Mr. Hazlehurst, senior, was by no means in an amiable frame of mind when his son entered the library—the gout, considerably increased by the wine-bibbing of the previous evening, pervaded his entire system, mental and bodily; and through the atrabilious medium of a disordered stomach, he looked back upon his disagreement with Coverdale, till it became magnified into a serious quarrel. Mr. Crane had just informed him that, on renewing his offer to Alice on the previous evening, the young lady muttered a few words, incoherent indeed, but, as he conceived, of a negative tendency, and instantly conveyed herself away without affording him an opportunity of obtaining an explanation. Whereupon Mr. Hazlehurst, waxing wroth, declared she should accept him that very morning; begged him to retire until he should have seen his daughter, and, as he was pleased to term it, brought her to her senses; and having just dispatched a summons to the poor girl, was waiting her arrival to perpetrate an act of parental tyranny, when his son entered. The consequences may readily be imagined:—Coverdale was angrily and unceremoniously refused; Alice anathematized, excommunicated, and ordered magisterially to be imprisoned in her own room till farther notice, and Arthur severely reprimanded for having introduced Coverdale to the family (which, be it remembered, he had done at his father’s particular request), and cautioned against venturing to countenance Alice in her disobedience, or ever again to refer to the subject in his (Mr. Hazlehurst’s) sovereign presence, on pain of being cut off with the trilling patrimony of one shilling sterling. Arthur attempted a mild remonstrance, whereby he obtained a particular request instantly to leave the room, and a general order in regard to the entire alteration of his conduct, and abnegation of his present opinions on all subjects, human and divine. Returning to the breakfast-room in the frame of mind naturally consequent upon such a reception, he discovered D’Almayne comfortably lounging in an easy-chair, and perusing a handsomely bound copy of the Pleasures of Memory.
Glancing up as Hazlehurst entered, he observed coolly—“I need not ask you how it has gone, mon ami, your face tells me.”
Hazlehurst strode impatiently up and down the apartment; then stopping short in front of his companion, he exclaimed abruptly—“Try your plan, whatever it may be; for common sense is thrown away upon a man so prejudiced and positive as my father has shown himself to be; and common patience cannot bear the irritating speeches he makes, when all the time one feels that one is striving for the right, and that he is totally and entirely wrong.”
“You are warm, mon cher,” was the calm reply. “Papas have been wrong-headed time out of mind, and will probably continue so till time shall have passed away, together with all other sublunary weights and measures; so why afflict yourself at the inevitable? But I will now proceed without delay to try my eloquence upon the dear, rejected Mr. Crane—a—by the way, you must give me one promise. ‘On their own merits modest men are dumb;’ now my modesty is so outrageously sensitive, that I am not only dumb myself, but require my friends to be so likewise; in plain English, if I do this thing to oblige you, you must promise me to keep my share in the transaction a secret; the change must appear to emanate from the united kind regards and amiable self-sacrifice of your father and Mr. Crane.” Seeing Arthur hesitate, he continued—“Without this assurance, you must excuse my declining to interfere.”
“Be it as you will then,” began Arthur.
As he spoke the door flew open, and Alice, eager and tearful, hurried in, exclaiming,—“You have seen my father! Can it be true that he is so cruel as to refuse his consent. He has just written me such a dreadful note, ordering me not to quit my room!”
Here, catching sight of D’Almayne, she stopped short in confusion and alarm. That individual hastened to relieve her by walking to the door; but as he passed Arthur he whispered, “You may make an exception in your sister’s favour. I absolve you from your vow of secrecy as far as she is concerned. I am a tender-hearted fellow, and beauty in tears is always too many for me.” As he spoke, he left the apartment, and closed the door behind him.
Alice heard Arthur’s account of D’Almayne’s unexpected access of benevolence with surprise; but not having witnessed the quiet confidence with which he asserted his power of influencing Mr. Crane, she put but little trust in his assurances, merely setting them down as the vain boasting of a conceited youth, who was actuated by a good-natured desire to help them out of their difficulties. That she did him injustice may be gathered from the fact, that later in the day Mr. Crane sought a second interview with Mr. Hazlehurst., after which the latter gentleman summoned Harry Coverdale to his august presence; and when that happy but much confused young man entered the sanctum sanctorum of the library, sent for his daughter Alice likewise, and having pronounced a strongly acidulated, not to say, crabbed, benediction upon their youthful heads, dismissed them in time to write by that day’s post to his man of business, to prepare the purchase-money for the Hazlecroft farm, then the property of Jedediah Crane, Esq. The dinner-party that evening passed off much more agreeably than the breakfast had done. Coverdale sat by his lady-love, looking the picture, or better still, the reality of happiness; but Arthur Hazlehurst wore a gloomy brow when he perceived that his cousin, Kate Marsden, had paired off with the cotton-spinner, and that they appeared mutually satisfied with the arrangement.