by Ellen Wood
Not for a moment did Miss Ashton answer. Truth to say, far from reciprocating the sudden fancy boasted of by Maude, she had taken an unaccountable dislike to her. Something of falsity in the tone, of sudden hardiesse in the handsome black eyes, acted upon Anne as an instinctive warning.
“As you please, Lady Maude.”
“Thank you so much. Hartledon whispered to me the secret about you and Val — Percival, I mean. Shall you accomplish the task, think you?”
“What task?”
“That of turning him from his evil ways.”
“His evil ways?” repeated Anne, in a surprised indignation she did not care to check. “I do not understand you, Lady Maude.”
“Pardon me, my dear Anne: it was hazardous so to speak to you. I ought to have said his thoughtless ways. Quant à moi, je ne vois pas la différence. Do you understand French?”
Miss Ashton looked at her, really not knowing what this style of conversation might mean. Maude continued; she had a habit of putting forth a sting on occasion, or what she hoped might be a sting.
“You are staring at the superfluous question. Of course it is one in these French days, when everyone speaks it. What was I saying? Oh, about Percival. Should he ever have the luck to marry, meaning the income, he will make a docile husband; but his wife will have to keep him under her finger and thumb; she must be master as well as mistress, for his own sake.”
“I think Mr. Elster would not care to be so spoken of,” said Miss Ashton, her face beginning to glow.
“You devoted girl! It is you who don’t care to hear it. Take care, Anne; too much love is not good for gaining the mastership; and I have heard that you are — shall I say it? — éperdue.”
Anne, in spite of her calm good sense, was actually provoked to a retort in kind, and felt terribly vexed with herself for it afterwards. “A rumour of the same sort has been breathed as to the Lady Maude Kirton’s regard for Lord Hartledon.”
“Has it?” returned Lady Maude, with a cool tone and a glowing face. “You are angry with me without reason. Have I not offered to swear to you an eternal friendship?”
Anne shook her head, and her lips parted with a curious expression. “I do not swear so lightly, Lady Maude.”
“What if I were to avow to you that it is true? — that I do love Lord Hartledon, deeply as it is known you love his brother,” she added, dropping her voice— “would you believe me?”
Anne looked at the speaker’s face, but could read nothing. Was she in jest or earnest?
“No, I would not believe you,” she said, with a smile. “If you did love him, you would not proclaim it.”
“Exactly. I was jesting. What is Lord Hartledon to me? — save that we are cousins, and passably good friends. I must avow one thing, that I like him better than I do his brother.”
“For that no avowal is necessary,” said Anne; “the fact is sufficiently evident.”
“You are right, Anne;” and for once Maude spoke earnestly. “I do not like Percival Elster. But I will always be civil to him for your sweet sake.”
“Why do you dislike him? — if I may ask it. Have you any particular reason for doing so?”
“I have no reason in the world. He is a good-natured, gentlemanly fellow; and I know no ill of him, except that he is always getting into scrapes, and dropping, as I hear, a lot of money. But if he got out of his last guinea, and went almost in rags, it would be nothing to me; so that’s not it. One does take antipathies; I dare say you do, Miss Ashton. What a blessing Hartledon did not die in that fever he caught last year! Val would have inherited. What a mercy!”
“That he lived? or that Val is not Lord Hartledon?”
“Both. But I believe I meant that Val is not reigning.”
“You think he would not have made a worthy inheritor?”
“A worthy inheritor? Oh, I was not glancing at that phase of the question. Here he comes! I will give up my seat to him.”
It is possible Lady Maude expected some pretty phrases of affection; begging her to keep it. If so, she was mistaken. Anne Ashton was one of those essentially quiet, self-possessed girls in society, whose manners seem almost to border on apathy. She did not say “Do go,” or “Don’t go.” She was perfectly passive; and Maude moved away half ashamed of herself, and feeling, in spite of her jealousy and her prejudice, that if ever there was a ladylike girl upon earth, it was Anne Ashton.
“How do you like her, Anne?” asked Val Elster, dropping into the vacant place.
“Not much.”
“Don’t you? She is very handsome.”
“Very handsome indeed. Quite beautiful. But still I don’t like her.”
“You would like her if you knew her. She has a rare spirit, only the old dowager keeps it down.”
“I don’t think she much likes you, Val.”
“She is welcome to dislike me,” returned Val Elster.
CHAPTER VI.
AT THE BRIDGE.
The famous boat-race was postponed. Some of the competitors had discovered they should be the better for a few days’ training, and the contest was fixed for the following Monday.
Not a day of the intervening week but sundry small cockle-shells — things the ladies had already begun to designate as the “wager-boats,” each containing a gentleman occupant, exercising his arms on a pair of sculls — might be seen any hour passing and repassing on the water; and the green slopes of Hartledon, which here formed the bank of the river, grew to be tenanted with fair occupants. Of course they had their favourites, these ladies, and their little bets of gloves on them.
As the day for the contest drew near the interest became really exciting; and on the Saturday morning there was quite a crowd on the banks. The whole week, since Monday, had been most beautiful — calm, warm, lovely. Percival Elster, in his rather idle fashion, was not going to join in the contest: there were enough without him, he said.
He was standing now, talking to Anne. His face wore a sad expression, as she glanced up at him from beneath the white feather of her rather large-brimmed straw hat. Anne had been a great deal at Hartledon that week, and was as interested in the race as any of them, wearing Lord Hartledon’s colours.
“How did you hear it, Anne?” he was asking.
“Mamma told me. She came into my room just now, and said there had been words.”
“Well, it’s true. The doctor took me to task exactly as he used to do when I was a boy. He said my course of life was sinful; and I rather fired up at that. Idle and useless it may be, but sinful it is not: and I said so. He explained that he meant that, and persisted in his assertion — that an idle, aimless, profitless life was a sinful one. Do you know the rest?”
“No,” she faltered.
“He said he would give me to the end of the year. And if I were then still pursuing my present frivolous course of life, doing no good to myself or to anyone else, he should cancel the engagement. My darling, I see how this pains you.”
She was suppressing her tears with difficulty. “Papa will be sure to keep his word, Percival. He is so resolute when he thinks he is right.”
“The worst is, it’s true. I do fall into all sorts of scrapes, and I have got out of money, and I do idle my time away,” acknowledged the young man in his candour. “And all the while, Anne, I am thinking and hoping to do right. If ever I get set on my legs again, won’t I keep on them!”
“But how many times have you said so before!” she whispered.
“Half the follies for which I am now paying were committed when I was but a boy,” he said. “One of the men now visiting here, Dawkes, persuaded me to put my name to a bill for him for fifteen hundred pounds, and I had to pay it. It hampered me for years; and in the end I know I must have paid it twice over. I might have pleaded that I was under age when he got my signature, but it would have been scarcely honourable to do so.”
“And you never profited by the transaction?”
“Never by a sixpence. It was done for Dawkes’s acco
mmodation, not mine. He ought to have paid it, you say? My dear, he is a man of straw, and never had fifteen hundred pounds of his own in his life.”
“Does Lord Hartledon know of this? I wonder he has him here.”
“I did not mention it at the time; and the thing’s past and done with. I only tell you now to give you an idea of the nature of my embarrassments and scrapes. Not one in ten has really been incurred for myself: they only fall upon me. One must buy experience.”
Terribly vexed was that sweet face, an almost painful sadness upon the generally sunny features.
“I will never give you up, Anne,” he continued, with emotion. “I told the doctor so. I would rather give up life. And you know that your love is mine.”
“But my duty is theirs. And if it came to a contest — Oh, Percival! you know, you know which would have to give place. Papa is so resolute in right.”
“It’s a shame that fortune should be so unequally divided!” cried the young man, resentfully. “Here’s Edward with an income of thirty thousand a year, and I, his own brother, only a year or two younger, can’t boast a fourth part as many hundreds!”
“Oh, Val! your father left you better off than that!”
“But so much of it went, Anne,” was the gloomy answer. “I never understood the claims that came in against me, for my part. Edward had no debts to speak of; but then look at his allowance.”
“He was the eldest son,” she gently said.
“I know that. I am not wishing myself in Edward’s place, or he out of it. I heartily wish him health and a long life to wear his honours; it is no fault of his that he should be rolling in riches, and I a martyr to poverty. Still, one can’t help feeling at odd moments, when the shoe’s pinching awfully, that the system is not altogether a just one.”
“Was that a sincere wish, Val Elster?”
Val wheeled round on Lady Maude, from whom the question came. She had stolen up to them unperceived, and stood there in her radiant beauty, her magnificent dark eyes and her glowing cheeks set off by a little coquettish black-velvet hat.
“A sincere wish — that my brother should live long to enjoy his honours!” echoed Val, in a surprised tone. “Indeed it is. I hope he will live to a green old age, and leave goodly sons to succeed him.”
Maude laughed. A brighter hue stole into her face, a softer shade to her eyes: she saw herself, as in a vision, the goodly mother of those goodly sons.
“Are you going to wear that?” she asked, touching the knot of ribbon in Miss Ashton’s hands with her petulant fingers. “They are Lord Hartledon’s colours.”
“I shall wear it on Monday. Lord Hartledon gave it to me.”
A rash avowal. The competitors, in a sort of joke, had each given away one knot of his own colours. Lady Maude had had three given to her; but she was looking for another worth them all — from Lord Hartledon. And now — it was given, it appeared, to Anne Ashton! For her very life she could not have helped the passionate taunt that escaped from her, not in words, but in tone:
“To you!”
“Kissing goes by favour,” broke from the delicate lips of Val Elster, and Lady Maude could have struck him for the significant, saucy expression of his violet-blue eyes. “Edward loves Anne better than he ever loved his sisters; and for any other love — that’s still far enough from his heart, Maude.”
She had recovered herself instantly; cried out “Yes” to those in the distance, as if she heard a call, and went away humming a tune.
“Val, she loves your brother,” whispered Anne.
“Do you think so? I do sometimes; and again I’m puzzled. She acts well if she does. The other day I told Edward she was in love with him: he laughed at me, and said I was dreaming; that if she had any love for him, it was cousin’s love. What’s more, Anne, he would prefer not to receive any other; so Maude need not look after him: it will be labour lost. Here comes that restless old dowager down upon us! I shall leave you to her, Anne. I never dare say my soul’s my own in the presence of that woman.”
Val strolled away as he spoke. He was not at ease that day, and the sharp, meddling old woman would have been intolerable. It was all very well to put a good face on matters to Anne, but he was in more perplexity than he cared to confess to. It seemed to him that he would rather die than give up Anne: and yet — in the straightforward, practical good sense of Dr. Ashton, he had a formidable adversary to deal with.
He suddenly found an arm inserted within his own, and saw it was his brother. Walking together thus, there was a great resemblance between them.
They were of the same height, much the same build; both were very good-looking men, but Percival had the nicer features; and he was fair, and his brother dark.
“What is this, Val, about a dispute with the doctor?” began Lord Hartledon.
“It was not a dispute,” returned Val. “There were a few words, and I was hasty. However, I begged his pardon, and we parted good friends.”
“Under a flag of truce, eh?”
“Something of that sort.”
“Something of that sort!” repeated Lord Hartledon. “Don’t you think, Val, it would be to your advantage if you trusted me more thoroughly than you do? Tell me the whole truth of your position, and let me see what can be done for you.”
“There’s not much to tell,” returned Val, in his stupidity. Even with his brother his ultra-sensitiveness clung to him; and he could no more have confessed the extent of his troubles than he could have taken wing that moment and soared away into the air. Val Elster was one of those who trust to things “coming right” with time.
“I have been talking to the doctor, Val. I called in just now to see Mrs. Ashton, and he spoke to me about you.”
“Very kind of him, I’m sure!” retorted Val. “It is just this, Edward. He is vexed at what he calls my idle ways, and waste of time: as if I need plod on, like a city clerk, six days a week and no holidays! I know I must do something before I can win Anne; and I will do it: but the doctor need not begin to cry out about cancelling the engagement.”
“How much do you owe, Val?”
“I can’t tell.”
Lord Hartledon thought this an evasion. But it was true. Val Elster knew he owed a great deal more than he could pay; but how much it might be on the whole, he had but a very faint idea.
“Well, Val, I have told the doctor I shall look into matters, and I hope to do it efficiently, for Anne’s sake. I suppose the best thing will be to try and get you an appointment again.”
“Oh, Edward, if you would! And you know you have the ear of the ministry.”
“I dare say it can be managed. But this will be of little use if you are still to remain an embarrassed man. I hear you were afraid of arrest in London.”
“Who told you that?”
“Dawkes.”
“Dawkes! Then, Edward—” Val Elster stopped. In his vexation, he was about to retaliate on Captain Dawkes by a little revelation on the score of his affairs, certain things that might not have redounded to that gallant officer’s credit. But he arrested the words in time: he was of a kindly nature, not fond of returning ill for ill. With all his follies, Val Elster could not remember to have committed an evil act in all his life, save one. And that one he had still the pleasure of paying for pretty deeply.
“Dawkes knows nothing of my affairs except from hearsay, Edward. I was once intimate with the man; but he served me a shabby trick, and that ended the friendship. I don’t like him.”
“I dare say what he said was not true,” said Lord Hartledon kindly. “You might as well make a confidant of me. However, I have not time to talk to-day. We will go into the matter, Val, after Monday, when this race has come off, and see what arrangement can be made for you. There’s only one thing bothers me.”
“What’s that?”
“The danger that it may be a wasted arrangement. If you are only set up on your legs to come down again, as you have before, it will be so much waste of time and money; so much loss,
to me, of temper. Don’t you see, Val?”
Percival Elster stopped in his walk, and withdrew his arm from his brother’s; his face and voice full of emotion.
“Edward, I have learnt a lesson. What it has cost me I hardly yet know: but it is learnt. On my sacred word of honour, in the solemn presence of Heaven, I assert it, that I will never put my hand to another bill, whatever may be the temptation. I have overcome, in this respect at least, my sin.”
“Your sin?”
“My nature’s great sin; the besetting sin that has clung to me through life; the unfortunate sin that is my bane to this hour — cowardly irresolution.”
“All right, Val; I see you mean well now. We’ll talk of these matters next week. Instead of Elster’s Folly, let it become Elster’s Wisdom.”
Lord Hartledon wrung his brother’s hand and turned away. His eyes fell on Miss Ashton, and he went straight up to her. Putting the young lady’s arm within his own, without word or ceremony, he took her off to a distance: and old Lady Kirton’s skirts went round in a dance as she saw it.
“I am about to take him in hand, Anne, and set him going again: I have promised Dr. Ashton. We must get him a snug berth; one that even the doctor won’t object to, and set him straight in other matters. If he has mortgaged his patrimony, it shall be redeemed. And, Anne, I think — I do think — he may be trusted to keep straight for the future.”
Her soft sweet eyes sparkled with pleasure, and her lips parted with a sunny smile. Lord Hartledon took her hand within his own as it lay on his arm, and the furious old dowager saw it all from the distance.
“Don’t say as much as this to him, Anne: I only tell you. Val is so sanguine, that it may be better not to tell him all beforehand. And I want, of course, first of all, to get a true list of — that is, a true statement of facts,” he broke off, not caring to speak the word “debts” to that delicate girl before him. “He is my only brother; my father left him to me, for he knew what Val was; and I’ll do my best for him. I’d do it for Val’s own sake, apart from the charge. And, Anne, once Val is on his legs with an income, snug and comfortable, I shall recommend him to marry without delay; for, after all, you will be his greatest safeguard.”