PART II.
Mary Lorimer returned in safety to Beremouth under Horace Erskine's care, welcomed as may be supposed by the adopted father and her mother. Not that "Mother Mary," as Lady Greystock in the old Claudia Brewer days used to call her, could ever welcome Horace. She had never liked him; she had always felt that there was some unknown wrong about his seeking and his leaving Claudia; she had been glad that a long absence abroad had kept him from them while her darling Mary had been growing up; and it was with a spasm of fear that she heard of his spending that autumn at her sister's. And yet she had consented to his bringing Mary home. Yes, she had consented, for Mr. Brewer in his overflowing hospitality had asked him to come to them--had regretted that they had seen so little of him of late years--and had himself suggested that he should come when Mary returned.
Nine years does a great deal; it may even pay people's debts sometimes. But it had not paid Horace Erskine's debts: on the contrary, it had added to them with all the bewildering peculiarities that belong to calculations of interests and compound interests. He had got to waiting for another man's death. How many have had to become in heart death-dealers in this way! It was known that he would be his uncle's heir, and his uncle added to what he supposed Horace possessed a good sum yearly; making the man rich as he thought, and causing occasionally a slight passing regret that Horace was so saving. "He might do so much more if he liked on his good income," the elder Mr. Erskine would say. But he did not know of the many sums for ever paying to keep things quiet till death, the great paymaster, should walk in and demand stern rights of himself, the elder, and pass on the gold that we all must leave behind to the nephew, the younger one.
But in the nine years that had passed since the coward took his revenge on a brave woman by doing that which killed her husband, great things had happened to pretty Minnie Lorimer. The "county people" had been after her--those same old families who had flouted her mother, and prophesied eternal poverty to her poor pet baby--fatherless, too! a fact that finished the story of their faults with a note of peculiar infamy.
That a man of good family should marry without money, become the father of a lovely child, and die--that the mother should go back to that old poverty-stricken home where that stiff-looking maid-servant looked so steadily into the faces of all who stood and asked admittance--that they should pretend to be happy!--altogether, it was really too bad.
Why did not Mrs. Lorimer, widow, go out as a governess? Who was to bring up that unfortunate child on a paltry one hundred a year? Of course [{184}] she begged for help. Of course they were supported by Mr. Erskines's charity. A pretty humiliation of Lorimer's friends and relations!
Altogether, the whole of the great Lansdowne Lorimer connection had pronounced that to have that young widow and her daughter belonging to them was a trial very hard to bear. They had not done talking when Mary made that quiet walk to church--no one but her mother and Jenifer being in the secret--and reappeared in the county after a few months' absence as mistress of Beremouth. Mr. Brewer had counted his money, and had told the world what it amounted to. And this time he never apologized, he only confessed himself a person scarcely deserving of respect, because he had done so little good with the mammon of unrighteousness. But Mary now would tell him how to manage. He did perhaps take a little to the humble line. He hoped the world would forget and forgive his former shortcomings; such conduct would assuredly not now be persevered in; and that resolution was fulfilled without any doubt. The splendors of Beremouth were something to talk about, and the range of duties involved in a large hospitality were admirably performed.
Old Lady Caroline, whose pianoforte survived in Mrs. Morier's house at Marston, considered the matter without using quite as many words as her neighbors. "That man will be giving money to Lorimer's child." She was quite right. He had already invested five thousand pounds for Minnie. Lady Caroline (what an odd pride hers was!) went to Beremouth, and got upon business matter with "Mother Mary."
She would give that child five thousand pounds in her will if Mr. Brewer would not give her anything. Alas! it was already given. Mr. Brewer used to count among his faults that, with him, it was too much a word and a blow, especially when a good action was in question, and this curious unusual fault he had decidedly committed in the case of Minnie Lorimer. The money was hers safe enough, invested in the hands of trustees. "Safe enough," said Mr. Brewer exultingly; and then, looking with a saddened air on Lady Caroline, he added, gravely, that it couldn't be helped! "The man's a saint or a fool, I can't tell which," was Lady Caroline's very cute remark. "The most unselfish idiot that ever lived. Does Mary like him, or laugh at him, I wonder?"
But Lady Caroline cultivated Mr. Brewer's acquaintance. Not in an evil way, but because she had been brought up to use the world, and to slave all mankind who would consent to such persecution. Not wickedly, I repeat, but with a fixed intention she cultivated Mr. Brewer, and she got money out of him.