Bertram Mitford (continued 4)

“Believe me, old fellow,—

“Yours, etc, etc,

“John Venn.”

“P.S.—I’m bitten myself to a small amount—trusteeship—damned fool’s trade. But it’s you shareholders who’ll be most heavily shot, I’m afraid. I send a couple of papers with an account of the crash—in case you haven’t seen it.”

Again and again he read through the letter, which had been addressed to the rector’s care, till Venn’s large, business-like calligraphy seemed burnt into his brain; then he tore open the newspapers. The affair was plain enough. The Bank was an unlimited concern, and every farthing he had in the world except his last half-yearly dividend was invested in its shares, and now it had fallen with a crash. Roland Dorrien was a ruined man.

A groan escaped his dry, set lips.

“Good God! Nothing like piling it up,” he muttered. “If this isn’t a day full of happiness! Well, this must have happened before yesterday morning, otherwise I might be induced to believe in the efficacy of curses, and that my very affectionate parent’s influence with the Devil stands higher than mine; but it came about too early for that to have anything to do with it.”

He laughed—a horrible, blood-curdling mockery of a laugh—as the thought crossed his mind that he might have occasion to decide whether, under all the circumstances, life was really worth living any longer.

Two hours later, and he is on his way to London. Every familiar landmark is out of eight, but imagination carries him back. Had he known what fate held in store for him, was it possible that that stormy interview might never have taken place? The temptation would have been great. Yesterday, at that hour, life had looked very fair, very promising to him, and now, in less than twenty-four hours, he had lost his inheritance—his love—and his means of existence.

And now how light seem the first obstructions which lay in his road yesterday, compared with this last terrible disaster! His renunciation of his birthright—the rector’s opposition—now appear to him as very trifles. The first he had made up his mind to—the second could in time have been got over—but now? Love was a luxury he could not afford to indulge in—even life itself must henceforth be dragged out in labour and sorrow and desolation, that is, should he ultimately decide that it is worth dragging on at all on such terms. For now, of course, he must give up Olive, release her from all in the shape of a promise or understanding. It might be years and years before he could even keep himself decently, how then could he in honour hold her bound to him, condemn her to spend the best and brightest years of her life in weary waiting; and for what? For a broken, disappointed man, utterly without prospects and without hopes. Would she grieve for him? At first she would suffer—suffer acutely, he knew; but her bright, sunny spirits would carry her through, and she would—well, in time, forget him. And the unfortunate man almost groaned aloud as he leaned in the corner of the railway carriage, his eyes strained and distended upon the ceaseless downpour without, and the sodden landscape lying beneath its lowering veil of ashen cloud.

There is as a rule something exasperating about the way in which our friends take our misfortunes. If we are of a morbidly sensitive disposition they affect a facial elongation and a tone of dismal sympathy; if, on the other hand, we are accustomed to present a careless front to the world, they overwhelm us with a cheerful light-heartedness which strikes us as brutally callous—as though, indeed, we could look for anything else in a thoroughly self-seeking world. “Every man for himself, and devil take the hindermost.” Are you in the latter category? “Awfully sorry, my dear fellow—only wish I could help you—but—well, perhaps you will find ranking among His Satanic Majesty’s acquisitions not quite such an uncomfortable berth as you think—and then, you know, you’re sure to get out of it soon—something’s sure to turn up. Well—ta-ta—old chap, sorry I can’t wait—” And the world rolls on.

Roland was conscious of a latent feeling of resentment as he noted the comfortable and even light-hearted expression on his friend’s face. “Looks as if the fellow hadn’t a care in the world, damn it,” was his mental comment.

“Hallo, Dorrien! I’m deuced glad to see you, but awfully sorry I can’t give you any cheering news,” began the other. “I know you’re the sort of fellow who wouldn’t thank me for trying to make things out promising when they’re bad as bad can be—and that’s just what I’m afraid they are. You see, the mischief of it is that it’s an unlimited concern.”

“Yes,” assented Roland drearily.

“By the way, I got your line this morning and would have met you at the train, but I’ve had an awfully busy day of it. I’ve been going into your affair too; you know, I do a lot in the way of share-broking.”

“And it’s all up?”

“It is. You would hardly credit the widespread ruin a smash of this kind involves. Why, there are people who were rolling in wealth yesterday, who to-morrow will be destitute beggars. And there’s no foretelling the extent of the calls which will be made on the shareholders. But I say though, Dorrien, don’t be so confoundedly down in the mouth, man. It’s rough on you to lose a snug little income, but then you’ve got Cranston to fall back upon. By Jove! I wouldn’t mind changing shoes with you this very day. Why, when you’re doing Squire of Cranston you’ll laugh at all this.”

He laughed now—a hollow mockery of a laugh, like a smile forced to the face of a galvanised corpse.

“Don’t you remember my telling you that Cranston wasn’t entailed?” he said abruptly.

“Yes, but hang it! it’ll come to the same thing in the end. And now your governor will—”

”—See me to the devil with all the pleasure in life,” was the sneering reply. “Why, man, we had the most infernal shindy yesterday ever kicked up between two full-blown lunatics. So now you may perhaps realise the exceeding roseate hue of my prospects in life.”

Venn gave vent to a whistle and looked grave.

“Oh, but—he’ll come round in time,” he began lamely.

“Deuce a bit. I tell you the brake of my coach has given way and that successful vehicle is starting down hill now—off to the devil as hard as it can lick. Even that mythical old humbug, Job, had his afflictions come upon him by relays; mine came all in one day, as you’d readily see, if you knew the facts.”

Chapter Twenty One.

Johnston at Fault.

Eustace Ingelow sat in the summer-house at the back of the Rectory garden smoking his after-breakfast pipe, and with him his youngest sister, Sophie, doing some needlework.

They were discussing a letter which the former had received from the absent Roland, also an eventuality concerning Johnston, the Cranston gardener, and the bite he had received from Roy.

“Do you think that abominable fellow really intends to bring an action against him?” the girl was saying.

“He does. He says he’s lamed for life. It’s an arrant lie, of course, on a par with that one about going into the coach-house to fetch a broom and Roy flying at him. However, he won’t get Dorrien’s whereabouts out of me, and I’m rather certain no one else knows it.”

The fact was, that Johnston, seeing a good opportunity, in the mishap which had befallen him, of being revenged on Roy and his master, and withal extracting from the latter’s pocket considerable compensation, had complained to his employer in the first instance. But to his surprise the General curtly and fiercely refused to listen to him, and the man, seeing that another word on the subject would gravely imperil his place, and not to be baulked, resolved to bring an action for damages against the dethroned heir.

Sophie plied her needle thoughtfully for a few moments. Then she looked up.

“Eusty, does Ro—er—Mr Dorrien, say anything about coming back?”

“N-no. He’s sure to be back though, soon. But, I say, you’d better apply to Olive for information on that score.”

The girl shook her golden head sadly.

“Eusty, can you keep a secret? Because, if you can—I’ll tell you one. Well then, I think there’s something wrong—in the first place, from odds and ends I’ve heard out of doors, in the next—er—well—one needn’t look far from home. And dad had a letter from Mr Dorrien this morning, and how awfully quiet he was all breakfast time?”

“There was a deuce of a row between Dorrien and his cantankerous old reprobate of an ancestor—he let out as much as that to me,” said Eustace. “Poor old chap—I hope he’ll turn up again soon.”

“So do I,” echoed the girl. “We don’t see many nice people here—at least not nice men—and he always was such fun.”

“Rather. Especially when you got him quietly over a weed. The quaint, dry sentiments of the fellow were enough to make a cat perish with laughter. Poor old Dorrien! I hope we shall soon have him back as jolly as ever. Hallo!—By George, there’s that rascal Johnston himself. Seedy looking cad with him—perhaps an attorney.”

They peered through the thick foliage of the arbour, and approaching from the other end of the gravel walk was the Cranston gardener and his companion, whom a servant was apparently directing towards their retreat.

“By Jove!” chuckled Eustace. “Now for some fun. Tell you what, Sophie. I’ll read them Dorrien’s postscript.”

“Better not,” objected his more prudent sister. “No, dear, don’t. There’d only be a row, and I’m so frightened of rows.”

“Pooh! I’d chuck the pair of ’em through the hedge.”

“And they’d summon you, and dad would be annoyed, and there’d be no end of bother. Now, Eusty, be a good boy, won’t you, and—” But she had no time for further remonstrance, for the two men had by this time reached the arbour, and stood looking sheepish and awkward, as if each expected the other to begin.

“Ah! good day, Johnston. Anything I can do for you? But—who’s your friend?” said Eustace with a careless nod.

“I ask yer pardon, sir, and the young leddy’s, for intruding, but I thought ye might a’ heard from Mr Roland. And ye said if ye did ye’d kindly let me know.” This was a fact. Eustace, intending to “draw” the Scot, had promised him that much.

“Yes?”

“And—have ye, sir?”

“Yes.”

And Eustace, taking out his pouch, proceeded with the utmost coolness to refill and light his pipe.

“And, if I might make so bold, sir, what does he say?” asked the man anxiously.

“Well, to be candid with you, Johnston, I think you’ll get no change out of him at all. He won’t even listen to your idea.”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” said the stranger, in response to an appealing look from his companion—“begging your pardon, sir, but wouldn’t it be much better that Mr Dorrien should come to some understanding with my friend, here, instead of compelling him to go to law? Now, wouldn’t it?”

“Begging yours—but I haven’t the pleasure of your acquaintance,” replied Eustace, eyeing the speaker with perfect coolness. “Is this your legal adviser, Johnston?”

“Eh, no, sir. It’s just my cousin, who knows the law as well as most lawyers, and—”

“Well, it can’t possibly be his business, and I shall decline to discuss it with him,” decisively went on Eustace, who had a dim recollection of having seen the seedy, ferret-nosed individual before him in the office of a Battisford attorney, where he occupied a position, half clerk, half errand-runner. “And for the matter of that, Johnston, it’s none of mine either, and I may as well tell you so. So I’m afraid I can’t help you any further.”

“And ye won’t give me his address?”

“Whose?”

“Meester Dorrien’s.”

“No.”

“But perhaps we can mak’ ye,” answered Johnston, whose tone was gradually becoming less respectful and more threatening.

Eustace turned slightly in his chair—his tall, fine frame the picture of listless ease, and cool self-possession in every feature of his handsome face.

“Eh? I didn’t quite catch?” he said suavely, merely lifting an eye-brow.

The Cranston gardener, who had obtained his position of awe among the little community of his colleagues and dependents by mere bluster and bullying, was an arrant coward at heart, and simply dared not repeat his remarks.

“But, my dear sir,” began the other insinuatingly, cutting him short in the middle of a whining speech about poor men being denied their rights—“my dear sir, don’t you see—”

“I’m afraid not,” was the imperturbable reply. “At least I see this—that no good will come of discussing the concern any further. But—eh—by the way, Johnston, you didn’t poke at the dog at all—with a stick, for instance, did you?”

The man’s face changed colour, and Eustace, who was watching him narrowly, detected it at once. It was only a random shot, but it had evidently hit the mark.

“Ah! well,” he went on carelessly, “in any case it doesn’t much matter. And now, I suppose, we have nothing further to discuss. So I’ll say good-day—”

Both men stood irresolute for a moment. Then they turned to go.

“Aweel, sir, it’s a queer warrld,” said Johnston, “and, of course, we must just help each other. An’ if ever I get a chance o’ doing you a good turn I hope I’ll do it.”

“That I’m sure you will, Johnston,” carelessly assented Eustace, fully alive to the irony and veiled vow of vengeance in this speech, and hardly able to contain his mirth, so comic was the expression of baffled malice which the man strove to conceal. “Well, good-day, again!”

“Eusty,” said his sister, when they were out of earshot. “You’d better look out. I’m sure that horrid man will have his revenge, somehow.”

“Pooh! A couple of mean-spirited cads. For two pins I’d have chucked the pair of ’em into the fish-pond. The impudence of the dogs! The very sight of them evoked in me what old Medlicott defined in his sermon the other night as ‘a surging of the worst passions of our fallen human nature.’”

All the same he was destined to learn—and that before very long—that the Scotchman’s significant promise might not prove so harmless as he imagined.

While Eustace was making merry over his friend’s letter, the rector was cogitating over a very different style of communication, though from the same source. In it the writer set forth briefly and circumstantially the completeness of his own ruin, adding, that as a beggar and penniless, he had now no alternative but to take as final the answer which the rector had given on the occasion of their last meeting. There was one thing more—an enclosure directed to Olive, and this the writer ventured to hope might be handed to her. He had purposely left the envelope open in case Dr Ingelow should prefer to peruse its contents, but in any event he trusted it might be delivered, as it was the last communication that would pass between them. It was characteristic of the old priest’s honourable and generous nature, that his first act was to fasten down the flap of the envelope then and there.

Now the letter was curt, stiff and constrained in wording, but its recipient could “read between the lines.” He knew the world thoroughly, and his insight into that most complex of machinery, the human heart, was all but exhaustive, and now, as he sat with the open letter before him, he could gauge with wonderful exactitude the state of mind of its unfortunate writer. Its very curtness was the outcome of a studied expression of feeling, as of one who should nerve himself to the numbing consciousness of sudden and overwhelming ruin. This man had lost all which made life valuable to him. It had fallen from him, one might say, in a single day. How would he bear it?

“Poor fellow—poor fellow! He is ruined, indeed?” broke from the old priest’s lips, as he turned over the whole situation in his mind. “What will become of him?”

He thought of the mutual liking that had sprung up between them—of their many pleasant interchanges of ideas and experiences—their reminiscences of the Great Wild West, gone over together many a time during the cheerful evening meal—and how these things had carried him back to the life and spirit of adventure of his own youth. He thought of the unfortunate man now plunged in ruin and despair, and the picture thus conjured up moved and distressed him more than he cared to own. During the few months of their acquaintance he had accurately read Roland Dorrien’s character, and now felt pretty certain that it was not of the sort to gain by such a blow as this last. He remembered remorsefully the dark, reckless face as he had last seen it, full of impatience, resentment and stormy passions, and knew too well that the owner of that face was not the man to accept misfortune as a thing to rise superior to and over-rule to his own ultimate good. No! for him he feared the worst.

Then his eye fell once more upon the enclosure. He took it up thoughtfully. It was not strange that the writer should have sent it to him first instead of forwarding it direct by post, but the act was highly creditable to Dorrien’s sense of honour. He conveyed a covert hint, too, in the letter to himself that they would probably never meet again. It was all terribly sad, and now with characteristic scrupulosity the rector blamed himself severely for unnecessary harshness. Yes, he had been hard and unfeeling in that interview. The poor fellow was now overwhelmed in the bitterness of his ruin, to an extent which he was too proud to show, and desperate. He was a man of little or no religion, consequently a man without hope—and thus thinking, a warm wave of pity swept over the old priest’s heart. Could nothing be done for this lonely, uncared-for wanderer—nothing to raise him from where he had gone down beneath the rising tide of adverse fortune? Yes—it could and it should. He would go himself and seek him out and convey to him that he was not without friends; nor would he confine himself only to words of sympathy and friendship, but would think what offer of material aid he could make. Ah! but—would it be accepted? The man was proud. A man who had deliberately put away such a position as Roland Dorrien had done would be difficult to deal with. And for the first time it struck him that he had made far too light of that affair, and the conviction began to dawn upon him, that come what might, do reconciliation would ever take place now between General Dorrien and his son. And what would become of the latter? Again and again the rector’s sensitive conscience smote him. Had he been a little less decisive in refusing his consent—had he left the other some ground for hope, it might be the saving of him now—might act as an incentive to him to rise above his troubles. Yes—he must see what could be done, and that without loss of time.

Then, taking the now sealed letter, he went upstairs to find Olive.

“Something for you, darling,” he said in his tenderest tone.

“Yes, father. What is it? Oh!”

Her face paled and her hand trembled slightly as she caught sight of the well-known writing, and there was a terrible air of wistfulness in her eyes. Ever since the day her father had told her—with all the consideration and gentleness he could command, as well as with decision—that he could not consent to anything between Roland Dorrien and herself, and had so carefully reasoned out the matter that she could not in her inmost heart accuse him of harshness or injustice—ever since the day her lover had left the place suddenly and without a word of explanation, Olive had been as one metamorphosed. Her brightness and unquenchable flow of spirits had left her; she seldom smiled, never laughed, and spoke but little.

Now she gained her room, and having locked herself in tore open the letter. It consisted of several sheets, closely written, and as she read on, the girl’s eyes were dimmed with tears, and at last she could go no further—great, choking, heart-broken sobs were all that she was conscious of. It was a strange letter—there was something solemn and awe-inspiring about it, for it was written as a man might write when certain that he has but a few hours to live, and yet every now and then, it would be traversed by a gleam of humour that was heart-rending, so obvious was it that this was brought in only when the anguish of the writer became too unbearable. Yet there was not a trace of self-pity in the letter from beginning to end. It was all on her account that his misgivings were set forth. As for himself, well, he took a lot of killing, and supposed he must endure things as they were—and, for her, Time might work wonders, and she might live to be happy yet, far happier than she could ever be if tied to a thoroughly broken and disappointed man like himself; and so her father’s decision was right after all. His day was done; ruin had come upon him, out of which nothing could save him, and if she could learn to forget him, all the better for herself, for henceforth to all who had ever known him he must be as one dead.

Then it all came back to her in a moment. She had resented his departure without a word—now she saw how he had been bound in honour not to speak it. She had felt proud, hurt and angry, while all the time he had been crushed beneath an accumulation of ruin and the woe that it involved. How she loved him now—how her heart went out to him in his adversity as it would never have done in his prosperity—how she longed and thirsted to be with him in this dark hour of his distress! All those bright, beautiful summer months passed before her, with their golden hours of love and sweetness and peace—and now! Those first furtive glances exchanged in the church, that accidental meeting on the beach, and the many rambles and long hours together, all rose up to mock her—and the moment when she had tottered between life and death on the slippery cliff path—with him. And now he was gone—gone for ever—and she was left.

Chapter Twenty Two.

What Wandsborough Said.

It may seem strange that to a man of Dr Ingelow’s standard of principle and pronounced beliefs, such a cordial intimacy as that which had sprung up between himself and Roland Dorrien should be possible; still more so, that apart from the drawbacks we have narrated, and which were purely mundane, he should be ready to accept him as a son-in-law. Yet he was—and without prejudice to his own principles.

No man living was more thoroughly free from bigotry than the rector of Wandsborough. Principle was one thing—sitting on the judgment seat, quite another. So, although he suspected Roland Dorrien’s private opinions to border very closely upon infidelity, yet he did not consider him a subject for social ostracism on that account. Indeed, had the man shown a devout disposition in the face of early bringing up and subsequent associations, he would have looked upon him in the light of a natural curiosity. Roland was just the sort of man whom the ordinary Anglican parson would have regarded with lofty disapproval. But then Dr Ingelow was by no means an ordinary Anglican parson.

Of course, Wandsborough was not long in finding out that Roland Dorrien’s place in its midst would know him no more, and its curiosity once awakened, it caught eagerly at the few “straws” floating on the wind of popular report, and proceeded to piece together many romantic and preposterous stories therewith. Dark rumours as to that stormy scene in the study at Cranston Hall began to leak out. Servants have long tongues and still longer ears, and more than one virtuous domestic had stood on mental tip-toe, pausing in his or her then occupation, to listen intently as the sound of angry voices proceeded from the dread sanctum. Before night, the story had not only permeated Cranston village, but had been whispered in Wandsborough, and Roland’s abrupt departure the next day seemed a direct challenge to all tongues.

What a good time of it had Miss Munch and Mrs Bunch et hoc genus omne! Now was the time for unearthing all the little bits of half-forgotten scandal and tagging them together, and weaving them into a deliciously parti-coloured whole, amid much head-wagging and “didn’t I tell you how it would be?”—“and it wasn’t likely that such a one as Roland Dorrien would bury himself in a dull place like Wandsborough, and hardly ever be with his own people, for nothing.” First it was rumoured that the General and his son had had a stand up fight in the former’s study, then that they had thrown all the chairs and tables at each other. The more oracular declared that nothing short of a duel had taken place, and least said soonest mended; and thus the ball rolled, until the bare facts that actually were known or guessed at, became quite too prosaic for credence.

But what had it all been about? “Ah! haven’t you heard?” And then the mysterious nods and winks would increase tenfold, and the whispered communication would be received in various ways according to the temperament or capacity for humbug of the hearer—but always with a thirst for more particulars. For instance, why should Mr Dorrien have interested himself on behalf of that precious rascal, Gipsy Steve? Must it not have been on Lizzie’s account, and, of course, all young men were desperately wicked, and anyone with half an eye could see through that brick wall; and so the matter had come to the General’s ears. But this story was very soon improved upon, and presently it was that Gipsy Steve had sworn to shoot the young Squire unless he did justice to Lizzie—and it was while Roland was making this announcement to his father, that the latter had hurled an inkstand at his head, and now he had made himself scarce, fearing the ex-poacher’s vengeance. Others again scouted this version. Roland Dorrien was not the man to be afraid of anyone—rightly or wrongly—not he. Besides, Lizzie had no more to do with the concern than they, the speakers, had. It was Olive Ingelow who was the real apple of discord. Couldn’t anyone see that the two were never apart, that the young Squire spent most of his evenings at the Rectory, and how he and the young lady wandered about the lanes together, or sat on the beach all day long!—and now, it turned out that they had been privately married, and that the General had sworn he would never recognise it or set eyes on his son again.

This rumour, once let loose, ranged at will, and these and a dozen other stories, each more preposterous than its predecessor, were circulated throughout Wandsborough, and all the region round about, and gained more or less of ready credence. Among those by whom they were accepted, opinions were divided anent the respective conduct of the General and his son in connection with the affair. Some held that the former was a domestic tyrant of the very worst order, and that the latter had, at last, justifiably rebelled—others again extolled the General as a model parent and a high-principled Christian man, while poor Roland, it was declared, had always been a depraved reprobate and an irreclaimable scamp; in short—and whatever had happened now, he had been rightly served. Then there were not wanting a few who held that between the two it was six of one and half a dozen of the other—that the Dorriens were at best an ill-conditioned, quarrelsome lot, and the less one had to do with them the better.

At Ardleigh Court the tidings of the Dorrien quarrel were received with surprise and dismay. The Colonel warmly espoused the cause of the absent, wherein his wife differed with him wholly. Young men were so intolerably self-opinionated now-a-days, she declared, that no doubt General Dorrien had not been unjustified in what he did. However, having so far vindicated her principles of contradictiousness, she was fain to admit that Roland seemed far more sensible than most young men of his age, and she liked what she had seen of him. Whatever Clara may have thought, she said very little, though on one or two occasions she had stood up—rather warmly for her—for the exile; and Maud, albeit she had wrangled a good deal with him during his stay there, was really sorry for him, though being of a romantic turn she was inclined to feel very angry with him on her sister’s account, her lively imagination having long since settled all that.

“A pack of infernal lies?” cried the Colonel with heat, referring to some of the reports which had come to his ears concerning the absent. “Pooh! I don’t believe a word of them. Dorrien’s a quick-tempered fellow—always was, by Jove! and Roland’s a chip of the old block. I suppose they lost their tempers with each other, and came to high words. As for all that slander, and bringing girls’ names into the concern, why, it’s scandalous.”

“Well, where there’s smoke there must be some fire,” suggested his wife, with characteristic originality.

“Fire be damned, ahem! I beg your pardon,” exploded the good-hearted Colonel. “And I tell you what it is. That libellous old Jezebel—what’s her name?—Frewen, for instance, will find herself in Court if she doesn’t look out. Libel’s a criminal offence, and if she comes before us, I’ll commit her for trial—I will, by Jove, as sure as I’m Chairman of Petty Sessions!”

“I think you’re rather hard on her,” objected Mrs Neville, true to her colours. “She didn’t originate these stories, remember.”

“It’s my belief she did!” retorted the Colonel. “She hates the Ingelows, and would move heaven and earth to injure them—spiteful, canting old harridan. I think Ingelow mistaken, and his vestments and candles and popish fal-lal great bosh—but hang it! he’s a thoroughly good fellow in private life, and I’m not going to stand by and see him worried and his girls’ characters taken away by that slanderous old Gamp, who probably began life in a chandler’s shop—and I’ll let him know that I’m not. I’ll call on him this very afternoon, by George, I will?”

At Cranston, as may be supposed, cheerful times did not prevail. Always gloomy and constrained, the gloom and constraint deepened tenfold in the days following upon the rupture. The General’s ill-humour was now chronic, and when he did speak it was usually to make some incisive remark calculated to render everyone thoroughly ill at ease. Mrs Dorrien was freezingly acid, and the household saw no one and went nowhere, and, needless to say, all reference to the erring one was strictly taboo. Hubert heartily wished the Vacation would be quick and come to an end, and being considerably bored, and proportionately irritable, his sister had to bear the brunt of his—among other—ill-tempers. As for poor Nellie, she felt the separation terribly. She had little thought that morning that she had seen the last of Roland, without even saying goodbye, too. And now she was forbidden even to write to him. Life was very hard—would better times ever come?

Chapter Twenty Three.

Dorrien of—Nowhere.

A pair of dingy rooms in a dingy London street, communicating with each other by means of a folding door, which is at present shut. A table, decidedly unsteady on its pins and bedight in a chequered breakfast cloth, whereon is a war-worn tea-pot—which article, by the way, knives and forks, dish-covers and spoons seem to have been made specially to match—cloudy delf, cruets not guiltless of defunct flies, an uninviting loaf and a pat of butterine or oleo-margarine, or whatever is the London lodging-house equivalent for butter, and, perchance, when that cover is lifted, a brace of leathery fried eggs, undoubtedly not of to-day’s or yesterday’s origin, will be disclosed to view. And this appetising repast, and this glaringly-vulgar and soul-depressing abode must soon be exchanged for something more nauseous, for something more vulgar and soul-depressing still, for even this is somewhat beyond Roland’s means—beyond the miserable pittance he has managed to save from the wreck. There had been an accumulation of interest on the capital in the fallen Bank, which in a fortunate moment, somewhat earlier, he had been induced to invest in a small speculation, and this, together with a little which still remained out of his last year’s dividend, just availed to save him from immediate destitution.

He enters, and listlessly draws a chair to the table. There is a smell of escaped gas in the room, which, mingling with a vaporous whiff from the kitchen of unmistakable cabbage in process of boiling, nearly upsets him. Quickly he throws open the window, admitting a rush of air from the dark, misty street, that makes him shiver; but anything is better than the abominable atmosphere of the house, and again he draws his chair in and attempts to breakfast—attempts. Even Roy, who comes in for most of his master’s share, and who has an especial weakness for bread and butter, feeds with a lack of enthusiasm which shows that he, too, is not unaffected by the change of circumstances. And why not he as well as his master? Here, no scamper over breezy downs, no life in the strong, pure air of the salt sea, no sunshine and green fields, and at other times no snug, cheerful rooms, where he may make himself thoroughly at home. His walks are taken in gloomy streets, where he is continually jostled and trodden on—his beautiful coat would seem to have been given him expressly for the purpose of collecting pailsful of metropolitan mud, and he himself is treated as the natural enemy of mankind. Sticks and stones are slily hurled at him from alleys and doorways; twice has a desperate attempt been made to steal him, only failing the second time by great good luck, the fastening of the muzzle into which his nose had been deftly betrayed, having given way, and he, taking prompt advantage of the casualty, had nearly bitten off three of the enemy’s fingers, and made good his retreat. Park-keepers eye him with no benevolent glance when he indulges in a scamper in those elysian fields of public recreation, and, even there, other dogs resent his intrusion, and would carry out the canine equivalent for “’eaving ’arf a brick” far more than they do, were it not that Master Roy, good-tempered as he naturally is, can make great and effective play with his eye-teeth when roused—as more than one quarrelsome bull-terrier or black retriever could testify in pain and sorrow for a fortnight after.

Roland Dorrien’s reflections as he sits in this dismal hole, trying to imagine that he is breakfasting, are of the very gloomiest. More than a month has gone by since he learned the worst, and as yet he is without plans for the future. Of his own free will and by his own act he has cut himself adrift from all who might have befriended him in his extremity. No, rather he prefers to sink or swim—probably the former—alone. A few days after we last saw him, Venn received a few lines notifying that he thought it better under the circumstances to take himself out of everybody’s way for a time—most likely he should go abroad, but anyhow, had settled nothing; and Venn, on receipt thereof, had repaired post haste to his friend’s lodgings, only to find he had kept his word. He had disappeared, literally, leaving no trace. And the good-hearted stock-broker had been sorely apprehensive. Men had been known to do queer things with far less excuse than Dorrien might show, and his pulse would beat quicker more than once when he came upon newspaper reports of any of those ghastly “finds” only too common in the metropolis. And Dr Ingelow, too, who had run up to Town for the purpose, had enquired so anxiously, and seemed so distressed, that he, Venn, could give him absolutely no tidings. Dorrien was a queer fellow, to go and cut all his friends in that way, but then, he was always given to making the worst of things; however, it was to be hoped that some day he would turn up again, and things might come right; and so honest Venn, if he did not altogether dismiss the matter from his thoughts, soon brought himself to regard it with no great anxiety, and plied his daily avocations as if nothing had happened. “Every man for himself” is the world’s motto—and vae victis!

And now, within a few streets of him—yet as completely hidden as if on a solitary rock in the Northern Hebrides—Roland sits, engaged in his usual occupation—brooding. What is there left that makes this wretched life worth dragging on any longer? Why should he not end it? Even if he will prolong it, he must toil hard at some uncongenial drudgery till the end of his days—harder than the broad-arrow-wearing wretch, wheeling his barrow in the quarries of Portland. He must sink into a mere machine,—lose sight of the fact that he had ever known better things, as completely as if it had been a dream. He must be prepared to place himself at the beck and call of others—of low, repellant cads, it might be—in order to earn a scanty wage, to put up with the bumptiousness, the insolence of some snob in authority, and be thankful for the privilege of existing. No—never! Better perpetual sleep—oblivion—annihilation. Then he would laugh bitterly to himself. Why, even such a mill-horse lot was barred to him. He was quite useless. His neglected, pitch-and-toss kind of “dragging-up” had been such as to fit him for nothing, and here, in the fierce competition for the morsels that enabled men just to keep body and soul together, where would he be? Nowhere. He was not of the material to hold his own amongst the raying, hungry crowd competing for a starvation pittance. At times a plan would suggest itself as his thoughts turned towards the Western wilds, where five years of his life had been spent. There, at any rate, he might be free. There life might be just worth living. He was fond of shooting—might he not adopt the life of a professional hunter, supporting himself by the proceeds of his rifle? The rolling plains and the vast silent forests, the serrated ridges of the distant sierras crowned with their dazzling snowcaps, the blue sky and the free air of heaven—surely this would be a good exchange for the gloom and filth and indescribable desolation of the great, murky city! Twice he had been on the point of sailing, and both times he had thought better of it—or worse—at the last moment, and had stayed. An insane, yet overmastering, impulse made him cling to the land which contained his heart’s shrine, and, although utterly without hope, yet he could not bring himself to place the ocean between them—not yet.

And now this morning the dingy room, with its glaring, vulgar adornments (!), fades from his gaze, as in imagination he is back at Wandsborough. Every one of those hours, too lightly valued at the time, he has mentally gone through again and again. Every tone of a certain voice—every expression of a certain very sweet and bewitching face, from the moment he first espied that latter in Wandsborough Church, is present in his memory now as vividly as though he were actually living through the bygone time all over again.

“Please, sir, Missus says can I clear away?”

The whole picture fades as suddenly as did its reality a few weeks ago, as in a rich cockney twang the unkempt, down-at-heel slavey prefers the above request.

He moves to the window. The outlook is about as inspiriting as that of a London by-street usually is. A barrel organ, grinding out a popular melody, as though it were a dirge, heaves in sight and sound; and a gang of woeful and decrepit bipeds from a neighbouring Union is discharging its burden upon the ratepayers by shovelling the mud and slush from the middle of the street in mechanical and dejected fashion. He glances at the clock, but there is relief rather than consternation in his mind as he awakens to the lateness of the hour—relief, that he should already have got through so much of the morning. How many mornings were to be got through on this side of—what?

“Come, Roy. Out!”

The dog jumps up and works himself into something like his usual state of excitement attendant upon the welcome summons, and they sally forth. The street is one of those in the vicinity of Hyde Park, and thither they turn their steps. At any rate it is open—and away tears Roy, trying perhaps to imagine himself on the turfy slopes about Minchkil Beacon as he scampers over the grass, scattering the few sooty disconsolate sheep right and left. Entering near the Marble Arch, Roland walks straight across, nor pauses till the bridge on the Serpentine is reached. It is a dull grey day, and the air is steely and cold. He stands on the bridge, lazily trying to imagine that he is gazing upon a broad river with its green sloping banks shaded by feathery elms, away in the heart of the sweet, peaceful country. The leaves have hardly begun to fall, and save for the muffled din of traffic, there is little to betoken the proximity of a mighty city. Then he wanders on, and eventually reaches the Round Pond.

“That’s a fine dog of yours, sir.”

Quickly he looks up at the speaker, a man of about his own age, and who wears the appearance of most well-to-do English gentlemen with nothing remarkable about them, and assents. Then the other, who is evidently of a communicative disposition, launches out into a dissertation upon dogs in general and dogs in London in particular, and the drawbacks attendant upon their comfort and well-being in the metropolis; and Roland, nothing loth, finds himself conversing with something like zest. It is long since he has exchanged an idea with anybody, and now he finds a certain amount of diversion in this stranger’s talk. Roy, too, seems to take to him, for he wags his tail and suffers himself to be patted in a way that is remarkable; for of late, like his master, though with different reasons, he has taken to viewing all mankind with suspicion.

“And so he comes from America, does he?” says the stranger again. “Do you know, I haven’t seen a dog I fancied so for a long time, and I’ve often seen you and him here before to-day. Now, I hope it’s no offence—and, if it is, I really beg pardon—but you wouldn’t feel disposed to part with him, I suppose?”

Part with him! Part with Roy—dear, true-hearted Roy, his second self, the one faithful friend who shared his exile. The idea seemed to sting him like a lash! Yet, why should it? He need only answer in the negative, and there wae no harm done. But the question had seemed to come significantly at this moment, for of late he had been haunted by a growing conviction that the time for such a parting was not far distant.

“Oh, no offence, of course,” he replied quietly, but there is a troubled look in his eyes which the other sees and makes a mental note of. “But I don’t want to part with him.”

“Of course. I can quite understand your not relishing the question,” says the stranger good-humouredly. “I hate to be asked to sell a favourite dog myself. But—at the risk of being importunate—if ever you should want to sell him, would you mind giving me the first offer? You shall name your own price. Fact is, I’ve taken an extraordinary fancy to him. Here’s an address that’ll always find me.”

Under the circumstances Roland thinks there is no harm in accepting the card which the other tenders him, and which bears an address in Kensington, and the name of his new acquaintance, he learns through the same agency, is Frank Marsland. But he does not feel bound to reciprocate the confidence, and after a little more conversation they part: Roland, to dismiss the matter completely from his mind, as he makes his way back to his rooms, and the stranger to wonder who the deuce that good-looking fellow can be who seems to haunt the Round Pond with that splendid dog, and who always looks, by Jove! as if he had committed a murder or was about to commit one.

Chapter Twenty Four.

A Trespasser.

“Nellie,” said Hubert Dorrien to his sister, as he was hurrying through an early breakfast on the morning of his departure for Oxford, “do you ever hear from Roland?”

“No—why?” said the girl, with a startled glance around.

“Because—well, do you know anything about the state of his affairs? I mean, had he any interest in this Tynnestop Bank? I’ve a sort of hazy idea he had, don’t you see?”

Nellie turned very pale.

“Is—is there anything wrong with it?”

“By jingo!” replied Hubert with a whistle and stare of surprise. “Ra-ther! Why, it went up the gum—bang—smash. Heaps of fellows ruined—one that I know. But that was more than a month ago. Surely you had heard.”

“Never—until this moment. Hubert, I wonder if papa knows. Why, every shilling Roland had was invested in it.”

“No!”

“It was, though. Oh Hubert, and now he may be—starving perhaps!” cried the girl, choking down a sob. “What is to be done? We don’t even know where he is?”

“By Jove!” muttered Hubert gloomily. “If the veteran knew he might arrange something, eh? It’s hard luck on a fellow to be suddenly cleaned out.”

He was thinking of that cheque which his brother had sent him on the very day of his ruin. Comparing notes, Hubert now saw that Roland must have heard the fatal news immediately after—probably the same day—yet he had made no attempt to back out of his promise. Hubert Dorrien was by nature bad all round, shallow, intensely selfish and thoroughly mean; yet even he felt uncomfortable as he thought of how sorely his brother might be in need of that very sum he had so generously lent—if not given—him. And yet to-day he was no more in a position to repay it than he had been at the time to satisfy the demand to meet which it was borrowed. But he strove to quiet his conscience. He would repay it some day; besides, now it was impossible, for no one knew where the deuce Roland was to be found—in fact, it was his own fault for hiding himself away from everybody. Yes—that would do. It was Roland’s own fault. And conscience slumbered anon.

But all further discussion of the wanderer’s affairs was arrested by the entrance of their parents, and immediately the dog-cart drove round to the door to take Hubert to the station. A cold hand-shake from his father, and many final injunctions from his mother about avoiding draughts, sitting back to the engine, etc, all of which were somewhat impatiently received, and Master Hubert was bowling away at the rate of ten miles per hour towards Wandsborough Road Station, whence his brother had departed some weeks earlier, bearing with him a crushing load of heart-break and unexpected ruin. But no thought of this crossed the mind of this amiable youth, as he lounged back in a first-class smoking compartment, puffing at a choice Cabana. If he thought of his unfortunate brother at all, it was only with an uneasy fear lest he should ever be reinstated at Cranston, which would make all the difference in the world to his—Hubert’s—prospects.

Poor Nellie was in a grievous state of woe, and yet she must stifle her feelings. More than once in the course of breakfast the General coldly asked her if she was unwell, and her mother, guessing her grief was not on account of the brother who had just driven away from the door, and resenting the fact, made one or two amiable comments thereon in her most withering of tones. But at last the dismal meal came to an end, and she was free to wander away and indulge her grief when and where she chose.

Assuredly she had known nothing of this last blow which had fallen upon her unhappy brother—until this morning. She knew of the awful quarrel between him and their father, of course, and she guessed that Olive Ingelow was the subject of dispute—but this last stroke of Fate she had never even dreamt of. Roland was apt to be close about his private affaire, and it was only by the merest chance he had mentioned to her that he intended some day to withdraw from the ill-fated investment, and that, just before the crash. Probably her father knew, but beyond themselves no one in the neighbourhood would have any idea that the rather sensational financial crash could affect her or hers, and as she seldom took up a newspaper the knowledge of it had escaped her.

She threw a wrap around her and strolled out of doors. How desolate the ornamental water looked on this chill, grey, autumn morning! The swans greeted her approach with a resentful croak, and floated ill-humouredly away to a reed-sheltered corner. The boats, drawn up high and dry within their shed, looked forlorn and neglected, and the rustic bench where she and the absent brother had lounged away many a sunny hour of sultry morning or drowsy afternoon, was bestrewn with damp, fallen leaves. All the surroundings combined to strike a cold and desolate chill to poor Nellie’s heart. If only that brother were back again. She might have made much more of him, and now it was too late. The result of this dreadful quarrel was a foregone issue. Neither would ever relent, of that there could be not the smallest doubt. She sank down upon the rustic seat, and, secure in this secluded spot from all intrusion, gave way to her grief.

But it happened that not so far from this spot, though concealed from it by a thick belt of shrubbery, ran a public road. It further happened, that on this particular morning, the figure of a tall pedestrian, a gun under his arm, might have been descried upon this road, clearly bent on reaching the arena of slaughter, wherever it was, at the rate of four and a half miles an hour. He was whistling, too, with all the light-heartedness of a healthy, energetic undergraduate, with whom Black Care has never yet shaken hands. Suddenly this pedestrian stopped short, and stood listening intently. A sound as of low sobbing—there could be no mistake about it.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Eustace to himself, transfixed with amazement. “Now what the deuce can this mean? Here goes, anyhow, for clearing it up!”

He vaulted over the low paling, advanced a step, and then stood irresolute. It occurred to him that he might be—probably was—intruding, and whatever was the matter it could not possibly be any business of his. It was a woman’s voice, too, and somehow it struck him as that of a refined and educated one—in fact, a lady. Though not naturally shy, the Oxonian yet hesitated. He was quick to realise that his intrusion might prove unwelcome to the last degree. Again he paused, but now the distressed one, catching sight of him through the rapidly-thinning foliage, started up in alarm. The knot of the difficulty was cut.

“Miss Dorrien, pray pardon my intrusion,” he began flurriedly. “The fact is I—I heard—er—I—I’m awfully grieved that anything should have happened to distress you. Do believe that?”

His tones, though stammering, were very feeling. His handsome face was thoroughly earnest and in his eyes was a tender sympathetic light. The first shock of his unexpected appearance over, Nellie experienced a feeling of satisfaction in his presence.

“You are very kind, Mr Ingelow; but really it is nothing,” she answered confusedly. “But—No, it is nothing.”

“Won’t you give me a great pleasure, Miss Dorrien—the possibility of being able to help you, or, if not that, of being able to sympathise?” pleaded Eustace, all his former shyness put to flight. What a sweet girl Nellie Dorrien was! he thought; indeed, it may as well be confessed that he had thought about her a good deal since their meeting at Bankside, and also that the chaff with which his sisters had plied him on the subject, had partaken far more of the nature of the “true word spoken in jest” than he allowed to appear. And now to find her again, like this! What susceptible heart aged twenty-two could resist such an appeal as beauty in distress, especially when strongly predisposed in favour of said beauty?

And Nellie? She had met the rector’s son but once since that festive gathering, and then only for a few minutes in a room full of people. But she had greatly liked him, and her interest in him had not been decreased by the cutting, virulent remarks in which her father was wont to indulge from time to time when reminded of the obnoxious youth’s existence. And now, as he suddenly appeared before her in grief, looking so strong and brave and handsome, and withal so gentle and sympathetic, she felt quite soothed by his presence.

“Mr Ingelow, I am in great distress about Roland,” she answered, looking up. “I’ve only just heard of—of that last cruel blow, which happened to him.” (A sob.) “He is ruined—he may be starving now—and we don’t even know where he is. It is cruel to think of. And no one but myself cares a straw whether he is alive or dead,” she added bitterly.

“Don’t say that, Miss Dorrien,” said Eustace gently, his heart somewhere in the region of his throat. “Indeed you are mistaken. We all liked him so much. In fact, my father went up to London to see if—if—we could be of any use to him, although Venn wrote to say it was quite useless, as Dorrien seemed to have made up his mind to cut himself adrift from everybody—in fact, had disappeared, and that it was impossible to trace him. And it was. But don’t be downhearted. We are sure to hear from him soon.”

“Your father did this?” said Nellie. “How good he is!”

“He is all that—the dear old ‘padre.’ I don’t mean on this account,” explained Eustace. “But he liked your brother very much, as, in fact, we all did.”

Listening to, and sympathising with, Nellie’s trouble, Eustace blessed the luck which had brought him that way this morning. She looked so pretty and engaging as, the first feeling of shyness over, she talked to him as freely as if she had known him all her life. And time went by so quickly that somehow or other he clean forgot about the tempting day’s rabbit-shooting which awaited him at the goal whither his steps had been tending, and where two other ardent sportsmen were heartily anathematising “that lazy beggar, Ingelow, who seemed to think it was all the same, by George! if they didn’t begin to put in the ferrets till the afternoon.” Forgot everything, except that a sweetly pretty girl, with the most delicious blue eyes and brown wavy hair, was pouring her grief into his sympathising ear, and that he was pledging himself again and again to move heaven and earth to find the object of that grief.

Suddenly a sound of approaching footsteps, Nellie looked up, and turned as white as a sheet.

“Go—go!” she cried. “Quick! It’s papa.”

“Whoever it is it’s too late to go, for he’ll have seen me,” replied Eustace quietly, but fearlessly. “But keep perfectly cool, and don’t show any sign of alarm. It isn’t your father.”

Nor was it. It was, however, a personage who might, though vicariously, prove not much less formidable.

“Good-morning, sir. But it’ll be raining presently, I’m thinking!” said Johnston, the head-gardener, as he walked by the pair. And although his tone was civil, even good-natured, Eustace was not slow to mark a look of exultant malice in the Scot’s cunning features. His turn had come now.

“Oh, Mr Ingelow!” cried Nellie aghast, when the man had gone by. “What if Johnston were to let out to papa, that—that he had—seen you here?”

“But he won’t. Why should he?” said Eustace gaily. “No fear of that, I should think. And what a trespasser I am—here, with a gun.” All the same he was very uneasy in his own mind, remembering the fellow’s parting shot in the Rectory garden.

“I think I had better go in,” said Nellie, who was really frightened. “Good-bye, Mr Ingelow. Thank you very, very much for your kindness to-day. And you will let me know when you hear anything of poor Roland.”

“Indeed, I will,” answered the young man earnestly, taking both her hands in his, and pressing them very tightly. “And—Nellie—I shall not see you again till Christmas. I am going back to Oxford to-morrow. But you will let me see you then in spite of that awful parent of yours. Good-bye—my darling?”

It slipped out. A start. A tell-tale, blushing face—then—a kiss. But the colour faded from the girl’s cheek, which grew white again.

“Hark! Someone is coming. Please go—Eustace—and—good-bye.”

She was really alarmed, and it would be cruel of him to stay a moment longer. But his heart was light within him. She had called him “Eustace,” and had spoken affectionately to him. A hasty, murmured word, and he was gone.

And as Eustace Ingelow regained the high road, it seemed that five years had been added to his life since he leaped that low paling into Cranston Park, barely an hour before. He had gone in there a light-hearted, thoughtless boy—he returned a man, with a new purpose to engross his life.

That evening the rector received a note. He could not repress a start as his eye fell upon the Dorrien crest and legend stamped on the flap of the envelope. Had the wanderer decided to return to them at last! A second glance, however, showed that the letter was not a postal missive, but had been delivered by hand. Breaking it open, this is what he read:

“General Dorrien present his compliments to the Rector of Wandsborough and Mr Eustace Ingelow, and begs to remind the latter gentleman that no portion of Cranston Park is, in any sense, public property, and also to draw his attention to more than one notice-board there placed, which affects the question of trespass.

“General Dorrien takes the further liberty of remarking that gentlemen, having occasion to communicate with young ladies living under the care of their parents, would, in his opinion, be acting more honourably by obtaining lawful sanction prior to such communication, rather than by meeting clandestinely in secluded corners of the said parents’ private grounds.

“Cranston Hall.

“Thursday.”

A flush of anger came over the rector’s face as he read this precious missive, which, though the sender had bare legal right on his side, was clearly intended as a studied insult. Then he dropped it, as if it were something loathsome, and quietly busied himself again with the work which he had in hand. But when the girls had gone to bed he called his son into his study.

“Eustace, turn in here and smoke your pipe. It’s warmer than in that belittered den of yours upstairs.”

“All right, dad. I’ll just run up and put on a ‘blazer.’”

”—There,” as he returned in the oldest and most comfortable of loose jackets. “Now, dad, we’ll be able to have our last smoke for a couple of months or so, in snugness and quietude,” he added, laying a hand affectionately on his father’s arm, as he slipped past him, and made for his favourite easy chair.

The rector wheeled back his chair, and glanced with fond, trusting pride at his bright, strong, handsome son.

“Read that, Eustace,” he said, with a slight sigh. “And now, my boy, tell me all about it.”

The young man’s face reddened as he took in the contents of the note, and he let fall one or two expressions highly uncomplimentary to the Squire of Cranston. Then he obeyed his father’s request to the very letter.

The rector listened with clouded brow. There seemed to be a kind of fatality lying between his house and that of the Dorriens. First Olive, and now Eustace—both, by the way, his favourite children. He foresaw endless trouble in the circumstance. But trouble must be faced and overcome, not shirked—was his creed. If the boy was really in earnest, why, an early attachment of this kind might not be a bad thing for him; the more refining influences at work over a young man’s life the better. He knew nothing of Nellie Dorrien, personally, but he had greatly liked her appearance, and as for the opposition of her family, why, Eustace was a man and must fight his own battles. It was different in Olive’s case.

“You are sure you are in earnest about this, Eustace?” he said, when the young fellow had finished his recital. “But you are very young yet, my boy, just at the age for receiving impressions, and also for changing them. What if, later, you were to find out you had been hasty, and had come to think differently?”

Needless to say, the answer was conclusive and decided—vehement even. The rector smiled good-naturedly, as he encouraged his son to talk on this congenial topic to his heart’s content, while he listened. It had always been his plan to cultivate his children’s confidence to the very utmost, and these evening talks over the social weed between father and son, when the latter was at home, were of almost nightly occurrence. It would have been a very strange thing, indeed, that would have impaired the existing confidence between them. Certainly General Dorrien’s ill-conditioned missive was powerless to do so.

“I’m afraid you must send him an apology, before you go, Eustace,” said the rector. “You see, strictly speaking, you were trespassing in his grounds.”

“Well, yes. I suppose I must. I’ll apologise to the old curmudgeon for being in his park, but for nothing else,” answered Eustace stoutly. “And that sneaking rascal, Johnston, he’s at the bottom of the mischief. I could see it in his eye. Good-night, dad. Don’t let this affair worry you at all, whatever you do.”

Chapter Twenty Five.

His Last Friend.

Midwinter in the metropolis!

If you are blessed with a sufficient income, a snug club, a cheerful abode and a good digestion, there is nothing very terrible in the above. But, if your shillings are scanty in number, and each one disbursed with infinite reluctance, if you have been so long in a far country as to be unknown to, or forgotten by, every living soul, if you are condemned to pig it in a miserable slum, because needs must when the devil drives—then, O friend and reader—Heaven help you!

Midwinter in the metropolis!

Streets knee-deep in black, slushy, half-melted snow; a pelting, ceaseless rain falling from the opaque, lowering vapour above, which makes one doubt the existence of Heaven’s blue firmament otherwise than in dreams; foot passengers with streaming umbrellas and muffled in vast wraps, jostling each other angrily, as, red-nosed and watery-eyed, they hurry through the rain and mire; then, as the short afternoon fades into night, the yellow light of gas lamps and the glare of shop windows reflects itself slimily on the sloppy pavements, and the breath of the cab and omnibus horses mingles in a steamy cloud with the prevailing dank and fog-laden atmosphere.

On just such a day as this Roland Dorrien sits moodily in his dreary, comfortless room, looking out into the darkling vista of rain and fog. A tiny handful of fire flickers in the grate, hardly enough to make itself felt twelve inches off, and though he is wrapped in a warm, thick overcoat he shivers from time to time. He is looking very altered from when we saw him last, three or four months ago, very pale, and haggard, and hollow-eyed, and a frown is seldom altogether away from his brow; but his clothes are not shabby, nor does his countenance wear the neglected and unkempt aspect of a man who had come down so irretrievably in the world as to be careless of appearances. His dark curling hair is as neat, but his face is no longer clean-shaven, for he has allowed a thickly-growing beard to hide it, in addition to the heavy, drooping moustache. From a vestiary point of view he would seem as prosperous as in the days when he was known to, and envied by, Wandsborough and its neighbourhood as the future Squire of Cranston. But as a set-off against this, he seldom indulges in more than one full meal a day, sometimes not that. Prevention is better than cure, he thinks, and if the pangs of hunger assail him, why, a crust of bread will stave it off for the time being. As a consequence, his system is rapidly falling to zero, and now he lives in a kind of lethargy which is half a waking slumber. He goes out and comes in, taking not the slightest notice of what transpires around him, and of society or acquaintances he has none. In the intervals between his brooding fits, his pen affords him a solace, and at times he will sit down and by the hour confide his reflections to sympathising paper, strange, weird fancies and reasonings, so startling and bizarre in their wildness, that, but for the strong, logical sequence running through them, they might be taken for the ravings of delirium.

As with food, so with other bodily comforts. Firing costs money, of which he has but the scantiest store, wherefore he sits and shivers. Tobacco he has hardly touched since his ruin, for the same reason, and as for anything alcoholic he has almost forgotten what it was like. There is method in his madness, and against this temptation he has set a resolute face. It may be that he will soon find an unknown and nameless grave, probably he will—indeed, this is a contingency he has quite brought himself to contemplate with equanimity, but never will he sink to the level of a raving, drink-sodden beast. Yet another danger, more imminent still, he somehow overlooks. A little more of this morbid, brooding life in its frightful loneliness, and the man will go mad.

But if he himself overlooks the possibility, others do not. He has changed his lodgings no less than three times in as many months, in reality, obliged to do so by the fears of his respective landladies, who didn’t like to “’ave a gentleman in the ’ouse as was that queer—no, not if you was to give them the whole Bank of England. Why, they might be murdered any night in their beds.” So one after another politely hinted that they would rather have his room than his occupation, and to each and all poor Roy afforded a ready pretext.

And it is chiefly, in fact wholly, with Roy that his thoughts are concerned, as we once more look in upon him this dark, desolate afternoon. For it has come to this, that any moment, now, he may be called upon to part with this faithful friend, who has been with him in his prosperity, as through no inconsiderable portion of his adversity. Roy is sold.

Yes, sold, and his purchaser is the man who it will be remembered had shown great anxiety to possess him on the occasion of meeting with his master in Kensington Gardens.

And how comes it that his master has brought himself to part with him? The answer is simple. Necessity has no law. Hardly able to keep himself, how shall he be able to keep Roy. The ruined exile foresees the time when he must yield up the struggle which is not worth maintaining: what then is to become of this attached and more than human companion in adversity? And as, in imagination, he sees him the property of some brute or cad, beaten and starved, and spending his days chained to a miserable kennel, he makes up his mind to accept Mr Marsland’s offer. At any rate, Roy will be well-treated by his new master, possibly so well that he may in time come to forget his old one. Never mind, he must go; but it is with a very heavy heart that Roland scribbles off a few lines to the address the other man had given him. He purposely put the price low, he said, as that was only a secondary consideration, the dog’s future comfort and well-being was the chief thing. If the other was disposed to agree, the sooner he sent for Roy the better.

A reply soon came. Mr Marsland was out of town, or would have called himself; as it was he would send for Roy at a stipulated time. He was sorry so little had been asked, as he himself would have been glad to obtain the dog at a far larger figure. In reality, of course, he understood the state of affairs, but being a good-hearted fellow and a gentleman he divined that the other would rather be left alone, and forebore to press the point.

And so we find the exile sitting here to-day, momentarily expecting the ring at the bell which shall summon him to deliver up his faithful companion. The afternoon wears on. It will soon be dark, and now he hopes that something may occur to delay the sad hour, at any rate until the next morning. Poor Roy sits unsuspectingly, with his head on his master’s knee, his soft brown eyes watching his master’s moody countenance with a wistful gaze.

Rat-tat, tat-tat-tat! goes the door knocker. Roy, who has become used to persons passing in and out, takes no notice beyond a slight cocking of his ears. A moment more, and the slipshod maid of all work appears, ushering in—

“A gentleman, sir.”

With a sigh Roland looks up at the “gentleman,” who might be a stableman or an under-keeper, but is a decent-looking, civil fellow enough.

“From Mr Marsland?”

“Yes, sir. Can I take the dog now, sir?”

“Yes.”

He goes into the other room, and returns with a chain and collar. Roy, becoming alive to the import of the situation, backs under the table and whines piteously.

“Come here, Roy—come here, sir,” says his master, in a voice that he vainly strives to render firm. “You dear old fellow, you must go, there’s no help for it. Come.”

The dog obeys, and stands crestfallen, with a world of sad reproach in his soft, pleading eyes, as his master fastens the collar round his white, silky ruff, and kisses him in the middle of his smooth, glossy forehead.

“Now, good-bye, old dog, and don’t forget your master too soon,” and he gives the chain to the man, who stands waiting.

“Thankee, sir—good-evenin’, sir. He’ll go quiet enough directly, bless him.”

They had reached the front door, Roy hanging back and tugging vigorously at his chain. Roland stands looking after them down the street, in order to see the last of his faithful friend. Suddenly Roy ceases his struggles and trots along quietly for a few steps. Then he stops short. A couple of sudden jerks and he is free. He has slipped his head through the collar and comes running back to his master, and presses against him, looking up into his face with such a piteous whine.

“Good God! There’s nothing like piling on the agony,” mutters Roland between his set teeth, as he readjusts the collar, drawing the strap tighter, the dog licking his face all the while. “Here—take him away—and—stop, there’s half a crown for yourself. And mind you take devilish good care of the dog if you have anything to do with him.”

Now, the man was an honest countryman, and, unspoiled by any taint of socialism, he still entertained a hearty respect for his betters, and “a gentleman down on his luck” was in his eyes an object for reverential sympathy. He had taken in the bare, mean vulgarity of the room in which its occupant looked so sadly out of place—and his natural shrewdness told him that the other would not have parted with the dog save under the direst stress of circumstances. So he stammered, and looked nervous, as he tried to refuse the proffered gratuity in a suitable manner.

“Thankee kindly, sir. But master, he don’t let none of us take anything from gentlemen, except when they’s down for the shootin’,” answers the man, hitting upon the only excuse he could invent. “But it’s thank ye kindly, sir, all the same, and I’ll take downright good care of the dog. Good-evenin’, sir.”

The now sole occupant of the room feels desolate and lonely indeed. There is Roy’s pan of water, and the few crumbs remaining from the dog-biscuits Roy had for his dinner. How silent and intolerable the room feels without him. His last friend!

And now a resolve takes root in his mind, a wild and desperate resolve, and it was partly with this idea that he brought himself to accept a price for Roy. Even now he had better dismiss it, and accept the situation, and hasten on towards oblivion. It is not too late.

Nebuchadnezzar, we read, was transformed into a beast of the field. There comes a time, or times, in most men’s lives when they undergo a similar metamorphosis. Such a time had come to Roland Dorrien. He was transformed into—an ass.

Nature, however, was willing to do her best for him, by upsetting, if possible, his wise resolve above referred to. When he tried to rise the following morning, his head was throbbing with an agonising pain, and his consciousness only permitted him to realise one fact—that to move from his bed that day would be a stark impossibility.

Chapter Twenty Six.

Two Meetings.

For three days Roland lay in his shabby lodgings, too ill to stir from his bed; and but for the consciousness that, if he would accomplish his purpose, he must rouse himself, and determine to rally, the probability is that he would never have risen from it at all.

The effort must be made. His vitality, sadly impaired by a long course of semi-starvation, must be restored by the contrary treatment. He was not going to die in any such squalid hole as this, among the dirty and repellant semblances of humanity, who, under the circumstances, grudgingly ministered to his wants. Not he. He would get up; try whether the air would set him on his legs again, and if so, would certainly carry out his plan the very next day. His funds, considerably replenished by the price of parting with his last, faithful friend, would enable him to do this, only it must be done at once, and then—afterwards! Well, he had a plan.

Rising with an effort from his bed, Roland proceeded to dress himself, with infinite difficulty, for he felt wretchedly weak and dazed. Then at the picture which his distorted and cracked mirror presented him with, he fairly started. His beard, which he had allowed to grow at will since his misfortunes, was now plentifully streaked with grey, and with such alarming suddenness had this come about that he stared at his reflected face in amazement. Then he remembered with sardonic bitterness that this circumstance would yet further aid his plans. Who would recognise him now?

It was afternoon when he sallied forth. With a pang he missed his attached companion, and his sense of loneliness seemed enhanced tenfold. The short winter day was already closing in, and a keen north-easter, wafting particles of sleet from the black and riftless sky, chilled him to the bone. Anything, though, rather than remain longer in the frightful depression of his dingy rooms.

The dark sky and the winter gloom struck him as an earnest of what life was to be henceforth. The pinched and sour expression on the countenance of the British public struggling in the teeth of the biting north-easter, reflected aptly the attitude of the world towards him who is irrevocably down. Nothing was above a certain value—not even life, for may not life itself be held on terms too hard?

His wanderings had brought him to Charing Cross, and walking a little way up the Strand he turned into a well-known tavern to dine. Then it occurred to him that he might as well look out a certain train.

But the A.B.C. time-table, requisite for this purpose, was not among the resources of the establishment.

“Where can I get one, then?” he asked.

“We can send out for one, sir,” said the waiter.

“Then do.”

Not till an hour had passed was the A.B.C. put into his hands.

“Why the devil have you been so long about it?” he asked, rendered irritable by the fatigue and excitement of the day, as he snatched it in eager haste, and his hands trembled as he turned over the leaves.

“What the devil are you staring at now?” he cried, looking up and meeting the glance of the waiter, who was watching him curiously. The man muttered a word of apology and hastened away.

At length he found the train he wanted, put a mark against it, and turned down the corner of the page. Then he fell into a profound reverie. Suddenly he started up, paid his bill and hurried away.

“Tom,” said the waiter who had attended on him, hailing a colleague. “See that cove just gone out?”

“Yes.”

“Should you know him again?”

“Swear to him anywhere,” was the laconic reply.

“’E’s a queer ’un. Look. ’E’s left his time-table that he kicked up such a blessed row about gettin’. Wonder where ’e’s a-goin’. Look ’ere, it’s turned down and marked.”

At that moment Roland had suddenly come to a standstill in the street, and like the proverbial Caledonian, was swearing “at large.” For it had dawned upon him that he had forgotten his A.B.C. Should he go back for it? No; too far. He would get another.

But little he dreamed what gigantic importance to his weal or woe that trivial act of forgetfulness would one day assume.

The cold was cutting, and just now a gust of driving sleet swept down upon him, and in contrast he became aware of the glaring portico of a variety theatre just in front. There at any rate he would be warm. Once within, seated, with something to drink in front of him, and smoking a cigar—the first for several long months—he gave himself up to a sheer sense of warmth and physical comfort, which, combined with the effects of the stimulants, produced a state of dreamy placidity. To the performance he paid no attention whatever. Turn after turn was the same, dull, tawdry, idiotic—but each intensely respectable in its vulgar way.

Overcome by the stuffiness of the place, he went out for a little while. On his return the house was in a ferment of excitement. The star performer of the evening had just been on—and off; an athletic exhibition apparently, as the attendants were removing a net and tight rope, among other things; and a popular one, for some belated hand-clapping was still going on. But for him it had no more interest than had any of the others, nor did the overheard remarks made by those in the neighbourhood—to the effect that they wouldn’t have missed it for anything—strike him with any overwhelming sense of loss. Then, as the performance drew to an end, he made his way into the street.

The sleet showers had ceased, the wind had gone down, and the night, clear and fine, was an agreeable contrast to the confined atmosphere and garish interior of the theatre. Roland, threading the hurrying crowds homeward-bound from the numerous places of entertainment, felt small inclination to follow their example. He preferred the open air. Strolling down Whitehall, unaware of a figure in a long ulster following at some little distance behind, he reached Westminster Bridge. It seemed very still and quiet here. The bridge was destitute of passers-by, and the double crescent of lights twinkled like eyes upon the dark waters. The tide was at ebb, and the black current swirled beneath the piers with many a hiss and hollow gurgle, and the solitary watcher felt chained to the spot by a weird and intangible fascination. Just then, with sepulchral boom, “Great Tom” began tolling the hour of midnight.

The pedestrian turned to retrace his steps. As he did so the figure in the ulster stopped suddenly, and faced him. The move had been well timed. Roland gave a great start, and stared in bewildered fashion upon the face confronting him in the full glare of the lamplight, for he was looking into the limpid blue eyes of Lizzie Devine.

“Well!” she said, and there was a flash of white teeth as the full lips parted into a very attractive smile, which broadened into a little laugh at the sudden and cold look of disapproval which had frozen up the expression of the other’s face. “That’s right, think the worst of me,” she went on. “Only, if you do, you happen to be wrong—though it’s little enough difference it would make to you, I should suppose, even if you weren’t.”

“What on earth are you doing up here, Lizzie?” he said, ignoring the “feeler.”

“Left Cranston for good, eh?”

“Don’t know. I left soon after you did, so can’t give you all the latest news, I’m afraid.”

“There never is any down there, so that’s no loss,” he said with affected carelessness. But not for a moment did it deceive the other, and a great wave of pitiful tenderness welled up within her heart. She had all the admiration of her class for “gameness,” and now, as she noted the ravages which ill-fortune and consequent ill-health had wrought upon the appearance of this man, she needed none to tell her to what depths of poverty he had dropped. Yet he carried it—for her benefit at any rate—with the same careless ease as he had done the enviable circumstances under which they had last met.

“Why did you go out just before my ‘turn,’ and come back just after?” she said. “Did you know it was me?”

“Your ‘turn’?” he repeated mystified. “Very sorry, but I don’t quite follow.”

“You were in the Abracadabra the whole evening, and the only turn you missed was mine.”

He began to see. This, then, was Lizzie’s line at present, yet how on earth, under the absurd and Italianised stage-name on the programme, even if it had attracted his attention at all, could he ever have dreamed of looking for Lizzie Devine?

“Why, of course, I had no idea it was you,” he said.

“Well, you see, you needn’t have looked so black and suspicious at me. I’m a first-rate draw there, I can tell you, and that’s worth something a week. And I’ve got other engagements sticking out that are better still.”

“I’m delighted to hear it, Lizzie. And—how well you’re looking!”

“That’s more than you are,” she said quickly, the glow of pride and pleasure evoked by the compliment from his lips giving way to a helpless feeling of compunction and concern as she looked at him, the while in a confused whirl her thoughts were chasing each other round and round. She had heard enough of Cranston gossip to know what had happened between General Dorrien and his eldest son, and now the appearance of the latter, accidentally encountered after all this time, had enabled her shrewdly to fill up the gap. What could she do? If only she could help him. She had gone up in the world materially, and was going up still more—not by reason of her performance, which was only average, but by her rare physical attractiveness—and was commanding large salaries. Yet withal, she had kept straight by reason of the memory of the man talking with her here to-night; but ah! what a wreck he was compared with his former self, and the reason thereof nobody was more capable of appreciating. Yet she knew she was as powerless to help him in the slightest degree as yon ragged tramp “singing” outside the public-house over the road just before closing time; and that apart from the certainty that now he only saw her as the daughter of a flagrantly drunken and disreputable village rowdy.

“Getting late, isn’t it?” he said, misinterpreting her silence. “We might drop in somewhere and get a ‘split’ or something before closing time.”

“We’ll drop in and get something—yes,” she answered decisively, “but nowhere else than in my own place. You’re not too proud, are you—remembering old times on the other side? No, you can’t be.”

He laughed wearily. “I don’t know. I’m not much up to conviviality these days. I think I’ll go and turn in. Fact is I’m beastly tired.”

“Great Scott, but that’s a fine girl!” said a voice behind, obviously not intended to be heard by its object or her escort. “Wonder if she’ll be as disappointing as to the face.”

“They generally are,” said another.

There was that in the tone to make Roland Dorrien start. Three young men in evening dress and crush hats overtook and passed them, and simultaneously three heads came round to look at his companion. But one head remained around a moment longer than the others, and it took in not only the face of the girl but that of himself, and in it he beheld once more the face of his brother Hubert. And it needed not the start the latter gave to show that the recognition was not one-sided.

Chapter Twenty Seven.

Interim.

Christmas had come and gone, and Eustace Ingelow was at home again, but things were not going well with him, and he was in consequence proportionately gloomy. Never, since the day he surprised her in the midst of her grief, had he had the chance of speaking to Nellie Dorrien alone. Whether by accident or design, she had been invited to visit a relative at a distance for Christmas. She had left Cranston a few days before his arrival, and it seemed unlikely that her return would take place before his departure, and he had failed in his undertaking, for no trace could he discover of her missing brother. Venn had written stating that he feared they would see no more of Roland Dorrien until such time as that worthy chose to disclose his whereabouts. And Eustace’s heart had sunk. If Venn, a London man, could not trace his friend, what chance had he himself, who could bring neither time nor experience to bear upon his quest? His failure and misgivings he had made known to Nellie, who had recognised the force of them. Poor Eustace, however, was very unhappy. He had been looking forward to the Christmas vacation with the bright, warm glow of first love fresh at his heart, and with all the sanguine buoyancy of youth. Things would come right somehow. But, now that his hopes were so cruelly disappointed, and that the meetings, all the sweeter if stolen, to which he had been looking forward, were not to be, the poor fellow hardly knew how to conceal his despondency. In Olive he found a ready sympathiser, but hers was a sympathy that was all on one side. Never since the receipt of that last letter from Roland Dorrien had the girl opened her lips on the subject of her griefs to any living soul. It was a strange reticence—yet one that she heroically and rigidly preserved, and now, though she entered lovingly into poor Eustace’s troubles, of her own she breathed not one word. With such elements of despondency in their midst it was not to be wondered at that Christmas festivities this year had seemed to the rector’s family to fall somewhat flat.

At Cranston Hall the chronic atmosphere of gloom and constraint in nowise tended to a clearance, and Time, so far from allaying General Dorrien’s resentment towards his eldest son, rather tended to heighten it; as one or two incidents showed. Mr Curtis, the easy-going but good-hearted vicar of Cranston, happening to be aware of the complete ruin in which the exiled one had been involved through the bank failure, took an opportunity of cautiously approaching this vindictive parent on his behalf, but was met with such an angry rebuff as would have constituted a mortal insult to a less good-natured man, but which the easy-tempered vicar had suffered to pass over him unresented. It was only his duty, he argued to his wife, to try and set things smooth if possible; if not, well, he had done his best. The exile’s other advocate was Colonel Neville, who had thought Christmas a capital time for putting in his word, but with like result; and the Colonel falling far short of the parson in the quality of forbearance, something very like a quarrel had taken place between the old friends and companions-in-arms, and a coolness set in between their two houses.

Alone in this uncongenial home poor Nellie had a bad time of it. Her father seldom addressed a word to her, or indeed, to anybody—for as his moroseness increased he would shut himself up in his study for hours or wander about by himself, going nowhere nor entertaining anybody, and since he had discovered the meeting between herself and Eustace Ingelow he had treated her as though very little better than her banished brother. Between herself and her mother there had never been any sympathy, and now there seemed to be less than any. One bright spot was on her horizon—Christmas would come, and she would see Eustace again, and to that she looked forward as to a forlorn hope. And Christmas had come, and previously to it she had been sent away, as we have seen, a procedure which, at any other time and under other circumstances, would have met with her unbounded approval. But now?

The only one whose spirits were in nowise impaired was Hubert. Why, indeed, should they be, seeing that he was now the assured heir to the broad acres and splendid rent-roll of Cranston? So on the strength of his prospects he found means of launching out into unlimited dissipation. He was now leaving Oxford, and had already mapped out for himself a dazzlingly attractive programme for the enjoyment of “life” when he should take up his abode in London in a week or two to read for his “call.” Meanwhile, even in Wandsborough, Master Hubert found scope for some very lively doings, and was only restrained just within the bounds of prudence by the fear of certain of his high jinks reaching the paternal ears, which possibility kept him in a state of periodical and wholesome terror. And there was always the apprehension that circumstances might combine to restore Roland to his rightful place, which would mean nothing less than ruin to himself.

That “no one is all bad” is a favourite cant—but only a cant. In common with not a few others Hubert Dorrien was “all bad”—emphatically so. There was not a single redeeming point in his character, not even the boldness which frequently attends utter want of scruple. The latter quality he possessed in affluent measure, but ever subordinate to the stronger passion of fear. His brother had helped him, very much to his own hindrance, in his dire need, and not only was he dead to all sense of gratitude, but felt only too glad that circumstances afforded him a colourable excuse for neglecting to refund the loan now that he wae in a position to do so.

And towards that brother he now felt all the bitter hatred, begotten of fear and a sense of obligation, of which his base and craven nature was capable, and, as fate would have it, the circumstance detailed in a former chapter placed an efficient weapon in his hand. Rumour began to circulate in Wandsborough, and with multifold winks and head-shakings, and “I told you so,” and “What else could you expect?” the many-tongued assassin commented on the continued absence of Lizzie Devine. All Wandsborough became aware, or fancied itself so, that the girl was play acting, or worse, in London, but that whatever she was doing she was not alone, for had not young Squire Hubert—he had got rapid promotion, you see—met her, in company with his brother, at some theatre or other? That was enough. Everybody knew she was never any better than she should be. A fine girl—yes. A splendidly-handsome girl—yes—but—a bad ’un, come of a bad stock. And those young Dorriens. A wild set, and no mistake! Thus the gossips.

This rumour was quick to reach Gipsy Steve’s ears, with the result that the ex-poacher got furiously drunk, and went about vowing vengeance in forcible and blood-curdling terms, thereby narrowly escaping summary dismissal at the hands of Colonel Neville. It was not long, either, in becoming known to Turner, and that reverend person, coupling it with the upshot of his earlier observations, could not refrain from making capital—pious capital of course—out of the knowledge. But circumspectly as he had originated the rumour and disseminated it withal, common consent attributed it to Hubert, and men wondered how his brother could have been such a fool as to trust a fellow who couldn’t keep counsel in a delicate affair of this kind, but went blabbing it all over the place. Finally, it became known to the General, as Hubert had all along intended it should. From that moment he felt secure. The heavens might fall, but never again would Roland set foot in his father’s presence.

Chapter Twenty Eight.

The Ban.

“Yes, sir. Our town’s bigger nor Wandsbro’—more go-ahead like. It didn’t use to be so, you see, but when them works at Wandsbro’ were shut up, why, then it fell back and we went ahead, sir.”

So spake the loquacious waiter in the coffee-room of the “Silver Fleece Inn,” at Battisford, as he skipped, napkin in hand, round the only guest, who was dining early, for it was Sunday. A finely-proportioned man of, apparently, about sixty, and wearing a bushy iron-grey beard and dark-tinted spectacles, it would be difficult to guess at his rank in life. He might be a peer of the realm, or he might be a detective, and he was dressed with perfect simplicity, though well.