Frances Peard (continued 4)

“Much fiddlesticks!” growled her husband. “What are those young idiots to me? However, you never can do anything that’s not perfect, so, of course I give in. I suppose I am to be told this morning that all this Italian business is just as it should be.”

“We are both sorry that you should be disappointed,” Jack said quietly, “but—”

“Disappointed! The disappointment will be on your side you will find!”

“Excuse me, I had not finished my sentence. I was going to say that grateful as I am for your kindness, this is a matter in which I could not allow anyone to dictate to me.”

“Oh, very well, sir, very well. You must go your own way. I shall not attempt to interfere. Only you will quite understand that neither you nor Phillis have anything more to look for from my hands.”

Mrs Thornton broke in appealingly. “My dear Peter! Now do not be so hasty. You know how sorry you often are when it is too late.”

“Will you hold your tongue?” said her husband, glaring at her.

“You don’t really mean it,” she went on disregarding, “you know you don’t. Jack has been about the place ever since we came here twelve years ago, and he was a nice little boy in a short jacket—”

“Will you be quiet?”

“No, I won’t. If nobody else is here to speak, I shall tell you what I think of it. There is nobody so near you as Jack. As to all this business, you know very well that it is no one’s fault but Phillis’s, she said so herself in her letters, and I do say it is a shame that the poor boy should suffer—”

Mr Thornton was in a red heat of passion. Jack said abruptly.

“No, that is not the case. Whatever blame there is—and I suppose there always is blame, first or last, in a broken engagement—rests entirely with me. It will be very unjust, Uncle Peter, if you visit my sins on poor Phillis. I tell you honestly that I liked the thought of Hetherton at first, I dare say I should like it still; but it was a mistake of yours, I think, though no doubt you meant it kindly, to mix up the two things together, and it makes it uncommonly hard upon one of the two, don’t you see? Set it right with Phillis, and I shall take my disinheriting without grumbling.”

Phillis was Mr Thornton’s favourite as Jack was his wife’s, and this speech of Jack’s smoothed him down a little. But he shook his head obstinately.

“Whatever I may be, I’m not a weather-cock. I made up my mind deliberately, and I’m not going to change it for any boy or girl fancies. Marry Phillis, and you and she and your heirs after you shall have Hetherton, and plenty to keep it on. Don’t marry her, and I shall find another successor. That’s all. You can’t have it more plainly.”

“Oh, it’s plain enough,” said Jack with some bitterness, walking over to the window. What he thought was that it placed a wider gulf than ever between them. For he could not think that she cared about Hetherton, and he knew he did—to a certain degree; and how could he come near her again with this condition hanging over them? “Well,” he said, turning back to the fire, “then there’s no more to be said, except that I still hope you will alter your determination. I wanted a word with you about young Masters.”

“What of him?”

“Is he doing well?”

“Just the reverse. We should have sent him off by this time if it had not been for my very good friend Mr Trent,” said Mr Thornton, pressing up his under lip and looking defiantly at his nephew.

“What are his sins?”

“Perhaps you don’t think so much of them in your set. We business men have an antiquated idea that it is dishonourable to give a promissory note when you have no means of meeting it when due.”

“I am sure Jack would never be dishonourable,” murmured Mrs Thornton.

“Ah—” said Jack musingly. “Then the money was not forthcoming?”

“Certainly not.”

“And you heard of it?”

“I was informed by Mr Trent, who being interested in the young scamp—”

“His cousin,” put in Jack.

“His cousin!” Mr Thornton looked astonished for a moment. “Well, then, his cousin—very generously paid the money and got the note into his own hands. He acted throughout in the manner I should have expected from him, came to me at once, asked my advice, and begged me, if I felt it a possibility, to give the lad another chance. After consideration I consented. Pray have you anything to say against all this?”

“Not to-day,” Ibbetson answered quietly.

“Not to-day!” repeated his uncle. “Perhaps you intend setting yourself up as the young man’s champion against his best friend. And I tell you what, Jack. You seemed to me to be trying to pick a quarrel with Mr Trent last night. Don’t let me see anything of the sort again. You will be good enough to behave to him as my friend.”

“Not as mine, at all events,” said Jack, smiling as he reflected that his uncle treated him with as much authority as if, instead of disinheriting, he had just invested him with all his worldly goods.

“And why not?” demanded Mr Thornton.

“That I cannot explain at present. Never mind, Uncle Peter, we shan’t clash. I’m going up to town by the next train, and shall be out of the way.”

Mr Thornton’s face fell. In spite of all that had passed, he was very much disappointed. He thought Jack, who seldom gave in to him and never lost his temper, and who was therefore a very pleasant companion, would have spent Christmas with them. Under present circumstances he could not condescend to ask him to stay, but he would have liked his wife to do so in private, instead of exclaiming—

“There, Peter, I told you so! Now you have driven him away. Your uncle didn’t mean it, my dear boy, though I don’t think you are right about that nice Mr Trent.”

“I haven’t said anything, have I?”

“Well, I suppose it means something when you decline to meet him as a friend.”

”‘The hand of Douglas is his own,’” quoted Jack. “I am very sorry, but I can’t do otherwise. And I must be off at once, if I am to catch the train.”

“You can have the carriage,” said Mr Thornton gruffly.

“No, thank you, the morning is so fine, I prefer to walk.”

“Stop a moment. Then you are not going out again to Rome?”

“Not unless I am obliged to do so. I shall spend Christmas with my father, and then come up for real hard work. Good-bye; good-bye, Aunt Harriet.”

“Hard work!” repeated Mr Thornton with scorn, as the door closed. And yet he was feeling a reluctant admiration for the straightforwardness with which the young fellow had behaved. If he had been left alone he would probably have relented, but his wife, with the best intentions in the world, immediately rubbed him up the wrong way.

“Of course you don’t mean it, Peter,” she said anxiously.

Perhaps nothing irritates a man so much as being told that he does not mean what he has just proclaimed with some emphasis as his intention. He faced round—

“Don’t I? I mean every word of it. I gave them both fair notice.”

“Then I do think it is a shame. And there will be nobody we care for to come after us. I don’t believe you will be able to think of anyone at all.”

Mr Thornton was immediately possessed with a desire to prove his prescience.

“Pooh!” he said, “you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not by any means sure that it’s not a good thing for the property that this has happened. Jack treats it all too lightly, as if money were got together in a week. I should prefer some one who would take my name, and go on carefully building up as I have done. Such a man as Trent, for instance. Highly principled, and thoroughly trustworthy, I don’t know such another. If it hadn’t been for him I should never have known the rights of this business.”

Mr Thornton banged the door to emphasise his last sentence, and then frowned, hearing Jack whistling as he ran down the steps. With the frown on his face he went in pursuit of Mr Trent.

“Look here, Trent,” he began, “that young clerk’s business was plain enough, I suppose?”

“Quite so,” said Trent steadily. “Your nephew has been talking of him? He seems to have taken an unaccountable prejudice against me, but I am sure I wish his efforts could prove the poor boy blameless. I have done my best in that direction, and failed. From his being a connection of my own, and from an especial cause of interest, I am peculiarly desirous for it. Nothing else could have led me to appeal to your kindness as I have done, and I assure you I cannot be sufficiently grateful.”

“Never mind that,” said Mr Thornton with a wave of the hand.

“Excuse me, it is impossible to forget it. I can take credit for nothing but entire frankness in the matter. Dismissal would have been ruin, and with most men dismissal must have resulted; but I could not have allowed you to remain in the dark, and your kindness in the matter may be the saving of the unhappy boy.”

“What can Jack know about him?” asked Mr Thornton.

“Probably some distorted account of the matter has reached him,” Trent replied calmly. “Unfortunately, as I said, your nephew is prejudiced against me. Does his opinion affect you? Because, if so, you must allow me to insist upon Masters’s dismissal.”

“Affect me? Certainly not,” said Mr Thornton, swelling. “I am not likely to be influenced in my opinions by Master Jack. Besides, he seemed to take his part.”

“You may be sure that I am keeping an eye upon him,” said Trent, not noticing these words. “If I see anything at all unsatisfactory, your interests will at all times be paramount to every other consideration. Have you seen the paper? I was wishing particularly to hear your opinion on last night’s news.”

Chapter Seventeen.

Pursuit.

Jack had an hour in which to think over his plan of operations as he went flying up to London in the express. The day was bright and frosty, the sky lightly flecked with clouds, the trees beautiful with the lights on their trunks, with the delicate web-work of their branches clear against the blue, with ivy hanging here and there brave and green. Every little pool of water showed a deep steely blue. Red berries brightened the hedges, and at the stations there were bundles of glossy holly and mistletoe, tied up for the London markets, hampers thrust into the train, a general air of approaching good cheer. It was next to impossible not to feel some exhilaration, actual or reflected.

And yet his own position was not very enviable just now. He had lost Phillis, he had lost Hetherton, and he had an awkward affair on his hands for which, except in the moments when his easy-going nature was roused to an active dislike of Trent—and these moments quickly exhausted themselves—he felt a strong distaste. He meant to carry it through, because Phillis had set her heart upon it, but he had nothing of the detective in him, and at no time found any satisfaction in proving a fellow-creature a sinner. So that, although the remembrance of Bice’s wistful eyes stirred him, and he was aware that it would be cowardly to leave friendless Clive under the shadow which had been thrown over him, he yet would have been glad to have kept Oliver Trent’s share in the matter in the background. It was partly laziness, partly a general good-will. As he was swept along by the train, past field and copse, and commons, he tried to think of some possible means by which justice and mercy might both be satisfied, but, as is generally the case, found it hard to keep the balance true. Perhaps he would not have minded so greatly if he had not found Trent domiciled at Hetherton. He knew nothing, it is true, of that last idea of Mr Thornton’s, but he saw that he was on a very friendly footing there, and hated the notion of being the one to push him out. The consequence of all these misgivings was that when he reached Waterloo Station he had not made up his mind as to any more definite course of action than that he would go out to Kensington again in the evening, and get Clive to speak more freely.

When he found himself there, after some hours of work in his chambers, he was told that Mr Masters had not come in. He went for a stretch along Kensington High Street as far as Holland House, where the trees stood up dark against the grey dusk, and then came back to receive the same answer. The girl, with a dirty apron thrown over her arm, was too much taken up with staring at the visitor, to be communicative.

“Can you tell me at all whether Mr Masters is likely to be in soon?” asked Ibbetson.

“No, sir, I couldn’t.”

“Is he generally back by this time?”

“Sometimes he is, and sometimes he isn’t. Mostly he is,” she added with the jerk of an after-thought.

“I’ll go in and wait, I think. No, I won’t,” he said finally, feeling a strong dislike to anything which looked like invading Clive’s secrets, whatever they might be. After a little deliberation he left his card with a few pencilled words on it to say that he would call at the city office next day, in order to appoint a meeting, and went back to his lodgings.

He found himself thinking a good deal that night of Hetherton and Oliver Trent. His presence there was unlikely to bode any good to Jack’s interests, and yet that very conviction made him dislike to be the one to expose him, if exposure should be needed. But calmer reflection made him believe this to be impossible. There might be some error, or possibly an exaggerated putting forward of his own services, such as should impress Bice, but of anything worse, Jack in the kindness of his heart, which always reasserted itself, after he had been stirred to anger, was disposed to acquit him. Yet it was difficult to reconcile the small bits of information which as yet were all he had succeeded in picking up with each other, and he fell asleep with the determination to induce Clive to speak more clearly, now that chance had disclosed to him this business of the promissory note.

The following morning he was at the office in good time. Of course he was well-known there, and there had been days when Mr Thornton dreamed of his taking to this city life—a dream which never got any nearer to its fulfilment, but which always could be remembered as a grievance. Old Davis, the senior clerk, was fetched in a moment. Ibbetson was beginning to explain his errand, when Davis interrupted him.

“Walk this way, if you please, sir,” he said, “and we shall have the place to ourselves.”

“What a den it is, to be sure!” said Jack, looking round the dreary little room, with its drearier fittings. “Davis, do you mean to tell me you don’t sometimes feel disposed to hang yourself?”

“Bless my soul, sir, why?”

“Why, for want of anything more lively to do. And this is what that unfortunate Masters has to grind at!” continued Jack in an audible soliloquy. Davis caught at the name.

“The fact is, Mr Ibbetson,” he said, looking grave, “we’re in great perplexity about Mr Masters.”

“What’s happened?”

“He hasn’t turned up to-day at all.”

“Ill, I suppose,” said Jack.

“Well, sir, not at his lodgings. I sent a boy off and I find he has not been there since leaving this at the usual hour yesterday. Then he was in good health, to all appearance. I can’t help fearing there’s something wrong.”

“Good Heavens, Davis, what can be wrong?” said Ibbetson hastily.

“The young man has not been himself for some time, and perhaps that makes me nervous,” said the old man with a deliberation which tried his companion’s patience. “Besides, if you know him, Mr John, you are aware that there has been an unpleasantness about a money matter. It always is love or money with those young fellows. He got into debt, borrowed from one of those rascally money-lenders, giving him a promissory note, and when the time came had nothing to meet it. I believe it was a small sum, and it’s not such an uncommon story, but a bad one to get to the ears of the principals, and somehow or other, I’m sure I don’t know how, that is what happened here.”

“Ah, I see,” said Ibbetson.

“The consequence is that they have looked coldly on him ever since, and you’ll understand, Mr John, that others who would not be shocked on their own account will follow the heads, if only to curry favour. I’ve been quite surprised, I declare, to see how many know it. And I can’t help feeling sorry for the poor lad, wrong as he has been, for he seems to take it to heart terribly.”

“Does he say anything for himself?”

“Well, he has a cock-and-a-bull sort of story,” said old Davis, putting his head on one side. “He was sent down to Birmingham on business the week the note became due, and he says he gave the money to a man he trusted to pay it up for him, and that the man has made off or something, for he can find no trace of him. Very unlikely, I am afraid. Mr Trent did all he could in the matter, paid the money, and made it a personal favour to Mr Thornton to keep Mr Masters on, but I feared how it would be when I saw how much had leaked out. I’m sorry, too, for I liked him.”

Jack walked to the dingy window and looked out.

“Have you no sort of idea where he has gone, if he has gone, as I see you believe?”

“Yes,” said the clerk confidently. “I think he has gone to Liverpool.”

“Why?”

“They all go there, that’s one reason. And then I know he has been asking questions in and out about Liverpool of one of the others. I feel pretty sure he has America in his head.”

“Now, Davis, you can do me a favour,” said Jack, coming back suddenly. “We’re close on Christmas. Make some excuse about his absence to-day—put it on me if you like—and, give me a chance of getting hold of him. I shall go down to Liverpool at once. And, mind you, it’s my opinion he will turn out not to blame in that money business.”

“But, Mr John, how can I!”

“Nonsense, man, you haven’t been here five-and-twenty years for nothing. I’ll telegraph back, and be responsible to my uncle,” added Jack with a half laugh. “Hey, boy, call a cab.”

He left Davis standing bewildered, drove to his lodgings, crammed what he wanted into a portmanteau, and dashed off to the station, luckily catching a fast train. On his way he had plenty of time for reflection on the increasing oddity of his position. There seemed so little to connect him with Clive, that it was absolutely comical to realise that Clive had brought him to England, excited him to various warlike passages entirely opposed to his usual temperament, and was now drawing him off on what was likely to prove a fool’s errand. “I hope Phillis at least will appreciate my efforts,” thought Jack, with a laugh. It was she, not Bice, who presented herself to his mind as the motive power for his present energy, her influence always keeping its full strength when they were apart, while Bice’s faded, seeming to depend upon presence, and probably the fascination of her beauty. And yet Jack’s kind heart was enlisted by this time on behalf of the young fellow, who, he could not but believe, was in some strange way a victim.

While he was in London, there had seemed a chance of finding Clive at Liverpool, but when in the darkness and bitter cold of a December evening he stood on the Liverpool platform, the chance seemed to run down at once until it looked like an impossibility. The police were his only hope, and he drove at once to a police station in order to put them on the track, experiencing the usual relief in finding how ordinary—however doubtful—a matter he seemed to be engaged upon. A superintendent put a few questions, gave a few instructions, and then delivered his opinion. Always supposing that the young man had come there at all—in which case America was tolerably certain to be his aim—it was of course quite possible that he had got off that day, but not likely. In the first place he was a stranger and would not know how to set to work, and would be shy of asking advice—a good thing, too, put in the superintendent. It would be necessary for him to dispose of, or change his clothes, as money for others would probably be wanting. Also he would have to ship himself. At some seasons this might be a difficulty: but Christmas was not a bad time for him to have chosen, as men did not like sailing just then, and therefore hands were scarce. There was a chance, and not a slight one, that he might go on board that very night, and if he meant to hide, there might be difficulties in getting him away. That the superintendent could not pronounce upon. But his own opinion inclined to the more hopeful view that he would not sail till the next day. Ibbetson was not sorry to be advised to leave the inquiries absolutely in their hands for that evening, only promising to be ready at an early hour the next morning in case he was called upon to accompany them.

The call came when he was sound asleep, and a message was joined to it to the effect that he was begged to lose no time. Accordingly he was quickly downstairs, and found a policeman waiting at the door of the hotel.

In the damp chill of the early morning—very damp and very chill it was—it was almost a matter of course that things should look yet more hopeless than they had looked the night before. Night appeals to the imagination and works her wonders easily, while morning is coldly prosaic and depressing. A little rain had fallen, lights were still flashing about, shining on wet stones, on which bales and barrels lay heaped; and of the great forest of masts in the river, only those near at hand were beginning to loom out of the mist. Jack’s conductor walking briskly along, and quite unaffected by atmospheric influences, told him that they had found that one vessel was to sail that day, and that the gentleman was not on board.

“And that’s all?” said Jack, disappointed.

“That’s all, sir, at present. She has been closely watched, and if he joins her it will be soon, and you can’t miss him.”

“Keep out of sight,” said Ibbetson, “and if he does turn up, settle with the captain and come to the hotel.”

They had reached the wharf where the vessel lay, and Ibbetson sat down on a barrel. His watch did not last long. A young light figure came running, carrying a bundle, and leaping over a coil of rope which lay in the way, and Jack, more from precaution than any actual conviction that this was Clive, stopped him. It was the young fellow’s start which first assured him, but recognition did not at once dawn in Clive’s eyes. When it did, he turned pale.

“You here!” he stammered.

“And just in time,” was Jack’s cheerful answer. “I never did anything half so neatly in my life before. My dear fellow, don’t be looking round to see how you can give me the slip. The most inveterate of bores never stuck to you as closely as I shall stick.”

“Mr Ibbetson,” said Clive imploringly, “let me go. It’s my best chance, it is indeed—don’t be so hard on me as to take it away. Somehow or other everything has got into a mess here, and over there,” and as he spoke he pointed towards that shadowy world out of which the masts were beginning to stretch themselves, “I may do better.”

“You will do better here,” said Jack.

“No, you don’t know.”

“Yes. I do know—quite enough. Come along,” he added, drawing him away, and anxious that the policeman should not become visible. “If there is a mess, the more reason you should be here to set things right;” and seeing Clive was still reluctant, he added more gravely, “Look here, Masters. If, when we’ve gone into the matter and tried to put it straight, it seems as if America would be your best chance after all, I give you my word I’ll help you to go there in a straightforward fashion, better than this. Now we’ll get back your clothes. Are they sold?”

“Most of them.”

“Let’s hunt them up again, then. You lead on, for I know nothing of the place.”

“But how on earth did you come here?” asked Clive, beginning to find time for astonishment.

“Well, I heard from old Davis—I must telegraph to him, by the bye—and came down last night, made a few inquiries, and hearing the Queen of the Ocean was to sail, kept an eye upon her.”

It sounded so simple in Jack’s cheery voice, that Clive, who had fancied he had arranged so as to baffle all pursuit, listened with a blank conviction of powerlessness.

“My coming away didn’t matter much,” he muttered.

“Except to yourself,” said Ibbetson quietly. “Hallo, is this the street?”

Clive was silent through all the transactions which followed, but when, restored to his own garments, he and Ibbetson had nearly reached the hotel, he said suddenly,—

“I don’t know how much or how little you know, but you may as well hear the right facts.”

“Not till we’ve breakfasted,” said Jack with decision. “This early rising has a wonderful effect upon the appetite. Breakfast first, afterwards your story if you like, and then we’ll go up by the 11:30 train.”

Chapter Eighteen.

Clive.

Clive’s shyness and depression made it no easy matter to get at the facts, even when he had begun to tell them. He was cast down by this failure of what he had set his heart upon, slow to believe that he was trusted, and on his side suspicious of the other man’s intentions, until Jack grew angry. It is difficult for those who all their life long have been accustomed to have unhesitating credit given to their word, to understand the doubts, the fears of those less fortunate in trust, though perhaps not less deserving of it. And yet as Clive sat in the coffee room, with his elbows on the table, his misery was so apparent that Jack resolved to do his best to pull him through. He worked his questions patiently backwards and forwards.

“All that’s clear enough,” he said, leaning back and clasping his hands round his knee. “You owed a little money, and that means of escape—though destruction would be the better word—always is placed conveniently near at hand. Don’t tell me any more about that part of the business. The other half is the most important. You had scraped together the money, principal and interest?”

“Every penny,” said Clive looking up quickly. “How could you manage that?”

“I’m sure I hardly know,” he said with a half laugh. Then he added, with more confidence than he had yet shown—“You wouldn’t understand my shifts. I sold some things, and the rest I got out of myself somehow. I wonder now I didn’t break down.”

“I expect you did,” muttered Ibbetson, glancing at the hollow cheeks, and reflecting that this foolish attempt at escape was probably the outcome of broken-down nerves resulting from a life of semi-starvation. And Trent had looked on pitilessly! Clive went on with his story in a dull voice, making no attempt to appeal to his hearer’s sympathies:

“I was sent down to Birmingham a day or two before it became due, and I left the money with a man I knew—Smith. I didn’t hear anything, but I never doubted its being all right till I got back and found that he had bolted and that the money had never been paid. From that day to this I haven’t heard a word of him. I dare say you don’t believe me.”

“But I do,” said Ibbetson impatiently. “My dear fellow, for pity’s sake, pluck up a little spirit! Why shouldn’t I believe you?”

“Nobody does, that’s all.”

“Well, we’ll make them. Now, why don’t you trace this man?”

“I can’t.”

“How have you tried?”

“I went to his lodgings of course, and made no end of a row. There they said that he went out one day—the day after I left, it must have been—with a bag, and has never come back. I’ve been there again and again and never got anything new. Then, you see, I can’t afford detectives and all that sort of thing—”

“They’ll soon get hold of him,” said Ibbetson, looking at his watch.

“No, they won’t, for Oliver Trent was awfully good, and undertook to set them to work.”

“And paid the money for you besides?”

“The fifty pounds? Yes. I owe it to him, and if you’d let me go, I’d have paid it back one of these days.”

“Then I can’t see why you shouldn’t have stopped on and worked steadily. I don’t suppose he’d have pressed you.”

“I would, if I’d only thought he believed me. But he didn’t, not a bit more than the rest of them. It takes all the spirit out of a fellow. And now, they’ll taunt me about this—I tell you, Mr Ibbetson, it’s no use. I can’t face it all again.”

“Nonsense,” said Jack sharply. “Don’t let your troubles drive you into being a coward. It seems to me, though I don’t pretend to preach, that there are one or two things you might have remembered, Masters, which would have tided you over. Not face it? Face it, and clear it up.”

“That’s very fine to say,” groaned Clive.

“Well, we’ll see. It’s time now to be off. And remember as to this affair, if you keep your own counsel, nobody but Davis need know anything about it. It’s a pity you haven’t made more of a friend of old Davis.”

When they reached London, Ibbetson took his companion to his own lodgings. He had intended to have gone down to his father’s for Christmas, but that was out of the question if he was to follow up Clive’s affairs, and indeed the hurrying events of the last few days made him glad of some hours of leisure. Two letters were waiting for him—one, a kind, warm, rather shy letter from his stepmother, which he tossed more impatiently aside than it deserved; the other from Miss Cartwright. This he read eagerly. Excepting herself, they were all well, she said; the weather mild, Rome not yet full. She was a good deal confined to the house, but sometimes was able to take a drive on the Pincio, and when this was the case nothing would tempt Cartouche away from accompanying her, though she was sure he found it very dull to be shut into a carriage, and certainly presented a comical appearance, for the people stared at him with great astonishment. For Cartouche’s sake, she almost wished they had not gone to Rome. Phillis was much with her. She was well, and found the Peningtons comfortable acquaintances, keen on seeing what they could, and apparently delighted to have Phillis with them. Of course that made it more pleasant for her. There was a good deal more of the same sort in the letter, gentle loving little remarks falling here and there, and leaving no sting.

No sting? Jack extracted something very like one from the innocent words. Was this man going to make love to Phillis? He read the letter over and over again, each time with increasing dissatisfaction. Yet what was it to him? Were they not separated? Did he even love her? He was not sure. He only hated Mr Penington, and indulged in some expression of his feelings.

Altogether it was an odd sort of Christmas Day which followed. He had a strange unreasonable impression as if he were shut out of the homes which were his by right; thoroughly unreasonable when it came to be sifted, since it was very certain that there was not one at which he would not have been welcome. Perhaps he nursed this notion, to account for the cloud which seemed to have grown up since he read his Roman letter with all Miss Cartwright’s kind messages, but the impression of banishment and disgrace ever after haunted his remembrance of the day.

In the afternoon he took Clive to the lodgings of the man who had absconded, asking some questions by the way; the lad seldom opening his heart sufficiently to speak without being questioned. Yet every now and then Jack caught a glimpse which showed him he was not ungrateful.

“Was Smith a steady fellow?” he asked. “Did he seem in want of money?”

“Oh, he wanted money, of course. Most of my friends do,” said Clive with a laugh. “But he was steady enough. The last man in the world I should have expected to serve me so. This is the street.”

“Well, keep well out of sight,” directed Jack. “We’ll see if I can’t make an impression on the landlady.”

He found her voluble over her wrongs—“To have gone off quite unexpected without by your leave or with your leave, and not a word of notice, nor to have heard nothing from that day to this, and the rent owing, and—”

“It seems strange to me that he did not take his things,” hazarded Jack.

The woman gave him a quick glance.

“Things! There was little enough he had. He took his carpet bag, and in that there was everything he had of value, that you may be sure of, and me such a loser and quite unsuspecting; and as for the bits he left behind, well, sir, if you wish for an inventory, there’s a bootjack and a clothes-brush, and—”

“Never mind the things,” said Ibbetson pleasantly. “I quite understand, as you say, that they’re not likely to be worth much. It’s Mr Smith himself that I’m anxious to find. Don’t you think he mentioned where he was going, and that it may have slipped your memory?”

“Oh, my memory is good enough I’m not of that age to be growing forgetful,” said the woman with a toss of her head. But she was evidently mollified.

“That’s exactly what I should have thought, only I couldn’t make it out; for I am sure when I go away for a day or two I always tell my landlady, and Mr Smith would probably have valued you sufficiently to do the same, so that I should have expected him to say something.”

“Well, sir, he did mention a name.”

“I was certain he would. But I dare say you naturally thought, when he didn’t make his appearance the next day or afterwards, that it was only intended to put you on a wrong scent?”

“Well, I don’t deny it. And you see, sir, they came bothering me so with questions, one young gentleman in particular, I’m sure fit to tear the place down; and there’s so many unpleasant things as happens on the papers, and my sister Mrs Walker, says she, ‘Mary Jane, don’t you go mixing yourself up with you don’t know what,’ and another gentleman as come, he as good as said the same.”

“Yes, I can quite understand,” said Ibbetson quietly. But he was really a good deal startled. “This other gentleman, I think I know him, tall, with a reddish face, and a soft voice?”

“Yes, sir,” said the woman, staring.

“Then you mentioned the name to him?”

“Well, I did. And he advised me, very serious like, not to let it out, particularly not to the young gentleman. There were unpleasantnesses about, and I might get into a good deal of trouble—that’s what he said, in his very words.”

Jack was reflecting how much Trent had paid by way of impressing his advice. He took out a sovereign, and saw that she saw it.

“There’s no chance of that any longer, I give you my word,” he said. “I’m afraid the name of the place won’t go far towards finding him, but I should like to have it.”

She hesitated. Ibbetson kicked a stone under his feet.

“You’re sure I shan’t get into trouble?”

“Certain.”

“You don’t look like one to deceive. Well, it was Worthing, as he spoke of.”

“Any street?”

“No, only somewhere near a church. But that gentleman couldn’t find him there.”

“Thank you. That doesn’t at all signify. I’m very much obliged to you, and I hope, after taking up your time, you’ll allow me to offer you this very small remuneration.”

Jack said it with his finest manner, and the woman was delighted—more even with the manner than the sovereign. Then he rejoined Clive, who was waiting for him.

Chapter Nineteen.

Ending in Three Notes.

Worthing has by this time pushed itself forward towards the van, but a very short time ago it was a sleepy little place, made up of rows of small houses, or villas planted in gardens, neater, trimmer, and more flowery than you could easily find elsewhere. The turf was fine delicate stuff from the neighbouring downs, in which an intruding daisy or dandelion scarcely dared to show its head; it required a long and patient search to find a morsel of groundsel for a bird; the tiniest gardens were full of trim surprises—you went up mounds and round corners, and came upon little ponds in which lived two gold fish, or found a miniature Alpine settlement in a corner which was almost a labyrinth. It was then chiefly inhabited by middle-aged maiden ladies, kind good people, who were a good deal under bondage to their servants, and their servants’ meals, and every now and then were startled by some terrible discovery of finding a trusted butler or gardener tipsy, as they often were. A good deal of not unkindly gossip was talked, and wafts of a stronger kind floating down from London, with some great family which would come for quiet and retirement, caused little shocks to thrill through the community. The houses were all neatly painted and shuttered, the red brick pavement daintily clean, but even in winter there was a curious languor in the air, so that Ibbetson walking from the station felt an immediate discouragement as to the result of his errand.

George Smith. Why do people not ticket themselves more clearly in the midst of the thronging crowds of life? he was thinking, with a little unreasonable vexation. How many George Smiths might there not be even in this little feminine place? He went down to the post-office, stepping on the brick pavement with the rueful conviction that he should not have done so without first scraping his boots; and inclined to apologise for the prints he left behind him. The very post-office struck him with awe: the letters were in neat little bundles, an old lady in a pink cap looked sternly at him through her spectacles; Ibbetson had a ridiculous feeling that he would be a marked man for the rest of the day.

Smiths. The list very soon became lengthy. Marine Parade, Ambrose Place, Church Street, Broadwater, Seaview Cottage, Belle Vue House, Esplanade—the old lady would have nothing to do with Christian names, or whether men or women dwelt in these homes. “There may be a gentleman among them,” was all she would say, with a cautious regard to her duty of keeping up an imaginary balance in the society of Worthing. Old ladies generally at once succumbed to Jack, but this one proved an exception. As he went out she asked him to be kind enough to shut the door behind him.

At the end of three hours Jack was no nearer his object than when he arrived, and was conscious that he was already regarded in Worthing with the deepest suspicion. He had found it so unpleasant to knock vaguely at doors and inquire what persons of the name of Smith lived within, that he had once or twice put the question to boys or trades-people whom he had seen outside, and the consequence was that rumours began to float about the town, which, having always been as ready to catch rumours as a cobweb is to catch flies, laid hold with great avidity of the idea that a gang of burglars was calling at its innocent houses, with designs upon the plate. Jack could not understand why he should be stared at by little knots of people, even when he tried quite a new quarter, but the consciousness of lively comment which we cannot hear is always embarrassing, and if it half amused it half nettled him, so that he was not sorry to turn into the hotel for luncheon. He took the waiter into his confidence, but that personage was not suggestive. That there were a good many Smiths about in the world, could hardly be said to throw a helpful light; Ibbetson was disinclined to appeal to the police, and the solitary specimen he saw looked as if he had been chosen for size rather than wits. He pulled himself together, resisted a growing inclination to take a nap, and set off once more on his search.

Near a church had sounded promising, but it was not very easy, he found, to get far away from one of the two. Once or twice he fancied he had hold of a clue, and followed it up perseveringly till it came to nothing, as was invariably the case. And at last he found himself very near the close of a short winter’s afternoon, with no name left on his list except one at Broadwater. Jack was not one of those people who have an unlimited store of energy, and he looked with some disgust at the road which lay stretching away before him, flat, muddy, and uninteresting. That chalky country wants the rich colouring of summer to put a little beauty into its life. Then, when the wind ripples across the great corn-fields, and the larks are singing all above, and the clouds throw swift velvety shadows upon the softly swelling downs, and the pink dog roses clamber over the hedges, it is a pleasant pastoral country along which you may wander for hours, and strike upon picturesque old windmills, and quaint little village churches nestling under the downs—but in grey winter, not much charm is left. Ibbetson went doggedly along, neither looking left or right. He began to think of Rome, which, indeed, was never far from his thoughts. Absence from Phillis had shown him more and more how much nearer she had been to him always than he had fancied, but surely a hundred times more now that she was lost. His own folly seemed absolutely inexplicable. As a gloom began to creep over the distance, he pictured her perhaps standing on the Pincio watching the wonders of the sunset, the golden glow, the grave and glorious purple of the domes, lying softly rounded against the sky; the pale stretch of distance which, sweeping onward towards the sea, before it reaches it seems to gain something of its immensity; the pines of Monte Mario, the shadows of the darkening streets. Was she perhaps leaning against the balustrade, over the violet-beds below? And if so, who was with her? Phillis was not a person to gaze carelessly at such a scene; and to gaze at it with another who is conscious of its power, is sometimes the beginning of a life-long sympathy. Afterwards we look back at what has so much impressed us, and our friend is there too, has become a part of it for ever. Jack thought out this point moodily. If it had been Mr Penington instead of Oliver Trent whose misdealings he had been trying to bring to light, it is possible he would have walked more briskly towards the low church tower which he saw before him. As it was, he was haunted by the doubt, should he not go back to Rome? It would be easy enough. Nothing kept him from it except that new energy which seemed to impel him towards work. He was not really ambitious. What had stirred him was a strong feeling that his idle life was unworthy of himself and her—nay, perhaps more of himself than of her. For when a man who believes that he is a responsible being is once roused to face his idleness, it is apt to become a nightmare under which he can no longer remain quiet Ibbetson longed to go, but he knew very well that he must stay.

There is a pretty village green at Broadwater, and old trees cluster round the church. Coming out of the churchyard was the sexton, and to him Jack addressed the question which he had learned to vary, although only for his own satisfaction. The old man looked at him doubtfully.

“There’s a many Smiths about,” he said, striking at once on the waiter’s truism. “I’m a Smith myself. Might it be something to his advantage, or the other way, that was a bringing you?”

“For his advantage, I hope,” Ibbetson said smiling. “But you are not the man. George Smith, about five-and-twenty, sallow, with black hair.”

“Ah! Comes from London?”

Jack looked at him eagerly. “Is he here after all?” he said quickly. “Come, that’s good news at last.”

“What makes you so keen about it?” asked the old man curiously. “Well, it don’t matter to me. Them that he’s with won’t be very ready for you to see him or to thank me for telling you where to find him, but Elias Brooks shouldn’t have tried to make mischief between me and the vicar, this very day, too. I said I’d be even with him, and I will. There, sir, that’s the cottage, hard by. George Smith is lodging there, has been there for weeks, ill, and if they tell you to the contrary, you needn’t believe them. I said I’d be even with him. Thank you, sir. Don’t you listen to nothing they tell you.”

Jack walked through a little garden to Elias Brooks’ door, and knocked twice. He could see the old sexton hobbling away, unwilling perhaps to be pointed out as guide, but still furtively watching. At the second knock the door was partially opened, and a stout bullet-headed man appeared.

“I wish to speak to Mr George Smith,” said Ibbetson, placing himself so near the door that it could not be closed.

“No one of that name here,” said the man in a surly tone.

“Yes, he is here,” Jack said quietly. “Perhaps he is called by another name, but Mr Trent has seen him.”

“Are you come from him?”

“No. But I know that Mr Smith is in your house, and I mean to see him. I suppose you would prefer my doing it quietly to calling in the police?”

Nothing could have been more cool or determined than his manner, and Elias was evidently uncomfortable.

“I don’t know who your Mr Trent may be,” he growled, “nor Smith neither. There’s an invalid gentleman here by the name of James, and he don’t want no visitors.”

“Which is it to be? Will you admit me, or shall I send for the police?” asked Jack, unheeding.

“I tell you he’s ill.”

“Well, choose for yourself.”

With an oath the man flung open the door and called to his wife—

“Here’s a gentleman forcing his way in to see Mr James. Take him up, take him up. I ain’t a going to have a row here to please the doctor, nor nobody. I dare say it’ll kill him, but that ain’t my affair.”

Jack, glancing at the pale cowed woman, did not put the question he intended, as he followed her up the stairs. At the top she struck a light. “The poor gentleman has been sadly ill,” she said tremulously. “And is still in bed?”

“Oh yes, sir.”

She went to the side of the bed as she spoke, and pulled back a curtain. Ibbetson almost started at the gaunt, death-stricken face which met his view. He said quietly: “I must apologise for disturbing you, Mr Smith, and I am very sorry to see you so ill.”

“Better now, thank you.”

“I have come from London on purpose to ask you a question, and have had no end of difficulty in finding you out. I come from Clive Masters.”

“Poor old Clive! He didn’t think when we parted it would be so long before I saw him again. I just came down to these lodgings to get a breath of fresh air from Saturday to Monday, and here I’ve been ever since. I did rather wonder that Clive had never sent or written.”

“He did not know where you were.”

Smith shook his head feebly.

“Oh yes, he knew. I had one visitor from him, his cousin, Mr Trent. He came after the fifty pounds which had been left in my hands. You see, for a long time I was quite unconscious, so of course it gave Masters a good deal of anxiety. But it was no fault of mine.”

He stopped, gasping for breath.

“Did Mr Trent get the fifty pounds?” asked Jack. “Of course. Didn’t Masters tell you?” Smith said in some surprise. The woman had crept downstairs again, they could hear her husband’s grumbling tones and her faint replies. Jack stood looking with some perplexity at the wasted frame, wondering how much he ought to tell. He decided to tell him all.

“He did not so much as know it himself,” he said quietly. “From some motive or other, Mr Trent has advanced him the money but has never told him that it was his own, and received from you.”

Smith stared at him. He passed his thin hand across his forehead, lifting the lank hair. “I don’t understand,” he said. Jack left his words to reach his comprehension without repeating them. “That can’t be so,” Smith said presently, “because Clive knew he had only to apply to me.”

“He had no address.”

“He could get it.”

“No. That is just what he could not do. Mr Smith,” said Jack abruptly, “from all I can hear there has been no fault whatever on your side, and you could have done nothing. Mr Trent has chosen to keep your whereabouts concealed, and to get things into his own hands. But the upshot is that Clive has been miserable, has tried to make a bolt for America, and that I came down here to-day on the strength of a clue which we drew out of your London landlady yesterday.”

“But the money is gone!” said Smith in a hoarse voice. “He must have done it only to give Clive a lesson—don’t you think so?”

“Perhaps,” Ibbetson said laconically.

“And he won’t deny that I gave it?”

“I think not. At any rate I shall know, and so will Clive, and—no, I don’t think he will deny.”

Smith sank back with a sigh of relief. Jack was standing gazing thoughtfully into the dark corners of the room, lit only by a single candle. “Do they look after you well, here?” he asked.

“Yes, fairly enough. I’ve nothing to complain of. Though I’ve thought it odd that no one should come to see me.”

“Perhaps Clive will get a day soon. And you might change to a pleasanter situation. I shall say good-bye now, and I shall take good news to Clive.”

“Did he suppose I’d gone off?” Smith asked with a touch of amusement, as the other shook hands. Downstairs the man took no notice as Ibbetson passed through the little passage, but as the wife opened the door Jack said with emphasis,—

“Let your husband understand that other friends of Mr Smith will be here to see him very shortly. And remember that if he is well looked after, you will not be the worse for it. All will depend upon that point.”

It was dark and very cold when he got outside, and he went swinging along to the station at a great pace. On his way up in the train he wrote three notes which he posted as soon as he reached London. One was to Davis:—

“Set Mr Masters right at the office with anyone whom it concerns. It is a fact that he gave the money to another man to pay in, and this other was seized with illness. I have seen him to-day. See that Mr Masters is thoroughly cleared.”

He hesitated longer over his second note. Finally he wrote:—

“My dear Uncle,—Until I see you, I must ask you to take for granted the fact that young Masters has not been guilty of the conduct attributed to him. I have taken the trouble to go thoroughly into the matter, and can prove it beyond a doubt. I am writing by this post to Mr Trent. If he should have left Hetherton, will you kindly forward the letter.”

Over his third he did not hesitate at all:—

“Mr Ibbetson presents his compliments to Mr Trent, and having this day had an interview with Mr George Smith and learnt from him that the fifty pounds entrusted to his care by Mr Masters was paid by him to Mr Trent as Mr Masters’s representative, Mr Ibbetson requests an explanation of this fact as well as of certain statements which have been circulated by Mr Trent to Mr Masters’s prejudice.”

He wrote this rapidly, but he looked at it with dissatisfaction, reflecting that it was almost impossible to give vent to your indignation in the third person. And then he began to think of Mr Penington.

Chapter Twenty.

Who will Live at the Vicarage?

Perhaps few evil-doers are marked down as such with so little personal eagerness and satisfaction as was Oliver Trent by Jack or Clive, who, indeed, necessarily took only a passive part. There was nothing in Jack’s nature congenial to the task, and his only wish being to set Clive on his legs again, as soon as there was a good prospect of this labour being accomplished, he cared nothing at all for bringing down punishment on Trent.

Clive’s own feeling, when he heard the news, was rather shocked and bewildered than in any way revengeful. His cousin having been a sort of good genius in his eyes, the one successful man of the family, the friend who had placed him where he was, and to whom he believed himself indebted for all that had been done either to shield him or to push him on, the revelation which Ibbetson brought was beyond his comprehension. All the new hopes which had been excited in his mind really turned round a central desire that Trent should recognise that he had spoken the truth and not disgraced his family. And now that Trent himself should be the one on whom disgrace and shame should fall! It was more than his mind could grasp.

Neither, think as he would, was he helped by seeing any imaginable motive for his conduct. If he could have found it he might possibly have acquiesced in what had happened, as something for which Trent—the adviser—had reasons, and believed that he would also soon have had reasons for clearing it up. Clive’s faith was shaken, but it was not yet absolutely gone, from the very difficulties of understanding why on earth Trent should have acted as he had apparently acted. Jack had muttered something about having him in his power, but that seemed ludicrous while Clive could trace no advantages to result. Jack himself, indeed, was not half so clear about it as Phillis, whose womanly intuition had leapt to a conclusion not far from the truth; and when he found out something of the young fellow’s perplexities as to his cousin, he respected the feeling and abstained from much comment. He supposed that it would be necessary to see Trent, perhaps in Clive’s presence, and that then certain home truths would require expression, but for so long as they could be postponed, he was not at all unwilling to postpone them. Meanwhile there was a real satisfaction in seeing how Clive brightened under this lifting off of his troubles. He held himself straighter, and altogether had a more open and hopeful appearance. Ibbetson felt no anxiety in leaving him, and went down to his father’s for a few days. There a letter followed him from Mr Thornton, very concise and formal, taking no notice of his remarks about Clive, but alluding to his own regret at losing his good friend Mr Trent, who, he grieved to say, had received letters the morning before which induced him at once to start for Rome.

Jack crumpled the letter in his hand and shoved it into his pocket.

“Bad news?” asked his father. “Here’s bad news for me at any rate. What do you think, Arabella? Carter finds that horse he wrote about as likely to suit me to a T, has just been picked up. It’s uncommonly annoying. Do you think your uncle has anything that would do for me, Jack?”

“I don’t know,” said Jack, “I haven’t seen his stables lately.”

“You seem to me making a mull of matters with your uncle,” said his father, pouring out his coffee from a peculiar machine of his own. “I have never interfered, for I think his manners are insufferable, but if you don’t object to them you might have done better, I should say.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Jack brightly. “I dare say I should think so if I were you; but being myself, I don’t exactly see what I could have done.”

“Couldn’t you marry that girl?”

Jack flushed.

“She didn’t care to marry me,” he said stiffly. “Whew!” said his father, lifting his eyebrows. “Not enough money, I suppose?”

“I doubt that influencing her,” said Jack, in the same tone.

“Well, you’d better look out, for I hear there’s a man of the name of Trent a good deal at Hetherton, and your uncle swears by him. It’s quite certain we never get any luck in our family.”

This was a statement which, with Lady Ibbetson sitting by, who might have been supposed by outsiders to have brought her husband a good deal of the sort of luck to which he alluded, could only be received in silence. Jack finished his breakfast and took himself off to the smoking-room. Trent seemed to haunt him, and he had an uneasy feeling of not knowing how much or how little to say. Then he remembered Bice, and began to wonder whether this sudden departure of Trent’s was an energetic effort on his part to forestall disclosures, or at any rate to soften their force. If what he had said was true, and the two were engaged, he might be able to enlist her feelings in his favour. Jack had desired Clive to write, but was not very sure that he had yet done so. Now he promptly made up his mind to write himself to Phillis.

The letter was not easy to him. When he had written before, they were engaged to be man and wife, and he remembered, with a pang, the feeling of dissatisfaction with which he had laid down her little missive from Bologna. It had seemed to him as if nothing in it went below the surface, unconscious as he chose to be that it was he who had kept her there, he who had chilled and disappointed her. Well, he was punished now, he thought gloomily, and the shy brown eyes seemed to be looking at him with sad pity. He had lost Phillis, and he had lost Hetherton. He knew his uncle, with all his foibles, was a just man, and fond of Phillis, so that he had little doubt that after his solemn assurance that he alone was to blame, he would provide liberally for Phillis, though not to the extent of making her his heiress. The estate might perhaps be reserved for Oliver Trent, if Jack kept silence. Jack was not sufficiently superior to mortal weaknesses to find that reflection pleasant. But it would have been easier to endure, or, at any rate, so he thought at this moment, if he could have shifted the cause of its doing on any shoulders but his own. He made a wry face as he acknowledged his own absolute folly. He would thankfully now have thrown away his old prospects of Hetherton for the hope of winning Phillis, but it was far from soothing to remember that he had flung both to the winds. First he had listened too easily, then repented too hastily, then had found out too late what he might have known from the very first. It seemed to him as if he could never reproach another man with folly. And he had a distracting consciousness as he wrote—stopping every now and then, jumping up to poke the fire or do something which might by some good chance assist his expressions—that although it was Phillis, and nobody but Phillis, who had sent him on his errand, she would believe nothing but that Bice’s deliverance had been the actual spur. It made it, as has been said, difficult for him to write. He did not like to paint Trent’s conduct in too black colours, lest it might seem it was his object to effect a break between him and Bice. Yet it was quite clear to him that the break ought to be effected, if only it could be done by other hands than his, and he grew vexed that he had not assured himself that Clive would speak out and to the purpose. His sentences read coldly, because he wished to treat all that part, which was his only excuse for writing, in a business-like manner. Phillis, thinking to shield him, and feeling sure it would be broken, had not told him of the actual tie existing between Bice and Oliver Trent, and he guarded his words about them both with an evident restraint. It was a great relief to him when at last his letter was finished and placed in the letter-bag, and then he half smiled to find that his thoughts had wandered to a calculation of the number of days that must pass before he would receive an answer.

His stepmother met him in the hall. She had an uneasy manner which Jack hated and called mincing, but a good heart underneath, to which he persistently blinded himself. When a kindly-natured person does get hold of a prejudice, you may be sure he will take a firmer grasp than one less amiable. Perhaps there is a secret satisfaction in finding himself able to dislike someone heartily, or perhaps it is so unlike himself that he is instinctively convinced that excellent reasons must exist to justify him. Jack had never been able to forgive Lady Ibbetson for marrying his father, although he knew quite well that she made his home as happy as he would allow her to make it, which was a reservation not likely to be removed. And this sense of his own injustice did not render him more friendly towards her. With the best intentions in the world, all she did seemed to rub him the wrong way. Naturally, she had changed the old furniture at Elmsleigh, but unfortunately the change was not justified by the results; for taste, being an artistic feeling, is as subject to failure as other points in which our ideal is beyond our powers of execution, and is by no means that simple intuition which people like to imagine it. Conservative Jack had been much disgusted by the shifting and embellishment of chairs and tables he found on his arrival had taken place, and which she, poor misguided woman, had pointed out to him with pleasure as improvements. He had the grace to keep his opinions to himself, but for almost the first time in his life it seemed as if his father’s spirit of opposition had been roused in him, and Lady Ibbetson sighed, after one wistful glance in his face. She was almost timidly desirous to please him, and never showed at her best in his presence, finding a not unnatural difficulty in understanding him. Now she spoke with evident effort:

“Your father tells me you are going back to town to-morrow. Is that really a necessity? It is so long since you have been here, and this has been such a very short visit. I had hoped you would have stayed over Tuesday, and that we might have had some people to meet you on that day.”

“Thank you,” said Jack shortly, “I can’t afford any longer time.” Mentally he was thinking, “Where on earth does the woman get her gowns?”

“You are working very hard, then?” she ventured to say.

“Well, it’s necessary.”

She hesitated, looked round, and said in a low voice—

“I hope you will not think what I am saying interfering,—perhaps I might not have spoken, but that your father alluded to—to it at breakfast. It is your engagement I mean.”

Jack drew himself up, and she went on hurriedly—“Pray do not think I am asking questions from curiosity. But sometimes pecuniary difficulties cause a great deal of unhappiness and—and I thought I would venture to say that if this were the case—”

“It is not, indeed.”

“Ah!” She looked at him with wistful disappointment. “Then I must not say any more. It has always seemed to me a most grievous thing, that money should unnecessarily play such an important part in these matters, and I should have been very sorry if it had been allowed to do so with you.”

Jack was touched—it was impossible not to feel that she was speaking from her heart—though he was no less stiffly determined to accept nothing at her hands. Nevertheless, she brightened at his tone, for he spoke warmly:

“I am exceedingly obliged to you. Money has not made any difficulty here. And as to my working harder than I have done, it is more from shame for past idleness than from ambition for the future, I am afraid.”

“Jack,” said his father, coming in at the door with a little girl clinging to each hand, “will you ride over to Whitcote this morning?”

“Whitcote? Yes,” said Jack, wondering; for Sir John seldom made these early expeditions.

“Hastings wants me to look at the schools. There’s a new Vicar coming in, and things have to be put straight. Time, too.”

“Jack,” said little May, possessing herself of his hand, “tell us about Cartouche. Does he always jump out of the window when you go back?”

“And does he beg? Carlo begs,” this from Effie. “Poor Cartouche!” said Jack, “I’m afraid he is wanting in all accomplishments.”

“Accomplishments means music and drawing,” said May, with a stare. “Dogs don’t do their scales.”

“Don’t tease, children,” said Lady Ibbetson. It was one of the things in which she and her step-son were at cross-purposes, for he was fond of children, and she always nervously afraid that they annoyed him. She carried them away now unwillingly, looking back and calling to Jack that he had promised to come into the school-room.

It was not until they were close on Whitcote that he asked his father who the new Vicar was.

“He’s called Penington, I hear,” said Sir John, pulling up his cob to look at a field of springing wheat. “Don’t know the name, but Hastings speaks uncommonly well of him.”

“I met a man of that name in Rome. He had a sister with him.”

“That’s he. Hastings said he had gone abroad for two or three months’ rest before beginning work again. And I dare say he would have a sister. I hear he’s a likely man to many. There’s the Vicarage: you can see the chimneys; it’s been uncommonly improved and made into really a nice place. Hallo, here comes Miss Ward. You recollect the Miss Wards, cousins of Mrs Hastings, and living in that little cottage half a mile on?”

A kindly, intelligent faced woman greeted them. “Sir John, you are the very person I wished to see. Do you know of a horse?”

“Another horse, Miss Ward?”

“Another! I should think so. That last great thing wouldn’t go at all. How d’ye do, Mr Ibbetson? I didn’t see it was you. But really, Sir John, we are in a pretty condition; reduced to the butcher’s mare to take, us to the station, and when we want to cut a dash among our neighbours, to the most extraordinary affair from Hedsworth. Do be neighbourly and look in at our stables. You’ll find three waiting to be looked at, and they’ve all something against them. One has curby hocks, I know—whatever that may mean.”

“It means a strong objection.”

“Well, the other alternatives are age and nobility of appearance, and youth and snobbishness. I am inclined to youth; the habit of requiring to be shot is very serious.”

“I’ll give my opinion at any rate,” said Sir John laughing, “and so shall Jack. By the way, he has just come from Rome, and seems to have met your Mr Penington there—”

“Has he, really? Mr Penington is our other subject just now; he and the horses form a sort of conversational see-saw. Very charming, is he not, Mr Ibbetson? But you need not tell me if he is not, for we all agree in placing him on a pinnacle of merit, in order that we may have the excitement of gradually deposing him. Otherwise, I might whisper to you that we are already—just a little—hurt.”

“Why?”

“Well, we considered—and justly, I think—that coming here unmarried, we had a right to the excitement of choosing him a wife. But in a letter from his sister to Mrs Hastings, who is, you know, her old friend, she seems to hint that he is taking it on his own shoulders.”

“Oh, ho! Any names mentioned? Perhaps Jack may know her, too.”

“No, no, not so bad as that. Still it is bad, I own. You’ll look at those horses then, won’t you?”

“To be sure. How was it you weren’t at the Grange on Friday?”

“I was making up my accounts. I always think that is only a decent tribute to the departing year. Remember me to Lady Ibbetson, and do try to consider that horse a treasure.”

Sir John, who liked the Wards, went on talking of the way women were taken in about horses, Jack meanwhile riding along without hearing many of his father’s words. So it had come to this, for he could not doubt that Phillis was the one to whom Miss Penington alluded. There was the pretty Vicarage to his left, standing picturesquely among trees, a pleasant homelike place, such as he could well imagine she would love. He thought of her, brought there by that man, going in and out of the gate on her kindly errands, waiting, perhaps, in the porch to welcome him—Well, what could he say? He had had his chance and had thrown it away. Since he had loved her, he had understood very clearly what she had found wanting in his love before. Now it seemed to him as if it had been an insult. He felt no hope. He had had his chance and had thrown it away.

Chapter Twenty One.

A Return.

Jack kept his intention, and went up to London the next day. He had made up his mind absolutely that he would not go back to Rome, having a new sort of feeling born within him, that after all that had happened he had no right to haunt Phillis with the persistency he had shown of late. It no longer seemed to him fair. He thought that the most manly course would be to leave her alone at any rate until this winter were past. Then, if she were still unwon, he might be able to speak to her of a love which she might at last recognise as steadfast. How could she be expected as yet to trust him? But he got into a habit about this time of brooding on the picture he had seen as he rode through Whitcote with his father—the pretty homely Vicarage, the creepers growing up to the chimneys, the green turf, the rooks’ nests in the old trees. And always—that was the worst—there stood a woman’s figure at the door, a woman whose eyes were fastened on the gate, as if she were waiting happily for some one.

Still, a good deal of credit was due to him for the way in which he fought against these not very cheerful thoughts, so as to escape from the morbid dejection which might have made his life, and that of others, miserable. Work is an excellent refuge, as everybody says: probably because it is an axiom which is seldom taken on trust, and therefore comes freshly to each person in the form of an individual discovery. Jack worked hard, and liked it. Clive was another refuge; he needed a great deal of cheering and keeping up, his own struggle not having had the effect of putting life into him. He was shy and sensitive, and many people would have thought uninteresting, but Ibbetson wanted a personal interest about him just at this time, and had a feeling as if here were a slender link with Phillis. He sometimes laughed at his own efforts to prop up Clive, and yet he did it vigorously. The props were of many kinds—getting him to take school work in an East-end district on Sundays, he began to think would turn out one of the most effectual.

A disappointment which Jack felt very keenly at this time, was the receiving no answer to his letter to Phillis. He had made sure she would write, and, though he even told himself that he was prepared for what she might tell him, there was a horrible blank in the silence, which seemed almost worse. He invented reasons for her silence with really remarkable ingenuity, but the one which seemed most probable was, that she did not wish to enter on the subject of her own prospects with him. When Clive came to see him or he went to see Clive, the conversation revolved curiously round one or two centres.

“Well, how are you getting on?” Jack would ask with great cheerfulness.

“Oh, I don’t know.” This with much depression. “Nonsense. What are you out of heart about? Davis sticks by you, I’m sure.”

“Yes, he’s a very good old chap. But what’s a fellow to do when the heads are against him?”

“Why do you think they are?”

“Well, Thornton was up yesterday, and I could see by the way he looked at me.”

“What rubbish, Clive! You go steadily on, and never mind looks.”

“Don’t you think it matters?” more hopefully.

“Not a brass farthing. Have you heard from your people at Rome?”

“Yes, I got a letter from Kitty last night.”

“Well?”

“Oh, nothing particular. Oliver’s there. I say, there must be something he could explain if one saw him. He couldn’t have the brass!”

“Does Miss Masters mention anyone else?”

“No, I don’t think she does.”

“Not—the Leytons?”

“Didn’t notice it. Are you going down to Worthing again?”

“Yes, I am. To-morrow perhaps,” said with gloom on Ibbetson’s part.

The visit to Worthing, when it did take place, had one or two results. For Jack found Smith so unmistakably worse that he went to the point of getting him to sign a declaration in the presence of one or two witnesses, as to that matter of the fifty pounds. And this being done, he had a conversation with the man Elias Brooks, also in the presence of a witness, so that he felt himself in a better position to meet Oliver Trent should it ever be necessary. But as yet he had made no sign.

One day Ibbetson had another visitor in his chambers, Mrs Thornton. How she had got there was the first wonder in his mind; for she was a very helpless person, seldom going to the point of originating even an idea.

“My dear, and your chimney been smoking! How can you live here!” was her greeting.

“It’s not a bad chimney when the wind isn’t from the north,” said Jack, wheeling forward a chair, and flinging the end of his cigar into the fire. “But you ought to have told me you were coming. It’s very good of you, Aunt Harriet.”

“I told no one,” said Mrs Thornton, with a placid air of triumph at her own achievements, “not even your uncle Peter. But, my dear Jack, I am quite miserable about you.”

“How can I help it?” Jack replied gravely. He knew what she meant, and would not pretend not to understand her.

“Oh, I do so wish you would go straight out and marry Phillis, before this dreadful man gets hold of her! Really, it is too provoking.”

There was a pause.

“What have you heard? Has Phillis written?” asked Jack in his quietest tone.

“Not Phillis. And that is vexing your uncle, too. He says everything is concealed from him. Mr Trent wrote and told him.”

Jack muttered something not complimentary to Mr Trent. Then he said aloud:

“You need not believe everything he says. However, I can’t say, I know nothing. Phillis will not conceal anything from you, you may be sure.”

“But why don’t you do something quickly? I really can’t tell you all my fears. Your uncle seems so put out and so dissatisfied, I really doubt whether it would not be too late if you two were to marry even now. He doesn’t seem to know his own mind. Perhaps he might come round if you went and did it,” she added, as if it were a matter to be settled easily by some such proceeding as walking across the street.

“You forget—there’s the other man,” said Jack, finding it impossible not to smile. “Listen, Aunt Harriet, if it’s any consolation to you, I’m quite aware I’ve been a fool. But I give you my word that Hetherton is a very secondary consideration.”

“Well, I shall tell your uncle,” she said, looking doubtfully at him.

“That I have been a fool? But then you must go on about Hetherton.”

“Oh, I couldn’t.”

“Then leave it alone; it’s the safest way, take my word for it. I know it’s all your kindness for me, but there are so many old proverbs haunting me about making one’s bed, and sowing and reaping, that I feel sure they amount to a general verdict that I must be left to my fate. Thank you all the same for trying to ward it off.”

Each of these rumours which reached Jack—although he sometimes told himself that they were too indefinite to be heeded—did actually give him a sharp pang, and seemed to leave his heart heavier than before. He refused invitations, and did his best to absorb himself in his profession, setting to work with a dogged determination to push on, rather than any exhilaration of hope. Still there was a certain satisfaction in his labour, and at least a more manly purpose in his life. And so January dragged its short days out of the darkness, sometimes barely succeeding in the effort, and February followed, and to Ibbetson every day was long in its monotony, and yet, looking back, they might all have passed like lightning.

At least that was what it seemed to him one gloomy afternoon when he stood with a telegram in his hand which had just been given to him, and which he had opened carelessly, without any foreboding of the thrill of pain in store. It was from Rome. Miss Cartwright was very ill—would he come at once. The words startled him the more that he felt with keen self-reproach how other interests had pushed her out of his thoughts. There are tender and strong affections so close and so unfailing that they are like the air we breathe, and become almost as much a matter of course. And now Jack remembered with a pang that of late he had written but briefly to his aunt, and that except from a general longing to hear news from Rome he had not noticed that her own letters had become few and short. He pulled out her last from his pocket; the feeble writing smote him to the heart, and he impatiently gave his orders, sent off a hurried note to Clive, and found himself at the station at least twenty minutes before the time for starting.

He travelled as fast as he could, and happily there were no unusual or vexatious delays. But at its best the journey is one which, when a pressing anxiety goads on the traveller, seems as if it would never end. It drags you along past Chambery, and pretty Aix lying under its hills, lingers hopelessly at Modane, and then goes clambering slowly up to the land of snows, before it will take you into the land of sunshine. Afterwards you sweep down to Turin and the vast Lombardy plains, and going towards Florence, creep again into a belt of mountains honey-combed with tunnels, where the gorges in February are just awaking to the first promises of spring, and by-and-by see the twinkling lights of cheery Pistoija, and then the brighter ones of Florence. Jack, leaning out, thought of other evenings, when those lights had shone in the beautiful Val d’Arno. He stopped there now for a few hours’ rest, and the place seemed laden with memories which yet were younger than it was easy to believe. It was a warm night; even already the air was touched with sweet flowery scents, and all the carnival people were flashing about, making the place merry with their laughter.

His journey began again early the next morning, and in the afternoon he reached Rome. Who does not know that approach? As the train passed through the golden brown campagna the sun was setting; no words can describe the rich glow which tinged the mountains: too rich for lilac, too delicate and warm for purple, it seemed the very embodiment of colour, and where on the highest points the snow of winter yet rested, it was on fire with rosy lights; while Tiber, rolling sluggishly through the Sabine meadows, gave back the soft reflections as faithfully and placidly as though he were only a quiet country stream, untouched by history, and untainted by blood.

Ibbetson was not long in driving from the station to the house in the Via della Croce. At the station he caught sight of a familiar face, though he had a little difficulty in recalling that it belonged to young Giovanni Moroni. He would not linger to speak to him, though he had always liked the young fellow, for the nearer he drew to the end of his journey the more acute became his anxieties, and the more annoying every small delay. He rattled quickly down the hill by the Costanzi, and along the streets which lead to the Spanish Place, and then into his own particular street. Nothing was to be gained by looking at the outside of the house, and some hidden fear kept him from questioning the old porter, who lived in a little glass room and mended shoes. Miss Cartwright’s rooms were high; a dark dirty staircase went up, up. He lingered for a moment at the window half way, which looked upon picturesque and irregular backs of houses; women were peeping out, creepers hanging, there were the usual converging lines of a network of wires, up and down which swing the brass pitchers, that fill themselves where the fresh water pours out from the lion’s head below; at one small square window a little owl was sitting, blinking solemnly at the world. It all seemed just as he had left it, and gave him a momentary unreasonable relief. But at the top of the stairs stood some one watching and waiting. It was Phillis, and she put out her hands with a cry of thankfulness.

“You are come!” she said. “We heard wheels, but scarcely thought it possible you could be here so soon.”

“How is she? Not worse?”

“She is very ill—very. I am afraid it would be false comfort if I told you there was any improvement, but the pain has gone off, and her one wish was to see you again. This waiting has been terrible. It was pleurisy. We wrote to tell you, but she grew suddenly worse.”

“And you have been with her?”

“How could I leave her?”

Her lips quivered. She was shaken and upset with the nursing, perhaps, too, with the feeling that he was coming, and with other things which had risen up. They stood face to face with each other, these two, for a minute, utterly silent, before Phillis said hurriedly—

“I must tell her that you are here. Will you come into the little anteroom and wait until she is ready?”

In the anteroom were two or three doors; one led into the salon, another into Miss Cartwright’s bedroom. At this second a black object was crouched, which at sound of Jack’s voice reared itself up, and came eagerly towards him.

“Yes,” said Phillis, answering the young man’s look with a sad little smile, “Cartouche is the most faithful of watchers, poor fellow! At first he lay under her bed, but that worried her, and she asked that he might be sent out. And since then, strange as it seems, he has never attempted to go into the room, but has taken up his position here.”

She signed to Jack to stay where he was, and passed through the curtained door. He stood with his eyes fixed upon it, feeling that pause of solemn expectation with which we wait when we know that we are to enter on an awful Presence, awful both for its strangeness and its nearness. All sounds intensify themselves in such a waiting: it seemed to him that a hundred things were going on; he heard the distant cry of the water-sellers, the roll of wheels, the laughter of the crowd, a fly buzzing at the window. Cartouche gave a low whine, and went back to his station, sitting against the door with bent attentive head. No one came. At last a woman bustled into the room, and lit a small brass lamp with four wicks branching out on different sides and slender chains hanging. Then she, too, paused and listened.

“The poor Signora!” she said to Jack, clasping her hands. “It is near the end. And we all loved her. Eh, and look at the dog! It is strange.”

Just at that moment Phillis opened the door and signed to Jack.

“Her weakness is so great,” she said in a whisper, “that the very joy of your coming is almost more than she can bear. But she will not wait.”

No. He understood why she would put nothing off when he saw the white changed face, lit up as it was with happiness as he knelt down and kissed her. “My boy!” was all she said at first, but lay holding his hand and smiling now and then. Miss Preston, who had been standing at the window, went softly out, crying. Phillis only paused to tell Jack that one of them would be in the anteroom, before she followed her. Those two were left behind—two, and the shadowy Presence.

“You’re not in pain, Aunt Mary?” said Jack brokenly. “Not now. It has quite gone now. God has been so good all through, and He has brought you back.”

“I came at once, but I wish I could have heard before.”

“Yes, my dear, I know, I know. I hope it was not selfish to want you, but you always were my boy. And, Jack—”

“Yes, Aunt Mary?”

Speech was very difficult, but she struggled with it, and he put his ear down near her face—

”—You have never known her—Phillis. And I was foolish and urged it. Now I see that I was wrong—we can’t tell what is best, can we?—only I think—I pray you two may have whatever is best for you both. I think you will. God knows—and I have prayed—”

The words died away, but she made a sign to him not to call anyone, and lay in peaceful waiting, every now and then touching his face or hair with a feeble yet caressing hand. In that waiting the room darkened, the little lamp glimmered in the shadows, a strange hush seemed to have fallen. Presently Winter came in, looked at her, went out and brought the others. She smiled at them, and whispered something which they made out with difficulty. It was “Cartouche.” Phillis brought him, a little anxious lest he might show any wild demonstrations of delight. She need not have feared. He came eagerly in, put his paws upon the bed, and licked his mistress’s hand. Then he dropped down, looked wistfully at the faces round, as if he wanted reassurance from them, and finding none, he turned quickly, ran to the door, pushed it open, and settled himself in his old position of intent watchfulness.

Afterwards they none of them knew how these long hours had passed, but at the time there was the usual mixture of the awful and the commonplace. Our thoughts cannot remain long on heights; they wander down, concerning themselves with the oddest things, and causing us sharp pangs of self-reproach, for what, after all, is no more than a law of our being. Once there came a ring of the bell, and Winter went out and brought in a little note for Phillis. When she had read it, standing at the table by the lamp, she laid it down and came back to the bedside. Jack had to go to the table presently to get something that was wanted, and his eye was caught by the clear bold signature—“Arthur Penington.” He hated himself for having seen it, but there it was.

The doctor came and went, Cartouche walking growling behind him to the top of the stains. The streets grew more silent; the occasional cry of the masquers, the carnival laughter, died away; and still they all watched, and still the feeble breathing was audible in the quiet of the room, with now and then a word. It was not until a pale gleam of light had grown into the sky above the hills of Tivoli, touching the broad flank of Soracte, and showing Michael the Archangel guarding the great city from his castle, that the last word faltered on her lips, and the hand which had moved feebly towards Jack lay still and cold in his warm clasp.

Chapter Twenty Two.

Once More, No.

Tired as he was with his quick journey and with the hurrying emotions of the past night, Jack was too restless to stay in the house. He called Cartouche, and the dog, after a little hesitation, went with him, though without any of his usual excitement. He kept close at Ibbetson’s heels, from which nothing drew him, and walked along with his tail depressed, and his whole appearance spiritless. Jack’s own heart was very heavy. The kind, gentle woman had been like a mother to him, and a hundred remembrances of her unselfishness came thronging. He was vexed with himself for having left her, for having neglected to write as often as she liked—for many things of which he knew very well she had kept no record, nor so much as blamed him in her heart. Those tender cancellings are the sharpest reproaches of all, when Death has laid his finger on the page.

Then, as he walked on, his mind wandered off to the speculations from which who can be free, when one who has been near to them passes away from their reach? Could she still see him? What was the actual separation between them? What infinite mysteries had already been made known to her? Jack had no fixed aim, but he thought he would go on to the English cemetery and choose the place where she was so soon to lie. He did not know the exact way, and found himself by San Gregorio: the bell was tolling, and he went up the broad steps. There is a little chapel connected with it, one of a group of three, in which he remembered having long ago seen a quire of angels painted by Guido, which had haunted him. He found the sacristan, and went with him across a little untidy picturesque garden, sweet with violets, and gay with great irises, purple and white. The chapel is very bare and like a barn, but at one end is the beautiful fresco; the white wings seem to clash, the blissful faces glow down upon you—over what might be the battlements of heaven—with a purity and grace which are rare in Guido. Jack paid the sacristan to let him stay there by himself for a little while; he was glad he had come, thankful to have had this quiet and peaceful hour with the praising angels above and the sweet scent of spring violets stealing through the door. Then, as he came out and stood on the steps of San Gregorio, the full glory of the sun was shining on that stately and beautiful view which stretches before the church. Feathery clouds dappled the blue of the sky, tender and yet deep: golden and ruddy lights fell on the convent which crowns the ridge of the Palatine, the convent whose nuns pray patiently on the spot where emperors held their revels; up against the buildings two palms stood proudly; the great arches of Nero and Severus were black with shadows; here and there an almond blossomed, rosy red, and all the light cloud of trees below was touched with the mysterious and indescribable promise of the spring.