He was a broad-shouldered, stout-built fellow, wearing a shabby velveteen cut-away coat, slashed about with abnormal pockets, and white and greasy at the seams and elbows. His chin was muffled in two or three yards of dirty woollen comforter, after the fashion of his kind; and the band of his low-crowned felt hat was ornamented with a short clay pipe, colored of a respectable blackness. A dingy white dog, with a brass collar, bow legs, a short nose, bloodshot eyes, one ear, a hanging jaw, and a generally supercilious expression of countenance, rose from the bank at the same moment with his master, and growled ominously at the elegant vehicle and the mastiff Bow-wow trotting by its side.
The stranger was the same individual who had accosted Miss Floyd in Cockspur street three months before.
I do not know whether Miss Floyd recognized this person; but I know that she touched her ponies' ears with the whip, and the spirited animals had dashed past the man, and through the gates of Felden, when he sprang forward, caught at their heads, and stopped the light basket carriage, which rocked under the force of his strong hand.
Talbot Bulstrode leaped from the vehicle, heedless of his stiff leg, and caught the man by the collar.
"Let go that bridle!" he cried, lifting his cane; "how dare you stop this lady's ponies?"
"Because I wanted to speak to her, that's why. Let go my coat, will yer?"
The dog made at Talbot's legs, but the young man whirled round his cane and inflicted such a chastisement upon the snub nose of that animal as sent him into temporary retirement, howling dismally.
"You are an insolent scoundrel, and I've a good mind to—"
"You'd be hinserlent, p'raps, if yer was hungry," answered the man, with a pitiful whine, which was meant to be conciliating. "Such weather as this here's all very well for young swells such as you, as has your dawgs, and guns, and 'untin'; but the winter's tryin' to a poor man's temper when he's industrious and willin', and can't get a stroke of honest work to do, or a mouthful of vittals. I only want to speak to the young lady: she knows me well enough."
"Which young lady?"
"Miss Floyd—the heiress."
They were standing a little way from the pony carriage. Aurora had risen from her seat and flung the reins to Lucy; she was looking toward the two men, pale and breathless, doubtless terrified for the result of the encounter.
Talbot released the man's collar, and went back to Miss Floyd.
"Do you know this person, Aurora?" he asked.
"Yes."
"He is one of your old pensioners, I suppose?"
"He is; do not say anything more to him, Talbot. His manner is rough, but he means no harm. Stop with Lucy while I speak to him."
Rapid and impetuous in all her movements, she sprang from the carriage, and joined the man beneath the bare branches of the trees before Talbot could remonstrate.
The dog, which had crawled slowly back to his master's side, fawned upon her as she approached, and was driven away by a fierce growl from Bow-wow, who was little likely to brook any such vulgar rivalry.
The man removed his felt hat, and tugged ceremoniously at a tuft of sandyish hair which ornamented his low forehead.
"You might have spoken to a cove without all this here row, Miss Floyd," he said, in an injured tone.
Aurora looked at him indignantly.
"Why did you stop me here?" she said; "why could n't you write to me?"
"Because writin's never so much good as speakin', and because such young ladies as you are uncommon difficult to get at. How did I know that your pa might n't have put his hand upon my letter, and there'd have been a pretty to do; though I dessay, as for that, if I was to go up to the house, and ask the old gent for a trifle, he would n't be back'ard in givin' it. I dessay he'd be good for a fi-pun note, or a tenner, if it came to that."
Aurora's eyes flashed sparks of fire as she turned upon the speaker. "If ever you dare to annoy my father, you shall pay dearly for it, Matthew Harrison," she said; "not that I fear anything you can say, but I will not have him annoyed—I will not have him tormented. He has borne enough, and suffered enough, Heaven knows, without that. I will not have him harassed, and his best and tenderest feelings made a market of by such as you. I will not!"
She stamped her foot upon the frosty ground as she spoke. Talbot Bulstrode saw and wondered at the gesture. He had half a mind to leave the carriage and join Aurora and her petitioner; but the ponies were restless, and he knew it would not do to abandon the reins to poor timid Lucy.
"You need n't take on so, Miss Floyd," answered the man, whom Aurora had addressed as Matthew Harrison; "I'm sure I want to make things pleasant to all parties. All I ask is, that you'll act a little liberal to a cove wot's come down in the world since you see him last. Lord, wot a world it is for ups and downs! If it had been the summer season, I'd have had no needs to worrit you; but what's the good of standin' at the top of Regent street such weather as this with tarrier pups and such likes? Old ladies has no eyes for dawgs in the winter; and even the gents as cares for rat-catchin' is gettin' uncommon scarce. There ain't nothink doin' on the turf whereby a chap can make an honest penny, nor won't be, come the Craven Meetin'. I'd never have come anigh you, miss, if I had n't been hard up, and I know you'll act liberal."
"Act liberally!" cried Aurora; "good Heavens! if every guinea I have, or ever hope to have, could blot out the business that you trade upon, I'd open my hands and let the money run through them as freely as so much water."
"It was only good-natured of me to send you that 'ere paper, though, miss, eh?" said Mr. Matthew Harrison, plucking a dry twig from the tree nearest him, and chewing it for his delectation.
Aurora and the man had walked slowly onward as they spoke, and were by this time at some distance from the pony carriage.
Talbot Bulstrode was in a fever of restless impatience.
"Do you know this pensioner of your cousin's, Lucy?" he asked.
"No, I can't remember his face. I don't think he belongs to Beckenham."
"Why, if I had n't have sent you that 'ere Life, you would n't have know'd, would you, now?" said the man.
"No, no, perhaps not," answered Aurora. She had taken her porte-monnaie from her pocket, and Mr. Harrison was furtively regarding the little morocco receptacle with glistening eyes.
"You don't ask me about any of the particulars?" he said.
"No. What should I care to know of them?"
"No, certainly," answered the man, suppressing a chuckle; "you know enough, if it comes to that; and if you wanted to know any more, I could n't tell you, for them few lines in the paper is all I could ever get hold of about the business. But I always said it, and I always will, if a man as rides up'ard of eleven stone—"
It seemed as if he were in a fair way of rambling on for ever so long if Aurora had not checked him by an impatient frown. Perhaps he stopped all the more readily as she opened her purse at the same moment, and he caught sight of the glittering sovereigns lurking between leaves of crimson silk. He had no very acute sense of color; but I am sure that he thought gold and crimson made a pleasing contrast, as he looked at the yellow coin in Miss Floyd's porte-monnaie. She poured the sovereigns into her own gloved palm, and then dropped the golden shower into Mr. Harrison's hands, which were hollowed into a species of horny basin for the reception of her bounty. The great trunk of an oak screened them from the observation of Talbot and Lucy as Aurora gave the man the money.
"You have no claim upon me," she said, stopping him abruptly, as he began a declaration of his gratitude, "and I protest against your making a market of any past events which have come under your knowledge. Remember, once and for ever, that I am not afraid of you; and that if I consent to assist you, it is because I will not have my father annoyed. Let me have the address of some place where a letter may always find you—you can put it into an envelope and direct it to me here—and from time to time I promise to send you a moderate remittance, sufficient to enable you to lead an honest life, if you or any of your set ar
e capable of doing so; but I repeat, if I give you this money as a bribe, it is only for my father's sake."
The man muttered some expression of thanks, looking at Aurora earnestly; but there was a stern shadow upon that dark face that forbade any hope of conciliation. She was turning from him, followed by the mastiff, when the bandy-legged dog ran forward, whining, and raising himself upon his hind legs to lick her hand.
The expression of her face underwent an immediate change. She shrank from the dog, and he looked at her for a moment with a dim uncertainty in his bloodshot eyes; then, as conviction stole upon the brute mind, he burst into a joyous bark, frisking and capering about Miss Floyd's silk dress, and imprinting dusty impressions of his fore paws upon the rich fabric.
"The pore hanimal knows yer, miss," said the man, deprecatingly; "you was never 'aughty to 'im."
The mastiff Bow-wow made as if he would have torn up every inch of ground in Felden Woods at this juncture; but Aurora quieted him with a look.
"Poor Boxer!" she said, "poor Boxer! so you know me, Boxer!"
"Lord, miss, there's no knowin' the faithfulness of them animals."
"Poor Boxer! I think I should like to have you. Would you sell him, Harrison?"
The man shook his head.
"No, miss," he answered, "thank you kindly; there a'n't much in the way of dawgs as I'd refuse to make a bargain about. If you wanted a mute spaniel, or a Russian setter, or a Hile of Skye, I'd get him for you and welcome, and ask you nothin' for my trouble; but this here bull-terrier's father, mother, and wife, and fambly to me, and there a'n't money enough in your pa's bank to buy him, miss."
"Well, well," said Aurora, relentingly, "I know how faithful he is. Send me the address, and don't come to Felden again."
She returned to the carriage, and, taking the reins from Talbot's hand, gave the restless ponies their head; the vehicle dashed past Mr. Matthew Harrison, who stood hat in hand, with his dog between his legs, until the party had gone by. Miss Floyd stole a glance at her lover's face, and saw that Captain Bulstrode's countenance wore its darkest expression. The officer kept sulky silence till they reached the house, when he handed the two ladies from the carriage, and followed them across the hall. Aurora was on the lowest step of the broad staircase before he spoke.
"Aurora," he said, "one word before you go up stairs."
She turned and looked at him a little defiantly; she was still very pale, and the fire with which her eyes had flashed upon Mr. Matthew Harrison, dog-fancier and rat-catcher, had not yet died out of those dark orbs. Talbot Bulstrode opened the door of a long chamber under the picture-gallery—half billiard-room, half library, and almost the pleasantest apartment in the house—and stood aside for Aurora to pass him.
The young lady crossed the threshold as proudly as Marie Antoinette going to face her plebeian accusers. The room was empty.
Miss Floyd seated herself in a low easy-chair by one of the two great fireplaces, and looked straight at the blaze.
"I want to ask you about that man, Aurora," Captain Bulstrode said, leaning over a prie-dieu chair, and playing nervously with the carved arabesques of the walnut-wood frame-work.
"About which man?"
This might have been prevarication in some; from Aurora it was simply defiance, as Talbot knew.
"The man who spoke to you on the avenue just now. Who is he, and what was his business with you?" Here Captain Bulstrode fairly broke down. He loved her, reader, he loved her, remember, and he was a coward, a coward under the influence of that most cowardly of all passions, LOVE—the passion that could leave a stain upon a Nelson's name; the passion which might have made a dastard of the bravest of the three hundred at Thermopylæ, or the six hundred at Balaklava. He loved her, this unhappy young man, and he began to stammer, and hesitate, and apologize, shivering under the angry light in her wonderful eyes. "Believe me, Aurora, that I would not for the world play the spy upon your actions, or dictate to you the objects of your bounty. No, Aurora, not if my right to do so were stronger than it is, and I were twenty times your husband; but that man, that disreputable-looking fellow who spoke to you just now—I don't think he is the sort of person you ought to assist."
"I dare say not," she said; "I have no doubt I assist many people who ought by rights to die in a workhouse or drop on the high-road; but, you see, if I stopped to question their deserts, they might die of starvation while I was making my inquiries; so perhaps it's better to throw away a few shillings upon some unhappy creature who is wicked enough to be hungry, and not good enough to deserve to have anything given him to eat."
There was a recklessness about this speech that jarred upon Talbot, but he could not very well take objection to it; besides, it was leading away from the subject upon which he was so eager to be satisfied.
"But that man, Aurora, who is he?"
"A dog-fancier."
Talbot shuddered.
"I thought he was something horrible," he murmured; "but what, in Heaven's name, could he want of you, Aurora?"
"What most of my petitioners want," she answered; "whether it's the curate of a new chapel with mediæval decorations, who wants to rival our Lady of Bons-Secours upon one of the hills about Norwood; or a laundress who has burnt a week's washing, and wants the means to make it good; or a lady of fashion, who is about to inaugurate a home for the children of indigent lucifer-match sellers; or a lecturer upon political economy, or Shelley and Byron, or Charles Dickens and the modern humorists, who is going to hold forth at Croydon; they all want the same thing—money! If I tell the curate that my principles are evangelical, and that I can't pray sincerely if there are candlesticks on the altar, he is not the less glad of my hundred pounds. If I inform the lady of fashion that I have peculiar opinions about the orphans of lucifer-match sellers, and cherish a theory of my own against the education of the masses, she will shrug her shoulders deprecatingly, but will take care to let me know that any donation Miss Floyd may be pleased to afford will be equally acceptable. If I told them that I had committed half a dozen murders, or that I had a silver statue of the winner of last year's Derby erected on an altar in my dressing-room, and did daily and nightly homage to it, they would take my money and thank me kindly for it, as that man did just now."
"But one word, Aurora—does the man belong to this neighborhood?"
"No."
"How, then, did you come to know him?"
She looked at him for a moment steadily, unflinchingly, with a thoughtful expression in that ever-changing countenance—looked as if she were mentally debating some point. Then, rising suddenly, she gathered her shawl about her and walked toward the door. She paused upon the threshold and said,
"This cross-questioning is scarcely pleasant, Captain Bulstrode. If I choose to give a five pound note to any person who may ask me for it, I expect full license to do so, and I will not submit to be called to account for my actions—even by you."
"Aurora!"
The tenderly reproachful tone struck her to the heart.
"You may believe, Talbot," she said, "you must surely believe that I know too well the value of your love to imperil it by word or deed—you must believe this."
CHAPTER VIII.
POOR JOHN MELLISH COMES BACK AGAIN.
John Mellish grew weary of the great City of Paris. Better love, and contentment, and a crust in a mansarde, than stalled oxen or other costly food in the loftiest saloons au premier, and with the most obsequious waiters to do us homage, and repress so much as a smile at our insular idiom. He grew heartily weary of the Rue de Rivoli, the gilded railings of the Tuileries gardens, and the leafless trees behind them. He was weary of the Place de la Concorde, and the Champs Elysées, and the rattle of the hoofs of the troop about his imperial highness's carriage when Napoleon the Third or the baby prince took his airing. The plot was yet a hatching which was to come so soon to a climax in the Rue Lepelletier. He was tired of the broad boulevards, and the theatres, and the cafés, and the glove-shops—tired of starin
g at the jewellers' windows in the Rue de la Paix, picturing to himself the face of Aurora Floyd under the diamond and emerald tiaras displayed therein. He had serious thoughts at times of buying a stove and a basket of charcoal, and asphyxiating himself quietly in the great gilded saloon at Meurice's. What was the use of his money, or his dogs, or his horses, or his broad acres? All these put together would not purchase Aurora Floyd. What was the good of life, if it came to that, since the banker's daughter refused to share it with him? Remember that this big, blue-eyed, curly-haired John Mellish had been from his cradle a spoiled child—spoiled by poor relations and parasites, servants and toadies, from the first hour to the thirtieth year of his existence—and it seemed such a very hard thing that this beautiful woman should be denied to him. Had he been an Eastern potentate, he would have sent for his vizier, and would have had that official bowstrung before his eyes, and so made an end of it; but, being merely a Yorkshire gentleman and land-owner, he had no more to do but to bear his burden quietly. As if he had ever borne anything quietly! He flung half the weight of his grief upon his valet, until that functionary dreaded the sound of Miss Floyd's name, and told a fellow-servant in confidence that his master "made such a howling about that young woman as he offered marriage to at Brighton that there was no bearing him." The end of it all was, that one night John Mellish gave sudden orders for the striking of his tents, and early the next morning departed for the Great Northern Railway, leaving only the ashes of his fires behind him.
It was only natural to suppose that Mr. Mellish would have gone straight to his country residence, where there was much business to be done by him: foals to be entered for coming races, trainers and stable-boys to be settled with, the planning and laying down of a proposed tan-gallop to be carried out, and a racing-stud awaiting the eye of the master. But, instead of going from the Dover Railway Station to the Great Northern Hotel, eating his dinner, and starting for Doncaster by the express, Mr. Mellish drove to the Gloucester Coffee-house, and there took up his quarters, for the purpose, as he said, of seeing the Cattle-show. He made a melancholy pretence of driving to Baker street in a Hansom cab, and roamed hither and thither for a quarter of an hour, staring dismally into the pens, and then fled away precipitately from the Yorkshire gentlemen-farmers, who gave him hearty greeting. He left the Gloucester the next morning in a dog-cart, and drove straight to Beckenham. Archibald Floyd, who knew nothing of this young Yorkshireman's declaration and rejection, had given him a hearty invitation to Felden Woods. Why should n't he go there? Only to make a morning call upon the hospitable banker; not to see Aurora; only to take a few long respirations of the air she breathed before he went back to Yorkshire.
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