Edina: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"Well, I never was so deceived in all my life!" ejaculated Mrs. St. Clare.

[CHAPTER IX.]

PLANNING OUT THE FUTURE

It has been already said that there were originally three of the brothers Raynor: Francis, who was an officer in her Majesty's service; Henry the clergyman; and Hugh the doctor. The youngest of these, Hugh, was the first to marry by several years; the next to marry was Henry. Henry might have married earlier, but could not afford it: he waited until a living was given to him. In the pretty country rectory attached to his church, he and his wife lived for one brief year of their married life: and then she died, leaving him a little boy-baby, who was named Francis after the clergyman's eldest brother. Some ten years later the Reverend Henry Raynor himself died; and the little boy was an orphan, possessed of just sufficient means to educate him and give him a start in life in some not too costly profession. When the time came, he chose that of medicine, as his Uncle Hugh had done before him.

The eldest of the three brothers was the last to marry: Captain Raynor. He and his young wife led rather a scrambling sort of life for some years afterwards, always puzzled how to make both ends of their straitened income meet; and then a slice of good fortune (as the captain regarded it) befell him. Some distant relative left him an annuity of five hundred a-year. Five hundred a-year in addition to his pay seemed riches to the captain: whilst his unsophisticated and not too-well-managing wife thought they were now clear of shoals for life.

Very closely upon this, the captain obtained his majority. This was succeeded by a long and severe attack of illness; and the major, too hastily deciding that he should never be again fit for active service, sold out. He and his wife settled down in a pretty cottage-villa, called Spring Lawn, in the neighbourhood of Bath, living there and bringing up their children in much the same scrambling fashion that they had previously lived. No order, no method; all good-hearted carelessness, good-natured improvidence. Just as it had been in their earlier days, so it was now: they never knew where to look for a shilling of ready-money. That it would be so all through life with Major Raynor, whatever might be the amount of his income, was pretty certain: he was sanguine, off-hand, naturally improvident. The proceeds from the sale of his commission had all vanished, chiefly in paying back-debts; the five hundred a-year was all they had to live upon, and that five hundred would die with the major: and, in short, they seemed to be worse off now than before the annuity came to them. Considering that they spent considerably more than the five hundred yearly, and yet had no comfort to show for it, and that debts had gathered again over the major's head, it was not to be wondered at that they were not well off. The major never gave a thought to consequences; debt sat as lightly upon him as though it had been a wreath of laurel. If he did feel slightly worried at times, what mattered it: he should, sooner or later, come into Eagles' Nest, when all things would be smooth as glass. A more prudent man than the major might have seen cause to doubt the absolute certainty of the estate coming to him. He did not; he looked upon the inheritance of it as an accomplished fact.

The reader has probably not forgotten Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Atkinson—at whose house Edina had stayed so many years ago. Changes had taken place since then. Both the partners in the bank, Timothy and his cousin (they were only second cousins), were dead: and the firm had long been Atkinson and Street. For, upon the death of the two old men, Mr. George Atkinson, their sole successor, took his managing clerk, Edwin Street, into partnership. The bank was not one of magnitude—I think this has already been said—only a small, safe, private one. The acting head of it was, to all intents and purposes, Edwin Street: for Mr. George Atkinson passed the greater portion of his time abroad, coming home only every two or three years. George Atkinson was well off, and did not choose to worry himself with the cares of business: had the bank been given up to-morrow, he would have had plenty of money without it. During his later life, Mr. Timothy Atkinson had invested the chief portion of his savings in the purchase of an estate in Kent, called Eagles' Nest. He was not a rich man, as bankers go, never having been an equal partner in the firm; drawing from it in fact only a small share. His death was somewhat sudden, and occurred during one of his sojourns at Eagles' Nest. Mrs. Atkinson, his widow; not less portly than of yore, and still very much of an invalid; summoned her two brothers to attend the funeral: Major Raynor from Bath, Dr. Raynor from Trennach. The major went up at once: Dr. Raynor sent a refusal; his excuse, no idle one, being that he could not leave his patients. The season was one of unusual sickness, and he had no one to take his place. This refusal Mrs. Atkinson, never a very genial woman, or at all cordial with her brothers, resented.

When Mr. Timothy Atkinson's will was opened, it was found that he had left everything he possessed to his wife unconditionally. Consequently the estate was now at her own disposal. Though a pretty, compact property, it was not a large one: worth some two thousand a-year, but capable of great improvement.

On the day following the funeral, Mrs. Atkinson went up to her house in London, the major accompanying her. There she found George Atkinson, who had just arrived in England; which was an agreeable surprise to her. He had always been a favourite of hers, and he would be useful to her just now.

"I shall leave it to you, George," she suddenly observed one morning, a few days after this, as they sat together looking over letters and papers.