by Ellen Wood
“But — you don’t mean that she — that she went out and killed him?” cried Roland in puzzled wonder. “Could she have got out without being seen?”
“Of course I don’t mean it; I said it to her in joke. Why, Roland, you must be stupid to ask such a thing.”
“To be sure I must,” answered Roland, in contrition. “It’s all through my having been at Port Natal.”
The last word was drowned in a shiver of glass. Both of them turned hastily. Mr. Bede Greatorex, in taking his elbow from the ormolu cabinet behind the sofa, had accidentally knocked down a beautiful miniature fountain of Bohemian glass, which had been throwing up its choice perfume.
“He certainly heard me,” breathed Clare Joliffe, excessively discomfited. “I never knew he was there.”
The breakage caused some commotion, and must have annoyed Mr. Bede Greatorex. He rang the bell loudly for a servant, and those who caught a view of his face, saw that it had a white stillness on it, painful as death.
Roland made his escape. The evening, so far as he was concerned, seemed a failure, and he thought he would leave the rooms without further ceremony. Leaping down the staircase a flight at a time, he met Jane Greatorex ascending attended by her coloured maid.
“Halloa! what brings you sitting up so late as this?” cried free Roland.
“We’ve been spending the evening with grandpapa in his room,” answered Jane. “He gave us some cakes and jam, and Miss Channing made the tea. I’ve got to go to bed now.”
“Where’s Miss Channing?”
“She’s there, in grandpapa’s room, waiting to finish the curtain I tore.”
Away went Roland, casting thought to the winds in the prospect of seeing Annabel at last, and burst into Mr. Greatorex’s room, after giving a smart knock at the door. The wonder was that he knocked at all. Annabel was alone, mending the crimson silk curtain of the lower book-case. Jane, dashing it open to look after some book, had torn the curtain woefully; so Miss Channing took it from its place and set to work to repair it. To be thus unceremoniously invaded brought a flush to her cheeks — perhaps she could not have told why — and Roland saw that her eyes were red and heavy. Sitting at the table, near the lamp, she went on quietly with her work.
“Where’s old Greatorex?” demanded Roland. “I thought he was here.”
“Mr. Greatorex is gone into his consulting-room. Some one came to see him.”
Down sat Roland on the other side the table; and, as a preliminary to proceedings, pulled his whiskers and took a long stare right into the young lady’s face.
“I say, Annabel, why are you not at the party tonight?”
“I don’t always care to go in. Mrs. Greatorex gives so many parties.”
“Well, I came to it for only one purpose; and that was to see you. I should not have bothered to dress myself for anybody else. Hamish and his wife are there.”
“I did not feel very well this evening.”
“No, I don’t suppose you did. And, besides that, I expect the feet is, that Mrs. Bede never invited you. She is a beauty!”
“Roland!”
“You may go on at me till to-morrow if you like.
Annabel; I shall say it. She’s a tyrannical, mean-spirited, heartless image; and I shall be telling her so some day to her face. You should hear what Clare Joliffe says of her selfishness.”
In the midst of her vexation, Miss Channing could not forbear a smile. Roland was never more serious in his life.
“And I want to know what it was she had been doing to-day, to put you into that grief.”
Annabel coloured almost to tears. It was a home question, and brought back all the troubles connected with her position in the house. Whether Mrs. Bede Greatorex had taken a dislike to her, or whether that lady’s temper was alone in fault, Miss Channing did not know; but a great deal of petty annoyance was heaped upon her almost daily, sometimes bordering upon cruel insult. Roland, however, was much mistaken if he thought she would admit anything of the kind to him.
“I see what it is; you are too generous to 6ay it’s true,” he observed, after vainly endeavouring to get some satisfactory answer. “You are too good for this house, Annabel, and I only wish I could take you out of it.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said with a quiet smile, not in the least suspecting his meaning.
“And into one of my own.”
“One of your own!”
The remark was elicited from her in simple surprise. She looked up at Roland.
“Yes, one of mine. But for bringing you to the fate of Gerald’s wife, I’d marry you to-morrow, Annabel.”
In spite of the matter-of-fact, earnest tone in which he spoke, almost as if he were asserting he’d take a voyage in the clouds but for its impossibility, Annabel was covered with confusion.
“Some one else’s consent would have to be obtained to that bargain,” she said in a hesitating, lame kind of way, as she bent her head low over a tangle in the red sewing-silk.
“Some one else’s consent! You don’t mean to say you’d not marry me, Annabel!”
“l don’t say I would.”
Roland looked fierce. “You couldn’t perjure yourself; you couldst, Annabel; don’t you know what you always said — that you would be my wife?”
“But I was only a senseless little child then.”
“I don’t care if you were. I mean it to be carried out. Why, Annabel, who else in the world, but you, do you suppose I’d marry?”
Annabel did not say. Her fingers were working quickly to finish the curtain.
“I can tell you I am looking forward to it, if you are not. I vowed to Hamish to-night that you should not stay here another day if I could — good evening, sir.”
Mr. Greatorex, returning to the room, looked a little surprised to see a gentleman in it, who rose to receive him. Recognising Roland, he greeted him civilly.
“Is it you, Mr. Yorke? Do you want me?”
“No sir. Coming down from the kick-up, I met Jenny, who said Miss Channing was here; so I turned in to see her. She’s as unhappy in this house as she can be, Mr. Greatorex; folks have tempers, you know; and in catching a glimpse of her face to-day, I saw it red with grief and tears. Look at her eyes now, sir. So I came in to say that if I could help it by taking her out and marrying her, she should not be here another day. I was saying it when you came in, Mr. Greatorex.”
To hear the single-minded young fellow avow this, standing there in his earnest simplicity, in his great height, was something to laugh at. But Mr. Greatorex detected the rare good-feeling.
“I am afraid Miss Channing may think your declaration is premature, Mr. Yorke. You are scarcely in circumstances to keep yourself, let alone a wife.”
“That’s just the misfortune of it,” said candid Roland. “My pound a week does for me, and that’s all. But I thought I’d let her know it was the power to serve her that was wanting, not the will. And now that it’s said, I’ve done with the matter, and will wish you good night, Mr. Greatorex. Good night, Annabel. Hark at that squalling up-stairs! I wonder the cats don’t set up a chorus!”
And Mr. Yorke went out in commotion.
“He does not mean anything, sir,” said Annabel Channing rather piteously to Mr. Greatorex. “I hope you will pardon him; he is just like a boy.”
“I am sure he does not mean any harm,” was the lawyer’s answer, his lips parting with a smile. “Never were two so much alike in good-hearted simplicity as he and his Uncle Carrick. Don’t let his thoughtless words trouble you, child.”
Roland, clearing the streets at a few bounds, dashed home, and into Mrs. Jones’s parlour, a light through the half-open door showing him that that lady was in it. It was past eleven: as a rule Mrs. Jones liked to keep early hours; but she appeared to have no intention of going to bed yet.
“Are you working for a wager, Mrs. J.?” asked Roland, in allusion to the work in her nimble fingers.
“I’m working not to waste my time, Mr. Yorke, while I si
t up for Alletha Rye. She is not in yet.”
“Out on the spree?” cried Roland.
“She and sprees don’t have much to do with each other,” said Mrs. Jones. “There’s a little child ill a few doors higher up, and Alletha’s gone in to sit with her. But she ought to have been home by eleven. And how have you enjoyed yourself, Mr. Yorke?”
“I say, Mrs. J., don’t you go talking about enjoyment,” spoke Roland resentfully. “It has been a miserable failure altogether. Not a soul there; the men and women howling like mad; and one’s elbows crushed in the crowd. Catch me dressing for another!” Mrs. J. thought the answer slightly inconsistent. “If there was not a soul there, Mr. Yorke, how could your elbows get crushed?”
“There was not a soul I cared for. Plenty of idiots. I don’t say Hamish Channing and his wife are that, though. Clare Joliffe was there. Do you remember her at Helstonleigh?”
“Clare? Let me see — Clare was the second: next to Mrs. Bede Greatorex. And very much like her.” Roland nodded. “She and I were sitting on a sofa, nobody to be seen within ear-shot, and she began talking of the night Mr. Ollivera died. You should have heard her, Mrs. J.: she went on like anything at her sister, calling her selfish and false and deceitful, and other good names. All in a minute there was a crash of glass behind us, and we turned to see Bede Greatorex standing there, I had not spoken treason against his wife, but I didn’t like him to have seen me listening to it. It was an awkward situation. If I had a wife, I should not care to hear her abused.”
“But what caused the crash of glass?” asked practical Mrs. J.
“Oh, Bede’s elbow had touched a perfume fountain of crimson glass, and sent it over,” said Roland carelessly. “It was a beautiful thing, costing I’m sure no end of money, and Mrs. Bede had filled it with scent for the evening. She’ll go in a tantrum over it when the company departs. Were! Bede I should tell her it blew up of itself.”
“Is Miss Clare Joliffe staying there?”
“Got there to-day by the boat. The Joliffes are living in France now. She says it is the first time Mrs. Bede has invited any of them inside the doors: it was the thought of that, you know, that caused her to go on so. Not that I like Mrs. Bede much better than she does. She can be a Tyrant when she likes, Mrs. J.!”
“To her husband?”
“Oh, I don’t know anything about that. Bede’s big enough to put her down if she tries it on with him. She is one in the house.”
“Like a good many other mistresses,” remarked Mrs. J. “I wish Alletha would make haste.”
“She never asked Miss Channing and little Greatorex to her party to-night,” continued Roland. “Not that it was any loss for Miss Channing, you know; only I went there thinking to see her. Old Greatorex had them to spend the evening in his parlour. Had I been Hamish I should just have said, ‘Where’s my sister that she is not present?’ Oh, yes, she can be a Tyrant! And do you know, what with one cross thing and another, I forgot to ask Hamish if he had heard the news about Arthur. It went clean out of my mind.” Mrs. Jones, rather particularly occupied with a knot in her work, made no reply. Roland, thinking perhaps his revelations as to Mrs. Bede had been sufficiently extensive, sat for some minutes in silence; his face bent forward, his elbow on his knee, and pulling at his whiskers in deep thought.
“I say, Mrs. J., how much do you think two people could live upon?” he burst forth.
“That depends upon who they are, Mr. Yorke.”
“Well, I mean — I don’t mind telling you in confidence — me and another. A wife, for instance.”
Had Roland said Me and a Kangaroo, Mrs. Jones could not have looked at him with more surprise — albeit not one to be surprised in general.
“I’d like to take her from there, for she’s shamefully tyrannized over. We need not mention names, but you guess I dare say who’s meant, and you are not to go and repeat it to the parish. If I could get my pay increased to three or four times what it is, by dint of doing extra work and putting my shoulder to the wheel in earnest; and if she could get a couple of nice morning pupils at about fifty pounds a-piece, that would make three hundred a year. Now don’t you think, Mrs. Jenkins, we might get along with that?”
“Well — yes,” answered Mrs. Jones, speaking with some hesitation, and rather to satisfy the earnest, eager face waiting for her decision, than in accordance with her true belief. “The worst of it is that prospects rarely turn out as they are expected to.”
“Now what do you mean, Mrs. J.? Three hundred a-year is three hundred a-year. Let us be on the safe side, if you like, and put it down at two hundred: which would be allowing for my present pay being only doubled. Do you mean to say two people could not live on two hundred a-year? I know we could; she and I.”
“Two people might, when both are economically inclined. But then you see, Mr. Yorke, one ought always to allow for interruptions.”
“What interruptions?” demanded Roland. “Sickness. Or pay or pupils falling off.”
“We are both as healthy as ever we can be,” said Roland, heartily. “If I had not been strong and sound as a young lion, should I have stood all that knocking about at Port Natal? As to pay and pupils, we might take care to make them sure.”
“There might be things to increase expenses,” persisted Mrs. Jones, maintaining her ground as usual. “Children, for instance.”
Roland stared with all his eyes. “Children!”
“It would be within the range of possibility, I suppose, Mr. Yorke. Your brother Gerald has some.”
“Oh law!” cried Roland, his countenance falling. “And nobody knows what a trouble they are and how much they cost — except those who have tried it. A regular flock of them may come trooping down before you are well aware.”
The vista presented to Roland was one his sanguine thoughts had never so much as glanced at. A flock of children had not appeared to him less likely to arrive. than that he should set up a flock of parrots; and he candidly avowed it.
“But we shouldn’t want any children, Mrs. J.”
Mrs. J. gave a rather derisive sniff. “I’ve known them that want the fewest get bothered with the most.”
Roland had not another word to answer. He was pulling his whiskers in much gloom when Miss Rye was heard to enter. Mrs. Jones began to roll her work together, preparatory to retiring for the night.
“Look here, Mrs. Jones. I’m uncommon fond of children — you should see how I love that sweet Nelly Channing — I’d not mind if I had a score about the place; but what becomes of the little monkeys when there’s no bread and cheese to feed them on?”
“That’s the precise difficulty, Mr. Yorke.”
CHAPTER XX.
Grand Reviews.
GERALD YORKE’S book was out. An enterprising firm of publishers had been found to undertake it, and they brought it forth in due course to the public. Great reviews followed closely upon its advent, lauding its merits and beauties to the skies. Three critiques appeared in one week. The great morning paper gave one, as did the two chief weekly reviewing journals. And each one in its turn sung or said that for ages the public had not been so blest as in this most valuable work of fiction.
In his writing-room, the three glorious reviews before him, sat Hamish Channing, his heart and face alike in a glow. Had the praises been bestowed upon himself, he could scarcely have rejoiced more. How Gerald must have altered the book, he thought: and he felt grieved and vexed to have passed so uncompromising a judgment upon his friend’s capabilities as a writer of fiction, when the manuscript was submitted to him. “It must have been that he wrote it too hastily, and has now taken time and consideration to his aid,” decided Hamish.
Carrying the papers in his hand he sought his wife, and in the fulness of his heart read out to her the most telling sentences. Bitter though the resentment was, that Gerald was cherishing against Hamish Channing, he could but have experienced gratification had he witnessed the genuine satisfaction of both, the hearty emphasis which Hamish gave t
o the laudations bestowed on the author “How hard he must have worked at it, Ellen.”
“Yes; I did not think Gerald had the application in him.”
With his arm on the elbow of his chair, and his refined face a little raised as it rested on his hand, Hamish took a few moments for thought. The eyes seemed to be seeking for something in the evening sky; the sweet light of hope pervaded unmistakably the whole bright countenance. Hamish Channing was but gazing at the vision that had become so entirely his; one that was rarely absent from him; that seemed to be depicted in all its radiant colouring whenever he looked out for it. Fame, reward, appreciation; all were stirring his spirit within, in the vivid light of buoyant expectancy.
“And, if Gerald’s book has received this award of praise, what will not mine obtain?” ran his thoughts.
For Hamish knew that, try as Gerald would, it was not in him to write as he himself could.
He took his hat and went forth to congratulate Gerald, unable to be silent under this great fame that had fallen on his early friend. Being late in the day, he thought Gerald might be found at his wife’s lodgings, for he knew he had been there more than usual of late.
True. Gerald sought the lodgings as a kind of refuge. His chambers had become disagreeably hot, and it was only by dint of the utmost caution on his own part, and diligence on his servant’s, that he could venture into them or out of them. The lodgings were less known, and Gerald felt safer there. Things were going very cross with him just now; money seemed to be wanted by his wife and his children and his creditors, all in a hurry, not to speak of the greatest want, himself; and there were moments when Gerald Yorke felt that he might have to seek some far-off city of refuge, as Roland had done, and sail for a Port Natal.
There was no one in the sitting-room when Hamish Channing entered it. The maid said Mr. Yorke had gone out; Mrs. Yorke was putting her children to bed. On the table, side by side with the papers containing the three great reviews, lay a copy of the work. Hamish took it up eagerly, anxious to see the new and good writing that had superseded the old.