All too late his wife saw the blunder she had made, and tried to wean him back to sobriety. Failing in that, her pride and cunning came to the rescue. She smothered her tears and veiled her sorrows before the world, hiding at the same time her husband's infirmity as much as possible from the public eye. The lot was hard, her punishment severe, but she braced herself to it with a woman's patient courage, and straightway opened her heart to new hopes and dreams of better days to come. Henceforth the aim of her life must be to get her four daughters settled in life. Alas! the settlements would need to be humbler now than those she had once dreamed of. The tables of the great ones of the parish were not now open to them as they had been before her money had gone, and before Codling took to drink. There was not even a barrack in the neighbourhood, with its successive bevies of foolish young officers to prey upon—only Leamington with its dawdling crowds of nobodies. Ah, well, the most had to be made of the opportunities that offered.
These being the circumstances of the family at the vicarage, this the mental attitude of Mrs. Codling, who could wonder that her soured spirit rose once more within her with a feeling akin to gratitude towards a merciful providence, when Captain Wiseman came in her way? Despair had sometimes nearly marked her down for his prey, and lo! here was the Prince of the fairy tale. Dresses were forthwith obtained for the girls such as they had not worn for years, for happily their mother had still a few jewels left which she could pawn or sell. And being handsome girls—two of them particularly so—they soon attracted a good deal of the roving guardsman's attention. At first a little flirtation with them gave a pleasant variety to his existence, rendered just a little monotonous by the labour of stalking down Sally Wanless. The shrewd mother contrived that his opportunities should be frequent. The old pony chaise was furbished up anew and the girls took to driving the fat, wheezy, old pony about the country in a manner new and far from agreeable to it. In this way they managed to cross the Captain's trail much after his own style with Sally. During that winter he hunted a good deal, and the Codling girls developed an enthusiasm for the sport which made them haunt meets far and near. Months before the Captain flung Sarah from him he had thus become familiar with the sight of these girls, and no sooner was she well destroyed than he began to develop a preference for the youngest but one—Adelaide or Adela Codling. Miss Adela was a buxom, roystering, kind of girl, of handsome features, light brains, and abundant animal spirits. Already, though but nineteen, she had a reputation amongst her acquaintances of being what the pump-room gossip of Leamington styled "fastish." She affected outré fashion in dress, and was always ready to lead a revolt against established proprieties. To play the boisterous hoyden at a harvest home or farmer's Christmas dance, where she could scandalise all the sober domestic virtue of the parish and make every buxom farmer's lass wild with jealousy by her extravagant flirtations with the young men, delighted Miss Adelaide beyond measure.
This free young lady was most to the Captain's taste of all the four, but her mother felt disappointed at the preference. It not only left the eldest girl out in the cold, but made Mrs. Codling's task more dangerous. Adela had no prudence, and unripe plans might become known to Lady Harriet through her folly. Besides, her ladyship would probably be harder to persuade into accepting Adela as a daughter-in-law than any of the other three.
So thought the prudent, anxious mother; but she was too wise to interfere. A risk must be taken in any case, and she resolved to let the captain have his way, bracing herself to greater vigilance and higher flights of matrimonial diplomacy than ever. And she found a much more efficient ally in the Captain than she had expected. Men, in her opinion, were never prudent in love matters, but this man was as cautious as a diplomat on a secret mission. It did not suit him any more than Mrs. Codling that his mother should scent danger in his visits to the vicarage. In such a place as Ashbrook and in ordinary circumstances all their care would have gone for nothing; but, happily for their plans, her ladyship did not go out much now, and called seldom on any of her neighbours. Her husband, the estate, her miserable son, any one of them would have given her grief or work enough to keep her well at home. When she went abroad, therefore, it was generally for an hour's drive out and home, or to Leamington or Warwick on business.
Just now she was struggling hard not to lose the dream of hope that had for a short time gladdened her heart about her boy, and was failing in the effort. Notwithstanding his long visits to the Grange, his demands for money continued to be insatiable. He always put his necessities down to the bad conduct of the Jews. They had got him fast, he said, and would give him no peace. But as bill after bill got paid, only to be succeeded by a new crop, Lady Harriet began to doubt the truth of this tale, and in her unhappiness shut herself up more than ever. The Captain had only to spend a little of the money wrung from his mother in bribing her maid, and he was free to destroy all the women of the parish if he chose.
CHAPTER XI.
REVEALS THE SORROWS OF A MERE PEASANT MAIDEN.
Lady Harriet did not even hear of her son's ongoings with Sally Wanless, though to the menials of her household and the gossips of the village they had furnished for months back one of the most delightful and engrossing topics of conversation that the oldest among them had ever been permitted to share in. It was better than the most sensational romance of the London Journal; for was not this drama being acted out before their very eyes? They took the same delight in it, though keener and deeper, that they would have taken in any sport involving the death of the weaker creature, and few among them cared in the least for the girl whose danger they failed not to see. Among the young her beauty excited envy, and they virtuously rejoiced that her pride would yet bring her sorrow. All, young and old, loved an intrigue for itself; and would not have spoiled their sport for the world. The servants at the Grange carried their tales to the village, and the village gossips drew together in the fields, on the road, by the pump, at cottage doors, to roll the sweet morsel of scandal under their tongues.