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FAR ABOVE RUBIES.
A Novel.

BY

Mrs. J. H. RIDDELL,

AUTHOR OF “GEORGE GEITH,” “CITY AND SUBURB,” “TOO MUCH ALONE,” “THE RACE FOR WEALTH,” ETC., ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:

TINSLEY BROTHERS, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.

1867.

[The Right of Translation and Reproduction reserved.]

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

CONTENTS OF VOL. III.

FAR ABOVE RUBIES.

CHAPTER I.
A GLIMPSE OF THE CANVAS.

Whether the moneys, with a memorandum of which the promoter so obligingly furnished him, had ever come into his hands or not, Arthur Dudley still felt a certain sense of having been cheated—of having been made the cat’s-paw wherewith Mr. Black’s chestnuts were drawn out of the fire. He knew, although to the letter Mr. Black’s statements might be correct, still that in the spirit he had deceived him grossly.

He was perfectly well aware the meaning conveyed to him by the Company “paying all,” was that he, Arthur Dudley, should never have to meet a single bill, nor be a penny the worse for the money he had advanced to float the Protector.

Bitterly now he remembered Nellie and his stock—the latter sold at a considerable sacrifice. The young bullocks and the fat beeves, the flocks of sheep, and the lambs which ought to have been kept over the winter, appeared again, and formed a sad procession before his mind’s eye. Hay parted with before the price rose at the turn of the year; wheat threshed off and sent to market, when the markets were falling instead of rising; straw disposed of at rates which scarcely left a margin of profit, after deducting cartage and expenses—these things recurred to the Squire’s memory, and roused fresh anger in his heart against the man who had led him so grievously astray.

Now he recollected Mr. Stewart’s prophetic words, and cursed that gentleman’s clear-sightedness as he did so. Now he recalled those sentences—“I am prepared to lose, and you are not;” “I can afford to wait; you, perhaps, are differently situated;” and they seemed to make his difficulty clear in a moment. “He was not prepared to lose—he was not able to wait.” He had stretched his arm out farther than he could draw it back; to lose, with him meant ruin; to wait, meant anxiety and distress unutterable.

What should he do? Looking back over the events of the previous twelve months, Squire Dudley lamented his own credulity and anathematized Mr. Black. He did not regret joining the Protector, or accepting the secretaryship, or leaving Berrie Down, but he bit his nails and drummed upon the table, and then, rising, kicked his chair over, and walked up and down the room, while he called himself all the names imaginable for having accepted bills and spent money, and bought the house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

He had been eager to buy that house the moment Mr. Black said it was in the market. He would scarcely take time to look over the premises before closing with the owner, so fearful was he of another purchaser forestalling him; but he forgot all this now, and worked himself up into the belief that the promoter had given him no rest till the deposit was paid and the deeds were signed.

He had thought himself so clever, and, behold, another hand stretched out beyond his, secured the prize. He had got nothing but a thousand a year and his shares, and he had to work for his thousand a year, do a vast amount more than “read the Times, and talk to people.” He had to write letters, at least dictate them, or else put down the heads which were to be written, and then see that his clerk filled them in properly, which the clerk never did sufficiently well to satisfy Arthur, who, on the whole, declared he found it easier to take the correspondence himself, than “to try to hammer the sense of what he wanted conveyed into any other person’s stupid head.”

He had to be at the office for a certain number of hours every day, and to see and discourse with hundreds of “perfect idiots”—shareholders—who, it is only fair to add, went away with the impression that Mr. Dudley was far too fine a gentleman to understand anything of the affairs of the Company to which he was secretary.

Further, the directors expected him to know every circumstance connected directly or indirectly with the Protector, whether that circumstance were in his department or not. Especially, there sat on the board a General Sinclair, C.B., who was the very plague and torment of Arthur Dudley’s life; who was always asking for information; eternally wanting the secretary to “refer back,” continually reverting to something which had occurred at the very creation of the Company, and of which the present secretary had no cognizance whatever.

A change this from Berrie Down Hollow; from doing what he liked, as he liked, without question asked by any one; a change this from coming and going as he pleased; from refraining from work; from wandering idly and purposelessly round the farm.

He detested the work, but he liked the thousand a year; he could not bear what he called the drudgery of London life, but he delighted in London gaiety, and in that gaiety he had expected to participate without ever having to labour before he enjoyed.

This life which he was leading; this life—and one a hundred times more agreeable, Mr. Black had told him, should be his—for the mere price of Nellie advanced into the Protector, Limited; and now it was no thanks to Mr. Black he was even in London at all; Mr. Stewart had procured him this trashy appointment, which he would have spurned excepting as a stepping-stone to something much better. Everybody had made, and was making, a fortune out of the Company excepting himself, and it was his money which had floated it; his money which had enabled Mr. Black to buy that place at Ealing, and furnish it without a second thought as to the cost!

But in this conclusion, Arthur Dudley—like all people who, reasoning in a passion, reason illogically—chanced to be wrong. His few thousands would have made but a very poor figure when placed to the credit of Mr. Black’s recent purchases; they would have been a drop in the ocean, a blade of grass on the prairie, a single crow amongst the occupants of a rookery. Those poor thousands were many for a poor man to lose; but even had he pocketed every sixpence of the money for which Arthur was responsible, the whole amount would not have tided Mr. Black over three months’ expenditure.

For in those days he was “going in for the whole thing.” He meant either to rise or to fall—so he informed the Crossenhams. His companies were now all floated; some of them, indeed, in course of winding up, and out of each, and all, the promoter either had reaped, or was hoping to reap, largely. He had a dozen irons in the fire. On the strength of his connection with the Protector, he had suddenly become a man “looked after” by those who had a “good thing” in view.

As he had looked after Allan Stewart, so minor promoters now began to look after and solicit him. He dressed as Peter Black, Esquire, had never dressed before. His light summer overcoat was a work of art to be admired by clerks and porters as a “West End cut;” his boots were articles of attire to be envied; while his hats looked as though they had been that moment taken out of silk paper, and placed jauntily on his head. He had abundant leisure now for attending to the adornment of his outward man, and he did attend to it thoroughly.

The Hoxton days, when he shaved before a piece of broken looking-glass, and performed the very slight ablutions to which he treated his person in a blue Delft washing-basin about six inches in diameter, were left at a convenient distance; and Peter Black, Esquire—quite another individual from the Mister Black who inhabited those wretched lodgings in a street leading out of Pitfield Street, Hoxton—had his house fitted up with hot and cold baths (which he used), while his dressing-table was furnished with as many oils, and scents, and pomades, as might have sufficed to dress up an old beauty for her three thousandth ball.

All of which things Arthur remembered, and was wroth accordingly. Had his money not helped to start the Protector? and had Mr. Black not promised to go shares with him? Certainly he had told him as plainly as he could speak that he should have the half of that twenty or thirty thousand pounds he expected to make out of the Company, providing only he lent him in the first instance a hundred pounds!

Arthur Dudley had neither sense enough nor wit enough to perceive the absurdity of this climax. He was awfully stupid, and he had implicitly believed, and here was the result.

He had really thought he should, from one seed, reap immediately a whole field of wheat; he had really credited what a very clever and a very plausible man implied to be the fact, and many a reader will, I know, laugh at him for his credulity, or else scoff at me for drawing the portrait of an impossibly confiding man.

We may presume, and we do presume, of course, that ladies and gentlemen who subscribe to Mudie’s would be much cleverer than all this comes to, but still there are other ladies and gentlemen who, taking in the daily papers and reading therein: “Ten pounds wanted for one week; fifteen pounds will be given for the above at the end of seven days; ample security deposited,” see and believe just as Arthur Dudley heard and believed likewise. Even amongst the ladies and gentlemen who do subscribe to Mudie’s, it is most probable there may have been a few who, in times gone by, deluded by plausible circulars, took shares in some of Mr. Black’s companies, and, as a natural consequence, lost their money; and—since there is no one who speaks so loudly against the errors of his former religion as an apostate—doubtless the individuals to whom I refer will declare Arthur Dudley’s credulity to be wicked, if not impossible.

Deferentially I stand aside, while the book is laid down, and the suitable oration delivered, then with all due respect I take up the thread of my story once again, and speak of things which are taking place every day in the City, where fresh dupes come hourly to be fleeced, and fresh shearers, no more tender or scrupulous than Mr. Black, attend to relieve the unsuspecting sheep of their superfluous wool.

Arthur Dudley was to have had half!

Remembering this, which in the hurry and confusion of his interview with Mr. Black he had forgotten, the secretary took his hat, and walked off to the City.

Sooner than his friend had expected he accepted that gentleman’s invitation, and entering the offices in Dowgate Hill, where another company—the “Universal Law Stationery”—was in course of formation, found the promoter up to his ears in business, with half a dozen people waiting to see him.

“Tell Mr. Black I will not detain him five minutes,” said Arthur, quite loud enough for the whole congregation to hear, after, it may be remarked, the pleasing fashion of country people in London. “You know me, don’t you?” he added, seeing the clerk hesitate, “I am the secretary of the Protector Bread Company.”

Thereupon the visitors each drew his own conclusion. Some, very green indeed, thought what a great man Mr. Dudley must be, thus to force himself into the presence of the magnificent director; others, less easily impressionable, decided that a screw had got loose in the Protector, which Mr. Black was expected to set right. At all events, they each and all began working out the problem of what the secretary could want with his principal, while Arthur marched into the presence of the great man, and found him not engaged with any individual, but simply writing his letters for post.

“What’s up with you?” were his first words; “has any one come for a million of shares? or is there a fire at Stangate—or—or what the devil brings you into the City at such a time of day as this?”

“Our conversation this afternoon,” Arthur answered, boldly. “I could not rest; it is not fair, Mr. Black; you have not treated me as I should have treated you. Do you remember what you said to me that day when this matter was first mooted between us?”

“Pray sit down,” said Mr. Black, magnificently, waving his visitor to a seat, “and explain your meaning to me quietly, if you can. Do I remember what? we said so many things that day it would be impossible for me to recollect all, or indeed any, of them, unless recalled to my memory.”

“Do you remember what you said about going half profits with me?” Arthur asked.

“I can’t say that I do. Were there any profits then to share?”

“Prospective profits,” the other answered. “You said you expected twenty or thirty thousand pounds out of the ‘Protector,’ and that whatever you got, you would go shares with me.”

“Did I?” asked Mr. Black, innocently. “I wish, Dudley, you had chosen any other time in the day than this for coming to pester about by-gones,” he added, “for I have no end of letters to write; but, however, as you are here, say all you have got to say.”

“I have nothing to say excepting what I have already said,” answered Arthur, “namely, that you promised to go shares with me in the Bread Company.”

“Now, that is exactly the objection I have to doing business with a gentleman,” remarked Mr. Black; “it is impossible to make him understand, excepting literally, a sentence which would be plain as a pikestaff to a boy in the London streets. Tell me the construction you took out of that speech, which, I confess, I never remember to have uttered.”

“You said you would have twenty or thirty thousand out of this bakery affair, and were willing to give me half.”

“Precisely! not willing to give you half of my earnings, but willing to give you a chance of winning fifteen thousand, which you would have done but for that meddling idiot, Stewart. He has dished me, too, you know. Deuce a thing I have had out of the Company except trouble, my shares, and position. It certainly has given me position. I meant we should have made—you and I together—thousands and thousands out of it, instead of which, when I had served my gentleman’s turn, he bows me off with, ‘The Company won’t bear this, and the Company can’t afford that. Whatever houses and offices we buy, must be bought on the mart. Our grain shall not be supplied through any friend of yours. I shall put in my own people to see you do not make sixpence out of that which owes its very existence to you.’ Damn him,” added Mr. Black, heartily; “the next time I go praying and begging for a great man’s name, I’ll get what I have got this time—insolence instead of thanks—the door instead of money.”

There was no sham about Mr. Black’s manner while he delivered himself of this sentence.

Clearly, Allan Stewart had rubbed his hair up the wrong way, and hurt the promoter grievously in the process. Arthur sat silent for a moment, surprised—wondering what he had best say next, and, while he meditated, Mr. Black opened his mouth again:

“And, on the top of all this, you come,” he proceeded; “you come dissatisfied with what I have done for you—indignant that I have failed to do more. You are angry because I could not force the Company to buy that cursed place of yours in Lincoln’s Inn, which, I wish to Heaven, had never been for sale, just as though Stewart did not serve me the same trick about that shop in the Poultry. I bought it on spec, pulled the old buildings down, ran up a splendid new shop as far as the first floor, and then offered it to the board. Do you think they would have it? ‘Pooh, pooh!’ says Mr. Stewart; ‘what do we want with establishments in the Poultry? Less expensive situations will do for us;’ and the confounded thing was thrown upon my hands. Had it not been for the ‘London and Home Counties Bank,’ which had on its board a man I knew, I should have been swamped—I tell you fairly that I should, Dudley. As it was, I sold my interest to the Company at a switching profit, which enabled me to give my friend ten per cent. on the purchase-money, and that pulled me through; and there the bank is now as prosperous a concern as any in London. Shares up to eight premium.”

It might all be true. With a terrible shock it occurred to Squire Dudley that there were other people besides himself in the world—other people looking for their halves, and percentages, and paid up shares also.

In a moment he seemed to understand that he had taken a hand at a game of chances, in which no one, not even those best experienced in the cards, could ensure success. It was a lottery in which he had embarked; and, although he might blame those who had led him up to the wheel, still he felt he could not complain when the man who had been most sanguine of success drew a blank also. He was a gentleman. Even in his blackest hour of need, Arthur, with all his faults, weaknesses, and sins, never was untrue to his training and his ancestry. He had been born—weak fool though he was—a gentleman, bred one, remained one, and he could not bandy words with this clever, plausible swindler, who, seeing his companion’s hesitation, continued:

“I have not much time to spare this afternoon, for I have letters to write, and lots of people to see; but as I perceive you are dissatisfied, Dudley, I’ll tell you what I’ll do: transfer to you a couple of hundred of my shares in the ‘Protector,’ paid up. That’s two thousand pounds, at the worst; and if I see I can do anything more for you, I will. Don’t be in too great a hurry, old fellow. That is the worst of all you country people—you think a fortune is to be made just in a minute. I’ll stand by you, if you stand by me. I swear it to you, Dudley; there’s my hand upon it. Now, do not—do not, I entreat of you, go and make yourself and that dear wife of yours uncomfortable. If you have to raise a few thousands on Berrie Down, what matter? Did Berrie Down ever do anything for you that you should do anything for it? Stick to the Protector and Allan Stewart—that’s my advice; and when you are in any difficulty come to me—that is my advice also. Now, good-bye—ta-ta—God bless you, Dudley!”

And thus exit Squire Dudley without speaking a word he had intended, but with a very strong impression on his mind that Mr. Black, having been making free with the contents of a certain bottle, labelled “Martell,” ordinarily concealed in the recesses of one of Tann’s “Reliance” safes, must, therefore, have spoken the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

As though people did not tell worse fibs when they are drunk than when they are sober, more especially in London—as though “In vino veritas” were not an exploded creed with the rising generation, many of whom do not speak truth either in their cups or out of them.

CHAPTER II.
GREAT SUCCESSES.

While the events I have related were influencing, more or less, the Dudley family history, the “Protector Flour and Bread Company” was succeeding to an extent which it is given to few companies in our time to equal.

If a person be sufficiently interested in the prices of miscellaneous companies’ shares, to run his eye down a list of, say, a hundred and fifty of the new Limited Liabilities, he will be surprised to find how few out of the number are quoted as being at par, to say nothing of at a premium. Dis., dis., dis., is the encouraging legend attached to one after another; but it was not thus with the Protector—steadily its shares went up. It grew to be considered a good investment. The ten pound shares (two pounds paid) were eagerly sought after; and, had an intending investor gone, about that period, to any broker, and expressed his desire of purchasing into the Protector Bread Company, he would have been advised he was acting wisely—that the shares were very good property indeed.

And so every one believed. In all directions the Company’s vans were to be encountered conveying bread to the far-away depôts, or else returning empty from the extremest ends of London. The bread was good; the directors—greatly to the disgust of their housekeepers and cooks, who were thus cheated out of a legitimate perquisite in the shape of commission—ate of the staff of life kneaded at their own bakeries, and were satisfied.

If an inferior batch were produced, woe to the master baker, on whom, straight away, General Sinclair poured his vials of wrath. If the flour were sour, as servants frequently declared it to be, Mr. Bailey Crossenham’s ears tingled for a week.

Never was a company better managed; never a staff more rigidly superintended.

Did Linnor, at the most easterly point of London, running short of bread, borrow a few loaves from his neighbour, Mr. Bickley, and supply them as the genuine product of the Protector, Limited, down came a note from the Secretary’s office, informing Mr. Linnor, by “order of the board,” that if such dereliction from the paths of duty occurred again, he, Mr. Linnor, would forthwith be dismissed from the responsible position which he held.

Neither for those brilliant creatures, dressed in orange and green, who conveyed the bread from Stangate to all parts of the metropolis, was there such a thing as liberty. Their carts were numbered, and if, on the hottest day in summer, they stopped at the “Spotted Stag,” in Mile End Road, or the “White Hart,” in Newington, or the “Greyhound,” in Fulham, or any other favourite house of call, for a pot of beer, 16, or 48, or 33, or 27, was had up the same evening before the yard superintendent, and “cautioned” for all the world—so the men themselves said—as if the “governor was a beak.”

If, after this caution, any one still preferred ale to employment, he was paid his wages and discharged on the spot.

Altogether, it was a very perfectly-managed Company, and quite a credit to its directors.

Great people, when the periodical philanthropic fit attacked their ranks, were not above driving over to Stangate, and inspecting the works; and, on the occasion of such visits, the Times would come out with a leader, concerning pure bread and the adulteration of food, which always sent the shares up on the Stock Exchange, and made the aristocracy feel that they had conferred vast benefits on the labouring classes.

It was nice to be associated with so excellent a Company. Good people felt that the blessing of the Almighty must rest upon an enterprise, undertaken in so Christian a spirit (there was much mention of the poor in the prospectus), and that He, who had fed the Israelites with manna in the wilderness, would likewise satisfactorily regulate the Protector’s dividends; for which reason, and others too numerous and varied to mention, both great people and good people, and good and great combined in the same people, bought shares in the Company, sincerely believing that, since time began, there had never been any creature born so deserving of universal support and encouragement as Mr. Black’s baby, which was now a great child able to run alone, and earn something for itself, and even repay its benefactors a portion of the money advanced to start it fairly in the world.

When the first half-yearly meeting was held, the directors not merely announced a dividend at the rate of fifteen per cent. per annum, but also stated their conviction, that the close of another half year would exhibit a much larger proportion of profit, since the expenses of conducting such a business in the first instance were necessarily greater than would subsequently prove the case.

Moreover, it was resolved that no further call should be made on the shareholders, except in the event of larger mills and more extensive premises being required, when, as a natural consequence, higher dividends might confidently be expected.

The directors had pleasure in communicating the existence of a large reserve fund; and in stating that the mills at Stangate had been greatly increased in size, that the machinery was the very best known for the purposes required, that every modern improvement in the grinding of wheat and manufacture of flour was to be found on the premises, and that, as regarded the bakehouse, it was decidedly the most spacious, convenient, and best ventilated in the kingdom.

All this, and a vast amount more, being duly reported in the daily and weekly papers, shares (money at the time chancing to be cheap) went up again.

Then, the magazine-writers got hold of the Protector as a nucleus on which might be constructed a few light and entertaining papers concerning breadmaking from the beginning of time, tracing the progress of the staff of life from the kneading-troughs of the Israelites down to the works of the new Company at Stangate.

There was no difficulty about inspecting the Protector’s premises. A man, salaried on purpose, received ordinary visitors at the gates, and escorted them through the whole process from grinding to kneading, that is, if they came at an hour when kneading was in progress—as literary gentlemen always did.

“Wheat, from the Ear to the Breakfast Table,” was the exhaustive title of one paper. Another, supposed to be written by the same author, appeared as “Hot Rolls!” “Our Daily Bread” graced the columns of one of the religious periodicals; while, “Adulteration Considered Morally and Socially,” was universally attributed by the critics to the pen of one of the most gifted and thoughtful authoresses of the day.

With all these helps, was it any wonder that the shares of the Protector should soon be at a premium? that every one connected with the Company felt himself to be to some extent a person of consequence; that Arthur Dudley forgot his fears, and only remembered his interest in the great concern; that even the mortgaging of Berrie Down grew in time to be a mere bagatelle—a trifle not worth fretting about?

What might the shares not ultimately touch! Supposing the ten pound share, paid up, came in time to be worth a hundred pounds, why, his income would be enormous; and there was nothing to prevent the shares going on rising, rising in value. If they reached fifty, would he sell? Arthur could not decide this point to his own satisfaction. If he sold, he should then have no anxiety about loss; but, on the other hand, would it be wise to sell before they reached their maximum? Then, who ever could tell when the maximum was reached?

These were the questions which perplexed the Squire, building his castles in the air, while pacing on the calm summer evenings round and round Lincoln’s Inn Fields, smoking the while such cigars as never fall to the lot of any one, save secretaries and others of the same ilk, who get all sorts of good things given to them by all kinds of singular people.

Arthur, in the days of which I am now writing, never bought a cigar by any chance. He had boxes of the best Havannas sent him, which he was now not too proud to accept.

The world had gone round since he strolled a poor man through the fields at Berrie Down. Accepting a favour did not, according to the new code, mean placing himself under an obligation. No; it rather meant conferring an obligation on the donor.

What those donors expected Arthur Dudley would be able to do for them, it is impossible even to conjecture. Arthur himself never knew; and so, with an untroubled conscience, he smoked his cigars and dreamed his dreams.

At this time, Heather was away from home—away at the sea-side with her children, whom she took down to Hastings, for a month, in the hope that sea-air might do Lally more good than all Dr. Chickton’s prescriptions.

Quite as tenderly as he had treated Master Charles Hope, that renowned practitioner inquired into Lally’s symptoms, and devoted himself to the restoration of her health; but for all this care the child proved ungrateful.

She did not get much better. All the tonics Doctor Chickton could prescribe, and Heather with difficulty persuade her to take, failed to restore her health, to make the little feet patter, patter over the floor as of old.

She could walk a short distance, certainly, without much fatigue, and drive for an hour or so at a time, but still she was not the Lally of a twelvemonth previously.

“What’s the use of cramming the child with all that physic?” Doctor Marsden inquired one day when he called in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. “Chickton ordered it, did he? of course he did. When you go and pay a man a guinea, he must order you something; but now, without a guinea at all, I will give you my advice, which is none the worse for being gratuitous. Take her to the sea-side; let her be out all day long; if she will bear bathing, bathe her; if that don’t set her up, nothing will.”

Very heartily Heather wished she could have told Doctor Marsden, that, considering his son was the cause of Lally’s illness, she thought the least he could do was to proffer his advice civilly; but advice in any shape was not to be despised, and accordingly she adopted his suggestion, and bore Lally off.

At Hastings, she met not merely Mr. and Mrs. Compton Raidsford and family, but also Mr. Allan Stewart; who, after a time, took rather kindly to Lally, and became interested in her recovery.

Like all the rest of the world, he too had his favourite medical man, whom he not merely counselled Heather to consult, but to whom also he wrote a letter of introduction, in which he described her as his friend, Mrs. Dudley.

They had been the merest acquaintances in town; but intimacy is of quick growth when people meet every day, and fifty times a day, on the sands, on the Parade, in the lodgings of mutual friends, standing listening to the bands, and to the solitary murmur of the sea as it flows in on the shore.

From Mrs. Raidsford, Heather heard how admirably Agnes was managing Berrie Down.

“What a wonderful creature she must be!” continued the lady; and yet, Heather fancied there was a tone of disparagement in Mrs. Raidsford’s remark, for which she was at a loss to account, until informed that “Miss Baldwin was never out of the house;” “has taken to your sisters quite as if they were her own.”

This was not exactly news to Heather, for she had understood from Agnes that Miss Baldwin continued very kind indeed; but why the fact should irritate Mrs. Raidsford puzzled her, until one of the Misses Raidsford, observing, “Yes, we are entirely forgotten now—Miss Baldwin is fond of new faces,” threw some light upon the subject.

That Miss Baldwin should ever have been fond of the Misses Raidsford’s faces, surprised Heather not a little; but still she knew that Kemms Park had at one time patronized Moorlands, and was able to comprehend now where the sting of the Berrie Down acquaintanceship lay.

With all her heart she wished Miss Baldwin would leave the girls alone. Beyond all things she dreaded their being exposed to jealous and envious remarks. The blessed seclusion, the utter privacy in which they had hitherto lived, must, she knew, have quite unfitted them to bear unkind speeches, or ill-natured inuendoes with equanimity.

Had she acted rightly in leaving them alone at Berrie Down—alone to receive many visitors, and to bear the brunt of such gossip as that in which she perceived Mrs. Raidsford was not above indulging? The new acquaintances, whom Heather in her innocence had imagined would make the country a pleasanter residence for the girls, might only expose their conduct to misconstruction. She had no fear of anything Agnes and Laura might say or do, but she felt afraid of what might be said of them. Lord Kemms, she knew, was now at the Park, having at length returned from Austria; and in one of her letters Agnes mentioned his having called at Berrie Down with his aunt.

Could this be another thorn in Mrs. Raidsford’s side? Small as was the amount of tittle-tattle which reached Heather’s ears, still she had heard some talk of an attachment between Lord Kemms and one of the young ladies at Moorlands. And, although it never entered into her mind to imagine her husband’s portionless sisters could prove rivals to the great contractor’s daughters, she yet gradually came to understand that Mrs. Raidsford was of a different opinion, and felt Berrie Down to be a stumbling-block in her path.

“There is some distinction come between Mr. R. and his Lordship,” Mrs. Raidsford was kind enough to explain to Mrs. Dudley; “we are not on the same terms of equality with him that we used to be. I must say, I think the coolness began on our side, for Mr. R., as you, no doubt, have heard, has a perfect maniac against companies of all kinds, just as though people had not a right to make themselves into companies if they like, and it seems his Lordship told him he would have nothing to do with that ‘Protective’ affair of yours—no offence, Mrs. Dudley—after which he went away and becomes one of the fundamental proprietors of it. So, when his Lordship came home, Mr. R. put on his high and mighty, and would not call at the Park—as if the ‘Protective’ was any business of his—and so, when we meet, we only bow; and I am as satisfied as I can be of anything that his Lordship knows no more than the babe unborn what the reason of our distance is. Indeed, he was beginning to ask me at the station, when we met him, only the train moved off before he could complete his inquiry. I think I shall write to his Lordship, and detail the matter. If Mr. R. likes to disseparate himself from old friends, that is no reason why we should—is it, Mrs. Dudley?”

In answer to which appeal, Heather said she did not know. She thought, however, she should not like to be on friendly terms with any one to whose acquaintance her husband objected.

“But, then, you are like nobody else,” retorted Mrs. Raidsford.

This remark, intended to be both hurtful and depreciating, failed of its effect, because Heather mentally hoped she was not much like Mrs. Raidsford. “A woman whom Raidsford ought to have been pilloried for marrying,” observed Mr. Stewart; “apparently, he is a very worthy fellow himself, but I am quite satisfied there must be some terrible want in the character of any person who could make such a creature his wife. There ought to be a law against those kind of marriages.”

“Perhaps——,” began Heather, and then she stopped, colouring a little.

“Pray, complete your sentence, Mrs. Dudley,” said Mr. Stewart; “you have roused my curiosity, and it is not fair to have it unsatisfied.”

“I only hesitated lest what rose to my mind might sound ill-natured. I do not mean, however, any sneer when I say, that perhaps Mrs. Raidsford may have been very suitable to her husband when he married her. It is so difficult to express an opinion like that without appearing to reflect on a man’s origin,” she added, getting into unutterable depths of confusion; “but I often think about a speech, a very dear girl I once knew made, concerning Mrs. Raidsford. She said, ‘it was such a pity a man could not choose again when he came to years of social discretion.’”

“She used to say also,” remarked Lucy Dudley, “that if Mr. Raidsford could only have foreseen how high he was to rise in the world, Mrs. Raidsford would probably now have been wife to some mechanic—cooking steaks for his one o’clock dinner, instead of being mistress of Moorlands, and having servants much more ladylike than herself under her. Bessie never was weary of mimicking Mrs. Raidsford.”

“Who was this clever young lady?” asked Mr. Stewart, for whom the very bitterness of such a speech had its peculiar charm.

“A cousin of ours,” Lucy answered.

“Married, or still eligible?” inquired the old bachelor.

Lucy did not reply; she looked at Heather, who, after a moment’s embarrassed pause, replied,—

“She was engaged to be married, when with us, last winter; but we have not heard from her since she left Berrie Down.”

“Some feminine quarrel,” thought Mr. Stewart; and, looking out over the sea, he laughed softly to himself at the idea that all women were alike,—that no two women could agree; that, let them be young or old, pretty or ugly, sweet or sour, they could still jangle and dispute like the veriest viragoes.

And yet, this Mrs. Dudley puzzled him: if she had a temper, she must, he thought, have it under wonderful control; if there were any evil in her, she must have an astonishing power of concealing its existence. To sisters and children, to friends and servants, she was alike, gentle and forbearing. Never but once did Mr. Stewart see her eyes darken, and her face flush under the influence of any strong emotion; and then it was a slight thing which caused the tell-tale blood to rush to brow, and cheek, and neck.

“I expect my niece, Mrs. Croft, to-morrow,” he said; “I am happy to think she will be able to make your acquaintance.”

Then there came that look, which was not quite pleasant, over Heather’s face,—that look which set Mr. Stewart marvelling as to “what could be up” between the two women? Not an early jealousy, he decided; for Mrs. Croft was many a year older than Mrs. Dudley. What could it be? He was an especially inquisitive old gentleman, as sharp and keen concerning matters of feeling, as he was about matters of business, and so he went on,—

“You have never met her, I think?”

“Never,” Heather answered; “but my husband knew Mrs. Croft very well indeed at one time, and quite recently they renewed their former acquaintance at Copt Hall.”

“Copt Hall—is not that Mr. Hope’s place? I recollect now, Douglas and his wife were staying there last autumn. Your husband is some relation of the Essex Hopes, is he not?”

“His mother was a Miss Hope,” Heather explained; and shortly afterwards Mr. Stewart took his leave, trying to remember something he had heard about Miss Laxton having jilted a former suitor when she married his nephew. “Was Dudley the lucky fellow’s name?” he asked himself. “I’ll find out all about it when madam comes.”

In due time, madam came, and her husband with her; and from the hour of their arrival, Heather commenced longing to return to town. Had it not been, indeed, that Lally was decidedly gaining strength, she would forthwith have packed up and departed; but the child was better; she could run about a little, and at times there was a colour in her face which made the poor mother trust the health and the gaiety of old was about to be restored to her.

How Mrs. Croft ridiculed Heather’s anxiety about the little girl; how scornfully she would listen to Lally’s prattle; with what open contempt she watched the child sometimes struggling into Mr. Stewart’s arms, and beheld him fondling and caressing her, were things to be seen, not described.

A stately woman, who looked born to rule a nation of slaves, and seemed to regard every one with whom she came in contact, her husband included, as so much dirt under feet; a woman who would have been beautiful but for the expression of habitual bad temper on her face; a woman who made every creature she met uncomfortable; who treated Heather with supercilious insolence, and at length told her without the slightest reserve she had instructed her child well. “She is playing her cards quite as cleverly as you,” finished Mrs. Croft, in a tone of suppressed fury, one day when she saw Lally throw down her wooden spade, and run with outstretched arms to meet Mr. Stewart. “Commend me to a meek, quiet woman when underhand means are to be employed, and a legacy is in question.”

“Do you imagine I am expecting a legacy from any one?” asked Heather.

“Of course I do,” was the reply, spoken while Mrs. Croft swept along the Marina with her dress trailing about two yards on the ground behind her; “of course I do,” and her dark eyes looked over Heather scornfully; “people generally expect their godfathers to leave them something, do they not? and your godfather’s money is well worth finessing for. I commend your prudence; some persons might not think such conduct quite honourable, but that never seems to have occurred to you. Mr. Stewart has hitherto treated Mr. Croft as his heir. Now, however——”

“Mr. Stewart’s affairs have not the slightest interest for me,” interrupted Heather, hastily. “Good morning!” and, without giving her companion time to utter another word, Mrs. Dudley turned and walked back along the Parade to the point where Lally was still engaged in animated conversation with her two gentlemen friends.

“It is time for you to come in, my pet,” she said, descending one of the flights of wooden steps, and making her way with difficulty over the shingle to the sands. “If you see my sister, Mr. Stewart, would you kindly ask her to bring Leonard back? I do not like him to be out in the heat of the day. I do not think it is good for children to be on the shore when the sun has so much power.”

“Now, they have had a quarrel,” decided Mr. Stewart, glancing along the Parade, where he descried Mrs. Aymescourt Croft wending her way homewards, solitary and stately, haughty and defiant. “I should like immensely to know what it is all about. There is something very decidedly amiss between my amiable niece and Mrs. Dudley.”

“Your wife and our pretty friend do not seem able to stable their horses comfortably together,” he said to Mr. Croft, when Heather, who declined all offers both of companionship and of assistance, had borne Lally—bitterly protesting against such injustice—away. “How is it, do you think?”

“My wife is jealous,” was the prompt reply.

“Does she fancy you are smitten?”

“No; but she thinks you are,” Mr. Croft answered. “She considers that Mrs. Dudley stands too good a chance of being favourably remembered in your will, for much cordial feeling to exist amongst us.”

“And why the devil should I leave Mrs. Dudley sixpence?” asked Mr. Stewart. “What is she to me that I should bequeath anything to her, more than to the first stranger I meet on the Marina?”

“My charming wife,” replied Mr. Croft, in that daring tone of off-hand recklessness which, as Mr. Black had remarked, was one of his peculiarities, “my charming wife, giving you credit for a vein of romance, and a depth of sensibility which, I confess, I never noticed in your character, imagines that the revival of old associations, the thoughts of ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ in fact, which the sight of Mrs. Dudley must naturally have awakened, may produce an undesirable effect upon the ultimate disposal of your property. For my part, I am delighted at the opportunity now afforded of assuring you I would much rather you left your money to Mrs. Dudley than to my wife.”

“What are you talking about, Douglas?” asked his uncle. From the drawing-room window of the house they occupied Mrs. Croft could, with the aid of an opera-glass, see, not merely that Mr. Stewart stopped as he put this question, but that he looked excited and perplexed. “What is Mrs. Douglas to me, I ask again, that I should leave her sixpence? She is a sweet woman, and pretty, and devoted to her blockhead of a husband, but I should not care if I never saw her again. Does your wife think I am in love with her? Does she imagine I am so nearly doting as all that comes to?”

Douglas Croft looked steadily in his uncle’s face for a moment, and then burst out laughing.

“It really is too amusing,” he said. “Do you mean to tell me you do not know who Mrs. Dudley was?”

“No; who the deuce was Mrs. Dudley?” inquired the other, testily.

“And she never has enlightened you?” persisted Mr. Croft.

“If she had enlightened me I should have known, I suppose, and I do not know who or what she was, excepting a simpleton to marry Dudley. As you seem so well informed, tell me this wonderful secret. Who was Mrs. Dudley?”

“Heather Bell,” answered Mr. Croft.

“You do not mean that?”

“I do, upon my honour. Miss Hope told me and my wife, and explained that it was you who selected the name which seems to suit her so admirably.”

Mr. Stewart did not take any direct notice of this information; he only resumed his walk over the sands, saying to himself,—

“And so that is Heather Bell—so that is Heather Bell!”

“You understand now why my wife regards her with but small favour,” continued Mr. Croft; “indeed, there is another reason why, perhaps, mutually the two ladies dislike and distrust each other. Years ago, Dudley and Miss Laxton were engaged. I knew nothing of it when I met her—when I proposed to her—when she accepted me; but the engagement was a fact, nevertheless. I am so devotedly attached to her now, that there can be no indiscretion in merely alluding to her one fault—a love of money. I am confident that she liked Dudley better than she ever liked me; but I, being the richer of the two, gained the prize. Of course, it is not in a woman’s nature, at least it is not in Arabella’s nature, to look kindly on the wife whom the man she jilted afterwards married. On the other hand, all the world knows Dudley does not appreciate quite so highly the blessing he has gained, as the blessing he has lost; and for that reason I fancy poor Mrs. Dudley does not feel particularly comfortable in my Arabella’s society. Further, there may be a little mutual jealousy, both being above the average in appearance. Now, you have the exact state of the case, so far as I know it.”

Still Mr. Stewart made no reply; he only walked on more swiftly over the sands, which were at this point wet and disagreeable, while the waves came lapping in—lapping in; and the burden of his reverie was, “So that is Heather Bell—that is Heather Bell!”

There was a story in the man’s life, though no one of his kith or kin suspected it. He had loved once—once in his middle age, when the disease always leaves traces behind—passionately! and the woman he loved was Heather’s mother; but the secret of his unrequited attachment had lain between the two; and now she was dead, and here was her child, and the child of the man who took the best hope of his life away, thrown across his path once more.

Heather Bell—Heather Bell, the waves seemed to murmur the name as they stole upon the sands; and the old man grew young again as the years faded away; and he saw, reflected as in a mirror, the bright glad face of the long, and long ago, when he first, at Sir Wingrave Bell’s, met Lilian Gladwin, who was even in those days engaged to the baronet’s cousin, William, then a poor curate in London, and afterwards the poor rector of Layford, Derbyshire.

CHAPTER III.
“LIKE A MAN’S HAND.”

What a cruel world it is; what a hard, wicked, misjudging, uncharitable, mercenary world! Thus Heather Dudley reflected, while, without waiting for Lucy or Leonard, she walked homewards with Lally, the hot tears filling her eyes and coursing down her cheeks as she recalled Mrs. Croft’s insulting words, as she came gradually to comprehend the full meaning of her insolent accusation.

She could not help crying; the world’s cruelty and the world’s wickedness were new experiences to her.

The maladies of being thought ill of, of having her most innocent notions misconstrued, of hearing intentions imputed to her which she was utterly incapable of harbouring, had not fallen to her when young, and now taken in her maturer years they seemed so severe that it was almost impossible for her to endure them patiently.

To be accused of toadying any person; that it should for a moment be supposed she could ever have mentioned the name of her family to Mr. Stewart, when, lest it might even seem as though she were thereby preferring any claim to old acquaintanceship on him, she had sedulously avoided all allusions to her former home, or any of her early recollections.

“I—I—do such a thing!” she thought; “I pay court to him for his money; I, who detest money; I, who could live on the merest pittance anywhere and be happy; and who would rather live on a pittance than mix amongst hard, cruel, mercenary people; and to imply that I was such a wretch as to school my innocent child in deceit and affectation. Ah!” she reflected, softening a little; “it is plain she never was a mother; if she had been, she could not have imputed trickery of that kind to me;” which speech showed, not how much Heather knew of mothers, but how little she knew of the world. “It was cruel, though—” thus the mental strain ran on—“cruel to imagine such a thing; cruel to express it;” and Heather would probably have continued making these statements silently to her own heart, whilst her tears flowed as fast as her thoughts, had Lally not caused a diversion by stating:

“You walk too quick, ma; you tire me.” Then Heather sat down upon one of the benches and caught Lally to her; she was ashamed that even for a moment her own anger should have made her forget the child’s possible weariness. She had gone on, dragging Lally after her, and the little one was both warm and tired with the unwonted exercise.

“Are you hot, too, ma?” she asked, trying to push up her mother’s veil, an attempt which Heather strove too late to resist. “Oh! you’ve been crying, ma; you’ve been vexed; was it tall wicked lady? Never mind—Lally’s better—arn’t you glad Lally’s nearly better as well? Do not cry, pease, mamma—pease—pease.”

And the poor, little, eager face puckered itself up to weep also; and the brown eyes—which had in them at times a look of Heather—filled with tears, and the thin arms twined themselves about her mother’s neck, and Lally became altogether very piteous on the subject of her mother’s grief.

Looking out over the dancing sea, so bright, so sunshiny, so smooth, clasping her first-born to her heart, Heather felt that there was reason in the child’s words; that, seeing Lally’s health even partially restored, she had no right to weep or lament over any mere worldly grievance.

What was Mrs. Croft to her, that she should attach weight to her angry sentences, her slanderous accusations? What were they all—Mr. Stewart, and his nephew and niece? Nothing but people whom she had met for a day or two, and should perhaps meet again never more. Why should she fret over a false and libellous charge? If she were capable of such conduct as that whereof Mrs. Croft had accused her, she might then weep, but not otherwise.

She would endeavour for the future to avoid St. Leonard’s. Her children should keep down by the East Parade, or amuse themselves on the Castle Hill, for the few days she purposed remaining at Hastings. No one should say she put herself or them in the way of rich people—at least, no one should say so with even a shadow of a foundation of truthfulness.

She would not do what she had in the first smart of the blow intended—pack up, and leave Hastings by the next train—but she would never subject herself to such an imputation again. She could, and she would, be out for the future when Mr. Stewart called, and she might walk at such hours and in such directions as should separate her and hers altogether from their more wealthy acquaintances.

It is quite unnecessary to add that she and Lucy had a thoroughly comfortable and exhaustive conversation on the subject that same evening after the children were in bed; in the course of which Lucy expressed her opinion, not merely that dear Heather was quite right in her decision about Mr. Stewart, but also concerning the girls at Berrie Down.

“We should all be ever so much happier together in town,” the young lady opined; “together anywhere. Could not Arthur let Berrie Down, or put in a care-taker, as Mr. Black has so often suggested? not but that it would seem terrible to leave the Hollow altogether; still, if we are not to live there, what is the use of having it lying empty?” In reply to which Heather could only answer: “There is no place in the world like Berrie Down.” And then the pair had a little sympathetic cry, which did them both a considerable amount of good.

After all, they had spent a very pleasant month at Hastings; and though a cloud had towards the last darkened their sky, still who can expect fair weather to continue day after day?

Is not it the inevitable rule that storms must come, if only to clear the air; that women should shed tears in order that their eyes may be all the brighter afterwards? What right had Mrs. Dudley to look for a succession of sunshiny hours, when Douglas Croft, who was popularly supposed to be the most lucky fellow on earth, met with nothing but contrary winds and heavy rains during the short periods in the year he and his wife reluctantly spent together?

If there were any state of life in which Mrs. Douglas Croft would have been content, that state had still to be discovered; if there were anything her husband could have done to please her, he had certainly never hit upon it.

Did he keep the windows shut, she wondered what he was made of to sit in such a suffocating room; did he fling them wide open in the morning, he knew she detested a draught, and the sight of that glitter on the sea; did he wish to ride, she thought he might have more consideration than to propose his wife mounting a hired horse; did he suggest driving, she wondered, if he were so fond of seeing the country, he had not brought down his servants and carriages, as other people did; did he offer to walk with her, she was invariably tired; did he even mention leaving the house without her, she thought, “considering he favoured her with so little of his society, he might remain indoors for half an hour in the course of the day; did he go out in a boat, she might as well have married a London tradesman; did he finally ask her what the devil she would have him do, since he had come to the slowest place on earth to please her and not himself, she replied, that if he had not sufficiently gentlemanly, or even manly, feeling to know how to treat his wife properly, it was a pity he ever married any one higher in rank than some poor factory girl.”

“I could not have married you, remember,” answered Mr. Croft, “had you not first jilted Dudley;” whereupon she sighed, “Poor Arthur!” and declared “he never would have broken a woman’s heart.”

“You would very soon have broken his,” retorted her husband; “though, upon my honour, Dudley is the only man I should not have pitied seeing married to you.”

“Because you admire that creature with red hair, whom he chose after me! after me by way of contrast, I suppose. Oh! she has not red hair? I confess I was under the delusion she had; but no doubt your opportunities of judging have been greater than mine. She is a very pretty woman, you say; of course you think every woman pretty, excepting your own wife. She is the kind of creature some men do admire, and she has that manner—that meek, mild, submissive, milk-and-water manner—which always makes me long to strike her and ask how she likes that. I do detest those amiable hypocrites. It is a pity you cannot get rid of me, and marry her.”

“If I were to marry all the women I admire, I should have as many wives as Brigham Young,” answered Mr. Croft; “besides, I am not quite certain that Mrs. Dudley is my style. She has too much of the angel about her; certainly, ‘extremes meet’; but still, after you, that change would be almost too severe:” and so the pair were wont to wrangle on, while Mr. Stewart sat calmly reading the Times, or else remarked that he never so much regretted his single condition as when he witnessed his nephew’s connubial felicity.

“It is all his fault,” Mrs. Croft was in the habit of asserting, to which Mr. Stewart invariably made reply:

“I know that, my dear Arabella, perfectly well; no wife ever is in fault.”

“Mrs. Dudley could not be, we may suppose,” Mrs. Croft snapped back, on the day following her quarrel with Heather.

“If she could, she must differ greatly from the remainder of her sex,” answered Mr. Stewart, who was, Mrs. Croft frequently assured those lady friends that she honoured with her confidence, “one of the most disagreeable, cynical old bores a woman ever had to tolerate for the sake of his money.”

On the whole, visits from his niece were amongst the number of those blessings with which Mr. Stewart could very readily have dispensed. He liked his nephew, and he pitied him; but Mrs. Croft was decidedly de trop in any house which held at the same time Allan Stewart, Esquire, of Layford.

Very frequently, people wondered why uncle and nephew kept up separate establishments, but then it was remembered that more than once Mr. Stewart had openly regretted the fact of his only near relation having married a woman whom he never could regard in the light of a daughter.

Of this fact Mrs. Croft was perfectly well aware, and she felt madly jealous accordingly, when she beheld the increasing intimacy between Heather and her godfather.

“She will supplant you to a certainty, Douglas,” the amiable wife remarked.

“Well, my love, if she do, I dare say we can still, with economy, manage to exist,” answered Mr. Croft. “Upon strict principles of justice, indeed, I think Dudley ought to have my uncle’s money; I won you from him, you remember; now, it seems to me, he ought to have a turn. Do not fret yourself about the matter, Arabella—I take it philosophically—why cannot you do the same?”

“The same! I have no patience with such absurdity; but I think I have showed Mrs. Dudley there is one of the family, at least, clever enough to see what she is trying for.”

“Do you not think it possible for a woman to be too clever, occasionally?” inquired her husband; “because it occurs to my mind you have overshot the mark by the merest trifle. My uncle did not know the touching relation in which he stood to Mrs. Dudley, until you quarrelled with her. Very possibly he would never have known, had I not, in consequence of that little flourish up the Marina, told him.”

“You—told him?”

“Yes, my love; I considered it was only right he should know the great provocation you had received, so that he might not think the slight coolness between you and Mrs. Dudley originated in any fault on your side. He quite understands your feelings, and appreciates them fully.”

“Douglas, you are either mad or infatuated.”

“Do not moot the former idea before my uncle, or he may cut me off with a shilling, and so deprive you of all chance of ever managing his estates. For myself, I do not care for more money; I am thinking of going out to Australia, and taking a sheepfarm; of doing the Arcadian for a few years, during which time you will marry some one else, and I shall enjoy a bachelor’s existence by way of variety. I am growing horribly tired of the monotony of civilised life. I wonder if I could join a mission as a muscular Christian, and go out to convert the heathen. I should like to see how a fellow with a lot of wives manages them. I should preach the same doctrines as——”

But at this point Mrs. Croft swept out of the room, and her husband took advantage of her absence to seize his hat and leave the house, and march away in a blazing sun to Hastings, where, according to the programme she had sketched for her own guidance, Heather was not at home.

“I am getting confoundedly tired of this,” Mr. Croft remarked to his uncle next day, as they lounged together along the Marina; “suppose we swear business requires our immediate presence in town; cannot we have letters by the five o’clock post, compelling us to go up by the express to-morrow morning? Madam in town is bad enough, but madam at a watering-place, or in the country, is scarcely to be borne.”

“What a choice you made, Douglas!” said his uncle, in a tone of plaintive rebuke.

“Did I choose at all? I doubt it,” was the reply. “Since my marriage, I often should have liked to choose; but perhaps, had power been given me to do so, I might only have made a worse mess of it. The best of a marriage like mine is, it makes a man so philosophical. It leaves one nothing to wish for, nothing to desire; jealousy, over-affection, anxiety about the dear creature’s health; sleepless nights if her finger aches; torturing doubts if another fellow is over-zealous in finding her shawls—from all these troubles I am exempt. My domestic life leaves me nothing to fret about. Like that young man in Longfellow’s poem,—

“‘Light-hearted and content,

I wander through the world;’

only I do not carry two locks of hair about with me and sentimentalize concerning them, so that in one respect I have an advantage over the widower.”

“If your wife were in heaven, I do not think you would carry one of her curls done up in note-paper in your left-hand waistcoat pocket, after the fashion of a man I once knew,” remarked Mr. Stewart a little grimly.

“Well, now, do you know I think I should,” answered Mr. Croft; “when a woman is so kind as to die, it seems to me the least in common gratitude her husband can do, is to use his handkerchief freely, and publicly preserve little mementoes of her—the stalk of the last bunch of grapes she ate, for instance, her box of rouge, or the puff wherewith she powdered her face. To me there is something inexpressibly touching about relics; most probably because they are useless. I always notice people admire and reverence things which are utterly useless, that is one reason I am so fond of my wife. Oh! Arabella; oh, my beloved! there she stands at the window awaiting my return. Signalling for it, too, by all that’s wonderful; shall we go and ascertain the cause of that waving cambric?” And Mr. Stewart agreeing, the pair crossed the road and entered the house, when they soon discovered the reason of Mrs. Croft’s anxiety for their return in the shape of a telegram for Mr. Stewart, which had arrived about an hour previously.

“It is from Dudley,” said that gentleman, placing the paper in his nephew’s hand. “Nice kettle of fish, is not it? We can catch the next train, I suppose?”

“What is the matter; what has happened?” inquired Mrs. Croft.

“Nothing, except that a gentleman on our board will not be reasonable,” answered Mr. Stewart. “He wants talking to, I think. Come, Douglas—that is, if you are coming with me. Good-bye, Arabella, we shall be down again to-morrow.”

“Good-bye, my dear,” repeated Mr. Croft. “Comfort yourself, as I do, that the parting is not for ever;” and the pair hurried off to St. Leonard’s Station, talking as they went about the telegram, which Mr. Stewart now tore up into little scraps, and scattered to the wind.

“My mind always misgave me concerning him,” said Mr. Stewart. “I asked Black specially if he had authority for putting his name on the direction.”

“It is an old trick of Black’s, I believe, that of using names without permission,” answered Mr. Croft; “you will see Frank, I suppose, and try to alter his purpose?”

“Yes, that is why I am now going to town; and I asked you to accompany me, thinking you would be glad of a holiday.”

“You are very kind. I do not fancy I should have much cared for a tête-à-tête with madam by the sad sea waves; and Mrs. Dudley refuses to be at home to me.”

“You can scarcely blame her for that,” remarked his uncle.

“I am not blaming her, only I think it is carrying the theory of husband and wife being one, a little too far. However, if such be her will, I must resign myself to it.”

They were standing on the platform at St. Leonard’s as Mr. Croft spoke thus, and even as he spoke, the train came out of the first tunnel and stopped to take up its passengers.

“Why, good heavens, there is Mrs. Dudley,” exclaimed Mr. Croft. “Can you make room for us?” he asked, eagerly opening the door of the compartment she occupied. “Are you all returning to town? I had not the slightest expectation of meeting you here.”

“We always meant to return to-day,” answered Heather, after she had spoken to Mr. Stewart, and the two gentlemen were seated vis-à-vis. “But I thought you were going to remain for some time longer?”

“So we are, unhappily, I believe,” he replied, putting up the window in order to keep the smoke out of the carriage while passing through the second tunnel. “I only wish,” he added, as they sped on out into the sunshine again, “we were not going to remain. I think St. Leonard’s the most wearisome spot on the face of the whole earth.”

“And we have enjoyed our visit so much!” said Heather.

“But then ladies have resources within themselves of which we men know nothing,” he answered.

“I cannot agree with that,” Heather replied; “we may have resources at home, but certainly not in lodgings; and there is one thing you can do which we cannot—smoke; Lucy and I, for instance, could not have amused ourselves for a whole evening walking up and down the Parade slowly puffing cigars, as I have seen you and Mr. Stewart doing.”

“No, but you could let your dresses sweep the ground,” answered Mr. Croft. “I often fancy that swish-swish of my wife’s train must produce the same soothing effect upon her nerves as a cigar does on mine. Now, Miss Lally, you have not spoken one word to me for the last four days, and my heart is broken in consequence. Will you be good and talk to me now?” and Mr. Croft put out his hand to the little girl, who came tumbling over from the opposite corner to make up friends again with her old admirer, who took her on his knee, and instituted particular inquiries into the state of her health.

“Was she better—much better—able to run half a mile without getting tired?”

“Yes,” she declared, “more than ’at; ’ook at mine face; ma says it has got fat;” and she put up her little hands to her cheeks, and so drew all the flesh forward for Mr. Croft to contemplate.

“Fat, are you, little one?” broke in Mr. Stewart; “not much of that, I fear; let me look at you. She does seem considerably better,” he added, addressing Mrs. Dudley. “You will take her to see Mr. Henry, though, will you not?”

Heather answered that she certainly should, whereupon Lally insisted on knowing exactly who Mr. Henry was, and being informed a doctor, declared she would rather not see him. “Other doctor gave me nasty stuff to drink, sour, and Lally did not like him.”

“Very ungrateful on your part,” remarked Lucy, “for Doctor Chickton was exceedingly kind to you.”

“Didn’t like him,” repeated the child, determinedly; “said sour stuff wasn’t bad to take, and it was dre’ful; said it would make Lally well, and it didn’t. He told ’tories, he did.”

“Are you glad you are going back to London?” inquired Mr. Stewart.

“No,” said Lally, “don’t like it either. I’d like to go home and see the chick-a-biddies, and Dash, and Nip and Nep, and the ponies, and Ned;” and so the child talked on, her eyes dancing with delight as she spoke of the old home any other little girl might almost have forgotten in the time, while Mr. Stewart looked thoughtfully in her face flushed with excitement, and wondered what value his friend, Mr. Rymner Henry, might set on her chances of life.

Mr. Croft delighted greatly in Lally. He encouraged her to be what her mamma called naughty, to chatter away at express speed, to tell him all about Berrie Down, and Aggy, and Laura, “and then there used to be Bessie, you know,” added the child. “Ah! Bessie was good to Lally. She singed to her, and dressed the beau-ful-lest dolls; but Lally will never see Bessie no more—no, never no more;” and the little face began to twitch, and the lips to tremble, and then the brown eyes filled with tears, and finally Lally lifted up her voice and wept.

“What is the matter?” inquired Mr. Stewart, who had been engaged in a conversation with Lucy. “What have you done, Douglas, to cause such grief?”

“I want to see Bessie,” sobbed the child.

“And who is it that is so cruel as to prevent your seeing her?” asked Mr. Stewart.

“She is not with us now,” explained Mrs. Dudley. “She was staying at the Hollow for some months before we left Hertfordshire, and Lally grew very fond of her. I cannot imagine why she so continually talks about her now, though; I do not fancy other children have such tenacious memories. Sometimes for weeks together she will never mention Bessie’s name, and then she breaks out as you see. I wish she would not do it. It is very bad for her, fretting so much after any one. Lally, my darling, you must be patient; whenever Bessie can come to see you, she will.”

“No,” moaned Lally, “no more. Bessie will come to Lally back again, never no more.”

There was something terribly pathetic about the child’s grief even to those who knew nothing whatever of Bessie, or of the circumstances connected with her departure.

“Can’t she come and see the child?” asked Mr. Stewart, a little testily. “Surely, if she be at all within reach, such a yearning as this might be gratified.”

“Perhaps so,” Heather answered, “if we knew where she was; but I have never heard from her since she last left Berrie Down.”

“Did you part in anger then?” Mr. Stewart inquired, true to his theory concerning women’s quarrels.

“In anger!” Heather repeated in astonishment, “when we all loved Bessie as though she had been one of our own household! Why she does not write to me, I cannot tell, only I know she has some good reason for her silence; and I would rather not talk about her any more, or, perhaps, like Lally, I shall begin to be foolish and cry too.” An explanation necessitated by the fact that Mrs. Dudley was crying partly because of her child’s grief, and partly because she never could speak of Bessie without a feeling of bitter sorrow.

After that there fell a sudden silence on the party, during the continuance of which Heather employed herself in adjusting Master Leonard’s collar, which was crooked to an unimaginable extent; Mr. Stewart read the newspaper; Lucy looked at Heather; and Mr. Croft, his chin resting on Lally’s head, gazed out of the window, his thoughts wandering the while miles, and miles away.

“Do you expect Mr. Dudley to meet you?” asked Mr. Stewart, when the train had passed New Cross, and was speeding on through Bermondsey.

“No,” Heather answered; “but his brother will be at the station.”

“Oh! he has brothers.”

“Two,” Heather explained; and a few minutes afterwards she was introducing Alick to Mr. Stewart, who looked on him not ungraciously, while Mr. Croft stood a little apart, apparently by no means desirous of making Mr. Alexander Dudley’s acquaintance.

“We are detaining you,” Heather said, at length, to Mr. Stewart; who remarked, as he bade her “Good-bye,” that he also was going to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and should probably arrive there first.

Then she turned and looked for Mr. Croft, who, unable longer to avoid the situation, now came forward, and assisted her into a cab.

As he did so, Alick, with a sudden amazement, recognised him.

“Who is that gentleman?” he asked Heather; while the object of this inquiry followed Mr. Stewart into a hansom, which immediately drove off.

“Mr. Croft—Mr. Douglas Aymescourt Croft. Why? Do you know him; have you ever seen him before?”

“I think I have once,” Alick answered, remembering for certain he had met that same individual rather more than twelve months previously, on the Sunday afternoon when he walked across to North Kemms church with Bessie, and she left her prayer-book behind her in the pew.

CHAPTER IV.
AT KEMMS PARK.

Lord Kemms’ attention “having,” at length, “been called” (this was the gist of a letter his Lordship wrote to the Times) to the fact of his name appearing in the list of directors of the “Protector Bread and Flour Company, Limited,” begged to state, not merely that he had given no authority for such use of his name, but that, when applied to for permission by the promoter, Mr. Peter Black, he had, in the most unequivocal terms, refused to have anything whatever to do either with the “Protector” or any other company. His Lordship added, that “having failed to obtain a satisfactory explanation of the circumstances under which his name was placed upon the Direction, either from the secretary of the Company or Mr. Black, he trusted the Editor of the Times would insert his letter, and thus give him (Lord Kemms) an opportunity of setting himself right with the general public.”

This letter was written after a somewhat stormy interview with Arthur Dudley and Mr. Black, and despatched to the Times’ office hours before Mr. Stewart’s arrival in town. When that gentleman, after touching en route at the offices in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, did reach Lord Kemms’ town house, he was informed his Lordship had left for Kemms Park by the 5.8 express.

On receiving this intelligence, Mr. Stewart and his nephew drove straight to King’s Cross, where they caught the 7.15 to Palinsbridge, from which place they proceeded in a fly, procured at the Plough Hotel, to Kemms’ Park.

Arrived there, between ten and eleven o’clock at night, Mr. Stewart bade the driver wait; and then, following the butler, who stared to see visitors at such an hour, was ushered into the drawing-room, where were seated Miss Augusta Baldwin, Lord Kemms, and Mr. Compton Raidsford.

“If I were inclined to quote Mr. Black,” remarked Mr. Stewart, after exchanging greetings with his relations, “I should say, here we drop upon the conspirators. Now, Frank, what is all this about you and our Company? Nice dance you have led me over it! Why could you not have stopped in town till you had seen some of us, as any other human being would, I think, excepting yourself?”

“Mr. Raidsford had kindly promised to dine with me to-day.”

“Very good of Mr. Raidsford,” answered Mr. Stewart, with a look towards that gentleman, which seemed to say “I know all about it;” “and I suppose you and Mr. Raidsford have been settling our concerns for us over your claret. We stand at opposite poles,” he added, addressing the contractor; “there can be no doubt but that in some previous state of existence you were bitten by a company, and have had a kind of hydrophobic horror of Limited Liability ever since. Now, Frank, tell me all your grievances; what is this about your good name being taken from you?”

“It has been used without my authority,” answered his Lordship. “I told Mr. Black distinctly I would have nothing to do with his venture, and after that he coolly went and put my name on the Direction.”

“He quite understood, I think; that you had given your consent?”

“I beg your pardon: the last interview I ever had with Mr. Black, until to-day, was at Berrie Down, and I then told him nothing should induce me to lend my countenance to any undertaking of the kind.”

“It was a pity Mr. Black did not take you at your word, Frank,” said Mr. Douglas Croft; “we could have done without you.”

“You will have to do without me now,” retorted Lord Kemms. “I have written to the Times to say that my name was used without my authority.”

“You are confoundedly touchy about your name, if Miss Baldwin will excuse my saying so,” observed Mr. Stewart; which remark Miss Baldwin apparently took as a hint that the presence of ladies was undesired, for she rose and left the room, stating, with a gracious smile to Mr. Stewart, that she would not remain, and so prevent his saying whatever he liked. “I consider Frank has been very hasty,” she added, glancing defiantly in the direction where Mr. Raidsford sat; “but I profess to know nothing of business.”

“Then I wish, aunt, you would not interfere in mine,” answered Lord Kemms; “and, as for my name,” he went on, addressing Mr. Stewart, “how should you like yours to be put on any board of direction without your authority?”

“I should not like it at all,” replied his visitor; “but still I should not think it necessary to go perfectly insane on the subject, as you appear to have done. Dudley tells me you stormed at Mr. Black to-day like a woman; that you would not listen to a word of explanation; and that you dashed out of the office without giving either of them an opportunity of even attempting to arrange the matter with you.”

“Because Black had the audacity to tell me I did give him permission, and adhered to the statement. He first insinuated I was trying to back out of the affair, and then wished to know if some pecuniary compromise could not be effected. The insolent vagabond coolly told me, ‘that was always the way with gentlemen,—that a merchant’s word was as good as his bond, but that, unless you had everything with a swell (the expression he used) in black and white, there was no dependence to be placed upon how matters might turn out.’”

“Very foolish of Black to make such a speech,” Mr. Stewart commented. “You must have put up his temper by some means, Frank.”

“I made him confess he was a liar,” said Lord Kemms.

“My dear fellow, how very vehement you are!” expostulated his kinsman; “you could not express your meaning more strongly if you were a costermonger!”

“I do not see why I should not employ the only word which thoroughly expresses my meaning, even though it be used by a costermonger also. Mr. Black stated that I allowed my name to be put on the Direction. I asked him when? He declared at the time we were staying at Berrie Down. I reminded him, that the last occasion on which we met in Hertfordshire was one day I called at the Hollow, when I told him, in Mr. Dudley’s presence, I would have nothing to do with the Company. Then he said, he had made a mistake—it was when he saw me at my house in London. I told him he had never seen me at my house in London—that, at the time he inquired there for me, I was in Paris. Then he declared it must have been at Palinsbridge station; at any rate, he knew I had promised to let him have my name, and that it was too absurd for me, after having seen myself advertised for twelve months, to try to repudiate connection with the ‘Protector’ now.”

“And he was quite right there,” observed Mr. Stewart.

“I regret to differ from you,” here put in Mr. Raidsford; “but I cannot agree with that opinion.”

Mr. Stewart looked over at the speaker with an expression which seemed to say, that it was a matter of supreme indifference to him whether Mr. Raidsford agreed or not, but still he condescended to explain that “Lord Kemms had suffered judgment to go by default.”

“Mr. Black’s very remark!” said Lord Kemms. “He drew his shoulders up to his ears, and stuffed his hands under the waistband of his trousers——”

“Really, Frank, you are needlessly descriptive,” expostulated Mr. Stewart.

“And said,” proceeded Lord Kemms, unheeding the interruption, “you know, my Lord, it is of no sort of manner of use your kicking up an infernal row about the matter now. You have suffered judgment to go by default; and whether you intended your name to be on our board or not, cannot make any difference at this time of day; so you had better let us come to some arrangement. Speaking on behalf of the other directors, I am certain the Company will do what it can to meet your views.”

“Could a man have spoken any fairer than that?” inquired Mr. Stewart.

“Fairer! I never heard anything so perfectly cool and impertinent in my life!” exclaimed Lord Kemms. “First, to use my name, and then dare to say, ‘I need not try to set myself right with the public!’”

“What do you suppose the public cares about the affair?” asked Mr. Croft. “To whom, do you imagine, it signifies in the least whether your name is on the Direction or not?”

“It signifies to me,” replied his Lordship.

“Why?” demanded Mr. Stewart.

“Because I do not choose to be mixed up with speculations of the kind; because I refused to be associated with your Company; because I won’t be overreached in this way; because other names may have been used in the same manner, and it is time promoters were taught such liberties cannot be taken with impunity.”

“Our Company is a good one—paying very good dividends, and you have risked no money in it,” suggested Mr. Croft.

“Your Company may be a good one, or it may not,” replied Lord Kemms; “but, good or bad, I won’t be mixed up with it. I will have nothing to do with adventures or speculations of any kind.”

“It is a pity you were not always so particular concerning the things you connected yourself with, Frank,” remarked his cousin.

“Let by-gones be by-gones, Douglas,” interposed Mr. Stewart, hastily; “because a man sees the folly of his ways now, there is no justice in twitting him with having been less far-sighted formerly. No doubt, Frank is right as to the general principle; but this is rather a special case, with some peculiarities about it, which he will, doubtless, take into consideration. In the first place,” he added, addressing Lord Kemms, “we will admit there has been some misunderstanding on the subject——”

“No,” was the reply, “I will admit nothing of the kind. Black understood me perfectly——”

“Well, granting that he did understand you, what particular harm has his use of your name done? It is associated not with obscure Cockneys or swindlers, but with decently-respectable, solvent men, like Douglas and myself, for example. Of course, we know, we are not lords; but still, we have a fancy we are honest, and possess some money. Our venture is turning out very well. No doubt the proper number of shares has been allotted to you. You take no responsibility—you run no risk; by making a fuss over the affair, you will do yourself no good, and may do us considerable harm. You will take time to think over the matter, and you will, when you have cooled down a little, decide to make no public scandal concerning the affair.”

“I have already written to the Times,” answered his Lordship.

“But not posted the letter, I hope. Bring it here, Frank, and we will smoke a calumet of peace over its ashes.”

“Impossible! I sent it to the Times’ office before I left London.”

“If we had known that, we might have saved ourselves this agreeable journey,” said Mr. Croft; while Mr. Stewart observed:

“Well, Frank, all I can say is, I am very sorry; for now we shall have to fight you as best we can. Once in the Times, it is war to the death, you know.”

“It was not I who sought the war,” answered Lord Kemms.

“After waiting nearly twelve months, you might surely have waited another day.”

“It was only yesterday I knew anything about the matter. I happened to be over at the Hollow with my aunt, and on the drawing-room table I saw one of the ‘Protector’ prospectuses. Glancing at it, I knew for the first time the use Black had made of my name.”

“It is singular your friend, Mr. Raidsford, did not communicate the fact to you before,” observed Mr. Stewart, with a slight sneer.

“There has been a coolness between me and Lord Kemms for some time past,” interposed Mr. Raidsford, “originating in this very affair. Lord Kemms assured me he would have nothing to do with your Company; and when, after that assurance, I saw his name amongst the directors, I confess I felt both surprised and nettled.”

“And pray, sir, if the question be not indiscreet, what interest was it of yours whether Lord Kemms became a director of our Company or not?”

“It was no personal interest of mine,” answered the contractor; “but believing, as I do, such companies to be the curse of commerce—the very death of legitimate trade—when I am asked for my poor opinion, I do not hesitate about expressing it.”

“You consider capital, then, which employs labour, which builds bridges, constructs railways, digs canals, sends out vessels, the death of legitimate trade?” inquired Mr. Stewart.