a girl young enough to be his daughter, came to his aid in making the best (and that much better than could have been expected) of the perilous position. Lady Caroline did not, indeed, learn to love her husband in the sense in which alone any woman 150 WRECKED IN PORT. can be justified in becoming the wife of any man, but sbe liked bim better than sbe liked any one in tbe world, and sbe regarded bim with real and active respect, a sentiment wbicb sbe bad never entertained previously for any one. Thus it fell out — contrary to tbe expectations of “ society,” wbicb would bave acted in tbe aggregate precisely as Lady Hetberington bad done, but wbicb would also bave congratulated itself on its discernment, and exulted bugely bad tbe matrimonial speculation turned out a failure— that Lady Caroline Mansergb was happy and respectable. Sbe never gave cause for tbe smallest scandal ; sbe was constantly with her husband, and was so naturally un- affectedly cheerful and content in his company, that not tbe most censorious observer could discover that be was used as a shield or a pretence. There was a perfectly good understanding between Mr. Mansergb and bis young wife on all points ; but if there was more complete accord on one in particular than on others, it was in keeping tbe countess at a distance. The manoeuvring mother profited little by the success of her scheme. To be sure sbe got rid of her daughter at tbe comparatively trifling expense of a splendid trousseau , and tbe unconsidered risk of- tbe welfare and tbe reputation of tbe daughter in question, and sbe bad the advantage over tbe majority of her friends of having married her advantageously in her first season. But tbe profit of tbe transaction terminated there. In her daughter’s bouse Lady Hetberington remained on the same ceremonious footing as any other visiting acquaint- ance, and every attempt sbe made either to interfere or advise was met by a polite and resolute coldness, against the silent obstinacy of wbicb she would bave striven un- successfully bad sbe not been much too wise to strive at all. If tbe barrier bad been reared by Lady Caroline’s bands alone, though they were no longer feeble, tbe countess would bave flung it down by the force of her imperious will ; but when sbe found that her daughter bad her husband’s opinion and authority to back her, Lady Hetberington executed tbe strategic movement of LADY CAROLINE. 151 retreat with celerity and discretion, and would never have been suspected of discomfiture had she not spoken of her daughter henceforth with suspicious effusion. Then “ society 55 smiled, and knew all about it, and felt that Mr. Mansergh had been foolish indeed, but not immoderately, not unpardon ably so. Lady Caroline was very popular and very much admired, and had her only friend’s life been prolonged for a few years, until she had passed the dangerous period of youth, she might have been as worthy of esteem and affection as she was calculated to inspire admiration. But Mr. Mansergh died before his wife was twenty-three years old, and left her with a large fortune, brilliant beauty, and just sufficient knowledge of the world to enable her to detect and despise its most salient snares, but with a mind still but half educated, desultory habits, and a wholly unoccupied heart. Her grief for her husband’s loss, if not poignant and torturing, was at least sincere, deep, and well founded. When he died, she had said to herself that she should never again have so true, so wise, and so constant a friend, and she was right. Life had many pleasant and some good things in store for Lady Caroline Mansergh, but such a love as that with which her husband had loved her was not among them. She acknowledged this always ; the impression did not fade away with the first vehemence of grief — it lasted, and was destined to deepen. She strayed into a bad “ set” before long, and to her youth and impulsiveness, with her ten- dency to ennui , and her sad freedom from all ties of attach- ment, the step from feeling that no one was so good as her husband had been, to believing that no one else was good at all, was very easy. And so Lady Caroline acquired a dangerous and demoralising trick of contempt for her fellows, which she hid under a mask of light and careless good-nature indeed, and which was seriously offensive to no one, but which condemned her, nevertheless, to much interior solitude and dreariness. That she was not of the world she lived in, was due less to any exceptional eleva- tion of sentiment than to a capricious and disdainful 152 WRECKED IN PORT, humour, which caused her to grow bored very readily, and to dismiss her associates from her thoughts after a brief scrutiny, in which their follies and foibles came into strong light, and the qualities which would have required time and patience to find out remained undiscovered. It had occurred to Lady Caroline Mansergh, on several occasions of late, to wonder whether she was destined ever to experience the passion called love. She had not re- mained ignorant of the science of flirtation up to her present time of life, but she had not been beguiled, ever so briefly, into mistaking any of her flirtations for love. So she was accustomed to wonder wearily, when in an unusually desultory mood, whether she should ever feel that there existed in the world a human being for whom she should be willing to suffer, with whom life would be happy, without whom it would be intolerable, and whose welfare she could deliberately and practically prefer to her own. Of late she had begun to think that Fate was against her in this particular. The idea of the possibility of feeling love for one of the men whom she was in the habit of meeting was quite preposterous ; she did not hold her favourite followers half so dear as Hassan,~her black barb, or like them half so well as Gelert, her grey- hound. Her life would doubtless continue to be the bright, fashionable, flimsy, careless, rather ennuye existence it had hitherto been, and she should never know anything of the power, the pain, the engrossing influence of love. So much the better, she would think, in her more hopeful moods ; it must be a narrowing kind of influence, bound- ing all one’s horizon within such small limits, shutting up one’s mortal vista with one figure. When the Lady Caroline dismissed her maid, and resigned herself to reverie, on this night, it was not, after her accustomed fashion, to dwell in her thoughts on the dulness, staleness, flatness, and unprofitableness of the world in general, and the section of it in which she lived in particular. She had quite a distinct subject for thought, she had a figure and a face in her fancy, a voice LADY CAROLINE.* 153 in her memory which filled them wholly. What if she had been wrong, if not only love were coming to her, to fill her life with delight, and turn its weariness with purpose and meaning, but love at first sight ? A ridicu- lous notion, entertained by school-girls, housemaids, novelists, and poets, but scouted by all reasonable people of the world, and in “ society.” She knew this, but she did not care ; there was a strange delicious thrill about her heart ; and in the swift flight of her thoughts she swept the beams of happy possibilities, and felt that she could, and would, and did despise society and its notions on this point. What did she know about Walter Joyce ? Absolutely nothing, but that he was young, handsome, brightly in- telligent, presumably poor, and socially insignificant, or he would not be her silly brother’s secretary. Her atten- tion had been directed to him at first, because she felt a compassionate curiosity about the person whom circum- stances had oppressed so cruelly as to oblige him to purvey ideas, and language in which to express them, for Lord Hetherington. Curiosity and compassion had been replaced, within a few minutes, by admiration, which the difference between the manners and bearing of Walter, and those of the men with whom she was accustomed to associate, rather tended to increase. There was no awk- wardness about Walter, but neither was there the slightest pretence. He was at ease in the unaccustomed company he found himself among, but he did not affect to be other than an observant stranger in it. “ He has an intellect and a heart,” said Lady Caroline half aloud, as she rose from her seat by the fireside, and brought her reverie to a conclusion, “ and why should I care for the world’s opinion ? It could not make me happy, if I conciliated it ; but I think lie could, if I defied it for his sake,” 154 WRECKED IN PORT. CHAPTER XY. “NEWS FROM THE HUMMING CITY.” After tlie ladies left the dining-room, Walter Joyce, in the general re-arrangement of seats thereon ensuing, found himself placed next to Mr. Gould. It was soon obvious that his propinquity was not accidental on Mr. Gould’s part. That keen-looking gentleman at once wheeled round in his chair, helped himself to a few olives and a glass of the driest sherry within his reach, and then fixing his bright steel-blue eyes on his neighbour, said — “ That was news for you, that about young Creswell’s accident, Mr. Joyce?” “It was indeed,” replied Walter; “ and — to a certain extent — sad news.” “ You knew the boy who was killed, and his father ? ” “ Both. I knew the boy well ; he was a pupil in the school where I was an usher, and I knew the father — by sight — as a man in my position would know a man in his.” 44 Ah — of course ! ” and Mr. Gould glanced more keenly than ever at his interlocutor, to see whether he was speak- ing earnestly or contemptuously. Earnestly, he thought, after a glance, and Joyce fell a little in the worldly man’s opinion. He sucked an olive slowly, made a little pattern on his plate with the stones, and then said, “ Do you think this affair will make any difference in Mr. Creswell’s future ? ” “ In his future ? Will the loss of his son make an3= r difference in his future ? Are you serious in asking such a question, Mr. Gould? Will it not leave his life a blank, a vague misery without ” 4 4 Yes, yes, of course ; I know all about that. You’ll pardon me, Mr. Joyce, I’m a much older man than you, and therefore yon won’t mind my experiencing a certain “ NEWS FROM THE HUMMING CITY. 1 155 amount of deliglit in your perfect freshness and sim- plicity. As to leaving the man’s life blank, and all that — nonsense, my dear sir, sheer nonsense. He’ll find plenty of distraction, even at his age, to fill up the blank. Now, I was not considering the question from a domestic point of view in the least; what I meant was, do you think that it will alter any of his intentions as regards public life?” “ Public life ? — Mr. Creswell ? ” “ Yes, indeed, public life, Mr. Creswell ! I suppose now there’s no harm in telling you that the Conservative authorities in London, the wire-pullers in Westminster, have long had it in their minds to wrest the seat for Brocksopp from the Liberals, that at the next general election they have determined to make the fight, and they have selected Mr. Creswell as their champion.” “ Mr. Creswell of Woolgreaves — going into Parlia- ment ? ” “Well, that’s rather a summary way of putting it, Mr. Joyce,” said the lawyer, with a chuckle. “ Say rather, going to try to get into Parliament ! Bidwell, of Brock- sopp, the Liberal agent, is a deuced long-headed fellow, and will make a tremendous struggle to keep Mr. Creswell out in the cold. Do you know Bidwell, of Brocksopp ? ” “ I have a slight acquaintance with him.” “ Then you’ve a slight acquaintance with a remark- ably sharp character, and one who never misses a chance for his party. It will be a tremendous fight, sir, this next election,” said Mr. Gould, warming up, placing all his olive-stones in a row, and charging at them with his dessert-knife ; “ they’ll do all they can to beat us, and we shall have to do all we know to hold our own. When I say ‘ we,’ of course I reckon you as a Conservative.” “ I — I have no political opinions. I take no interest in politics,” said Joyce absently. Mr. Creswell, from any but a domestic point of view, could not rouse an emotion in him. “Don’t you indeed? No political opinions? Ah, I 156 WRECKED IN PORT. remember when I hadn’t any myself. That was — dear me ! ” and the astute parliamentary agent made a new pattern with the olive-stones, while his thoughts went back for a quarter of a century, to a time when he was under articles in Gray’s Inn, used to frequent the Cider Cellars, and was desperately in love with the columbine of the Adelphi. They went to the drawing-room soon afterwards. There was some instrumental music of the most approved firework style, and then Captain Frampton growled away at “II Balen” with great success, and Joyce was just making up his mind to slip away, when Lady Caroline Mansergh sat down to the piano, and began to sing one of Moore’s melodies to her own accompaniment. Ah, surely it is not laying one’s self open to the charge of fogeyism to grieve over the relegation to the “ Canterbury ” of those charming ballads, wherein the brightest fancies were wedded to the sweetest sounds ? If the “ makers of the people’s ballads ” possess the power ascribed to them, there is, indeed, but little cause to wonder at the want of tone prevalent in a society, which for its drawing-room music alternates between mawkish sentimentality and pot- house slang. When the first note of Lady Caroline’s rich contralto voice rippled round the room, the guests standing about in small knots, coffee-cup in hand, gradually sidled towards the piano, and ere she had sung the first stanza even Colonel Tapp’s ventriloquial grumbling — he was discussing army estimates, and the infernal attempts at cheeseparing of the Manchester School — was hushed. No one in the room was uninfluenced by the singer’s spell, on no one had it so much effect as on Walter Joyce, who sat far away in the shadow of a curtain, an open photograph-book unheeded on his knee, drinking in the melody and surrendering himself entirely to its potent charms. His eyes were fixed on the singer, now on her expressive face, now on her delicate little hands as they went softly wandering over the keys, but his thoughts were very, very far away. Far away in the old school “NEWS from the humming city.” 157 garden, with its broad grass-plots, its ruddy wall, its high elm trees, frame-like bordering the sweet domestic picture. Far away with Marian, the one love which his soul had ever known. Ah, how visibly he saw her then, the trim figure noiselessly moving about on its domestic errands, the bright beryl eyes upturned in eager questioning towards his own, the delicate hand with its long thin fingers laid in such trusting confidence on his arm ! What ages it seemed since he had seen her ! what a tremendous gulf seemed ever to separate them ! And what prospect was there of that union for which they had so fervently prayed ? The position he was to gain — where was that ? What progress had he made in — “ friends once linked together I’ve seen around me fall, like leaves in wintry weather ! ” Ay, ay, the poor old dominie, at rest — better there than anywhere else, better to be out of the strife and the worry, and — good heavens ! was this what he had promised her? was this the courage on which he had prided himself, and which was to carry him through the world? “Brava! brava ! Oh, thank you so very much, Lady Caroline. Mayn’t we hope for another? Thanks, so much ! ” The song was over ; the singer had left the piano. He caught one glance as he bowed and murmured his thanks. He could not stand it any longer, his thoughts had completely unmanned him, and he longed for solitude. If it were rude to leave the party he must brave even Lady Hetherington’s wrath, but he would try and get away unobserved. Now, while the hum of admi- ration was still going on, and while people were gathering- round Lady Caroline, was the opportunity. He availed himself of it, slipped away unperceived, and hurried to his own room. He closed the door behind him, turned the key, and flung himself on to the bed, in the dark. He felt that he could contain himself no longer, and now that he was alone and unseen, there was no further reason to restrain the tears which had been welling into his eyes, and now flowed unchecked down his cheeks. He was a man of 158 WRECKED IN PORT. nervous temperament, highly wrought susceptibilities, and acute sympathies, which had been over-excited during the evening by the story of Tom Cres well’s death, his own recollections of his past life, and the weird thought- compelling power of Lady Caroline’s music. There was no special occasion for these tears ; he knew nothing had happened to Marian, nothing — no, nothing had happened calculated in any way to interpose any — any barrier between them ; his position was pleasant, his prospects brighter than he could have hoped — and yet, and yet! How very strange that she had not written lately ! — unless, indeed, she had been completely absorbed by ministering to the trouble round her. Walter could easily picture to himself the comfort she must have been to all in the midst of the desolation which had fallen upon that hitherto prosperous house ; he recollected how even in the midst of her own deep sorrow she had been able, at the time of her father’s death, to rouse her mother from the lethargic state of grief into which she had fallen ; and if Marian could do that then, while her own heart was bleeding, how much more would she be able to bestir herself now, when neither for the dead, nor for those left behind, had she anything but a kindly interest? And might not this sad event prove a useful lesson to her; might it not prove the one thing needful to render her a perfect character, showing her, as it would, that there are worse misfortunes than poverty, and that grief can slip in behind the shields of wealth and position, and abase the heads of their possessors to the dust? That longing for money and worship of position was the only blot in Marian’s character, as seen by Walter Joyce’s eyes, and if this accident led to its eradication, it would not have been without its beneficent purpose. He rose from the bed, and felt his way towards his' dressing-table. As he was groping for the matches, his hand fell upon an unopened letter. From Marian, with- out a doubt; he felt his heart throbbing; at once ho struck a light and looked hurriedly for the familiar NEWS FROM THE HUMMING CITY. 159 ci writing. No, not from Marian ! Totally unlike her square neatly written notes ; a large bine letter, directed in a straggling hand, and awkwardly folded. Though Joyce was disappointed and vexed for an instant, he quickly recovered himself, and he took the letter up and smiled at it pleasantly, for he had recognised the style and the writing, and he knew that it had come from old Jack Byrne. Thus it ran : “ London, Thursday. “My dear Boy, “ You’ll wonder I haven’t answered that capital letter you sent me, giving a description of Westhope and its people, and your life there. You’ll wonder, because you are young; when you’re as old as I am you won’t wonder at anything, except when you sometimes find a man tell the truth ; but you shouldn’t wonder then, because it would only be an accident. I am very glad that you seem to be so comfortable among the swells, but I never had much fear about it. I know them root and branch, the whole lot, though I’m only an old bird-stuffer; but I’m like Ulysses, I’ve seen men and cities, and used my eyes — used ’em so much that, by Jove ! I don’t think they’ll last me much longer — at least, for thb fine work in my business. What was I saying ? Oh, I see ; I know the swells, and I know that if they see a man respect himself they always respect him. All of ’em, sir ; don’t make any mistake about it. All of ’em, the most ineffable transparencies, who think you’re sewn up and stuffed in quite a different way from themselves, the kindly noodles, and the clever people — for there are clever people, a few, even among swells — all like to see a man respect himself. You’ll have found out by this time, if you did not know it before, that Lord Hetherington is one of the kindly noodles, and one of the best of ’em. He can’t help be- lieving in his blood, and his lineage, and his descent from those bloodthirsty, ignorant old ruffians of the Middle Ages, whose only good was that they killed other blood- 160 WRECKED IN PORT. thirsty, ignorant old ruffians, and he can’t help being a fool, that being the penalty which a man generally has to pay for being able to boast of his descent ; but he is harmless and kind-hearted. How goes on the book? Take my advice, and make it light and anecdotical. Boil down those old chronicles and parchments of the great West family, and serve them up in a soufflet. And don’t let your heavy pedagogical style be seen in the dish ! If you do, everybody will know at once that my lord has had nothing to do with the book on the title-page of which his name figures. I suppose it wouldn’t do to put in any bad spelling, would it ? That would be immensely reassuring to all who know Lord Hetherington as to the real author- ship. “ And my lady, how is that grande dame ? I’ve grinned a hundred times, thinking over your face of indignation and disgust at the manner in which she received you that day we went to call on their magnificences at the Clarendon, with a view to your engagement ! How does she treat you now ? Has she ordered you to black her boots yet, or to wash her lap-dog, or to take your meals with her lady’s-maid ? Or, more likely still, has she never taken any notice at all of you, having no idea of your existence, beyond the fact that there is a writing-machine — you — in the library, as there is a churn in the dairy, and a mangle in the laundry ! And does this behaviour gird you, and do you growl inwardly about it, or are you a philosopher, and able to despise anything that a woman can do to hurt you ? If the latter, come up to town at once, and I will exhibit you in a show as a lusus naturae , and we will divide the profits and make our fortunes. “ And while on that subject, Walter, let me drop my old cynical fun, and talk to you for a minute honestly and with all the affection of which my hard, warped, crabbed nature is capable. I can write to you what I couldn’t say to you, my boy, and you won’t think me gushing when I tell you that my heart had been tight locked and barred for years before I saw you, and that I don’t think I’ve NEWS FEOM THE HUMMING CITY. 161 << been any the worse since you found a key somehow — God knows how — to unlock it. Now, then, after that little bit of maudlin nonsense, to what I was going to say. The first time we were ever in my old room together talking over your future, I proposed to start you for Australia. You declined, saying that you couldn’t possibly leave England; and when I pressed you about the ties that bound you here, and learned that you had no father or mother, you boggled, and hesitated, and broke down, and I was obliged to help you out of your sentence by chang- ing the subject. Do you remember all that ? And do you think I didn’t know what it all meant ? That marvellous stupidity of young men, which prevents them from think- ing that any one has ever been young but themselves ! I knew that it meant that you were in love, Walter, and that’s what I want to ask you about. From that hour until the day we pressed hands in farewell at Euston Square, you never alluded to her again ! In the long letter which you sent me, and which now lies before me, a letter treating fully of your present and your future life, there is no word of her ! Don’t think I am surprised at a fine, generous, hearty, hopeful young fellow not giving his love-confidence to a withered, dried-up old skittle like myself ; I never expected it ; I should not mention it now, save that I fear that the state of affairs can be scarcely satisfactory between you, or you, who have placed your whole story unresex’vedly before me, would not have hidden this most important part of it. Nor do I want to ask you for a confidence which you have not volunteered. I only wish you to examine the matter calmly, quietly, and under the exercise of your common sense, of which you have plenty. And if it is unsatisfactory in any way — give it up ! Yes, Walter, give it up ! It sounds harshly, ridiculously, I know, but it is honest advice, and if I had had any one to say it to me years and years ago, and to enforce my adoption of it, I should have been a very different man. Believe in no woman’s love, Walter; trust no woman’s looks, or words, or vows. ‘ First of all would M 162 WRECKED IN PORT. I fly from the cruel madness of love,’ says Mr. Tennyson, and he is right. Cruel madness, indeed ! we laugh at the wretched lunatic who dons a paper crown, and holds a straw for a sceptre, while all the time we are hugging our own tinsel vanities, and exulting in our own sham state ! That’s where the swells have the pull, my boy ! They have no nonsense about mutual love, and fitness, and congeniality, and all that stuff, which is fitted for nothing but valentine-mongers and penny-romancists ; they are not very wise, but they lmow that the domi- nant passion in a man’s heart is admiration of beauty, the dominant passion in a woman’s is ambition, and they go quietly into the mart and arrange the affair, on the excellent principle of barter. When I was your age I could not believe in this, had high hopes and aspirations, and scouted the idea of woman’s inconstancy — went on loving and hoping and trusting, from month to month, and from year to year, wore out my youth and my freshness and my hope, and was then flung aside and discarded, the victim of 4 better opportunities ’ and 4 im- proved position.’ Oh, Lord! I never intended to open my mouth about this, but if you ever want to hear the whole story, I’ll tell you some day. Meanwhile, think over these hints, my boy ! Life’s too short and too hard as it is, and — verbum sap. 44 Most probably you’ll never -take any further notice of me, after that. If you have corns, I must have been hard and heavy upon them, and you’ll curse my impertinence ; if you haven’t, you’ll think me the prosiest of old bores. Just like me. I see plainly that I must have made a mess of it, whichever way it turns up. “You tell me to send you news. Not much about; but what there is, encouraging and good for the cause. There is very little doubt that at the general election, which will come off in a few months, we shall be stronger by far than we ever expected, and shall cut the combs of some of those aristocrats and plutocrats very close indeed. There is a general feeling that blood and money- NEWS FROM THE HUMMING CITY. 163 bags bave divided the spoil too long, and and that worth and intellect may be allowed a chance of being brought into play. There are three or four men at the club, whom you know, and who are tolerably certain of seats, and who, if once they get the opportunity of making their voices heard in Parliament, will show the world of what stuff real Englishmen consist. Who do you think is helping us immensely ? Shimmer, he of Bliff kins’s ! He has got an engagement on the Comet — a new journal which has just started in our interest, and he is writing admirably. A good deal of Lempriere’s dictionary, and Bohn’s quotations, and Solomon’s proverbs, mixed up with a dashing incisive style and sound Saxon English, has proved immensely telling. People are buying the Comet everywhere, and Shimmer’s salary has been twice raised, and he has been applied to for his photograph. He does not come much to Bliff kins’s now, greatly to old Wickwar’s relief. The old gentleman has expressed his opinion that since Robsperry (he is supposed to have meant Robespierre) there has been no such sanguinary democrat as Shimmer. When will you come back to us, Walter? I look at the place where I used to see you sitting, before I ever spoke to you ; I sit and stare at it now until I feel my eyes D — d old fool ! “ Good-bye, boy. Let me hear from you again soon. You know what you promised if ever you wanted money or anything. J. B. “ Opened again to say Shimmer has been here in- quiring after you. Comet people want a correspondent at Berlin — special and important. S. thinks you’ll do. Will you go ? J. B.” The company had long since departed from Westhope ; the family had long since retired to rest; dim lights glimmered here and there in the windows ; but Walter Joyce remained sitting on the side of his bed, with Jack Byrne’s open letter in his hand. When he wrote it the old man little thought what a field of painful speculation ho had laid open for its recipient. 164 WRECKED IN PORT. CHAPTEB XVI. “HE LOVES ME; HE LOVES ME NOT.” The interest which Walter Joyce had awakened in Lady Caroline Mansergh on the night of the dinner-party by no means died out, or even waned. Flirtation is certainly not an exceptional amusement in the dead level of dreary occupations which a country-house life affords, but this word-pastime was certainly not flirtation. The notion of flirting with her brother’s secretary, which would have been exceedingly comic to the rest of the world, and afforded a vast deal of amusement to the kindly noodle portion of the Westhope society, did not strike Lady Caroline at all in a ridiculous light ; but to flirt with Walter Joyce she knew would be impossible. The sighing and looking, the giving and taking, the fetching and carrying, and all the poodle tricks which are played by the best style of male flirts, in the best style of society, she knew would be impossible to him ; and though she had had long practice in the art, and had derived no little amusement from it, she felt it would be repulsive to her to try her hand on such a subject. If not a desire for flirtation, what was it that irresistibly impelled her to seek this man’s society ; that made her start and thrill at the unexpected sound of his voice ; that enabled her to picture to herself so vividly certain expressions in his eyes, gestures of his hands, to recall phrases of his conversation ? Was it real passion? Had love come to her at last? Was this the man with whom her fate was to be for ever bound up ? Lady Caroline half smiled as she contemplated this tremendous possibility. It was too wild, too roman tic^ this story of the Lord of Burleigh with the sexes reversed, and with herself for heroine ; the man was different from those with whom her life had been passed, had brains and courage to use them, did not think the society thoughts 165 “ HE LOVES ME ; HE LOVES ME NOT.” nor speak the society language, and was not comformable in any way to the society pattern. That was what it meant. That was the source of the strange interest she felt in him — interest which was friendly and appreciative, but nothing further. Nothing further. That was why she had manoeuvred, carefully, skilfully, and with perfect feminine tact, never ceasing until the object was accomplished, that it was understood that Mr. Joyce joined the family circle always after dinner, whether there were visitors or not ; that was why she invariably found opportunities to have him seated by her side, or standing by her turning over the pages of her music, while Lord Hetherington, with a dexterity only acquired by long practice, held up the newspaper before him, being at the time sound asleep, and her ladyship, scorning concealment, slumbered placidly in the garish light of the moderator lamp. Nothing further. That was why Lady Caroline had suddenly taken to pedestrian exercise, wanted an escort occasionally to the village, and hated the idea of being followed about in the country by a footman ; found she had quite forgotten that charming Shakespeare, and deter- mined to read his dear plays again, and would not trouble Mr. Joyce to send those heavy big volumes from the library, but would come in and read them there occasion- ally, if he was quite sure she did not disturb him. The jealous tortures endured by the valiant Othello, which Lady Caroline selected for her first Shakespearian reading, apparently did not interest her very much. The great family history of the Wests, derived from ancient chronicles and documents, upon which Lord Hethering ton’s secretary was engaged, made but little progress on the occasions of her ladyship’s visits. There were the longest and the plea- santest talks. In Caroline Mansergh’s hands Joyce was as pliable as potter’s clay. In less than a week after the dinner-party he had told her the history of his life, made her acquainted with his hopes and fears, his wishes and aspirations. Of course she heard about his engagement to 166 WRECKED IN PORT. Marian ; equally of course that was the part of the story in which she felt and shared the greatest interest. Very quickly she knew it all. Under her skilful questioning, Joyce not merely told her what had actually occurred, but opened to her the secret chambers of his heart, and displayed • to her penetrating sense feelings with the existence of which he himself was scarcely acquainted. The odd uncomfort- able sensation which first came over him in his last walk with Marian round the school garden, when she spoke of how it might have been better if they had never met, and how poorly armed he was for the great conflict of life, the renewal of the sting with its bitterness increased fifty-fold at the receipt of her letter dilating on the luxury of Wool- greaves, and her dread of the poverty which they would have to encounter, the last hint given to him in the worldly advice contained in; Jack Byrne’s letter — all these were submitted to Lady Caroline’s keen powers of dissec- tion, without Walter’s being in the least aware how much of his inner life he had made patent to her. A look, a nod, a word here or there, begat, increased, and developed his assurance of sympathy ; and he could have talked till all eternity on the subject dearest to his heart. Lady Caroline let him talk, and only starred the dia- logue with occasional interjections, always of a sympa- thising character. When she was alone, she would sit for hours reviewing the conversation just past in the minutest detail, weighing and reweighing sentences and even; words which Joyce had spoken, sifting, balancing, ascribing to such and such influences, putting aside such and such theories, bringing all her feminine wits — and in the great points of feminine cleverness, an odd common sense, and an undefinable blundering on to the right, she had no superior — to the solution of the question of Walter Joyce’s future so far as Marian Ashurst was concerned. Whatever conclusion she may have arrived at she kept to herself ; no one ever had the slightest glimmering of it. Her talks with Walter Joyce were as numerous as ever, her interest in his career no less, her delight in his society by no means im- “HE LOVES ME; HE LOVES ME NOT.” 167 paired ; but the name of Miss Ashurst never passed Lady Caroline’s lips, and whenever she saw the conversation necessarily veering that way, she invariably struck it out into some new channel. Not that Lady Caroline Mansergh had any jealousy of this “ simple maiden in her flower ; ” she would not have allowed that for an instant, would not have allowed, in her most secret communings with herself, that such a thing could be possible ; for she had been properly and rigidly brought up in the Belgravian code of morals, though a little inclined to kick against them now and think for herself ; and the Belgravian code of morals holds the cultivation of the bien-seances as the most essen- tial portion of a young lady’s curriculum, and the bien- seances effectively ignored the existence of any such low sentiment as jealousy in the minds of perfectly constituted members of the upper classes. Not that Walter Joyce would have noticed the display of any such passion as jealousy, or, as Lady Caroline thought rather ruefully, could allow any such feeling to be excited in him. In all her experience — and it had been large and vast — she had never come across a man so completely Well, she could scarcely find a term for it. It was not apathetic, because he was bright and intelligent and earnest. Per- haps confiding was the best word to use so far as his relations with Marian were concerned, though, as Lady Caroline felt, those relations were a little dashed with recent doubt ; and as for his feelings with regard to her- self, skilled mistress as she^was in the art of such wordy warfare, Lady Caroline could never trap him into an am- buscade, or force him into anything like an acknow- ledgment of a liking for her. It was not for the want of trying to evoke it, not for lack of given opportunity on her part, that this avowal never was made. Fortune favoured her, notably on one occasion; and if Walter Joyce had ever contemplated anything beyond a feeling of pleasant friendship for Lady Caroline Mansergh, he would have availed himself of that occasion for expressing it. Thus it came about. Lady Caroline was sitting half buried in a 168 WRECKED IN PORT. big soft easy-chair before tlie library fire, presumably enjoy- ing Othello , but really watching her brother’s secretary, who was busily transcribing from a big black-letter volume before him some of the glorious deeds of her remote ancestry. Kaising his eyes after one of his pen-dips, Joyce met Lady Caroline’s glance fixed straight upon him, and said — “ Thinking of Iago’s subtlety, Lady Caroline, or Des- demona’s innate weakness ? The former, I should say, judging from your expression.” “ My expression must be very poor, then, Mr. Joyce, or your powers of reading expression must be extremely limited. I was thinking of something totally different.” • “ May one ask of what ? ” He had had a long day at the chronicles of the West family, and a little relief was absolutely necessary. “ Oh dear, yes ; my thoughts were certainly not to be marked ‘ confidential ’ or even c private.’ I was thinking about our going back to town.” “ Oh, indeed ! Is that imminent ? ” “ I should say certainly. Parliament meets within a fortnight, and West, I mean Lord Hetherington, never misses that. Lady Hetherington won’t let him go alone, and once in Beaufort Square, I suppose they’ll stop on.” “I suppose so. This house will seem wonderfully different when you have all left it.” “ Naturally. Deserted houses must be different to those filled with company, though their actual appearance is of course only known to the housekeeper who is left in them, and housekeepers seldom give their impressions to the world.” “ If you are interested in the subject, perhaps you will permit me to give you a faithful photograph of Westhope in its dismantled state.” “ Evolved from your inner graciousness, like the Ger- man’s idea of the camel ?•” “ On the contrary, drawn in the minutest detail from personal observation. The exact position of the pen which 169 “ HE LOVES ME ; HE LOVES ME NOT.” Lord Hetherington threw down after signing his last cheque for Mr. Deacon, the steward, the state of the withering hothouse flowers left by her ladyship on her table in the drawing-room, the vacant chair in the library once filled by ” “ Thanks, that’s enough ! I won’t trouble you to be poetical, Mr. Joyce ; that will be wanted one day at Hel- mingham, I suppose, and it’s never wise to be extravagant with one’s ideas. But you don’t mean to say you think you will be left behind here, at Westhope, when the family returns to town ? ” “ Assuredly, Lady Caroline ! How else should I be able to make any progress with my work ? ” “ I think you will find,” said Lady Caroline, with a smile, “ that the history of our family, wonderfully in- teresting as it doubtless is, and anxiously expected by the literary world, as it necessarily must be, will have to remain in abeyance for a little time. The fact is, that Lord Hetherington has been recently much struck with the levelling and democratic spirit of the age, and has deter- mined, so far as he is able, to stem the torrent. He will need a certain amount of assistance before bringing the matter before the House of Lords, and for that assistance I know he looks to you ! ” He was a trying man, this Mr. Joyce. There was a scarcely suppressed gleam of fun in Lady Caroline’s usually earnest eyes that ought to have conveyed to any man acquainted with the circumstances of the position the fact that this new combination had been suggested by her. and by her alone, and that she perfectly appreciated not merely its serviceable but its ludicrous side. Walter Joyce appreciated neither. He should of course be ready to give his services in whatever way they might be required, he said, adding with clumsy candour that he had been almost looking forward to the time of the family’s departure for the additional facilities which would be afforded him in getting on with his work. This was too much for Lady Caroline. A flush passed across her cheek, as she said — 170 WRECKED IN PORT. “ It has been Lady Hetherington’s accidental, and by no means wilful error, Mr. J oyce, that your time has been already so much intruded on. We have, unfortunately for us no doubt, been unaccustomed to the ways of recluses, and have preposterously imagined that a little society might be more agreeable to them than 55 But here she stopped, catching sight of the troubled expression on his face, of his downcast eyes and twitching lips. There was silence for a moment, but he soon mastered his emotion. “ I see plainly that I have blundered, as was not un- natural that I should, through the lack of power of ex- pressing myself clearly. Believe me, Lady Caroline, that I am infinitely indebted to Lord and Lady Hetherington, and to you especially. Yes, indeed, for I know where the indebtedness lies — more especially to you for all the kind- ness you have shown me, and the notice you have taken of me. And I — I intended ” “ Will you prove the truth of your protestations by never saying another word on the subject? The give-and- take principle has been carried out in our society as much as the most ardent democrat, say yourself, Mr. Joyce, could have desired. I am sure you are too good-natured to mourn over the hours torn from your great work and frittered away in frivolous conversation when you know that you have helped Lady Hetherington and myself to undergo an appalling amount of country people, and that while the dead Wests may grieve over the delay in the publication of their valour and virtue, the living Wests are grateful for assistance rendered them in their conflict with the bores. Ho^vever, all that is nearly at an end. When the family is at Hetherington House, I have no doubt you will be enabled to enjoy the strictest seclusion. Meantime, there is only one festivity that I know of which is likely to cause us to ask you to tear yourself away from your chronicles.” “ And that is ? ” “ A skating-party. Consequently dependent on the HE LOVES ME ; HE LOVES ME NOT. 171