by Ellen Wood
“We must be in the large drawing-room, mamma, this evening,” said Adelaide, as they crossed the hall. “Miss Benyon and the children can take tea in the school-room.”
“Yes,” assented Mrs. Dare. “It is bad form to have one’s drawing-room cucumbered with children, and Lord Hawkesley understands all that. Let them be in the school-room.”
“Julia also?”
Mrs. Dare shrugged her shoulders. “If you can persuade her into it. I don’t think Julia will consent to take tea in the school-room. Why should she?”
Adelaide vouchsafed no reply. Dutiful children they were not — affectionate children they were not — they had not been brought up to be so. Mrs. Dare was of the world, worldly: very much so: and that leaves very little time upon the hands for earnest duties. She had taken no pains to train her children: she had given them very little love. This conversation had taken place in the hall. Mrs. Dare went upstairs to the large drawing-room, a really handsome room. She rang the bell and gave sundry orders, the moving motive for all being the doubtful visit of Viscount Hawkesley — ices from the pastrycook’s, a tray of refreshments, the best china, the best silver. Then Mrs. Dare reclined in her chair for her after-dinner nap — an indulgence she much favoured.
Adelaide Dare entered the smaller drawing-room, an apartment more commonly used, and opening from the hall. Julia was reading a book just brought in from the library. Miss Benyon was softly playing, and the two little ones were quarrelling. Miss Benyon turned round from the piano when Adelaide entered.
“You must make tea in the school-room this evening, Miss Benyon, for the children. Julia, you are to take yours there.”
Julia looked up from her book. “Who says so?”
“Mamma. Lord Hawkesley’s coming, and we cannot have the drawing-room crowded.”
“I am not going to keep out of the drawing-room for Lord Hawkesley,” returned Julia, a quiet girl in appearance and manner. “Who is Lord Hawkesley, that he should disarrange the economy of the house? There’s so much ceremony and parade observed when he comes that it upsets all comfort. Your lordship this, and your lordship that; and papa my-lording him to the skies. I don’t like it. He looks down upon us — I know he does — although he condescends to make a sort of friend of Anthony.”
Adelaide Dare’s dark eyes flashed and her face crimsoned. She was a handsome girl. “Julia! I do think you are an idiot!”
“Perhaps I am,” composedly returned Julia, who was of a careless, easy temper; “but I am not going to be kept out of the drawing-room for my Lord Hawkesley. Let me go on with my book in peace, Adelaide: it is a charming one.”
Meanwhile Herbert Dare, seeing no prospect of more wine in store — for Mr. Dare, with wonderful prudence, told Herbert that two glasses of port were sufficient for him — left his seat, and bolted out at the dining-room window, which opened on to the ground. He ran into the hall for his hat, and then, speeding across the lawn, passed into the high-road. Anthony remained alone with his father; and Anthony was plucking up courage to speak upon a subject that was causing him some perplexity. He plunged into it at once.
“Father, I am in a mess. I have managed to outrun the constable.”
Mr. Dare was at that moment holding his glass of wine between his eye and the light. The words quite scared him. He set his glass down and looked at Anthony.
“How’s that? How have you managed that?”
“I don’t know how it has come about,” was Anthony’s answer. “It is so, sir; and you must be so good as to help me out of it.”
“Your allowance is sufficient — amply so. Do you forget that I set you clear of debt at the beginning of the year? What money do you want?”
Anthony Dare began pulling the fringe out of the dessert napkin, to the great detriment of the damask. “Two hundred pounds, sir.”
“Two hundred pounds!” echoed Mr. Dare, a dark expression clouding his handsome face. “Do you want to ruin me, Anthony? Look at my expenses! Look at the claims upon me! I say that your allowance is a liberal one, and you ought to keep within it.”
Anthony sat biting his lip. “I would not have applied to you, sir, if I could have helped it; but I am driven into a corner and must find money. I and Hawkesley drew some bills together. He has taken up two, and I — —”
“Then you and Hawkesley were a couple of fools for your pains,” intemperately interrupted Mr. Dare. “There’s no game so dangerous, so delusive, as that of drawing bills. Have I not told you so, over and over again? Simple debt may be put off from month to month, and from year to year; but bills are nasty things. When I was a young man I lived for years upon promises to pay, but I took care not to put my name to a bill.”
“Hawkesley — —”
“Hawkesley may do what you must not,” interrupted Mr. Dare, drowning his son’s voice. “He has his father’s long rent-roll to turn to. Recollect, Anthony, this must not occur again. It is impossible that I can be called upon periodically for these sums. Herbert is almost a man, and Cyril and George are growing up. A pretty thing, if you were all to come upon me in this manner. I have to exert my wits as it is, I can tell you. I’ll give you a cheque to-morrow; and I should serve you right if I were to put you upon half allowance until I am repaid.”
Mr. Dare finished his wine, rang for the table to be cleared, and left the room. Anthony remained standing against the side of the window, half in, half out, buried in a brown study, when Herbert came up, leaping over the grass. Herbert was nearly as tall as Anthony. He had been for some time articled to his father, but had only joined the office the previous Midsummer. He looked into the room and saw it was empty.
“Where’s the governor?”
“Gone somewhere. Into the drawing-room, perhaps,” replied Anthony.
“What a nuisance!” ejaculated Herbert. “One can’t talk to him before the girls. I want twenty-five shillings from him. Markham has the primest fishing-rod to sell, and I must have it.”
“Twenty-five shillings for a fishing-rod!” cried Anthony.
“And cheap at the price,” answered Herbert. “You don’t often see so complete a thing as this. Markham would not part with it — it’s a relic of his better days, he says — only his old mother wants some comfort or other which he can’t otherwise afford. The case — —”
“You have half-a-dozen fishing-rods already.”
“Half a dozen rubbish! That’s what they are, compared with this one. It’s no business of yours, Anthony.”
“Not at all. But you’ll oblige me, Herbert, by not bothering the governor for money to-night. I have been asking him for some, and it has put him out.”
“Did you get it?”
Anthony nodded.
“Then you’ll let me have the one-pound-five, Anthony?”
“I can’t,” returned Anthony. “I shall have a cheque to-morrow, and I must pay it away whole. That won’t clear me. But I didn’t dare to tell of more.”
“If I don’t get that fishing-rod to-night, Markham may sell it to some one else,” grumbled Herbert.
“Go and get it,” replied Anthony. “Promise him the money for to-morrow. You are not obliged to give it, you know. The governor has just said that he lived for years upon promises to pay.”
“Markham wants the money down.”
“He’ll think that as good as down if you tell him he shall have it to-morrow. Bring the fishing-rod away; possession’s nine points of the law, you know.”
“He’ll make such an awful row afterwards, if he finds he does not get the money.”
“Let him. You can row again. It’s the easiest thing on earth to fence off little paltry debts like that. People get tired of asking for them.”
Away vaulted Herbert for the fishing-rod. Anthony yawned, stretched himself, and walked out just as twilight was fading. He was going out to keep an appointment.
Herbert Dare went back to Markham’s. The man — though, indeed, so far as birth went he might be called a gentleman — lived a little way beyond Mr. Dare’s.
The cottage was situated in the midst of a large garden, in which Markham worked late and early. He had a very, very small patrimony upon which he lived and kept his mother. He was bending over one of the beds when Herbert returned. “He would take the fishing-rod then, and bring the money over at nine in the morning, before going to the office. Mr. Dare was gone out, or he would have brought it at once,” was the substance of the words in which Herbert concluded the negotiation.
Could they have looked behind the hedge at that moment, Herbert Dare and Markham, they would have seen two young gentlemen suddenly duck down under its shelter, creep silently along, heedless of the ditch, which, however, was tolerably dry at that season, make a sudden bolt across the road, when they got opposite Mr. Dare’s entrance, and whisk within its gates. They were Cyril and George. That they had been at some mischief and were trying to escape detection, was unmistakable. Under cover of the garden-wall, as they had previously done under cover of the hedge, crept they; sprang into the house by the dining-room window, tore up the stairs, and took refuge in the drawing-room, startlingly arousing Mrs. Dare from her after-dinner slumbers.
In point of fact, they had reckoned upon finding the room unoccupied.
CHAPTER IV.
THROWING AT THE BATS.
Aroused thus abruptly out of sleep, cross and startled, Mrs. Dare attacked the two boys with angry words. “I will know what you have been doing,” she exclaimed, rising and shaking out the flounces of her dress. “You have been at some mischief! Why do you come violently in, in this manner, looking as frightened as hares?”
“Not frightened,” replied Cyril. “We are only hot. We had a run for it.”
“A run for what?” she repeated. “When I say I will know a thing, I mean to know it. I ask you what you have been doing?”
“It’s nothing very dreadful, that you need put yourself out,” replied George. “One of old Markham’s windows has come to grief.”
“Then that’s through throwing stones again!” exclaimed Mrs. Dare. “Now I am certain of it, and you need not attempt to deny it. You shall pay for it out of your own pocket-money if he comes here, as he did the last time.”
“Ah, but he won’t come here,” returned Cyril. “He didn’t see us. Is tea not ready?”
“You can go to the school-room and see. You are to take it there this evening.”
The boys tore away to the school-room. Unlike Julia, they did not care where they took it, provided they had it. Miss Benyon was pouring out the tea as they entered. They threw themselves on a sofa, and burst into a fit of laughter so immoderate and long that their two young sisters crowded round eagerly, asking to hear the joke.
“It was the primest fun!” cried Cyril, when he could speak. “We have just smashed one of Markham’s windows. The old woman was at it in a nightcap, and I think the stone must have touched her head. Markham and Herbert were holding a confab together and they never saw us!”
“We were chucking at the leathering bats,” put in George, jealous that his brother should have all the telling to himself, “and the stone — —”
“It is leather-winged bat, George,” interrupted the governess. “I corrected you the other night.”
“What does it matter?” roughly answered George. “I wish you wouldn’t put me out. A leathering-bat dipped down nearly right upon our heads, and we both heaved at him, and one of the stones went through the window, nearly taking, as Cyril says, old Mother Markham’s head. Won’t they be in a temper at having to pay for it! They are as poor as charity.”
“They’ll make you pay,” said Rosa.
“Will they?” retorted Cyril. “No catch, no have! I’ll give them leave to make us pay when they find us out. Do you suppose we are donkeys, you girls? We dipped down under the hedge, and not a soul saw us. What’s for tea?”
“Bread and butter,” replied the governess.
“Then those may eat it that like! I shall have jam.”
Cyril rang the bell as he spoke. Nancy, the maid who waited on the school-room, came in answer to it. “Some jam,” said Cyril. “And be quick over it.”
“What sort, sir?” inquired Nancy.
“Sort? oh — let’s see: damson.”
“The damson jam was finished last week, sir. It is nearly the season to make more.”
Cyril replied by a rude and ugly word. After some cogitation, he decided upon black currant.
“And bring me up some apricot,” put in George.
“And we’ll have some gooseberry,” called out Rosa. “If you boys have jam, we’ll have some too.”
Nancy disappeared. Cyril suddenly threw himself back on the sofa, and burst into another ringing laugh. “I can’t help it,” he exclaimed. “I am thinking of the old woman’s fright, and their dismay at having to pay the damage.”
“Do you know what I should do in your place, Cyril?” said Miss Benyon. “I should go back to Markham, and tell him honourably that I caused the accident. You know how poor they are; they cannot afford to pay for it.”
Cyril stared at Miss Benyon. “Where’d be the pull of that?” asked he.
“The ‘pull,’ Cyril, would be, that you would repair a wrong done to an unoffending neighbour, and might go to sleep with a clear conscience.”
The last suggestion amused Cyril amazingly he and conscience had not a great deal to do with each other. He was politely telling Miss Benyon that those notions were good enough for old maids, when Nancy appeared with the several sorts of jam demanded. Cyril drew his chair to the table, and Nancy went down.
“Ring the bell, Rosa,” said Cyril, before the girl could well have reached the kitchen. “I can’t see one sort from another; we must have candles.”
“Ring it yourself,” retorted Rosa.
“George, ring the bell,” commanded Cyril.
George obeyed. He was under Cyril in the college school, and accustomed to obey him.
“You might have told Nancy when she was here,” remarked Miss Benyon to Cyril. “It would have saved her a journey.”
“And if it would?” asked Cyril. “What were servants’ legs made for, but to be used?”
Nancy received the order for the candles, and brought them up. It was to be hoped her legs were made to be used, for scarcely had Cyril begun to enjoy his black currant jam when they were heard coming up the stairs again.
“Master Cyril, Mr. Markham wants to see you.”
Cyril and the rest exchanged looks. “Did you say I was at home?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you were an idiot for your pains! I can’t come down, tell him. I am at tea.”
Down went Nancy accordingly. And back she came again. “He says he must see you, Master Cyril.”
“Be a man, Cyril, and face it,” whispered Miss Benyon in his ear.
Cyril jerked his head rudely away from her. “I won’t go down. There! Nancy, you may tell Markham so.”
“He has sat down on the garden bench, sir, outside the window to wait,” explained Nancy. “He says, if you won’t see him he shall ask for Mr. Dare.”
Cyril appeared to be in for it. He dashed his bread and jam on the table, and clattered down. “Who’s wanting me?” called out he, when he got outside. “Oh! — is it you, Markham?”
“How came you to throw a stone just now, and break my window, Cyril Dare?”
The words threw Cyril into the greatest apparent surprise. “I throw a stone and break your window!” repeated he. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Either you or your brother threw it; you were both together. It entered my mother’s bedroom window, and went within an inch of her head. I’ll trouble you to send a glazier round to put the pane in.”
“Well, of all strange accusations, this is about the strangest!” uttered Cyril. “We have not been near your window; we are upstairs at our tea.”
At this juncture, Mr. Dare came out. He had heard the altercation in the house. “What’s this?” asked he. “Good evening, Markham.”
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p; Markham explained. “They crouched down under the hedge when they had done the mischief,” he continued, “thinking, no doubt, to get away undetected. But, as it happened, Brooks the nurseryman was in his ground behind the opposite hedge, and he saw the whole. He says they were throwing at the bats. Now I should be sorry to get them punished, Mr. Dare; we have been boys ourselves; but if young gentlemen will throw stones, they must pay for any damage they do. I have requested your son to send a glazier round in the morning. I am sorry he should have denied the fact.”
Mr. Dare turned to Cyril. “If you did it, why do you deny it?”
Cyril hesitated for the tenth part of a second. Which would be the best policy? To give in, or to hold out? He chose the latter. His word was as good as that confounded Brooks’s, and he’d brave it out! “We didn’t do it,” he angrily said; “we have not been near the place this evening. Brooks must have mistaken others for us in the dusk.”
“They did do it, Mr. Dare. There’s no mistake about it. Brooks had been watching them, and he thinks it was the bigger one who threw that particular stone. If I had set a house on fire,” Markham added to Cyril, “I’d rather confess the accident, than deny it by a lie. What sort of a man do you expect to make?”
“A better one than you!” insolently retorted Cyril.
“Wait an instant,” said Mr. Dare. He proceeded to the school-room to inquire of George. That young gentleman had been an admiring hearer of the colloquy from a staircase-window. He tore back to the school-room on the approach of his father; hastily deciding that he must bear out Cyril in the denial. “Now, George,” said Mr. Dare, sternly, “did you and Cyril do this, or did you not?”
“Of course we did not, papa,” was the ready reply. “We have not been near Markham’s. Brooks must be a fool.”
Mr. Dare believed him. He was leaving the room when Miss Benyon interposed.
“Sir, I should be doing wrong to allow you to be deceived. They did break the window.”
The address caused Mr. Dare to pause. “How do you know it, Miss Benyon?”
Miss Benyon related what had passed. Mr. Dare cast his eyes sternly upon his youngest son. “It is you who are the fool, George, not Brooks. A lie is sure to get found out in the end; don’t attempt to tell another.”