Cursed by a Fortune

“Yes sir – Now, then, come on.”

But the lad stood and grinned, first at the Squire and then at Mrs Wilton, rubbing his hands down his sides the while.

“D’yer hear?” whispered the footman, as the groom opened the door. “Come on.”

“Sheeawn’t.”

“Come on. Beer.”

“But he arn’t give me the two shillings yet.”

“Eh? Oh, forgot,” said the Squire.

“Gahn. None o’ your games. Couldn’t ha’ forgetted it so soon.”

“There – Take him away.”

Wilton held out a couple of shillings, and the fellow snatched them, bit both between his big white teeth, stuffed one in each pocket, made Mrs Wilton another bow, and turned to go; but his wardrobe had been sadly neglected, and at the first step one of the shillings trickled down the leg of his trousers, escaped the opening into his ill-laced boot, rattled on the polished oaken floor, and then ran along, after the fashion of coins, to hide itself in the darkest corner of the room. But Barker was too sharp for it, and forgetting entirely the lessons he had learned at school about ordering “himself lowly and reverently to all his betters,” he shouted: “Loo, loo, loo!” pounced upon it like a cat does upon a mouse, picked it up, and thrust it where it could join its fellow, and turned to Mrs Wilton.

“Hole in the pocket,” he said, confidentially, and went off to get the beer.

“Bah! Savage!” growled Wilton, as the door closed. “There, Maria, no doubt about it now.”

“No, my dear, and we can sleep in peace.”

But Mrs Wilton was wrong save and except the little nap she had after dinner while her husband was smoking his pipe; for that night, just before the last light was out – that last light being in the Squire’s room where certain arrangements connected with hair and pieces of paper had detained Mrs Wilton nearly half an hour after her husband had announced in regular cadence that he was fast asleep – there came a long ringing at the hall door bell.

It was so utterly unexpected in the silence and solitude of the country place that Mrs Wilton sprang from her seat in front of the dressing-glass, jarring the table so that a scent-bottle fell with a crash, and injuring her knees.

“James – James!” she cried.

“Eh, what’s the matter?” came from the bed, as the Squire sat up suddenly.

“Fire! Fire! Another stack burning, I’m sure.”

Wilton sprang out of bed, ran to the window, tore aside the blind, flung open the casement, and looked down.

“Where is it?” he shouted, for he had more than once been summoned from his bed to rick fires.

“Where’s what?” came in a familiar voice.

Wilton darted back, letting fall the blind.

“Slip on your dressing gown,” he said, hastily, “and pull out those confounded things from your hair. They’ve come back.”

“Oh, my dear, and me this figure!” cried the lady, and for the next ten minutes there was a hurried sound of dressing going on.

“Look sharp,” said Wilton. “I’ll go down and let them in. You’d better rouse up Cook and Samuel; they’ll want something to eat.”

“I won’t be two minutes, my dear. Take them in the library; the wood ashes will soon glow up again. My own darlings! I am glad.”

Mrs Wilton was less, for by the time the heavy bolts, lock, and bar had been undone, she was out of her room, and hurried to the balustrade to look down into the hall, paying no heed to the cool puff of wind that rushed upward and nearly extinguished the candle her husband had set down upon the marble table.

“My own boy!” she sighed, as she saw Claud enter, and heard his words.

“Thankye,” he said. “Gone to bed soon.”

“The usual time, my boy,” said Wilton, in very different tones to those he had used at their last meeting. “But haven’t you brought her?”

“Brought her?”

“Yes; where’s Kate?”

“Fast asleep in bed by now, I suppose,” said the young man sulkily.

“Oh, but you should have brought her. Where have you come from?”

“Fast train down. London. Didn’t suppose I was going to stop here, did you, to be kicked?”

“Don’t say any more about that, my boy. It’s all over now; but why didn’t you bring her down?”

“Oh, Claud, my boy, you shouldn’t have left her like that.”

“Brought her down – Kate – shouldn’t have left,” said the young man, excitedly. “Here, what do you both mean?”

“There, nonsense; what is the use of dissimulation now, my boy,” said Wilton. “Of course we know, and – there – it’s of no use to cry over spilt milk. We did not like it, and you shouldn’t have both tried to throw dust in our eyes.”

“Look here, guv’nor, have you been to a dinner anywhere to-night?”

“Absurd, sir. Stop this fooling. Where did you leave Kate?”

“In bed and asleep, I suppose.”

“But – but where have you been, then?”

“London, I tell you. Shouldn’t have been back now, only I couldn’t find Harry Dasent. He’s off somewhere, so I thought I’d better come back. I say, is she all right again?”

“I knew it! I knew it!” shrieked Mrs Wilton. “I said it from the first. Oh, James, James! – The pond – the pond! She’s gone – she’s gone!”

“Who’s gone?” stammered Claud, looking from father to mother, and back again.

“Kate, dear; drowned – drowned,” wailed Mrs Wilton.

“What!” shouted Claud.

“Look here, sir,” said his father, catching him by the arm in a tremendous grip, as he raised the candle to gaze searchingly in his son’s face; “let’s have the truth at once. You’re playing some game of your own to hide this – this escapade.”

“Guv’nor!” cried the young man, catching his father by the arm in turn; “put down that cursed candle; you’ll burn my face. You don’t mean to say the little thing has cut?”

Chapter Eighteen

James Wilton stood for a few moments staring searchingly at his son. Then, in a sudden access of anger, he rushed to the library door, flung it open, came back, caught the young man by the shoulders, and began to back him in.

“Here, what are you doing, guv’nor? Leave off! Don’t do that. Here, why don’t you answer my question?”

“Hold your tongue, idiot! Do you suppose I want all the servants to hear what is said? Go in there.”

He gave him a final thrust, and then hurried out to hasten upstairs to where Mrs Wilton stood holding on by the heavy balustrade which crossed the hall like a gallery, and rocking herself to and fro.

“Oh, James, I knew it – I knew it!” she sobbed out. “She’s dead – she’s dead!”

“Hush! Hold your tongue!” cried her husband. “Do you want to alarm the house? You’ll have all the servants here directly. Come along.”

He drew her arm roughly beneath his, and hurried her down the stairs into the library, thrust her into her son’s arms, and then hurried to the hall table for the candle, ending by shutting himself in with them.

“Oh, Claud, Claud, my darling boy!” wailed Mrs Wilton.

“If you don’t hold your tongue, Maria, you’ll put me in a rage,” growled Wilton, savagely. “Sit in that chair.”

“Oh, James, James, you shouldn’t,” sobbed the poor woman, “you shouldn’t,” as she was plumped down heavily; but she spoke in a whisper.

“Done?” asked Claud, mockingly. “Then, now p’raps you’ll answer my question. Has she bolted?”

“Silence, idiot!” growled his father, so fiercely that the young man backed away from trim in alarm. “No, don’t keep silence, but speak. You contemptible young hound, do you think you can impose upon me by your question – by your pretended ignorance? Do you think you can impose upon me, I say? Do you think I cannot see through your plans?”

“I say, mater, what’s the guv’nor talking about?” cried Claud.

“She’s dead – she’s dead!”

“Who’s dead? What’s dead?”

“Answer me, sir,” continued Wilton, backing his son till he could get no farther for the big table. “Do you think you can impose upon me?”

“Who wants to impose on you, guv’nor?”

“You do, sir. But I see through your miserable plan, and I tell you this. You can’t get the money into your own hands to make ducks and drakes of, for I am executor and trustee and guardian, and if there’s any law in the land I’ll lock up every shilling so that you can’t touch it. If you had played honourably with me you would have had ample, and the estate would have come to you some day, cleared of incumbrances, if you had not killed yourself first.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” cried Claud, angrily. “Who’s imposing on you? Who’s playing dishonourably? You behaved like a brute to me, and I went off to get out of it all, only I didn’t want to be hard on ma, and so I came back.”

“Oh, my darling boy! It was very, very good of you.”

“Be quiet, Maria. Let the shallow-brained young idiot speak,” growled Wilton. “Now, sir, answer me – have you gone through some form of marriage?”

“Who with?” said the young man, with a grin.

“Answer my question, sir. Have you gone through some form of marriage?”

“I? No. I’m free enough, guv’nor.”

“You have not?” cried Wilton, aghast. “You mean to tell me that you have taken that poor girl away somewhere, and have not married her?”

“No, I don’t mean to tell you anything of the sort. Here, mother, is the pater going mad?”

“Silence, Maria; don’t answer him.”

“Yes, do ma. What does it all mean? Has Kitty bolted?”

“She’s drowned – she’s drowned, my boy.”

“Nonsense, ma! You’re always thinking someone is drowned. Then she has bolted. Oh, I say!”

“No, sir; she has not bolted, as you term it in your miserable horsey slang. You’ve taken her away – there; don’t deny it. You’ve got her somewhere, and you think you can set me at defiance.”

“Do I, guv’nor?”

“Yes, sir, you do. But I’ve warned you and shown you how you stand. Now, look here; your only chance is to give up and do exactly as I tell you.”

“Oh, is it?” said the young man mockingly.

“Yes, sir, it is. Now then, be frank and open with me at once, and I may be able to help you out of the miserable hole in which you have plunged us.”

“Go ahead, then. Have it your own way, guv’nor.”

“No time must be lost – that is, if you are not deceiving me and have already had the ceremony performed.”

“I didn’t stand on ceremony,” said Claud, with a laughing sneer; “I gave her a few kisses, and a nice row was the result.”

“Will you be serious, sir?”

“Yes, I’m serious enough. Where has she gone?”

“Where have you taken her?”

“I haven’t taken her anywhere, guv’nor.”

“Do you mean to tell me, sir, that you did not go up a ladder to her window?”

“Hullo!”

“Bring her down and take her right away?”

“I say, guv’nor,” cried Claud, with such startling energy that his father’s last suspicion was swept away; “is it so bad as that?”

“Then you didn’t take her off?”

“Of course I didn’t. Take her off? What, after that scene? Likely. What nonsense, guv’nor! Do you think she’d have come?”

“Claud, you amaze me, my boy,” cried Wilton, who looked staggered, but his incredulity got the better of him directly. “No; only by your effrontery,” he continued. “You are trifling with me; worse still, you are trifling with a large fortune. Come, it will pay you best to be frank. Where is she?”

“At the bottom of the pike pond, for all I know – a termagant,” cried Claud; “I tell you I haven’t seen her since the row.”

“Then she is drowned – she’s drowned.”

“Be quiet, Maria!” roared Wilton. “Now, boy, tell me the truth for once in a way; did you elope with Kate?”

“No, guv’nor, I did not,” cried the young man. “I never had the chance, or I’d have done it like a shot.”

Wilton’s jaw dropped. He was quite convinced now, and he sank into a chair, staring at his son.

“I – I thought you had made short work of it,” said Wilton, huskily.

“Then she really has gone?” said Claud in a whisper.

“Yes, yes, my dear,” burst out Mrs Wilton. “I knew it! I was right at first.”

“Where has she gone, then, mother?”

“Hold your tongue, woman!” cried Wilton, angrily. “You don’t know anything about it – how could she get a ladder there? Footsteps on the flower-bed, my boy. A man in it. I thought it was you.”

“And all that money gone,” cried Claud.

“No, not yet, my boy. There, I beg your pardon for suspecting you. It seemed so much like your work. But stop – you are cheating me; it was your doing.”

“Have it your own way, then, guv’nor.”

“You were seen with her last night.”

“Eh? What time?” cried Claud.

“I don’t know the time, sir, but a man saw you with her. Come, you see the risk you run of losing a fortune. Speak out.”

Claud spoke in, but what he said was his own affair. Then, after a minute’s thought, he said; “I say, would it be old Garstang, guv’nor?”

“No, sir, it would not be John Garstang,” cried Wilton, with his anger rising again.

“No; I have it, guv’nor,” cried Claud, excitedly. “I went up, meaning to have a turn in town with Harry Dasent, but he was out. That’s it; he hasn’t a penny in the world, and he has been down here three times lately. I thought he’d got devilish fond of her all at once; and twice over he let out about Kitty being so good-looking. That’s it; he’s got her away.”

“No, no, my dear; she wouldn’t have gone away with a man like that,” sobbed Mrs Wilton. “She didn’t like him.”

“No; absurd,” cried Wilton.

“But he’d have gone away with her, guv’nor.”

“You were seen with her last night.”

“Oh, was I? All right, then. If you say so I suppose I was, guv’nor, but I’m going back to London after ferreting out all I can. You’re on the wrong scent, dad, – him! I never thought of that.”

“You’re wrong, Claud; you’re wrong.”

“Yes, mother, deucedly wrong,” cried the young man fiercely. “Why didn’t I think of it? I might have done the same, and now it’s too late. Perhaps not. She’d hold out after he got her away, and we might get to her in time. No, I know Harry Dasent. It’s too late now.”

“Look here, Claud, boy, I want to believe in you,” said Wilton, who was once more impressed by his son’s earnestness; “do you tell me you believe that Harry Dasent has taken her away by force?”

“Force, or some trick. It was just the sort of time when she might listen to him. There; you may believe me, now.”

“Then who was the lady you were seen with last night? Come, be honest. You were seen with someone. Who was it?”

“Mustn’t kiss and tell, guv’nor,” said Claud, with a sickly grin.

“Look here,” said Wilton huskily. “There are a hundred and fifty thousand pounds at stake, my boy. Was it Kate?”

“No, father,” cried the young man earnestly; “it wasn’t, ’pon my soul.”

“Am I to believe you?”

“Look here, guv’nor, do you think I want to fool this money away? What good should I be doing by pretending I hadn’t carried her off? I told you I’d have done it like a shot if I had had the chance; and what’s more, you’d have liked it, so long as I had got her to say yes. I did not carry her off, once for all. It was Harry Dasent, and if he has choused me out of that bit of coin, curse him, if I hang for it, I’ll break his neck!”

“Oh! Claud, Claud, my darling,” wailed Mrs Wilton, “to talk like that when your cousin’s lying cold and motionless at the bottom of that pond!”

Chapter Nineteen

For the better part of two days Pierce Leigh went about like one who had received some terrible mental shock; and Jenny’s pleasant little rounded cheeks told the tale of the anxiety from which she suffered, while her eyes followed him wistfully, and she seemed never weary of trying to perform little offices for him which would distract his attention from the thoughts which were sapping his vitality.

The life at the quiet little cottage home was entirely changed, for brother and sister were playing parts for which they were quite unsuited in a melancholy farce of real life, wearing masks, and trying to hide their sufferings from each other, with a miserable want of success.

And all the time Leigh was longing to open his heart to the loving, affectionate little thing who had been his companion from a child, his confidante over all his hopes, and counsellor in every movement or plan. She had read and studied with him, helped him to puzzle out abstruse questions, and for years they had gone on together leading a life full of happiness, and ready to laugh lightly over money troubles connected with the disappointment over the purchase of the Northwood practice through a swindling, or grossly ignorant, agent.

“Don’t worry about it, Pierce dear,” Jenny had said, “it is only the loss of some money, and as it’s in the country we can live on less, and wear out our old clothes over again. I do wish I could cut up and turn your coats and trousers. You men laugh at us and our fashions, but we women can laugh at you and yours. Granted that our hats and dresses are flimsy, see how we can re-trim and unpick, and make them look new again, while your stupid things get worn and shiny, and then they’re good for nothing. They’re quite hopeless, for I daren’t try to make you a new coat out of two old ones.”

There was many a merry laugh over such matters, Jenny’s spirits rising, as the country life brought back the bloom of health that had been failing in Westminster; and existence, in spite of the want of patients, was a very happy one, till the change came. This change to a certain extent resembled that in the yard of the amateur who was bitten by the fancy for keeping and showing those great lumbering fowls – the Brahmas, so popular years ago.

He had a pen of half-a-dozen cockerels, the result of the hatching of a clutch of eggs laid by a feathered princess of the blood royal; and as he watched them through their infancy it was with high hopes of winning prizes – silver cups and vases, at all the crack poultry shows. And how he tended and pampered his pets, watching them through the various stages passed by this kind of fowl – one can hardly say feathered fowl in the earlier stages of their existence, for through their early boyhood, so to speak, they run about in a raw unclad condition that is pitiful to see, for they are almost “birds of a feather” in the Dundreary idea of the singularity of plumage; and it is not until they have arrived pretty well at full growth that they assume the heavy massive plumage that makes their skeleton lanky forms look so huge. These six young Brahmas masculine grew and throve in their pen, innocent, happy, and at peace, till one morning their owner gazed upon them in pride, for they were all that a Brahma fancier could wish to see – small of comb, heavy of hackle, tail slightly developed, broad in the beam, short-legged, and without a trace of vulture hock. “First prize for one of them,” said the owner, and after feeding them he went to town, and came back to find his hopes ruined, his cockerels six panting, ragged, bleeding wrecks, squatting about in the pen, half dead, too much exhausted to spur and peck again.

For there had been battle royal in that pen, the young birds engaging in a furious melée. For what reason? Because, as good old Doctor Watts said, “It is their nature to.” They did not know it till that morning, but there was the great passion in each one’s breast, waiting to be evoked, and transform them from pacific pecking and scratching birds into perfect demons of discord.

There was wire netting spread all over the top of their carefully sanded pen, and till then they had never seen others of their kind. It was their world, and as far as they knew there was neither fowl nor chicken save themselves. The memory of the mother beneath whose plumage they had nestled had passed away, for the gallinaceous brain cavity is small.

That morning, a stray, pert-looking, elegantly spangled, golden Hambro’ pullet appeared upon the wall, looked down for a moment on the pen of full-grown, innocent young Brahmas, uttered the monosyllables “Took, took!” and flew away.

For a brief space, the long necks of the cockerels were strained in the direction where that vision of loveliness had appeared for a brief instant; the fire of jealous love blazed out, and they turned and fought almost to the death. It would have been quite, had there been strength.

The owner of these six cripples did not take a prize.

So at Northwood, women, save as sister or friend, had been non-existent to Pierce Leigh. Now the desire to rend his human brother was upon him strong.

Jenny knew it, and for more than one reason she trembled for the time that must come when Pierce should first meet Claud Wilton, for it had rapidly dawned upon her that the long-deferred grand passion of her brother was the stronger for its sudden growth.

In her anxiety, she went out during those two days a great deal for the benefit of her health, but really on the qui vive for the news that she felt must soon come of Claud’s proceedings with his cousin; and twice over she had started the subject of their projected leaving, making Leigh raise his eyebrows slightly in wonder at the sudden change in his sister’s ideas. But it was not till nearly evening that, during her brother’s temporary absence, she heard the news for which she was waiting.

One of Leigh’s poor patients called to see him – one of the class suffered by most young doctors, who go through life believing they are very ill, and that it is the duty of a medical man to pay extra attention to their ailments, and lavish upon them knowledge and medicine to the fullest extent, without a thought of payment entering their heads.

Betsy Bray was the lady in question, and as was her custom, Jenny saw the woman, ready to hear her last grievance, and tell her brother when he returned.

Betsy was fifty-five, and possessed of the strong constitution which bears a great deal of ease; but in her own estimation she was very bad. From frequenting surgeries, she had picked up a few medical terms, and larded her discourse with them and others of a religious tendency, her attendance at church dole-giving, and other charitable distributions being of the most regular description.

“Doctor at home, miss?” she said, plaintively, as she slowly and plumply subsided upon the little couch in the surgery, the said piece of furniture groaning in all its springs, for Betsy possessed weight.

“No, Mrs Bray. He has gone to call on the Dudges, at West Gale.”

“Ah, he always is calling on somebody when I’ve managed to drag my weary bones all this way up from the village.”

“I am very sorry. What is the matter now?” said Jenny, soothingly.

“Matter, miss? What’s allus the matter with me? It’s my chronics. Not a wink of sleep have I had all the blessed night.”

“Well, I must give you something.”

“Nay, nay, my dear; you don’t understand my troubles. It’s the absorption is all wrong; and you’d be giving me something out of the wrong bottles. You just give me a taste of sperrits to give me strength to get home again, and beg and pray o’ the doctor to come on and see me as soon as he comes home, if you don’t want me to be laid out stark and cold afore another day’s done.”

“But I have no spirits, Mrs Bray.”

“Got none? Well, I dessay a glass o’ wine might do. Keep me alive p’raps till I’d crawled home to die.”

“But we have no wine.”

“Dear, dear, dear, think o’ that,” said the woman fretfully. “The old doctor always had some, and a drop o’ sperrits, too. Ah, it’s a hard thing to be old and poor and in bad health, carrying your grey hairs in sorrow to the grave; and all about you rich and well and happy, rolling in money, and marrying and giving in marriage and wearing their wedding garments, one and all. You’ve heard about the doings up at the Manor House?”

“Yes, yes, something about them, Mrs Bray; but I’ll tell my brother, and he will, I know, come and see you.”

“Yes, you tell him; not as I believe in him much, but poor people must take what they can get – He’s come back, you know?”

“My brother? No; he would have come straight in here.”

“Your brother? Tchah, no!” cried the woman, forgetting her “chronics” in the interest she felt in the fresh subject. “You’re always thinking about your brother, and if’s time you began to think of a husband. I meant him at the Manor – young Claud Wilton. He’s come back.”

“Come back?” cried Jenny excitedly.

“Yes; but I hear he arn’t brought his young missus with him. Nice goings on, running away, them two, to get married. But I arn’t surprised; he fell out with the parson long enough ago about Sally Deal, down the village, and parson give it him well for not marrying her. Wouldn’t be married here out o’ spite, I suppose. Well, I must go. You’re sure you haven’t got a drop o’ gin in the house?”