CHAPTER VI.—ALONE.
It was a strange life that of Mr Lloyd Hadleigh. A solitary life, notwithstanding the consciousness of success, the possession of a considerable fortune, and the knowledge that it had been earned by his own ability. He was still young enough to have the capacity for enjoyment, if age were numbered by years; still young enough to have been the companion of his children and to have made new friendships. But there was something so cold and reserved in his bearing, that although he had many acquaintances, he had no friends or companions; and the good fortune he possessed made many people resent his ungracious manner.
With everything apparently that man could desire to secure happiness, he lived absolutely alone. His nearest approach to companionship was with his eldest son Coutts Hadleigh. But even with him there was constraint, and their companionship appeared to be due more to their close association in business than to affection.
This Coutts Hadleigh was a tall, wiry man, who entered into the pleasures of the world with discretion, and a cynical smile always on his face, as if he were laughing at the pleasures rather than in them. He was a captain of Volunteers, and as punctual in his attendance upon drill as in attendance at his office. For he was a strict man of business, and was now the practical manager as well as leading partner in the house of Hadleigh and Co., shipbrokers and bankers. He neither laughed at his brother Philip’s indifference to the affairs of the office, nor attempted to advise him. Sometimes, however, he would say, with one of his dry, cynical smiles: ‘You are doing everything you can, Phil, to keep yourself out of a partnership, and you will be sorry for it some day—especially if you mean to marry that young lady over the way in a hurry. Playing the gentleman at ease is not the way to make sure of the ease. However’—— Then he would shrug his shoulders, as if washing his hands of the whole matter with the mental exclamation: ‘But just as you like; there will be the more for me.’ Only he never uttered that exclamation aloud.
‘All right,’ Philip would say with a laugh; ‘my time is coming; and I prefer happiness to a banking account.’
There the subject would drop, and Coutts would turn away with a pitying smile.
As for the three daughters, they accepted their position with as much content as is permitted to young ladies who have nothing whatever to do but go through the routine of paying formal visits in their carriage, attending garden parties in summer and dining out in winter. Miss Hadleigh (Beatrice) had been lately engaged to a thriving young merchant, and in consequence assumed a dignified primness. The other two, Caroline and Bertha, were looking forward to that happy state; and, meanwhile, having just been released from boarding-school, found their chief delights in fiction and lawn-tennis. They had every opportunity to enjoy themselves in their own ways, for their father interfered little with them, whilst he never stinted them in pocket-money.
Ringsford Manor was a large old-fashioned building of red brick, with a wing added by Mr Hadleigh, when he came into possession, for a new dining-room and a billiard-room. The house stood in about twenty acres of ground, on the borders of the Forest. The gardens were under the care of a Scotchman, named Sam Culver, whose pride it was to produce the finest pansies, roses, and geraniums in the neighbourhood or at the local flower-shows. He had also obtained a prize at the Crystal Palace rose-show, which made him more eager than ever to maintain his reputation. The result of this honourable ambition was that the grounds of Ringsford were the admiration of the whole county; and as the proprietor on certain days of the year threw them open to the public and invited bands of school-children to an annual fête, his character as a benefactor spread far and wide.
Much, however, as Sam Culver’s skill as a gardener was admired, there were many gallants, old as well as young, who declared that the finest flower he had ever reared was his daughter, Pansy.
As Mr Hadleigh was returning from his visit to Willowmere, he got out of the carriage about half a mile from his own gate and bade the coachman drive home. Then he proceeded to walk slowly into the Forest in the direction of the King’s Oak.
The rich foliage, the dense clumps of bracken and furze, with their changing colours and varying lights and shades looking their best in the bright sunshine, did not attract his eyes. His head was bowed and his hands tightly clasped behind him, as if his thoughts were bitter ones and far away from the lovely scene around him. At times he would lift his head with a sudden jerk and look into space, seeing nothing.
But as he approached the broad spreading King’s Oak—so called from some legendary association with King Charles—the loud laughter of children roused him from his reverie.
Pansy Culver was seated on the ground, threading necklets and bracelets of buttercups and daisies for a group of little children who were capering and laughing round her. She was herself a child still in thought, but verging on womanhood in years; and the soft, bright features, brown with the sun, and lit by two dark, merry eyes, suggested that her father in his fancy for his favourite flowers had given her an appropriate name.
She rose respectfully as Mr Hadleigh approached; and he halted, looking for an instant as if he ought to know her and did not. Then his eyes took in the whole scene—the bright face, the happy children, and the buttercups and daisies. Something in the appearance of the group brought a curiously sad expression to his face. He was contrasting their condition with his own: the little that made them so joyful, and the much that gave him no content.
‘Ah, Pansy,’ he said, ‘what a fortunate girl you are. I wish I could change places with you—and yet no; that is an evil wish. Do you not think so?’
‘I don’t know, sir; and I don’t know how you should wish to change places with me. I do not think many people like you would want to do it.’
A slow nodding movement of his head expressed his pity for her ignorance of how little is required for real happiness, and how the contented ploughman is richer than he who possesses the mines of Golconda without content. It was that sort of movement which accompanies the low sibilating sound of tst-tst-tst.
‘I hope you will never know, child, why a person like me can wish to change places with one like you.’
He passed on slowly, leaving the girl looking after him in wonderment. When she told her father of this singular encounter, he only said: ‘I’m doubtin’ the poor man has something on his mind. But it’s none of our business; and you ken there is only one kind o’ riches that brings happiness.’
Mr Hadleigh spent the rest of that day in his library. He was writing, but not letters. At intervals he would rise and pace the floor, as if agitated by what he wrote. Then he seemed to force himself to sit down again at the desk and continue writing, and would presently repeat the former movement.
By the time that Philip returned, several sheets of closely written manuscript had been carefully locked away in a deed-box, and the box was locked away in a safe which stood in the darkest corner of the room.
After dinner he desired Philip to come into the library as soon as he had finished his cigar. Although he did not smoke himself, he did not object to the habit in others.
‘Something queer about the governor to-night,’ said Coutts, sipping his wine and smoking leisurely. ‘I have noticed him several times lately looking as if he had got a fit of the blues or dyspepsia at least, yet I don’t know how that can be with a man who is so careful of his digestion. He ought to come into town oftener.’
‘Anything wrong in town?’ inquired Philip, and in his tone there was a note of consideration for his father: in that of Coutts there was none.
‘Things never were better since I have known the business. That is not the cause of his queer humour, whatever it may be. Might be first touch of gout.’
Philip rose and threw away his cigar. He did not like his brother’s manner when he spoke in this manner of their parent.
On entering the library, he found it almost in darkness; for the curtains were partly drawn and the lamps were not lit. For a moment he could not see his father; but presently discovered him standing on the hearth, his arms crossed on the broad mantel-shelf, and his brow resting on them. He turned slowly, and his face was in deep shadow, so that its expression could not be distinguished.
‘I told them I did not want lights yet,’ he said, and there was a huskiness in his voice which was very unusual, as it was rather metallic in its clearness. ‘Will you excuse it, and sit down?’
‘Certainly, sir; but I hope there is nothing seriously wrong. I trust you are not unwell?’
There was no answer for a moment, and the dark outline of the figure was like a mysterious silhouette. Then: ‘I am not particularly well at present. The matter which I wish to speak to you about is serious; but I believe there is nothing wrong in it, and that we can easily come to an agreement about it. Will you sit down?’
Philip obeyed, marvelling greatly as to what this mysterious business could be which seemed to disturb his father so much, making him speak and act so unlike himself.
(To be continued.)