Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “No, sir; I cannot say that I do. And of course I am always with him, and can take care of him there as well as I could anywhere else. I shall never let harm come nigh him from any one.”

  It was conclusive, and Mr. St. John intimated that the conference was over.

  “You see, I speak to you as the confidential attendant of the child,” he said. “You were named to me by your late master as one in whom every confidence might be placed. Do me the favour to regard what I have said as between ourselves, in the interest of this little orphan. And always remember, that in case of any emergency arising, where any — any counsel, or advice, or interference on my part should be desirable, a letter will find me at Castle Wafer. I shall come over from time to time — not often, for my health does not permit it; and I shall hope to have a letter frequently from the little boy.”

  He pressed a very handsome present into her hand as he concluded, saying it was in recompense of her trouble and attention to the child. Honour’s eyes filled with tears as she took it; it needed not money to enhance her jealous love for Benja.

  And the boy came back with Mr. Brumm in a state of ecstatic delight, for he had seen the elephant and everything else. He was despatched to the Hall with Honour, bearing compliments to its mistress, and a cargo of good things for himself and Georgy. And Mr. St. John set off on his homeward journey to Castle Wafer.

  CHAPTER XIII.

  ONLY AS BROTHER AND SISTER.

  THE September afternoon was passing into the twilight of evening ere the master of Castle Wafer drew near his home. Miss Georgina Beauclerc was almost at her wits’ end. Determined to carry out her promise of informing him of the mishap that had befallen his brother, she yet saw no means of doing it without its coming to the observance of Mrs. St. John, but by speaking to him in the moment that intervened between his stepping from his carriage and entering the house. For this purpose had she been hovering about almost ever since midday, keeping out of range of the windows, and ready to walk quietly forward as any ordinary visitor, as soon as the carriage came in sight. But the carriage did not come; and Georgina, conscious that the Rectory dinner-hour was approaching, knew not really what to do.

  Just as she was ready to take some desperate “step, had she only known what, she heard the sound of wheels, and the dusty carriage with its four horses drew quickly up. Georgina was not less quick. But ere she had well gained the entrance, ere the carriage door was opened, who should come out of the house, but Mrs. St. John, her hands raised, her voice lifted in consternation.

  It was a very unusual proceeding, and Georgina halted: she would not approach Isaac then. Devoutly wishing Mrs. St. John over in Asia, Georgina listened, and caught sufficient of what passed to hear that Castle Wafer was in alarm about Frederick. He had not been seen or heard of since the preceding day. It turned out afterwards that he had written a second note to Mrs. St. John, which the messenger, sent with it, had never delivered. Georgina could not approach; and while she looked, Mr. St. John and his step-mother disappeared within doors together.

  Excitement was rendering Georgina ill. Have you realized what an arrest such as this must be to a young lady, shielded from the ways of the world? a threatened prison for one all too dear? As she stood there, crouching behind the dwarf shrubs on the lawn, not very conspicuous in the evening light, Mr. Brumm came to the carriage, opened the door to take something from the seat, and she darted up to him.

  “Brumm,” she said, emotion lending a catching sound to her voice, “I want to see Mr. St. John. I must see him, and without delay. If I go round by the other door and get into his sitting-room, will you contrive to send him to me? I dare say he is in the drawing-room with Mrs. St. John.”

  For a minute or two Brumm only stared. He looked upon the dean’s daughter, if the truth must be told, as a rather flighty damsel; and he did not believe she could want anything with Mr. St. John. That is to say, nothing of importance.

  “My master is excessively fatigued, Miss Beauclerc,” he said at length. “I fear he will not be able to see any one to-night.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Brumm,” peremptorily retorted the young lady. “I tell you I must see him: the matter is almost one of life or death. You get him to me in some way; but take care you do it without arousing suspicion in Mrs. St. John.”

  She stole round the house as she spoke, on her way to Mr. St. John’s own sitting-room — the pleasant room you have sometimes seen him in. Brumm, in doubt still, yet seeing no remedy but to obey, collected the things from the carriage, handed them to a footman, and then went to the drawing-room.

  His master was not seated, but standing. By this Brumm knew that he did not intend to remain in the room. Mrs. St. John was telling him of what she called Fred’s mysterious conduct, and showed him the note received on the previous day. She spoke complainingly, and avowed her belief that her roving son had taken French leave to go back to London.

  At any rate, there was nothing Mr. St. John could do in the matter; and in point of fact his fatigue was such he could not in any case have done much. Excessive bodily fatigue takes from the power of the mind; and he did not seem to attach much importance to what Mrs. St. John was saying. He went out of the room, carrying the note with him; and there he was arrested by Brumm.

  “Will you be so kind, sir, as step into your sitting-room for an instant?”

  “I am going upstairs, Brumm. I have not felt so tired for years.”

  “But — I beg your pardon, sir,” resumed Brumm, speaking in the covert tone he had before used, and which a little surprised his master—” you — you are wanted there. If you will step this way, sir, I will explain.”

  Mr. St. John quitted the proximity of the drawing-room, which was evidently what Brumm wished. “Miss Beauclerc was waiting to speak to him,” he whispered as he crossed the hall. “She said she wanted a word with him in private.”

  “Miss Beauclerc!” Wondering very much, not perhaps at her wishing to speak to him, there was nothing extraordinary in that, but at the air of secrecy that Brumm seemed to invest the affair with, Mr. St. John went to his sitting-room. Georgina was pacing it somewhat like a caged bird, hardly able to suppress her impatience.

  “I have been waiting outside for you since twelve o’clock!” she exclaimed, ignoring all ceremonious greeting. “I thought you would never come!”

  “Do you want me?” asked Mr. St. John.

  “Do I want you! I never wanted any one so much in my life. Has Mrs. St. John been telling you that Frederick has disappeared?”

  “Yes. She thinks he has gone to London.”

  “What nonsense!” ejaculated Georgina, pushing back her bonnet from her flaming cheeks. “As if he would go off to London in that manner! I have come to tell you about him, Mr. St. John. He had no one to trust, and so he trusted me. He could not send a letter to await you, lest Mrs. St. John should open it. He is at the Barley Mow all this time; a prisoner.”

  “A what!” exclaimed Mr. St. John.

  “He was arrested yesterday morning. I saw it done, but I did not understand it then. It’s a horrible man in a great high hat, and he has got him at the Barley Mow, until you release him.”

  Isaac St. John sank into a seat, in his pain — his consternation. Living always completely out of the world, never having been brought into contact with its rubs and crosses, a thing of this nature was calculated to shock him in scarcely a less degree than it had shocked the young girl before him, who stood there looking at him with her large grey-blue eyes.

  “Arrested!” he murmured. “Frederick!”

  “You will go and release him, won’t you?” said Georgina, anxiously. “It is a great deal of money; he told me it was some hundreds; but you will pay it for him?”

  “Yes, I will pay it,” replied Mr. St. John, speaking as one lost in thought. “How came he to tell you about it, Georgina?”

  “Oh, I went and saw him there. I guessed what had happened; there’s no time to tell you how; and I went. I promised to
keep his counsel. He is in a fever lest Mrs. St. John should get to know it.”

  “And you will keep it, my dear!” cried Mr. St. John, seizing her hand and speaking in imploring accents. “It is a cruel disgrace for a St. John.”

  “Trust me; trust me ever,” was the girl’s earnest answer, as she said a word of farewell and stole away.

  Little more than an hour later, Frederick St. John was sitting in that same room with his brother — a free man. He was disclosing to him the whole of his embarrassments; which he had not done previously. Not disclosing them altogether willingly, but of necessity; for Mr. St. John’s questionings were searching. The more Frederick told, the more amazed grew Isaac St. John; it maybe said the more utterly astounded and angry. He had never himself been exposed to the temptations that beset a young man of position on entering the world, and he judged them in by no means a tolerant spirit.

  “Frederick, I could not have believed that any human being, gifted with reasoning faculties, had been guilty of such extravagance!”

  “The money seems to have melted, I had no idea it was diminishing so fast.”

  “It has been recklessness, not simple extravagance.”

  Frederick St. John was seated at the table opposite his brother, one elbow leaning on it, the hand of the other playing with the seal attached to his watch-chain. The attitude, the voice, the bearing altogether, seemed to display a carelessness; and it vexed Mr. St. John.

  “How has the money gone? Is it of any use my asking?”

  “It would be of no use if I could tell you,” was the reply. “I declare, on my honour, that I do not know. As I say, the money seems to have melted. I was extravagant; I acknowledge that; I spent it thoughtlessly, heedlessly; and when once the downward path in money-spending is entered upon, a man finds himself going along with a run, and can’t pull up.”

  “Can’t?” reproachingly echoed Mr. St. John.

  “Well, Isaac, it is more difficult than you could imagine. I have found it so. And the worst is, you glide on so easily that you don’t see its danger; otherwise one might sit down halfway and count the cost. I wish you would not look so grieved.”

  “It is not the wilful waste of money that is grieving me,” returned Isaac; “it is the — the thought that you should have suffered yourself to fall into these evil ways.”

  Frederick St. John raised his earnest dark-blue eyes to his brother. “Believe me, Isaac, a man can get out of money without running into absolute evil. I can with truth say that it has been my case. A very great portion of mine has gone in what you and my mother have been wont to call my hobby: buying pictures and running about after them. Wherever there was a gallery of paintings to be seen, I went after it, though it might be at the opposite end of Europe. I bought largely, thoughtlessly; never considering how I was to pay. I assisted a great many struggling artists, both English and foreign, and set them on their legs. I always travelled — and you know how very much I have travelled — as if I were a wealthy man; and that is costly. But of evil, in your acceptation of the word, those vices that constitute it, I have not been guilty. Of extravagance, even, I have not been so guilty as you may think.”

  Mr. St. John lifted his eyebrows. “Not guilty of extravagance?”

  “Isaac, I said not so guilty as you may deem me; not so guilty as appears on the surface. I fell into that dangerous practice of drawing bills. When I bought pictures and could not pay for them, I would give a bill for the amount. When the bill was due, if I could not meet it, I borrowed money upon another, and so patched up the deficiency in that way. It is that that has ruined me. If I owed a hundred pounds I had to pay two for it, sometimes three. Let a man once enter upon this system, and he won’t be long above water.”

  “Did you never think of the ending?”

  “Yes, often. But I could not pull up. There it is! Fairly enter on the downhill path, and there’s no getting back again. I can redeem myself in time, Isaac. If I choose to give up all sources of expense, and live upon a shilling a day, as the saying runs, things will right themselves.”

  “How long do you think you would be doing it?”

  “Four or five years, I suppose.”

  “Just so. The best years of your life. I should not like to see it, Frederick.”

  “It might do me good.”

  “It would scarcely be a position for the heir of Castle Wafer.”

  “Isaac, believe me, I have never presumed upon that idea; have never acted upon it. There have not been wanting insidious advisers urging me to forestall my possible right to its revenues, but I never listened to them. Though I squandered my own property, I have not trenched on yours.”

  “Quite right,” said Mr. St. John. “If anything in the world could make me wish to deprive you of that heirship, it would be the finding that you had presumed upon it for unjustifiable purposes. Though you are as much the heir-apparent to Castle Wafer, Frederick, as though you were my son, instead of younger brother, and I have assured you of this before, it is well that the world should remember that the doubt exists.”

  “I wish to remember it also, Isaac. It would be simple folly on my part not to do so. So long as you live, your intentions may change.”

  “Well now, listen to me. This matter has shocked me very greatly, but I see that it might have been worse; and if it has purchased for you that experience without which I conclude you worldly young men cannot settle down, I shall not think the cost too dear. You must begin again upon a fresh footing. A totally different one. I will help you upon two conditions.”

  “What are they?”

  “The first is, that you give me your word of honour never to put your name to another bill.”

  “I will give it with all my heart. It is only these embarrassments that have caused me to draw bills, and I had already made a firm resolution never to touch another, if once clear, I hate bills.”

  “Very well then, so far. The other condition is, that you marry.”

  For a minute Frederick St. John was silent. The avowal seemed to cause him no surprise. He did not look up, only paused in thought. It may be that he had anticipated it.

  “I fear I must demur to that, Isaac.”

  “Hear me farther. It has always been my intention to resign to you Castle Wafer on your marriage. If I have made the abode beautiful, Frederick, I have only done it for you. I shall go to that little place of mine in the North, and when I come to Castle Wafer, it will be as your guest. Do not interrupt me. No right to deprive me of it? Nonsense! I dare say I should be here six months in the year. Let me go on. Your own property I will free at once from its encumbrances; and I should make over a liberal income to you besides; one fitting for the occupant of Castle Wafer. The settlements on your wife also shall be liberal. Is there anything more that you would desire?”

  “I do not desire half this,” was the warm reply. “You have ever been too generous to me, Isaac. But” — and Frederick St. John laughed gaily— “before I can say that I will marry, it is necessary to fix upon a wife.”

  “That, I hope, has been done long ago, Frederick.”

  “Not by me,” he answered, speaking very quietly. “It has not of course escaped my observation that you and my mother have had your wishes turned towards Anne: but — I — I — have not encouraged this.”

  “It has been the universal wish of the St. John family that you and Anne should marry.”

  “I dare say it has. But the fact is, Isaac, I and Anne do not care for each other. As well perhaps avow it, now it has come to a point. Hitherto I have only evaded the question.”

  “Could you wish for a better wife than Anne?”

  “I could not find a better in real worth. But we marry for love, not for worth: at least, worth goes for little when there is no love. My inclinations do not lie towards Anne.”

  Mr. St. John’s face looked deathly pale as he leaned forward. The fatigue of the day was making itself acutely felt: and at these times crosses tell upon the heart.

&nbs
p; “Do you know that her father wished it?” he said in low tones. “He mentioned it to me more than once when he was dying — how glad he should be if he thought you would marry Anne. You were but a boy then; but you were a favourite with the earl.”

  “Fathers’ wishes go for little in such matters,” was the unwelcome reply.

  “Let me ask you a question, Frederick. Have you formed any other attachment?”

  “No. At least” — and he laughed again—” I am not sure but I had a fancy of the sort once. I believe it has passed.”

  “Is there anything between you and Georgina Beauclerc?” asked Isaac. “Any love?”

  “Not on—” my side, had all but escaped him in his impulsiveness. But he was in time to alter the phrase. “Not anything.”

  “Then it is not she who is keeping you from Anne?”

  “Neither she nor any one else. I decline Anne of my own free will. But indeed, Isaac, one great and essential objection is, that I do not care to marry at present.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “I am unable to give you any particular reason, except that I don’t. And I really do not know who would have me.”

  “Anne would have you.”

  A peculiar smile hovered for a moment on his lips. It was followed by words that bitterly offended Mr. St. John.

  “I shall not ask her.”

  Bit by bit the dissension grew. One word led to another, and a grievous quarrel ensued. It was the first that had ever taken place between the brothers. Hasty words were spoken on both sides: things that leave a sting upon the mind: and when, an hour later, Frederick dashed out of the room, it was because he could not control his passion within it.

  Lady Anne was the first he encountered. The sounds had penetrated outside, and she was in a paroxysm of alarm and uneasiness. “Oh, Frederick, what has been the matter? Is it anything about me?”

  Even then he was generous. Putting the cause upon himself, rather than on her, and disclosing what at a calmer moment he would not have done. “I was arrested, Anne, and Isaac and I have been quarrelling over it. Where’s my mother?”